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Files attached
E-mail attachments can carry some additional baggage. Read on and learn how to play it safe.
by Marty Kramer We want it, and we want it now. And e-mail attachments can deliver—whether it refers to photos, spreadsheets, contracts, or other documents—instantly. Attaching documents is as easy as clicking a paperclip icon and finding the file you want to send. But this ease belies the problems that can occur when sending and receiving attachments.
Some attachments are not what they seem
Unfortunately, e-mail attachments are the main vehicle used to spread viruses. "If you open every attachment you get, you risk infecting your machine," says Joe Poole, director of information services for the Texas Association of REALTORS®. "And when a virus attacks, you probably won’t know it until you start hearing from clients and everyone else in your address book who got infected by an e-mail with your name on it."
Poole recommends that every e-mail user install antivirus software and update virus definitions often. To increase your safety, do not open an attachment until you save it to your hard drive and scan it with your antivirus software.
Programs are looking out for you, but what happens when you don’t want them to?
Some e-mail programs, like recent versions of Outlook, block attachments for file types that frequently contain viruses (such as .exe, .vbs, .bat). Occasionally, though, you may want to send or receive one of these file types. Poole suggests one way to get around this security: Add .txt to the end of the file name. Don’t replace the existing file extension—just add .txt. Then, in the body of the e-mail, instruct the recipient to save the file to the computer’s hard drive and delete the .txt before opening it. The e-mail program should treat the file as it would a text file and let it through.
Consider the recipient
You won’t make any friends by sending e-mails that tie up a person’s machine, and downloading a large file on a dial-up connection can do just that. If you plan to attach a file larger than 100K and you don’t know if the recipient has a high-speed Internet connection, it’s best to ask for permission before sending it. A 10-page Word document can easily reach 100K, as can a multi-page spreadsheet.
When sending photographs, saving them as big, print-quality files can lead to inordinately large files. A photo saved at 72 pixels per inch should be sufficient, and you typically won’t need dimensions larger than 4" x 6". To illustrate this point, an 8" x 10" photo saved at 300 ppi can easily reach 20MB, while the same photo sized to 3.5" x 5" at 72 ppi is less than 300K. A typical 56K dial-up modem will download a 300K file in about 45 seconds; the 20MB file will tie up the line for about 50 minutes.
Another consideration when sending attachments is whether the receiver has the software required to view the attachment. Again, check first, or if the document contains words only and formatting is not important, simply copy and paste the text into the body of the e-mail.
Illustration © PictureQuest.
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