Photo transfer
By Beatrice Robertson
Dear Jody,
This is beside the AMD but can you give me an easy way to send photos? I have a Logitech scanner that will save in JPEG or GIF among others, and I think that these formats will send, but don't know how. If it's lengthy, just tell me to get a book. But you seem to be very knowledgeable, and may save me some time.
[ There are a bunch of ways to transfer these files. Depending on the
[ "compression factor" you set on JPEG, JPEG files can be dramatically
[ smaller than GIF files. JPEG is a "lossy" compression method, while
[ GIF produces an "identical" copy. I almost always use JPEG when sending
[ files, because it takes so long to upload (send) GIF files. Its a
[ good idea to re-extract the files before sending them to make sure that
[ what you are sending will look good at the other end. Although "lossy",
[ modest compression settings (70%) often look indistinguishable from the
[ original.
[
[ I know that you now have a "real" Internet account, so one option is to
[ use "FTP" (File Transfer Protocol). This is how I make the archived
[ digests available for anyone to retrieve from Foxtail, but its clumsy
[ because you need to put the files in a publicly accessible area or
[ exchange passwords with your friends. FTP transfer _ARE_ the normal
[ way of uploading pictures that will be put into a Web page.
[
[ To send pictures as "attachments" to e-mail, you need to encode the
[ image file into "printable ASCII". That is because mail cannot transmit
[ all 256 character combinations that can be made from 8 bits of data.
[ Many of the modern mail programs are capable of encoding binary files
[ automatically when you do an "attach" command from the menu. There
[ are 3 common encoding forms used (BinHex, Base64, and UUENCODE) which
[ you select from an options menu. Unfortunately you may have to consult,
[ in advance, with the recipient as to which format is usable by their
[ mail program. Once decoded, they _ALSO_ have to be able to deal with
[ the decoded file. For instance, you may be able to generate .GIF, .PCX
[ and .JPG files, but the recipient may only be able to read .GIF and .TFF
[ files. In this case you would be stuck sending a .GIF, even though it is
[ probably larger.
[
[ I hope this helps. Several other of our readers are regularly using
[ mail programs which can do attachments (Eudora is probably the most
[ common). I hope some of them will also put their 2 cents worth in.
[ Because I run Unix and am attached to a fairly ancient mail program,
[ I actually encode and decode my attachments by hand. This is not something
[ you want to do if you can avoid it!
[
[ Good luck. Let me know if this helps.
[
[ Jody
Once again, thank's for all your work, and include me in as a contributor if you want to get new software. However, even though I realize that you are taking on a tremendous amount of work, I certainly appreciate your editorializing the Digest. Sometimes your comments help it to make sense.
Thanks again!
Beatrice Robertson
[ Thanks for the positive feedback. As the group gets busier, the editing
[ is taking an unexpected amount of work. On the other hand, I really think
[ that the clarifying comments are necessary to keep things flowing smoothly.
[ Jody
|
(Message sent Tue 20 Feb 1996, 11:47:44 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
|
|
Mechanical
Music Digest™ Archives
