Re: RC: Re: Stupid question

[David LeBlanc <dleblanc@mindspring.com>]

At 08:14 PM 1/2/00 -0800, Bette Lamore wrote:

>You know my friend Linda Hedgpeth on ridecamp was just telling me that I
>should put my location and web page address under my name as a
>signature. I just didn't want anyone to think I was advertising every
>time I wanted to post; but Linda tells me that it is customary. What do
>I know; I'm new in this town.

Most mail readers have a way to append a signature. Known as a .sig,
because back in the bad old days we all had UNIX shell [command line]
accounts, and it went in the .signature file.  According to the ancient (in
internet years, anyway) etiquette of USENET, a .sig should be no longer
than 4 lines, so your's fits nicely.  The 4 lines comes from way back when
we had very, very slow modems, and people complained if your mail took up
too much space - seems an odd concern these days.  It's a good place to put
your e-mail address, web page if you have one (maybe I ought to put one
together...), and maybe a witty saying that you like.  The one I use these
days is pretty bland, but I used to use:

David LeBlanc           |Why would you want to have your desktop user, 
dleblanc@mindspring.com |your mere mortals, messing around with a 32-bit 
                        |minicomputer-class computing environment?
                        |Scott McNealy

This is a quote from the CEO of Sun Microsystems, and I think it pretty
well sums up the arrogance of the old glass house priesthood, since I think
that everyone ('mere mortals' indeed!) ought to have a "32-bit
minicomputer-class computing environment" to mess around with, use, and do
whatever strikes their fancy.

Its normally considered acceptable to advertise a little in your .sig, but
really densely packed marketing text isn't polite - your's is just right.
I've also seen people draw fairly neat ASCII art and do some nifty things
in just 4 lines.


David LeBlanc
dleblanc@mindspring.com


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