- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

FREE CD/DVD info. request.
by rvijay07 18 May '05

18 May '05

Just out of curiosity. How many FREE CDs/DVDs are requested every day/week at PG on average ? Any other related info. welcome. Thanks. Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

3 2

Preliminary PGvol Wiki Thread.
by rvijay07 18 May '05

18 May '05

Please share all the general/basic knowledge that newbie volunteers can/must learn so that they get a head start in regards to the PG. Hopefully, this will also avoid repeat questions here. Once we have a page or two of this info., this can either be E-mailed to newbies who join here or perhaps be hosted somewhere. Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

1 0

Last Book.
by rvijay07 18 May '05

18 May '05

What is the last book you read at PG ? Hopefully, this discussion will be a learning experience for all. Thanks. Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

1 0

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

18 May '05

vijay said: > Share your comments/experiences in this regard. our experiences over decades are the same as yours in the last ten days. so at this point, there remains little motivation for us to rehash them. all of the problems are well-known, and most are out of our control... so we go on, and wait for the world to change, as we know that it will, since we see that the youngsters are very different from their parents. and we make wishes that the oldsters die sooner rather than later... ;+) we hope for a return to the early days of the personal computer revolution, when the technology was disruptive in nature and changing life every day; but alas, that made some of the principals filthy rich and now they seem to want to do what the privileged have always done, resist and retard progress that threatens to have even any slight negative impact on their pursestrings. so even though we hope for some radical transformation, we are realistic, and realize that the change is far more likely to come much more gradually. finally, we hope that e-books catch on in china -- how can they not? -- because nothing mobilizes american capitalists like a communist threat. one more note, i guess. i wish we could "leap-frog" new eyes like yours, to help them focus past what we _already_ know, and on into the future... -bowerbird

1 0

An Error, eye strain, solution.
by rvijay07 17 May '05

17 May '05

Dave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> wrote: >> Do you need VDU Glasses? http://tinyurl.com/c3lh, Thanks for the great link, I shared this with some of my friends. My eye strain was more due to using smaller fonts. Larger fonts are more comfortable to read. Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

1 0

Re: [gutvol-d] PGTEI and prposed future-tech-developments group/forum (was "Dear
by Joshua Hutchinson 17 May '05

17 May '05

----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Shimmin" <shimmin(a)uiuc.edu> > > > TEI -> PDF: this one has the most "weirdness" > > If I recall correctly, this has been done up to now by converting TEI to TeX > (a good feature, in any case), and then using other people's software to do > TeX to PDF. For my edification, do the troubles show up in the conversion to > TeX, or the second conversion to PDF? > Yes, that is exactly how the process goes (Marcello can probably dig into the nitty-gritty better than I). The problem is that a table marked up like this: <table colums="1"> <row> <cell>A REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLYREALLY LONG TEXT STRING</cell> </row> </table> The TEI -> HTML just creates a normal HTML table and the browser will wrap the cell to the width it has to work with. The TEI -> Text will line wrap pretty well on its own, too (I believe the tbl processor in groff handles this?) The TEI -> PDF will just run the table off the edge of the page. You can add a rend attribute to the table with some LaTeX table commands that will help, but the conversion doesn't try to line wrap automatically. Also, the LaTeX table formatting requires you to put the width that you want the cell to be in the table, which requires you to do a lot more thinking and preparing on each table. For some of the monster table texts in DP, this exercise would quickly make a grown man cry with boredom and frustration. Josh

1 0

Re: [gutvol-d] PGTEI and prposed future-tech-developments group/forum (was "Dear
by Joshua Hutchinson 17 May '05

17 May '05

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Noring" <jon(a)noring.name> > > Jon Ingram wrote: > > Joshua Hutchinson wrote: > > > 1) Btw Josh, has any "formal" working group been put together to > continue with PGTEI development? Or is it mostly Marcello and you? > Is there a dedicated PGTEI mailing list or forum anywhere? > Formal only in the sense that I bug Marcello mercilessly with reports (though I've laid off him recently). In the meantime, anyone that *wants* in on things can message me backline. I've got lots of stuff up on a server that I can point you to for testing/comments. Quick-n-Dirty update: TEI -> Text: working on how we want to deal with unicode characters. Otherwise, pretty much ready for public comment. TEI -> HTML: little things keep showing up, ie, support for overline styles need to be added, the XML header causes IE to enter "quirks" mode which can create some strangeness in rendering, svg is converted to png instead of passing the SVG directly to the browser for rendering (this may need to stay this way because of non-universal SVG support in browsers). Almost ready to open a call for CSS contributions to create a PG standard style. I hope to have a few alternate styles available at launch, too. TEI -> PDF: this one has the most "weirdness" PDF tables are just a large pain in the patoot. They require special massaging that the other two formats don't need. SVG is again converted to PNG and inserted into the PDF instead of a vector based insert which would scale better (I think this is what is happening ... need to check with Marcello on this one). The overline style doesn't work here either. I'm holding off major movement on PGTEI until the new DP version rollout is done. Some of the minds I want to tap most are going to be busy dealing with new DP fun. > I've been perusing (catching up on) the various forums at DP's site > and it does not appear there's a forum which would be a good match for > PGTEI and other future-tech-development topics. I'd say Future Features for now. After the DP rollout, I may beg the powers-that-be for a new forum topic for TEI. Josh (aka JHutch on the DP Forums)

