Joe asked me a question at the Mullies meeting this week.

Hi Matt

Further to our conversation at Mulligrubs, I have forwarded the email in question.

It was sent to me via Outlook Express and as you suggested this may not be suitable to on forward via Thunderbird. When I have sent this particular message previously in the same circumstances, the message follows the text as well as being sent as an attachment.

Joe’s email has an animated picture attached to it which is the punchline to a joke. The email is sent as html which is the same language that webpages are written in.  So just like webpages can have embedded graphics, animations and the like the email can too.

The problem comes when the person opening the email has a different program than the person who sent it. As I discussed with Joe in some instances Thunderbird doesn’t show the email the same as Outlook Express or Outlook would. This is the same sort of program difference that causes poorly written webpages to look different in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

One solution to Joe’s problem is to save the email as an external file and then attach that file to an email for forwarding. This is often a good idea as it gives you a brand new clean email to write in without forwarding all those friends addresses, maybe to a spammer or infected computer.

To get the file and details out of a html email the easy way is to save it as a html file. Just open the email - the original one maybe attached if it has been ‘forwarded as attachment’. Drill down to the message with the joke and then:

in Thunderbird click File Menu - Save as - File – Html

In Outlook or Outlook Express Click File – Save As – Choose HTML under the File type pull down

Now you can send the html file you saved to your computer as an attachment to an email or view it in your browser (Internet Explorer / Firefox)

One of the problems with the email Joe received is that the image is an animated GIF. It's like a cartoon - a few different frames slightly changed that give the impression of movement/animation See more about GIFs here.

A lot of picture viewer programs won't show the image moving even if you save/extract it right. If you extract it right you should always see it moving if you open it in your browser (Internet Explorer / Firefox)

Hope this was helpful

Oh and here is Joe’s picture for you 

OK – this isn’t really about technology but I though you might enjoy the photos on the following website.

Sports Illustrated - Beijing Paralympics

Earlier this year, Oscar Pistorius (a.k.a. the Blade Runner) came within a hair’s breadth of making South Africa’s Olympic team. The achievement was a clear demonstration that in time, double amputees may well outpace able-bodied competitors. And meanwhile, it’s worth remembering that there’s more than one games in town.

Earlier this month, SI Online posted a remarkable photo essay from the just-wrapped Paralympics in Beijing. Four thousand disabled athletes competed in the same Olympic venues we saw this August: the Indoor Stadium, the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube. There were soccer games between teams of visually impaired players — all of whom wore blindfolds to even things out — and a shot-put event in which the athletes strapped themselves into wheelchairs before rolling onto the pitch. Army 1st Lieut. Melissa Stockwell, who lost her left leg to an IED in Baghdad in 2004, was a special favourite of the Americans. And Oscar Pistorius won three golds, setting three Paralympic records. As for the photographs — they’re as extraordinary as the athletes themselves.

Found via VeryShortList

Here are some interesting articles/links from around the Internet

Web's Best 50 Free Downloads

Here’s a list of 50 free programs for you to download. In truth many of these you will  already have or have heard of but you may find something new here. If anyone on dial-up would like some of these programs downloaded and burned to CD just let me know

 

 

The Cyber Crime Hall of Fame

Rules are made to be broken the same way networks are made to be hacked into. These are nine of the most infamous criminal hackers to ever see the inside of a jail cell.

 

 

 

Top 10 Amazing Physics Videos

There are 10 good videos on science type topics at this site. Videos best viewed with broadband but may work (eventually) with dial-up.

I like this one – water droplets in space!

 

 

 

 

Brain Games

Some Flash games to play on the net but these ones have a purpose. To sharpen your mind!

I like Split Words - This game requires you to form words from fragments. The words are compiled using a theme and may have two or three parts.

 

If anyone finds anything cool on the net send us through a link.

G'day all

Have been a bit on the busy side with Apex and other community activities so the posts/emails haven’t been coming out

If anyone has anything interesting to share or questions to ask please send through as usual. In the meantime I thought I would send through this offer

We have talked about Acronis True Image before (see here)and Ian has even demonstrated it a couple of times

Right now at the Acronis site you can buy the full program for download for US$9.99 – about $13 Aussie. This program usually goes for over $60

Sometimes you can cheap offers for older or cut-down versions of programs but not here. This is the new full version 11 and is great value. The new version even includes a ‘sandbox’ feature – similar to Sandboxie I demonstrated at Mullies a couple of meetings ago

Here’s a link to a review of Acronis 11 at PC Authority.
Price says A$63 so we are saving $50!

