Ever heard of "Content-type: text/html"



  •  I was a bit surprised when I saw a email from my university's library this morning:

    So, which message could be so important that it couldn't be in the email message itself? Why would it be as an attachment? Surely if it is that important it me be using 250 images, heavy javascript and a few AJAX calls as cream on top...

     

    Translated: a lot of yaketyak about how I can extend my loaned books... in near-plaintext layout...

    So

    1. Why even bother sending this text as html? plaintext would've been almost as effective

    2. Why o why send this message as an attachment?
    What's wrong with text/html? Why not just send it with both text/html and text/plain: that's about as compatible as you can get while giving all of those shiny HTML features (you know, uhh, bold text? a link? a numbered list? some spacing?) to every normal student while still keeping those bothersome Computer Science students who only use the command-line quiet!

    3. The library is still not done with its schizofrenia: some time ago it was decided that our library "XXX Bibliotheek" in Dutch or "XXX Library" in English may only be called "XXX Library" to support internationalization. That leads to some interesting unnecessary English, for example in the mail subject.
    Furthermore the email subject is dutch+english(library), the email body in English, but the attachment is in fully Dutch including the "XXX Bilbiotheek" part...

    I usually never have a problem with English or English words used in Dutch, but this is just plain retarded: if you're using Dutch don't use English words in it that are 100% unnecessary, especially if the English words are never used in Dutch speech (for example: you should usually use management instead of "beheerders" or "bestuur" because few use that for the management of a company). Secondly: just stick to one, don't use a mish-mash of both...



  •  That looks like email send from non-email software. We get people at work that are using word to send emails. They open ms word, type thei plain email (not even bold, italic or any fancy effect that are available in word) and just go "file -> send file".

     

    As a resut on the other end, i get a mail which's body content is "see attachment", and attached is a 2 lines word document. Weight of such email: about 700k. Weight in plein text? Less than 2k :)



  • You have an XXX library? Where do I apply?



  • @tchize said:

    That looks like email send from non-email software. We get people at work that are using word to send emails. They open ms word, type thei plain email (not even bold, italic or any fancy effect that are available in word) and just go "file -> send file".

    As a resut on the other end, i get a mail which's body content is "see attachment", and attached is a 2 lines word document. Weight of such email: about 700k. Weight in plein text? Less than 2k :)


    Altough I get your point, that can in no way be correct.  Even though .doc is uncompressed (unlike for example .odt or .docx) 2 lines cannot be 700k. I just saved a word .doc of 20 lines and it was 8.5k (altough thats with openoffice since I am on linux and don't have a word handy)

    Furthermore, 2k is really big for plaintext, about 2000 characters (+- 400 words) in ASCII or iso-something or about 1500 in UTF (English text)



  •  @dtech said:

    @tchize said:

    That looks like email send from non-email software. We get people at work that are using word to send emails. They open ms word, type thei plain email (not even bold, italic or any fancy effect that are available in word) and just go "file -> send file".

    As a resut on the other end, i get a mail which's body content is "see attachment", and attached is a 2 lines word document. Weight of such email: about 700k. Weight in plein text? Less than 2k :)


    Altough I get your point, that can in no way be correct.  Even though .doc is uncompressed (unlike for example .odt or .docx) 2 lines cannot be 700k. I just saved a word .doc of 20 lines and it was 8.5k (altough thats with openoffice since I am on linux and don't have a word handy)

    Furthermore, 2k is really big for plaintext, about 2000 characters (+- 400 words) in ASCII or iso-something or about 1500 in UTF (English text)

    Just a assumption haven't tested it, but perhaps they had a really big style file attached to it?   Or a logo in the file.



  • I can generate a word document thats 2 paragraphs at most but is nearly 30K. proof?

    WHAT THE FAIL?



  •  The emails I get that are electronic memos are about 300KB for what is mostly 5 - 10 lines of text. This is because they are a word document with the word "Memo" at the top (as a graphic even though its just 4 standard characters from a standard font with no styling) and the company logo twice - one at the top and one as a watermark. Still wondering why they are at least 300KB? Both graphics are much bigger if you reset them.



  • @tchize said:

     That looks like email send from non-email software. We get people at work that are using word to send emails. They open ms word, type thei plain email (not even bold, italic or any fancy effect that are available in word) and just go "file -> send file".

     

    As a resut on the other end, i get a mail which's body content is "see attachment", and attached is a 2 lines word document. Weight of such email: about 700k. Weight in plein text? Less than 2k :)

    And then you try to teach people to be wary of email attachments and that even Word files can be harmful.



  • Favorite one so far at that, using a script object that renames the user's All Programs link so that it comes up as "Infected applications" (not done by me, saw it in an email)


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