Russian Women Discussion

RWD Administrative => RWD Announcements => Topic started by: Admin on May 18, 2009, 08:28:12 PM

Title: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Admin on May 18, 2009, 08:28:12 PM
Russian Women Discussion
is pleased to announce
an important new publication for our members!

(http://russianwomendiscussion.com/MOTW/MOTWcover01.jpg)

Men of the West, Women From the East represents the culmination of nearly two years of effort to produce an E-Book worthy of RWD and our distinction of being the largest and very best internet site serving our niche.

Men of the West, Women From the East is also the most comprehensive, the most informative and the most up-to-date resource available on this topic.

Men of the West, Women From the East is a reasoned summary of the experiences gathered here at RWD over these past years and represents the collective work of a large number of our members - with special thanks to our Editorial Panel of:

Female Participants:
Male Participants:
I will be forwarding each of you a complimentary copy of the E-book in the next few days - with our sincere appreciation.

And while at it - we need to offer a VERY SPECIAL note of appreciation to Sandro, the Editor of the entire work. Sandro has been diligent in pushing this E-book through to completion over these many months, and has applied creativity and intelligence, both of which Sandro has in abundance. Without his efforts, this E-book would have never materialized, and his contributions cannot be overlooked.

Men of the West, Women From the East is offered as of 01 Feb 2012 as a free download - see posts below.

Please feel free to let us know of any and all problems or inconveniences you encounter.

We sincerely believe you will find this E-book extremely valuable in your pursuit and welcome your feedback.

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: ECOCKS on May 18, 2009, 09:35:27 PM
Bravo to the participants individually, Sandro for his diligence and the site management for the willingness to take a bold step in a different direction.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: 55North on May 25, 2009, 12:07:00 AM
It's a shame that it's only available as a Windows download.
 
My 2 PCs are Linux and Apple OSX.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 25, 2009, 05:32:13 AM
It's a shame that it's only available as a Windows download. My 2 PCs are Linux and Apple OSX.
55North, IINM Wine (http://www.winehq.org/) is a Windows emulator that one can install on both Opsys.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: 55North on May 25, 2009, 06:56:59 AM
Many thanks.  I'll give that a go later.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 25, 2009, 07:58:10 AM
Many thanks.  I'll give that a go later.
Please let us know the result, if successful we might want to add a note to the product pages for those in your same situation ;).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Mark Davis on May 28, 2009, 11:06:01 PM
Sandro:

This eBook is very well done!  I love the navigation.  Being able to move through the topics and click on the links to read the supporting strings was a nice touch.  I did have to turn off my firewall when first installing it, but once it did, it was great every time after that.

I hope you sell thousands and continue to get the word out.

Best,

Mark
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 29, 2009, 05:05:42 AM
Sandro:
This eBook is very well done!  I love the navigation.  Being able to move through the topics and click on the links to read the supporting strings was a nice touch.  I did have to turn off my firewall when first installing it, but once it did, it was great every time after that.
Thank you, Mark.

I don't know what your firewall is, but it's normal for any firewall to object to an EXE trying to access the Internet - spyware/malware often does that. Usually this is manifested by a warning pop-up that offers the choices of allowing or blocking the offender, the first permitting all subsequent attempts by the same EXE without further hindrance.

 I think this is what you mean by 'turning off' your firewall ;).
Title: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: Admin on February 08, 2012, 07:21:17 AM
(http://russianwomendiscussion.com/MOTW/MOTWcover02.jpg)

We recently made the decision to offer the RWD E-Book, Men of the West - Women From the East, available to our members as a free download. This E-Book was the result of many months of effort involving a number of our members and drawing on the collective wisdom and insights contributed by thousands of participants over nearly a decade. Taking this wealth of information and weaving it together into a coherent and legible format that readers will find enjoyable was the work of our master linguist, SANDRO43.

You will find a link to the download in the footer menu of each page, or >CLICK HERE< (http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=47)

Enjoy!

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: SteveOR on February 09, 2012, 06:39:28 PM
 
I get the following error when trying to run:
 
"MOTW.exe is not a valid Win32 application"
 
 
Title: Re: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 09, 2012, 07:06:45 PM
I get the following error when trying to run: "MOTW.exe is not a valid Win32 application"
Odd ::). What flavour of WIN are you running?
Title: Re: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: Faux Pas on February 09, 2012, 07:36:20 PM
Does anyone have an idea as to how to run an .exe on a mac OSX without running a separate Windows platform? Surely there is a free quick loadable software or can the book be converted to a different download?
Title: Re: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: Darth_Budda on February 09, 2012, 08:05:09 PM
I don't think you can convert a .exe to a .dmg,,,,

Title: Re: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: TwoBitBandit on February 10, 2012, 12:19:31 AM
An .exe??? Seriously???


With all due respect, Dan... you have a great forum and I love reading it... and I'd like to take a look at your book... but this choice of format seems odd.
Title: Re: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: acctBill on February 10, 2012, 01:12:48 AM
Does anyone have an idea as to how to run an .exe on a mac OSX without running a separate Windows platform? Surely there is a free quick loadable software or can the book be converted to a different download?

Easy enough to do:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-DMG-File-on-a-Mac
Title: Re: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: Admin on February 10, 2012, 09:33:30 AM
An .exe??? Seriously???


With all due respect, Dan... you have a great forum and I love reading it... and I'd like to take a look at your book... but this choice of format seems odd.

Thanks for the comments about RWD.

As for the E-Book format, I do not recall the specifics of the back-and-forth that went into selection of the software and ensuing format - though I recall it took us a while (a long while) to settle on the final choice. We eventually selected a commercial software product called Activ E-Book (here is their home page -- www.ebookcompiler.com) after having considered numerous other options.

While the book downloads as a .exe file (and that seems to raise security questions with some of the current OS's), there is nothing to be alarmed by. If you manage to open the file, you will see what I mean. The viewer looks like a simple web page, hence, it should be familiar to everyone. The navigation controls take a small amount of time to become familiar, but are quite intuitive and the viewing/reading experience is quite pleasant. There is no lag as can be found in some viewers, and the formatting, colors and presentation were masterfully assembled by Sandro and his team. One word of caution - as with anything Sandro writes professionally, his word choice and text construction is dense. That is to say, he is world-class at densely packing a huge amount of information into a very small amount of space/text. Once again, take a look when you are able and you will see what I mean. Sandro is, quite simply, amazing at what he does.

