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8251

General Software Discussion / Re: Local History Tape Archive - need help

« Last post by 40hz on February 08, 2011, 07:58 AM »

There's several things I could suggest, but a better answer might come by talking to your town librarians. Info mapping, cataloging, data classification, storage and retrieval are their specialty. And they're also probably the most underutilized talent pool in the country.

If the early creators of the web involved professional librarians up front, things would probably be far less chaotic than they are today.

If you're in a small town whose library is primarily staffed by well-intentioned volunteers, you may need to head over to the next larger municipality (or college) to find someone with a LibSci degree who can help you.

I've involved librarians on several volunteer and paid projects I've worked on. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I found all of them to be extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

Pretty cool people too! So much for the stereotype...

And their expertise isn't restricted to books. I found one expert in government publications, and another who knew video formats and conversion methodologies inside out. She's the first person that ever explained what a codec does in a way that made sense to me.

I also wound up acquiring some new personal friends in the process. Apparently info-squirrel/book-lover types bond very quickly.

I suggest you pay them a call.

 

8252

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: pmG's messiahStudio5 *Dare To Share Challenge*

« Last post by 40hz on February 08, 2011, 06:36 AM »

Yikes! They might be asking for legal trouble with with this offer.

Hope they're not charging any credit cards until they're ready to release the licenses.

In the USA you're only allowed so many days to deliver once you book a charge or accept funds.  That's why most merchants won't bill your card until they actually ship your order.

The credit card companies also don't like it when you issue too many refunds. Have too many in a given timeframe and you run the risk of having your merchant account closed. Apparently the card companies view refunds as a symptom of customer dissatisfaction, or poor bookkeeping procedures.

I don't doubt pmgWordwide's intentions or honesty. But I hope they made sure their card companies were cool with what they're doing.

 

8253

Living Room / Re: Crazy Woman is Crazy...

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 09:04 PM »

Any news on the outcome? Or was it all a hoax? Or what?

-Deozaan (February 03, 2011, 09:25 PM)

Nada.

I think it's had its 15 minutes of fame. 

8254

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 07:41 PM »

Exactly where on this planet are you going to find a democracy if I may be so bold?

I didn't know any actually existed. 

8255

Living Room / Re: Porn for Geeks (Kind of SFW)

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 07:00 PM »

Why are you going out over the WAN then?

Are these servers in two different (as in building) locations such that you can't do a giga-LAN connection between them?

8256

Living Room / Re: which is more important, system ram or video ram?

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 05:28 PM »

Vid cards are easy once you get over that nasty bruise on your credit card.

-40hz (February 07, 2011, 05:05 PM)

On dekstop machines, anyway

-f0dder (February 07, 2011, 05:20 PM)

True. None of my beloved servers even have video cards!

8257

Living Room / Re: which is more important, system ram or video ram?

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 05:05 PM »

CPU first
RAM second
HD third
Video Card fourth

-techidave (February 07, 2011, 03:24 AM)

FWIW, that sequence follows the age old path of going from the most difficult (or least possible) to replace component to the easiest.

Upping a CPU is difficult for most people to do since it requires a bit of know how and mobo dickering - and may not be possible depending on the socket requirements for the new CPU.

RAM is problematic for the average user since there are several things to consider (speeds, matching, etc.) to get the best out of what you have. Also possible to mess up your mobo or SIMMS if you get careless while removing or installing things.

Most times, a new HD is just a nuisance to replace unless the old one is still working -  in which case all you need to do is transfer (not copy) the old drive over to the new one and let BIOS recognize it on first boot.

Vid cards are easy once you get over that nasty bruise on your credit card. Pick one that works with your available slot, set your video to VGA, shut down, remove the power cord, yank the old card, slot the new one, reboot and install the new drivers - or run the setup program depending. Absolute cake.

After that the only other thing you should to do is install your old graphics card on your Mum or little sister's PC - you big techno hero you!
 

8258

General Software Discussion / Re: Should MS open up Windows Update to 3rd parties?

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 01:50 PM »

The single biggest barrier is one of trust. How well do you trust the 3rd party not to do something evil? And how much responsibility do you want to take for distributing something you didn't write yourself?

For that reason alone I don't see mothership Microsoft hosting 3rd party application updates on their servers. AFAIK they only do that for hardware drivers from the big players they actively partner with (i.e. Intel,ATI, etc.). And from what I've been told, those driver updates were already approved for distribution in the OS before they showed up on the update site.

