Trouble sending only attachments that I want to send to Windows users

Question

Hi, I am a newbie who needed to send jpeg images to tech-support (non-Apple hardware (not a computer)); these people use Windows. I attached the jpeg files as Windows Friendly attachments using Apple Mail (Intel 24 inch iMac 3 GHz Core 2 Duo 4 GB RAM 512 MB graphics card 1 Terabyte hard drive running Mac OS X 10.5.2 all software up-to-date). They told me (at least 2 people) that they couldn't see my photos (but I think one of them could). After talking with them on the phone one of them said that they were clicking on .dat files. I presume that the jpeg files were also sent as well. I think that invisible .DS and invisible .dat files are created using Mac OS X (invisible to Mac users who haven't elected to see invisible files). However, I believe that these files are visible to Windows Users (for example, taking a flash drive and copying a Mac folder and displaying it on Windows shows the .DS and the .dat files).
If I am correct, then perhaps I am unintentionally emailing .dat files (I don't know if I am also unintentionally emailing a .DS file as well).
If this is indeed the case, I of course would strongly prefer not to have to ask Windows users to ignore certain files that I have sent and to only click on everything else. What I obviously would like to do is to ONLY send the files that I wished to attach minus .dat and .DS files.
Parenthetically, while we are at it.... Can you tell me how to not have the .DS and .dat files when I am copying a folder with a thousand files inside it and am going to give it to a Windows user on a flash drive? They seem to have a .DS file and a thousand .dat files to get rid of so that they can now deal with the stuff that I actually wanted to give them.
I think a solution of making Windows users typically not seeing .DS and .dat files (like Mac users) probably won't cut it unless Microsoft were to do this themselves. I have a feeling that IT people might not want to make those changes at these companies.
If this helps, I took the digital camera, hooked it up to my computer, iPhoto '08 imported the photos. I copied the photos to a separate folder and closed iPhoto after deleting the images from iPhoto. I turned off the camera and disconnected it from the iMac. I then opened up Aperture 1.5.6 and selected the images I wanted to email and Aperture compressed the photos to medium size and opened up Apple Mail for me. I typed in my text, made sure that Windows Friendly Attachments was checked, and hit send.
Sorry if this topic has already been answered elsewhere.
I am a newbie.
Thank you.

Answer 1

Suppose you want to take 1000 music files that are AIFF but you need (want, actually) to use them at work and you only have Windows Media Player, so you have had them converted into WMA files. Now, using Mac OS X, just copy the 1000 WMA files and put them in a folder that you have already created on your USB flash drive. (I just use the Finder application, I don't use terminal, at least not yet). I forgot whether I am copying the files directly to the flash drive or if I am first putting them in a folder on my Mac desktop and then copying and pasting the file onto the USB flash drive. Anyhow, then take the flask drive and hook it up to a Windows XP computer, and you will see the .DS and the . files (they actually may not be .dat files but just . files).
But just copy 2 files (you don't have to do 1000, even one file at a time does the (unfortunate) trick.
If on the other hand this is Apple's .xml data so that iTunes can handle everything, then it is a feature that is not going to go away. I suppose that is the underlying question...
Thanks