messages in order

[William Bailer]

On Thu, 7 Nov 1996, Greg & Mary Ellen Newell wrote:

>
>Avery wrote:
>Messages are not always received in
>the same order they're posted. I guess some just float around in
>cyberspace
>for a while, or something. :-)
>
>
>I pondered this fora while and I think it has to do with the time
>difference.
>				Greg
>Greg & Mary Ellen Newell
>gnewell@en.com
>dt945@cleveland.freenet.edu
>gnewell@juno.com

The time differences shouldn't have anything to do with it.  Take a
look at an "expanded" or Full" email header and you will see the times
for both the posting and the delivery.  Each of these times is
followed by a four digit number representing the number of hours
east of Greenwich England for that time zone.  This information is
used to convert all times and dates to Universal (Greenwich) by your
email program to properly order them.  All email programs that I
have seen give you a choice of which order you prefer for your mail, as
well as the reverse of each of them.  I prefer "reverse received" (in
Pine), which always puts the most recently received message at the
beginning of my list, and messages that I have seen are never mixed with
those that are new and not yet read.

If you want to avoid the problem addressed in this string, don't do
it the way I do-- opt for a "posted" or "sent" order.  That should fix
90% of the confusion, but computer system clocks are not often checked
and are not accurate.  I have received some mail 2 minutes before it was
sent!

Bill Bailer

\\\  William Bailer                              wbailer@cris.com
\\\  Rochester, NY, USA                       phone: 716-473-9556
\\\  Interests: acoustics, JSBach, anthropology, piano technology