As of Wed Nov 2 22:47:14 PST 2005 the "Restaurant Guide" in http://www.ietf.org/meetings/IETF-64.html points to http://www.ietf.org/meetings/Restaurant_Guide_Map.ppt This information is provided in Microsoft PowerPoint, a vendor-specific proprietary format. This is the only format in which this information is available on the IETF website. It is wildly inappropriate for IETF to be using a proprietary format on its web page. For years we have been fighting this. Attached below is the form letter that I send back each time I receive a Microsoft Word document. The same concept applies to Microsoft's PowerPoint. This is particularly bad for an entity that claims to be a standards organization. Fix it quick. ---Subject: I Prefer Not to Receive Informaton in Proprietary Formats This is an automatic message: You sent the document in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format, so it is hard for me to read. If you send me plain text, HTML, or PDF, then I will read it. Please recognize that this note is not about what you may have wished to communicate in that document. You have made the implicit assumption that I would be able to easily read the document in that format. That assumption is a mistake. Distributing documents in Word format is bad for you and for others. Receiving Word attachments is bad for you because they can carry viruses (see http://www.viruslist.com/eng/viruslist.html?id=7). Sending Word attachments is bad for you, because a Word document normally includes hidden information about the author, enabling those in the know to pry into the author's activities (maybe yours). Text that you think you deleted may still be embarrassingly present. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3154479.stm for more info. But above all, sending people Word documents puts pressure on them to use Microsoft software and helps to deny them any other choice. In effect, you become a buttress of the Microsoft monopoly. This pressure is a major obstacle to the broader adoption of free software. Would you please reconsider the use of Word format for communication with other people? To convert the file to HTML using Word is simple. Open the document, click on File, then Save As, and in the Save As Type strip box at the bottom of the box, choose HTML Document or Web Page. Then choose Save. You can then attach the new HTML document instead of your Word document. Note that Word changes in inconsistent ways--if you see slightly different menu item names, please try them. To convert to plain text is almost the same--instead of HTML Document, choose Text Only or Text Document as the Save As Type. Your computer may also have a program to convert to pdf format. Select File => Print. Scroll through available printers and select the pdf converter. Click on the Print button and enter a name for the pdf file when requested. Regards, ...Mohsen http://www.neda.com PS: For further reasons why .doc should not be the format of choice when exchanging information electronically, I invite you to read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html It may be long, but it certainly exposes the compromises both you, as the sender, and I, as the receiver, are making by exchanging Microsoft Word documents. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf