| From: | Gurth <gurth@******.NL> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [ADMIN] Sending files to the Project Leader |
| Date: | Sat, 4 Oct 1997 12:08:05 +0100 |
SUBSCRIPTION OF THE NEXT PERSON WHO KNOWINGLY GOES AGAINST WHAT I'M SAYING
IN IT.
Today I received a NERPS-related file in my email which prompted me to
write this message to all of you regarding the sending of files to the
Project Leader, i.e. me.
The file in question (I won't mention names) was 2.77 MB in size and took
me about 10 minutes to download via an ISDN line (I'd hate to think about
the time needed had I still been using my old 28K8), after which my mailer
took about a minute to perform any kind of operation on the message, like
filtering, opening, saving, or deleting it. When I got worried and hit
Ctrl+Alt+Del, Windows told me my mailer wasn't responding; I decided to
wait a bit to see if it was perhaps busy on that big email, as Ididn't
want to risk losing any mail.
Anyway, when I finally managed to open it, it contained a word processor
file as an attachment; saved to disk, this was the 2.77 MB file. At first
I wanted to tell the sender to zip the thing next time something like
this had to be sent, but when I tried zipping it myself it only resulted
in a 2.39 MB file, which is hardly an improvement. Upon opening the file
in Word, the character count was 70,666, so on an estimate that would have
been a 100 to 200 kB file if it weren't for the full-page, full-color
graphic embedded in the text. This graphic wasn't, IMnsHO, very useful to
NERPS, seeing that is was a full-color scan of a current-day map.
Furthermore, I feel the article needs some revisions, which means it will
have to be posted on NERPS at some future date when those changes have
been made. This makes the sending of the article to me unnecessary,
because I don't have a use for unfinished versions of articles -- I have
a copy in my NERPS folder in my mailer already, and I don't really need
another copy.
The thing I'm trying to say is that if you have an article to send to me,
follow these guidelines:
1) If the file is excessively large (more than a few hundred kilobytes),
cut its size down. Remove unnecessary graphics, layout, and so on that add
to the file size. Try to cut down the size of necessary graphics somewhat,
for example by reducing their size and/or color depth (no need to use 16
million colors when 256 or even 16 is sufficient). Use a compression
utility like ZIP or ARJ to reduce the file size further before sending it.
2) If the file is still half a meg or more, ask me about whether I want to
receive it. DO NOT send it to me without asking me first, and wait for my
reply before you attach the file to a message. This ensures I know the
thing is on the way, and can tell you not to send it if I feel it isn't
necessary for me to have a copy.
3) Only send me the file when the article is completely finished.
Half-finished articles are no use to me, and once the article _is_
finished, post an ASCII version to the NERPS list, wait for other members'
reactions, and adjust the article if necessary. Then repost the article,
and only when it is fully finished can you send me a word processor file
with the article.
Is this understood by everyone?
--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Zo buurman, ik hier?
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
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