My company develop Scientific Letter software (
http://www.sciletter.com/ ). Scientific Letter is an equation mailer
that allows users to create mail messages including mathematical
equations. I wish to discuss available mathematical and chemical
symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
mail?
Regards,
Slava Shevtsov
http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
On a sunny day (6 May 2005 08:58:20 -0700) it happened slava@sciletter.com
(Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
>My company develop Scientific Letter software (
>http://www.sciletter.com/ ). Scientific Letter is an equation mailer
>that allows users to create mail messages including mathematical
>equations. I wish to discuss available mathematical and chemical
>symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
>mail?
What symbol do you have for a raised middle finger?
This is a MIME GnuPG-signed message. If you see this text, it means that
your E-mail or Usenet software does not support MIME signed messages.
--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-7548-1115396949-0002
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Slava Shevtsov writes:
> My company develop Scientific Letter software (
> http://www.sciletter.com/ ). Scientific Letter is an equation mailer
> that allows users to create mail messages including mathematical
> equations. I wish to discuss available mathematical and chemical
> symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
> mail?
If you can express the mathematical formulas with characters from the UTF-8
character set (probably borrowing bits and pieces of Latin and Greek
alphabets), you should be able to get something done by generating UTF-8
mail.
If not, you'll probably have to generate multipart/related content with HTML
and inline images.
--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-7548-1115396949-0002
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)
iD8DBQBCe5tVx9p3GYHlUOIRAnajAJ9Et1g91bcN1PhAkktQAe0CwHGvCgCf S1gY
V3yUn9BhxiS+jPDMTikCfQc=
=c23Y
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-7548-1115396949-0002--
In article
Shevtsov
> My company develop Scientific Letter software (
> http://www.sciletter.com/ ). Scientific Letter is an equation mailer
> that allows users to create mail messages including mathematical
> equations. I wish to discuss available mathematical and chemical
> symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
> mail?
>
> Regards,
> Slava Shevtsov
>
> http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
This should get you started...
http://www.fi.uib.no/Fysisk/Teori/KURS/WRK/TeX/symALL.html
....of course mathematics uses even more than this...
--
G. A. Edgar http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~edgar/
On 6 May 2005 08:58:20 -0700, slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov)
wrote:
>My company develop Scientific Letter software (
>http://www.sciletter.com/ ). Scientific Letter is an equation mailer
>that allows users to create mail messages including mathematical
>equations. I wish to discuss available mathematical and chemical
>symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
>mail?
>
>Regards,
>Slava Shevtsov
>
>http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
You have heard of TeX, .pdf files, and MicroSoft Word haven't you? The
world already knows how to email mathematics files.
--Lynn
Jan Panteltje wrote:
> [...]
> What symbol do you have for a raised middle finger?
I don't think you can TeX that, but you should be able to Metafont it.
--- Christopher Heckman
Lynn Kurtz
> >My company develop Scientific Letter software (
> >http://www.sciletter.com/ ). Scientific Letter is an equation mailer
> >that allows users to create mail messages including mathematical
> >equations. I wish to discuss available mathematical and chemical
> >symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
> >mail?
>
> You have heard of TeX, .pdf files, and MicroSoft Word haven't you? The
> world already knows how to email mathematics files.
Sciletter is a LaTeX-compatible software. It can export any message in
LaTeX file. Also message send a message in two formats: internal
Sciletter format and usual alternative text with inserts of the
equations in LaTeX notation.
If recipient of the mail message use Scientific Letter then he will
see the message in graphical representation.
If recipient of the mail message use other mailer then he will see the
message text with equations and mathematical characters included in it
in LaTeX notation.
Regards,
Slava Shevtsov
http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
Sam
> > My company develop Scientific Letter software (
> > http://www.sciletter.com/ ). Scientific Letter is an equation mailer
> > that allows users to create mail messages including mathematical
> > equations. I wish to discuss available mathematical and chemical
> > symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
> > mail?
>
> If you can express the mathematical formulas with characters from the UTF-8
> character set (probably borrowing bits and pieces of Latin and Greek
> alphabets), you should be able to get something done by generating UTF-8
> mail.
>
> If not, you'll probably have to generate multipart/related content with HTML
> and inline images.
We generate alternative bodies in Sciletter format and plain-text
format with equations and greek symbols in LaTeX notation. It powerful
method for exchange between Sciletter and Outlook/Sendmail. Also it
good way for use a message in scientific articles and reports.
For example, if you receive message from Sciletter in Outlook or
Sendmail then you can copy text from message and paste in your new
article in LaTeX notation.
Regards,
Slava Shevtsov
http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
> >symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
> >mail?
> What symbol do you have for a raised middle finger?
I do not think that our users need in this symbol. Are you neen in it
personally? If it is then you can send request on the personal custom
build with this symbol.
Regards,
CEO Slava Shevtsov.
http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
On a sunny day (11 May 2005 01:24:59 -0700) it happened slava@sciletter.com
(Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
>> >symbols. What additional symbols are necessary for normal dialogue by
>> >mail?
>> What symbol do you have for a raised middle finger?
>
>I do not think that our users need in this symbol. Are you neen in it
Well, if you put restrictions on your users, you perhaps lack reality sense.
Think of the maket share you will be missing.
Competion will cover it I am sure.
>personally? If it is then you can send request on the personal custom
>build with this symbol.
Thank you, so kind, may I suggest this, it is ASCII:
|
|
|| ||
In message
Shevtsov
>Lynn Kurtz
>news:
>
....
>
>Sciletter is a LaTeX-compatible software. It can export any message in
>LaTeX file. Also message send a message in two formats: internal
>Sciletter format and usual alternative text with inserts of the
>equations in LaTeX notation.
>
>If recipient of the mail message use Scientific Letter then he will
>see the message in graphical representation.
>
>If recipient of the mail message use other mailer then he will see the
>message text with equations and mathematical characters included in it
>in LaTeX notation.
>
>Regards,
>Slava Shevtsov
>
>http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
But, your pictorial output only appears to be readable on Wintel.
And it costs more money than my entire email system...
--
Jeremy Boden
Jeremy Boden
> >Sciletter is a LaTeX-compatible software. It can export any message in
> >LaTeX file. Also message send a message in two formats: internal
> >Sciletter format and usual alternative text with inserts of the
> >equations in LaTeX notation.
>
> But, your pictorial output only appears to be readable on Wintel.
> And it costs more money than my entire email system...
Yes, Scientific Letter works only under MS Windows. Under Unix a
equations will be read in the LaTeX notation. Scientific Letter for
unix we plan to release in a year.
You are right when you write about price of the software. Our price is
not zero. Our prices are $29.95 for Education Version and $99 for
Commerce. And it costs more money than free-of-charge software such as
Sendmail or Firebird. As you know, users spend many time for writing
and reading the messages. It time costs money. Scientific Letter
reduce time on reading a messages with equations. Costs of this time
much more than price on our mailer.
For example, if the annual salary of the Junior Scientific Researcher
approximately is $52,800 per year then Educational version of
Sciletter has costs of the one work hour ($52,800/2080h = $25 per
hour). Commerce price has costs of the 4 work hours of the Junior
Scientific Researcher. If Scientific Letter will reduce reading time
of the messages more than at few hours in year (or at few minutes in
week) then it software is profitable for user.
Regards,
Slava Shevtsov
http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) writes:
> Jeremy Boden
>
>> >Sciletter is a LaTeX-compatible software. It can export any message in
>> >LaTeX file. Also message send a message in two formats: internal
>> >Sciletter format and usual alternative text with inserts of the
>> >equations in LaTeX notation.
>>
>> But, your pictorial output only appears to be readable on Wintel.
>> And it costs more money than my entire email system...
>
> Yes, Scientific Letter works only under MS Windows. Under Unix a
> equations will be read in the LaTeX notation. Scientific Letter for
> unix we plan to release in a year.
It requires both sender and recipient to use the software.
preview-latex
allows direct cut&paste of your WYSIWYG-treated LaTeX source passages
into mail buffers, with the results being readable by practically
every mail reader with graphical capabilities.
