[Amps] E-Book

[David Kirkby]

Will Matney wrote:

>Well here's the dilemma with HTML. Folks on here, especially which I consider all good friends, some have offered to proof read for glitches, etc., I cant password protect it unless it's put in a compression file like .zip or .rar. I don't think winzip will go cross platform, and not sure about rar files. 
>

HTML is a bad choice for technical books (which I assume your 
transformer book would be), as how the image is displayed is determined 
partially by the HTML content, but partially by the browser. Equations 
are going to be tricky at best, so you are probably going to need to 
generate gif files for all equations.

Winzip is by its very name for Windoze. But zip is a compression 
algorithm that can be used on a multiple platforms. However, I don't 
think the compression algorithm is too strong.

http://www.crackpassword.com/products/prs/archives/zip/

I don't think ebook is too secure either

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Adobe/Gallery/PDFsecurity.pdf

I can't recall if it was Adobe or Apple, but one of them took someone to 
court who published details of how to crack their encryption algorithm. 
I'd be very embarised if I wrote an encryption algorithm and someone was 
able to crack it. I certainly would not want further public humiliation 
by taking it to court.

>I know pdfs are and the other form of e-book available is only win-32 compatible which has a built in browser. 
>
No, acrobat reader can read e-books on any platform - it is not limited 
to just Windoze.

>My  friends, I don't care to give a copy away free. That way, I could just send it all in HTML. With a pdf or an e-book, I can password protect those for resale. Since Adobe Acrobat is cross platform that will work for Mac, Linux, and Unix I think. 
>
Yes it will.

>The e-book form would be good for those running Windows. Personally, I like Windows and have been a hacker at it, so know how to plug all the holes on my machine. 
>
Well Microsoft should hire you, as they seem unable to plug all the holes!!

>I would like to get some comments on what would be looked for in the book and what would be needed. 
>
*Personally* I hate the thought of e-books - I'd rather have something 
in my hand that I can read on the train or in bed.

There is a fairly popular (among scientists) book called "Numerical 
Recipes in C". You can download a pdf of it for free
http://www.numerical-recipes.com/nronline_switcher.html
but it is sold as a hardback book. (It was sold as a hardback book 
before a free download was available).

I have Mathematica, the manual for which is

a) Sold as a book Mathematica at quite a significant price.
b) Provided as a help file in the program.
c) Is available for online viewing at 
http://documents.wolfram.com/mathematica/

So this proves to me there are lots of people like me who would like a 
physical copy of a book, not just something to read on a screen. 
Otherwise companies would not sell books, but make downloads free.

If you allow printing of the book (which allows one to get a physical 
copy), then I doubt it is too hard for someone to convert it to a normal 
unencrypted pdf. Just print to a postscript file, convert postscript to 
pdf. Very easy. If you can't print it, then I would personally not want 
to bother buying it, no matter what the content.

But then people do manage to sell them, so I guess there is a market. 
How big I don't know.

You might go to a lot of work and find the number of people paying to 
read the material on transformers is very small indeed.

If you really can plug all the holes in Windoze (as you claim) I suspect 
you could earn a fortune from Microsoft, and would not need to bother 
considering selling a book at $5-$10.

>I don't know if you seen the one webpage(s) I did before on transformers but it will be similar to it. 
>
No, its not something I have seen, but I have no great interest in 
transformers.

>I want to get into the how's and why's you use certain components, and how to design each inductor from scratch. 
>
Can't that be found on the web?

>Examples are, I always thought, the best way to learn. That is one other thing to include. I think some math we use scare some folks also. That's another are to help clear up and where example problems help a lot. If all would, let me know any ideas and I'll mull them over. Thanks again for the interest to all, I really appreciate it.
>
If you have Mathematica, you might consider writing it in that. Anyone 
can read it (since there is a free reader), but anyone with the program 
can change the numbers in your book and do the computations for another 
set of conditions. Just a thought - perhaps not a very good one.

Or how about writing it as an ebook that anyone can read freely, but 
they would have to pay to print off copies? That might get more people 
reading it (since it's free) and if the content is really that good, 
they will pay to print a copy. You might find you generate more revenue 
that way.

Or how about putting the book online for free, but selling the software 
that allows people to work out solutions for their own data? You could 
include the software with the ability to print.

Anyway, enough said. I think you should be paying me for ideas!!

-- 
Dr. David Kirkby, 
G8WRB

Please check out http://www.g8wrb.org/ 
of if you live in Essex http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/