The Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

In a global economy, there's no competing with slave wages. There's the problem manufacturing workers face. I have no idea as to a solution.

The problem is, it's not slave wages. Everything is relative. Wages that would be far below poverty level here are good money elsewhere. Wages are lower in less developed nations because living costs are a lot lower. That Mexican worker earning $26 a day is making a solid middle class living for his area.

The same holds for the Chinese worker making $32 a week. China is in transition. It's still a largely rural agrarian economy, but there's an enormous influx to urban areas as breakneck industrialization creates factory jobs. Even at wages we consider slave labor, the workers in the Chinese factories are making a lot more than they could make as peasants back in the village.

Compared to their peers, those Mexican and Chinese workers are well off, and they know it. It's why they went after those jobs in the first place.

Ultimately, value is relative. Something is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. There is always pressure to do things cheaper, and labor costs will be a major area where people will look for savings.

The bigger issue now is that the effects are spreading far beyond manufacturing. Instant communications and global operations make distributed efforts feasible. Work that involves creation and manipulation of knowledge rather than physical goods can be done anywhere, so we've been seeing things like programming being outsourced to India, because the Indian developers are highly skilled, can be writing code while we're asleep, and will charge about half of what a US developer would expect to do the same job.

We're seeing services go offshore, too. I saw an article a while back about a major insurer who was covering medical procedures done in places like India, because it was cheaper, all told, to fly the patient to India, have the procedure done in an Indian hospital by Indian surgeons, let the patient recover enough to travel in an Indian rehab facility, then fly them back to the US, than it was to have it done in a US facility by US surgeons and support staff.

I don't have answers either. I don't believe anyone does. We're all running the Red Queen's race from Alice in Wonderland, where you must run as fast as you can simply to stay in the same place, and to get anywhere you must run faster.
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Dennis

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Yep.

You might want to install Mobipocket Creator. It will allow you to select the files and it will make the OPF for you... It might need some tweaking, but it'll give you a headstart.

Best idea I've heard all day. But will it do it with XHTML files? That's been the big hold up... everything wants HTML, not XHTML.

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The same holds for the Chinese worker making $32 a week. China is in transition. It's still a largely rural agrarian economy, but there's an enormous influx to urban areas as breakneck industrialization creates factory jobs. Even at wages we consider slave labor, the workers in the Chinese factories are making a lot more than they could make as peasants back in the village.

...and this is what greets them:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj


At last count the jam was 60 miles long and was entering its 10th day. That's literally, folks.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Best idea I've heard all day. But will it do it with XHTML files? That's been the big hold up... everything wants HTML, not XHTML.

So does Mobi, but I don't think it will matter. XHTML is HTML. Mobi Creator accepts HTML, Word documents, plain text and PDF files as input. It rips the input to HTML, and generates a Mobi book from that. (A Mobipocket book is essentially encapsulated HTML.)

Mobi accepts *.HTM, *.HTML, and *.XHTML files as HTML input. It accepts RTF files as well as Word documents, though you have to click the drop-down and select All Files to have an RTF file show in the input box.

It's a two step process, so you can stop at the rip to HTML stage and edit the generated HTML before doing a build of an actual Mobi book.

PDFs are problematic. Mobi will attempt to extract it to HTML, but how well it does depends on the PDF. Simple PDFs in one column with in-line illustrations convert well. More complex documents with fancy formatting or multiple columns are likely to be a mess. (I've used Mobi Creator to rip a few PDFs to HTML, and then converted the HTML file for Plucker on my Palm OS PDA instead of a Mobi book. I can make a much smaller Plucker file using gzip compatible compression, and Plucker performs better than Mobi reader on my PDA.)

One "gotcha" to be aware of: Mobi Creator has an assortment of fields to fill in, to specify things like the cover image you want to use and metadata you want to add for the book. You must explicitly save your changes after filling in each field. You can't change more than one and do a Save to save them all. If you navigate away from any input area without saving, the changes will be lost.
______
Dennis

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

So does Mobi, but I don't think it will matter. XHTML is HTML. Mobi Creator accepts HTML, Word documents, plain text and PDF files as input. It rips the input to HTML, and generates a Mobi book from that. (A Mobipocket book is essentially encapsulated HTML.)

Mobi accepts *.HTM, *.HTML, and *.XHTML files as HTML input. It accepts RTF files as well as Word documents, though you have to click the drop-down and select All Files to have an RTF file show in the input box.

It's a two step process, so you can stop at the rip to HTML stage and edit the generated HTML before doing a build of an actual Mobi book.

