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Humble Book Bundle: Unix

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Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#51

Post by andrewwhartion »

derekp7 wrote: post #20
bathory wrote: post #3

My biggest gripe with this bundle is that they are all digital. I'd rather have less books but then in a printed format. I have noticed that I can't concentrate on reading books when they are presented to me on my computer screen. I do have a kindle (1st or 2nd generation) and that device doesn't support PDF well, furthermore it is rather slow. It works fine for regular books though, where I don't have to flip throug…

My problem with PDF technical books is that they are typically formatted for 8.5x11 or A4 paper, typically with a really huge margin. I wish that there was something in the PDF spec to allow for multiple sizes to be specified in a single file, so that the same file can be used for printing as well as viewing on a 6 inch reader.

While not really related to specifying multiple sizes, PDFs do have the concept of an artbox, which could be used by the PDF author to indicate the area of the page that actually contains content.

A useful feature of a PDF reader on these devices could be to display only this area with a smaller, perhaps user defined, margin.

This at least would fix the 'huge margin' problem.

Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#52

Post by jldugger »

contras1970 wrote: post #48
SwellJoe wrote: post #38

I think the best of these books (at least of the ones I've read) are in the $15 tier. Several of the books in the lower tiers are ones I'd recommend skipping and go to online resources, instead. It may not still be so, but when I last looked at the O'Reilly bash books, many years ago, the TLDP bash programming HOWTOs were more pragmatic and easy to follow (I think that's here: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HO…

I have to mention DJB whenever there's a mention of DNS. Thank you PRJ, JdeBP, smarden, skarnet. You have done a shitload for me and my close (and distant) ones. https://cr.yp.to/donations.html PS In case you've been wondering, djbdns+curvedns is a very capable implementation of DNS servers and client-side utilities. Both authoritative server and recursive cache; each independent of the other. Plus wonderful commandl…

Capable how? Does it support IPv6 queries? IPv6 records? SRV records?

How about a syntax for defining a TXT record that doesn't involve octal?

Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#53

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

codewritinfool wrote: post #7
misframer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say "name your price of $1 or more."

Yes, they do, but they also say, "Pay what you want"

I think it is reasonably obvious that "pay what you want" can never be 100% literal. Can I pay π dollars? Obviously not. Can I pay negative one trillion? Of course I can't. Can I pay 'what I want' for all reasonable values of 'what'? Yes.

Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#54

Post by SwellJoe »

contras1970 wrote: post #48
SwellJoe wrote: post #38

I think the best of these books (at least of the ones I've read) are in the $15 tier. Several of the books in the lower tiers are ones I'd recommend skipping and go to online resources, instead. It may not still be so, but when I last looked at the O'Reilly bash books, many years ago, the TLDP bash programming HOWTOs were more pragmatic and easy to follow (I think that's here: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HO…

I have to mention DJB whenever there's a mention of DNS. Thank you PRJ, JdeBP, smarden, skarnet. You have done a shitload for me and my close (and distant) ones. https://cr.yp.to/donations.html PS In case you've been wondering, djbdns+curvedns is a very capable implementation of DNS servers and client-side utilities. Both authoritative server and recursive cache; each independent of the other. Plus wonderful commandl…

Sure, there are somewhat simpler DNS servers than BIND, of which djbdns is a good example, but realistically speaking, the reasons to avoid BIND are historic and no longer relevant. BIND has seen multiple major overhauls since the bad old BIND 4 days, and its security has been fine for more than a decade. In the past I would talk about other DNS servers as reasonable things to spend time on (and have contributed to alternative DNS servers in a variety of ways in the distant past), but these days, I tend to say "just use BIND."

All of the docs you're going to find on the web are about BIND. BIND gets new standards first, because that's the implementation that the standards authors use and work on. BIND gets more real world testing than all other DNS servers combined. In short: It's fast enough, secure enough, and has more features than anything else. The only downside may be that it is somewhat intimidating, but BIND configuration maps more closely to the standards docs than anything else...so, if you understand BIND you understand DNS and vice versa, which is not as true of some of the others that try to be simpler to configure. BIND is DNS in more ways than any other server so clearly is the service it provides.

