[MR] Post Office Experience

[Joshua Thomas]

I am currently Lead on a system that stores PDF Ad Templates for Coop
Advertising (The Manufacture pays for a part of people who advertise) It
stores information on about 100 companies over 8 industries of advertising.
The steps (listed below) and how we implemented it:

*PDF to Thumbnail Creator (Off the shelf)- We wanted it to be fully
scriptable since we had hundreds of PDFs to create. We are talking 15
thumbnails a month so not a huge burden and is entirely optional.
*File and Kingdom Look up Database Tables (2 hours)
*File Upload Page (30 minutes)
*Results Page (show files for x) - 2 months - Our system is a lot more
complex like we have tab categorizing and full text and advanced searchs.
*Simplified Version need to show it by Year and Kingdom (1 hour) Simple
database query and a few dropdowns and some kind of content repeater.)

Thats right in about 3 and half hours of development time and few meetings
to implement policy changes we could have the new bennie. Now of course they
may not have the Hardware to support the bandwidth and storage, so there may
be some startup costs and the lay work that comes with it that I cannot
estimate with given level of info.


On 5/4/06, Alan MacNeill <gormofberra at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/4/06, Aedan Aylwyn <aedan at mindspring.com> wrote:
> >
> > Just off the top of my head:
> >
> > - where do you host the files?
>
>
> I'd imagine acorn.atlantia.sca.org would do nicely.  One PDF file is, at
> most 10 Meg in size. (in my experience, a 32 page PDF comprising mostly
> test
> is more like 2 Meg)  It would seem a reasonable compromise for the
> "current"
> acorn to be posted to the web on or around the day it's due to arrive in
> mailboxes.  that way if it's delayed in the mail, it's no big deal for 90%
> of the membership of the SCA, since they can pull it off the web if they
> need it that badly.  Yes, it would take a while if you're stuck on a 56K
> modem, but you could still do it.
>
> - do you send out (push) the files to email addresses or host them (pull)
> > for download?
>
>
> Host for download.  If I want it, I can get it.  If I don't need it, don't
> shove it to me.
>
> >>- how does this affect the cost of publishing the newsletter for those
> that
> >>get a hard copy?
>
> It shouldn't affect the cost at all, you get the hardcopy if you paid for
> it, whenever the post office gets around to it.  Remember, the benefit of
> membership isn't the publications, it's the discount on events,
> opportunity
> to serve as a member, and other similar perkage.
>
> >>- does this affect the cost of membership for those that elect for
> >>electronic format?
>
> Again, it shouldn't.  Electronic is an addition, and a welcome one at
> that.
>
> >>- is there a way to allow electronic versions still provide proof of
> >>membership?
>
> Not under my scheme.  But really, if you need proof of membership that
> badly, call Milpitas, or use last month's Acorn, which you still have (if
> you threw it away, that's your own problem).
>
> All anyone is asking for is a way to get the information they paid for in
> a
> timely fashion.  OKay, we all buy that it's not the Chronicler's
> fault.  We
> all are willing to believe that the mailing house is doing it's best
> effort.  Fine, great, cool, but we're not getting our information on time.
> An electronic availability of the current PDF (which, as has been
> mentioned,
> is trivial to produce, and some publishing houses already require it for
> submission anyhow) would get us the information in a timely fashion.
>
> That's all.  Not that difficult to do, once you get past institutional
> inertia, which is, quite frankly, the 4000 lb behemoth in the SCA.
>
> Gorm
> ========================================================================
>                   The Merry Rose Tavern at Cheapside
>    List Info: http://merryrose.atlantia.sca.org/
> Submissions: Atlantia at atlantia.sca.org
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>



--
--
Joshua Thomas
(c) 757 537 6395
joshua.r.thomas at gmail.com
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