Suggest improvements to the site here.

[daniel_reetz]

I'm going to be working on this site over the summer, and essentially forever, so if you have a suggestion to improve the site, please make it here and I'll see what can be done about it.

[univurshul]

I'm really not a wizard when it comes to forums, but I have seen a feature on a few other sites where there's a kind of sidebar that makes these "suggestions" about the topic/thread at-hand, by taking keywords from the posts, leading into other topics. It's like an intuitive/automatic network 'meshing'. Everyone knows how to hit-up the search bar, but if you have a small tab of various links sitting right there, you can open a new tab in your browser, go into that auto-suggestion link and stay on topic.

Could be a ton of work, or a service that only a few web/domain builders license for buku dinero.

[daniel_reetz]

if there's a phpbb plugin, I'll consider implementing it. my first fix will be to redirect to the post of interest after logging in. the forum used to do this, but now it doesn't, and i find it profoundly annoying.

what I mean is, if I click to reply on a post when I am not logged in, and then log in, I am redirected to the main page instead of the post I wanted to reply to. i find this profoundly annoying but couldn't find it easily in the Administration Control Panel last I looked.

[Turtle]

1.) Video is something that is now a standard part of the web these days due to the fact that most users are now on high speed connections and almost all digital cameras are video capable. Is there a security risk for allowing users to embed Youtube videos? I mean only allowing embedding specifically from Youtube. There seems to be a mod for this as seen on this link www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic...

The benefits of video are the ability to pan a camera around a book scanner, go up close on unfamiliar parts, or watch mechanical actions. (Tip: If your camera does not have macro, please hold a magnifying glass in front of the lens or otherwise everything will look fluffy. Fluffy things make my brain miserable. ) Other people will want to help when they show mechanical problems. Clicking a link to videos on Youtube could distract users to other msc. videos. Allowing users to embed Youtube could save time. This isn't something important but might be useful in the near future.

2.) If you put Google ads (often it is text) on the bottom of many of the pages, you won't distract users, but yet will be able to sustain your hosting indefinitely as most people want to help that would otherwise rather click on an ad then to send donations. In my opinion, donations aren't empowering because it's a charity. IMO, charity is often a one time gift given to people who are in a disaster. Google adsense is providing all of us a chance to be self sustaining, self sufficient and often even make surplus green doe.

[daniel_reetz]

Is there a security risk for allowing users to embed Youtube videos?

The board itself claims that there is a potential for XSS attacks when using this type of code. I will investigate a bit more, for now, enjoy the embedded video capability by using the "youtube" button.

[recaptcha]

Any way to multi-quote when replying to posts?

Thanks.

[daniel_reetz]

When you're replyiing to a post, you can scrolll down the thread in the area below the posting box. Each post has a quote button. Alternately, you can manually quote by copying and pasting the desired text and putting the quote tags around the pasted text.

[Godisgr8t!]

Hey Dan,
I think it would be awesome to see a thread in "book projects" of example images of your best work by your opinion. I'm doing research on scanners for a guy who has published some books and he wants to make sure he can make good enough "scans" with a setup based on your systems. I'd kinda like to see some of your work so I can show him what's possible, so I can get started building. Thanks!

[daniel_reetz]

Hi Lamar,

Yeah, unfortunately almost all the books I have in my personal collection are copyrighted, so I generally don't feel comfortable sharing samples (or especially whole books) publicly. While most of the legal advice I have received says that it's fine to show a sample page, and it's definitely OK to shift books that I have purchased into ebook format, it's not OK to copy them around the Internet. We take a laissez-faire stance on that here; anyone can post a sample page if they feel OK doing so and we don't delete them.

It is absolutely true that we need some sample content from various people's scanners to show the range of quality that can be produced. It is a very wide range, from barely acceptable to absolutely excellent. I know you are looking to see what can be done, but the ceiling here is very high, it just depends on how much effort you want to put in and how carefully you build your scanner. I'd suggest you check out Misty's blog for some of the most archival/correct works. She has uploaded a number of books and samples over time.

That's about as much as I (or anyone, really) can help with your specific project. The answer is that there is a large range of quality achievable, limited only by time and money.

At some point in the near future I will start a thread where people can post samples for a sort of "diybookscanner standard image set". Perhaps we can make a sample book that the whole community can scan as a quality test.

[StevePoling]

At some point in the near future I will start a thread where people can post samples for a sort of "diybookscanner standard image set". Perhaps we can make a sample book that the whole community can scan as a quality test.

i think this is a critical need. If we all had access to the same edition of some off-copyright book, we could u/l pics produced by our scanners for comparison. we could also compare stats of how long to scan, how many missed pages, and OCR error rates.

last summer, i bought a beautiful copy of Euclid's Elements from Blackwell's in Oxford. It is a nice mix of text and drawings, newly printed from a typeset done in the 1850s or so. It's off-copyright, but it's probably not widely enough distributed to be well suited to this task. Perhaps some government publication, that's in every library would be better suited to this task, perhaps some pages from the Federal Register.

Here's an idea. Dan, you should write a book on DIY Bookscanners. And publish it yourself. Add test patterns on certain pages. And sell it to guys wanting to tune their systems. i'd buy one. so yould most of the lurkers here. Especially after they've used the PDF free download to build their first unit that they want to calibrate. Since you would retain rights to the book, you could grant free license to scanner dudes to post imagery therefrom. The book sales wouldn't be in the same league with JKRowling, but it'd probably pay for some conferences and stuff.