Everyone please read: Introducing the DAILY DOCTRINE DISPENSER!!

Unimatic1140 · Mar 21, 2012

I apologize in advance for my long posts of late, but I suspect this particular one will be well worth the read...

By now I'm sure some have been wondering what is this big new feature coming to automaticwasher.org? Since last November I have been writing website program code as well as scanning hundreds of appliance documents from our library. These documents include glossy Sales Literature Brochures, Owners Manuals and Operating Instructions Sheets, Service Manuals and Parts Lists as well as some department store catalogs and other fun publications. All of the materials are in the public domain and are of fun vintage items for the home that so many of us here at automaticwasher just love. I've been converting these scanned items into high quality pdf document files. A pdf file is a file that combines an entire scanned document into one nice package that can be read like a book or magazine on your computer screen. Newer/high quality printers can reproduce many of these documents almost a crisp as the original. 

Almost every evening this past fall and winter when Fred and I were settled in for the evening watching TV, I would have the scanner and laptop next to me on the sofa and would scan, scan, scan away. I've been very diligent with my scanning. Each page is scanned on a TOL Epson scanner at 300dpi. I've scanned thousands of pages now, so many actually that I burned out my original Epson scanner and had to go buy a new one, lol. Each page is then brought into photoshop and I remove things like paper punch holes as long as they were not over text, I've contrast and color corrected the images and removed as many imperfections as I possibly can. Obviously with stuff this old there is only so much one can do. I figure if I'm going through the trouble of turning these documents in permanent electronic historical records, which might be around for centuries, they better be as clean and perfect as they possible can. Many of these are cleaned so well that they look much better than the original aged document. 

The Daily Doctrine Dispenser will be like the Picture Of The Day on steroids. A new document will be up for “dispensing” every day, but unlike the POD, you will be able to go back and see as well as download the last two day's documents! So if you miss looking at the site on Saturday and Sunday, you'll be able to see what the Daily Doctrine was on those previous two days and download those files as well if you wish. Three documents will be available each day, the current day's document, yesterday's document and the document from two days back. I also won't be so strict like I am with the Picture of the Day, so if someone misses some time on the site and they read that they missed a wonderful document that they absolutely have to have, they can email me and I will try to figure out a way of getting them a download link for it. Hopefully those requests will be few and far between, but it will be an option that I will be open to. 

 So exactly what kinds of things have I been scanning? 

Unlike the POD, items in Daily Doctrine Dispenser wont necessarily only be about washers, dryers and dishwashers, although these items will most definitely make up a very large amount of the library, if not the majority. I've been scanning mostly glossy brochures and company catalogs, owners manuals and service information to all things vintage for the home such as automatic washers, dryers, dishwashers, twin tubs and wringer washers, electric ranges, gas stoves, refrigerators, air conditioners, stand mixers, blenders, other small electrics, vacuum cleaners, television sets, furniture, dishes, etc, etc, etc! 

So why am I going through all this trouble to convert this paper stuff into electronic documents?

<ul>
<li>Fred and I have a huge library full of this paper stuff and I would like to downsize some of it eventually. Not all of it is interesting enough to make it into the Dispenser, but some of it certainly is.</li>
<li>I'm not getting any younger and would love to have thousands of vintage appliance documents all stored on a tiny little hard drive. Someday when I too old to get up and pick something off of a bookshelf I just want to be able to click the magic screen of the future and up it comes. </li>
<li>The modern electronic versions allow for you to search the text of vintage materials, bringing modern convenience to all this old stuff. </li>
<li>Now that I've gotten very used to reading this stuff on screen, I really prefer it this way over the old fashioned book in hand way. I never thought I would say that, but I can't believe how much I prefer it now. On screen the documents are back lit which makes them so much clearer and the zoom features really make it easy to read all this stuff and see the close up details of the pictures and images. I love zooming into the control panels of washers I've never seen in person.</li>
<li>I believe recording history is an important part of my life and I will be able to leave a legacy to future generations of how we all lived in the past.</li>
<li>There are so many of us here who collectively have thousands of extremely rare appliance related documents that others don't have and it would be so nice for all of us to be able to all share and discuss these things together. It would be great to enable all of our users to build a virtual library full of these materials. The best part of this is that it wont take up any of shelf space what so ever! Imagine how happy this will make some of the spouses of the guys who's partner thinks this stuff is nothing but junk, a grand and unlimited collection and it takes up absolutely no space!</li>
</ul>
[COLOR=#ff0000; font-size: medium; font-family: 'times new roman', times]This sounds too good to be true, so what's the hitch?[/COLOR]
Unfortunately the majority of these documents have a very large file sizes. Storing these files on our web server is going to take up a lot of disk space, then there is the issue of electronically sending these files out via the internet to the users who wish to download them. All of this can be done with some good programming but the problem is it's going to be a very expensive venture for me, running something like this is going to spike the cost of running the site greatly. As much as I wish I could afford to do all this on my own, it isn't something that I can do financially at this time. So I came up with the idea of charging a very small fee ($1.39) per requested document. At first I thought I would set the price by how large the file is, but for now I decided to keep it simple and as absolutely inexpensive as possible, then I'll watch the costs as time goes by and make sure that the new Dispenser system will pay for itself.

