Document Transfer
By Terry Smythe
My recent attempts to transfer Schultz documentation to Harry Couchman in Australia has provoked an interesting response. Perhaps others among us have found a better way.
The process I ended us using emerged out of several unsuccessful attempts to similarly help other people. Unexpected problems emerge as if by magic.
On the initial go-around, I ordinarily do not know what mail reader the recipient uses, which could be the normal unix based PINE (with which I'm comfortable), a proprietary mail system within a company that sometimes blocks attachments, a neighborhood BBS, a MAC BBS, or an offline mail reader. Also, I have no way of initially determining how comfortable the recipient is with such a process.
As a consequence, I've had more failures than successes, and our recent success transferring documents via the 'Net perhaps may have been more good luck than good management' probably because Harry appears to be a computer professional and knew what I was trying to do, even if I didn't.
While I'm reasonably comfortable in using a DOS based computer, I am not comfortable with unusual processes such as what we recently did. So, I'm hoping to determine a process that might be a little simpler and more reliable.
I am aware of file compression utilities, and routinely use PKZIP and PKUNZIP. I did not compress the .PCX files because I did not know if the target computer had the same utilities to decompress. One sample document was squirted through successfully, and based on that the other 9 were sent the same way.
The most significant problem I've encountered is a target person who uses unix based uqwk to create an offline mail packet *before* scanning incoming mail. I'm unaware of any DOS based .QWK offline mail readers that can successfully extract a MIME attached file in PINE. Has anyone found one that will do this?
In theory I could have attached all 10 .PCX files to a single email message. However, each was about 200k in size and I feared the resulting message may have become too large for the 'Net to handle. Does anyone know if there is a practical limit to the size of a message + attachments that can be successfully transmitted? So, simply to be on the safe side, I sent through each .PCX file uncompressed and attached by itself to an email message.
I wonder if others have tried something similar, and if so would you consider sharing the complete process? I'm particularly interested in trying to come up with some sort of process that will have a reasonable chance of success most of the time.
As we speak, I'm trying to squirt a database .DBF file to a friend in Florida who is using a older MAC with an InterNet access point on a local DOS based BBS. So far, all my attempts to get something through to him have failed. In this case, a .PCX file is obviously not an option.
Any other thoughts?
Regards,
Terry
[ Terry,
[ Many Unix systems allow an arbitrary "maximum" to be set for the
[ size of a message. In addition, there may be one or more "relay"
[ machines that the message has to pass through. The most restrictive
[ machine will break your message. I'd advise against sending 2meg mail
[ messages, but they often work.
[ Jody
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(Message sent Mon 19 Feb 1996, 16:23:47 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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