HTML not so evil (was Re: Eudora Replacement)

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 10:45:02AM -0400, Brendan wrote:
> Is this a theory class or are we talking about reality?

There are, in fact, products that do exactly this (among other
things).  I used one (very infrequently), but I don't recall what it
was called.  Docu-something.

> Just out of curiosity, do you work at a company where this happens?

Just because no one is currently using some solution does not mean it
is a viable solution to a problem.  I don't see what your point is.
But to answer your question, no.  I currently work at a school in
South Korea, which doesn't know the first thing about managing or
organizing ANYTHING.  I have, however, in the past.

> > I never actually said anything of the sort, nor do I subscribe to that
> > philosophy.  The previous poster put forth the idea that secretaries
> > need to attach spreadsheets to e-mail.  I'm simply trying to
> 
> I said nothing about "need". It's just what happens.

I may be confused.  Let's see...

> > On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 10:37:17PM -0400, Brendan wrote:
> >> On Wednesday 13 October 2004 19:37, Justin S. Peavey wrote:
> >> > should I be forced to receive and store every multi-megabyte
> >> > virus-ridden file that gets sent my way when a hyperlink to a location
> >> > using real file transfer protocol will do just fine.
> >> 
> >> Because it doesn't exist on line? I mean, even I could answer
> >> that one...As lovely as ASCII is, sometimes a secretary has to
> >> attach a spreadsheet...  Not everyone exists in our little world
> >> with its white walls and nice rules.

"...secretary has to attach a spreadsheet..."

has to == need to.  Same meaning.

Incidentally, ASCII is /not/ lovely.  It has many problems, mostly
stemming from the fact that it is insufficient to represent the
characters of any language other than English, AFAIK.  Even the other
European languages have accented characters which are not included in
7-bit ASCII.  Non-European languages are, by and large, totally
screwed if you're limited to ASCII.

On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 10:43:14AM -0400, Brendan wrote:
> On Thursday 14 October 2004 10:36, Derek Martin wrote:
> > > This sound suspiciously like "I don't have a workable answer".
> >
> > Why, because I left out the details?  I just felt that the basic gist
> > was so obvious that it was not necessary to detail.
> 
> Let's fill it in for the people it's not obvious for...

At its most basic level:

1. set up a directory on a web server that the secretary can write to.
2. password protect it, using .htaccess or similar
3. give her access, somehow (ssh, ftp, smb, automated script, whatever).
4. show her how to use it.

It's really quite simple.  If you need more details, I could suggest
some books on web/systems administration.  It's beyond the scope of
this thread, and what I'm willing to write about here.

> > > Just not gonna happen man. You can't change people's fundamental work
> > > methods because you don't like attachments. It just isn't going to
> > > happen.
> >
> > Probably right; but that's a different question entirely from whether
> > or not it can be done...
> 
> Ok, so it's kind of a non-issue then, isn't it?

Well that all depends on what you mean.  People do, in fact, use this
technique (or something very very similar) to deliver documents.  To
them, it's not a non-issue.  It probably will never become the
standard way to deliver documents.  In that sense, it may be a
non-issue.  But if it's a solution that you might find useful, then 
it isn't really a non-issue, is it?


-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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