[Liverpool] proprietary formats @ liverpool uni

[Vladimir]

2 alan:
well, after i couldn't open the MHT file i googled for answer and what i
came up with was:
firefox, safari (KHTML engine) can't open it. eventually IE7 crashed twice
before opening it
(i came down to sydney jones library for that occasion). opera only can open
it with the
plugin, but Windows only version :)

here's my first letter regarding this case:

My letter to the Music Industry course administration (Lecturers,
Assistants, Professors, etc):


To whom it may concern.

Week 4 reading, the article: Copying music legally in the digital age
Technology The Guardian.mht was posted on VITAL in a proprietary web page
archive format that can't be opened by
either Mozilla Firefox Web Browser nor by KHTML [open source] engine driven
ones, like Safari on Mac OS X platform. Indeed to read this article I had to
go down to a place with Windows machine that had Microsoft Internet Explorer
7 (that was struggling to open it indeed and crashed 2 times before opening
the article). As a Linux-based OS user I think this is a discrimination of
me and other users who don't use the products of one monopolistic
corporation but prefer the freedom (as in free beer as well as in free
speech) and use other Operational Systems, either Linux-based, BSD-based, or
other systems, that belong to UNIX family (like Mac OS X, for example).

In the future if such a proprietary formats could be avoided as digital
handouts that would be very handy and not discriminating as it is now.

Sincerely,

Vladimir J.,
W310 Student

------------------

the self extracting archive:

no, it's not a zip archive, it is a binary .exe, as i said.
so unzipsfx gives me that output:

vovka-macbook:~ vovka$ unzipsfx Documents/Studies/Music\ Industry/Week\
8/12\ single\ as\ medium\ and\ artifact.exe
UnZipSFX 5.52 of 28 February 2005, by Info-ZIP (http://www.info-zip.org).
unzipsfx:  cannot find myself! [unzipsfx]

and unzip says:

vovka-macbook:~ vovka$ unzip Documents/Studies/Music\ Industry/Week\ 8/12\
single\ as\ medium\ and\ artifact.exe
Archive:  Documents/Studies/Music Industry/Week 8/12 single as medium and
artifact.exe
  End-of-central-directory signature not found.  Either this file is not
  a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive.  In the
  latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
  the last disk(s) of this archive.
unzip:  cannot find zipfile directory in one of Documents/Studies/Music
Industry/Week 8/12 single as medium and artifact.exe or
        Documents/Studies/Music Industry/Week 8/12 single as medium and
artifact.exe.zip, and cannot find Documents/Studies/Music Industry/Week 8/12
single as medium and artifact.exe.ZIP, period.

reply from owen about the initial (MHT) issue was quite harsh.
when i sent the letter about the archive, what happened - i just opened the
same resourse - and
voila! the file was changed from .exe to MPEG file. opens with quicktime on
this macbook, but it is eventually is a scan (should have been pdf, i
reckon).

2 aldan: no, i don't want to raise this issue [now], because Owen is a nice
person and a very good lecturer indeed - one of the best modules, actually
(Music Industry). don't want to pick up one guy, but the issue, certainly
need a closer look. it's not a singe case (.doc handouts - all the time, WMA
and WMV files, the list goes on).

vladimir


On 06/03/2008, William Sanders / EFG <wsanders at efgroup.net> wrote:
>
> Oh, poor Owen !
>
> mht file ? That's an OLD Microsoft format, usually made from Publisher or
> Word or something else from Office.
>
> I think Owen's IT people need to audit his machine, and install the
> updated toolsets - after all, this is Liverpool, and it's got mondo smart
> IT folk on staff.
>
> Apprently Owen isn't taking advantage of the free support he gets through
> the IT Staff, so you should remind him that MHT is a deprecated format, no
> longer supported by MicroSloth, and he should really re-align himself with
> the current toolsets, again - available for FREE at his IT Support desk at
> the UNI.
>
> Hopefully Owen is just a small lecturer and not a tenured professor - I'd
> be scared to know a tenured professor creates MHT files - I think he'd
> need a good talking to from his boss !
>
>
> Slan ! [Bill]
>
> > hi everyody!
> >
> > just wanted to post a letter i just send to one of my lecturers,
> > would like to know the opinions on that issue - what can and cannot be
> > done.
> > so here's the deal:
> >
>
> --
> William Sanders / efGroup
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Liverpool mailing list
> Liverpool at mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/liverpool
>



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