May 2005 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: [gutvol-d] Technical Collection for Consideration.
by Jonathan Ingram 18 May '05

18 May '05

--- Marcello Perathoner <marcello(a)perathoner.de> wrote: > Jonathan Ingram wrote: > > > Sadly the overly long length of modern copyright terms mean that we won't > see a > > large influx of public domain computer programming material for a while. > > Many FSF books are copylefted. Indeed, but this is a very different thing from being public domain. -- Jon Ingram __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail

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re: 20+ hours per week on PG
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 May '05

18 May '05

greg said: > There are only a handful of people who > consistently spend 20+ hours per week on PG i just had to respond briefly to this statement. there are a few dozen people over at distributed proofreaders who report they work anywhere from 20-40 hours each week... -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] so, jim, please tell me what it is that you do
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 May '05

18 May '05

greg said: > I'll write a quick intro to what Jim does. Meet Jim: thanks, greg. but i know what jim does. i've known what jim does for a long time. i'm even one of a probably-small number of people who has gone through the source-code of gutcheck and chuckled at jim's humorous comments there... i'm sure jim does _more_ than i know about, perhaps even more than you know about, greg, but of the things you've told us that he does, all of those are things that _i_ already knew... i don't know how many hours jim spends doing it, but he does _so_much_ that i would be _amazed_ if he wasn't spending lots and lots of hours doing it. i don't know how he finds enough to do it all, frankly. i wasn't knocking jim, and his valuable contributions. but he was knocking me. so i wanted to know why. more to the point, though, i think jim was saying that i don't understand what _everyone_ there does -- not just him personally -- and he might have meant a "mission statement" sense as well as actual tasks. (or maybe not, i'm only speculating.) again, while i am sure there is a dizzying array of a myriad of tasks necessary to keep the big machine whirring away, some of which i am blithely unaware, i firmly believe that i have a _very_ solid grasp of steps necessary to digitize a paper-copy of a book into a full-fledged, high-powered electronic-book, and to do that in the high-volume way intended to create the cyberspace library of the future which will make every book available to every person in every place on the globe at every hour of every day. furthermore, i've had a very solid grasp on all that for several decades now. but i'm still not too old of a dog to learn new tricks, if you can teach any... so teach, if you think there's something i need to learn. because _i_ am always willing to hear someone tell me the things that they think that _i_ need to hear... -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] Severe Resistance to EBooks.
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 May '05

18 May '05

branko said: > I think annecdotal evidence is no evidence at all. then why call it "evidence" at all? it is indeed a certain type of evidence, and as long as you understand and accept its limitations, it's useful. > It is useless to discuss the growing or > lessening popularity of ebooks in general > based on a few of Vijay's personal observations. it would be unwise to trust his short-term observations over our long-term observations if the two conflicted, but so far i would say they've been in close alignment... perhaps it upsets some people here that a person does not need to be an expert to realize the important issues, but that's the way this particular situation is... > Those personal observations can be fun to talk about > in their own right, but they are not evidence of a trend. they are _not_ much fun to talk about any more, are they? isn't that why nobody's really responding to vijay's posts? they've already been discussed to death on the listserves. but perhaps it's not good for us to be so jaded, and thus reminders of the issues by seeing them through new eyes might be just the ticket for waking us from complacency. for instance, notice how the issue of the viewer-program surfaces so often in vijay's observations? that's a focus that i think is extremely important to the end-readers, but most of the "experts" here just gloss over it entirely... -bowerbird

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Severe Resistance to EBooks.
by rvijay07 18 May '05

18 May '05

I spoke to about 10 people in the last week that I personally know. The aged are hesitant to stay long infront of the Computer due to eye strain etc., Those who go to school etc., are busy with their studies. In general society still hasn't got comfortable with the idea of EBooks. It is something that they will read if they have to or have no other choice it appears. Even I myself started liking EBooks only like a month ago. Hence, PG may have a bumpy growth as and when more people get comfortable with using EBooks. These people by the way are not familar with ebook readers as well and the advantages that they offer. Share your comments/experiences in this regard. Regards, Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

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re: [gutvol-d] Listening to EBooks in Text Format !!!
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 May '05

18 May '05

vijay said: > Has anyone here tried this software ? > http://www.spacejock.com/yRead.html text-to-speech is nice, but perhaps even more relevant here is his viewer-program: > http://www.spacejock.com/yBook.html i haven't tried it, because it's p.c.-only, but ybook gets fairly good reviews, and it has a 2-up facing-pages interface, which i like. it will download the p.g. catalog for display, and then let you download individual e-texts, so it's a cutting-edge illustration of how people will soon be able to relate to project gutenberg as a _library_, and not just a bunch of e-texts... -bowerbird

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re: [gutvol-d] no, the problem is
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 May '05

18 May '05

melissa said: > Last time he went away from the DP forums, > he threatedned to tell the world the truth about DP > --is that the one? "threatened"? to "tell the truth"? are there some desperate housewives over at d.p.? that's quite a vivid imagination you've got, melissa. there are some problems with the d.p. workflow -- some rather glaring ones, when you consider how many people are laboring under those flows, who should see where they need improvement -- and i will make independent digitizers _smarter_ about what chronology they should use instead, but that's hardly an expose on "entertainment tonight"... so you're just more noise here, intended as a smear. and speaking of gutvol-d as an "umbrella" listserve, i'm wondering how many of the subscribers here are interested in the slightest bit about the specifics of .tei markup, of the type permeating the threads today? it's another example of the techies chasing people away. -bowerbird

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Technical Collection for Consideration.
by rvijay07 18 May '05

18 May '05

One of the drawbacks of PG is that it is considered mainly a fiction/literature type collection. In this regard it is good to add some Technical Books. The easiest way to do this would be to (a) Harvest Technical Books that are already hosted on other sites and then add them here. Proofreading them based on user feedback is suggested. (b) Provide a link to such a Project on PG. In this regard here is one site for consideration: http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com Lots of EBooks and other materials for programmers. Created/Maintained by a very enthusiastic person. Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

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Listening to EBooks in Text Format !!!
by rvijay07 18 May '05

18 May '05

Branko Collin collin at xs4all.nl wrote: >>> Please don't post unqualified links, that's rude. What does the software you refer to do? What is it called? Why are you interested in it? This is in reference to my post regarding eye strain from reading EBooks. This FREE software is supposed to read aloud ebooks in text format so that one can hear them. After a hard days work in front of the PC, it would be nice to *LISTEN* to PG ebooks close my eyes and relax a little. Also, audio files take longer to download. So for those who like to listen to audio but with a slow internet connection, this software is a blessing (Provided it works). This is the first time that I came across such a software. (Such small ideas may also help in promoting PG to older people, people with eye problems etc., etc.,) So was looking for opinions from others who may have experience in this (or other similar but better software). I sincerely thank again all those who responded to my questions here so far, they have all greatly helped me learn. Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

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Listening to EBooks in Text Format !!!
by rvijay07 18 May '05

18 May '05

Has anyone here tried this software ? http://www.spacejock.com/yRead.html Please share your experience/comments. Vijay :) _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

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