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- From: deej@cadence.com (Jim Howard)
- Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.d,alt.binaries.pictures,alt.binaries.pictures.utilities,alt.binaries.pictures.fractals,alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.d,news.answers
- Subject: alt.binaries.pictures FAQ - General info
- Message-ID: <1992Dec14.013131@U2.Cadence.COM>
- Date: 14 Dec 92 09:23:04 GMT
- Expires: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 00:00:00 GMT
- References: <1992Dec14.013005@U2.Cadence.COM>
- Sender: usenet@Cadence.COM (Usenet News)
- Followup-To: alt.binaries.pictures.d
- Organization: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
- Lines: 564
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
- Supersedes: <1992Nov30.092531@U2.Cadence.COM>
- Nntp-Posting-Host: cds8613.cadence.com
-
- Archive-name: pictures-faq/part2
- Last-modified: 13 November 1992
-
- This is part 2 of the FAQ for the alt.binaries.pictures* hierarchy.
- This part of the alt.binaries.pictures FAQ contains "general", or
- operating-system independent information. It answers (hopefully) all
- the questions you may have about the pictures newsgroups, decoding and
- encoding techniques, and picture formats.
-
- For information on issues of etiquette and posting policy and/or
- suggestions, consult part 1 of this posting.
-
- For information on your particular system and on specific utilities,
- consult part 3 of this posting.
-
- Before posting to these groups for the first time, please check the FAQ
- list (this posting - including parts 2 and 3), and also read the newsgroup
- news.announce.newusers, which contains many answers to questions about
- UseNet in general.
-
- If you've read previous versions of this FAQ, you'll probably only want
- to read anything that has changed since the last distribution. These
- changes appear both in this document and in the accompanying "Changes to
- the alt.binaries.pictures FAQ". Note that this is a "live" document, and
- is always getting important information added or updated.
-
-
- ***********************************************************************
-
- This file is intended to be a general introduction to the pictures
- newsgroups, answering some common questions concerning pictures posted
- in those newsgroups, namely how to decode and view them. It is not, of
- course, possible to cover everything, but I will try to to get as much
- as I can into this file. If you feel something important has been
- omitted and you know the subject well, please write me so I can
- include the info for future releases. E-mail should be sent to
- deej@cadence.com for these purposes.
-
- Before you miss an important detail contained in this file, let me
- "pre-repeat" that many of the programs mentioned in this document are
- available for anonymous ftp at bongo.cc.utexas.edu (128.83.186.13), in
- the gifstuff directory. Also: there are NO GIF files of any kind at
- this site! Save your time and don't bother looking for them!
-
- Articles contained in the news groups in the alt.binaries.pictures*
- hierarchy are available ONLY by subscribing to those groups through UseNet;
- there are no FTP archive sites (with the exception of a.b.p.fractals - see
- the "ftpsites" list on bongo), mailing list, or mail servers that allow
- access to these articles. If you want access to the pictures hierarchy, your
- site must subscribe to it; talk to your news administrator!
- Alternatively, you might be able to access these groups by connecting to
- another site that *does* carry them, and do your news reading there (then FTP
- the articles back to your site). This may also be a problem, as you may not
- be able to telnet to another site (because you don't have a true Internet
- connection), and you might also not be able to access news at that site
- without the OK of the systems administrator. You might check out either the
- alt.internet.access.wanted or the alt.internet.services news groups to get
- more info or make requests for remote access...
-
- OK... on to the real reason you're reading this document...
-
-
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- I. ABOUT THIS FAQ
- II. DOWNLOADING AND DECODING FILES
- III. COMMON PICTURE TYPES
- IV. ENCODING AND UPLOADING FILES
- V. ALTERNATE SOURCES FOR PICTURES/HOW-TO'S OF FTP
- VI. COMMON PROBLEMS
- VII. COPYRIGHT
-
-
- I. ABOUT THIS FAQ
-
- This FAQ is posted every other Monday to the alt.binaries.pictures
- newsgroups and to news.answers. It is also available by anonymous FTP,
- from UUCP, or through e-mail by using the services available from a couple
- of mail servers. For anonymous FTP access, you can look on either
- pit-manager.mit.edu [18.72.1.58] in the directory /pub/usenet/news.answers,
- on ftp.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.17] in directory NEWS.ANSWERS, on
- cnam.cnam.fr [192.33.159.6] in directory /pub/FAQ, or on ftp.uu.net
- [137.39.1.2, 137.39.1.9, or 192.48.96.2] in directory /pub/usenet. In all
- cases, you'll want to get one or all of the FAQ parts named as files
- "pictures-faq/part1", "pictures-faq/part2", and "pictures-faq/part3".