The E-Book itself is packed with useful information. Seven (7) chapters, each with several subchapters, and more than a dozen Appendices - all containing a wealth of relevant information quite helpful to people in this pursuit.

I hope you get the chance to look it over. The primary reason we elected to offer it free of charge is to ensure it reaches a broader audience.

Try it - you'll like it.

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: jeff9556 on February 10, 2012, 11:34:25 AM
I agree with the others regarding the format. You've published this is a closed format, rather than something relatively open like PDF, which can do pretty much everything I see in this guide without limiting what platform you can view it on.

If the intention is to reach the widest possible audience then it makes sense to publish this in a ubiquitous format like PDF, since there is a PDF viewer for almost every platform in existence.

I have thousands of e-books that I have purchased and downloaded for free, they are all PDF, except this one.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: ML on February 10, 2012, 12:50:26 PM
Dan, I think it would  be useful to set up a separate thread for comments and suggestions for changes regarding the content of the book, as opposed to the access etc. that is mainly discussed in this thread.

A very good source and I applaud those who have participated in the forming  the book, but I was very bothered by some sections and words which I think are misleading to 'newbies' which should be the primary readers.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Jack on February 10, 2012, 01:50:18 PM
Dan, I'm sure you and your associates will be able to figure out how to solve this issue and making it an easy download process. But I wanted to take the time and to thank you, Sandro, and those who helped you with this fine publication for allowing this book to the masses, to the public.  A great guide for helping to steer new guy's in the right direction.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Admin on February 10, 2012, 02:06:11 PM
Dan, I think it would  be useful to set up a separate thread for comments and suggestions for changes regarding the content of the book, as opposed to the access etc. that is mainly discussed in this thread.

A very good source and I applaud those who have participated in the forming  the book, but I was very bothered by some sections and words which I think are misleading to 'newbies' which should be the primary readers.

ML,

Good suggestion.

We invite discussion and debate (civil, of course) directed at the content of the E-Book. Maybe you could begin the topic(s)? It matters not at all to me whether it is here, in this forum, or in one (or more, if appropo) of the regular forums below. If you see something you wish to make comment on - please feel free.

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Admin on February 10, 2012, 02:11:09 PM
I agree with the others regarding the format. You've published this is a closed format, rather than something relatively open like PDF, which can do pretty much everything I see in this guide without limiting what platform you can view it on.

If the intention is to reach the widest possible audience then it makes sense to publish this in a ubiquitous format like PDF, since there is a PDF viewer for almost every platform in existence.

I have thousands of e-books that I have purchased and downloaded for free, they are all PDF, except this one.

As you know, PDF is a product of Adobe Publisher. We looked at compilers that produced PDF output and found none that offered the features we were looking for at the time.

I have no idea of the total number of pages in the current E-Book, but it is substantial. I suppose I could construct a PDF version by simply 'printing' each 'page' (one must remember, on the internet a 'page' is not the same as a 'page' in an old-fashioned hardcopy book form) into a PDF and then assembling those into one single document. It would then be portable to other platforms, at a significant loss of ease for the reader.

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: jeff9556 on February 10, 2012, 03:07:01 PM
Sure, its your call Dan. I don't know how you wrote this to begin with and I am not familiar with the application you used to compile it. No need to explain about webpages, I've been a web developer since before the browser wars ;)

BTW kudos on the actual content and to everyone who contributed, its a great resource and good read!
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on February 10, 2012, 04:23:43 PM
The file will not run on Windows XP.  Even tried it in a DOS window.  If anyone can convert it to an XP valid file, would appreciate a copy.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on February 10, 2012, 04:26:10 PM
The properties of the .exe file I downloaded is only about 209 KB.  Is it possible that the full file is this small?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 10, 2012, 04:47:23 PM
The properties of the .exe file I downloaded is only about 209 KB.  Is it possible that the full file is this small?
No, its size is about 4.7 Mb, and probably that is why:

The file will not run on Windows XP.
Try unloading again ;).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 10, 2012, 05:50:29 PM
Re: RWD E-Book in PDF format

For the past hour or so I've been playing with a number of PDF converters, PDF virtual printers, etc. etc.

They work alright on the book .EXE, but the problem is that they will create a .PDF file only for the currently shown page, NOT for the entire book :(, which renders it very impracticable for us to make a PDF version downloadable from RWD - it would consist of a myriad of small files.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on February 10, 2012, 06:02:48 PM
Sandro,

I don't know what is going on with the downloads. I downloaded twice under XP.  The exe files downloaded were 140 KB and 234 KB each time.  I went to my laptop and downloaded under Vista  and the file is about 240KB.  There might be something in the binary file that is interrupting the downloads.

Do you have the source data before it went into your authoring application?  It should be fairly easy to make a MS Word or PDF file.  If you can send me the sources, I will take a look at it.

Doug

Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 10, 2012, 06:14:20 PM
Sandro,I don't know what is going on with the downloads. I downloaded twice under XP.  The exe files downloaded were 140 KB and 234 KB each time.  I went to my laptop and downloaded under Vista  and the file is about 240KB.  There might be something in the binary file that is interrupting the downloads.
I just did it again under XP, and the downloaded file is 4,809 Kb. No idea why your downloads break up early. Anybody else experiencing the same problem?

Quote
Do you have the source data before it went into your authoring application?  It should be fairly easy to make a MS Word or PDF file. If you can send me the sources, I will take a look at it.
Doug, of course I still have the source data, but you'll have to ask Dan for that ;).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: JohnDearGreen on February 10, 2012, 06:14:51 PM
The file doesn't download properly [sometimes] with Internet Explorer.
If you have a problem, right-click on the download link and then
select "save target as" and choose a download location.
Seems to download ok on Chrome.
 
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Admin on February 10, 2012, 06:15:03 PM
Sandro,

I don't know what is going on with the downloads. I downloaded twice under XP.  The exe files downloaded were 140 KB and 234 KB each time.  I went to my laptop and downloaded under Vista  and the file is about 240KB.  There might be something in the binary file that is interrupting the downloads.

Do you have the source data before it went into your authoring application?  It should be fairly easy to make a MS Word or PDF file.  If you can send me the sources, I will take a look at it.

