MS-Word text document [.doc],

a Word Perfect document [.doc] or a

Microsoft Excel [.xls] spreadsheet,

it can be opened by following the following procedure:

• Create a free email account at http://mail.yahoo.com

NOTE: Yahoo! Mail has recently changed. To access it properly with WebTV / MSN TV, go to http://proxify.com and enter the URL, http://mail.yahoo.com in the box, then press Return. You should see a blue Secure Page: notice in your Status Bar at bottom left. Use Proxify to access Yahoo! Mail each time you go there.

http://proxify.com can also be used to access some Secure sites such as credit card and banking sites normally not usable by WebTV / MSN TV

• Forward the email with the attachment to your Yahoo! Mail account
• Using Proxify, go to your Yahoo Inbox, open the email and scroll down
• Click on the View attachment button

For text documents only, once you get viewable text on the screen, you can use Cut and Paste to copy it into an email of your own, or you can Print it. You will have to put in new paragraph breaks using the Return/Enter key.

You can print Excel spreadsheets directly, assuming they are small enough to display properly, but using cut and paste on the spreadsheet data will result in an unformatted mess when you insert the data into an area where you can write.

Some octet-stream types are application-specific, meaning that even a computer user cannot open them unless he/she also has the exact same program that was used to create the attachment file; but read the rest of this page to learn how to open and view other common types of computer file attachments.

.exe and .bat files

If an attachment file name ends in .exe, it's an executable file, that is, a small computer program in and of itself, and requires a computer to run, or execute.

A .bat file is a batch-processing file -- a similar but simpler, executable file, which also requires a computer to run.

There are no work-arounds and WebTV/MSN TV can't do anything with either of these types of files.

.exe and .bat attachments are the most common type used to carry computer viruses, worms, and other destructive attacks, so if you get one from someone you don't know, DELETE IT immediately.

Luckily, due to MSN TV's protective "firewall" and virus-detection/disabling software, WebTV/MSN TV cannot get a virus [at least so far!].

But we could unintentionally infect computer users by forwarding emails with .exe, .bat or any other types of attachments to them.

Other current types of computer-virus-carrying attachments include small photographs or graphics, seemingly unrelated to the email's content, and audio file attachments we can't click on and hear.

.bmp files

.bmp files are bitmaps, graphics files created by computer graphics programs.

If the .bmp file is sent as an attachment, you can separate it from the email and view and get a temporary URL [Universal Resource Locator, the web site "address"] it by following the procedure, "Get Temporary URL for Images in Email," farther down on this page.

Photos In an Email ["Inline Images"]

If you receive an email with a photo or graphic shown in the body of the email, along with the text, it's called an "inline" image. It's not an attachment, but since there are so many questions relating to this, here's how you can "separate" the image(s) from the email so you can, for example, add it to your Pagebuilder Scrapbook and put it on a web page:

• While viewing the email, click on Forward on the left sidebar of the screen
• Address it to pics@hyperbrowse.com and Send it
• Depending on Internet/Web traffic, you should receive the image(s) back without the text within an half-hour or so

  NOTE: pics@hypebrowse.com is an automated service. If it doesn't work the first time, try it once or twice more.

• If you've activated your Scrapbook by Publishing a Pagebuilder web page, even a blank one, when you open the return email you will have another link on the left sidebar of your screen: Scrapbook
• Click on Scrapbook and you will be given the option to add it
• After adding it to your Scrapbook, you can then add it to a Pagebuilder web page by choosing "Add Item", "Picture," "from Scrapbook."
• After it's on your web page, Publish or Re-Publish the page
• To get a permanent URL for the image, go from your Published page directly to http://www.webscissors.com and click on "Show last URL."
• Find the image you want, then click on Details and you'll see the size and permanent URL, which you can send to others in email.

Get Temporary URLs for Images in Email

The following was posted by The Editor as a means of getting a temporary URL for images [photos, graphics] in emails.

These temporary URLs can be used to change a computer-format image to a .jpg so you can view it, to transload images to outside web hosting sites [not Pagebuilder] or for other uses.