- You can get the FAQ via UUCP by retrieving the appropriate part from
- "uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part1",
- "uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part2", or
- "uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part3".
- For e-mail access, send a message to mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
- with the mail body "send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part1" to get the
- first part, "send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part2" for the second,
- and "send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part3" for the third, or e-mail
- to mail-server@cs.ruu.nl with "send NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq/part1",
- "send NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq/part2", and/or
- "send NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq/part3" in the body of the message.
-
-
- II. DOWNLOADING AND DECODING FILES
-
- Basic checklist: Alternate checklist:
- ---------------- --------------------
- News reader News reader (optional in some cases)
- Text file editor "Super-decoder"
- UUDECODEr
-
- By far the most common method of posting files to the pictures
- newsgroups is the UUENCODE standard. This program, shipped standard
- with most implementations of UNIX, converts binary files into plain-text
- ASCII files which can be handled by the mail system. You will need a
- version of UUDECODE before anything else in order to view anything
- downloaded from the net. If your system does not have a version of
- UUDECODE available, you can get one via anonymous ftp from
- bongo.cc.utexas.edu, in the gifstuff/uutools directory.
-
- The format of a uuencoded file consists of an optional "table specification",
- which consists of the word "table" alone on a line, followed by one or more
- lines containing the characters that will be used in the remaining encoded
- data. Following this, the standard requires the line containing only the text
- "begin <permissions> <filename>" (where "<permissions>" is a three-character
- numeric string, and "<filename>" notes the name of the decoded file - for
- example "begin 640 myfile.gif"). This "begin" line is then followed by
- several lines of approximately 63 characters, all beginning with a capital
- "M", and containing any non-lower-case printing character (and very rarely
- resembles anything but absolute gibberish). Optionally, one to two lines
- may be blank or contain less than the normal number of characters if those
- lines are immediately before the line containing the "end" notation. The
- "end" text alone on a line marks the conclusion of the uuencoded data. Any
- information that does not fit into the above classifications are termed as
- either "headers" or "trailers", and are not intended to be included in the
- information to be decoded. For example, the following represents a valid
- uuencoded file (although it contains no useful information - don't bother
- decoding it!):
-
- begin 666 bogus.file
- MLEHHWHURHUH %$^4653%#$#&^%$$46^%#^%)LKDUHEWFHIUG^$^#DJIUTE&F^R
- MH:FNP(ENER(*HNFUHDG(&B#HY@#(*@YNUF(&$HU$HF(YSAUHIRY(&YHHEU
- M(*NUFE(YHDH
-
- end
-
- Most decoders are smart enough to ignore anything before the "begin" line
- and after the "end" line.
-
- The first step is to save the file you want to view... in most versions
- of the newsreader, this is done by pressing 's' followed immediately (no
- spaces usually, although some versions don't care) by a file name.
- You will usually be asked if you want to save it in mailbox format;
- you should answer 'n'. When saving an article to a file in
- mailbox format, the article is sometimes changed in a subtle
- way, making it impossible to decode.
-
- In the case of a single-part file, you can now uudecode the file,
- which will create whatever output file is encoded. You can usually
- tell if it's a single-part file by looking on the subject line;
- standard netiquette is to make something like [03/06] part of the
- subject line, which indicates you're on part 3 of a 6-part file. If no
- numbers are there, you can usually assume it is a 1-part file. If
- not, feel free to write the poster (directly... please don't waste
- bandwidth by posting) and request that he/she put this info in the
- subject line. Be nice about it! Another way to determine if a file
- is a single-parter is if both the uuencode "begin" and "end" lines
- (as outlined above in the description of the uuencode format) are
- included in the file.
-
- For multi-part files, life is a little more difficult. If all you
- have is a standard UUDECODE program (as opposed to a "smart decoder"),
- you will need to trim the headers and trailers out from the rest of the
- information. You can either do this by saving each part in its own file
- and editting them separately, then concatenate the editted files together
- to make one big file (this might be your only choice if your editor can't
- handle large files!), or you can save each part in order into one big
- file and then edit all the headers and trailers out from that file.
