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 Bizarre
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| posted on March 13th, 2006 at 05:46 PM |
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Computer help needed
Some one has emailed me three files
They have convienently changed the name of them to include the date.
So they now have a ".06" in their name :jesus
I have guessed they were word files and changed them back and can read them
the 3rd has ".dat" after it??
Any ideas what sort of file it is???
Futue te ipsum!!!
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 modulus
A.k.a.: Peter Hill
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| posted on March 13th, 2006 at 05:55 PM |
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File extensions don't mean much; they certainly don't 'force' the files to act in a particular manner.
The '.dat' extension is sometimes used to denote 'data', but unless you know the sender and were expecting the file, you should treat it as a
virus.
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Bizarre
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| posted on March 13th, 2006 at 06:51 PM |
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I know the sender
Just cant get onto them.
The files have been changed to those "generic" file symbols so that when you click on them it just says "what application do you want to open it
with"
Will just wait for the sender to answer
Just trying to get a jump on it
thanks anyway
Futue te ipsum!!!
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EgeWorks
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| posted on March 13th, 2006 at 07:59 PM |
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.dat usually means raw data for some kind of program to read. You can try and open it in notepad to see if it makes any sense but otherwise it's hard
to know as it's a commonly used extension in many programs.
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crewcabconnection
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| posted on March 13th, 2006 at 09:53 PM |
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.dat is usually some attachment such as a logo or background burried in the email body, esp if its a graphical email not plain text. Probably. Get rid
of the full point (dot) (.) and rename it, if it's a pic .jpg or .gif or .bmp being the logical ones, or .doc or .xls etc. The suffix after the dot
is the mime type you need to open it.
Windoze is still DOS despite the smoke and mirror. Or just buy a Mac which is smart enough to figure it out on it's own.
If you're making pics or files to send about the net, just avoid using dots and slashes, and spaces - use and underscore_to_link_names or a
hypen-to-link-names. PCS don't like spaces on the net when running Windoze.
Cheers
Loves a lolcat
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EgeWorks
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| posted on March 14th, 2006 at 08:20 AM |
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| Quote: |
Or just buy a Mac which is smart enough to figure it out on it's own.
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I'm sure buying a new computer is the answer to this problem...
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modulus
A.k.a.: Peter Hill
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| posted on March 14th, 2006 at 08:37 AM |
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| Quote: | Originally
posted by crewcabconnection
...Get rid of the full point (dot) (.) and rename it, if it's a pic .jpg or [...] or .doc or .xls etc. ...
Cheers
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When you do this (renaming a .dat file to a .doc file received by email) you help virus-composers circumvent virus-checkers; it may be a Word macro
virus which, by your actions, has now escaped inspection as such. It's pretty clear that the original poster is not, shall we say, deeply au
fait with the inner workings of PCs, which is fine, but as such should be discouraged from trying to help the anti-social.
Just ask the original sender to re-send it in its original form; how hard is that?
hth
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