Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with attachment

Can Outlook attachments change themselves?

youngergirl44 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:39:07 -0800

Is it possible for an email attachment in Outlook to 'update' itself from a network drive? My attachment is not the same now as it was when I first received and viewed it. My company uses Word documents with embeded Excel objects. These documents are saved on a network drive, then emailed to me as an attachment using Outlook. When I get the email, I open the attachment, print the document, and close out of the attachment and message. I do not make or save any changes to the document or the email message.

If I find any problems with the printed document, I'll reply to the sender and tell them what I think should be changed. Then they'll send back a revised document - it has the same filename as the original document.

This has happened twice: I'll get a 'revised' document on which the Excel object does not appear to have been changed. I'll ask the sender, and they insist the changes have been made.

If I open the document from its location on the network drive I see that the sender is correct and the revisions have been made. If I close the network document and then open the attachment again, the changes are there and I cannot go back to what I originally saw (no changes).

Why would the attachment be 'updating' from the network drive instead of remaining as originally sent to me? Does it have something to do with the temporary Outlook files in the OLK folder?

Other perhaps relevant points:
* The embedded objects are not linked to a separate Excel workbook. They have either been copied from an external workbook or created within the Word document.
* I'm running Windows XP Professional SP3 and Office 2003 and I kinda assume everyone else is too.
* My boss receives the same email and attachment I do, but often doesn't open the message or attachment. I asked him to look at one I was having problems with earlier today - his attachment showed the updated version of the file.
* I know for sure I did not open an older email and print the wrong version of the document.
* My computer is always connected to the network drive on which the documents are saved.

This is making me look crazy because I keep asking the sender of these documents to make changes that have already been made.

How Can I Help My Troubled Cousin?

harnharn — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:11:46 -0800

How can I support my troubled cousin who suffers from attachment disorder? Fifteen years ago my evangelical aunt and uncle adopted a child with a traumatic history including physical and sexual abuse. They tried to raise her faithfully, sending her to Christian school, homeschooling her when problems arose, doing 'holding therapy,' and layering on the structure and limitations. When she graduated high school she soon ran away, finding work eventually as an exotic dancer. Hitting bottom, she returned home and her parents offered to enroll her in a faith-based rehab program, which she agreed to, then ran away from. Now she lives five hundred miles away, unemployed, and - having just been evicted - in a servile relationship with an older man, just one of a bunch of demeaning, unsupportive relationships.

She's unhappy; her parents are upset, but they can't agree on a solution.

My cousin and I have a casual, friendly relationship. I like her and want to see her do well, but I'm not prepared to ask her to move in with me. What I'd like to find is some kind of program or set of programs/support groups/case-workers that could substitute for the restrictive, dogmatic faith-based program she's understandably averse to. Cost is an issue; I guess one of the advantages of the religious-based programs is they're often free.

Any recs for resources, medical, governmental or politely religious? She's in North Carolina now, though I don't know if she has official residency.

Attachment Issues

alice_curiouse — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:16:52 -0800

I am looking for ideas on how to make progress on my attachment issues. Any suggestions? I was wondering if anyone else has had experience with forming attachments too quickly and how they have made progress?

I have been a "loner" and separated from my peers every since I can remember -- since I was five I taken in and out of different schools and was never one place for more than two years. I've never really struggled with being unattactive to the opposite sex, so I've always been able to form fast attachments to male peers based on being the "new girl" and fairly attractive. The closest attachment I've ever formed to a man (my father) ended with his death when I was 18.

At this point in my life (I'm 30) I am having attachment problems.

I tend to be scared of being too attached to people and yet I form attachments very quickly. For example, if I go on a date with someone that I'm super-interested in -- I almost immediately"attach" to them emotionally -- meaning I will begin to imagine/plan the logistics of moving in together, all that "crazy shit" etc. I've compensated for this by having sex with other people in order to keep myself detached and "stay cool".