- Either way, you'll need to run the result through UUDECODE. You can use
- your favorite text editor to strip out header and trailer information.
-
- There are several "smart decoders" out there that will handle all of
- the header/trailer stripping and decoding for you (some will even make
- sure that the pieces are in order!) - see part 3 of this posting for
- specifics.
-
- Some articles are actually posted with easy decoding in mind, and contain
- UNIX shell script headers/trailers that facilitate easier decoding. This
- is often very helpful, as it saves you a lot of work, and can also provide
- error checking not available in a "normal" uuencoded posting. These
- postings nearly always contain instructions on their use, so I won't
- attempt to explain all the details here. There's no set "standard" for
- this type of posting anyway - except for MIME. MIME, the Multipurpose
- Internet Mail Extensions, proposes a standard for the posting and mailing
- of multi-media articles (postings may include pictures, sounds, movies,
- or other media types - which may be combined in one article). Public-
- domain packages using MIME are available (Metamail, for example). For
- more information on MIME and Metamail, contact nsb@bellcore.com.
-
- Some news readers have an "extract" capability that greatly simplifies
- life by automatically decoding articles - this means you don't have to
- go to the hassle of saving to a file and then decoding. Newer versions
- of rn, nn, and trn can handle this - check the "man" page or ask your
- news administrator to find out if you can let your news reader do the
- work for you!
-
- If you're going to download the decoded picture file to a home machine,
- or move it around a network, remember that most decoded file outputs are
- going to be BINARY files, so set your transfer protocol accordingly.
- If you are moving around just the uuencoded data, an ASCII transfer will
- work just fine, however (you'll have to decode it eventually, of course).
- Note that if you *don't* transfer the decoded file in BINARY mode,
- everything will appear to work just fine - until you try to view the
- picture. Then you'll get all sorts of undefined results...
-
-
- III. COMMON PICTURE TYPES
-
- Basic checklist: Alternate checklist:
- ---------------- --------------------
- GIF viewer Multi-format viewer
- Format conversion tool(s) Format conversion tool(s)
- Image manipulation tool(s)
-
- OK. Now you've got this great picture file from downloading it and
- running it through UUDECODE. What is it, and what do you do with it?
-
- The most common type of picture is the GIF format (which usually has
- a .GIF or .gif file suffix). GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format,
- and is a standard format for images that was developed by CompuServe to
- be a device-independent method of storing pictures. It includes
- Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression, which makes the files fairly small.
-
- JPEG is another standardized image compression mechanism, which stands
- for Joint Photographic Experts Group (the original name of the committee
- that wrote the standard). It seems more and more common that JPEG-type
- pictures (.JPG or .jpg file suffix, usually) are getting posted to the
- net. Some claim that JPEG is destined to overtake GIF format in popularity,
- because it is the most compact method to store 24-bit data, but mostly due
- to the fact that it uses much less space to store the same picture (this is,
- in fact, true - I have seen many examples of this phenomenon). This may be
- an accurate assessment, but this will probably take a while to happen, as
- most people HAVE GIF software/viewers, but lack JPEG equivalents.
- Undoubtedly, however, this too shall change, but at this point, JPEG is
- recognized as still being in its infancy. But, if you prefer to be on the
- leading (bleeding?) edge, it is possible to get software both to view JPEG
- pictures, and to convert JPEG to and from other formats, as detailed in
- part 3.
-
- The latest and greatest info about JPEG is included in the Tom Lane's
- "JPEG image compression: Frequently Asked Questions" (archive name is
- "jpeg-faq"), posted on a regular basis to the alt.binaries.pictures.d,
- alt.graphics.pixutils, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d, alt.sex.pictures.d,
- and news.answers newsgroups.
-
- Of course, to view a picture of a particular type, you will need a viewer
- that supports that type (again, for specifics on viewers for your
- particular configuration, see part 3 of this posting).
-
- There are other types of single-picture files posted to the net,
- although they are not as common as GIF or JPEG files. Other than the
- difference in the viewing software, the downloading/decoding and
- encoding/uploading procedures are identical as for other types of pictures.
- Platform-dependent picture types and conversion programs are discussed
- in part 3 of this posting.
-
- Occasionally people get into an argument about which standard is best.
