Item 86. Minutes February 21, 2002 Board Meeting Anne Perry (mooncat) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (10:53). 76 lines, 70 responses. Starring, in order of appearance: (pre: 7 pm) Flem*, Mooncat*, Bhelliom, Mary*, Other*, Aruba*, MDW* (7:14 pm), STeve*(7:24 pm) (* indicates Board Member) 1. Gavel Banging: 7:06 pm 2. Chairman's Report: Nada 3. Treasurer's Report: In January we took in $530, Spent $594. Three new members Mark opened a savings account for Grex after the last meeting. So far we have collected $397 in February One new member thus far Begin discussion of Charitable Trust / License to Solicit Donations (see item entered in Coop by Mark/aruba for very specific explanation) Very long discussion (what is meant by solicit?). Debate over whether or not Grex falls into the category of needing a license. Discussion of what kind of paperwork is involved (IRS 990, etc.) and how many hours are needed (lots and lots of both). End resolution- Create item in coop for further input, gather more details about the law and how it pertains to Grex, paperwork will be mailed in unless further information illuminates that we really don’t have to. 4. Publicity Committee: No Comment 5. Technical Committee: MDW is in possession of two Sparc machines, two drives and a disk with OpenBSD on it. Marcus/MDW will install OpenBSD on one or both machines as well as addition software needed. Begin testing for consideration of usage as the Next Grex. Overall it has been a rather quiet month. 7. Disposition of Old Hardware: Much discussion. Since we are paying property tax on items Grex will not be using we need to dispose of them. The question being lengthily debated was how. Preference (by some) to get items to people who can and will use them, others prefer to simply recycle them as quickly as possible. At one point in the conversation the tax issue was brought up, again, and Marcus/mdw donated $20 to pay the taxes for the next 1.4 years so that would cease to be an issue. End resolution: (after a ‘For God’s sake!’ exclaimed by flem followed be an offer detailed below- read on) in the next week STeve will determine which items on list for disposal he thinks he can foist off on people who will use them. Items from that portion of the list remaining in the Pumpkin on June 2nd will be taken to Greg/Flem’s apartment and he and STeve can thereafter deal with them. Items that did not make this cut that are in the Pumpkin on June 2nd will be gathered for recycling purposes. And thus, the Pumpkin will gain space- for new stuff to clutter. 6. Schedule Next Meeting: Thursday, March 21, 2002 7:00 pm, Zingerman's Next Door. "Same Bat time, same Bat channel" "Same Bat discussion?" "For God's Sake NO!!!" 8. New Business: Short discussion of Auction procedures with regards to new items entered either a- by someone other than auctioneer, or b- an item entered when the auction isn’t currently open. Agreement made that the auctioneer can freeze such items. Price of Grex Handbook called in to question. Mark/aruba moves to increase the price from $1 to $2, Anne/mooncat seconds. 7 Yeas, 0 Nay 9. Bang Gavel: 9:20 pm These are the events as I saw them. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything 70 responses total. ---------- (86) #1 Mary Remmers (mary) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (12:01). 1 line. Cool minutes, Anne. Thanks! ---------- (86) #2 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (12:12). 6 lines. Excellent minutes, Anne. Thanks for being so prompt. The reason for increasing the price of a handbook is that it costs $.57 to mail one, and if someone pays us $1 via Paypal, Paypal keeps $.30 of it. So we were down to $.13 income per handbook (though Grex doesn't actually pay for the postage - I donate it). ---------- (86) #3 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (13:25). 2 lines. Can you just charge anyone paying via Paypal the extra 30 cents? It is still cheaper than a postage stamp and a check. ---------- (86) #4 JP2 * GREX * AND YOU! (jp2) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (13:35). 1 line. No, that's a business expense. ---------- (86) #5 Greg Fleming (flem) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (13:54). 3 lines. I don't remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to charge different prices for people using paypal. But I could be wrong. Or something. ---------- (86) #6 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (15:43). 2 lines. Can you ask people using paypal to voluntarily donate enough to cover the extra cost to grex? ---------- (86) #7 The Accidental Purist (other) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (16:17). 6 lines. The decision is made and has been implemented. If the extra dollar is too much, in your opinion, for other people to bear, then feel free to contribute the second dollar on their behalf. Since Grex has been distributing, on average, on of these booklets every two months, the decision is not worth the time required to reconsider. ---------- (86) #8 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (19:15). 