Also, I have a crazy difficult time in getting to know women. They scare me, I feel that I don't know how to understand them or make conversation with them, so I don't have any female friends and the last friendship I tried to make with a women I screwed up within a week.

What irritates me is that these problems affects so many other areas of my life as well, such as my ability to live alone, work alone, etc. I DO see a therapist and the issue is regularly discussed, so that advice is not necessary in this situation. I was just wondering if anyone has made progress on this sort of issue in their own life. Thanks!

end the attachment cycle

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:11:44 -0800

I want to stop being a relationship-machine and start having something more casual. Why do I get attached so quickly? And how do I prevent myself from getting attached so I can have more fun? I’m female, 27, and I’ve had 3 significant relationships over the past 6 years. My recent Very Serious Relationship ended in October. We were very serious, headed towards marriage, and the breakup was abrupt and staggering. Initially it was awful, but now I feel great, and I’m taking some time for myself and for traveling. I’m in school, and moving to a new city after graduation. I’m not planning to really date until after I move; I want to use the next 6 months to just get my head on straight, figure out what happened, and build myself back up.

Although – I have started casually seeing/hooking up with someone at school. It’s tons of fun and clearly not going anywhere. He’s someone I don’t see a future with, and we’re moving very far away after graduation. I’ve never successfully done the casual/rebound thing before, but I like it. We have fun together. I don’t expect either of us to be monogamous, though I think we both have been. I would totally understand breaking this off if either of us met someone we liked better.

Except that I find myself feeling attached to this guy after just a few weeks. We’re on winter break and I’m constantly checking my phone to see if he’s texted me. In the past, I’ve shied away from more casual things because I was worried that getting physical would lead to attachments, but I *really* don’t want to be in a relationship right now, so I thought it would be ok. And I don't want to end this. I like it, and it's helped me feel a lot better after a really crappy breakup.

I don’t get it – half my brain is thinking “I don’t want to be in a relationship! It’s so great to have something light, casual and fun!” And the other half is thinking, “why hasn’t he called?? Will I be devastated if it’s over when we get back from break?” But I’m not that crazy about the guy. I’m worried that I automatically go into attachment mode, and I think that’s not healthy for me or my relationships. How do I understand the attachment part of my brain? Can I prevent myself from attaching when I don't want to so I can just… have fun?

Is there such a thing as a good massage chair?

mcarthey — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:45:04 -0800

Looking for an affordable and decent massage chair (or attachment). I realize there may not be a massage chair or chair attachment that is worth the money, but I'm looking for something that will provide some level of comfort and not break the bank. I go for the occasional massage, so I know it will never replace a professional, but I have also tried different versions of chair attachments that were terrible and almost painful as they dig into your back.
Of those I've liked were some real expensive ones at Brookstone. Specifically their chair with all the attachments is great. The leg massager is unique and enjoyable, but well beyond what I'm willing to spend.
I'd like it to focus primarily on my back, but bonus points for one that is versitile enough to work in other areas.

Evo Devo Child-Rearing Book?

messylissa — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:32:19 -0800

Help me pick a book for my Evo Devo class! I have to review a book for my graduate evolutionary developmental psychology seminar. I am (or rather, I aspire to be) an attachment theorist/researcher, and I was hoping to find a book with a child-rearing focus. I have spent HOURS looking on Amazon, but there just doesn't seem to be much out there. I reaaaaally don't want to read a classic Bowlby text.

The review is due on Nov 6, so I'm looking for something less than 300 pages so as to save my poor, tired, thesis-driven life. Got any brilliant books you'd like to share?

VB: Putting filenames in a message body.

bigmusic — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:25:05 -0800

VB Script Help: I would like to put the filenames of my attachments into the message body of my emails. How do I do that? I'm not a programmer - I'm just using a script that I ran across somewhere on the Internet. I'm using Outlook 2003 on XP. So far this script renames the subject, adds a quick line to the body and then sends the message. I would like it to add the file names of the attachments (plural) to the body after my "inspirational message." Bonus: Can I point my current olItem.Body at a text file?