- I think the answer is: WHO CARES?!? The only thing I have to say
- about this matter is that almost every machine under the sun already
- has a program written for it to view GIF files, and if yours doesn't,
- shareware or PD source code is available almost everywhere.
-
- Commonly people post files to the net with a .GL extension. These
- files are actually animated picture-shows that can be viewed on a small
- number of system types.
-
- Usually, GL files are huge, so people often compress them with one of
- several popular compression/archiving packages. Perhaps the most
- common is the PC family's PKZIP package. If a GL file is posted with
- a .ZIP extension, you know it's been ZIP'ed. Similarly, if it has a
- .Z extension, it's been compressed with the UNIX `compress' utility.
- "Uncompression" tools of either type are available for various types of
- systems - part 3 has the necessary details.
-
- Files of a .DL extension are also sometimes posted. These are very
- similar to GL files, except in format and in the fact that DL files allow
- color "movie" viewing, so of course it takes different software to view
- them (this software is also discussed in part 3).
-
- Then there's FLI - yet another GL/DL type of file. FLI's are generally
- considered poorer quality than either GL or DL, however.
-
- The table below lists many of the common file types for pictures or
- compression formats for different systems. This information may be useful
- if you download a tool and then don't know how to decompress it into a
- usable form, or as a "quick reference" of file types. Decompressors or
- viewers of "unlike" system types exist on some systems - see the particular
- system information for details on this aspect.
-
- File extension File type
- -------------- ----------
- ARC ARChive (many OS's support) - compressed file(s)
- ARJ Yet another archive format - compressed file(s)
- BMP IBM BitMaP picture file
- CPT Macintosh CompactPro compressed file.
- DL Animated picture file (system independent, for
- those with viewers)
- FLI Animated picture file (system independent, for
- those with viewers)
- GIF Graphics Interchange Format -
- system independent picture file
- GL Animated picture file (system independent, for
- those with viewers)
- IMG IMaGe - ? picture file
- JPG (JPEG) Joint Photography experts Group - system
- independent picture file
- LZH Amiga LZH - compressed file(s) - LHarc output
- MAC (MACP) Macintosh MacPaint - Macintosh picture file
- HQX Macintosh BinHex - encoded file
- IFF Amiga Interchangeable File Format - Amiga
- file interchange (used for many types of binary
- data). If it contains a picture file, then
- the picture is either an ILBM (InterLeaved
- BitMap), HAM (Hold-And-Modify), DHAM (DynaHAM),
- or SHAM (Sliced HAM).
- IM8 (RAST) Sun RASTer file - Sun picture file
- PCX IBM PC Paintbrush - IBM picture file
- PICT Macintosh QuickDraw PICTure - Macintosh picture
- file
- PS (PSID) Encapsulated PostScript/PostScript Image Data -
- printer-ready text/picture file
- RAW RAW RGB - 24-bit system independent picture file
- SEA Macintosh Self-Extracting Archive
- SHK Macintosh Shrinkit - compressed file(s)
- SIT Macintosh StuffIt - compressed file(s)
- TGA TrueVision TarGA file - ? picture file
- TIFF Tagged Image Format File - 24-bit system
- independent picture file
- UUE UNIX UUEncoding - encoded file
- XBM X windows Bit Map - UNIX/X windows picture file
- Z UNIX LZW "compress" - compressed file(s)
- ZIP MS-DOS ZIP - compressed file(s)
- ZOO MS-DOS ZOO - compressed file(s)
-
-
- IV. ENCODING AND UPLOADING FILES
-
- Basic checklist: Alternate checklist:
- ---------------- --------------------
- UUENCODEr "Auto-posting" tool(s)
- Editor or file splitter
- News posting software
-
- First things first: before you do any sort of posting, be sure you've
- read and understand the a.b.p* netiquette as outlined in part 1 of this
- FAQ. This will save you from countless flamings!
-
- OK. You need to UUENCODE the file. Find an encoder and encode it!
- If the output file is particularly large (i.e. more than 60 KB), it
- would be wise to split up the encoded file into smaller parts (<= 60 KB)
- and then post those. You can split the file with a text editor if you
- like, or check part 3 for more specifics on splitting utilities.
-
- Now post the files... and remember to include the neat info mentioned
- in part 1, like subject lines that mean something, descriptions,
- checksums, "Cut Here" lines, etc...
