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MIME
Last modified: Monday, April 08, 2002
Short for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, a specification for formatting non-ASCII messages so that they can be sent over the Internet. Many e-mail clients now support MIME, which enables them to send and receive graphics, audio, and video files via the Internet mail system. In addition, MIME supports messages in character sets other than ASCII.
There are many predefined MIME types, such as GIF graphics files and PostScript files. It is also possible to define your own MIME types.
In addition to e-mail applications, Web browsers also support various MIME types. This enables the browser to display or output files that are not in HTML format.
MIME documents Provides links to the Requests for Comments on the mechanisms for specifying and describing the format of Internet message bodies and message header extensions for non-ASCII text documents.
The MIME information page Features MIME specifications, FAQs, Request for Comments documents, e-mail related links, and tools for programmers.
Audio MIME Types HotWired Webmonkey article (April 1997) on knowing which audio MIME type is best when you embed sound in your pages.
USENET FAQs on MIME Provides links to several usenet newsgroup FAQs for MIME.