Sub ChangeSubject()

Set oActiveExplorer = Application.ActiveExplorer

MsgBox TypeName(oActiveExplorer.Selection)

Set oSelection = oActiveExplorer.Selection

    For I = 1 To oSelection.Count

        Set olItem = oSelection.Item(I)

        olItem.Subject = "Your weekly inspirational message"

        olItem.Body = "Inspirational Message"

        olItem.Send

    Next

End Sub

Fastest way to get a screenshot attached to a new gmail message?

scarabic — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:04:37 -0800

Is there a one-click way I can 1. press a key combo shortcut 2. select a rectangular area of my screen 3. snap a screenshot of that 4. immediately get that screenshot attached to a new gmail message ? #4 seems to be the tricky bit - particularly since Gmail is not a "program" I can send screen cap output to. I do a lot of screen-snapping and emailing daily. A simpler way to do all this would save me quite a bit of time. Getting something attached to Gmail seems to necessarily involve saving it as a file and going through a file-browse dialog box. Faster way out there?

MUST work in Windows. Would be great if it worked in Windows and Mac.

Bonus points if the method includes a way to quickly get multiple screenshots attached to one gmail message!

Evil UPS email...

doowop — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:22:01 -0800

Is our computer infected by that UPS email attachement that has been flying around lately? OK, so my wife got tricked by the malicious UPS email attachment that has been flying around.

Here's my question: She opened the ZIP file but DID NOT run the executable. Are we still OK? I'm five hundred miles away and I can't get on the computer myself. Would just opening the ZIP file launch the executable?

Embedded email images what?

hapticactionnetwork — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:28:56 -0800

What is going on when I sent an attached image from Mail (on my Mac) to an aol email address? So, someone who runs a website wants to promote an event i'm hosting, and asked for a promotional image. Great!

But, when I tried to send the image (a jpeg, using Mail, on my Mac, 10.5.2, from a gmail account) he said the photo would "not open because it's embedded in the email text area."

He asked if I could resend the photo as an attachment, but I'm pretty sure that's what I did the first time. Is there something I'm not understanding? I clicked the "attach" button in Mail, made sure the "send windows-friendly attachments" checkbox was checked, and selected the file like I usually do. I kind of suspect it has something to do with the fact that he's using aol, but I'm open to the possibility that it's something I'm doing.

Also, I tried searching the wider web for information about this, and some of it was helpful, but it was all a little over my head. I won't be offended if you explain what's going on to me like I'm an infant.

Wiki, email...tomaytoe, tomahtoh...

nakedcodemonkey — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:18:50 -0800

What else has wiki/email integration features like JotSpot's?

"Every page is an Inbox. Simply "CC:" a wiki page and the email is automatically attached to that page. Messages are indexed for searching and attachments are placed into your wiki..."
-and-
"...turn a page's email address into an email list...[which] specifies membership drawn from the existing wiki user list, archives messages sent to and fro, and even thwarts spammers by ignoring email sent from an address not on the list."

Perfect, if it were still on offer. JotSpot was officially replaced by Google Sites, which didn't implement stuff. What other wikis or very simple CMSs do?

Help me turn this MIME attachment into something decipherable

nebulawindphone — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 09:39:16 -0800

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64? Content-Type: application/applefile? Help me turn this MIME attachment into something decipherable. I was sent an important form as an email attachment with no three-letter extension. I opened it with a text editor, hoping to find some readable text among the gibberish, and saw the following:

--Apple-Mail-29-607603874

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

Content-Type: application/applefile;

        name=Financial Aid Recs 2008-09.doc

Content-Disposition: attachment;

        filename="Financial Aid Recs 2008-09.doc"



AAUWBwACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAAAJAAAAPgAAAAoAAAADAAAASAAAAB4AAAACAAAA