-
- There are some very nice "super posting" utilities out there that will
- handle all the lower-level details for you. See part 3 for more info
- on these utilities. If you don't use one, you'll obviously need to do
- all the uuencoding, splitting, and the posting of each split part
- yourself - which can become quite a tedious process! Another benefit of
- the "super posters" is that they enforce some standardization on the way
- posts look - making an auto-decoder's job much easier in the process!
-
-
- V. ALTERNATE SOURCES FOR PICTURES/HOW-TO'S OF FTP
-
- Basic checklist: Alternate checklist:
- ---------------- --------------------
- Direct Internet access E-mail software
- FTP software
-
- The pictures newsgroups are certainly not the only source for pictures,
- nor are GIF files the only types available (see section III). The most
- likely place you are to find other pictures is in an archive that is
- reachable via FTP. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and is a
- program for transmitting files over the network. To use FTP, you will
- need access to a computer with the FTP program, and a network connection.
- Be aware that files on FTP sites will probably NOT be UUENCODED, so
- remember to transfer in binary when getting non-text files.
- For the greatest level of detail on FTP, you should refer to the posting
- "How to find sources (READ THIS BEFORE POSTING)", which is periodically
- posted to comp.sources.wanted, alt.sources.wanted, and news.answers. OR
- you can execute either 'finger ftp@piggy.ucsb.edu' or
- 'finger ftp@ferkel.ucsb.edu' to get a quick tutorial.
- Additionally, it is possible to get files from anonymous FTP sites via
- e-mail. For details on this wonderful facility, send an e-mail containing
- the text "help" to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com. For those of you on BITNET,
- send an e-mail containing the text "help" to bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu.
- Now you too can get all sorts of great utilities from anonymous FTP sites
- using an e-mail proxy!
-
- Due to popular demand, an anonymous FTP site list of pictures-related
- "stuff" has now been compiled and is available from bongo in
- /gifstuff/ftpsites. This list is by no means guaranteed to be accurate
- or comprehensive, but hopefully most of the information is valid. BTW,
- this list is a condensed and supplemented version of the Jan. 20, 1990
- revision of Jon Granrose's (odin@pilot.njin.net) "List of Hosts that
- Accept Anonymous FTP Requests", which is posted regularly to comp.misc,
- comp.sources.wanted, and alt.sources.wanted, and also available via
- anonymous FTP from pilot.njin.net (128.6.7.38). Any additions or
- corrections would be most welcome and appreciated!
-
- Most ftp programs will allow you to enter something like
- ftp wsmr-simtel20.army.mil
- which will connect you with the mighty SIMTEL-20 archives at the White
- Sands Missile Range. Occasionally, you will encounter an ftp program
- that is old enough or slothful enough that it does not recognize
- internet-style addresses like the one above. In that case, you'll
- need to know the computer's numeric address; for SIMTEL-20
- you would enter
- ftp 192.88.110.20
-
- Once you're connected, you'll have to tell the computer at the other
- end that you want to log in, by entering USER (some machines save you
- this step by *assuming* you want to log in. What else would you want
- to do?) When you are prompted for an account name, enter
- anonymous
- When it asks you for a password, enter *your* internet address.
-
- Often the machine to which you are trying to connect will be busy
- (i.e. too many anonymous users), in which case the machine will inform
- you of this and throw you off. Try again later.
-
- Now you're in. What do you do? Well, you need to know where the
- files are stored that you want. If you know this, just
- cd directory-name
- to the directory in question. Then you can do a DIR to find out
- what is in it.
-
- So you see a file called CRSH+BRN.GIF and you want it for yourself.
- What do you do? Well, the first thing is to tell the computer on the
- other end that you want it to transmit a binary file. On most FTP
- servers, entering the magic word TENEX will do this. If the machine
- doesn't recognize TENEX, try BINARY, or if all else fails, you can
- enter
- TYPE L 8
- Be sure to do this for GIF files or you'll get garbage when you try
- to view them!
- The difference between TENEX and BINARY is in translation of data type
- sizes - if your machine type has different data type sizes than the one
- you're downloading from, use TENEX, otherwise use BINARY. If you're not
- sure, try TENEX first (if the command isn't recognized, you're probably
- OK). On some VAX platforms, the keyword "IMAGE" is also sometimes used
- to denote binary files.
-
- Now you're ready to grab the files you want. You have two options:
- you can type
- get filename
- or
- mget wildcard
- where wildcard is any UNIX-style wildcard. MGET will get all files
- that satisfy the specification.