I replied previously to your commercials with an example, but it would
appear that this posting has, because of the included inline graphics,
only reached a limited number of news servers: sci.math is labeled as
a text-only group after all. If anybody wants to get an example by
Email, feel free to ask.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
> http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted to its
original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of plain text.
Microsoft's 'enhancements' to e-mail, allowing HTML and multiple fonts,
etc., brought many more problems than they solved.
Kind of like trying to make a crow-bar into a 'swiss army knife'.
If you want to say something that can't be said in plain ascii text, send
along or post a file.
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
bz
> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
> news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
>
>> http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
>
> E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted to its
> original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of plain text.
>
> Microsoft's 'enhancements' to e-mail, allowing HTML and multiple
> fonts, etc., brought many more problems than they solved.
MIME is not a Microsoft invention.
> Kind of like trying to make a crow-bar into a 'swiss army knife'.
>
> If you want to say something that can't be said in plain ascii text,
> send along or post a file.
Which is cumbersome. Anyway, there are enough possibilities of
providing mathematics in MIME-compliant ways without having to resort
to proprietary formats like sciletter.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
bz
> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
> news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
>
> > http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
>
> E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted to its
> original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of plain text.
I assume your newspaper doesn't have any graphics and that you don't
own a TV/camera/etc. and that you never sign a letter and ...
> Microsoft's 'enhancements' to e-mail, allowing HTML and multiple fonts,
> etc., brought many more problems than they solved.
As said, Microsoft didn't event MIME, nor HTML or fonts for that
matter. Please blame Microsoft for something they actually did. There's
enough to choose from. No need to invent something.
> Kind of like trying to make a crow-bar into a 'swiss army knife'.
>
> If you want to say something that can't be said in plain ascii text, send
> along or post a file.
And the difference is? "send along" also needs MIME and is as
'dangerous'/'safe' as multipart/alternative. Assuming that with "post a
file" you mean "put it on a website": No can do (in most/all cases), not
possible for offline use, doesn't solve any real problem, etc..
So please try to come up with some *real* arguments instead of "I
don't like non-text, so there!".
Frank Slootweg
news:4284ea64$0$6770$dbd41001@news.wanadoo.nl:
> bz
>> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
>> news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
>>
>> > http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
>>
>> E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted to its
>> original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of plain text.
>
> I assume your newspaper doesn't have any graphics and that you don't
> own a TV/camera/etc. and that you never sign a letter and ...
None of those use SMTP. SMTP was designed for point-to-point text
communications.
>> Microsoft's 'enhancements' to e-mail, allowing HTML and multiple fonts,
>> etc., brought many more problems than they solved.
>
> As said, Microsoft didn't event MIME, nor HTML or fonts for that
> matter. Please blame Microsoft for something they actually did. There's
> enough to choose from. No need to invent something.
They may not have invented but they built all kinda hells and bistles into
Outhouse and Outhouse Exploder, and deserve most of the credit for all the
damages done by worms, viruses and zombied machines. Making 'html' the
default send mode was dumb.
>
>> Kind of like trying to make a crow-bar into a 'swiss army knife'.
>>
>> If you want to say something that can't be said in plain ascii text,
>> send along or post a file.
>
> And the difference is? "send along" also needs MIME,
no. it needs some kind of binhex conversion but MIME is only one possible
way to send binary data.
I agree that MIME has proved to be a useful standard but making the mail
program 'auto execute' attachements was just dumb.
> and is as
> 'dangerous'/'safe' as multipart/alternative.
> Assuming that with "post a
> file" you mean "put it on a website"
or some other server or to a binary news group.
> : No can do (in most/all cases), not
> possible for offline use, doesn't solve any real problem, etc..
Oh, it solves lots of problems. It means that you have to deliberately go
after the information and that it isn't taking up space on the mail
server.
Do you have any idea what happens when a professor emails a 50 Mbyte
document to everyone in the department?
How about when spammers send html with lotsa pictures?
People have no idea that 20 kbytes is the largest allowed e-mail.
Anything larger than that gets chopped up into 20kbyte segments that get
sent separately, as separate messages.
>
> So please try to come up with some *real* arguments instead of "I
> don't like non-text, so there!".
I don't like non-text in e-mail. :)
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
bz
> Frank Slootweg
> news:4284ea64$0$6770$dbd41001@news.wanadoo.nl:
>
>> bz
>>> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
>>> news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
>>>
>>> > http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
>>>
>>> E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted to its
>>> original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of plain text.
>>
>> I assume your newspaper doesn't have any graphics and that you don't
>> own a TV/camera/etc. and that you never sign a letter and ...
>
> None of those use SMTP. SMTP was designed for point-to-point text
> communications.
So was HTML.
Anyway, here is a link to the relevant RFC, which as you know, is the
respective source for internet standards:
>>> Microsoft's 'enhancements' to e-mail, allowing HTML and multiple
>>> fonts, etc., brought many more problems than they solved.
>>
>> As said, Microsoft didn't event MIME, nor HTML or fonts for that
>> matter. Please blame Microsoft for something they actually
>> did. There's enough to choose from. No need to invent something.
>
> They may not have invented but they built all kinda hells and
> bistles into Outhouse and Outhouse Exploder, and deserve most of the
> credit for all the damages done by worms, viruses and zombied
> machines. Making 'html' the default send mode was dumb.
Well, making it the default would not have earned them much
enthusiasm, but as far as I know, they send MIME alternative parts, so
with a proper newsreader configured to ignore HTML, you get just the
text version and should be fine. HTML is not really the most typical
mail text format and not interpreted well internally by too many mail
clients, so choosing something else might have been somewhat saner.
What they indeed should really be blamed for is that their HTML
interpreter happens to be Internet Exploder, in an operating-system
internalized version with full operating system access and the
default, rather permissive security settings.
And that is really begging for trouble.
>>> Kind of like trying to make a crow-bar into a 'swiss army knife'.
Well, that is pretty much what blacksmithing is all about.
>>> If you want to say something that can't be said in plain ascii
>>> text, send along or post a file.
>>
>> And the difference is? "send along" also needs MIME,
>
> no. it needs some kind of binhex conversion but MIME is only one
> possible way to send binary data.
It's the standard.
> I agree that MIME has proved to be a useful standard but making the
> mail program 'auto execute' attachements was just dumb.
One thing does not have anything to do with the other. In particular,
HTML is not a format to be "auto executed". And as far as I remember,
modulo bugs, Internet Exploder still requires users to "click here"
before executing malware, which they unfortunately seem quite prepared
to do.
> Do you have any idea what happens when a professor emails a 50 Mbyte
> document to everyone in the department?
>
> How about when spammers send html with lotsa pictures?
>
> People have no idea that 20 kbytes is the largest allowed e-mail.
Indeed I have no such idea.
> Anything larger than that gets chopped up into 20kbyte segments that
> get sent separately, as separate messages.
You should revisit your mailer settings. They appear pretty idiotic.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
On a sunny day (Fri, 13 May 2005 18:24:09 +0000 (UTC)) it happened bz
>People have no idea that 20 kbytes is the largest allowed e-mail.
>Anything larger than that gets chopped up into 20kbyte segments that get
>sent separately, as separate messages.
Where did you get that idea?
What rfc specifies that?
I decided to test your idea, and send a 5691718 bytes wmv movie as attachemnt
to myself.
It took a while to get send...
This is what it looks like on my machine in:
-rw------- 1 root root 7717362 May 13 21:14 root
It gets bigger because of the encoding of cause.
I can follow the process exactly, as this machine also runs the sendmail
server.
It is not split for as far as I can see in transmission.
Some free MS windows programs limit email size I think, Linux does not
have anything stupido like that of cause.
On the other hand, your idea of using a link in the email is a good one,
I use my webserver all the time, use a secret directory, and disallow
listing of directories, and it is 100% private.
(But beware if somebody links to it, and the google bot finds it).
Sometimes I even go one step further, although Netscape allows to save web
pages with graphs etc (as a html file and subdirectory with pictures), I
simply use 'import xxx.gif' in Linux, and save as one picture.
The advantage is that you can easily print out the picture.
(Could be tickets for some event).
I think Latex is for me a bit difficult to use.
I have Sun StarOffice (and this version was free), and it has a VERY wide
choice of mathematical symbols, and can export in several formats.
