__/ [Colin Day] on Wednesday 12 October 2005 04:33 \__
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> __/ [chrisv] on Tuesday 11 October 2005 16:42 \__
>>
>>
>>>I thought it was bad-enough that some people use Word docs to
>>>communicate what could easily be text files or plain-text emails.
>>>What happened today, boggled my mind. I received an email, which had
>>>an attached Excel spreadsheet. The sole purpose of the spreadsheet
>>>was to contain three pictures, and rather small and crappy ones at
>>>that. A proprietary-format file, of 3MB size, to transmit 3 small
>>>jpgs. Incredible.
>>
>>
>> When I use OpenOffice I frequently think of it, for one odd reason or
>> another, as running virtual PC. It's a resource pig and it's difficult to
>> take away and edit at some faraway resort. OOo 1.1 is very slow because
>> it's JRE-reliant and the process of opening an M$ proprietary from an
>> E-mail using OOo makes up a long 'recipe' of steps. Thus, I am always
>> very reluctant to use OOo. By using OOo I believe I may encourage people
>> to send me more of the same junk. Why? Because I am able to 'absorb' it
>> silently. I recently exported all proprietary including spreadsheets as
>> HTML and I now manage everything on-line, even what is forced upon me.
>>
>> It is very disturbing when I get Word files that contain nothing more
>> than uniform-styled text telling me that I must do nothing to register
>> (this afternoon that was...). What is the deficiency of plain
>> ASCII.?Look.... *bold*, /italics/, _underlined_. Many clients even
>> interpret these correctly, e.g. KNode, KMail, Horde...
>>
>> What's worse than proprietary formats and idiotic software can sometimes
>> be the people who use it. That's exactly what your message has reminded
>> us. I still have hundreds of MB's in my inbox due to colleagues who
>> compile LaTeX to produce 5 MB PDF's when identical PDF's can be as small
>> as 300k using some compression knowledge, production experience or having
>> /awareness/ and competence. Some people don't know (or wish to know)
>> about E-mail archives, modem connections or standards (some would say
>> "elegance"). Linux users, on the contrary, have retained good awareness
>> and understanding of technology and it is often why they get rewarded the
>> most, albeit not using monetary measures as a criterion.
>>
>> Roy
>>
>
> Maybe you should request the *.tex files and compile them yourself.
>
> Colin Day
Big Poppa is doing it already. See, for example:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/preprints.html
I reckon that Knuth knows how to compile it properly...
Roy
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