Breaking in a PBEMer, but how?

[The ol one eye.]

Im getting my girlfriends Father into CM, he went nuts over it when I brought it to him, I singlehandedly converted a Starcraft player into a die-hard CM fan. He asked me to order the game for him which I did about 20 minutes after he called his first arty strike.

Anyways, he's not the most computer literate( well niether am I) guy, but I really want to challenge him to a PBEM, I think it would be great to play him a game, teach him some stuff. My question is, how do I explain to the guy how to use things like WinZip, how to add attachments and other basic PBEM

manners? Now before you say 'Well duh, read the manual', I have to reiterate that this guy is as dumb as a box of rocks as far as anything techy goes. I could write him a huge Email on how-to, but I probably couldnt make it any clearer. Is there any guide, site or advice you can muster?

Oh, Andy if you happen to read this, I did'nt mean it when I said as dumb as a box of rocks.

Thanks!

[ February 27, 2002, 01:59 AM: Message edited by: The ol one eye. ]

[Darwin]

how about sending him the set up and then going over to his house and showing him step by step how to use the attachment you sent him then how to mail the return file.

[Goanna]

I wrote up a detailed description of how to PBEM(with annotated pictures from the desktop) along with a folder heirarchy that works well for me to provide to my dad when he wanted to get started. However, we both use Macs and I am on the road at the moment and can't send it to you right now. If, however, you want it on or after March 8, send me an e-mail and I can pass it on for you to edit then.

[Guest SnarkerII]

I wrote a step by step for using Winzip with games for the ACWGC a while back - link follows. It uses Netscape, but Outlook is very similar. Winzipping a game turn

Let him know the extension will be different for CM save files.

[ February 27, 2002, 02:33 AM: Message edited by: SnarkerII ]

[The ol one eye.]

cool, that will help!

I would love to just show him, but he lives about 290 miles away.

[Redwolf]

Don't zip the pbem files. Any reasonable email way leaves the pure pbem files as attachments untouched and it saves you the sassle of getting it in and out of zip.

[Guest SnarkerII]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Don't zip the pbem files. Any reasonable email way leaves the pure pbem files as attachments untouched and it saves you the sassle of getting it in and out of zip.

True, but most ISP's aren't reasonable! Someone somewhere always wants to garble a packet or two. Zipping a file is like a 'safe sex' for the internet... LOL

[Lawyer]

Yahoo email seems to require a zip game file, or all I get is gibberish in a txt file.

You don't need to drive 290 miles. Long distance is a cheap way to walk him through it on the phone while you both sit at your computers. This worked well for me when I got help setting up Roger Wilco and going to HyperLobby in IL-2.

[imported_Hiram Sedai]

Originally posted by Lawyer:

Yahoo email seems to require a zip game file, or all I get is gibberish in a txt file.

You don't need to drive 290 miles. Long distance is a cheap way to walk him through it on the phone while you both sit at your computers. This worked well for me when I got help setting up Roger Wilco and going to HyperLobby in IL-2.

I've used yahoo email repeatedly for my PBEM turns with little or no problem. (user headspace, Jake)

I've used AOL Instant Messanger to speak with others over the internet with no problem. Both of you just need to plug in your microphones into your sound card.

[karch]

Originally posted by SnarkerII:

...but most ISP's aren't reasonable! Someone somewhere always wants to garble a packet or two. Zipping a file is like a 'safe sex' for the internet... LOL[/QB]

Zipping (stuffit for the Mac) is a good way to reduce the size of some files, but it isn't any safer. I'd have to dissagree about the garbled packets. Packets may be dropped regularly, but they should be resent if your program doesn't respond that it got the packet. It would be very rare that packets get garbled and even if it did, it would effect a ZIP file just as bad as the PBEM text file you are sending. From what I've seen, ZIP doesn't really compress pbem files very much anyway. Some, but not much. I'd only compress files if your email program can't handle sending plain text files.

[Redwolf]

Getting a reliable ISP with reliable email is the very first thing you need to do for a person who is unexperienced with computers. It they don't transport text/plain attachments, you have to dump them - or otherwise the person will get even more unsure in using the computer.

A good ISP is more, not less, important for new users.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by SnarkerII:

True, but most ISP's aren't reasonable! Someone somewhere always wants to garble a packet or two. Zipping a file is like a 'safe sex' for the internet... LOL

This has nothing to do with dropped network packets. TCP handles this just fine.

Bad ISPs damage emails while shifting them around on their harddisks before respooling for further transportation or access by the customer.

Really bad ISPs damage attachments when autoconverting them in a misguided attempt to provide something more convinient to the users.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by karch:

Zipping (stuffit for the Mac) is a good way to reduce the size of some files, but it isn't any safer.

It is often safer, because bad ISP who convert stuff are less likely to touch binary attachments than text attachments. But since you should dump ISPs who touch your email body or attachemnt in any way anyway, it doesn't really matter.

[Redwolf]

OK, guys, as for size, you realize that zip-ing the file make your email larger, not smaller do you?

Due to braindead protocols (smtp) we have to use, all email is all ascii text. Whatever is not ascii text is being converted to ASCII text before being transported in the SMTP protocol. There is no way around that as long as you use this protocol, which you pretty much have to with a normal ISP and normal email partners.

So, a text attachment (such as a *.txt PBEM file) is transported as such. But a binary attachment, like a zip file is being converted to ASCII at sending time and converted back at reading time. There are two methods of conversion, base64 and uuencode. Naturally, both of them make the file bigger, since you can use only 7-bit ASCII chars and insert newlines.