Incorporating MS updates into you own updater faces a similar problem. How well does your customer trust you to secure clean and uncompromised copies of Microsoft's patches? And how much liability are you willing to risk to do so. That's why many installers redirect you to Microsoft when you need a Windows component even though the terms of distribution may not require it.

FWIW, I always abort an install that says I'm missing a Microsoft component when it offers to install it or redirect me. I quit, go to microsoft.com (it's actually a cached WSUS mirror on my own server) install whatever I need, then launch the app installer again.

Maybe I am a little paranoid about these things. But I don't think I'm that much alone in being this way. I've avoided a lot of headaches by staying on the side of caution.

I've only had one time where I had a system taken down by something rogue. It didn't sneak past me. But it did seriously screw up the machine. And all this happened following a silent redirect off a tech support website I had been visiting for years. (They'd been hacked and didn't know it.)

But that was just that one time.

And since I go back to DOS, that's a pretty good track record.

So a little paranoia ain't necessarily a bad thing.

Works for me at any rate.  
 

8259

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 11:20 AM »

It's not so much absent as lots of people are waiting for that reality to happen and some have already took to ignoring the format wars in the hopes of riding the bandwagon of cheap e-books.

-Paul Keith (February 07, 2011, 11:02 AM)

And that's despite the publishers and ebook manufacturers making it abundantly clear they have no intention of seriously reducing their "cover" prices for ebooks?

8260

Living Room / Re: Porn for Geeks (Kind of SFW)

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 11:11 AM »

Is that between your dev server and your ISP host server?

8261

General Software Discussion / Re: Web Media Server ?

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 11:05 AM »

Did you ever consider Windows Home Server. You can download a 120-day full feature eval copy (or the latest beta) from Microsoft.

Pogoplug is another option. Very inexpensive, very cool piece of tech. Streams media plus a whole lot more. Why reinvent the wheel when you could be doing something more interesting?

8262

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 10:58 AM »

Customers? What do the bleedin' customer desires have to do with anything anymore?

8263

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 10:18 AM »

Stephen King is ok, but I was thinking more along the lines of some super scandal ridden kiss&tell "names names" type thing that had the potential of motivating someone to buy a reader just to get it.

Could work since any time the book got mentioned, it would likely also be mentioned that it's "only available on Kindle" or whatever. So it's a built-in advert/endorsement for a specific platform.

So far, only Apple seems to be able to get away with that.  

8264

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 09:55 AM »

No need for tinfoil.

If paper wanted to undermine ebooks, all they'd need to do is point out the tradeoffs the reader makes for the 'convenience' such as there is. That and refuse to license to ebook format.

But they won't. Publishers are wimps. They want to keep all their options covered until they can determine which way the wind will ultimately blow.

I'm guessing it will end up with ebooks getting 60% of the market when the dust finally settles and better reader tech finally hits the streets. One thing I do not expect is for any of the crazy restrictions or DRM to go away.

The acid test will be the day some major best-selling author does a book, and they announce it will only be available on Kindle. That will be the first warning that hardball is about to commence.

How the public reacts and (more importantly) buys will determine future publishing directions.

Just my two anyway.

8265

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 08:20 AM »

Another detailed piece on this subject from the NYT suggests that combined printing and distribution costs of print books account for 12.5% of the average hardcover retail price.

-johnk (February 05, 2011, 07:23 PM)

Hmm...wasn't too far off with my outdated cost figures, coarse rounding of numbers, and disregard for crucial details. 

My example put the cost at $5/$30 for 16.66% vs NYT's 12.5% so my $5 cost should be closer to $3.75. Not too far off considering. 

Quick question: where did these articles get their numbers? Because I'm beginning to wonder if they're just quoting each other considering how closely their figures match.

Since publishing houses are notoriously jealous about sharing their financial data, I'm assuming they got the $2 ballpark figure from a printing firm? We need to be careful if that's the case. The printing industry has a vested interest in not being painted as the bad guy in this discussion. So I'd be a bit cautious before I accepted such figures from someone "in the trade" as being gospel. Not to say they're wrong. I'm just sounding a note of caution.

