EMAIL != FTP

Robert Sharp rsharp at appliedtheory.com
Fri May 25 15:53:00 UTC 2001


Amen...

Look at companys like logitech who create programs to email your grandma you
kids baby pictures.  Your gonna tell grandma she needs to FTP that file from
her daughter FTP sites.  And tell daughter she has to set it up. Daughter has
no concept of bandwidth and doesn't want one.  I think we often forget we work
for the users and if they want to email attachment and it's not hurting anyone
else so be it.  I am happy she can do it...

Have you ever seen USENET if you wanna talk about a waste of bandwidth by
UUencoding files you should start there first, email is the least of your
problems in this arena....  one ten meg attachment on an email isn't anything
compared to the alt.binaries traffic.  Yet no one has an issue with that.....

When it comes down to it, what ever is easier is what the average joe is gonna
do.  Dropping a file in the attachment window of my email client is 10 times
easier than setting up an FTP/Web server to upload your file too.  Lets follow
the basic steps.

Email Way:

1) open email client
2) type address
3) drag and drop file
4) click send

FTP way:

1) open email client
2) type address
3) type in link
4) open FTP program
5) open connection
6) upload file
7) click send

it's almost twice as many steps, from a human factor prospective the email way
is much more favorable.  Remember computer work for us we don't work for
computers.  Considering the one downside or inflated file size it's much more
preferable for myself.   I dunno about you but my boss doesn't want to ftp my
reports, he want to click on an icon in his email.


Rob

deeann mikula wrote:

> On Fri, 25 May 2001, Sabri Berisha wrote:
>
> > > Second, an average user probably wouldn't have the skill.
> >
> > Then he/she should learn. I don't buy a car if I can't drive. I'm sorry
> > for comparing internetworking with driving a car but I feel that FTP'ing
> > is a basic skill if you want to use the internet in a professional way
>
> uh, when is the last time that you worked the front line of an ISP?
> most people have never even heard of FTP.  i almost spewed my orange
> juice all over my desk when i read that paragraph. :)
>
> unfortunately, i have accepted the fact that there is no stopping
> customers from emailing 10MB (and larger!) files, they can just go to
> our competition if we prevent it.
>
> i bitch, moan, and insist that the front line kids give the "email !=
> FTP speech," but we continue to permit it.  *sigh*
>
> unless we go back in time and re-do the protocols, and re-educate
> newbies before setting them lose on the 'net, i don't think that we
> are going to stop people from emailing what should be FTP'd.
>
> deeann m.m. mikula
> director of operations
>
> telerama public access internet
> http://www.telerama.com
> 1.877.688.3200





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