[pmmail-list] HTML Email was in Digest (05/30/2002 09:01) (#2002-235)

[John Angelico]

On Thu, 30 May 2002 09:02:12 -0400, jimmym@blueprintsoftwareworks.com
wrote:

Jumping in a little late,here I know...

>
>Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:16:46 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Dave Hathaway <davehathaway@yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [pmmail-list] HTML mail again (was: PMMail 2000 Update)
>
>Hi John,
>
>Perhaps I should have said HTML has enabled the exploitation of
>vulnerabilities in other products.  I don't think I would receive
>these would-be viruses if HTML was not in emails.  I don't think
>70-column-width plain text is ever going to be a virus threat. :)
>
>Outlook's implementation of HTML is the problem.

That, coupled with a generic mental attitude within the online community
(fostered by MS-think, I venture to suggest) which fails to discriminate
between tools for particular purposes.

It is somewhat akin to writing letters by photographing a page and sending
me a 35mm slide (this analogy is more for PDF, but also applies here). Thus
I am expected to use a slide projector to read the entire page, instead of
engaging my Mark 1 eyeball immediately.

I don't object to a slide for something graphical, but there are simpler
ways of sending me text (gad, even a phone call might be appropriate at
times). If there is an important need to preserve the text a slide or
photograph *may* be appropriate but indiscriminate use of slides for
shopping lists and letters to friends is rightly recognised as idiocy - in
real life<g>. 

However, using the wrong tool for the job - just because I can do it, and
because it looks real cool, and I don't know or care about established
standards dammitall! - seems de rigeur in most of the online MS-world. 

This list, as has already been said, is distinctly above average by
comparison with the rest of a PC-land dominated by MS products. Therefore
its members are more acutely aware of the need to use tools appropriately,
so whether Outlook or any other MS product implements a "feature" well or
badly, I predict that this debate will rage forever <g>. 



Best regards
John Angelico
OS/2 SIG
talldad@melbpc.org.au or talldad@kepl.com.au
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