The temporary URLs will expire in a half hour or so, if you're going to change a .bmp file to a .jpg, transload, etc., do it promptly!

Whenever you get "pictures or unclickable attachments" in email, the way to get the URL (web address) of those pictures, is this: 



1. Go to http://paulding.net/ (you will see the following under the topic *eMail Sources):



------------------------------- 

• eMail Sources 

"Bounce" emails and newsgroup posts to reveal headers, HTML markup - and as a bonus, you can extract most (base64-encoded) MIME attachments as well for transloading! Simply forward it to bounce@paulding.net and you'll receive a URL in 5 or 10 minutes (assuming that your email server is running OK) 

---------------------------- 



2. Put bounce@paulding.net in your Email Address Book

 

3. Take the email, that was sent to you with the pics/attachment, and FORWARD that email to bounce@paulding.net (That's all you have to do! You don't have to add anything or detract anything, just FORWARD that sucker) 



4. In 5 to 10 minutes you will receive an automated email back from bounce@paulding.net with a single URL on it. 



5. Click on that URL 



6. You will see that the bounce is in several different parts, like this: 



Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13 



7. Each page contain a different portion of the headers on the email that you sent in to bounce@paulding.net 



8. You DON'T have to go through each part. 



9. Find the Page that has the info on the pics/attachments (usually the 3rd OR 4th page from the bottom - that would be Page 10 or Page 11 on this example) 



10. Once you have found that page, (the part that has info on the pics or attachment) click on the link that says "Decode base64 file" (it's the only clickable link on the page) 



11. The URL of "the picture" will appear, ready to be copied and transloaded. (if numerous pics were sent, click on the "Decode base64 file" on each page until you have gotten a URL for each pic) 



12. If you click on the "Decode base64 file" and it says: "There was nothing on this page to extract", then go to the next Page and click on the "Decode base64 file" link. (it's on one of the Pages near the bottom, and the URL "IS" there!) You can then take that URL and transload to your account. 



* Remember the "URL of the pic/attachment" is on the "Decode base64 file" link on either the "3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th page, from the bottom" on the "returned FORWARDED" email that you sent in to bounce@paulding.net 

• .pdf files received in email

  Forward the email to pdf2txt@adobe.com and it will be opened and returned to you in plain text.

  If you wish to have it returned in HTML format, "forward" it to pdf2html@adobe.com

  
  According to Adobe, these are services that you may use sparingly, as they are really for the blind and visually handicapped.

  Letter from Adobe.com:

  The service was originally designed for the visually impaired, but we don't mind if sighted individuals use the service occasionally. Just keep in mind our bandwidth is limited and if you were to use the service frequently to convert large numbers of files, that it could make it more difficult for the visually impaired to get the conversions they need. 
  
  Also remember if you use the service, that it can only convert the text in a PDF, not graphical images, so you might find the service of limited use to you, depending on what you need to convert. Your best bet would be to access PDF files from a computer with Acrobat or Acrobat Reader installed, rather than from WebTV. 
  
  Regards,
  
  Alyssa
  
  Access.adobe.com

PDF files on a website

1. On the website, click on the button to download the file or form you want to see.
2. When you get the "This is a type of information WebTV can't use" popup, press the GoTo key, then click on "Show last" on the popup.
3. The URL [web site address for the form] will appear in the GoTo window
4. Press and hold down the Cmd key and press the letter a at the same time to highlight all of the URL [Cmd-a]
5. Press Cmd-c to copy the URL

Go to either of the sites below, find the window, erase the http:// and paste the URL into the window by pressing Cmd-v, then click the button

You'll see the text of the form, and from that you can Print or simply read and make notes.

• Paulding.com Observer (unknown size limit, but it will open BIG .pdf files!)

  http://www.paulding.net/viewpdf.html

• http://www.samurajdata.se/~cj/ps.html
• access.adobe.com

  http://access.adobe.com/simple_form.html

See the caution, above, about using the access.adobe.com sites

Printing .pdf Files

Governmental agencies, such as the IRS, require that printed .pdf forms be graphically correct. There is a way to do this:

• Get and copy the URL of the .pdf file on the website, as explained above.
• Go to

  http://tom.library.upenn.edu/convert/

  erase the http:// in the lower box and press Cmd-v to insert the .pdf file's URL

• Set the drop-down Input file format to .pdf and set the Output set .gif [graphic image file format]
• Click on the button to convert the file.
• There will be a series of links to follow. For example, the page may state that the file consists of a series of steps. Click on the link to the steps and follow the links.