Doug

I am attaching a screenshot of the process I just NOW performed.

Step 1 was to click the link on this page -- http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=47 (http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=47)

That brought up the pop-up window shown. Note in the pop-up window it shows the filename: MOTW.exe and the file size: 4.7 MB.

Step 2 is to save that file to a local directory on your PC.

Step 3 is to double-click the file (wherever it is saved) and it opens the viewer.

If something is going wrong, please let us know if there are any differences from the description above. BTW - this was done in FireFox. If you are using a different browser, let me know and if I have it I will try the same steps with that browser.

Hope this helps.

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Admin on February 10, 2012, 06:18:33 PM
And attached is a screenshot of the process using Internet Explorer.

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 10, 2012, 06:26:47 PM
I'll join the fun and contribute Opera's version ;D.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on February 10, 2012, 06:33:26 PM
I noticed upthread a bit, there was someone else that got the same error message as I get when clicking on the .exe file.... not a valid win32 application.  He did not mention the file size but I suspect that it was also short.

I am using Windows XP SP3, Internet Explorer 8.  This is the first time I have ever had a download consistently come up as a partial file.  It does give me a download complete message in the window.

Since it also happened to someone else, I doubt it is accociated with my ISP  (Verizon) but anything is possible :)

Also, get the same results with Vista.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on February 10, 2012, 06:35:26 PM
P.S.  I also tried the "Save target as" option with the same results.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on February 10, 2012, 06:37:54 PM
Sandro, Dan,

Could you please try to email it to me.  Please change the extension to .doc or something.  I will change it back to exe after I download it.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on February 10, 2012, 07:19:02 PM
Sandro, Dan,

I just connected to someones unsecured wi-fi in the neighborhood and was able to successfully download the e-book.

This leaves me to believe that the problem has something to do with the Verizon FIOS network.  With all data and TV, Phone, etc that is coming over the fiber, maybe there is something in the binary file that is being inerpreted as a command or something.  In any case, if it happens in the future I will know where to look.

Sorry for the confusion.

Doug


Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: JohnDearGreen on February 10, 2012, 07:24:40 PM
Seems to be an IE bug.  If I wait a while (more than 10 seconds) to click the Save option, I get a truncated download.  If I respond quickly to click Save it downloads the full file.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Admin on February 10, 2012, 07:35:49 PM
Seems to be an IE bug.  If I wait a while (more than 10 seconds) to click the Save option, I get a truncated download.  If I respond quickly to click Save it downloads the full file.

>>Seems to be an IE bug.<<

Solution:

1. Switch to FireFox (see post above)
2. Switch to Opera (see post above)
3. Switch to Chrome (this post)

Seriously, IE has had problems of this sort for a very VERY long time. Consider alternatives.

Attached is a screenshot showing the process using Chrome (by Google). Of those I tried, this one seemed the easiest and most intuitive - even though I use FF 99% of the time.

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on February 10, 2012, 09:36:59 PM
I just finished reading the complete Men of the West, Women From the East inluding the Appendix.  Congratulations!!  You guys did a fantastic job.

This book along with the free E-Book from Mark Davis as a supplement is all a newbie needs.  There is no reason anyone needs to spend money to purchase anything else.

Whoever wrote the Toilet portion of the appendix needs to be credited with having me rolling on the floor laughing.  It describes exactly my experience and fears when using public toilets in Ukraine.  Some readers might think it is a joke, but trust me it is real life!  How to maintain your balance is a real trick.

The only thing I can think of that you might want to add to new additions would be to describe the superstitions and temperment of FSU women.

Great Job !!!!!!
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 11, 2012, 07:43:44 AM
The only thing I can think of that you might want to add to new additions would be to describe the superstitions and temperment of FSU women.
Doug, there's something about that in CHAPTER 7 - FINAL CONSIDERATIONS ;):

Quote
HEALTH, HYGIENE & FITNESS
...You are told that iced tea kills
...The air-conditioners are blamed for a bout of bad health, yet they have been switched OFF ever since
she arrived
...The ceiling fan is going to make her sick
...You are told "I have a headache, maybe we should stop at the ice-cream parlor to make it go away"
...You learn everyday new things about how to lead a healthy life
...You discover new marvels of medicine, such as putting dog fur rather than ice on an inflamed lower
back, or your 23-y.o. son is told to pee on his sunburned legs
...Your sunburn is smeared with sour cream
...Your water bill has more than trebled since her arrival
...The sound of running water in the bathroom brings on erotic thoughts
...You hear she telling you that sex is 'good for organism'

Glad you finally managed to get a working copy, and thanks for the accolade :D.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SteveOR on February 11, 2012, 03:54:46 PM
 
Downloads OK now.  Tried both clicking on the link and using "save target as".  Both now work.  Using Win XP SP3 and IE8.
 
Looking forward to reading it.  Thanks for posting it. . .
 
 
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Anotherkiwi on February 11, 2012, 08:30:29 PM
Downloaded instantly with no problems - Windows7 and IE9.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: XMan on February 12, 2012, 07:30:40 PM
I just finished reading the complete Men of the West, Women From the East inluding the Appendix.  Congratulations!!  You guys did a fantastic job.

This book along with the free E-Book from Mark Davis as a supplement is all a newbie needs.  There is no reason anyone needs to spend money to purchase anything else.

Whoever wrote the Toilet portion of the appendix needs to be credited with having me rolling on the floor laughing.  It describes exactly my experience and fears when using public toilets in Ukraine.  Some readers might think it is a joke, but trust me it is real life!  How to maintain your balance is a real trick.

The only thing I can think of that you might want to add to new additions would be to describe the superstitions and temperment of FSU women.

Great Job !!!!!!

Indeed.  It is exactly my experience. 
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: XMan on February 12, 2012, 07:34:36 PM
The link to Taz's novella was very interesting.  Having read it, I'm glad I avoided driving myself anywhere in Russia or Ukraine...and now I think I'll have to search for other Taz threads as it sort of left me hanging.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: LiveFromUkraine on February 12, 2012, 08:32:27 PM
Re: RWD E-Book in PDF format

For the past hour or so I've been playing with a number of PDF converters, PDF virtual printers, etc. etc.

