- dvdvol - lists.pglaf.org

the request database
by Aaron Cannon 13 May '10

13 May '10

Hi all. I'm going to do some work on the request database application soon, and I'm wondering if you folks who use it have any complaints/requests/wishes/bugs to share. One area I might look at is getting more standardized international addresses. What do you folks think? Does our current system work? Should we instead ask more specific questions on the international request page (E.G. City, Province, postal code)? Thanks. Aaron

1 0

Customs forms, etc.
by Johnnie CD 11 May '10

11 May '10

I have been using a Form 2976-FCMI on all items outside the US except some APOs and a request from Mexico that showed up in the US Que through a receiving service. The one to Mexico got held up as it had no 2976, declaration of value, bill of sale, or anything like it. The send me an email asking for one and they indicated all was well. I was following the advice on the PG website and attaching a customs form to everything even though the USPS code appears to indicate that they do not require it. Of course, the opinion of the USPS is not really the crucial one as the receiving countries postal service is the one that decides if the item will be delivered. As everything else had the customs form I do not know if it would have been an issue or not. Most of the clerks at my local post office really do not understand international shipping so they are not very helpful. After my first visit to the post office with a handwritten multi-part customs form that they had never seen before I changed to the 2976 instead of the –A version and it is easier to work with. I currently export the name, correct the dropped characters from the impossibly long fields, isolate the City as required and run my labels through my Stamps.com software so the customs form, address, and postage all print at the same time. I do this to avoid completing the customs form by hand, as it is quite tedious. They have not yet made be pay the additional fee so it had usually been $2.03 except Canada, which is a little less. The Endicta folks are using a semi-static declaration form on their labels. It is not an USPS approved customs form but it has all of the same information and as it is static, you are supposed to just change the dates and run your labels. I have not tried international shipping with their service as I was usings the other folks service at home. It would be interesting to hear what other folks are finding. It would be much easier to forgo the customs form it will not have a negative impact on delivery. BTW, I sent Paul an email and he indicated that his gear will duplicate DL DVDs. I can also burn a few but not the quantities that I have consumed in the past. I tried the Ridata DVD-R DL from the online store. They are x4 and a little slow but my gear keeps rejecting them as non-identical copies. I Tried the TDK DVD+R (the only think on the shelf in the local store) they are x8 and they ran through without any errors. Of course they were considerably more expensive. I will try another brand next time I order and see how they work. Johnnie

2 1

customs forms
by Aaron Cannon 10 May '10

10 May '10

Hi all. I know we had this conversation a long time ago, but I'm just curious what current folks are doing. Are you using customs forms? Are you using them for every country that you mail to that isn't outside the US, or just the problem countries? Based on my reading of the USPS guidelines, we shouldn't need to use them unless our packages are a pound or more (which they're not) or dutiable (which they shouldn't be). I've never used customs forms, except when mailing to certain problem countries, like Iran or Egypt, and I've never had any problems, but maybe I'm just really lucky. Also, approximately how much are you folks paying for international mailings nowadays? Is your post office imposing the non-bendable items sir-charge? I also noticed that the USPS has put the customs form 2976 online now. Is anyone using this? I ask because I recently checked out a large number of requests from Bangladesh (we must have gotten some local publicity; if anyone knows, I'd like to here) and I'm hoping to be able to avoid the forms if I an. Thanks. Aaron

1 0

Manufactured discs, and another new DVD
by Aaron Cannon 09 May '10

09 May '10

Hi all. I heard back from Greg. I emailed him about a place I found that seems to do a good job (according to reviews) and has great prices on dual layer DVD replication. www.burnsmart.com is the address, and they offer: 2,500 discs for $0.58 each 5,000 discs for $0.52 each. This price includes color printing on the discs, but not shipping. If anyone knows of a better deal from a decent company, please let me know. Also, a new single-layer DVD was just completed which Greg would like to see replace our 2006 DVD. I haven't seen it yet, but he seems to like it, and I trust his judgement. I'll let you know when I learn more. I should have URLs soon that will let you browse both new DVDs on the web, without having to download them, so that those of you on slow connections can take a look. Thanks. Aaron