(Word, Mac, text, html, what not).
Combined with spell checking in my language etc...
So, why not move to Linux and have all the stuff for free, without silly
limits?
Jan Panteltje
> On a sunny day (Fri, 13 May 2005 18:24:09 +0000 (UTC)) it happened bz
>
>
>
>>People have no idea that 20 kbytes is the largest allowed e-mail.
>>Anything larger than that gets chopped up into 20kbyte segments that get
>>sent separately, as separate messages.
> Where did you get that idea?
> What rfc specifies that?
> I decided to test your idea, and send a 5691718 bytes wmv movie as attachemnt
> to myself.
> It took a while to get send...
> This is what it looks like on my machine in:
> -rw------- 1 root root 7717362 May 13 21:14 root
> It gets bigger because of the encoding of cause.
> I can follow the process exactly, as this machine also runs the sendmail
> server.
> It is not split for as far as I can see in transmission.
> Some free MS windows programs limit email size I think, Linux does not
> have anything stupido like that of cause.
What has "Linux" to do with this? This is a feature of the mail/news
agent.
For example, Emacs Gnus has:
message-send-mail-partially-limit's value is 1000000
The limitation of messages sent as message/partial.
The lower bound of message size in characters, beyond which the message
should be sent in several parts. If it is nil, the size is unlimited.
You can customize this variable.
Defined in `message'.
[back]
Why split a message? Because mail systems might have limits. In
fact, 1000000 is a limit not uncommon.
And here is part of the manpage from the smtpd page of the postfix
system:
RESOURCE AND RATE CONTROLS
The following parameters limit resource usage by the SMTP
server and/or control client request rates.
line_length_limit (2048)
Upon input, long lines are chopped up into pieces of at
most this length; upon delivery, long lines are
reconstructed.
queue_minfree (0)
The minimal amount of free space in bytes in the queue
file system that is needed to receive mail.
message_size_limit (10240000)
The maximal size in bytes of a message, including
envelope information.
See? There is a limit of 10000kBytes here. I have not checked the
factory defaults for sendmail, but it is not unlikely that they also
are not unlimited.
> I think Latex is for me a bit difficult to use.
LaTeX is nothing which one "uses". It is not an application, but
rather a language. There are various authoring tools for writing this
language, some more convenient than others.
> I have Sun StarOffice (and this version was free), and it has a VERY
> wide choice of mathematical symbols, and can export in several
> formats. (Word, Mac, text, html, what not). Combined with spell
> checking in my language etc...
Well, sending math in mail still mostly requires that the recipient
has the same software, or is rather cumbersome.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
David Kastrup
> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) writes:
>
>> Yes, Scientific Letter works only under MS Windows. Under Unix a
>> equations will be read in the LaTeX notation. Scientific Letter for
>> unix we plan to release in a year.
>
> It requires both sender and recipient to use the software.
> preview-latex
> allows direct cut&paste of your WYSIWYG-treated LaTeX source
> passages into mail buffers, with the results being readable by
> practically every mail reader with graphical capabilities.
>
> I replied previously to your commercials with an example, but it would
> appear that this posting has, because of the included inline graphics,
> only reached a limited number of news servers: sci.math is labeled as
> a text-only group after all. If anybody wants to get an example by
> Email, feel free to ask.
I have posted an example to misc.test now, with
Message-ID: <851x8a7twb.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>.
I hope that misc.test will pass on posts including images, unlike
sci.math, but it will probably expire pretty fast and not be archived.
If anybody has a better suggestion for storing/posting a MIME-like
message so that people can take a look at it, I'd be glad to hear it.
Anyway, it has been pointed out that the preview-latex/AUCTeX pages do
a bad job at pointing out the supported platforms. It is known to
work (based on available Emacs compilations that are, for some
operating systems, in prerelease state) under Windows, MacOSX (also on
Carbon without X11), basically all desktop Linux variants, FreeBSD,
and pretty much every Unix or Unix clone supporting X11.
That's for writing the stuff. For reading, you can pretty much use
any MIME-capable mail- or newsreader with graphical capabilities.
Anyway, the mail/news stuff is mostly a byproduct: the more important
application is the LaTeX authoring process itself, where the WYSIWYG
integrates quite better with the text.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
On a sunny day (Fri, 13 May 2005 22:01:24 +0200) it happened David Kastrup
>> It is not split for as far as I can see in transmission.
>> Some free MS windows programs limit email size I think, Linux does not
>> have anything stupido like that of cause.
>
>What has "Linux" to do with this? This is a feature of the mail/news
>agent.
Some mail agents have a limit in MS windows, that you can get rid of if you
buy the 'full' version.
Linux applications do not have this.
>For example, Emacs Gnus has:
>message-send-mail-partially-limit's value is 1000000
In /etc /sendmail.cf I just found:
# maximum message size
#O MaxMessageSize=1000000
Notice it is commented out :-)
Maybe I did it, maybe it was default, 1 MB is ridiculously low in this DSL age.
>> I think Latex is for me a bit difficult to use.
>
>LaTeX is nothing which one "uses". It is not an application, but
>rather a language. There are various authoring tools for writing this
Rigtht, and if you had payed attention, you would have noticed that the
original poster directly typed an example in LaTeX.
>> I have Sun StarOffice (and this version was free), and it has a VERY
>> wide choice of mathematical symbols, and can export in several
>> formats. (Word, Mac, text, html, what not). Combined with spell
>> checking in my language etc...
>
>Well, sending math in mail still mostly requires that the recipient
>has the same software, or is rather cumbersome.
Most people have word.
Or can read word documents.
Jan Panteltje
> On a sunny day (Fri, 13 May 2005 22:01:24 +0200) it happened David Kastrup
>
>
>>> It is not split for as far as I can see in transmission. Some
>>> free MS windows programs limit email size I think, Linux does not
>>> have anything stupido like that of cause.
>>
>>What has "Linux" to do with this? This is a feature of the
>>mail/news agent.
>
> Some mail agents have a limit in MS windows, that you can get rid of
> if you buy the 'full' version.
You are confused. We are not talking about a total limit on message
size, but a size after which messages will get transparently split
(and they will get transparently reassembled on MIME-compliant
readers).
> Linux applications do not have this.
Last time I looked, Emacs was available as a Linux application:
>>For example, Emacs Gnus has:
>
>>message-send-mail-partially-limit's value is 1000000
And if we take a look at other mail clients, they should provide a
facility to split mails, too. It is a feature of mail clients, not a
limitation. And it is a feature intended to deal with possible
limitations in mail transport systems.
> In /etc /sendmail.cf I just found:
> # maximum message size
> #O MaxMessageSize=1000000
>
> Notice it is commented out :-)
Well, probably not quite the default.
> Maybe I did it, maybe it was default, 1 MB is ridiculously low in
> this DSL age.
The chain of mail transport systems to the final recipient has little,
if any, to do with DSL.
>>Well, sending math in mail still mostly requires that the recipient
>>has the same software, or is rather cumbersome.
> Most people have word.
Not me. What did you not understand about "has the same software"?
> Or can read word documents.
What did you not understand about "is rather cumbersome"?
Anyway, the number of people that have Word available without too much
trouble on their system is likely very nearly a proper subset of the
people using a graphics-capable mail/newsreader.
So sending messages in MIME with inline graphics still seems to be a
safer bet than sending Word attachments for getting math across.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
Jan Panteltje
news:1116013674.121da39c82f13ee8b0f13fd8bce50a3b@teranews:
>>People have no idea that 20 kbytes is the largest allowed e-mail.
>>Anything larger than that gets chopped up into 20kbyte segments that get
>>sent separately, as separate messages.
> Where did you get that idea?
Darned if I know now?
> What rfc specifies that?
I can't find one that does.
Back when we were running ccMail, I know that there were several limits. I
think that a message header of over 3kbytes would crash the e-mail client.
And I would have bet a dollar that somewhere it says that due to
limitations on e-mail relays, messages over 20 kbytes were broken up into
20kbyte segments. But I can't find anything to indicate that I am not
wrong.
Maybe I got confused at some time and confounded ethernet packets with e-
mail messages but I don't know where the 20 kbyte idea came from. I thought
it had something to do with a 32kbyte total size limit.