6 lines. Re #6: There is a note on memfaq.html telling people that they can donate a little extra to cover the cost of Paypal if they'd like to. I think only one person has ever done that. Do you have grounds for objecting to the increase, Sindi? I'd be happy to cut you a deal if you want to buy a batch of them, or something like that. ---------- (86) #9 JP2 * GREX * AND YOU! (jp2) Fri, Feb 22, 2002 (23:29). 2 lines. Look, I got my copy of the Grex handbook and it was not worth the price. M-Net's is not much better though, so this is not generic Grex bashing. ---------- (86) #10 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Sat, Feb 23, 2002 (11:21). 1 line. We have a batch of these handbooks to return. ---------- (86) #11 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Sun, Feb 24, 2002 (10:52). 22 lines. The handbook is good for a raw beginner who needs help with things like logging in, entering the conferences for the first time, and things like that. I'm not suprized it didn't tell Jamie anything he didn't alredy know. Back to the minutes - one other thing we discussed under new business was splitting the treasurer's job among several people. This is not an immediate issue, but I think it should be done in the long run. The hurdle we need to get over is that almost all of the treasurer's tasks involve the same database, so that data will have to be put online before the tasks can be distributed. Of course we need to be very careful to keep it secure. STeve and Marcus suggested having a separate machine in the Pumpkin (perhaps a 386) just for the treasurer's data. Greg also pointed out that some of the tasks (such as sending paper receipts, paying personal property taxes, and (potentially) filling out the 990 and Michigan forms) can be done using a static copy of last year's data. So those tasks could be split off without too much trouble. (Though when I thought about it later, I realized that in the course of filling out the forms I found some gaps that needed to be filled in. So there ought to be some back channel to allow the person filling out the forms to update the data. But it doesn't have to be real-time. ---------- (86) #12 JP2 * GREX * AND YOU! (jp2) Sun, Feb 24, 2002 (11:59). 2 lines. The information itself was fine, I was addressing production quality. I should have been more clear. ---------- (86) #13 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Sun, Feb 24, 2002 (12:57). 2 lines. Heh. Well, I only have the one Xerox machine, and it was free. :) I thought they came out fine this time, though. ---------- (86) #14 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Sun, Feb 24, 2002 (15:55). 3 lines. Is the same information that is in the handbook also available via the grex website? Many people are now able to access the internet and download and print things out and don't need to be sent them on paper. ---------- (86) #15 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Sun, Feb 24, 2002 (17:19). 3 lines. No it's not online, but I agree with you that it should be. If anyone would like to volunteer to translate the handbook into html, I'd be happy to work with them. ---------- (86) #16 John H. Remmers (remmers) Sun, Feb 24, 2002 (18:04). 1 line. But then we'll lose that valuable source of income! :) ---------- (86) #17 Glenda F. Andre' (glenda) Sun, Feb 24, 2002 (18:22). 2 lines. Mark if you have it as a Word document all you have to do is save it as a Web document and Word will add the necessary html tags for you. ---------- (86) #18 Joe (gelinas) Sun, Feb 24, 2002 (19:06). 2 lines. I think I started to transcribe it, shortly after I got a copy. I should try to track it down. ---------- (86) #19 Dave Lovelace (davel) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (08:21). 4 lines. Re 17: Since Mark mentioned using a copier, I suspect that the original word-processed source is not available. At a guess, it was a cut-&-paste (& I mean scissors & rubber cement) job in the first place, but I could easily be wrong about that. ---------- (86) #20 Michelangelo Giansiracusa (spooked) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (09:34). 1 line. =p Whoever said Mathematicians or IT gurus were artistically talented? ---------- (86) #21 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (09:51). 9 lines. The source is in PageMaker, and I do have it. (I created it, from Misti's original Word document, and then I added a bunch of stuff.) PageMaker has a "bookletize" feature which can take a serial document and rearrange the pages so they print out in the right order to make a booklet, which is why I used it. I can save it to a text file, but it would require some formatting to make it look good in HTML. Unless anyone has a later version of PageMaker which can do that automatically? ---------- (86) #22 Glenda F. Andre' (glenda) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (10:32). 1 line. I'll check mine when I get home this evening. ---------- (86) #23 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (11:04). 4 lines. Can you input the text file into some format (perhaps WORD) that you can then convert easily to HTML? Can you also post the text file itself for download by people who don't know how to print out html? (And wonder why they get all those

