From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V13 #101 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Sunday, April 22 2007 Volume 13 : Number 101 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- Today's your birthday, friend... [Mike Matthews ] Re: Ecto & punctuation... [Kjetil Torgrim Homme ] Re: Ecto & punctuation... [Bernie Mojzes ] Re: Ecto & punctuation... ["robert bristow-johnson" Subject: Today's your birthday, friend... i*i*i*i*i*i i*i*i*i*i*i *************** *****HAPPY********* **************BIRTHDAY********* *************************************************** *************************************************************************** ********************* Harry Foster (no Email address) ********************* *************************************************************************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Harry Foster Sat April 21 1956 NiceGuy Kjetil Torgrim Homme Thu April 23 1970 Taurus Jeff Burka Thu April 24 1969 GoFlyAKite Christine Waite Tue April 25 1972 Taurus Matt Adams Thu April 26 1962 Taurus Brad Hutchinson Tue April 28 1964 What sign? Geoff Parks Sun April 30 1961 Taurus Marty Lash Sat May 01 1948 Taurus Barney Parker Fri May 02 1986 happy cat Gray Abbott Tue May 03 1955 Suprised Tamar Boursalian Tue May 03 1966 Taurus Richard A. Holmes May 07 Taurus Steve Ito Fri May 08 1970 DA Bull... Brian Gregory Thu May 09 1963 Eclectic Catherine Sundnes Sat May 09 1970 Very Catzy Heidi Maier Wed May 10 1978 Taurus Kris the boy Fri May 11 1979 Taurus Patrick Varker Wed May 12 1954 Torius Philip David Morgan Sat May 12 1962 Chinese Tiger in Bull Clothing Steve Fagg Tue May 13 1958 Nightwol Karel Zuiderveld Fri May 13 1960 Stier Michael Colford Wed May 16 1962 Taurus Christopher Boek Tue May 19 1970 Taurus Julia Macklin Mon May 20 1968 ethereus Yngve Hauge Fri May 21 1971 Gemini - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 15:05:09 +0200 From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme Subject: Re: Ecto & punctuation... [Alberto]: > > I just posted a long-ass message and oddly, yes, thanks :-) > much of the punctuation randomly doesn't show up on the copy I > received - apostrophes, commas, parentheses, quotation marks, > periods, etc... I'm really not a complete dork in that > department. (and it does all show up in my out-going e-mail) I > never noticed that happening before... I wonder if it's a Yahoo > problem or what? Does anyone else have that problem? I see it quite often on the ecto list, but I haven't taken note who sends them. what happens is that your message is sent with headers indicating the character set ISO Latin 1, but in 7bit -- which doesn't make any sense, since Latin 1 is equal to plain US ASCII for the first seven bits. Furthermore, your quotation marks are *not* coded according to Latin1 either, they're coded as a Windows specific extension which uses the reserved character values 128 to 159. why they don't just use Unicode I don't know. but it doesn't end there -- those unstandard quotation marks get their 8th bit stripped, so they become control characters. the result is that your message looks like this for me: | What struck me most upon first listening were the lyrics and the | arrangements. The first to really clobber me was ^SLay Me | Down^T. [...] I had to read that title three times before recognising it :) obviously the misleading headers are added at Yahoo!, but it's not clear who strips the 8th bit. - -- Kjetil T. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 10:00:46 -0400 (EDT) From: Bernie Mojzes Subject: Re: Ecto & punctuation... Yes, I've noticed this with Word (and to a lesser extent, with NeoOffice), when cutting and pasting text I've written in Word into some plain-text format (like my email client, or a vi session). I think Word tries to guess which direction the quote marks are supposed to go, dependant on the surrounding text, so instead of using a straight " or ' char, they use something else to decide whether it leans left or right. I'm not sure why parentheses are affected, but "--" gets converted to a dash character that isn't basic ASCII. I didn't know you could use Word as a mail client. Another case of Software Bloat. As far as the headers -- I'm going to guess that the list software is set to only allow plain text, and that that's what's preventing some RTF or HTMLized version of the email getting through, and possibly altering the headers on the way. (Preventing RTF and HTML is a Good Thing, if only because it make it impossible for people to send emails with blinking text.) brni > If you use Word, by default it uses "smart quotes" -- where the curly > quotes are upside down at the beginning of the quotation and > right-side up at the end of the quotation -- and similarly for > apostrophes and some other characters. Those characters aren't the > same as the regular quotes and apostrophes, so when they get pasted in > to an email they wind up looking like funny characters (or looking > invisible) when converted to the plain text that most email uses. > > The way to avoid this is to turn off "Use smart quotes" in the Word > preferences. (Somewhere in the Word preferences; there's so many it's > hard to find anything.) > > Not sure what's afffecting the parentheses, commas and periods, though. > > On 4/20/07, Bernie Mojzes wrote: >> Check to see what your mail client settings are. You want to send stuff >> as "plain text," not rich text or html or anything like that. >> >> brni >> >> > I just posted a long-ass message and oddly, much of >> > the punctuation randomly doesn't show up on the copy I >> > received - apostrophes, commas, parentheses, quotation >> > marks, periods, etc... I'm really not a complete dork >> > in that department. (and it does all show up in my >> > out-going e-mail) I never noticed that happening >> > before... I wonder if it's a Yahoo problem or what? >> > Does anyone else have that problem? ~A >> > >> > >> > "Without music, life would be a mistake." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche >> > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around >> > http://mail.yahoo.com >> > >> >> -- >> >> brni >> >> i don't want the world, >> i just want your half. >> >> http://brni.livejournal.com/ > - -- brni i don't want the world, i just want your half. http://brni.livejournal.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 16:01:57 -0400 From: "robert bristow-johnson" Subject: Re: Ecto & punctuation... this is one of the reasons i only use clean ASCII when emailing or posting to USENET. things get mangled bad enough without inviting more mangling. - -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V13 #101 ***************************