1 0

Thoughts on new DVD
by Christa & Jay Toser 06 May '10

06 May '10

Hi, I will need someone to mail me a master disc. I still have dial-up (56K), and it would take me until about August to get the image. [That's actually why I signed on to the DVD project.] I'll also need to test if my burner can handle a Dual Layer disc. I am all FOR having the DVD's mass produced, especially if it saves Project Gutenberg money in the long run. A year or so ago, I did just that (1,000 discs), and they looked much more professional that the rubber ink stamp I use now. We already have one volunteer, Paul, who burns discs for some of the rest of us. It is a great help and speeds the process along. There is still work on each package though. It is hands and time, addressing, stuffing & mailing the envelopes and the Customs form. I wouldn't mind having my job a bit easier with pre-made DVD's. As to the question of mailing 2 old DVD's, 2 new DVD's, or one of each. I currently fall on the side of all three choices. *sigh* yes, about nine months ago, I asked to remove the option of one CD and one DVD. That was because the technology is known enough, I felt most folk across the world would know if their equipment could or could not handle a DVD. If yes, there was no reason to ask for the CD, since all books on the CD were on the DVD. If no, there was no reason to ask for the DVD, since they could not use it. Since none of us here are sure how world-wide compatible a Dual-Layer DVD is, I will have to vote for the one-of-each option, at least for the first couple years this is available. My address is: Jay Toser 135 Lazy Lake Drive Fall River, WI 53932-1002 P.S. How do I get new volunteers onto this mailing list?

3 2

In case you're not on shop4tech's mailing list and in need of more media
by Aaron Cannon 04 May '10

04 May '10

Use coupon code media20 at shop4tech.com for 20% off. Not sure when it expires though. Just thought I'd pass it along. If you are frequently buying your blank discs online then you might sign up for their mailing list. They're always having good sales, though few are ever this good. Aaron

1 0

Manufactured discs
by Johnnie CD 02 May '10

02 May '10

I do not have a robot so it takes about as long for me to duplicate the disc as it does to package them (remembering to load the disc every 10 min or so is ever so distracting) and get them labeled for mailing. As it would cut my time in half I would certainly like having a professionally produced product with a pretty label. Of course that would not prevent us from duplicating a few if we individually depleted our inventory and whoever is warehousing them had not had time to restock us. Everyone will likely have a individual take but hopefully they will share their thoughts with us. BTW, who do you use to product them for such a good price? Not that I currently have another specific need but I like to collect recommended suppliers for future projects. Johnnie

1 0

Dual Layer DVD
by Johnnie CD 02 May '10

02 May '10

It is wonderful that the new DVD contains many more titles. I am sure that all of the folks requesting DVDs will appreciate the dramatic increase in content. As we all get setup to distribute the new Dual Layer product I am interested in hearing your thoughts about a couple of items. 1) What king of prices is everyone finding on DL disc? Look like the best I see on a 8.5GB DVD-R from a know vendor (that is in stock) is around $1.50 for the JVC at CompUSA. If you guys know of a good source for a reliable disc that is more cost effective please let me know as I have not had to purchase DL before so I have ignored them. 2) Also wondering if all of the active volunteers are setup to download, burn, and duplicate DL disc? My download attempt is in process. The torrent is feeding me 200-250k so it will take most of the day to obtain the file. That’s OK as I do not have any DL disc in inventory at this point so I will not be able to find out how long it will take to duplicate. It is a huge amount of data to transfer over rural networks and it might be necessary to send out some copies in the mail. 3) Do you guys have any practical experience with compatibility of DL disc in old drives? Everything indicates that they work with _most_ drives but I don’t know what that means in practical terms when some of us still have machines running that are more than 10 years old and what should happen is not always what actually happens. Mostly I am just interested in your input but I am also wondering if we need to modify the dropdown list on the request page to allow folks to specify their request for the 2006 edition , the improved 2010 edition, or maybe one copy of each? Of course, I am sure we all have some level of inventory that we need to deplete. I look forward to hearing your comments! Johnnie This communication contains information that may be confidential. Except for personal use by the intended recipient, or as expressly authorized by the sender, any person who receives this information is prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, and/or using it. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately delete it and all copies, and promptly notify the sender. Nothing in this communication is intended to operate as an electronic signature under applicable law.

