Laser FAQ CD?

I think I got the whole affair with a leechbot last year, and could burn it to a CD-R for less than a buck if I wanted to export it off my HDD. Just curious; How much market is there that would be interested enough to pay that much ($25) for their own copy, yet didn't have at least one of the many available websucker bots?

Good for you. I was just curious as I know there are people who pay by the MB, usually overseas and there have been inquiries in the past.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror:

Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive traffic on Repairfaq.org.

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

It's a compliment to your site, or anyone's, when I feel it's worthy of saving for offline perusal. I know it makes a bit of an initial drain, but saves subsequent bandwidth, since all the back and forth searching through it later for something is done offline. BTW: I usually run the bots during off peak hours.

But what is off-peak time when we're talking about the Internet? The site's in the USA and I've accessed it from Europe and Australia - that's quite a big time window.

The best way to be "friendly" when mirroring/downloading entire sites is to space the requests if your software supports it - this is much easier on the server, especially if the owner has to pay a premium for going over a certain bandwidth.

I use the excellent wget for such tasks; for instance: wget --mirror --wait=10

As wget compares timestamps, it could be run on a regular basis and would only pick up any files with a newer timestamp - additions and changes.

Of course, it's always nice to ask the site owner before downloading en masse...

I think that Sam's offer is great - there are plenty of folks out there with really slow and unreliable connections - mirroring just isn't practical if the line drops out every fifteen minutes (and I speak from experience).

Cheers

Matthew

is to space the requests if your software supports it - this is much easier on the server, especially if the owner has to pay a premium for going over a certain bandwidth.

Then there is BitTorrent. That's a very efficient and proven way to distribute large files with limited bandwidth.

Perhaps making it into a BitTorrent of the ISO would be a better idea as it would eliminate the cost of physical media and the drain on your time involved in burning and shipping them. You would just have to find a suitably friendly server to two to host the tracker and some copies... and even people with slow connections could download it that way.

The ZIP files for S.E.R and Laser FAQs have always been available for free with instructions for installation so this CD thing would only be of value for people who really pay dearly for each bit of internet access.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror:

Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive traffic on Repairfaq.org.

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

I would buy a CD. Would be a lot easier to access than the website in terms of convenience. What about upgrades? Could I load it on my computer or do I need to use the CD every time?

As has been noted, if you have an internet connection for which you don't pay through the nose for every bit, it's already possible to download the entire site with a program like wget, or the .zip files (from the UPenn or Drexel Web sites) and then install them on your computer.

So, a CD would really only be of use to someone where it would cost more to download than the CD or who do not know how to do this.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror:

Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive traffic on Repairfaq.org.

Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.

Sam Goldwasser wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@saul.cis.upenn.edu:

Plus, there's the prestige of having an "official" CD version of the FAQ and knowing that the money spent is a "thank-you" to Sam.

It would make it even more "official" if you could print some fancy graphics on the disc and/or insert.

Brian