Evolution : oh my god ! [Off topic]

ZIYAD A. M. AL-BATLY zamb at saudi.net.sa
Mon May 9 19:06:23 UTC 2005


On Mon, 2005-05-09 at 12:33 -0400, vailima wrote:
> 
> Mr. Ziyad;
> 
> As I know and understand it, ASCII files are those which have and for
> the most part only have the following characteristics:
> 
> 1. Letters A - Z
> 2. Numbers 0 - 9
> 3. Commas (,)   Periods (.)   Semi-colons (;)  Colons (:) and a few
> other characters.
Very true.

> 
> For all intents and purposes, there is no formatting with ASCII code,
> as everything is slewed to the left.
You can save anything in ASCII if you use some techniques like "UU
Codes" and Base64, but that's overkilling/beside the subject here.

> 
> On this end, experience has long ago taught me to make backups of
> every file of value, not only in the form of the file formatting
> common to the software generating the file (Word Perfect, Excel and
> the like) but in ASCII as well and such a practical policy has
> repeatedly proven its worth over the years.
Very wise words and I agree to some extent.  If you save your work in an
open, royalty-free format that is supported by some Free (as in
freedom), free (as in doesn't cost much), open-source application, then
that's enough.  The problem really comes when you have a legal copy of
some document but you can't use it since it's in a format (controlled by
some non-trusty party) that you can't use on your system.

> 
> The "... mbox ..." format of which you speak is and unknown here but
> the ASCII and the CSV (comma seperated values) formats have repeatedly
> stood the test of time.
The "mbox" format is an ASCII format used to transfer the emails, store
them on the servers, and (sometimes) store them in your account. (Both
Evolution and Mozilla use this format to store emails.  Try viewing (but
don't change) the file "~/.evolution/mail/local/Inbox" and you'll
understand what I'm saying.  Evolution, Mozilla, Balsa, Mail.App, and
even Microsoft's Outlook support this format.)

> 
> You might also want to keep in mind that most of us are moving away
> from WinDOZ, and are only too glad to do so,...
Glad to hear that.  I, for one, used to be a Windows user (about 6 years
ago).

> ...and while you come across as a Linux "expert"...
I'm definitely not an expert!  But I like the sound of it ;)

> ...keep in mind (which can be difficult for some - I've seen it too
> many times before) that not all of us who are moving over to Linux are
> computer "experts" but in large measure, we do know what we're talking
> about when it comes to our own use and applications of this
> microcomputers.
True, and again, wise words I'll keep in my mind in the future.  I faced
the same problems before when I needed help for something I don't know
about much, yet, I get answers that appears to be more difficult and
frightening than the problem itself!  Sometime, I still get that.

> 
> As with Ubuntu, Evolution has clear promise, which may explain why
> Novel paid so much for the rights to it.
> 
True, and again, happy to hear that.

Now, I would like to explain why I send the previous message:
        When you talked about ASCII format and that Evolution doesn't
        have a clear way of supporting it, the first thing that pops in
        to my mind is that this person (you) have a backup of his/her
        emails in mbox format since this format is:
              * in ASCII
              * the default mail format for email applications
              * and the format I *myself* use to backup my own emails
        that he/she wants to import to Evolution but don't know how.
        
        That's why I sent that message.  So, in the light of this
        explanation, sorry if you thought I was mocking you or trying to
        offend you.

Thanks.
Ziyad.




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