2 1

Announcement: New Project Gutenberg DVD released
by Aaron Cannon 02 May '10

02 May '10

The Project Gutenberg April 2010 (Dual Layer) DVD has been released. This new DVD contains over 29,500 eBooks. For more information, visit the Project Gutenberg web site. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_CD_and_DVD_Project Thanks to all those who participated in its production. Aaron

1 0

Re: [gutvol-d] Re: Project Gutenberg DVD Release Candidate now available for testing
by Aaron Cannon 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

Hi all. I fixed the reported bugs and the second release candidate is now available for download. If you already downloaded the first DVD, you can download a binary delta which can be used to patch the old one. You will need xdelta3 for this (on Ubuntu you can just do sudo apt-get install xdelta3 use the following commands first, change to the directory where the .iso is located, then do: wget http://www.fireantproductions.com/delta.bin xdelta3 -d -s pgdvd201004-rc1.iso delta.bin pgdvd042010-rc2.iso rm delta.bin and optionally rm pgdvd201004-rc1.iso If you haven't downloaded the previous version, or if the delta patch doesn't work, you can find the new torrent at http://www.fireantproductions.com/pgdvd042010-rc2.torrent The md5sum for the new ISO is B1EA6C8C15BB2EE84126227017F56310 Thanks. Aaron On 4/14/10, Aaron Cannon <cannona(a)fireantproductions.com> wrote: > Hi all. > > Thanks to all those who downloaded and sent me feedback. > > I figured out what was causing the broken links. Turns out that when > I was creating an ISO file, all the "-"s in filenames were being > changed to "_"s, so as to meet the ISO9660 standard, which doesn't > permit filenames to contain "-". So, 3533-h.zip was being changed to > 3533_h.zip. So, I am having to change the HTML to deal with this. > > I should have Release Candidate 2 ready for upload tomorrow. I'll > keep everyone posted. > > Thanks. > > Aaron > > On 4/13/10, Aaron Cannon <cannona(a)fireantproductions.com> wrote: >> It looks like the HTML was changed some how from my local copy. For >> instance, my local copy has no content directory. All of the numbered >> directories are in the root, though come to think of it, it probably >> would have been better to create a content directory. Nevertheless, I >> believe that it must have been altered to serve the books from a >> content directory when it was placed on the web server. So, to answer >> your concern, the link works on the real ISO. >> >> Also, I don't think I want to mess with the books we've already got on >> there. It won't really make much difference in size, and I don't want >> to add books at this point, so I guess I just don't see any compelling >> reason to mess with it. Thanks for the suggestions though! >> >> Thanks a lot for looking. I really appreciate the feedback! >> >> If you find anything else, please let me know. Also, Maybe Greg can >> comment on the 404 error. >> >> Thanks. >> >> Aaron >> >> >> >> On 4/13/10, Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana(a)teksavvy.com> wrote: >>> Hi Aaron, >>> >>> Similarly, I have found that this link does not work: >>> >>> http://pglaf.org/PGDVD201004-RC1/content/3/5/3/3533/3533-h.zip >>> >>> followed from here: >>> http://pglaf.org/PGDVD201004-RC1/content/etext/3533.html >>> >>> If you have to muck with things, I also noticed that the following >>> section includes the separate volume 1 and 2 of _the Attache_ as >>> well as the omnibus. Likely only the two volumes of the omnibus >>> are really needed. >>> >>> Canada -- Social life and customs -- Fiction >>> >>> * Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (English) By Leacock, Stephen, >>> 1869-1944 >>> * The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Complete (English) By >>> Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, 1796-1865 >>> * The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Volume 01 (English) By >>> Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, 1796-1865 >>> * The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Volume 02 (English) By >>> Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, 1796-1865 >>> >>> >>> On 13-Apr-2010 03:32, Greg Newby wrote: >>>> >>>> Has a link checker been run on this? I quickly found a missing >>>> file via file:///PGDVD_2010_04_RC1/etext/3002.html >>>> and wonder whether some filetypes or other content might not >>>> have made it. >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana(a)teksavvy.com> >>> Ottawa, ON FreeBSD: Where you want to go. Today. >>> >> >

1 0