ZgAAAT5XOEJOTVNXRAAQRmluYW5jaWFsIEFpZCBSZWNzIDIwMDgtMDkuZG9jAAABAAAAAQwAAAAM

AAAAMgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgHU1AgVXNlcgAAAQAAAAEMAAAADAAAADIAf+pAAQQAgAAcADIA

AFNUUiAAAAAKv+P//wAAAAAAfyUw



--Apple-Mail-29-607603874

Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

Content-Type: application/octet-stream;

        x-mac-creator=4D535744;

        x-unix-mode=0644;

        x-mac-hide-extension=yes;

        x-mac-type=5738424E;

        name=Financial Aid Recs 2008-09.doc

Content-Disposition: attachment;

        filename="Financial Aid Recs 2008-09.doc"



0M8R4KGxGuEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPgADAP7/CQAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAAAKQAAAAAAAAAA

EAAAKwAAAAEAAAD+////AAAAACgAAAD/////////////////////////////////////////////

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////



...many lines of gibberish skipped -- no readable text anywhere...



AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=



--Apple-Mail-29-607603874--

Renaming it as a .doc file and opening it with OpenOffice, I saw... exactly the same thing, still with no readable text.

What is this file? How can I turn it into something intelligible?

Thunderbird woes.

sneakin — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:30:48 -0800

Thunderbird is messing up my outgoing attachments. Please help. When I send Word attachments (hasn't happened with .ppt or .pdf) the recipient gets a "binary file" attachment they cannot open. When I look at my sent mail, the attachments show as files with no extension and either a blank white square or a picture of a jack in the box (I know, wtf?). I am on a Mac, os 10.5.2, Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 and am IMAP'd to my Gmail account. This is driving me bananas. I read a bunch of threads including this one and did everything they suggested, to no avail.

I can open attachments I receive, although if it's a Word doc, I have to go through the whole song and dance of selecting Microsoft Word from my apps-- the attachment doesn't look like a Word app and T'bird doesn't recognize it as such. The icon is a picture of a jack in the box.

Reactive Attachment Disorder in Adults - What can be done to help?

watercarrier — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 08:42:32 -0800

Attachment Disorder in Adults - Are there any resources out there? A woman I am corresponding with suffers from RAD and is now in a state of emotional breakdown, suffering from anxiety, depression and agrophobia among other symptoms. I'd like to help her get all the possible help she can, including important books to read, support groups online, available therapies that would work, blogs and anything else that could be pertinent to this condition including stories of recovery - if there are any. Any help in finding her these resources are greatly appreciated! Thanks.

My Hot Trainer is the Reason I'm Motivated to Workout

chase — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:27:21 -0800

Where can I find plain language research results about emotional attachments to care workers? In general, I'm interested in articles about the process of how/why individuals develop emotional attachments to care workers. e.g.: physical fitness trainer, therapist, doctor, mentor, etc. Specifically, I'd like to find information that covers the range of the different types of attachments: crushes vs. stalker depth. Physical fitness trainer is the profession I'm most curious about. What is it about the profession of fitness training that lends itself to the cliché of women being infatuated with their instructor? Personal anecdotes are welcome.

How to get MBOX mailboxes into Eudora (including attachments)?

ManInSuit — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:24:00 -0800

How to get MBOX mailboxes into Eudora (including attachments)? Hi. I have a bunch of MBOX-format mailboxes I've downloaded off my mail host using Imapsize.

I want to be able to access these offline using a fresh installation of Eudora.

When I bring the MBOX files into the Eudora folder, they seem to work okay, as long as the messages have no attachments.

When there are attachments, though, Eudora does not seem happy - the attached files don't show up, and the message bodies include a huge encoded mess.

Does anyone know a way to import mbox-format mailboxes into Eudora that avoids this problem? (Free solutions are best, of course...)