I was the CFO at a printing company some years back. One thing you learn very quickly is that it's extremely difficult to accurately estimate "average" costs for a printed piece. Each press job is quoted separately since numerous cost variables in the four main operation areas (pre-press, press, bindery, shipping) have a distinct impact on the quoted price.

Interestingly enough, the press operation itself is the only part that really benefits from volume. Once you're on press (and absorbed the cost of the make-ready and wash-up) it's only press time, paper, and ink.

So the longer the press run, the lower the unit cost of each printed piece. At least up to a point. Ink and paper are relatively cheap. And today's presses can crank out an amazing number of pieces per hour. So many people are surprised to discover it costs very little extra to run 10,000 copies vs 5,000. The actual price of a 10K run will be higher. But it won't be anywhere near double the price of a 5K impression run, all other factors being equal.

Pre-press has probably benefited most from technology. The old days of "film to plate" are gone. And good riddance IMO. Direct to press from digital is the way it's now done. Good because it eliminates a lot of the old "proofing" work a quality printing shop used to provide. Saves money big time. The unfortunate downside, however, is that there's no longer any content proofing. Whatever gets sent over gets printed. The huge number of typos that make their way into today's printed books is a symptom of that. This never would have been considered acceptable 20 years ago. But apparently the customers don't complain too much, so the publisher's (even the big ones that have the budgets and time to prevent it) are perfectly happy to ignore the problem.

Bindery operations are harder to cost out. Much of the process is sill labor intensive despite automation. And it also has the highest risk factor for a printer. Work spoiled during bindery operations (cutting, folding, binding, etc.) can force a job back on press if the delivery quantity can't be met. When I got out of printing, this was the area of the industry that was being most closely looked at for potential efficiency improvements and increased profitability. I'm sure many technical improvements were made. But from the looks of it, a lot of the cost savings were also gained by employing the age-old tactic of finding a 'sweat shop' somewhere subcontract the work out to.

I could go on and an...

Maybe I'd better spare you. 

8266

Living Room / Re: Death Threats in an Odd Turnabout

« Last post by 40hz on February 07, 2011, 06:57 AM »

I think f0dder hit the nail on the head. It's amusing to see how quickly bullies cry "foul" the moment someone shifts the field of play away from the spot where the bully holds absolute advantage.

But I also can't completely buy into what they're saying happened despite how much I may be amused by it.

It could be little more than a "good story" concocted to to justify their desire to quit the game now that the courts have indicated they're not happy with Mr. Crossley et al's tactics.

As the above article reported:

ACS:Law is at the centre of a long-running row over its method of so-called "speculative invoicing", where thousands of generic letters are sent to internet users it suspects of illicit file sharing.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is currently investigating its practices as hundreds of the accused claim to have been wrongly identified.

Hmmm...seems like somebody is in big trouble right now.

I also think it's worth saying there's a big difference between some irate file sharer screaming "I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!" in an e-mail; and having your offices shot up in the wee hours of the morning shortly after receiving a note that suggested you stop what you're doing.

Last I heard, nothing like this has happened.

But it's all about "the presentation," as anyone who goes to court for a living would know. That, and how creditable you appear to be when you testify.

And right now, the credibility of this law firm rates pretty low in my book.

8267

Living Room / Re: Please recommend beautiful websites with simple, elegant designs.

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2011, 07:26 PM »

@dcmembers.com?

Wow! When did DC start hosting? Very cool.

8268

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Do Visions and Missions work for you?

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2011, 06:35 PM »

I think they have a purpose as long as they remain internal documents.

Unfortunately, many businesses and individuals make the mistake of seeing them as part of their marketing plan.

In my experience, most clients could care less about your mission or your vision. They prefer to focus on the quality of your service and products, your reputation, and how conscientiously you handle their account on a day to day basis.

I'm a fairly introspective and focused individual, so I never felt a compelling need to sit down and work out "on paper" who I am, what I'm about, or where I'm going. I've always been clear on that from a fairly young age. Same with my business. I've always been very clear about what it is we do, and what we need to do in order to accomplish it. And fortunately, I've been successful in communicating it to the people I work with. I don't use the term employee or customer since I feel it creates an unnecessary distinction between the people I work with. Some people I pay. Some people pay me. Both should expect to get the absolute best our company is capable of delivering.  

And... I'm gonna stop there.

This is starting to sound dangerously close to a vision or a mission statement , isn't it?  