They work alright on the book .EXE, but the problem is that they will create a .PDF file only for the currently shown page, NOT for the entire book :( , which renders it very impracticable for us to make a PDF version downloadable from RWD - it would consist of a myriad of small files.

Sandro, Word and Open Office has the ability to generate PDF files.  It should keep all navigation as well. 
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 13, 2012, 06:27:11 AM
Sandro, Word and Open Office has the ability to generate PDF files.  It should keep all navigation as well.
OK, but the book source is in HTML - as required by the compiler that we used - so that route is not practical, I think ::).
Title: Re: RWD E-Book Now Available Free of Charge
Post by: Faux Pas on February 13, 2012, 07:59:17 AM
Easy enough to do:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-DMG-File-on-a-Mac

That was absolutely no help. Did you try it?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: JohnDearGreen on February 13, 2012, 10:18:28 AM
Re: RWD E-Book in PDF format

For the past hour or so I've been playing with a number of PDF converters, PDF virtual printers, etc. etc.

They work alright on the book .EXE, but the problem is that they will create a .PDF file only for the currently shown page, NOT for the entire book :( , which renders it very impracticable for us to make a PDF version downloadable from RWD - it would consist of a myriad of small files.


http://www.randomsupport.com/rs/blogs/index.php?title=howto-concatenate-pdf-documents&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 (http://www.randomsupport.com/rs/blogs/index.php?title=howto-concatenate-pdf-documents&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 13, 2012, 10:37:33 AM
http://www.randomsupport.com/rs/blogs/index.php?title=howto-concatenate-pdf-documents&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1[/url]
Thanks for the link, but that looks too much of a hassle to bother :-\.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Patagonie on February 13, 2012, 02:20:45 PM
I congratulate the team who have realized this book, and thank them. It will be a diamond for all newbies. 
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 13, 2012, 05:15:07 PM
I thought a poll might have been in order ;).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: TwoBitBandit on February 13, 2012, 10:59:31 PM
OK, but the book source is in HTML - as required by the compiler that we used - so that route is not practical, I think ::) .


If your source is in HTML, did you consider using http://calibre-ebook.com/ (http://calibre-ebook.com/) ?  I've published a couple of ebooks in other forums using HTML as my source and targeting .prc.  The advantage that the resulting file can be read on virtually everything: kindle, ipad, windows, mac, whatever.  Forgive me for saying this, but a win32 binary is a really obnoxious format.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 14, 2012, 07:28:23 AM
If your source is in HTML, did you consider using http://calibre-ebook.com/ (http://calibre-ebook.com/) ?
No, it wasn't among the candidates considered at the time.

Anyway, I downloaded and started toying with it. I asked to "Add books" and selected all the files (HTML, JPG, etc.) from the book source directory. The result was one ZIP 'book' for each file ::).

Quote
I've published a couple of ebooks in other forums using HTML as my source and targeting .prc. 
From a SINGLE HTML file?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Admin on February 14, 2012, 08:20:44 AM

If your source is in HTML, did you consider using http://calibre-ebook.com/ (http://calibre-ebook.com/) ?  I've published a couple of ebooks in other forums using HTML as my source and targeting .prc.  The advantage that the resulting file can be read on virtually everything: kindle, ipad, windows, mac, whatever.  Forgive me for saying this, but a win32 binary is a really obnoxious format.

TBB,

What is so "obnoxious" about it?

As I wrote upthread, we did a good deal of checking into various authoring programs at that time, and ALL of them had drawbacks of one sort or another. The simple fact is - for the VAST majority of our readers, they can access this valuable information in 2 to 3 easy steps - click on the link (upthread) to the download page - download the file and save it to a directory of your choice - click on the file. That is it. It is VERY reliable and simple.

Admittedly, those who run on Apple platforms will see things differently - but as we looked at our demographics back then - and even now - that is not a very large proportion of our member community. Further, we were under the impression that OS emulators exist for non-Windows platforms that would enable all our members to utilize the output.

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: TwoBitBandit on February 20, 2012, 01:50:03 AM
Anyway, I downloaded and started toying with it.

Sorry, I goofed. The tool I actually use is Mobipocket Creator (http://"http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp"). 

From a SINGLE HTML file?

If you have images or other files, you normally link to them, and an appropriate ebook compiler will read in the linked filed and compile them as part of the ebook.  The question "From a SINGLE HTML file?" doesn't seem to me to be asking the right question since HTML links tend to form a hierarchy of content.

I've written a few ebooks, and the process I follow is roughly:
1.  Write the book in a word processor
2.  Paste the text into a text editor (like notebook on Windows), but use the .html file extension
3.  Add HTML tags as needed to make everything format/look right
4.  View the saved file in a web browser and make sure it all basically looks right
5.  Create a Mobipocket creator book and import the HTML
6.  Create a table of contents and make sure it looks right
7.  Build (compile) the book and make sure it looks OK on a variety of ebook readers.  (I usually test Windows, Android and Kindle)
8.  Repeat all steps above until I'm happy with the look of it across platforms.

As an example, I created a quick ebook using Mobipocked Creator and attached it as a zip file.  The only file that really needs to distributed to consumers is the .prc file: the rest of it is source code.

TBB, What is so "obnoxious" about it?

I'm speaking from the perspective of a software professional.  Good software should be transparent and elegant.  By binding the content and the delivery mechanism together, you're taking away my choice of platforms to consume your content.  You're saying, "You want my content?  Then take my platform!  You'll eat this gruel and you'll like it!"

Not only are you doing that, but you're doing it pointlessly.  It's one thing to write an application that requires heavy use of platform-specific features (such as a complex game that makes heavy use of video or OpenGL): in that case you have to rely on that particular features of that platform.  That's the opposite of what you have here: the problem of how to deliver books that are portable across a wide variety of platforms is a substantially-solved problem.

Of course, the counter-argument is, "but what's wrong with Windows?"  What if that's not how I consume content?  I read tons of ebooks.  Even though I could, I don't read any of them on Windows.  I read them on Kindle or Android, simply because that's what fits into my life.  I read them on airplanes, in cafes, in bars, while I'm in lines, in elevators, wherever.  By (implicitly) taking the position "You'll eat this gruel and you'll like it!" you've taken from me the choice of how it's most convenient for me to consume the content you've created.

