16th March 2000

Mail clients have developed steadily over the years. I accessed my first e-mail account through a VMS shell; there were no icons to press, no toolbars to consult. Today, most of us are using e-mail clients which have the ability to preview messages before they're opened. This feature can save time and energy. However, this routine may byte you in the ASCII one day. Text messages typically aren't a problem, but it's a different story when HTML e-mail and/or attachments enter the scene. There are scripts which will execute automatically upon opening a Web page (or mail message, as the case may be). For this reason, you might think of turning 'auto-preview' OFF. Or, peruse your mail account first with a POP3 checker or command-line mail client; delete ALL suspicious messages before downloading them. Again, let this be a warning to you.