8269

General Software Discussion / Re: LibreOffice UI Mockups (with sidebar)

« Last post by 40hz on February 06, 2011, 12:04 PM »

There's a no-install portable version available for Windows over at www.portableapps.com  

Just added it to my "writing toolkit" for when I need something more heavyweight than Tomahawk or AngelWriter. 

Works very nicely when running of a USB key after a slight startup lag more due to the USB media than anything else. Run from a folder on your hard drive, the "portable" version is very quick to start.

Good stuff!

8270

Living Room / Re: What would Cody's music sound like?

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2011, 01:13 PM »

Pretty awesome CT!

Also disagree it's less impressive for you not playing the actual loops.

Looping is it's own thing, with its own aesthetic Takes as much effort to learn how to use (and get something decent sounding) out of Fruity Loops, Acid, or MM, as it does to play an instrument IMHO.

So "way cool" AFAIC. Do us up some more!  

-----

Addendum: also +1 on Music Maker. I've got Acid and FL and MM. I seldom use them.  But of the three I find I like MM best for some odd reason. Great loop composition tool. And terrific "bang for the buck."

8271

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Agree or Disagree? It is not just focus, it is also about perspective

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2011, 01:05 PM »

Between a fused hip/arthritis and a nicotine addiction, I have internal timers that far outperform anything else available  .  The hip won't let me sit in any one position for more than 20-30 minutes, and the addiction must needs be satisfied ~hourly, so that's another move away from the chair - don't smoke in the house.

-barney (February 04, 2011, 09:17 PM)

Wow! Talk about a high impact reminder system! 

8272

General Software Discussion / Re: WHS 2011 ("Vail") Release Candidate now available for download.

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2011, 12:57 PM »

^ Let us know how you make out if you do?

I'm in the middle of two big projects right now and don't have any time or hardware I can spare for it. Probably won't get a chance to try it until after they do the RTM.

 

8273

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2011, 12:40 PM »

@40hz

I thought johnk was exaggerating but thanks for that wonderful post.

-Paul Keith (February 05, 2011, 12:03 PM)

I didn't.  

Who knows, maybe with improvements in press technology (i.e. faster = cheaper) and "third world" slave labor rates it could be possible to do a book for a pound.

But so many people think so much stuff costs only pennies to make, no matter what, that I felt some oddball need to put on my accountant's cap and write something.

Which was foolish of me considering I'm in the middle of an onsite server upgrade and just blew my twenty minutes of lunch/free time to do it.

Oh well... Back to those "dark satanic mills" for some more long hours of Fun with Microsoft!

 

8274

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2011, 11:34 AM »

To the best of my knowledge, printing and distributing a book is a minor part of overall publishing costs. I think a standard hardback print run for a mainstream novel costs less than £1 per book. So if publishing companies are looking to maintain the same level of profits on ebooks that they obtain on print books, you're not going to see a huge reduction in prices.

-johnk (February 04, 2011, 05:55 PM)

Based on my own personal experience in getting technical books printed and distributed, I doubt a finished "standard" hardcover book could be produced at a cost of £1 per copy regardless of the size of the production run.

Back in the 80s I was responsible for annually getting over 100K sets of technical documentation printed, bound and distributed for a major corporation. The average "doc set" consisted of two to three (paperbound oversized-trade format) books averaging 300-500 pages each. Even with "normal" industry runs of 20,000 copies the average delivered cost of each book hovered in the $7+ range despite using every trick in the book ("slow time" press runs, aggregating paper purchases for multiple titles, etc.) to keep the costs down. And this was back around 1988, so boost it $1-2 to account for inflation and paper cost increases since then

And while manufacturing may only account for a portion of the cost, it's not an insignificant part of the expense to produce a book. Add in transportation and shipping, warehousing, returns for unsold and damaged copies, etc. and the fully absorbed manufacturing costs climb even higher.

A general rule of thumb for manufacturing is that sales prices need to be set somewhere in the range of 3X to 5X the total manufacturing cost to maintain profitability. Volume runs can help get unit costs down, but there's a limit to how much savings volume alone can provide. Especially when factored to account for risk (unsold, damaged, transportation cost increases, etc.) which increases more than proportionally with larger production runs.

The way it usually works is the publisher sells to a book distributor for roughly 50% off the cover price. The distributor sells to retail channels at 20-30% off cover depending on the title and quantity.

