| The number one cause that disrupts the archives are extremely large emails. These will cause the archives to "stick" when the program encounters them in the archive mailbox. One way to avoid this from happening is to impose quantity (no more than 1) and size limitations (no larger than 500kb) on post attachments. You set the Maximum Message Size in your IMail List Manager under "Setup List" - then "List Options". The setting is near the bottom of the page.
In order to change an image file's size and/or dimensions, you need an image editor. We recommend a little, easy-to-use image editor called IrfanView. It's a free program that can be downloaded from IrfanView. After you've installed IrfanView on your computer, start up the program. Locate an image file on your computer than needs to be optimized for the Web. Drag a copy of the file onto the IrfanView screen. The image will display on the IrfanView screen in its actual size (how it would look on a web page). Follow these steps to optimize:
- Click the "Image" link at the top of IrfanView
- Select "Resize/Resample"
- At the bottom of the left side of the screen is a field that shows the current DPI and lets you change it. Change it to 72.
- Use one of the various methods on the screen to make the image the size (dimensions) you want it to be when it displays on your Web page. This will be self-explanatory when you see it. Be sure to keep "preserve aspect ratio" checked.
- Click the OK button
The image will be displaying in its new size in IrfanView. If you don't like the new size and want to make it bigger or smaller, then
- Click the Edit link at the top of IrfanView, then click "Undo"
- Repeat steps 1-5 above.
When the image is the size you want it to be, then
- Click the File link at the top of IrfanView, then click "Save" or "Save As" depending upon whether you want to keep a copy of the original image or not. If you don't need a copy of the original to be saved, select "Save" and click OK to overwrite the existing image file. If you need to keep a copy, select "Save As" and give the image you just created a new filename. Be sure the filename does not contain any spaces or special characters!
We recommend you post these instructions on your list. Subscribers can use those instructions to keep the size of graphic attachments to a minimum.
As for other very large attachments that need to be distributed to subscribers, we highly recommend signing up for our File Sharing service. This would be much preferable to sending posts via the list, particularly if there are attachments that cannot be sent because of their size. All these files would then be permanently available to all subscribers, easy to find, easy to view, and easy to download. You would put a link to your File Sharing service on your site, inside a member's only area, if you already have one. If not you can use the free Access Shield service in your account and password-protect it that way.
If you do not wish to use File Sharing, you can also upload files to your free web space using Site Maker's file manager. Because directory browsing has been enabled, you could create a folder called "documents" and upload all files to be distributed to that folder. If you do *not* put a default page (e.g. index.html) in that folder, when the folder is accessed via browser address bar (e.g. http://hostinghelps.com/your_username/documents), a list of the uploaded files in that folder will display, along with the date/time they were uploaded, the name of the file, and a link to view and/or download the file. However, you must keep in mind that storage is limited to 10MB for all files, which will quickly be used up if they upload very many large files. |