[plug] Linux laptops - yeah, they've been done before, but ....

[Craig Ringer]

On Sat, 2005-08-06 at 04:01 +0800, Alex Nordstrom wrote:

> Actually, your e-mails are not that easy to read either. May I suggest 
> you turn off the HTML garbage generator? Sending anything but plain 
> text e-mails to recipients who have not explicitly requested otherwise 
> is generally considered impolite. Here's an explanation as to why and 
> how to disable it:
> 
> http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
> 
> > So we don't know your problem clearly. Could you send us a 
> > mail again and describe your problem in the mail directly?
> 
> Perhaps your mail reader has a problem dealing with PGP/MIME. If so, it 
> is broken and should be fixed or replaced. Karsten M. Self explains 
> your problem better than I could: 
> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/Rants/gpg-signed-mail.html
> 
> I have disabled PGP/MIME signing for this e-mail only. If you can read 
> this and you could not read my previous e-mail, you still need to take 
> action and fix your broken mail reader.

Alas, it's usually a lost cause. Remember that most of these people
don't have any control over their mail client anyway - there's a good
chance they can't configure it, let alone pick a better one. Helpdesk
software sometimes even comes with its own mail client or butchered UI
for LookOut! that doesn't /HAVE/ any options visible to the helpdesk
operator.

The people to contact are the administrators of the helpdesk - and they
won't care.

That said, was it sending out pure HTML mail, not multipart/alternative?
If so, that's *REALLY* broken, and that does need to be reported to the
helpdesk admin. They'll probably say "it's our software, and anyway it
works for everybody else," but it's worth a try.

I would strongly advise _NOT_ taking these issues up with the helpdesk
operator or administration until _after_ your issue has been resolved
(hah!). It'll just make you look like a difficult and annoying customer
to them, and additionally tend to confuse the issue. Single, short,
simple questions on a single topic seem to be the only way to go most of
the time - because while many helpdesk folks are great, a lot are really
hopeless as well.

If you can't even get a straight answer from them on one issue, don't
complicate it more until you've resolved the first one.

--
Craig Ringer