Ah well. If some email systems used to do so, it looks like none do
anymore. Sorry for the bum steer.
> I decided to test your idea, and send a 5691718 bytes wmv movie as
> attachemnt to myself.
> It took a while to get send...
> This is what it looks like on my machine in:
> -rw------- 1 root root 7717362 May 13 21:14 root
> It gets bigger because of the encoding of cause.
> I can follow the process exactly, as this machine also runs the sendmail
> server.
> It is not split for as far as I can see in transmission.
> Some free MS windows programs limit email size I think, Linux does not
> have anything stupido like that of cause.
>
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
Jan Panteltje
news:1116013674.121da39c82f13ee8b0f13fd8bce50a3b@teranews:
> So, why not move to Linux and have all the stuff for free, without silly
> limits?
>
I have 10 computers on my desk, some running several operating systems via
VMware. I think that somewhere on the desk I currently have red hat linux,
win3, win95, win98, win2k, win2k3, winNT, Mac os8.5, os X.
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
On a sunny day (Fri, 13 May 2005 23:00:30 +0200) it happened David Kastrup
>Jan Panteltje
>
>> On a sunny day (Fri, 13 May 2005 22:01:24 +0200) it happened David Kastrup
>>
>>
>>>> It is not split for as far as I can see in transmission. Some
>>>> free MS windows programs limit email size I think, Linux does not
>>>> have anything stupido like that of cause.
>>>
>>>What has "Linux" to do with this? This is a feature of the
>>>mail/news agent.
>>
>> Some mail agents have a limit in MS windows, that you can get rid of
>> if you buy the 'full' version.
>
>You are confused. We are not talking about a total limit on message
>size, but a size after which messages will get transparently split
>(and they will get transparently reassembled on MIME-compliant
>readers).
OK, if you read my first reply, you will see I checked for that
'decomposition in transit.'
It does not happen here on my server.
And I REALLY do NOT see ANY (capitals!) advantage to that.
Messages are send TCP, and full error checking is done.
Chopping a message up makes little or no sense to me from a transmission
point, after all it is already packetized, and error checking is done on
that level.
Limiting file size for email can be done by a sys administrator, but why
pester your users. Or better 'why pester ALL good willing users'.
If anyone mis-uses the privilege of using the server by sending the latest
high resolution version of 'Event Horizon', warn them, if again, cancel that
account!
>And if we take a look at other mail clients, they should provide a
>facility to split mails, too. It is a feature of mail clients, not a
>limitation. And it is a feature intended to deal with possible
>limitations in mail transport systems.
If the mail transport system is defective, it is not the problem for the
client, it should be fixed.
The world is big, there are many competing systems, you should at least have
the ability to read the most common formats.
However much I am not MS minded, MS Word is used by a vast amount of people.
Usually, when exchanging mathematical stuff with people, you had some
previous exchange about how to send it, so adapt to the other persons
possibilities if you can.
>> Or can read word documents.
>What did you not understand about "is rather cumbersome"?
>
>Anyway, the number of people that have Word available without too much
>trouble on their system is likely very nearly a proper subset of the
>people using a graphics-capable mail/newsreader.
If I understand this right, yes.
It is a problem as old as Internet itself.
I objected when html started coming, then Java, always browser updates, even
now.
MS made thing worse by having exploder incompatible with Netscape.
Now you get a flood of incompatible VOIP clients, with fax and other
possibilities.
This will likely keep on going for a long time.
But the bandwidth steadily increases.
BECAUSE of the greater bandwidth (that is why I wrote DSL age), graphical
stuff, and even multimedia presentations, will more and more make their
way into personal communication.
Man, already 3 years ago people started sending me xxxMB mpeg by email!
So, email, text format, your option, but expect a 1 GB DivX hires movie as
attachment too.
I ain't kidding you.
But personally I'd put it on my ftp or http server, and give them a password.
Text, all by itself, will, because of it minimal size, disappear in the noise
of the bandwidth.
Even when doing web search via google nowadays, you get half the pages as .pdf
(adobe format).
So attach a pdf, most people can read that, or at least get a free reader for
their system.
So, I just watched 'Event Horizon' on TV, and that is science (fiction)
non confirm reality.
Jan Panteltje
> On a sunny day (Fri, 13 May 2005 23:00:30 +0200) it happened David Kastrup
>
>
>>Jan Panteltje
>>
>>> On a sunny day (Fri, 13 May 2005 22:01:24 +0200) it happened David Kastrup
>>>
>>>
>>>>> It is not split for as far as I can see in transmission. Some
>>>>> free MS windows programs limit email size I think, Linux does not
>>>>> have anything stupido like that of cause.
>>>>
>>>>What has "Linux" to do with this? This is a feature of the
>>>>mail/news agent.
>>>
>>> Some mail agents have a limit in MS windows, that you can get rid of
>>> if you buy the 'full' version.
>>
>>You are confused. We are not talking about a total limit on message
>>size, but a size after which messages will get transparently split
>>(and they will get transparently reassembled on MIME-compliant
>>readers).
> OK, if you read my first reply, you will see I checked for that
> 'decomposition in transit.'
You are confused. There is no `decomposition in transit'. What may
happen in transit is that a mail server completely refuses to
transport a message due to its size.
For that reason, you can tell mail clients often to split a message in
the MIME-compliant way into chunks of harmless size. That happens
immediately at the sending end.
> It does not happen here on my server.
The server does not split mails based on limits. It rejects them.
The clients are the tools that should be capable of splitting, in
order to accommodate server limits.
> And I REALLY do NOT see ANY (capitals!) advantage to that. Messages
> are send TCP, and full error checking is done. Chopping a message
> up makes little or no sense to me from a transmission point, after
> all it is already packetized, and error checking is done on that
> level. Limiting file size for email can be done by a sys
> administrator, but why pester your users. Or better 'why pester ALL
> good willing users'. If anyone mis-uses the privilege of using the
> server by sending the latest high resolution version of 'Event
> Horizon', warn them, if again, cancel that account!
The "sys administrator" has no way to limit the size of all mail
servers that might be involved in a transmission.
>>And if we take a look at other mail clients, they should provide a
>>facility to split mails, too. It is a feature of mail clients, not a
>>limitation. And it is a feature intended to deal with possible
>>limitations in mail transport systems.
> If the mail transport system is defective, it is not the problem for the
> client, it should be fixed.
Good luck "fixing" all mail transport systems in the world to accept
unlimited size messages. One problem is that then the mail transport
system can't know in advance whether it will be able to accept a
message completely, and will consequently have to fail
indeterminately.
Of course, if some mail program runs into an infinite loop, the target
system will just crash after filling its disk with a single
multigigabyte message. Not all system administrators consider that
the best way to make their users happy.
> The world is big, there are many competing systems, you should at
> least have the ability to read the most common formats.
Which is MIME, not MS Word.
> However much I am not MS minded, MS Word is used by a vast amount of
> people.
Which Word? Word 97, Word 2000, Word 6 and so on all are
incompatible.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
In article <1116017436.1f80747b63ef5ce8548cd2bf9ec7e0c6@teranews> Jan Panteltje
....
> Notice it is commented out :-)
> Maybe I did it, maybe it was default, 1 MB is ridiculously low in this DSL
> age.
Perhaps. There are still quite a few people with a maximal mailbox of only
a few MB. (I do not complain, my current mailbox is just above 5 MB, and
there is space for quite a bit more. On the other hand, I put quite a bit
automatically in a junk box, and that is now over 54 MB. The last time I
emptied it was 5 days ago. There has been a time when I had to look about
once every day in order to ensure that my ordinary mailbox was not filling
the partition completely.
> >Well, sending math in mail still mostly requires that the recipient
> >has the same software, or is rather cumbersome.
>
> Most people have word.
> Or can read word documents.
I have word, I can read word documents. Alas, I can not read *all* word
documents. Word is a moving target.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
In article <85sm0q6du9.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> David Kastrup
....
> Anyway, the number of people that have Word available without too much
> trouble on their system is likely very nearly a proper subset of the
> people using a graphics-capable mail/newsreader.
