PDF's was Many things

From: Randy McLaughlin <randy_at_s100-manuals.com>
Date: Mon Jan 31 12:10:35 2005

From: "Jim Battle" <frustum_at_pacbell.net>
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 8:14 AM
> Jim Leonard wrote:
>> Eric Smith wrote:
>>
>>> By default, DjVu uses lossy compression, which is
>>> significantly smaller. But for archival purposes, I *much* prefer the
>>> lossless coding. Should I decide to OCR the documents at a later date,
>
> I have a comment on that below.
>
>>
>> To be fair, DjVu lossy-encodes the graphics, not the text. One of the
>> "selling points" of the format is that B&W text is kept on its own
>> lossless layer.
>
> On my Wang site, I've put up all of my documents as both djvu (because
> they are much smaller -- often 1/3 the size) and as PDFs because almost
> nobody has djvu.
<snip>

For me I looked into DjVu but like Jim I decided it is not practical to only
post DjVu.

I started with a simple goal to post the manuals of greatest interest to me.
I found a site that had similar goals (Howard Harte's manual site) and
decided to send my manuals to him and mirror his site. I also mirror other
sites I consider important such as Jim's SOL-20 Archive and post other files
not part of my mirrors. After some thought I signed up for a 3gb site with
a 25gb/mo band width. Before I knew it Howard's site exploded to over
3.5gb.

I faced with the choice of going to DjVu or putting out more cash to keep
the files as PDF's.

I ended up purchasing another 4gb site with 75gb/mo bandwidth that I
hyperlink to transparently giving me 7gb, I just hope it is good enough to
last a year.

I use PDF's simply because it works and it is the defacto-standard. It is
not a perfect answer but it is the "best" answer, it gives access to the
majority.

Anyone unable to handle either the large file sizes or PDF formats have
other options: They can talk a friend into downloading it and converting to
PS or printing, pay a office supply/cyber-cafe to do it, check with Herb
Johnson.

I provide the PDF's for free but if someone has to pay someone to print them
they are at least available.


Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Received on Mon Jan 31 2005 - 12:10:35 GMT