It's pretty clear that the creators of the tool you've used (http://www.ebookcompiler.com/) don't really understand anything about elegance.  Their web site looks like it was put together by a high school freshman during spring break.  Its design reminds me vaguely of Herb Talek from 'WKRP in Cincinnati' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Tarlek), who often wore plaid suits that could only be described as 'obnoxious'.

I don't really expect anyone who isn't in my industry to understand that argument, for the same reason I wouldn't expect anyone who wasn't in the clothing industry to know the difference between a fused and a canvassed suit.

The answer to the question 'What is so "obnoxious" about it?' is that you're telling me how I should consume your content, and doing it shamelessly.

To be clear, I appreciate and admire the effort you (the plural 'you', meaning Dan, Sandro, and all the contributors).  It's great that you're trying to help out people new to this endeavor to find what they're looking for.  I don't want it to seem like I'm dissing the effort or the content.  Cetainly, there's a lack of clear, concise, useful and honest information for guys that are starting on their search for a partner from the FSU.  It's the format and delivery that I'm objecting to.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 20, 2012, 06:44:37 AM
The question "From a SINGLE HTML file?" doesn't seem to me to be asking the right question since HTML links tend to form a hierarchy of content.
The question was right, connsidering the behaviour of the tool that you initially suggested :(:
Quote
Sorry, I goofed.

Quote
The tool I actually use is Mobipocket Creator (http://"http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp").
OK, I downloaded it and shall try it out. 
Quote
If you have images or other files, you normally link to them, and an appropriate ebook compiler will read in the linked filed and compile them as part of the ebook.
Obviously ::).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 20, 2012, 09:39:42 AM
:OK, I downloaded it and shall try it out.
Well I did, and the result was not much satisfactory, the book formatting is all messed up and I think it'd require too much rework on the original HTML code for a decent result :-\.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: TwoBitBandit on February 20, 2012, 11:07:07 AM
Well I did, and the result was not much satisfactory, the book formatting is all messed up and I think it'd require too much rework on the original HTML code for a decent result :-\ .


You're almost certainly right.  Writing good, platform-agnostic HTML takes time, especially if you haven't done it before.  I spent hours getting it right in the first ebook I wrote.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on February 20, 2012, 12:19:09 PM
Writing good, platform-agnostic HTML takes time, especially if you haven't done it before.
Not sure what that means ::). I learned HTML after learning/using in the 1990s the IBM BookMaster, a simplified version of SCRIPT/VS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Generalized_Markup_Language) for our mainframes that we had adopted then to produce our manuals.

Initially I was surprised by seeing that the HTML tags were identical, but I should not have since IBM's presence on standards committees was very influential then, and when the matter arose of text-formatting standards, they probably said: "Let's not reinvent the wheel, we already have a proven working tool for the publishing industry, let's use that." ;)
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: 55North on March 18, 2012, 01:07:15 AM
Many thanks.  I'll give that a go later.
 
Wow.  I just read it.  3 + years later.
 
That's because I've been busy doing it, not reading about it!
 
Most Mac users will have upgraded everything, as I have - to include a Windows partition, so no problems there.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Faux Pas on March 18, 2012, 07:40:42 AM
 
Wow.  I just read it.  3 + years later.
 
That's because I've been busy doing it, not reading about it!
 
Most Mac users will have upgraded everything, as I have - to include a Windows partition, so no problems there.

I'm a mac user and usually fairly prolific but, I gave up on it. What did you do?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: 55North on March 18, 2012, 11:19:48 AM
I'm a mac user and usually fairly prolific but, I gave up on it. What did you do?


Hi FP.
 
When I last read this thread 3 years ago, my 'surfin' Safari was a Tiger I think, on a half-football.  Now, I'm surfin' Safari on a Lion with a duo core under the bonnet and a 27" windscreen.  In order that my wife's Xperia Mini can speak to its mothership, I had to load VM Fusion and Windoze 7.  (iPhone for me, of course).
 
I simply downloaded the infamous exe file to my (Apple) desktop, hit open, and hey-presto, my  Mac opened Windoze on top of my Apple perfectly displaying the tome.
   
(Did you do iCloud yet?  Bit the bullet and made the crossing yesterday.  Interesting!  That you can shoot a photo anywhere out there, and Alla can immediately see it on the screen at home is, as we used to say, pretty far out.)


 

Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Faux Pas on March 19, 2012, 06:03:12 AM

Hi FP.
 
When I last read this thread 3 years ago, my 'surfin' Safari was a Tiger I think, on a half-football.  Now, I'm surfin' Safari on a Lion with a duo core under the bonnet and a 27" windscreen.  In order that my wife's Xperia Mini can speak to its mothership, I had to load VM Fusion and Windoze 7.  (iPhone for me, of course).
 
I simply downloaded the infamous exe file to my (Apple) desktop, hit open, and hey-presto, my  Mac opened Windoze on top of my Apple perfectly displaying the tome.
   
(Did you do iCloud yet?  Bit the bullet and made the crossing yesterday.  Interesting!  That you can shoot a photo anywhere out there, and Alla can immediately see it on the screen at home is, as we used to say, pretty far out.)

Hi 55!

I am still running Tiger and I am iCloud'ng on the iPhone but not yet on the laptop.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: OmegaSupreme on May 13, 2012, 03:21:38 AM
Apparently I'm a bit late to this party, but just noticed this ebook today. Thanks for making it free!

However, I have to echo some of the complaints about the choice of format. There's no way I'm going to dive into this anytime soon, as I refuse to do any heavy reading sitting in front of a computer. Considering the proliferation of e-readers and other mobile devices, it would've made far more sense to release this as an epub and/or mobi file. Any chance of this happening anytime in the near future? It shouldn't be that difficult to do, and would guarantee wider distribution than an .exe file.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 13, 2012, 10:17:13 AM
Considering the proliferation of e-readers and other mobile devices, it would've made far more sense to release this as an epub and/or mobi file. Any chance of this happening anytime in the near future?
OmegaSupreme, after your post I did try out the Mobilpocket Creator on our HTML source files, and the result is rather messed up compared to the original :(.

Our single HTML pages are converted to several, and their formatting is all askew - apparently the book  .CSS file is ignored :-\.

