[sdiy] Thomas Henry books available soon

[john mahoney]

I'll chime in, here. Thanks to Andre, JB, and others for your input and
interest in the Thomas Henry books.

PDFs? Yes.
Tim and I are already preparing PDFs of the books. We'll release the books
as we get the PDF files produced (and after the online sales channel has
been set up, of course).

Hardcopy, too? Doubtful.
We will offer hardcopy as an option if there is sufficient demand -- but
it's hard to imagine why would there be, since you can easily print the PDFs
yourself. The 566 Cookbook is only 26 pages long (plus the cover), for
example.

Copy protection? Hmmm...
Feel free to weigh in on this, because we are mulling it over. It is
tempting to use some form of password protection to "prevent piracy" (which
the RIAA has taught me is a massive problem ;-). But people intentionally
sharing the files would just share their passwords, too, so in the end we've
merely inconvenienced the actual buyers. So, although I was leaning toward
using passwords, my latest thinking is "nah."

I figured that we could use a buyer's name as his/her password, assuming
that people will be less incllned to "share" their PDFs knowing that their
name was encrypted into them. Would you mind having to type in your name
every time that you open these?

Another possibilty is some kind of textual label, like "From the library of
Solder Monkey" at the top or bottom of every page. Just brainstorming with
y'all...
--
john (not Tim Servo, but I play him online)

P.S. Adobe now offers an online service to create PDF files, with a free
trial (5 PDFs).
       http://createpdf.adobe.com/