Strange enough, I have Word (through Virtual PC), but do not use a
graphics-capable mail/newsreader. I log on to the machine where I
do the reading with ssh, but I do not have X on my home machine.
On the other hand, I do not want Word attachments either.
I have never seen a mathematics text that could not convey the meaning
in plain old ASCII.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
In article <1116022188.650931d7a969f1652369f0ef35dcf612@teranews> Jan Panteltje
....
> Limiting file size for email can be done by a sys administrator, but why
> pester your users. Or better 'why pester ALL good willing users'.
> If anyone mis-uses the privilege of using the server by sending the latest
> high resolution version of 'Event Horizon', warn them, if again, cancel that
> account!
You would talk quite different if some automatic program in the world did
send you core dumps. Yes, happened here, and the automatic program was
not under our control. Opening unlimited mail connections makes you
vulnerable to DOS-attacks. Proper methods to transfer large files are HTTP
(for pick-up) or FTP (for drop down). (Provided your servers are
well-configured of course.)
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
bz
> Frank Slootweg
> news:4284ea64$0$6770$dbd41001@news.wanadoo.nl:
>
> > bz
> >> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
> >> news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
> >>
> >> > http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
> >>
> >> E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted to its
> >> original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of plain text.
> >
> > I assume your newspaper doesn't have any graphics and that you don't
> > own a TV/camera/etc. and that you never sign a letter and ...
>
> None of those use SMTP. SMTP was designed for point-to-point text
> communications.
E-mail != SMTP. SMTP is just the transport protocol. It doesn't define
(all the forms of) the DATA/body part. But anyway, it does not matter if
e-mail was "designed for" text. It is *used* for other things. You
yourself mention binaries. So binaries is good, but non-text, like the
topic of this thread, is 'bad'? Strange 'reasoning'!
> >> Microsoft's 'enhancements' to e-mail, allowing HTML and multiple fonts,
> >> etc., brought many more problems than they solved.
> >
> > As said, Microsoft didn't event MIME, nor HTML or fonts for that
> > matter. Please blame Microsoft for something they actually did. There's
> > enough to choose from. No need to invent something.
>
> They may not have invented but they built all kinda hells and bistles into
> Outhouse and Outhouse Exploder, and deserve most of the credit for all the
> damages done by worms, viruses and zombied machines. Making 'html' the
> default send mode was dumb.
All/mostly true, but all irrelevant. We are not talking about
Microsoft or Outlook (Express), we are talking about ('non-text') e-mail.
Also, why do *you* care? You don't have to use Microsoft/O[E] and as a
*recipient* of such 'bad' messages you don't have to worry if *you*
practice safe computing.
BTW, if you dislike Microsoft so much, then why do you use their OS?
> >> Kind of like trying to make a crow-bar into a 'swiss army knife'.
> >>
> >> If you want to say something that can't be said in plain ascii text,
> >> send along or post a file.
> >
> > And the difference is? "send along" also needs MIME,
>
> no. it needs some kind of binhex conversion but MIME is only one possible
> way to send binary data.
I don't know what you're trying to say here (inline uuencoded stuff
instead of MIME?), but it doesn't matter (see binaries versus non-text
above).
> I agree that MIME has proved to be a useful standard but making the mail
> program 'auto execute' attachements was just dumb.
Who *cares* about "the mail program" which 1) you do not have to use
and 2) can be easily made to not "'auto execute'" attachments? Yes,
believe it or not, 'even' OE can be made quite safe with one simple
Options setting.
> > and is as 'dangerous'/'safe' as multipart/alternative.
> > Assuming that with "post a file" you mean "put it on a website"
>
> or some other server or to a binary news group.
That is what I meant with "No can do (in most/all cases)". These
options are not avaliable to the vast majority of e-mail senders (and
posting (an unrelated 'binary') to a binary Newsgroup is often
inappropriate/abuse).
> > : No can do (in most/all cases), not possible for offline use,
> > doesn't solve any real problem, etc..
>
> Oh, it solves lots of problems. It means that you have to deliberately go
> after the information and that it isn't taking up space on the mail
> server.
The former can hardly be called an advantage. The latter is indeed an
advantage for online use, but, as I said, prohibits offline use.
> Do you have any idea what happens when a professor emails a 50 Mbyte
> document to everyone in the department?
Yup. I know all about it (60MB (total) mailbox limit and (my) managers
sending me multi-MB messages). All you can do is try to educate the
senders or take other measures (like filtering). You can't blame the
system for ignorant users.
> How about when spammers send html with lotsa pictures?
"spam"? What's that? :-) But seriously, we are not discussing spam
here. I.e. there is no indication of the U-thingy or the B-thingy.
> People have no idea that 20 kbytes is the largest allowed e-mail.
As others have explained: That's non-sense and not current practice.
Even in the old days, the limit was 50 or 100KB and then we're talking
at least a decade ago.
> Anything larger than that gets chopped up into 20kbyte segments that get
> sent separately, as separate messages.
Can you point to a server which actually *does* such a silly thing?
> > So please try to come up with some *real* arguments instead of "I
> > don't like non-text, so there!".
>
> I don't like non-text in e-mail. :)
I thought so! :-)
BTW, there's nothing wrong with a good rant, as long as you realize
that's just that and that you *will* be blown to bits. :-)
Frank Slootweg
> bz
>> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
>> news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
>>
>> > http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
>>
>> E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted to its
>> original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of plain text.
>
> I assume your newspaper doesn't have any graphics and that you don't
> own a TV/camera/etc. and that you never sign a letter and ...
An utterly stupid assumption. I can't stand HTML email and curiously
I like photos in my newspaper.
Only an utter moron would think that's an inconsistency.
--
Jesse F. Hughes
"That's what's annoying about Usenet as some loser will state a case,
get their ass kicked, but STILL keep coming back as if nothing
happened." -- James Harris explains his strategy.
[Followup: ignored. I don't subscribe to sci.math.]
Jesse F. Hughes
> Frank Slootweg
>
> > bz
> >> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
> >> news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
> >>
> >> > http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
> >>
> >> E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted to its
> >> original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of plain text.
> >
> > I assume your newspaper doesn't have any graphics and that you don't
> > own a TV/camera/etc. and that you never sign a letter and ...
>
> An utterly stupid assumption. I can't stand HTML email and curiously
> I like photos in my newspaper.
>
> Only an utter moron would think that's an inconsistency.
The concept is called 'sarcasm'. You may want to look it up. For the
rest, i.e. opinions versus facts/reality, see my other response to "bz".
On comp.mail.misc, in <87u0l6b04v.fsf@phiwumbda.org>, "Jesse
F. Hughes" wrote:
> Frank Slootweg
>
>> bz
>>
>>> slava@sciletter.com (Slava Shevtsov) wrote in
>>> news:d9ad98e5.0505090229.b95502a@posting.google.com:
>>> > http://www.sciletter.com/ - mailer with equations
>>> E-mail is a method of communications that is best restricted
>>> to its original purpose, the point-to-point transmission of
>>> plain text.
>>
>> I assume your newspaper doesn't have any graphics and that
>> you don't own a TV/camera/etc. and that you never sign a
>> letter and ...
>
> An utterly stupid assumption. I can't stand HTML email and
> curiously I like photos in my newspaper.
>
> Only an utter moron would think that's an inconsistency.
Meaning of MORON
Definition: [n] a person of subnormal intelligence
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/moron
No. An "utter" moron wouldn't be able to even operate a computer
and would probably be illiterate. And Frank is obviously quite
intelligent and educated, and very knowledgable on the subject of
email and related subjects.
I'd think that someone posting from sci.math would at least _try_
to be accurate, instead of sounding like some punk troll with his
mommy's computer.
AC
--
alanconnor AT earthlink DOT net
Use your real return address or I'll never know you
even tried to mail me. http://tinyurl.com/2t5kp
In message
>Jan Panteltje
>news:1116013674.121da39c82f13ee8b0f13fd8bce50a3b@teranews:
>
>> So, why not move to Linux and have all the stuff for free, without silly
>> limits?
>>
>
>I have 10 computers on my desk, some running several operating systems via
>VMware. I think that somewhere on the desk I currently have red hat linux,
>win3, win95, win98, win2k, win2k3, winNT, Mac os8.5, os X.
