My name starts with the letter "c" and, because "I gotta be me," I use the key combination of option-g to sign my email and bulletin board messages with a ©. For example:
> Mike, > > You should check out www.halfbakery.com. It's cool! > > ©
I think this is quite nifty - like having my own little logo built into the keyboard.
But hey, what if you could assign any postcript graphic you want to any key combination? You could have a crystal clear little logo, or signature, or line art, assigned to a key combination that you can use in any document or any application (Instant Messenger, email, heck, even Photoshop), that anyone can view.
I know it can be done on a system level because on my Macintosh I can hit option-shift-k and it will produce a postscript graphic of the Apple logo, scaleable to any size. I would show you here, but it doesn't seem to want to work in MS Internet Explorer. ;-) Or this font. I dunno...
So the technical hurdle seems to be involved with getting the the code standard in every computer operating system. Maybe it's a little application that you can download that will allow your system to override a key combo with your specified eps graphic.
This little venture could be money making - charge advertising space on the download site and in the installer application. In order for this to really work though, it has to be universal. Then we can all add whatever cool little sigs we can come up with at any time. At any resolution.
How cool would that be?
Cheers, ©-- pixelswisher, Jan 30 2002 Ascii art movie http://www.asciimation.co.nz/for [neelandan] [jutta, Feb 01 2002] Oh, all right then. http://www.heise.de...halt/sa/2458/1.htmlReport on artists who remade Deep Throat (1970s porn) in ASCII art. [pottedstu, Feb 01 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] Deep http://www1.zkm.de/%7Ewvdc/ascii/java/Throat [thumbwax, Feb 01 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] //In order for this to really work though, it has to be universal.//
Therein lies the problem. I'll give you croissant for being idealistic.
- S-- st3f, Jan 30 2002 If you're printing it out, just sign the thing. If not, don't send a bloated PS file when text will do just fine.-- bookworm, Jan 30 2002 It's not a bloated PS file anymore than any other key character. It's a basically allowing people to create their own font character, and transmit it to anyone else. It would be tiny.
$, ¢, ™, &, @, <pi> <- these are all examples of what I'm referring to. What if you could replace one (or add a new one altogether) with your own design. A 40pt dollar sign doesn't take up any more memory than a 9pt dollar sign.-- pixelswisher, Jan 30 2002 PostScript and TTF fonts are essentially little pictures of the characters they represent, which is why you can have symbol fonts like Wingdings. If all your messages are sent and read using a PS or TTF font, create your own font with your signature assigned to a keystroke. Just make sure everyone reading your message has a copy of your font installed on their system.
ASCII (plain text) uses standardized byte codes to represent characters - most (if not all) of which are already assigned. There would be no way to assign everyone in the world there own signature code.-- phoenix, Jan 30 2002 [admin: use <br> at the end of a line to force a line break; it would make your quoted email look better.]
Fishbone for suggesting yet another money-making scheme based on advertising in installer and on a site. Haven't enough of those gone broke yet?
"How cool would that be?" I think it's cool to create big effects with simple, small means. This seems to be the opposite.-- jutta, Jan 31 2002 Outlook and doubtless other email software already lets you embed gifs and jpegs in your email. Storing them as a font instead of an image file might save a little memory, but would create other hassles. If you care about presentation, you're better off sending emails as PS/PDF/TeX files anyway.
But all of this detracts from the simple, universal plain text email. Personally, my preferred solution would be that if there's an image you want to embed, do it as ascii art. Everybody loves ascii art.-- pottedstu, Jan 31 2002 ASCII art. Yay.-- phoenix, Jan 31 2002 ASCII art rocks!-- La-La, Jan 31 2002 ASCII art is nice. ASCII movies are better.-- Guncrazy, Jan 31 2002 ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI.-- waugsqueke, Jan 31 2002 Where can I get an ASCII movie, Guncrazy?
<later> I really thought you were joking!-- neelandan, Feb 01 2002 [see link.]-- jutta, Feb 01 2002 There's also apparently an ascii art version of Deep Throat, but it's allegedly 125Mbytes long. I can't link to pr0n, so google it yourself.-- pottedstu, Feb 01 2002 ASCII is definitely best multimedia platform. I hope u all know last edition of StarWars eposide IV. Just 2 refresh yr mem: 'telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl'-- miker, Feb 01 2002 ([miker]: English is the language of choice on this site.)-- angel, Feb 01 2002 ([angel]: Oh, i will try to pay attention on it. Can i use abbreviations atleast, please?)-- miker, Feb 01 2002 random, halfbakery