DJB software is/was great, but there's rarely a reason to go that route for most users most of the time, today.

Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#55

Post by cheiVia0 »

r3bl wrote: post #42
Jtsummers wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://support.oreilly.com/oreilly/topics/if_i_buy_pdf_versi... This is O'Reilly's take on it. You can lend it, but you can't have access to it while it's lent out. Really, really hard to enforce. But I believe PDFs are watermarked (don't know how they'll do it with this bundle), so if you lend it out and the copy gets into the wild, so to speak, they can trace it back to your account.

> But I believe PDFs are watermarked (don't know how they'll do it with this bundle), so if you lend it out and the copy gets into the wild, so to speak, they can trace it back to your account. The thing that distinguishes Humble Bundle from the rest of the "book sellers" for me (I know you can't really call them "book sellers") is that they offer no DRM what so ever, and, by purchasing a pack for a ridiculously low…

Is watermarking considered DRM?

It doesn't restrict anything, and you can copy as much as you like.

Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#56

Post by oftenwrong »

bathory wrote: post #3

My biggest gripe with this bundle is that they are all digital. I'd rather have less books but then in a printed format. I have noticed that I can't concentrate on reading books when they are presented to me on my computer screen. I do have a kindle (1st or 2nd generation) and that device doesn't support PDF well, furthermore it is rather slow. It works fine for regular books though, where I don't have to flip throug…

For me, digital is absolutely necessary for any technical or academic book. I have to be able to search in it. However, I am not a fan of PDF because it is very inflexible in its presentation, and it is hard to transform into other formats. I prefer a web document or even just plain text.

Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#57

Post by nine_k »

derekp7 wrote: post #20
bathory wrote: post #3

My biggest gripe with this bundle is that they are all digital. I'd rather have less books but then in a printed format. I have noticed that I can't concentrate on reading books when they are presented to me on my computer screen. I do have a kindle (1st or 2nd generation) and that device doesn't support PDF well, furthermore it is rather slow. It works fine for regular books though, where I don't have to flip throug…

My problem with PDF technical books is that they are typically formatted for 8.5x11 or A4 paper, typically with a really huge margin. I wish that there was something in the PDF spec to allow for multiple sizes to be specified in a single file, so that the same file can be used for printing as well as viewing on a 6 inch reader.

On Android I use Orion Viewer that handles margins effortlessly, and columns decently.

Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#58

Post by nine_k »

runeb wrote: post #50
noir_lord wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an ipad mini for safari testing (grrr) and it turned out to be my favourite way to read computer books. Screen is adequately large and the DPI is so high that they look great, it turned out to be a useful device.

How is the backlight affecting your eyes? I ended up buying a Kindle because reading on an iPad was straining my eyes too much, specially at bedtime.

Turning brightness ridiculously low helps (me).

Re: Humble Book Bundle: Unix

#60

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #41
crimsonalucard wrote: post #2

"Pay what you want" is a false statement. When I wanted to pay 1 cent they demanded a minimum of one dollar. I may be a cheap ass for wanting these things for a cent but that doesn't change the fact that "Pay what you want" is a total and utter lie.

While it is true, they have minimum pricing, if you want the items without compensating the publisher for them, you CAN stiff them. For instance, you can change the sliders so 100% of your money goes to charity, and then you didn't pay them for the books at all. Sure, not what you want, but worth noting. Particularly useful if you want something on offer, but don't like the company selling them and don't want to supp…

This model blows my mind - I just cannot quite work it out. Have the companies involved - O'Reilly and Humble Bundle Inc - just decided that they're OK with potentially making nothing at all from this, so long as lots of money goes to charity? I mean, it's wonderfully altruistic, and I suppose it could be a lot more complicated than I'm giving credit for (does the goodwill gained by them outweigh the financial hit?) but it's certainly fascinating. How do people decide how they allocate the money? Is it wrong if I feel bad if I don't give all the money to charity?
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