>
You have a very big desk.
--
Jeremy Boden
On a sunny day (Sat, 14 May 2005 00:19:51 +0200) it happened David Kastrup
>For that reason, you can tell mail clients often to split a message in
>the MIME-compliant way into chunks of harmless size. That happens
>immediately at the sending end.
>
>> It does not happen here on my server.
>
>The server does not split mails based on limits. It rejects them.
>The clients are the tools that should be capable of splitting, in
>order to accommodate server limits.
No, it works a bit different.
Actually I wrote a small SMTP soft, it is part of this newsreader, NewsFleX,
that I also wrote ( http://panteltje.com/panteltje/newsflex/index.html ).
When you send to a SMTP server, it will either accept or refuse the connection.
It can stop midway too (close socket).
Been a long time, just looked up the code.
You are probably thinking about Usenet (what we use here, newsgroups), in many
cases binary attachments are send as multi part messages, ***each with their
own so called message ID ********
Now exactly this message ID allows you to get parts from difference servers.
Usenet has retrieval 2 methods, by article number, but these are different
on each server), or by message ID.
There is in my view NO advantage in splitting messages AT ALL.
But it happens nevertheless, perhaps because some NNTP SERVERS limit message
size.
Clients should (confirm rfc997 I think it is) never limit message size, not
even text line size!
In the latest draft the 'references' line is limited to the last few entries
however.
For email, it is not possible to get 'an other part from an other server' by
message ID.
Take for example POP email.
The email ends on one server only, and it makes no difference, in fact it
takes more space, if you store it in multiple parts, because of the multiple
headers.
In transit between servers everything is TCP and the routers do not care.
>> The world is big, there are many competing systems, you should at
>> least have the ability to read the most common formats.
>
>Which is MIME, not MS Word.
MIME tells you HOW and WHAT it is.
You can specify 'mysuperencoded_hyperformat_version_minus_12.6
No good if the user does not have the 'helper' program.
>> However much I am not MS minded, MS Word is used by a vast amount of
>> people.
>
>Which Word? Word 97, Word 2000, Word 6 and so on all are
Good one, indeed MS, because of marketing reasons, will 4 sure come with a
new incompatible version next year.
OK, then pdf.
Adobe wins.
Frank Slootweg
$dbd43001@news.wanadoo.nl:
> Also, why do *you* care? You don't have to use Microsoft/O[E] and as a
> *recipient* of such 'bad' messages you don't have to worry if *you*
> practice safe computing.
Because I have to deal with the consequences. As the departments 'computer
guru' since 1981, I have had to help the users clean up and fix their
systems after they have been compromised.
> BTW, if you dislike Microsoft so much,
I don't dislike Microsoft.
I dislike the fact that they designed and released into the world an
operating system that was designed for small, isolated, secure offices and
only slowly and reluctantly tried to fix the security problems that they
created.
> then why do you use their OS?
I have to be familiar with the operating system(s) used by our users.
They buy the systems needed to operate the equipment they buy.
Some of our users prefer macs, some prefer microsoft, some prefer linux.
We have about 20 macs, 75 windows(of various flavors) and 35 linux systems
plus some proprietary systems.
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
Jeremy Boden
news:8VBlfjDuVdhCFwMl@jboden.demon.co.uk:
> In message
>
>>Jan Panteltje
>>news:1116013674.121da39c82f13ee8b0f13fd8bce50a3b@teranews:
>>
>>> So, why not move to Linux and have all the stuff for free, without
>>> silly limits?
>>>
>>
>>I have 10 computers on my desk, some running several operating systems
>>via VMware. I think that somewhere on the desk I currently have red hat
>>linux, win3, win95, win98, win2k, win2k3, winNT, Mac os8.5, os X.
>>
> You have a very big desk.
Actually it is a small desk. (And a few of the computers are actually
stacked on the floor beside the desk.) :)
The 8 port KVM (keyboard video mouse) switch helps a lot.
I only have one monitor, two keyboards and two mice (One of the Macs uses
a keyboard and mouse that the KVM switch does not support).
And then there are often two laptops on the desk and a PDA.
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
On a sunny day (Sat, 14 May 2005 01:40:38 GMT) it happened "Dik T. Winter"
>In article <1116022188.650931d7a969f1652369f0ef35dcf612@teranews> Jan Panteltje
>...
> > Limiting file size for email can be done by a sys administrator, but why
> > pester your users. Or better 'why pester ALL good willing users'.
> > If anyone mis-uses the privilege of using the server by sending the latest
> > high resolution version of 'Event Horizon', warn them, if again, cancel that
> > account!
>
>You would talk quite different if some automatic program in the world did
>send you core dumps. Yes, happened here, and the automatic program was
hehe, I have been running this server now for some time.
On average there are several attacks per day.
This Linux system has good firewalling, and here (almost) automatically
the IP will be added to ipchains for a total reject.
Something like this:
-A input -s 81.192.178.180/255.255.255.255 -d 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 -j REJECT -l
(attack this morning form adsl-180-178-192-81.adsl2.iam.net.ma - - [14/May/2005:11:38:07 +0200] "GET /default.ida?XXXXXXXXXX)
(snipped very long crap, perhaps attempt buffer overflow).
Only ONE has ever made it out of ipchains, it was a nameserver (port 53),
do not want to prevent them finding my site, so I allowed them again.
>not under our control. Opening unlimited mail connections makes you
>vulnerable to DOS-attacks. Proper methods to transfer large files are HTTP
Well, since I run Linux, I can open almost anything I like, it won't execute,
this system has been up for 4 years in this configuration, and NEVER had a
virus or even downtime due to attack IN 13 YEARS of Linux.
I pity the poor MS Windows users, who are daily victims of their crap.
>(for pick-up) or FTP (for drop down). (Provided your servers are
>well-configured of course.)
Yes, that last thing, use password on ftp upload, I even disable upload
altogether unless I expect something big.
I have a nice collection of logs with various forms of attack.
Of cause everything is logged, and if needed ISPs are contacted, it is sad,
but some people have lost their account....
Je bent bij CWI? had je iets te doen met dat RSA200 primes gedoe?
Oh, Fermats laatse :-)
>http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
Frank Slootweg
$dbd43001@news.wanadoo.nl:
>> Anything larger than that gets chopped up into 20kbyte segments that get
>> sent separately, as separate messages.
>
> Can you point to a server which actually *does* such a silly thing?
No. I can't. I think that our ccMail system did. That is probably where I
got the idea. Google didn't seem to support me in my idea, however.
>> > So please try to come up with some *real* arguments instead of "I
>> > don't like non-text, so there!".
>>
>> I don't like non-text in e-mail. :)
>
> I thought so! :-)
>
> BTW, there's nothing wrong with a good rant, as long as you realize
> that's just that and that you *will* be blown to bits. :-)
Deservidly.
Well, I live to learn.
I try to make at least one mistake a day, just to stay in practice. :)
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
In article <4284ea64$0$6770$dbd41001@news.wanadoo.nl>,
Frank Slootweg
>bz
>
> So please try to come up with some *real* arguments instead of "I
>don't like non-text, so there!".
How about... My newsreader can't render non-text? I ssh to a shell
account to read e-mail. If someone sends me a picture I have to save it,
fire up the sftp program, transfer it to my local computer, and then open
it. If someone sends me an URL with the label "click here" I have to set
my newsreader in verbose mode (it renders HTML as well as it can be
rendered in pure text), and wade through hundreds of lines of shit that
set fonts and colors and so on, and copy the link into my browser.
HTML is also good for a few spam stars from Spam Assassin. But the text
mail promising g)uarant;eed low r/\tes on my mor)tgage usually seems to
get through.
--
"Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling blocks in the way of that
class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of
probabilities." -- Edgar Allen Poe
The readers of sci.math.symbolic have almost
no trouble with sending math in email, because they can
use the syntax of symbolic mathematics systems like
Mathematic and Maple when the syntax of ordinary
text is insufficient. So the one group that could,
logically, be thought to be most concerned about math symbols in email,
probably is not. Because the problem has a 98% solution.
Use the ascii notation of some common standard language.
