Creating dynamic signatures, possible?

[Anton]

hi

I wonder if it's possible to create dynamic signatures, that is signatures
which can be updated after the they have been sent in email or posted on in
blogs etc...

I've been playing arround with creating an image which I host on my
webserver. After I've send email to my hotmail address I can update the
image and see the changes inside the e-mail...

But I run into several problems here
1) if the recipeint uses outlook, he gets a warning in his email warning
about potential phising email.
2) emails might be banned in spam filter
3) sometimes the updated image isn't displayed automatically, deleting the
temp internet files is needed

any ideas on how to overcome these problems are most welcome!

Regards!

Anton

 

[Gregory A. Beamer]

hi

I wonder if it's possible to create dynamic signatures, that is
signatures which can be updated after the they have been sent in email
or posted on in blogs etc...

Blogs? Certainly. Just have the sig stored in the user's profile table.
This does not necessarily mean the ASP.NET Profile bits, just the location
where you store user information about posting.

Email? No. Once an email is sent, it is sent. The image direction is about
the only way to change things after they are sent, as the image will be the
image when the user views the email.

Peace and Grace,

 

[Anton]

My approach was to convert to the sig into image as you suggests. I've run
into several problems with that. Some emails block it, displays warning
about potential phising etc... and sometimes it works nicely (when email
sent from my hotmail account to Outlook Express)

When it works nicely, the image in already sent emails is updated when image
is updated, now trying to make this to be more smoother and looking for ways
to get arround the problems I mentioned above.

I thought about putting some javascript in a html file, and let this
javascript inject the content (that is inject the sig), then avoid using
image. But that approach have it's own problems. Outlook might not execute
javascripts inside emails + more problems

suggestions are welcome

 

[Patrice]

The overall goal being ? For now I would say it doesn't look realistic
(assuming your goal is to auto update at will your personal information in
each and every mail you ever sent on the internet).

Instead you could perhaps include a link to a site you would keep forever
and update your coordinate there (using perhaps a vcard
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard))...

 

[Anton]

The overall goal being ?
That was to create a website where people can store their signatures, they
could login to the website and make changes to their signatures - and
signatures is updated in already sent emails also....

 

[Gregory A. Beamer]

The overall goal being ?
That was to create a website where people can store their signatures,
they could login to the website and make changes to their signatures -
and signatures is updated in already sent emails also....

Other than images, that is an unrealistic goal. You can't change history;
you can only change the future.

Peace and Grace,

 

[Anton]

I agree, images is the only way that might work (have just done a test using
iframe, but outlook doesn't support it).
so I have signatures converted to images.

One thing that is annoying me is that when I send such email with sig as
image, then in outlook a warning is displayed warning people this might be a
potential phisiing email... I don't want it to treated like a potential
phising email. Maybe it's the querystring outlook don't like, the
querystring is Show.aspx?id=31, 31 being id for a signature!

you got any tips about how to solve my phising problem?

 

[Gregory A. Beamer]

I agree, images is the only way that might work (have just done a test
using iframe, but outlook doesn't support it).
so I have signatures converted to images.

One thing that is annoying me is that when I send such email with sig
as image, then in outlook a warning is displayed warning people this
might be a potential phisiing email... I don't want it to treated like
a potential phising email. Maybe it's the querystring outlook don't
like, the querystring is Show.aspx?id=31, 31 being id for a signature!

you got any tips about how to solve my phising problem?

MVC might work. The only issue is it may still be seen as phishing if it
does not contain .jpg, .png or .gif.

Another option is save the image with the user's id, like 31.jpg and
link to that. Every time the user updates, just save over the image.
That should work fine. The downside is you have to track hits with the
raw web files instead of some other mechanism.

Peace and Grace,