's when they try).
? ---------- (86) #24 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (14:19). 3 lines. Outputting it to a text file would lose all the formatting, so inputting it to Word would not generate a good looking document. If you're volunteering to clean it up, Sindi, I'll give you a text file. ---------- (86) #25 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (14:41). 10 lines. I was suggesting that you put both an HTML version (which you can make as 'good looking' as you like) and a link to a text version for download on line, so that people who don't have a way to print from html can download something printable even if not artistic. 80 column text. You can start with the html version and use the Lynx P command to get text but I suspect many people don't know how to print out what they see on the web. I have a friend who knows how to print email but not how to print anything from the web and she could handle a text version sent in the message body. What formatting are you talking about? ---------- (86) #26 Marcus Watts (mdw) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (16:43). 6 lines. I think a postscript version would be very useful, and very easy to do. The postscript isn't intended to be backwards convertible to other formats, but it may not be too hard to write perl to do so anyways. PDF would be another possibility - especially if the rumors are true that windows people don't know what to do with a postscript file. (And it's easy enough to convert a PDF to postscript.) ---------- (86) #27 The Accidental Purist (other) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (17:42). 9 lines. I have pagemaker 6.5 and it does horrendous html. Send me the raw text, and I'll see if I can come up with a decent html document this week. I'll even clean up the text document so it can be linked. ---------- (86) #28 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (18:28). 2 lines. Since you have PageMaker, Eric, I'll just give you the PageMaker 5 source, and you can take it from there. I'll send you mail. ---------- (86) #29 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (18:47). 5 lines. Please post something besides PDF and POSTSCRIPT. People using DOS would not be able to do much with either of those. Remember, the manual is for beginners. Plain text can be used by almost anyone (except for a few people that did not know how to import it into Windows). I presume the content is more important than the font styles, size, and color. ---------- (86) #30 Dan Cross (cross) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (19:20). 1 line. Use SGML, which you can convert to many different formats. ---------- (86) #31 Glenda F. Andre' (glenda) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (21:15). 2 lines. Very, very people today use DOS and nothing else. Most of world is more up-to-date than that with computers. ---------- (86) #32 John H. Remmers (remmers) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (21:44). 1 line. Re #30: Hey, there's an idea. Mark it up in XML and go from there. ---------- (86) #33 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (23:17). 3 lines. The master copy still has to stay in PageMaker, unless someone knows another way to bookletize it. Hopefully, things will be added to it from time to time. ---------- (86) #34 Megan Heberlein (eeyore) Mon, Feb 25, 2002 (23:26). 4 lines. FWIW, if you need the aforementioned computer, I have a 486 that I am more than willing to donate to the cause within the next couple of months. It'll need a moniter, and probably a keyboard, but the CPU is all yours if you want it :) ---------- (86) #35 The Accidental Purist (other) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (00:25). 11 lines. My PageMaker 6.5 install CD has only the Mac version on it, and that version will not convert the Windows PM5 source file. I can extract the text, but I lose all the current formatting and any images accompanying the text unless someone has an old Windows PM installer I can grab (so long as it will run under Win98). I have a several years old copy of the handbook to use as a guide for the formatting if I have to go from scratch. XML sounds like a good way to go, but since I don't actually KNOW XML, I suppose I'm not the ideal person to do it that way. ---------- (86) #36 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (10:49). 2 lines. I sent Eric mail - I tend to think Adobe must have a solution for converting the file to his version. ---------- (86) #37 Dan Cross (cross) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (10:53). 