3 2

no, the problem is
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 17 May '05

17 May '05

josh said: > the problem is no, the problem is that you are rabidly intolerant of anyone who disagrees with your basic premises, especially if they can muster arguments cogently, and you will stoop to character assassination and full-blown censorship and all types of ugly tactics to avoid having the clothes of your emperor exposed. _that's_ the problem. your self-concept is wrapped up in doing e-books, and you take criticism personally, and very badly, and turn with a vengeance on anyone who gives it. and here's a wrap-up of the arguments that i make: a. the x.m.l. approach is full of implementation holes. b. when those holes are filled, it'll be overly complex. c. the complexity will drive away scads of volunteers. d. it will also make library-maintenance a nightmare. e. x.s.l.t. conversions are largely vaporware at present. f. even after they move out of vapor, they'll be plagued. g. trailing-edge users will get nosed out in the process. h. resultant confusions will drive away more volunteers. i. few of the benefits x.m.l. promises will materialize. j. the benefits won't come close to justifying the costs. k. somebody will have to come in and pick up the pieces. l. much simpler methodologies will actually work better. m. the workflows of the past don't scale to the present. n. some volunteers have worked themselves to burn-out. o. that burn-out now makes them incapable of reflection. p. without reflective thought, the project is floundering. q. floundering is the worst thing that can happen _now_. r. google, toronto, and million-books make e-books fly. s. all the errors in the library need to be fixed right now. t. the energy and resources of new people is not nurtured. u. we can use the help of end-users in attaining our goals. v. we need to make all end-users feel a part of the project. w. people question the past without knowing their history. x. a trailing-edge focus is the reason for the success of p.g. y. the viewer-program is the most important puzzle-piece. z. rabid intolerance retards progress, and mean people suck. i'm often scapegoated as "the problem" here, but the truth is that before i came, and every time i go away -- whether it's by my own volition or as a consequence of being "moderated" -- this listserve largely withers into a mass of nothingness. in an attempt to "avoid the troll", other p.g. listserves were set up that excluded me or which i had no interest in joining, and those listserves have -- without exception -- faded away. one of the only things that unites people here is picking on me. (indeed, the only other one coming to mind is picking on pg2, and even that one didn't produce _nearly_ as much unanimity.) i say things that you don't want to hear. i say them because they are things that you _need_ to hear. i am your wake-up call, and you dearly want to keep sleeping. "moderating" me will not work, because it is of no consequence to me that you do not want to hear what i say. i say it anyway. so if your refusal to hear it persists, you will have to ban me. but even if you ban me, i will not be quiet. because the world needs to know that you people -- who should be "the experts" -- don't know what you're talking about, and they need to know that you cannot deliver on all your promises. so i will tell the world. i tried to straighten you out here, in the privacy of your own listserve, but if you won't hear my message here, i will make it public instead, so its amplification via the public makes it audible to you regardless... so you pick your poison, private or public, it makes no difference to me. indeed, it'll waste much less of my time to go the public route instead... you're not doing me any favor, at all, by "allowing" me to stay here. i'm doing you the favor by being here. i've got better things to do... -bowerbird

3 3

re: [gutvol-d] Dear Jon and Bowerbird
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 17 May '05

17 May '05

jon said: > We just tend to use the DP forums... > you're welcome to come and join us :). jon, meet joe gruber. joe, since you're a regular over at d.p., i assume you already know jon ingram. -bowerbird

1 0

Re: [gutvol-d] Dear Jon and Bowerbird
by Joshua Hutchinson 17 May '05

17 May '05

----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph R. Gruber" <joseph.gruber(a)gmail.com> > > Why not create PG forums? > I second that. Forums are nice both for easier moderation and easier checking of old topics. If I forget where I put a message from a Listserve, it is a pain in the patoot to find that information again. Josh

1 0