For the 2% or so remaining, it seems that other solutions,
like pseudo-typesetting with TeX-like commands, or
http or xml, or posting a pdf, are quite accurate.
Or for diagrams, some kind of drawing with /\|_-- etc.
But then, typesetting does not necessarily convey
math semantics. is f x the same as f(x) or f*x ?
Typesetting doesn't tell. So if math semantics were
the problem, typesetting might not be the solution.
Mr.Kastrup's point, that it is not necessary to buy
some piece of software, is correct. It is also not
necessary to run Mr. Kastrup's software for this purpose.
I hope there are other applications for his emacs + TeX
that are more compelling, and would justify downloading
the several hundred megabytes of other code that is
needed.(TeX, Ghostscript, mingw or cygwin if you are using windows,
of some sort, and emacs.). And for going through his installation
and documentation. You might, of course, already have some of
this software downloaded, and you might be perfectly
happen to learn yet another TeX system interface. And
of course it is nice to see documents beautifully typeset.
Summary: The argument that you need it for sending email is
just not convincing. Being nasty to each other on 4
newsgroups tends to decrease any enthusiasm one might
have for any of your positions.
RJF
[Superseded to clarify the point I was making. Got lost somehow.]
Richard Fateman
> Mr.Kastrup's point, that it is not necessary to buy
> some piece of software, is correct.
If you would refrain from putting words into my mouth, this would be
appreciated.
This was not at all my point. My point was that the presented
software "sciletter" appeared quite less useful than some other
readily available free solution.
It is neither necessary to buy software or install free software, but
both can offer ways to make life easier for you. In this case I feel
that sciletter does not offer a good value proposition, even when
disregarding the price tag. And this can be illustrated with the
example of another product (which just happens to be free) that offers
advantages in several key points, and the absence of which in
sciletter makes it, in my opinion, mostly uninteresting.
The price tag and licence hassle is certainly a disadvantage, but if
it was offset by a corresponding increase in productivity, this would
be alleviated. I don't see that this is the case, however, and part
of that may be that I already work with (and on) a quite more
productive application that offers math image mailing as a byproduct
of normal LaTeX document creation and math previewing.
And having that alternative as a way of comparison (whether or not you
choose to try it) makes me feel that sciletter does too little, and
too cumbersome.
a) you need special software at the receiving end to get any advantage
from the software. In my opinion, that is pretty much what renders
this software useless for most purposes.
b) its syntax is merely "LaTeX-like", meaning that you can't
copy&paste passages from ongoing LaTeX documents and expect them to
transfer without further additions.
c) one thing I didn't mention yet: the quality of typesetting is
vastly inferior to that of TeX or LaTeX or pretty much any system used
for visually arranging math.
preview-latex does not have any of those disadvantages since it uses
MIME inline graphics (which most MIME-capable mailreaders support),
and uses LaTeX directly for typesetting.
Of course, using it only for sending around mail would not be worth
the trouble: its main utility is as an efficient editing tool for
creating LaTeX documents with the visual feedback cycle of a WYSIWYG
system.
Used in that manner, sending mail with math is a pleasant byproduct
that is effortless to use and did take less than 100 code lines to
implement, since preview-latex already has created all the images in
the process of WYSIWYG editing, and Emacs already has tools for
sending out multipart MIME messages.
> It is also not necessary to run Mr. Kastrup's software for this
> purpose. I hope there are other applications for his emacs + TeX
> that are more compelling, and would justify downloading the several
> hundred megabytes of other code that is needed.(TeX, Ghostscript,
> mingw or cygwin if you are using windows, of some sort, and
> emacs.).
Well, if you are objecting to creating documents with LaTeX, it would
appear strange to search for a tool that obeyed LaTeX syntax.
So I don't really count the size of a TeX distribution and GhostScript
as something particular to using preview-latex. It is particular to
creating well-typeset math.
> And for going through his installation and documentation.
Which takes about a quarter of an hour following a detailed
step-by-step instruction, if you have the listed prerequisites
installed (suitable TeX distribution, GhostScript, specified Emacs
versions).
Of those, only Emacs can be called something you might install
specifically for the sake of using preview-latex: you would not use
preview-latex if you would not want to use LaTeX.
And indeed, I have even reports from vi users that use Emacs just for
editing LaTeX texts, and the tipping point being preview-latex (of
course, AUCTeX's other features are appreciated as well, but they do
not seem to be as compelling as to make a vi user switch).
> You might, of course, already have some of this software downloaded,
> and you might be perfectly happen to learn yet another TeX system
> interface.
Decide yourself. If you are talking about "yet another TeX system
interface", it would appear strange that you start from the assumption
that the system does not yet have TeX installed when talking about the
download size.
> And of course it is nice to see documents beautifully typeset.
>
> Summary: The argument that you need it for sending email is just not
> convincing. Being nasty to each other on 4 newsgroups tends to
> decrease any enthusiasm one might have for any of your positions.
Are you sure you are not confusing the writers in this thread? I did
not see the posting from Gregory that you replied to as being nasty.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
In article <1116076720.f7df9d5ef711c7829a2954e2d2f07406@teranews> Jan Panteltje
> On a sunny day (Sat, 14 May 2005 01:40:38 GMT) it happened "Dik T. Winter"
>
....
> >You would talk quite different if some automatic program in the world did
> >send you core dumps. Yes, happened here, and the automatic program was
>
> hehe, I have been running this server now for some time.
> On average there are several attacks per day.
> This Linux system has good firewalling, and here (almost) automatically
> the IP will be added to ipchains for a total reject.
Yes, it is the "almost" that is a problem. If you do not have a nearly
continuous check, the mail system is overflown before you have any
knowledge about it. Our major mail system is running Solaris, also quite
immune to many things. But even if you limit e-mail size there can be
problems, like when one of the employees received about 100,000 emails
per minute during a few days. And blocking on inconsistent reverse
mapping is not an option. Some of our major contacts are badly
configured.
> >not under our control. Opening unlimited mail connections makes you
> >vulnerable to DOS-attacks. Proper methods to transfer large files are HTTP
>
> Well, since I run Linux, I can open almost anything I like, it won't execute,
> this system has been up for 4 years in this configuration, and NEVER had a
> virus or even downtime due to attack IN 13 YEARS of Linux.
> I pity the poor MS Windows users, who are daily victims of their crap.
Oh, indeed. But my point was that there are better ways to transfer large
files. At least better than e-mail.
> >(for pick-up) or FTP (for drop down). (Provided your servers are
> >well-configured of course.)
>
> Yes, that last thing, use password on ftp upload, I even disable upload
> altogether unless I expect something big.
Well, would not have worked here some time ago when we were working on
some RSA number. We got really huge amounts of data, and as the people
supplying data were very different, we had set-up the ability to do an
anonymous upload to the FTP server. It was however done in such a way
that downloads from that area were impossible. If it was filled
completely the problem was not serious, as it was known who had attempted
to upload when full, so we could contact those people. Never happened
however.
> Je bent bij CWI? had je iets te doen met dat RSA200 primes gedoe?
> Oh, Fermats laatse :-)
I think quite a few calculations were done on CWI machines. Through
the agency of Peter Montgomery. And FLT has nothing to do with it.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
Gregory L. Hansen
> In article <4284ea64$0$6770$dbd41001@news.wanadoo.nl>,
> Frank Slootweg
> >bz
>
> > So please try to come up with some *real* arguments instead of "I
> >don't like non-text, so there!".
>
> How about... My newsreader can't render non-text? I ssh to a shell
> account to read e-mail. If someone sends me a picture I have to save it,
> fire up the sftp program, transfer it to my local computer, and then open
> it. If someone sends me an URL with the label "click here" I have to set
> my newsreader in verbose mode (it renders HTML as well as it can be
> rendered in pure text), and wade through hundreds of lines of shit that
> set fonts and colors and so on, and copy the link into my browser.
>
> HTML is also good for a few spam stars from Spam Assassin. But the text
> mail promising g)uarant;eed low r/\tes on my mor)tgage usually seems to
> get through.
Note that the main topic of this thread is not HTML and surely not
spam. (FWIW: My newsreader is also a text-only one and I have used
text-only e-mail clients for over three decades.)
