nswong wrote:

BTW: Susan, do you put those "malicious things" in the webpages you
design? ;-)

Nope. However, as an admin whose email is all over the place due to the
nature of her work, I receive tons of malignant email and viruses when
ever there's an outbreak. (Usually around 1000 emails an hour. I'm
*not* kidding.) I use, by choice, email software that only has limited
capability to display html. (If I want to see it, I just launch the hml
in a browser.) The good thing about this is that I don't have to worry
about any unpleasant little surprises.

As you may have guessed, I was a programmer at one time so I know how to
write these thing but that's all just part of the process of learning
how they work so one can combat them.

Back to the discussion, I honestly can not see how anyone could not
"buy" the reasons why HTML (and binaries) should not be posted. It
seems to me as if one is bein deliberately blind to a large part of the
real world. I deal with people coming into our websites from all over
the world and all over the US. Fortunately, I live in an area that has
many options for high speed access and work for an employer who is
willing to pay for me to have that access from home. I also have big,
powerful workhorse computers in my office and at home because of the
nature of my work. This may be a necessity for me because of what I do
for a living but it's certainly not for 95% of the people I know.

Yeah, computers may be cheap(er) than they once were but expending $500
for a machine may mean not paying rent/mortgage, buying food, or
something else for a lot of people. According to a broadcast I heard ON
NPR this morning, computers are only in roughly 50% of american homes.
Besides, as someone else said, why buy new if your old one still
works? My dad, a retired nuclear engineer and computer scientist, only
uses his PC for email. He's still using a 300 mhz machine at home. Can
he afford a new one? Sure but why when this one still works. It may be
a little slow but he doesn't care.

And to bring this back around to ponds, if we don't spend the money on
new computers and high speed access, it's more monye we can spend on the
important things in life like our ponds!

Susan
shsimko[@]duke[.]edu