So lets run some very round quick & dirty numbers:

Publisher's total manufactured cost = $5.

To be profitable, they'll need to sell it for $15-20 per copy.

Based on the going market, similiar titles retail for $28-35.

Publisher sets the initial cover price at $30 (actually $29.95 for marketing reasons but lets use whole numbers)

The distributor purchases from the publisher @ $15/copy (with 10% discount applied to unsold copies after 2 months, and full return allowed after 6 months.)

The retailer purchases from the distributor at 25% off cover. So $30 less 25% = $22.50

Here's the breakout (under absolute ideal circumstances):

Mfg's Cost            $ 5.00
Mfg's Markup           10.00
Distributor Cost      $15.00
Distrubutor Markup      7.50
Retailer's Cost       $22.50
Retailer's Markup       7.50
Sell Price            $30.00

Note: take the above example for what it's worth. In actual practice it's much more complicated than that. But at least it will give you some idea of what's driving physical book prices.

Not that ducky a gross profit margin for the publisher. Especially once discounts get taken and the returns start coming back. I don't know what it is today, but back when I was involved with  this stuff, a title that earned back total cost + 15% was considered a wildly successful title. Most titles were lucky to break even or make a few percent. Subtract out all the titles that lost money, and the bottom line for a very successful publisher used to be somewhere around 2-3% of total revenues.

Truth is you can make better money selling books than making books to sell. And with less risk since all distribution copies, and virtually all retail copies, are purchased with the option to return for refund.

Any wonder product quality has deteriorated, and so much of the manufacturing now gets done in places where labor is dirt cheap?

One good indicator of the publisher's cost is to check out the remainder tables. The publishers usually agree to sell at or below cost just to avoid getting books returned to them for "pulping." So all those $28 books that you see selling for $8.95 at Borders or Barnes & Noble? Take 30% off that closeout price and you have a pretty good idea of what it actually cost to print them.



 

8275

General Software Discussion / WHS 2011 ("Vail") Release Candidate now available for download.

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2011, 10:28 AM »

Well, it's finally arrived.

Microsoft has just announced that the newest Windows Home Server (WHS2011 RC2) preview is now available for download.

Windows Home Server is part of a long-term vision by Microsoft to create a new platform for the home. Windows Home Server helps families and home-based businesses with multiple computers to organize, share, and automatically back up photos, videos, music, and other important documents. With over 130,000 registered Microsoft Connect users, there is a strong and vibrant community of enthusiasts helping to improve Windows Home Server software.

Windows Home Server code name "Vail" is the version 2 release of Windows Home Server, now based on Windows Server ® 2008 R2.  There are some exciting new features that you can try out if you choose to join the Windows Home Server Connect program such as:

    * Extending media streaming outside the home or office
    * Improvements in multi-PC backup and restore
    * Simplified setup and user experience
    * Significantly expanded development and customization tools for partners
    * Much, much more!

Join the Windows Home Server Connect program now and you can have an impact on current and future versions of the product!

    * Test the latest beta software (and then tell us what you think about it!)
    * Submit bug reports
    * Suggest ideas on how to make the product better
    * Participate in the Windows Home Server forum and hear from others who are actively involved in making the product better for everyone, get answers to your questions and get feedback on your ideas for the product

Full information here.

You can download the "Vail" RC preview here. (Please note that registration is required in order for you to download this software.)

One interesting thing is this video explaining how adding storage devices will be handled by the 2011 release. Well worth watching because it's now official: the Drive Extender feature has been removed from the 2011 release.

This announced abandonment of DE was discussed at some length in this DC thread last December.

Dropping DE support remains a sore spot for many WHS fans. However, Microsoft has put in features to allow you to very easily add and format drives, move data from one location to another, and update your backup scripts so nothing gets missed after any moves.

While this new manual approach is not as elegant a solution as Drive Extender used to be, it's still very workable. Wizards are provided for less technically adept user.

From the looks of it, Drive Extender won't be missed all that much since equivalent functionality has been provided. The only difference is that it won't be an automatic process like it was in the past. If reliability issues surrounding Drive Extender really were the reason why it was dropped, Microsoft made the right decision in prioritizing data integrity at the expense of user convenience.

Either way, that's how it now is, so we might as well get used to it.  

All righty! So, who's up for giving it a try?