Dear jimbudgoblue-ga;
Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting
question.
I was hesitant to answer initially because the information that I have
did not fully answer the original question, but judging from your
clarification “How would you do it if it did have to start
automatically?” I can now assume that you are prepared to receive the
information to your question, as amended by you, as a hypothetical.
As I warned earlier, there is no true method to place a sound in an
email and be guaranteed that every recipient will hear it. Some people
(such as myself) never turn their sound up because we find the “sound”
of the Internet annoying and invasive. I must also warn that sending
uninvited sound or attachments to people is considered by some to be
spam, and it is not always well received. It can generate complaints
against your business and can actually cause you more grief than good.
People are also very virus conscious and suspect anything that shows
up unsolicited. These are but a few reason why the recipient is
usually the one who must determine whether or not he/she hears the
sound you send, or in fact, any sound at all.
Hypothetically speaking, if you were to use this method in spite of
what you now know, there are several means of doing it. But each is
dependent upon the recipient’s willingness to accept the sound.
In OUTLOOK EXPRESS you can add a background sound by following these
simple instructions, but again this is not automated unless the
recipient allows it to be:
Start with a new message in HTML format.
Select Format | Background | Sound... from the menu.
Use the “Browse...” button to select the sound file you want to play
in the background.
To change the sound later, select Format | Background | Sound... again
from the Outlook Express menu. And remember that the music will only
play if the recipient uses an email client that understands HTML. It
the recipient does not use email that understands HTML there is no
method by which you can force the sound to play once the email reaches
its destination.
(See: “Add Background Sound to Emails in Outlook Express”)
http://email.about.com/library/daily/et/02/05/bl_et051102.htm
Additionally, there is this program, “Annotis Mail Multimedia 2.0
Build 101”, which claims to help emailers add sounds, emoticons and
other animations to their email messages. Again, whether or not the
recipient chooses to hear/view it is up to him. Using this program,
you can even record your own voice or other customized sound and send
your messages to someone verbally.
(See: “Annotis Mail Multimedia 2.0 Build 101”)
http://www.softlandmark.com/EmailAddons.htm
Next, using this method, some email programs will allow you to send an
html message, into which you can embed a code which will play a sound,
provided the recipient’s computer is capable of playing sound and has
set his computer to allow him to hear it. Here’s the code for that:
<embed src="http://www.domain-name.com/soundname.mid" hidden=true
autostart=true>
<noembed>
<bgsound src="http://www.domain-name.com/soundname.mid">
</noembed>
Many sound extensions will work using this method be the most
universal are “.mid” and “.wav”.
Finally, and probably the best bet, is to contact Arkysoft.com. They
have a program called Proxy Mailer that will allow you to send a file
with sound and have it autoplay at the other end. Some versions can be
automated and some are played at the will of the recipient. I
contacted Matt, the owner of the company and he can advise you further
about this program. He actually sent me a file so I could test it and
it seemed to work fine, but again, I was a willing recipient. He
agreed that not everyone will hear the sound, even using Arkysoft’s
method, but went on to say that this method will allow sound to reach
a very large percentage of the people. However, not just any mail
program can actually embed the sound file into the message. The
Arkysoft program does that and the demo version will work if you want
to give it a try. Just attach the sound file you want to play and
send it away.
The Proxy Mailer can be downloaded from
http://arkysoft.com/download.asp
Again, I want to be clearly understood that this is in response to
your amended hypothetical question: IF a sound were to be sent and IF
it were to play atomically certain circumstances must exist in order
for it to work. The sound must be embedded as html (as shown in the
code above) or activated by an external program (like that used by
Arkysoft or Annotis) AND the recipient must be willing to permit such
thing to occur. Using these methods under the right circumstances you
should have no problem pulling this off.
I hope you find that that my research exceeds your expectations. If
you have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. I welcome your rating and your
final comments and I look forward to working with you again in the
near future. Thank you for using Google Answers.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga
INFORMATION SOURCES
“Adding Sound in Outlook Express”
http://email.about.com/library/daily/et/02/05/bl_et051102.htm
“Arkysoft”
http://arkysoft.com/download.asp
SEARCH STRATEGY
SEARCH ENGINE USED:
Google ://www.google.com
SEARCH TERMS USED:
Embed sound
Email sound
Email autplay sound
“Mail multimedia”
Bgsound
Arkysoft |