  At some point in the process, for each page there will be a link to a single .gif which will show a full-screen version of the .pdf file, without any other text above or below it.

• Use the Options key or Cmd-P to bring up the Print popup; Click on Print [not "Print screen"] to print your form.

NOTE: The image page produced by the conversion server is only temporary. So print out copies as needed, or use an Add Image tool to add it to your Scrapbook for future use. If you don't add the .gif image to your Scrapbook and later need it, you must go through the process above again.

.zip files

ZIP is a format for archiving other files. Multiple files can be packaged together in one file (useful for keeping associated files together) and compression is used that may decrease file size (although JPG and GIF files rarely can be compressed further.)

Again, the quickest, easiest way to get a viewable version is to ask the person who emailed you a .zip file to re-send an unzipped original; if there are multiple files, ask him/her to send each file as a separate attachment, not in a folder of files.

Text must be in ASCII [plaintext], graphics in .gif format, photos in .jpg format.

If that's not possible, to unzip a file received in email, first separate the .zip file from the email and get a temporary URL, as described above in Get Temporary URLs for Images in Email

Then sign up for a free "sampler" site at http://homes.paulding.net/bin/new.cgi

You can use the software tools at Paulding Homes to transfer the .zip file from its temporary URL to your own permanent web site there.

Once it's been transferred, you will see a small black and red "c-clamp" icon in the group of icons to the left of the filename in the File Manager. Click on this icon, and a new directory will be created, with all the contents of the .zip file visible.

Failing that, and mindful that .zip files may also contain destructive computer viruses, a friend with a computer who uses the WinZip program or similar zipping/unzipping programs, may be willing to first scan the file for viruses, then unzip the file and send you back a viewable version [photos in .jpg format, graphics in .gif format, text in Plaintext (ASCII)], where applicable].

gzip [.gz] files

.gz files are gzipped, similar but different from .zip files.

This was developed by the GNU project, a free compression utility and alternative to the patented Unix utility and can be frequently encountered.

After getting a temporary URL as described above if the file has been received in email, or after attempting to view a .gz file on a web site, you can use this tool to gunzip it:

http://www.serial-code.net/tools/gzip/gzip.pl

Adding .swf files to your Scrapbook

.swf [Shockwave File] animation images can be added to your Scrapbook, here's how:

• Transload the .swf to a free website account at www.0catch.com or www.boomspeed.com.
• In your account there, rename it with a .jpg extension in place of .swf
• Use a tool site to add it to your Scrapbook.
• Finally, delete the file from your Boomspeed or 0catch.com website -- they don't allow using free accounts for online storage only; Boomspeed allows free photo storage and linking only for current eBay auctions.

To use the image, Add it to a Pagebuilder page and Publish or re-Publish the page. Then get the correct URL for it with www.webscissors.com , delete the -2 in the Pagebuilder "community-2" URL and you can link to it in your email signature or on another web page.

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Definitions

Octet stream means that the computer coding consists of eight bits [octagon (8-sided polygon) and octopus (8 tentacles) are related terms].

A "bit" is created when an electrical current flows [On, 1] or doesn't flow [Off, 0] in an electrical circuit. Bit is short for "binary digit."

Groups of 1 and 0 are used to create codes for letters, numbers, and other characters. Because two digits, 1 and 0 are used, this coding is also referred to as "binary" [bi-weekly means every two weeks, a bicycle has two wheels] and/or "digital."

Each of an octet-stream attachment's characters will be created from a group of eight 1s and 0s, for example: 01100001 [lower case a ].

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Bitmaps specify the location of each "pixel," or picture element in a display.

If you get very close to your television screen and examine it with a magnifying glass, you may be able to see the individual "dots" that create the entire image. Each of these dots is a pixel.

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