-
- When you're done grabbing files, type QUIT or BYE to log off the remote
- machine and return to yours. Now you're ready to view the picture -
- no decoding step necessary (neat, eh?)!
-
- Most of the non-erotica pictures that appear in postings to the
- alt.binaries.pictures* hierarchy are available from anonymous FTP sites
- (again, see bongo's "ftpsites" list), but this is of course not guaranteed.
-
- The other most common method for obtaining files is from an archival
- file server. Most of these work in the following way: you send mail
- to the server's address, with one-line commands in your message, like
- help
- directory \pictures\gif\family-oriented
- send \pictures\gif\family-oriented\CRSH+BRN.GIF
- and the requested info is sent back to you at some later time, when
- the server has time to get around to it.
-
- The first step when you discover a server system is to send a HELP
- command so you can learn what the commands are for that server.
- However, most servers operate with commands basically similar to those
- listed above.
-
-
- VI. COMMON PROBLEMS
-
- Basic checklist:
- ----------------
- At least one clue
- Some small level of intelligence
- Self-determination
-
- Well, you've downloaded the file, tried to view it, and got garbage.
- What went wrong?
-
- The two most likely places for something to go wrong are both in the
- transmission of the file. The first is this: when you downloaded the
- file to your home computer, did you remember to tell the modem-
- transfer software that you're sending a binary file?
-
- The second-most likely is that you forgot to say TENEX before you
- grabbed the file via FTP.
-
- Either of these will result in mangled files that are unviewable by
- anything known to man.
-
- Also: did you remember to trim off the header and trailer information if
- you are/were using a "simple" uudecoder? The symptom of forgetting to
- do this is usually a message something like "short file" from your GIF
- viewer. There could also be the problem where blank lines are left
- between parts (or anywhere for that matter) within the 'begin' and 'end'
- lines of the uuencoded file. Uudecode will get through them fine, but some
- GIF viewers will choke on the results. The only blank line I've seen
- get by is the one just before the 'end' statement. Beware of taking
- too much or not enough off of the headers and trailers.
-
- Another common problem is this one: IBM mainframes often use an
- EBCDIC character set (yes, there's more than one EBCDIC set!) instead
- of the ASCII set used by everyone else. This wouldn't be a problem except
- that most ASCII-EBCDIC converters have a bug which mungs the translation
- of several characters, including ^ { } and a few others. Even this
- wouldn't be a problem except that the particular munging it does is to
- map several of these characters onto the *same* wrong character. Ooops.
-
- The way around this is not to use uuencode to transfer these files,
- but to use xx-encode, which produces files which look almost exactly
- like uu-encoded files, but they use a character set which is
- IBM-proof. If you are using an IBM mainframe as your host computer
- and you're having trouble decoding files, this is most likely your
- problem. Solution: 1) find a kind soul who is willing to uudecode the
- files, xxencode them and send them to you, 2) get the files via FTP,
- which should be EBCDIC-proof, or 3) get a better computer that uses
- everybody else's character set. :-)
-
- Almost all of the problems described above can be checked by using
- GIFTEST to check the GIF file's integrity on your host machine before
- you download it. I have recently added the source code for GIFTEST to
- the archive at bongo. I highly recommend that you get a copy of this,
- even if you only occasionally have problems with your GIF files; it
- runs in only a few seconds, and has the potential to save you hours of
- download time!
-
- The last and least likely problem is that some mailer somewhere
- actually munged the file. It happens. Fortunately, it doesn't happen
- all that often. When it does (and please check all of the other
- problems *FIRST*), it's time to ask for a re-post, as detailed in part 1.
-
-
- VII. COPYRIGHT
-
- Bottom line: It's OK to copy something (electronically or otherwise) for
- your own personal use. It's NOT OK to re-distribute that copy, whether or
- not you make any money doing it.
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- That's about it for the "general" information. System-specific
- information is continued in part 3 of this FAQ. If you have any
- suggestions for things to include in future versions, don't hesitate
- to let me know...
-
- ~ deej ~ | (If I were expressing Cadence's opinions, )
- Jim Howard -- deej@cadence.com | (they'd probably make me wear a tie... )
- (^:= Flames cheerfully ignored. =:^)
- "I tell you this: no eternal reward will forgive us now
- for wasting the dawn" -- Jim Morrison, The Doors
-