2012-05-22

Playing Footsies

Recently, it's been common for me to see footers like the one below on emails around the Firm where I work:


!cid_image001_png@01CD3417 Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.


It's gotten me thinking, always a bad idea, I must admit.  And I realized that paper isn't the only resource that we should be mindful of.

And with that, I created a new footer for my email account.


Storage

Please consider storage concerns when creating useless email footers.  Simply having a standard footer of useless text and a cute graphic will gobble up an extra kilobyte of space per email.  This requires additional storage per email (assuming that your email is saved as an intact document, and not compressed using pattern deduplication).  These extra bytes add up to buying additional storage capacity on the server for storing the emails, extra electricity to spin those disks and keep them cool, and is compounded by needing to keep backups and disaster recovery.

People who put unnecessarily long footers on their email are effectively killing the planet a little with every email they send.  They may as well be barbecuing baby seals over a California redwood bonfire.

Please paste this into the signature line of all your emails to help raise awareness to this important issue.

7 comments:

Padded Cell Princess said...

I would respond to this with a useless yellow, smiling head and other that is clapping. Your bbq has me now thinking about lunch...

Anonymous said...

Damn the Man. Save the Byte.

Also...love the timer.

Candy's daily Dandy said...

bwahahahahahahaha..

And this is how genius is made.

Cora said...

This is what I live with, people.

;-)

So. Cal. Gal said...

Haha! LOVE it!

@Cora: I've said it before and I'll say it again, Scope and my guy would SOOOOOO get along. lol!

SkylersDad said...

if you could only increase the size of the graphic by making it an animated gif, that would be just wonderful!

mo.stoneskin said...

Brilliant. Sure, I decided to drop offline for about a month after completing that photo challenge BUT this is the best thing I've read since then...what you need is War & Peace as your signature...I won't reply with my own planet-killing signature unless you reply, that way we can destroy the planet together.