Quote
It shouldn't be that difficult to do, and would guarantee wider distribution than an .exe file.
No walk in the park, though ;). So, unless somebody comes up with some not-too-cumbersome fixes, no joy :wallbash:.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SFandEE on May 13, 2012, 01:56:18 PM
Admittedly, those who run on Apple platforms will see things differently - but as we looked at our demographics back then - and even now - that is not a very large proportion of our member community. Further, we were under the impression that OS emulators exist for non-Windows platforms that would enable all our members to utilize the output.

- Dan


Had to chuckle--the PC crowd is a good nickname for a lot of the RWD Heroes that post.  I am a Mac user, so I will look forward to checking out the book on my platform.  Let you know how it looks.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Mark Davis on May 13, 2012, 02:12:05 PM
More than an ebook, his "Men of the West, Women from the East" is like an encyclopedia of the best from RWD content and commentary.  It's like a resource more than a casual read.  I hope you can get it to work.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: newjason on May 13, 2012, 04:30:05 PM
I know this is an old thread but...

I also tried to download the "book"

When I scanned with AVAST it said it was clean.

Let me just say that opening an Executable file from an untrusted source is against the rules of safe computing. ( my rules btw ).

Your file has no valid signature, and no certificate of trust.
But against my better judgement I ran it anyway.
I ran it inside of the AVAST sandbox to be on the safe side.
Both times when I open this MOTW.exe file , I get a BSOD.  And I get those,  almost never. :(

What is it about this "book" that it needs to be in a Executable wrapper?
Is it simply a collection of thread posts with commentary or something more?
I am curious and would love to read this book, but since keeping my computer safe is more important to  me, I will not experiment any further with the book in it's current format.

Is it possible to set up a thread to display the book? or even a website or blog?

The counter on the  download page for the book as of right now shows only 215 hits :(   2 of them are me.
215 people seems like a very very small number compared to the amount of people who visit this forum every day.   For example,  I started an introduction thread  Hi, I'm Jason,  back in March.  That thread has over 4480 views as of today.
Now I highly doubt that the content in that thread is any more interesting than what is contained in MOTH/WOTE.  So it seems fair to assume that it is about the method of delivery.

If your goal is to reach a wider audience,  IMO it will not happen in this current format.  :(

With all the time and effort put into this project, It is a shame to see it un-available to so many of us who want to  read it while still maintaining a safe computing environment.

Maybe a CERT of Trust would be a good option?  they are only a few hundred a year, and I think some will even issue you one for a free period to evaluate if it is worth it.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 13, 2012, 04:49:31 PM
Newjason, I think you can trust the book even without a certificate/signature, I can assure you that we put nothing harmful in it, as your AVAST confirmed ;). As for your BSOD, what OS platform are you running it on?

What is it about this "book" that it needs to be in a Executable wrapper?]
It was the only alternative available at the time.
Quote
Is it simply a collection of thread posts with commentary or something more?
More, thread posts are only offered as references for further reading in the topics covered.
Is it possible to set up a thread to display the book?
I guess that'd cause the same problem, it being an .EXE ::).
Quote
If your goal is to reach a wider audience,  IMO it will not happen in this current format.  :(With all the time and effort put into this project, It is a shame to see it un-available to so many of us who want to  read it while still maintaining a safe computing environment.
I've tried converting it to a .PDF before, and to a .MOBI today, with the same unsatisfactory results :(.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that all who claim it'd be easy to change it to a different, better format did not actually experience such a conversion process themselves :-\.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on May 13, 2012, 05:08:06 PM
Quote from Sandro..
I'm becoming more and more convinced that all who claim it'd be easy to change it to a different, easier format did not actually experience such a conversion process themselves

You probably right, no one has the source or even a portion of it to try it.  I have to agree that a .PDF format would be wonderful.  Based on a feedback of only 8 responses, I am wondering how many are actually able to read it.  It is a fantastic resource.  Since  it is free, I would expect it to have thousands of downloads by now.

Have you given any thought to solving the .PDF conversion problem?  Perhaps by asking Adobe or one of our forum experts on Adobe products.  Since it is so much trouble to fix the HTML code, perhaps Adobe has an answer that would make it easier than rewriting the code.  It might be in Adobe's interest to make it work.   :)
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 13, 2012, 05:15:32 PM
Have you given any thought to solving the .PDF conversion problem?  Perhaps by asking Adobe or one of our forum experts on Adobe products.  Since it is so much trouble to fix the HTML code, perhaps Adobe has an answer that would make it easier than rewriting the code.  It might be in Adobe's interest to make it work.
I doubt they'd be interested in such small fry. IIRC, I tried 3 different conversion tools, all giving more or less the same formatting problems. My SUBJECTIVE impression is that a text rather than HTML input file might give better results ::).

As I may have hinted earlier, I'm always game to give it a try, provided it doesn't not involve A LOT of additional work ;).

P.S.: On further thought, Newjason's alternative of having the book as an RWD long thread might be worth considering, it'd mean shifting most of the headache to Dan :D.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Anotherkiwi on May 13, 2012, 06:03:45 PM
Downloaded instantly with no problems - Windows7 and IE9.

As I wrote all those months ago...and a tremendous font of information it is.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: newjason on May 13, 2012, 06:51:25 PM
Newjason, I think you can trust the book even without a certificate/signature, I can assure you that we put nothing harmful in it, as your AVAST confirmed ;). As for your BSOD, what OS platform are you running it on?
It was the only alternative available at the time. More, thread posts are only offered as references for further reading in the topics covered.I guess that'd cause the same problem, it being an .EXE ::).I've tried converting it to a .PDF before, and to a .MOBI today, with the same unsatisfactory results :(.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that all who claim it'd be easy to change it to a different, better format did not actually experience such a conversion process themselves :-\.

I am still running on WINXP SP3 with all updates and patches current.
Also I've tried all the things listed on the BSOD and still get the same Stop Message.
My motherboard is less than a year old and I have 169GB free of a WD 320 GB HD.
4GB RAM.

About platform conversion,  LOL  yes you are right about that  :)

I will test it our of the sandbox, against all my better judgements.
It's not you or this site that I have trust issues with. It is the unscrupulousness of individuals who can take such a file like your e book and modify and re-distribute it and make it do all kinds of nasty things.
If It were modified, we would have no way of knowing that it was or was not safe.

But, I will give it another try because I know the amount of effort and work by you and all involved was a colossal task, and I think it should be appreciated.


P.S.
Any thoughts on why there are so few downloads?