PDFs are problematic. Mobi will attempt to extract it to HTML, but how well it does depends on the PDF. Simple PDFs in one column with in-line illustrations convert well. More complex documents with fancy formatting or multiple columns are likely to be a mess. (I've used Mobi Creator to rip a few PDFs to HTML, and then converted the HTML file for Plucker on my Palm OS PDA instead of a Mobi book. I can make a much smaller Plucker file using gzip compatible compression, and Plucker performs better than Mobi reader on my PDA.)

One "gotcha" to be aware of: Mobi Creator has an assortment of fields to fill in, to specify things like the cover image you want to use and metadata you want to add for the book. You must explicitly save your changes after filling in each field. You can't change more than one and do a Save to save them all. If you navigate away from any input area without saving, the changes will be lost.
______
Dennis

Thanks, Dennis. The current problem I'm having with Mobipocket Creator is that it is renaming and reordering the XHTML files when I add them. For example, if I have page0000.xhtml, page0001.xhtml, and page0002.xhtml, and I add them into MC, I get back page0011.xhtml, page0021.xhtml and page0031.xhtml. I'll try the "rip" suggestion and see if that helps.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Thanks, Dennis. The current problem I'm having with Mobipocket Creator is that it is renaming and reordering the XHTML files when I add them. For example, if I have page0000.xhtml, page0001.xhtml, and page0002.xhtml, and I add them into MC, I get back page0011.xhtml, page0021.xhtml and page0031.xhtml. I'll try the "rip" suggestion and see if that helps.

I assume the individual pieces you're trying to knit together have an index or TOC file. Try just importing that to Mobi Creator, and see if it will follow the links.
_____
Dennis

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I assume the individual pieces you're trying to knit together have an index or TOC file. Try just importing that to Mobi Creator, and see if it will follow the links.
_____
Dennis

Actually, no, they don't. Which is how I got to Mobipocket Creator in the first place, trying to generate one.
I'm giving up...there's something in these files that doesn't make sense, and I've officially already spent way too much time fighting with them. I *can* see them in a browser, and that will have to be good enough.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Today, my B&N Reader for my Windows smartphone demanded I download a new version (would not let me cancel and continue to use the old version). Once I downloaded it, my library vanished like it was never there.

Here's the thing: I got the link for the app from here at MR. I called B&N, and they've insisted they've never had a Winphone-based app, so I can find where the app really came from, or sit and spin. But the app can connect to their servers and download books... for an "unauthorized, we don't know who made it" app, that seems pretty serious breach of security, yet they're not fazed a bit about that.

Just the fact that they don't care if I can read my books anymore. And they keep insisting that I can maybe "sideload" the books onto my phone, though without a working app, they can't tell me how.

Here I was, trying to figure out how to orchestrate my return to the ebook scene, books and all. After this, I'm not sure I even want to.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Today, my B&N Reader for my Windows smartphone demanded I download a new version (would not let me cancel and continue to use the old version). Once I downloaded it, my library vanished like it was never there.

Here's the thing: I got the link for the app from here at MR. I called B&N, and they've insisted they've never had a Winphone-based app, so I can find where the app really came from, or sit and spin. But the app can connect to their servers and download books... for an "unauthorized, we don't know who made it" app, that seems pretty serious breach of security, yet they're not fazed a bit about that.

Just the fact that they don't care if I can read my books anymore. And they keep insisting that I can maybe "sideload" the books onto my phone, though without a working app, they can't tell me how.

Here I was, trying to figure out how to orchestrate my return to the ebook scene, books and all. After this, I'm not sure I even want to.

WOW! What a mess.

Is this helpful:
http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/...ces/m-p/597763

Link to download a couple of messages down:
http://images.barnesandnoble.com/PRe...r_1.0.0.27.CAB

[Williamlk]

ARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Ok, I feel better now.

[SneakySnake]

I have one word for everyone......

BACKUP!

That is all. Thank you!

[recluse]

Back it up over here, Sneaky.
I love watching your tushie!

[kennyc]

Yes Backup! External USB Hard Drives are cheap insurance against loss..

[SneakySnake]

Originally Posted by recluse

Back it up over here, Sneaky.
I love watching your tushie!

How did you know I was dressed for yoga?

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yes Backup! External USB Hard Drives are cheap insurance against loss..

I have a (nearly empty) 500G drive that was given to me for free when I bought the last lot of laptops. So cheap I failed to take advantage.

[recluse]

Actually, I didn't even know you were dressed.

I'll take your tushie any way I can get it.