Here are the actual sizes of a larger pbem move of mine:

Pure PBEM move, would not be converted on email sending:

990023 Feb 27 09:14 nordic-cbg-rwolf056.txt

Pure zipfile. This will not be sent as such:

749052 Feb 27 09:15 nordic-cbg-rwolf056.zip

Here is the zipfile (not the pure pbem file) after packing in with the two methods of ASCII'ing it. This is what gets sent, and there is mothing you can do about it:

1026480 Feb 27 09:15 nordic-cbg-rwolf056.zip.base64

1032068 Feb 27 09:15 nordic-cbg-rwolf056.zip.uue

As you can see, the text conversion does not only eat up the compression, it makes things worse.

And that is natural, because the original CMBO PBEM move is already compressed. It is compressed and then converted to ASCII, that is what CMBO automatically does for your convinience. What you do here, when ziping such a file, is to compress a compressed file again, which can only make it larger. But its worse, since you also have the first ASCII conversion (the one that makes the original PBEM file an ASCII file), which is extra overhead when compressing it. The zipfile itself is smaller because it can compress the PBEM's own ASCII-wrapper, but that doesn't buy you anything, since you need a new ASCII wrapper for actually emailing the binary zipfile.

[ February 27, 2002, 10:04 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Redwolf]

Five posts in a row. I should get to work...

[Lars]

You might want to set him up with a PBEM utility like One Click or Fuerte’s PBEM Utility.

Makes it very easy once it is installed.

See the FAQ.

[Ron]

From 'Breaking in a PBEMer' to a lecture on whether to 'Zip or not', communication is alive and well...

Another option in addition to the ones already supplied, is if you both have XP, you can use a neat feature called 'Remote Assistance' where you can take control of your Father-in-law's computer and 'show him' how to do things on it. I have done the same on occasion with the family and in-laws.

Ron

[Guest SnarkerII]

Originally posted by redwolf:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by SnarkerII:

True, but most ISP's aren't reasonable! Someone somewhere always wants to garble a packet or two. Zipping a file is like a 'safe sex' for the internet... LOL

This has nothing to do with dropped network packets. TCP handles this just fine.

Bad ISPs damage emails while shifting them around on their harddisks before respooling for further transportation or access by the customer.

Really bad ISPs damage attachments when autoconverting them in a misguided attempt to provide something more convinient to the users.</font>

[The ol one eye.]

Thanks for all the info and suggestions guys!

Yeah, this guy uses AOL he has XP, but I do not. That remote assistance thing sounds cool, but I have millenium, after seeing XP in action I dont think I want to switch quite yet, Ill wait for it to be fixed up. Besides, it seems, from my limited experiance with it, to limit access to the nuts and bolts, and it looks too cartooney.

Ill look up the FAQ and send him a link to the One-Click ect. I've sent him links to this forum and all the major sites, getting him as hooked as I am. To play C.M. and not check out the forums is like not having candles on your Bday cake, the community is ( well, mostly ) intelligent and knowledgable. I've learned a ton of good stuff, not just CM goodness, but alot of historical background, and the always funny Peng .

Thanks again.

[Darwin]

sorry, for some reason i thought you were in the same town as the person you were trying to get set up...

[LuckyStrike]

Originally posted by The ol one eye.:

Im getting my girlfriends Father into CM, he went nuts over it when I brought it to him, I singlehandedly converted a Starcraft player into a die-hard CM fan. He asked me to order the game for him which I did about 20 minutes after he called his first arty strike.

Ooooooh, smart move, major points with the old man

[ February 27, 2002, 07:08 PM: Message edited by: LuckyStrike ]

[Ligur]

Originally posted by The ol one eye.:

Stuff about helping a box of rocks play CM:BO via PBEM

I've been working as a tech support person for the last two years. I quit the other week. Maybe you are about to find out why.

[ February 27, 2002, 08:05 PM: Message edited by: Ligur ]

[lcm1947]

I don't know nothing about zipping or unzipping or this or that but I would like to make one suggestion however. Contact BTS and beg if you have to but see if they can delete your post. I am serious. That remark about dumb as a box of rocks will be seen one of these days and I can't imagine it being funny to him. Thought I'd just mention it.

[Ligur]

Hmm keep it simple, first talk with him on the phone when he does it the first time, do it step by step with him, and then send him an email (he knows how to use "email," right?) with a short memory list.

Utilizing my in-depth experiece with helping computer illiterate people to deal with the daily horrors of working with them nasty machines, I wrote a quick how-to.

1) Hello. Save attachment you got from Eye's email in your CM:BO\PBEM folder.

2) Fire up CM:BO.

3) Click "join multiplayer", then click "load email," then browse to the CM:BO\PBEM folder. Select the file Eye's sent you and click "open."

4) Play

5) Press "go" when you are finished, rename the file from our_game_005 to our_game_006 when prompted and click "ok." Then exit CM:BO.

6) Fire up email software and reply to Eye's mail. Attach the file you just made to the email.

7) Go make a turkey sandwich.

Something like that. If he has played Starcraft he might have the capabilities to "browse" his "folders." I know some accountants at my job can't do that after using a Windows machine for 7 years but what the hell. Umm, sorry if I sound bitter Giving complicated or long manuals for simple jobs will drive inept or new users insane, as they will perceive the procedure as something hellishly difficult.

[Lars]

You realize he's going to name every game "our_game_005".