Jason
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: newjason on May 13, 2012, 07:01:00 PM
ooops  i Forgot this ..
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Faux Pas on May 13, 2012, 08:22:07 PM

Had to chuckle--the PC crowd is a good nickname for a lot of the RWD Heroes that post.  I am a Mac user, so I will look forward to checking out the book on my platform.  Let you know how it looks.

I'm on a mac too. I tried a number of 3rd party (all free) software downloads to to open it and none worked. I finally just gave up. I haven't read it yet. If you find something that works, free or not, let me know
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on May 13, 2012, 08:47:31 PM
There seems to be two unrelated problems.
1.  Being able to download the file.  Causes short, incomplete files to be sent.
2.  Finding an application for a MAC that will open the file once it is downloaded.

The file properties should show about 4.69 MB if it is complete.

I can send it to anyone with Skype, just let me know.  It will eliminate the short file problem some of us experienced with IE and XP.

Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 14, 2012, 06:40:51 AM
It's not you or this site that I have trust issues with. It is the unscrupulousness of individuals who can take such a file like your e book and modify and re-distribute it and make it do all kinds of nasty things. If It were modified, we would have no way of knowing that it was or was not safe.
Yes, but they'd have to upload it to the RWD server for a wide distribution, and I don't think it'd be that easy ;).

Quote
P.S. Any thoughts on why there are so few downloads?
No idea, it's a bit disappointing - and IINM the counter only measures the views of that page, not the number of actual downloads ::).

Quote
I am still running on WIN XP SP3 with all updates and patches current.
I'm also still on Win XP, and never experienced a BSOD with the book.

BTW, I just tried now with no ill effects ;).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Admin on May 14, 2012, 06:48:23 AM
OK - in an attempt to get *something* into PDF, I have 'printed' all the pages from the E-book into a PDF file for download. This is a RAW attempt to produce something for those of you that cannot read it otherwise - and it is far (VERY far) from a quality product. I suspect most readers will find the PDF version both difficult to navigate and somewhat difficult to follow due to formatting issues. Nonetheless, it may be found at this link -> HERE (http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/MOTW/MOW-WFE.pdf).

Please note the file is about 14 MB and the book contains 166 'pages.'

- Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 14, 2012, 07:12:39 AM
OK - in an attempt to get *something* into PDF...
Dan, your attempt produced a better result than mine, as far as formatting is concerned :clapping:.
Quote
I suspect most readers will find the PDF version both difficult to navigate
Yes, both internal and external links do not work.

I'd add a notice of its availability and link on the download page, too, with caveats about its size and limitations ;).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 14, 2012, 05:35:21 PM
I played some more with Mobilpocket Creator to see what would come out (format still messed up :() and got the attached error message which stumps me completely.

Can somebody shed any light? It apparently refers to the 2nd HTML page of the book, the "About" page containing some info on RWD and its contributors, no fancy stuff at all :-\.

I assume xmlmake is a module invoked at the start of the Build process, but I haven't the faintest idea of what those missing dependencies might be.




Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: LiveFromUkraine on May 14, 2012, 06:27:57 PM
Sandro, was this created with Mobipocket creator? 
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Faux Pas on May 14, 2012, 09:11:36 PM
I think that will work for me Dan
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: TwoBitBandit on May 14, 2012, 10:02:20 PM
Sandro, if you send me your source documents I'll work on compiling it for you in mobipocket creator.  I'll give you an opportunity to review the result and make the final choice about whether you're happy with the final product.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 15, 2012, 06:02:41 AM
Sandro, was this created with Mobipocket creator?
Yes, I added an extra L unwittingly.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 15, 2012, 06:04:59 AM
Sandro, if you send me your source documents I'll work on compiling it for you in mobipocket creator.  I'll give you an opportunity to review the result and make the final choice about whether you're happy with the final product.
TBB, thanks for your offer, but I'll have to obtain Dan's permission for that.

Do you have any idea about what that error may mean?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: LiveFromUkraine on May 15, 2012, 09:08:08 AM
Sandro, any images on that page?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 15, 2012, 11:04:03 AM
Sandro, any images on that page?
Yes, 2 JPGs and 2 GIFs, quite less than on most other 160+ pages that give no trouble ::).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: LiveFromUkraine on May 15, 2012, 12:17:06 PM
Yes, 2 JPGs and 2 GIFs, quite less than on most other 160+ pages that give no trouble ::) .

I did a quick search on your problem and there isn't a lot of info.  What I did see was an error that resulted from image names.  You may want to try and rename the images.

I don't know how this software works.  Is it taking html pages and making a exe book? 
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 15, 2012, 06:06:06 PM
I did a quick search on your problem and there isn't a lot of info.
So I gathered, I found nothing relevant on their Forum & FAQ, but sent an email to their Support, anyway - just in case.
Quote
What I did see was an error that resulted from image names.  You may want to try and rename the images.
I could, but I doubt it'd make any difference :-\.
Quote
I don't know how this software works. Is it taking html pages and making a exe book?
It's supposed to turn them into a .MOBI file.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: newjason on May 16, 2012, 05:03:58 AM
Dan
You are the MAN!

Thank You!
The PDF loaded flawlessly into  Chrome 18.  It looks fine to me so far.
Of course the links are disabled and the pages are a little off from the contents, but  hey  I can live with that.   Thank You very much for taking the time to do that conversion, I can only Imagine how that went ...

Jason
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on May 16, 2012, 06:27:15 AM
Dan,

Great job on the .PDF conversion.  I was going to fix all the links, but as I can surmise, the links are totally missing, not just diabled (At least using Acrobat).  I looks like you are almost there with a .PDF version.   Hopefully it will get a lot better distribution now.

I am still LMAO about the 'toilet training' in the appendix.  Should be required reading for any newbies.    LOL!
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 16, 2012, 08:14:54 AM
I could, but I doubt it'd make any difference :-\.
I did, it didn't -  no surprise.

BTW, I had a look (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats) at the various alternatives for E-books: 29 formats, it's a jungle :o!
Quote
The myriad e-book formats are sometimes collectively referred to as the "Tower of eBabel"
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on May 17, 2012, 09:23:10 AM
Well, it turns out that the error was due to some Mobipocket Build glitch :-\.