2 lines. Regarding #33; But you could export SGML into, say, LaTeX which you can then process into a booklet. ---------- (86) #38 Michelangelo Giansiracusa (spooked) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (12:39). 1 line. I have to teach myself LaTex soon - cool stuff ;-) ---------- (86) #39 John H. Remmers (remmers) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (14:36). 3 lines. XML (or its older cousin, SGML) is the method of choice if you are planning to present a document in a variety of formats (plain text, html, LaTex, etc). ---------- (86) #40 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (15:29). 4 lines. I still do not understand why the manual for a plain text system like grex needs to be written in anything other than plain text for the downloadable version. But it is nice that everyone is enjoying the discussion of how to make things as complicated as possible. ---------- (86) #41 Glenda F. Andre' (glenda) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (15:49). 2 lines. Probably because the people that need it most likely wouldn't know how to download it. ---------- (86) #42 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (16:09). 1 line. Right. ---------- (86) #43 Dan Cross (cross) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (16:38). 5 lines. Regarding #40; Very simple. You want the same document to be convertable to text, HTML, PDF, and some nice-looking printable version (which is more or less what PDF is). That way, you don't have to seperately maintain multiple copies of the same document in different formats. It's not making it more complicated, it's reducing complexity for the maintainer. ---------- (86) #44 The Accidental Purist (other) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (19:16). 6 lines. Anyone know of a really good reference for XML available online? I'm about half done with the HTML handbook, but when I'm done, the best solution I have to make a plaintext version is to save a duplicate copy with all the HTML tags stripped out (which will be very easy to do with BBEdit Lite's grep-based find/replace tool). ---------- (86) #45 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (19:52). 6 lines. I convert HTML to text by viewing it with lynx and typing P for print, and save to a local file. Try it, you'll like it. There are also several DOS-based html to text programs around, and a program called VIEW which will convert WORD, WP, RTF and HTML to text. Lynx gives me the best results. Other, thanks for putting in the work on this while everyone else talks about it. ---------- (86) #46 lose money (styles) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (20:42). 1 line. try 'lynx -dump' (dunno if that's disabled on grex) ---------- (86) #47 The Accidental Purist (other) Tue, Feb 26, 2002 (20:57). 6 lines. Why would I use lynx when I have a perfectly good and tremendously capable text editor in front of me already. Besides, if I usee BBEdit to strip out the tags, then nothing else about the text formatting will be changed, whereas I have yet to see a web browser, even a text-based one which will preserve the original formatting of the source text when a page is saved as text. ---------- (86) #48 Anne Perry (mooncat) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (09:45). 6 lines. Since when is printing from the web difficult? I use Internet Explorer, there is a little icon of a printer, I hit that (or control-p) and I can print- real easy, no downloading necessary. Same concept in Netscape. For the most part aren't those the main two web-browsers that people use? (the ones who aren't really computer savvy at any rate, so of course don't know how awful those browsers are. ) ---------- (86) #49 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (13:12). 13 lines. Is there some way to print a webpage from Lynx with grex? THe manual ought to be accessible to people who don't have an ISP. You can print emails out with Pine by typing Y (when dialed in with Kermit or Procomm). If you just strip out the tags, don't you lose things like spaces between paragraphs and hard returns at ends of lines? Lynx P command produces a page of text that looks just like what you see when viewing the html with lynx. Two of the people we set up with grex for email have no other internet access. They have a vague understanding of how to use Lynx. Perhaps the treasurer would be able to email copies of the text manual for them to read and hopefully print out from the message body. ---------- (86) #50 The Accidental Purist (other) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (14:43). 3 lines. The manual is available. Try !man lynx That should answer all your questions about what it is possible to do from lynx, as I do not use lynx and have no reason to do so. ---------- (86) #51 Dan Cross (cross) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (15:58). 