Neil A. Hillard wrote:
> Peter,
> 
>         please keep all discussion on the mailing list so that others
> can benefit from the advice given - thanks.
> 

I strongly disagree with a policy of keeping all discussions public. 
It's bad form to take a directed private discussion public, especially 
with someones private details (though they may be common, this is not 
the point).

I'm all for keeping as much on the mailing list as possible but I will 
always reserve the use of discretion for my personal communications.  If 
public discussion is mandatory, you're going to have a lot of violators. 
  If private posts are posted public, you're going to have a lot of 
unsubscribers.

The whole "free_trial at hotmail" bit I'll just ignore :-)