Audio clip in e-mail signature line?

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(Not sure where to post this… here is my first guess… apologies if I am in the wrong place.)
Greetings,

A friend wants to be able to add a short (5 seconds) audio clip to her email signature such that it plays automatically when her email is opened.

Can this be done and, if so, how?

TIA

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“I” haven’t a clue, but I would discourage her from trying it. That’s all I would need to end an email friendship, to have something audio play when I opened the mail!:mad:

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That’s pretty much what I said… She says that signature would only used for certain clients/situations and she feels it would be a positive change.

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She says that signature would only used for certain clients/situations and she feels it would be a positive change.

An extremely positive change! It would be the last she would hear from them… (Tell her about the Law of Unintended Consequences. And note tagline.)

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Most email clients block any form of executable. This would likely include audio files that attempt to play when opened.

cheers, Paul

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You mention clients. That infers business relationships. Not only would any IT dept not welcome this, many block executables attached to e-mail. Some flag the entire e-mail and quarantine it until it is verified by a human. Please discourage her from doing this.

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… That infers business relationships.

No. It implies business relationships.

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No. It implies business relationships.

??? I didn’t know this was a grammar forum. Besides, strictly speaking, either is correct. Infer – a conclusion that is formed because of known facts. The fact in this case being that the OP’s friend has clients.

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These type executables also take more bandwidth which is discouraged by most businesses.

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Really? And prescribing how a billion or two internet users who may have valid reasons to disagree with you should format their emails implies neither of those?

Or perhaps many of us realise the internet is a very different place from when Usenet and 2400 baud modems were the norm, and define ‘poor behaviour’ and ‘how to behave’ differently from you?

Never? Really? It makes absolute sense in an environment like gmail where the top line of a message is shown as an excerpt.

Interesting to see a “newbie” member of the forum leaping in with condescending prescriptive declarations of how other people should behave on the internet and ignoring the rudeness of hijacking someone else’s thread for off-topic moans : http://goo.gl/69f32

These type executables also take more bandwidth which is discouraged by most businesses.

not sure if multiquote failed but responding to visible text above

some folks are on dial up
video and sound that is not requested SLOWS THEM DOWN a LOT

i just got broadband
still dont want any stinkin unasked for video or sound to play

the other 5 billion people on this planet dont want it either

some noob may think its cute to add that to their email sig
but old timers say it is a bad idea
so dance to your own drummer or conform to the norm – your call

just cause someone is a new forum poster does not mean they are ignorant or a total schlimiel wrt computers and the net

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so dance to your own drummer or conform to the norm – your call

just cause someone is a new forum poster does not mean they are ignorant or a total schlimiel wrt computers and the net

Don’t get me wrong – I’m with the masses on this one – Auto-play audio on websites is a bad thing. On Email sigs it’s a ridiculously inappropriate idea.

My original post in this thread was just commenting on Chipmunk joining the thread complaining about ‘newbies’ breaching ‘netiquette’ – while completely oblivious of the fact what he was doing exactly the same…

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The post brought up a repressed memory so I verified it…Format>Background>Sound… it was/is right in the command set for Outlook Express!
I used to send an occasional sound or two to a friend…a novelty that otherwise has a very very short shelf life (cute once, then annoying evermore).

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For what it’s worth, if the recipients use Outlook 2007 or 2010, and tags, and background sound attributes, are likely to be ignored. In Outlook 2003 and earlier, and tags are likely to be blocked or may raise an ActiveX security prompt. Not all business correspondents use Outlook, of course, but this extra bit of ear candy may have a limited reach.

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For heaven’s sake (and your friends’/clients’ relationship with you) do not do this.
I would take it as an assault!

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Along with not including audio clips (apalling idea) it is also wise not to include activex object like scrolling signatures, which are likely to cause an error with some email clients and if you have to include an image in your signature or header host it on your website rather then embedding it in the email. All these things are likely to aggravate your clients.

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I would put something lke that on a par with coming to a website and it automatically starts playing music, I absolutely HATE that! Unless that website has something I really need, that is almost always the last time I ever visit it. And even if it has something I need, either a product or some information, I get what I need and get out, never to return.

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I would put something lke that on a par with coming to a website and it automatically starts playing music, I absolutely HATE that!

Glad to hear this expressed as well. Nothing worse than browsing around late at night when ‘not a creature is stirring’ and BLAM, a website opens with something unbearably loud. AAACK. I keep my sound turned down very low to try to prevent such from happening.

This brings up the question of why website developers seem to use every audio/visual effect in the book to try to showoff what they know. If it takes too long to load, I probably don’t need it anyway. Guess that is NOT a question. Just venting.

Barbara

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I would put something lke that on a par with coming to a website and it automatically starts playing music, I absolutely HATE that! Unless that website has something I really need, that is almost always the last time I ever visit it. And even if it has something I need, either a product or some information, I get what I need and get out, never to return.

I agree! It’s partly for this reason that I use my computer with the sound turned off. On those occasions when I want sound, I simply push a button and then turn it off again after I’m done with whatever I wanted to hear.

