Re: real long message - JPG attached

Bart De Pontieu (BDP@MPEPL)
Fri, 01 Mar 1996 09:22:49 +0100 (CET) 

Phil Chien writes:

>My apologies in advance for posting this here, but I thought it was of
>enough interest for most of the group's readers.  

[in my best Scottish voice]
"Cap'n Phil, stop yer posting of base64 encoded jpegs! You've cracked the
DiLithium crystals! The SeeSat-engines can't take it very much longer!" 

And for non-Trekkies:

Posting encoded files to an e-mail forum like SeeSat-L is generally not a
good idea. These files are usually not small, and many people have to pay
for e-mail. Some of the encoding formats, esp. the ignominious 'base64',
can *not* be decoded by a majority of people. And finally, not everyone may
be interested in the pictures/zip-files.

If the above reasons are not convincing, maybe the fact that neither
Walter Nissen nor I like encoded messages on SeeSat-L, is ? :-)

But Phil has a good question:

>(and how in the heck do I upload a file to the archives?)

You can 'beam it up' to the archives in two ways:

1. Use anonymous ftp to Neil's ftp-site at: ftp.physics.ox.ac.uk
Put your files in the subdirectory /pub/sat/incoming
No need to encode the file, if you set 'binary'.
Please send a message to Neil (n.clifford1@physics.oxford.ac.uk) or
me to tell us that a file has been put there. Neil or I will then put
it in the appropriate subdirectory of the ftp-site in Oxford and also put 
it on the SeeSat-L e-mail archive in Garching (uuencoded)

2. Send it uuencoded to me, by e-mail. I will make the other necessary steps
for you then.

But please mark the following, unless you want to get blasted by our phazers:

1. Do NOT ever ever ever ever ever send files that are encoded in 'base64'.
I am not using a Mac (or whatever machine is to be held responsible for that
encoding) or Mime, and I have no capability of decoding these files.

2. Only, exclusively, uniquely use 'uuencode' if you send something to me
through e-mail.

[and my apologies to everyone for never having put it as clearly as in the
above. Any frustration evident from the last few sentences is largely my fault
for not clarifying the procedure earlier :-]

Engage,
   Bart 'Scotty' De Pontieu <bdp@mpepl.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de>