24 lines. Regarding #'s 45 and 50; Well, I'm guessing that the person maintaining the manual isn't doing so under DOS. More likely, they're doing it on grex itself, which means championing using DOS programs to do all the maintenance kind of stupid. Also, it's nice that you're able to convert HTML to text by typing a letter while using a program. How exactly does that give you a nice-looking printable copy complete with markup semantics preserved (ie, italic text, etc)? It's beginning to become clear to me and perhaps others as well that you don't have a good understanding of how the XML/SGML solution works. It's a lot like HTML; you edit a file and create content intermixed with markup tags, except instead of entering HTML tags, you enter XML or SGML tags that conform to some well-known DTD (docbook comes to mind). Then you run a program that converts that document into any number of other well-understood formats, such as text, HTML, LaTeX and thus indirectly into PostScript or PDF. It's really a much better way to handle things like this; you end up with exactly one source document and many different target documents. You edit in some simple, well-understood format. You can support your legacy DOS users as well as more sophisticated users, and still produce nice-looking output. Try it, you'll like it. ---------- (86) #52 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (16:11). 16 lines. I want to correct something people have been saying: I am always very careful to call "Wizard in Training" a handbook, not a manual. It's only 32-pages long, and it's designed for beginners, to get them started. It doesn't contain a lot of detailed information, which is what I would expect if I bought something called a manual. Dan, if you're volunteering to change the manual into XML, and then create easy ways of outputting text, html, and a printable version as good as the one we have now, then go to it. I'll give you whatever help you need to get started. (BTW I'm the person wh's been maintaining the handbook for the last 4 years, and I do it in PageMaker under Windows, not on Grex itself.) Sindi - I'd be happy to send those people you mentioned paper copies of the handbook. Then they wouldn't have to print it out themselves. ---------- (86) #53 John H. Remmers (remmers) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (16:56). 2 lines. The major work would be creating the XML form of the document. Once that exists, canned programs can be used to convert to other formats. ---------- (86) #54 Dan Cross (cross) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (17:27). 3 lines. Mark, I'd be happy to do it, but I don't have the time. Sorry. I was mainly trying to correct the misinterpretations of how the XML/SGML solution works. ---------- (86) #55 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (17:35). 20 lines. Here's what PageMaker does for us; you all can tell me if there's an easy way to do the same thing with something the XML could be converted into: 1. It generates a table of contents based on chapter and section headings 2. It allows placing of graphics so that text flows around them 3. The pages of the handbook are 5.5 x 8.5, so it prints two per sheet of paper (in landscape format), and 4. It prints the pages in such an order that they make a booklet. For instance, the first sheet has page 32 on the left and page 1 on the right. The second sheet has page 2 on the left and page 31 on the right. (The second sheet becomes the back of the first when I Xerox.) The third sheet has page 30 on the left, and page 3 on the right. Etc. Like this: 32-1 30-3 28-5 26-7 24-9 22-11 20-13 18-15 2-31 4-29 6-27 8-25 10-23 12-21 14-19 16-17 <-- Outermost sheet Innermost sheet --> And of course, if the handbook grows beyond 32 pages, it will rearrage the pages to fit. ---------- (86) #56 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (17:36). 1 line. I don't have the time either, Dan. ---------- (86) #57 The Accidental Purist (other) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (19:27). 3 lines. I'm in the midst of producing an HTML version. How complex would it be to replace the HTML tags with XML/SGML tags? (I know nothing of the syntax of XML or SGML.) ---------- (86) #58 Dan Cross (cross) Wed, Feb 27, 2002 (21:21). 2 lines. It looks like other is doing some of the work, Mark. Regarding #57, take a look at the ORA book on docbook; I don't think it'd be too hard. ---------- (86) #59 Marcus Watts (mdw) Thu, Feb 28, 2002 (06:00). 11 lines. If someone can give me a postscript or PDF copy of the file, I think I can turn it into something more easily recognized. But it sounds like other *may* already be doing what you want, unless you are trying to do anything particularly clever with the layout or spacing. HTML is close to XML, except that in HTML, you often tell it how to format material, in XML you would instead say what what the material is, and it would be up to the output engine to format that thing in the appropriate style. It shouldn't be hard to convert HTML into XML, but it won't be quite brainless, because it involves adding content to the document instead of removing it. ---------- (86) #60 John H. Remmers (remmers) Thu, Feb 28, 2002 (06:56). 