Eric wrote:
> Of course, just why M$ decided to introduce the "feature"=20
> (read bug, in my
> book) of base64 encoding the BODY of the message (which=20
> presumably is text, so I don't think there's anything to be=20
> gained) is totally beyond comprehension...
There are several reasons for this:
Most of the various M$ mail tools provide support for
HTML-formatted mail, and RTF-formatted mail. RTF mail predates HTML
mail, and basically lets you format a mail message like a Word document.
The catch, of course, is that the person you're sending your mail to has
to have a reader that can read this format. Lots of people are fairly
addicted to sending out mail with giant pink letters on green
backgrounds with animated red ants crawling around the screen,
especially in office environments where everyone is using the same mail
software (which means that they are all using software that can read
HTML and RTF formatted mail). You see a bunch of people (mostly Outlook
Express users, for some odd reason) sending out HTML formatted mail,
which is annoying to read, but it's rare to run into someone who sends
RTF. I think most of the RTF mailers attach their RTF to an ASCII
version of the same message, anyway...
The other reason is encoding. Say I'm writing a message in
Japanese to my friend Shinichi. There is no real way for this message to
get translated into human-readable ASCII. In that case mailers will
either encode it and provide information about what it decodes to, or
send it (looking like line noise to anyone whose mailer can't understand
Japanese) with the appropriate language information.
There's no real Evil reason for this. You just see it a lot with
M$ mailers because they are widely used.
Semi-off-topic: If you ever want to annoy someone who just can't
seem to stop sending you HTML formatted mail, send them something from
your Newton without checking the "text-only" box. I had a few of my
in-laws going round and round for a couple of days with that... ;-)
Jim Anderson
Evil Overlord Rule 197:
I will explain to my Legions of Terror that guns are ranged weapons and
swords are not. Anyone who attempts to throw a sword at the hero or club
him with a gun will be summarily executed.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Sat Mar 02 2002 - 10:02:18 EST