If you aren’t doing full image back-ups of your PC now – buy this
If you don’t know if you are backing up your machine – you aren’t – buy this
If you have a less than legal copy of this program (like I used to) – buy this

Really it’s a good deal
And no I don’t get a commission or anything – wish I did :)

See you at the next Mullies meeting or if I see you on the internet be sure to wave and say hi

learning how to update just my status via ping.fm - I think

Hi Matt

Can you help me with "grounding" I wish to add RAM to my computer but whilst reading up noticed numerous references to "grounding" I don’t want to stuff it up, what's the easy way to eliminate the chance of a spike? Cheers Brian   

 

Hi Brian – good question! Whenever we stick our hands (or heads) inside a computer case we should be very cautious about the possibility of zapping the components with a static electricity discharge. Static electricity can cause quite a lot of damage to sensitive parts, such as ram, inside your computer.

Professional repair shops probably have specialised equipment for grounding themselves and the simplest of these is an ‘earthing strap’ which is basically a little wrist strap you put on your wrist and attach to the computer case. This basically levels out the static charge between you and the components so you don’t zap them. Really professional operations might have grounding mats and all sorts of other devices including temperature and dust controlled environments.

I have been fiddling with PC bits for years. I have never used a strap or other device and to my knowledge I have never stuffed anything. Just be aware of course that once you open your computer case you do need to be cautious. No only could you damage the components but there could be residual current and you could injure yourself. I have scratched and cut myself on sharp corners in there and your blood will do nothing to lubricate the performance of your PC!

The only precautions I ever take is to have clean hands and to touch the case and power supply before touching any other parts like the ram or motherboard. Unless you have been running on the carpet and rubbing a balloon on your tummy this should discharge any static electricity difference between you and the PC.

Below I have linked a couple of articles that may give you some more information on the topic. The first link is the Google search I did to find the other sites.

Of course you know that upgrading your ram will probably be like getting a whole new computer. Win XP struggles with less than 512mb of ram but will really fly with 1G or more. Vista needs at least 2Gb but that's progress for you! Let us know how you go Brian

Google Search

What is the best way to ground myself to discharge static electricity?

Avoid Static Damage to Your PC

How To Upgrade Your RAM

How to Add Memory Modules To Your Computer To Boost Speed

This article at Atomic suggests that there will be more WGA fun coming to your Windows machine – particularly if you are running Windows XP Pro. If someone is running a pirated version of Windows then they deserve these problems I guess but usually these sort of initiatives stop some perfectly legal PCs working too. Time will tell whether this is as annoying as the last WGA patch.

Any bets on how long it takes the internet hackers to circumvent the patch? My bet is a reliable workaround widely available in less than a week. I don’t know why Microsoft don’t work harder on making the system better and cheaper rather than wasting their efforts trying to stop it being stolen.

FOR THOSE OF YOU who come online to escape the nagging wife, bad news is ahead – Microsoft is introducing what can only be described as 'nagware' in an attempt to stamp out piracy of its beloved operating system.
The new Windows Genuine notification software will aim to stop the stolen and pirated versions of software being circulated using new Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) which comes into effect this week.
The WGA notifications will be delivered via Windows Update and will default the users background to black if the copy is deemed counterfeit.
A spokeswoman for Microsoft said that, "the update simply reconfigures the notifications experience to mirror notifications in Windows Vista SP1."
This annoying piece of inspiration will make it easier for Microsoft to detect stolen and pirated software as well as fake product keys.
The spokeswoman continued to say that, "Microsoft is making these changes to simplify the installation process (making it easy for customers to stay up-to-date), to increase the effectiveness of these notifications, and to align experiences across Windows XP and Windows Vista." – hmmm.
The nagware will be aimed specifically at XP Professional users for now, as Microsoft believes this is the most pirated edition.
XP users who don't have WGA notifications will be asked to accept an End User License Agreement which gives the users consent for the anti-piracy validation control to auto-update itself with fewer releases.
Microsoft thinks this irritant will take a couple of months to roll out – you have been warned.