1. I removed the offending file from the list - no more error, as could be reasonably expected.
2. I put it back and 'Builded' the book anew -  no more error again :o.

Behavioural vagaries of 'compilers' 8).

Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on January 21, 2013, 08:18:04 PM
Sandro,

Any idea of how many times the E-Book has been downloaded?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on January 22, 2013, 06:10:51 AM
Sandro, Any idea of how many times the E-Book has been downloaded?
None, and I, too, would like to know ::). Maybe Dan as SysAdmin can access some SWF data that reveal that figure.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: calmissile on January 22, 2013, 06:15:55 AM
None, and I, too, would like to know ::). Maybe Dan as SysAdmin can access some SWF data that reveal that figure.

Thanks for the response.  It is such a fantastic resource I was hoping that we could see the fruits of your labors.   LOL.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: chip on July 27, 2013, 02:42:56 PM
I have looked for the link to download the book for 10 minutes. Why not just put the link in the post about it turning into a free download?? Instead, "See post below" is pretty vague.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on July 27, 2013, 04:26:01 PM
I have looked for the link to download the book for 10 minutes. Why not just put the link in the post about it turning into a free download?? Instead, "See post below" is pretty vague.
I agree, it's pretty counter-intuitive ::), the link at top leads to a thread for comments rather than to the download page.

Could you eventually find the link at the bottom (http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=47)?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: chip on July 28, 2013, 10:48:55 AM
I finally stumbled onto the link when I noticed I "had mail" and read the "welcome" message. The ebook was really good! Very well done.

I'm going to quibble with the first entry in the Russglish glossary though. "Active Rest" is not "exercise/sports". "Rest" is typically a "vacation" or "being away from work". So an active rest means doing something active, like hiking or riding horses or going to museums and exploring a new city. The opposite is sitting at home watching TV or maybe lying on a beach.

Here's a new candidate. This one is missused by speakers of many languages; "Funny": means "fun", not "humorous".
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: kuteguy on January 17, 2014, 08:20:06 AM
firstly, thanks for the site and the free ebook, just joined. As a highly literate computer professional, I cannot urge you enough not to have anything in .exe format! It is an absolute no no on the internet - it is the way most viruses are spread and

Am I ...  :deadhorse:

The PDF someone posted earlier looks good - hell ANYTHING is better than a .exe file. I bet people come to the first post in the thread, see an .exe file and dare not touch. Perhaps, put the PDF link on the first post as well..

thanks once again
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on January 17, 2014, 12:17:58 PM
firstly, thanks for the site and the free ebook, just joined. As a highly literate computer professional, I cannot urge you enough not to have anything in .exe format! It is an absolute no no on the internet - it is the way most viruses are spread and

Am I ...  :deadhorse:

The PDF someone posted earlier looks good - hell ANYTHING is better than a .exe file. I bet people come to the first post in the thread, see an .exe file and dare not touch. Perhaps, put the PDF link on the first post as well..

thanks once again
Kuteguy - not the most felicitous choice of nickname around here ;D - welcome to RWD.

As stated upthread, at the time (2007) the .EXE choice was practically the only alternative available and no, we did not put any viruses into our E-book ;), the downloadable version was scanned with several anti-virus tools before release.

Which PDF version are you referring to? All the various conversion tools we tried last year gave poor results in formatting the pages, with images scattered all over with no rhyme nor reason :(.

As for literate computer professionals and users, we have a fair representation here, too. In my case, I worked 30 years for IBM, the last 15 of which on PCs and related SW 8).
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Dewed on January 17, 2014, 01:10:42 PM
The URL to the PDF is also mentioned upthread .. but not on the download page. Hrm.. Should it be ?
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on January 17, 2014, 03:27:19 PM
The URL to the PDF is also mentioned upthread .. but not on the download page. Hrm.. Should it be ?
By all means, if it's really readable. In that case, the download page should be amended to read something like this:

Quote
Warning: this E-Book was written in 2007. Many things have changed since then, particularly in Russia, therefore its content now is not entirely up to date.

The book is downloadable in 2 versions:

1. A .EXE file: this link will allow you to download it as an executable file with a .exe extension. Save it to the directory of your choice on your local hard drive,d then click the saved file to view it.

2. A .PDF file: this link will allow you to view or download it...

Point 2 should include whatever is appropriate.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on January 17, 2014, 04:49:36 PM
BTW, since we're discussing this topic, the link at top right of the RWD page:
Quote
(News:
RWD E-Book, Men of the West - Women From the East, Now Available as
FREE Download! More Information HERE
)
points to the comments thread, not to the download page :(. It should be viceversa.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Dewed on January 17, 2014, 04:56:29 PM
k, now it links to both
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: SANDRO43 on January 17, 2014, 05:09:35 PM
Thanks Duane. I see you've added:
Quote
We've also made it available in PDF format for non-Windows users, although this conversion had the side effect of breaking the navigation links.
But that is not much useful without a link ;).

I'd like you to modify that page as I've suggested, with some addendums:
Quote
Warning: this E-Book was written in 2007. Many things have changed since then, particularly in Russia, therefore its content now is not totally up to date.

The book is downloadable in 2 versions:

1. A .EXE file for Windows users: this link will allow you to download it as an executable file with a .exe extension. Save it to the directory of your choice on your local hard drive,d then click the saved file to view it.

2. A .PDF file for non-Windows users: this link will allow you to view or download it...(navigation links to relevant RWD topics not operative in this version)

After you have read the whole book, or parts of it, we should be grateful for your posting any comments at THIS http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=9568.0 (http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=9568.0) link.

I believe it's only fair to warn readers about its age.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Dewed on January 17, 2014, 09:12:24 PM
Ok, I've taken some liberties on your proposed text, but it's in there.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: Grumpy on March 27, 2019, 10:30:19 PM
Enjoyed the pdf very much.....Thanks :D
Title: Re: Vision
Post by: 2tallbill on August 18, 2019, 04:19:27 AM
f[spam]t.com

Beware of first time posts bearing links
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: ML on November 21, 2022, 03:33:56 PM
Seems like a good plan to me.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: ML on November 22, 2022, 04:09:18 PM
I told you it is a good plan.  Proceed with due haste.
Title: Re: RWD Announces 'Men of the West, Women From the East'
Post by: BC on November 22, 2022, 09:51:37 PM
Yep, sure is.