3 lines. The O'Reilly book on DocBook can be read online at . It begins with and introuction to SGML and XML. ---------- (86) #61 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Thu, Feb 28, 2002 (13:55). 19 lines. To print html to text with lynx type p. You then get a choice of whether to print to a local file, mail the file, or print to a printer attached to your vt100 terminal. Choose the last of these and type Return when it asks if your printer is turned on. Don't know how to get it to stop at the end of each page whenyou are handfeeding sheets, but this should be simple enough for anyone using lynx at grex to use. Just tell them to type lynx plus the URL, enter key, wait, p, three arrows down, return (after loading the printer with formfeed paper or using an automatic paper feed). I don't see how italics are at all necessary to understand a grex manual. Put a link to this info in the motd? Or provide it to newusers in the signup program? Do not assume that beginners will do anything but follow instructions blindly. Jep told us of one service call to someone who had obeyed instructions to insert the first disk, then insert the second disk, but had forgot to tell them to remove the first disk. I will let our friend with the angels know that she can print webpages. She goes through cartons of fanfold paper really fast. ---------- (86) #62 Dan Cross (cross) Thu, Feb 28, 2002 (15:40). 5 lines. Yes, we all know how to get lynx to generate plain text, that's not the issue. If beginners are really so easily confused, probably the best thing to do is send them a hardcopy of the manual. Things like different type faces can be used to indicate things THEY should type versus things the computer prints at them, etc. Very handy. ---------- (86) #63 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Sat, Mar 2, 2002 (16:05). 9 lines. If you set up the instructions so that they are only understandable to people who can read different typefaces, they will not be readable as html with lynx. Lynx shows italics as underlines, and various sizes of font as all the same size, and different font styles as the same style. I think the grex manual ought to be readable to anyone who dials in to grex and wants to read it. You can find other ways to explain when something comes from the computer or you type it. Lots of manuals for DOS programs do this successfully. FOr instance put or [xxxxx] or 'xxxxx'. What is someone is using grex and wants to refer to the instructions while they are online? ---------- (86) #64 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Sat, Mar 2, 2002 (17:03). 3 lines. Eric has produced a text version, which I imagine he'll put online soon. And it's a handbook, not a manual. ---------- (86) #65 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Sat, Mar 2, 2002 (17:48). 1 line. Many thanks to Eric (and Mark). ---------- (86) #66 The Accidental Purist (other) Sat, Mar 2, 2002 (19:38). 2 lines. Speaking of which, into which directory should I put it? I'm thinking /usr/local/www/local/grex/ ---------- (86) #67 The Accidental Purist (other) Sat, Mar 2, 2002 (19:39). 2 lines. I'm going to upload what I have now, and when I have had time to incorporate the changes Mark has suggested, I'll update it. ---------- (86) #68 Dan Cross (cross) Sat, Mar 2, 2002 (20:03). 4 lines. Regarding #63; Well, I was just thinking that different type spaces make it clearer for those looking at a hardcopy. Certainly the online version should be usable without them. But I think you already knew that, and just have a problem with someone disagreeing with your pet idea. ---------- (86) #69 Marcus Watts (mdw) Sat, Mar 2, 2002 (23:14). 14 lines. I think different people learn best in different ways. The handbook was originally designed for people who want something written down on paper, before they try to use something. Lots of people (perhaps even most) aren't like that, but for those who are, a handbook is useful. At one point, the theory was that the handbook would be an incentive for people to become members, as well as a nice "thank you" gift. It doesn't seem to have worked out that way, for whatever reason. There is a *lot* of stuff out on the internet that comes with PDF *and* HTML files. The PDF produces high quality printed documentation. The HTML produces reasonable on-screen presentation quality, and is adaptable to a range of output devices. Either can be turned into plain text, with some loss of understandability - the loss is variable, and depends on the overall design of the document. ---------- (86) #70 Mark A. Conger (aruba) Sat, Mar 2, 2002 (23:41). 3 lines. A lot of people who become members still request a copy of the handbook. I'd estimate I sent out about 15 handbooks last year to members who requested them.