Invites not automatically added to Google Calendar

gfrobe — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 03:41:32 -0800

Why do meeting requests sent from Outlook not show up automatically in my Google Calendar? Whenever I send myself a meeting request from my Outlook to my Google Calendar, I receive the email notification in Gmail but the event does not show up automatically in my Google Calendar even though my settings are set to do so.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it but when the email arrives in Gmail, it has an ical DAT attachment. Clicking on it does not add the event to my calendar. I've also googled these dat attachments and found that a quirk in Outlook sometimes results in strange winmail dat attachments showing up in non Outlook clients. To get rid of these, I'm supposed to set my Outlook mail format to plain text but when I tried this, the invite is still not showing in my Google Calendar.

Any suggestions?

Procmail rule to drop image-attachment spam?

odinsdream — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 10:52:58 -0800

How can I write a procmail rule that would drop messages with GIF or JPEG attachments under 100kB in size? The vast majority of junkmail I receive has image attachments. Sometimes I get real mail from friends with image attachments.

The difference is the file size. Spam attachments are rarely over 100kB, while real pictures from digital cameras are of course much larger.

How can I write a procmail rule to drop any messages with image attachments under a certain size?

Witness Protection Program for email attachments

billtron — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:29:57 -0800

Why are some attached .doc file names being changed to ATT000??.doc? ThunderbirdFilter: At work, I use Thunderbird 1.5 and all of my colleagues use this other program from some company called Tinysoft or something like that. When I send messages with attached .doc files, they are correctly stored in my sent folder, but when the recipient gets the message, the name of the file has changed to ATT000??.doc, where ?? is a combination of integers. This only happens some of the time, and I suspect that it has to do with the size of the name of the document. There are similar problems here and here.

Lots of info about message text being converted into attachments with similar names, and about attached files being changed into new files with similar names, but nothing about attachments that just undergo namechanges.

Needless to say, I would like to fix this. Any help?

Outlook Express converts my work mail into an attachment, and throws away my attachments.

evening — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 17:11:43 -0800

We use Outlook Express as our main email "manager." Any message I send from my work email to home is received as an attachment. Any attachment that I may have included in my email is now gone. WTF? The attachment security thing is turned off, and I've sent the email in both rich text and plain text with the same results.

MS Support sucks, and I've tried searching with no good results (seen a few others with this situation, but with no responses in the forums).

It is rare that I need to send something to my home email, but it is really annoying when I do. Please help me, Ask MeFi, you're my only hope!

Disclaimer: Outlook Express is on my husband's machine; he has no problems with it otherwise and is unlikely to change. Yes, he uses IE too. [sigh]

'Send Page' in Firefox and Thunderbird

dash_slot- — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 08:47:10 -0800

Big fan of Firefox & T-Bird here. However, I'm used to being able to send a page as an attachment, not just a link in an email. I'm sure I could do this in Mozilla - why'd they leave this very useful function out of this build? [Googleis not that helpful - any solutions?]

Cell phone attachments

emelenjr — Tue, 04 May 2004 20:22:39 -0800

My sister sent me something using her cell phone, and I can't play it. [you will find more if you go inside] I can view the pictures from her camera phone, but today she also attached some kind of voice message that showed up as an extra e-mail attachment with the extension .qcp

I'm running Mac OS X 10.3 here with the latest version of Quicktime, and I see that .qcp is a MIME type that my Quicktime preference pane says Quicktime should be able to handle. But no, the icon is a blank document and no application I have on here will open the file. Changing the extension to something predictable like .wav hasn't helped, either.

Qualcomm makes something called PureVoice, which records and plays .qcp files. The latest version for the Mac is rather old, though maybe it would run under Classic. If I could download it, that is. Every download link I've found on every site I have checked has pointed me to an FTP site maintained by Qualcomm, and after repeated tries I still can't get in. Does anyone have a copy of it that they could put up somewhere or shoot me via e-mail? Barring that, why can't I play the file using Quicktime like I should theoretically be able to do?