What's the Problem?

• E-mail is built on text-only foundation

• Modern GUI mail programs use "attachments", often hide real size

• Inefficient; size balloons (binary -> base64), multiple copies

• We still have limits: network bandwidth, mail spool size

• Other mail servers don't allow large files (varies); bounces will fill our spool

• Can bring servers to their knees.

Good Practices for using E-Mail

• GOFUPT: Good Old-Fashioned Unadorned Plain Text

• Lowest Common Denominator:
  • Don't send word doc to WP person (use RTF or GOFUPT)

  • Ask if recipients can read your format if binary is needed

• Small attachments to a few people is reasonable

• For Large attachments (> 100 Kbytes?), ask recipients before sending, don't send to a large list

• Don't leave huge folders on the server! (Avoid lynch mobs)

(Really) Bad Uses for e-mail

(don't try these; please!)

• Sending your 128-channel 1024 x 1024 spectral line cube to your colleague (even if it is a breakthrough)

• Distributing plain text files in an overhead-heavy binary format, e.g. badly prepared PDF files

• Sending medium-size or large files to a large mailing list (>100 members)

• Star Wars MPEG trailers (just say no)

Consequences of Bad Use of E-Mail

• Your mail will likely bounce, because:
  • Other sites have (often small) limits on e-mail size

  • Other users may filter mail and reject large files

• For really large files, or even modest size files with many recipients, it may fill up spool areas

• It may fill up the recipient's disk quota on non-NRAO systems

• It doesn't look good (you should show you know what you're doing)

• It can have an effect on everyone (if mail delivery stops)

Alternatives to E-Mail

• Publish it on the Web:
  • On Unix, use the /users/username/public_html/ directory.

  • On NT, use the \\polaris\username share, put files in the pubic_html folder.

  • URL will be: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~username/myfile

  • index.html (or index.shtml) in this area is your "work page". No such file means anyone can do a directory listing on the area.

• Use a binary protocol like FTP:
  • /home/ftp/NRAO-staff/username/
    (ask a sysadmin to set this up if it's not already there)

  • On NT, use the //polaris/ftp-user share (or //polaris/ftp-staff)

  • Access instructions for your colleagues:
    • connect to ftp.cv.nrao.edu
    • cd to /NRAO-staff/username
    • bin (if content is not plain text)
    • get myfile

Final Thoughts

• Check size and content: if plain text will do, use it. Use "save as" to an appropriate format.

• For binary files, try zip, gzip, and/or bzip to compress it before sending (some files compress to 1/10 of original size).

• Avoid using Sun's mailtool for attachments (most other mailers don't understand Sun's format

• Avoid forwarding MIME content (attachments) from a non-MIME program like elm (temporarily use pine, mutt, or netscape instead).