Using email encryption using gmail and firefox

[TanisHalfElven]

hi guys.
i was originally creating this guide for my family and freinds to teach them to use email encryption.
but i put so much effort into i decided it good enough others could probably use it too. so here it is.
Its not exactly perfect. i've done the best i could in an hour.
well enjoy.
and if you have any comment they will be appreciated since i would like to make it as idiot proof as i can before sending it out.
its in pdf format.



edit
its now in html and also much much smaller.
http://tinyurl.com/2hhk6g

 

[Jeff7181]

Maybe I'm just ignorant, but isn't encrypting email for family a friends kinda like getting an elaborate alarm system installed on this?

 

[TanisHalfElven]

its more about educating them so they don't send me important info in the mail.

honestly its more geared toward satisfying the nerd in me than the paranoid dork.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Your PDF just crashed Firefox. Thanks.

Opens fine in IE7.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Actually, it just crashed IE7 too!

Thanks!

 

[Jeff7181]

Didn't crash mine. Looked through the entire thing. You need fewer screenshots, or at least smaller ones. Crop out the stuff that isn't important. I've written a few knowledge base articles at work and if a process is more than 10 steps, you can bet people will be skipping steps trying to get it done faster.

*EDIT* By the way, what important information do family and friends email you? If you're talking about data... say... tax returns for example... you're probably better off teaching them how to use encryption in Winzip.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Actually, it just crashed IE7 too!

Thanks!

probably because its a 4.2 mb pdf with 18 1680x1050 shots.

Didn't crash mine. Looked through the entire thing. You need fewer screenshots, or at least smaller ones. Crop out the stuff that isn't important. I've written a few knowledge base articles at work and if a process is more than 10 steps, you can bet people will be skipping steps trying to get it done faster.

thanks for the tip.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Didn't crash mine. Looked through the entire thing. You need fewer screenshots, or at least smaller ones. Crop out the stuff that isn't important. I've written a few knowledge base articles at work and if a process is more than 10 steps, you can bet people will be skipping steps trying to get it done faster.

*EDIT* By the way, what important information do family and friends email you? If you're talking about data... say... tax returns for example... you're probably better off teaching them how to use encryption in Winzip.

you won't belive the stuff. i tried to get them to use winrar but that too failed. i;ve even written guides before to get them to use thunderbird and gmail. to no effect. i am hoping having it right there in there browsers will help.

once its perfected (by the comments that might take a while) i'll even try to get my co-workers to use it.

IMO people shouldn't be using unencrypted emails no matter what the content.

 

[Jeff7181]

Might want to write an html guide instead. Or maybe just an html guide to installing Adobe Reader.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Might want to write an html guide instead. Or maybe just an html guide to installing Adobe Reader.

thats a very good idea. can't believe i did not think of that. i was just wondering what to do with all the bad spacing.
thanks.

edit
LOL at the adobe reader
edit.
i've created a HTML version but my upload to the webspace is sadly 20KB/s and i have to manually upload eqach jpeg to the server. needless to say i'll do this tommorow when i'm close to the server and have a 500 KB/s link to it.

Thanks for the info guys.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Your PDF just crashed Firefox. Thanks.

Opens fine in IE7.

Worked fine for me. But then, I use FoxIt Reader.


PS - information that may come too late: don't use JPEGs for screenshots. PNG files are much better suited, especially for text. They result in text without the surrounding fuzziness, and the files are often much smaller.
For good PNG compression, I prefer to use PNGOut with Irfanview. PNGOut uses multiple passes for its good compression ratios, and Irfanview has a batch convert function. Of course, don't convert JPEGs to PNG, or else it'll try to compress the visual noise as well.

Note that PNGOut can take a few minutes for each pic, especially at the resolution that you're using. So set it up for a batch convert and let it run in the background while you do something else.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Your PDF just crashed Firefox. Thanks.

Opens fine in IE7.

Worked fine for me. But then, I use FoxIt Reader.


PS - information that may come too late: don't use JPEGs for screenshots. PNG files are much better suited, especially for text. They result in text without the surrounding fuzziness, and the files are often much smaller.
For good PNG compression, I prefer to use PNGOut with Irfanview. PNGOut uses multiple passes for its good compression ratios, and Irfanview has a batch convert function. Of course, don't convert JPEGs to PNG, or else it'll try to compress the visual noise as well.

Note that PNGOut can take a few minutes for each pic, especially at the resolution that you're using. So set it up for a batch convert and let it run in the background while you do something else.

thanks for the tip. its not late at all since i'm still working on it.

Anyway i wanted to say thanks to all the people who gave me tips. i don't write documentation much and this was a fun learning experiance. i'll probably improve it and put it up as html later today.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Your PDF just crashed Firefox. Thanks.

Opens fine in IE7.

Worked fine for me. But then, I use FoxIt Reader.


PS - information that may come too late: don't use JPEGs for screenshots. PNG files are much better suited, especially for text. They result in text without the surrounding fuzziness, and the files are often much smaller.
For good PNG compression, I prefer to use PNGOut with Irfanview. PNGOut uses multiple passes for its good compression ratios, and Irfanview has a batch convert function. Of course, don't convert JPEGs to PNG, or else it'll try to compress the visual noise as well.

Note that PNGOut can take a few minutes for each pic, especially at the resolution that you're using. So set it up for a batch convert and let it run in the background while you do something else.

thanks dude for the irfan view tip. i managed to convert 200KB pngs to 30-40 KBs and crop them as well to remove vmware and ubuntu from the picture. now its actually small enough for html site.

also guys check out the site link now to see how it is.

ps. PNGout did not work. every time i used it it gave me an error that it could not write file. any one know why ?