Why do some e-mail attachments seem to download fine, while others seem to jam my mail program and cause problems later on?
This happens regularly, and occasionally we have to intervene on behalf of our customer. The usual scenario goes something like this -someone you know has some great photos and just has to send them to you right away. That’s very commendable, however, the sender often fails to check and see how big this attachment really is! Four standard colour prints scanned onto a standard 81/2 by 11 inch page will take up to 5 megabytes! That is the equivalent of 5 million keyboard characters! If the sender has a cable modem, these huge files can be sent in a minute or less. No problem at all for the sender. For the recipient of this file, there are often several problems. First of all, even with a very new, fast computer, a good modem and a solid connection, you are looking at possibly one hour to download such an attachment! Most often, your mail programs will time out, and you will have to keep trying -usually unsuccessfully! If you also have normal mail in your mailbox, you will get duplicates