The messages under discusiion are sent as multipart/alternative with
one part in 'text' (LaTex) format, so, as their website explains, your
text-only e-mail client should have no problem with it.
Just FYI (AFAICT you subscribe to comp.mail.misc, so this FYI is
probably mainly for the subscribers of the other groups):
The topic of (non) valid use of HTML has recently been discussed at
length in comp.mail.misc. See thread "Percentage of General Public with
Web Based Emails", starting on April 22,
Summary: That the vast majority of messages use HTML when it is not
needed (i.e. as a one-to-one copy of the text/plain part), does not
mean that it does not have valid use in some cases.
Frank Slootweg
$dbd45001@news.wanadoo.nl:
> Gregory L. Hansen
>> In article <4284ea64$0$6770$dbd41001@news.wanadoo.nl>,
>> Frank Slootweg
>> >bz
>> >> I don't like non-text e-mail.
>> > So please try to come up with some *real* arguments instead of "I
>> >don't like non-text, so there!".
>>
>> How about... My newsreader can't render non-text? I ssh to a shell
>> account to read e-mail. If someone sends me a picture I have to save
it,
>> fire up the sftp program, transfer it to my local computer, and then
open
.....
>
> The topic of (non) valid use of HTML has recently been discussed at
> length in comp.mail.misc. See thread "Percentage of General Public with
> Web Based Emails", starting on April 22,
>
>
> Summary: That the vast majority of messages use HTML when it is not
> needed (i.e. as a one-to-one copy of the text/plain part), does not
> mean that it does not have valid use in some cases.
Just because there are valid uses for a 'jack hammer' does not mean that it
should be used for everything.
e-mail clients that allow and/or default to originating html
are like using a jack hammer to drive screws.
It isn't going to work well, it causes a huge amount of collateral damage,
it is big and clumsey. It is costly.
A way to convey equations through e-mail has similar problems and it is
even less useful.
Besides, html can be used to convey equations, if one REALLY wants to do
it.
Use word, equation editor,
write what ever you want to write,
save as html,
start your html email,
open the html file created by word in an html editor,
and do a copy, paste,
send.
(I may have added or left out a step somewhere, but it can be made to work)
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
bz
> Frank Slootweg
> $dbd45001@news.wanadoo.nl:
>
> > Gregory L. Hansen
> >> In article <4284ea64$0$6770$dbd41001@news.wanadoo.nl>,
> >> Frank Slootweg
> >> >bz
> >> >> I don't like non-text e-mail.
> >> > So please try to come up with some *real* arguments instead of "I
> >> >don't like non-text, so there!".
> >>
> >> How about... My newsreader can't render non-text? I ssh to a shell
> >> account to read e-mail. If someone sends me a picture I have to save
> it,
> >> fire up the sftp program, transfer it to my local computer, and then
> open
> ....
> >
> > The topic of (non) valid use of HTML has recently been discussed at
> > length in comp.mail.misc. See thread "Percentage of General Public with
> > Web Based Emails", starting on April 22,
> >
> >
> > Summary: That the vast majority of messages use HTML when it is not
> > needed (i.e. as a one-to-one copy of the text/plain part), does not
> > mean that it does not have valid use in some cases.
>
> Just because there are valid uses for a 'jack hammer' does not mean that it
> should be used for everything.
Indeed. That's exactly what the/my Summary: says.
[more repetition deleted]
> A way to convey equations through e-mail has similar problems and it is
> even less useful.
>
> Besides, html can be used to convey equations, if one REALLY wants to do
> it.
>
> Use word, equation editor,
> write what ever you want to write,
> save as html,
> start your html email,
> open the html file created by word in an html editor,
> and do a copy, paste,
> send.
> (I may have added or left out a step somewhere, but it can be made to work)
HTML is bad and now you propose something which uses Word? Do I detect
a slight inconsistency here? :-)
Anyway, you might want to give this 'solution' to the OP, because
AFAICT from their website, they don't know how to do equations in HTML
(but use GIF instead).
Frank Slootweg
$dbd41001@news.wanadoo.nl:
> HTML is bad and now you propose something which uses Word? Do I detect
> a slight inconsistency here? :-)
inconsistency? me? :)
I think that my opinion of HTML in e-mail will have little effect on its
use. And as long as people 'must' use it, they might as well use it to send
equations.
I am NOT sure that the equation editor to html conversion doesn't make gifs
out of the equations.
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
On a sunny day (16 May 2005 07:35:09 GMT) it happened Frank Slootweg
Anyway, you might want to give this 'solution' to the OP, because
>AFAICT from their website, they don't know how to do equations in HTML
>(but use GIF instead).
Maybe do not critizese OP:
When I export from StarOffice as html, it creates a xxx.html file, and little gifs for the mathematical
symbols.
So I think this is actually the only way, but maybe not.
Anyways, in Linux I can then grab the html screen from the browser as say a .png, and use libpdf
to make a nice pdf from it.
It requires some programming (minimal), but we are still free software, and now we have a professional
looking pdf.
I am using old pdflib PDFlib-Lite-5.0.4p1-Unix-src and some test routines from older version 3.
The real pdf lib costs 700 Euro I think...
But normally html would be OK, especially for on the web, going the html2ps route is nice too,
I have tried that too.
..
In article
>Jan Panteltje
>news:1116013674.121da39c82f13ee8b0f13fd8bce50a3b@teranews:
>
>>>People have no idea that 20 kbytes is the largest allowed e-mail.
>>>Anything larger than that gets chopped up into 20kbyte segments that get
>>>sent separately, as separate messages.
>> Where did you get that idea?
>
>Darned if I know now?
>> What rfc specifies that?
>
Your probably thinking of message fragmentation which is defined in
RFC 2046 sections 5.2.2, 5.2.2.1 and 5.2.2.2.
It is meant to be used when "intermediate transport agents limit the size of
individual messages which can be sent".
Both mail servers and mail clients can be configured to fragment and reassemble
mail messages.
However your 20K limit was probably a local fragmentation limit from quite
sometime ago.
Any mailhubs doing content scanning for viruses etc should either reassemble
fragmented mail messages before scanning (preferred solution) or block
message/partial messages. Otherwise they risk letting through malicious files.
This issue came to the fore in 2002 see for instance
http://www.securiteam.com/securitynews/5YP0A0K8CM.html
David Webb
Security team leader
CCSS
Middlesex University
>I can't find one that does.
>
>Back when we were running ccMail, I know that there were several limits. I
>think that a message header of over 3kbytes would crash the e-mail client.
>And I would have bet a dollar that somewhere it says that due to
>limitations on e-mail relays, messages over 20 kbytes were broken up into
>20kbyte segments. But I can't find anything to indicate that I am not
>wrong.
>
>Maybe I got confused at some time and confounded ethernet packets with e-
>mail messages but I don't know where the 20 kbyte idea came from. I thought
>it had something to do with a 32kbyte total size limit.
>
>Ah well. If some email systems used to do so, it looks like none do
>anymore. Sorry for the bum steer.
>
>> I decided to test your idea, and send a 5691718 bytes wmv movie as
>> attachemnt to myself.
>> It took a while to get send...
>> This is what it looks like on my machine in:
>> -rw------- 1 root root 7717362 May 13 21:14 root
>> It gets bigger because of the encoding of cause.
>> I can follow the process exactly, as this machine also runs the sendmail
>> server.
>> It is not split for as far as I can see in transmission.
>> Some free MS windows programs limit email size I think, Linux does not
>> have anything stupido like that of cause.
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>--
>bz
>
>please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
>infinite set.
>
>bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote in news:d6ac3l$c0r$1@news.mdx.ac.uk:
> Your probably thinking of message fragmentation which is defined in
> RFC 2046 sections 5.2.2, 5.2.2.1 and 5.2.2.2.
>
> It is meant to be used when "intermediate transport agents limit the
> size of individual messages which can be sent".
> Both mail servers and mail clients can be configured to fragment and
> reassemble mail messages.
> However your 20K limit was probably a local fragmentation limit from
> quite sometime ago.
>
Thanks. I was hoping I wasn't going crazy. :)
--
bz
please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.
bz+sp@ch100-5.chem.lsu.edu remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap
fyi;
There is this related web page:
http://mathforum.org/typesetting/email.html