> Are end-
> users laboring for your benefit, or vice-versa?
Heh. The running joke around here is that our computer networks would run fine if not for all these end users!
Seriously though, contained in my tirade against MIME was a real answer to Doug's question. MIME just isn't that particularly useful in the big scheme of things, and improving it would just increase the amount of inane things that are already done via email, e.g. the spreading of viruses and worms. SMTP (the internet mail transfer protocol) is a very bad way to transfer files. It pushes them to the target, who may not desire the file or be prepared to accept it (surely all of us who once had 33.6 modems cursed our relatives when they decided to email us 5 megs of pictures which took forever to download). SMTP was designed with certain things in mind, like guaranteed delivery, which is at odds with efficient transfer of data from a bandwidth perspective. Geek time is better spent improving the user interface to more efficient transfer mechanisms, like http[s], [s]ftp, and scp (secure copying via ssh protocol).
Matt
-- Matt Cramer <cramer at voicenet.com> http://www.voicenet.com/~cramer/ PGP RSA Key ID: 0x1F6A4471 aim: beyondzero123 PGP DH/DSS Key ID: 0xAFF35DF2 icq: 120941588
yahoo msg: beyondzero123 If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
-Albert Einstein