[thelist] A Better Windows Email Client

Joel Canfield joel at spinhead.com
Fri Aug 16 08:59:08 CDT 2002


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> > i dislike that attachment names are changed or a file by
> the same name
> > is overwritten (can't recall which happens) if another file by the
> > same name is already in the attachments directory.
>
> I've never had a file name changed by Eudora.  If I get a
> second attachment with the same name, Eudora adds a 1 or a 2
> to differentiate and not overwrite.  That's the only change.

Adding a 1 or a 2 is a name change. And it can definitely cause problems and
confusion.

I recently sent a file to an associate to upload to a server to which I
don't have direct access. It had issues, so I sent a modified version. They
saved the modified attachment directly to the server, and we spent two hours
troubleshooting why the changes didn't work. We finally realized that Eudora
had changed the name of the second copy. I know nothing about Eudora, but
the person on the other end is an extremely computer/web-savvy type, and
even they didn't realize what was happening. That's a problem, in my book.

In Outlook, if I send or receive two file attachments with the same name,
they keep the same name. It's up to me to avoid the confusion, which is as
it should be. I don't want my software trying to guess what I'm doing, and
changing things on me.

I've considered switching to Eudora many times; I've heard a lot of good
about it. But even after managing a 90-user Outlook base at the office and
using it for my home network for years, I've yet to experience any of the
nightmares so often blamed on the tool. I'm scrupulous about virus
protection, and in an Exchange environment, you can control access to file
attachments to a great degree, which helps with security.

joel



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