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Oh dear, another series of answers by people that just do not understand the question.
It is not necessary to use an executable file to play music when an email is opened. Surely some of you confirmed office environment users will someday realise ALL the capabilities of a PC. Any music or speech file can be embedded in an email and streamed to the person opening the email. It is also a simple matter to offer the choice to the recipient whether they wish to hear the music/message or not.

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I would put something like that on a par with coming to a website and it automatically starts playing music, I absolutely HATE that! Unless that website has something I really need, that is almost always the last time I ever visit it. And even if it has something I need, either a product or some information, I get what I need and get out, never to return.

That is the surest way to get me to never return to a site, or if it was an email, mark it as junk if it got to me. I hate those blaring things. I need sound to know when my other office people are trying to consult me by chat, suppliers by skype, etc.

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It can’t be done anyway, only in certain email clients with certain settings. NOTHING beyond plain text is guaranteed to show/appear as the sender intended. I for example have my email set to plain text only (outlook express didn’t want to do it, but registry changes can force it). Now any html email turns up as an attachment. So I can choose whether to see silly fonts in my emails or not.

Email signatures, like usenet signatures, should be a maximum of 4 lines of 80 characters. Anything else implies either self importance (yes, I realize some companies auto attach hundreds of lines of legaleze cr*p to the emails), or incompetence.

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Email signatures, like usenet signatures, should be a maximum of 4 lines of 80 characters. Anything else implies either self importance (yes, I realize some companies auto attach hundreds of lines of legaleze cr*p to the emails), or incompetence.

But Netiquette, line Usenet, is no longer a part of the learning process for newbies. Top-posting, shouting, all of the poor behavior continues because no one realizes how to behave.

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But Netiquette, line Usenet, is no longer a part of the learning process for newbies. Top-posting, shouting, all of the poor behavior continues because no one realizes how to behave.

Indeed, that is 90% of the problem. My first ISP setup disc (yes I know they’re not needed, but newbies tend to use them, as I did then), contained a ‘netiquette’ walkthrough with explanations of WHY these rules exist, not just that they do. I was very impressed with the ISP (now defunct, sadly).

Top posting NEVER makes sense in a 1to1 conversation (it CAN do in a one to many conversation as businesses tend to use), yet is one of those religious wars that exist on the internet.

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Email signatures, like usenet signatures, should be a maximum of 4 lines of 80 characters. Anything else implies either self importance … or incompetence

Really? And prescribing how a billion or two internet users who may have valid reasons to disagree with you should format their emails implies neither of those?

But Netiquette, line Usenet, is no longer a part of the learning process for newbies. Top-posting, shouting, all of the poor behavior continues because no one realizes how to behave.

Or perhaps many of us realise the internet is a very different place from when Usenet and 2400 baud modems were the norm, and define ‘poor behaviour’ and ‘how to behave’ differently from you?

Top posting NEVER makes sense in a 1to1 conversation (it CAN do in a one to many conversation as businesses tend to use), yet is one of those religious wars that exist on the internet.

Never? Really? It makes absolute sense in an environment like gmail where the top line of a message is shown as an excerpt.

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Really? And prescribing how a billion or two internet users who may have valid reasons to disagree with you should format their emails implies neither of those?

Or perhaps many of us realise the internet is a very different place from when Usenet and 2400 baud modems were the norm, and define ‘poor behaviour’ and ‘how to behave’ differently from you?

Never? Really? It makes absolute sense in an environment like gmail where the top line of a message is shown as an excerpt.

Spot ON, and you said it so eloquently! I couldn’t agree more.

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Before I retired I was IT manager for a consulting engineering firm. I had our email stripped of such nonsense as a matter of course to protect our servers and workstations from unnecessary data and to provide a second line of defense against malware (the first, of course was the firewall immediately behind the ISP’s T1 service jack). Very few corporate IT security people will appreciate such attachments, whatever their purpose.

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I broke off an email relationship with my local political party’s email circle because they kept sending me emails with huge attachments and soundbites and videos — all embedded within the email messages. The emails would take forever to download into Eudora OSE, and once downloaded, the messages often were totally unreadable because of all the fluff which someone thought I just HAD to suffer through. Please, do NOT turn your business correspondence into an ordeal for your recipients!

-- rc primak

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Oh dear, another series of answers by people that just do not understand the question.

From the tone of the responses it looks to be the only person not to understand the question is the original writer posing the question. Just because a PC can be made to do something does not make it right. Bandwidth, baby, bandwidth. Ninety per cent of email is spam and the author wants to up the percentage.

In answer to Author vs. Author’s friend
“In this post, you are a little hard on the original poster. He said it was his friend’s question and that he recommended against it. Can you edit your comment?”
— YOU ARE KIDDING ME — RIGHT?

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(Not sure where to post this… here is my first guess… apologies if I am in the wrong place.)
Greetings,

A friend wants to be able to add a short (5 seconds) audio clip to her email signature such that it plays automatically when her email is opened.

Can this be done and, if so, how?

TIA

bad idea
hostile action

nobody wants videos or sound playing automtically
provide a link for those who do want to access such items

forcing them on us is an act of cyberwar imho

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not everything that can be done should be done

you can take a hammer and drive a rusty nail into my kneecap
but i strongly advise you not to try it
and i MORE vigorously advise you not to force autoplaying sound or video in my email messages

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