MIME is just those attachments or pictures an is encoded in your emails.
seeing it raw it is just looks like this


-----Boundary--lkadjfkajeklekr------
junk looking 80 character stuff
....
....
-----Boundary--lkadjfkajeklekr----

when you pull it up in your email you see the picture, or the
attachment...

this is my words of wisdom....



On Tue, 14 May 2002, Russ Hicks wrote:

> Hi guys, especially Ben Parker (I think),
>
> I temporarily suspended my email from this list a few weeks ago, and I
> think I may have missed something important.  However I searched the
> archives and I think I MAY have picked up a clue to what's going on with my
> new bottom banner.  Here's my current situation:
>
> My new bottom banner is appearing on less than half of all the posts to the
> Stutt-L list at Temple.  41 out of 93 posts since May 4th, DO have
> it.  That's only 44%.  The remain 56% do NOT have the banner at all.  <sad
> face>
>
> The bottom banner was installed on May 4th.  I used the web interface to
> install it (exactly as I had done on a test list that Stan Horwitz had set
> up for me).  I have never had trouble with the web interface.  But just to
> satisfy myself I did a ...
>
>        GET STUTT-L.mailtpl
>
> via email on the Temple server and got back ...
>
>       >>> BOTTOM_BANNER Bottom Banner for list postings
>       .FO OFF
>
>       ** Sign off: mailto:[log in to unmask]
>       ** Archives and settings:
> http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/stutt-l.html
>       ** FAQs and Help: http://www.mankato.msus.edu/~stutter/stuttlfaq.html
>       .FO ON
>
> which all looks normal to me.  (I'm a little surprised that I didn't get
> EVERYTHING back like the default.mailtpl with the BOTTOM_BANNER section
> modified, but I didn't.  I just assume this is normal.)
>
> Then I announced the new bottom banner by posting to the list - and the
> bottom banner WASN'T there!  <red face!>  Then I sent out a second
> announcement apologizing for the absence of the banner - and there it
> WAS!  <double red face!>  Figuring that computers are truly the tools of
> the devil, I stopped posting entirely and simply watched other posts appear
> and sure enough about half of them have the bottom banner and half do
> not.  'Tis a puzzlement...
>
> I thought that maybe the list at Temple was being run on two separate
> mirrored servers, one which contained the new bottom banner and one which
> never got the update.  I know mirrored servers are not SUPPOSED to get out
> of sync like that, but the devil can make strange things happen.
>
> After much delay and confusion I read a post from Ben Parker on 4/19
> (BEFORE my problem) which said in part...
>
> >there is a long known issue of banners seeming to disappear when MIME messages
> >are sent.  Due to the technical nature if how MIME messages are formed the
> >banners are added outside of the MIME boundary areas and thus cannot be seen
> >in most mail clients.  This problem has been corrected in the forthcoming 1.8e
> >release of LISTSERV.  In fact, separate banners can be defined for plain-text
> >and HTML messages.
>
> That adds even more mud to the waters.  Say what?  MIME messages?  Am I
> supposed to understand what a MIME message is?  And what to do when I get
> (or send) one?  I'm a newbie to this kind of stuff.  Is that an answer to a
> different problem than I have?  Help!
>
> If it matters, my mail client is Eudora 5.1, running on Windows 98, 750 Mhz
> processor, 256 meg RAM.  Apple pie normal I'd guess.
>
> I await your words of wisdom...
>
> Thanks,
>
> Russ
>
> [log in to unmask]
> Dallas, Texas
> 972-881-1451 home, 972-489-6169 cell
> my home page: http://www.RussHicks.com
>