[COLOR=#ff0000; font-size: medium; font-family: 'times new roman', times]So how is all of this going to work?[/COLOR]
Here is how I designed this new system and it certainly is up for changing after we launch. Every day the at midnight USA Central Time the Daily Doctrine will change to something new. The system can be set to pick something random or I can set the next days Doctrine manually in advance. You will be able to preview what the Daily Doctrine is by seeing thumbnail images of every single page in the document and there will be a complete description describing the document. If you wish to download it you can select it and click on the paypal button. After you pay your $1.39, Paypal will send you right back to the Daily Doctrine web page where you will be given your own personal download link where you can download the document file to your hard drive. The download link will be active for 24 hours after paypal processes your payment, so it's important to download your file(s) in a timely fashion. Once it's on your hard drive the file is yours to keep and enjoy for ever. You'll probably want to create some kind of system on your hard drive to file these documents so you can easily find them at any time. At this time all payments will have to go through paypal, I have no other way of automating and processing this huge task.

[COLOR=#ff0000; font-size: medium; font-family: 'times new roman', times]Will non-upgraded members get to download the Daily Doctrine? How about readers of the site who don't have a log-in username?[/COLOR]

Anyone with a username on automaticwasher.org will be able to download the Daily Doctrine. At first both upgraded and non-upgraded users will have the exact same features available to them. After some time this will change, but at this point I haven't decided which features will be available only to upgraded members for the Dispenser. But for now it will all be the same. If you are reading this you are interested in being able to download some of these documents but you've never registered with us, please do so! In order to download documents you will have to be logged into automaticwasher.org.

[COLOR=#ff0000; font-size: medium; font-family: 'times new roman', times]Would you like weeks or months worth of FREE Doctrine downloads???[/COLOR]

HELP! I need more cool things to scan for the Dispenser. We have a ton of great things in our library, but it's not enough. If you are willing to send me documents to scan, I will handle the materials with extreme care, scan them and turn around and send them right back to you. When I register the document into the database I'll add your username into the donating member field. When any of your documents come up in the Dispenser for every user that purchases your download you will get 1 free Doctrine Credit. For every Doctrine credit you get one free download. So for example lets say you send me a super fun 1969 Maytag washer sales brochure to scan and add to the Dispenser rotation. When the Maytag brochure comes up (and in many cases I probably will force it up within a few days after scanning) lets imagine that 22 people download your donated Maytag document, that means you will get 22 doctrine credits in your account. This will be good for 22 different documents which can be used on any 22 days of your choosing. So let's say that you personally are only interested in Maytag and GE stuff, you can then use your credit for free downloads on the days that Maytag and GE documents appear in the Dispenser. Now imagine if you send me 10 really great documents, you could have nearly a year of free doctrine downloads, depending on how much interest there is in your stuff. Remember, the more fun the stuff is that you send me, the more interest it causes, the greater the downloads and the more free documents you get! In other words sending me a super cool 1964 Frigidaire automatic washer brochure will probably get you more credit than a Rival Can Opener catalog might. Of course I'm just guessing, we will have to see what creates the most interest.

[COLOR=#ff0000; font-size: medium; font-family: 'times new roman', times]So what am I looking for?[/COLOR]

As I said above, I suspect that sales literature brochures for stuff from the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's are going to garner the most interest and downloads. Owners manuals and service manuals are nice too, and there are some super cool owners manuals that I think are going to be really popular as well, but I really do think sales lit will bring the most excitement. I could be wrong, we will have to wait and see what happens.

[COLOR=#ff0000; font-size: medium; font-family: 'times new roman', times]How do I let you know that I'm interested in letting you borrow some stuff to scan and send right back to me?[/COLOR]

Simply take a photo or two of some stuff you have and email it to me at [email protected]. I will create a list as I only want one member at a time to send me things to scan. Once I scan that members stuff and return it to him or her, I will let the next member know I'm ready for their stuff. When I receive things from a member, I will want to scan it ASAP and get it back to them as soon as I possibly can.

[COLOR=#ff0000; font-size: medium; font-family: 'times new roman', times]When are you launching the new Dispenser system?[/COLOR]

I'm hoping for Monday morning, around 8am on April 2, 2012, but this is subject to change. I'm waiting to see what happens with the upcoming TV show that Fred and I are in, I need to make sure the site is stable in case we get a major influx of traffic (more on that to come in another post).

Ok so what do you guys think at first glance, questions, comments, concerns? Lay them on me.

[this post was last edited: 3/21/2012-11:33]

58limited · Mar 21, 2012

This is going to be a great resource. Thanks Robert!

william637 · Mar 21, 2012

Thank You

That was a massive undertaking, and I am sure I speak for many of us when I tell you thank you for your effort.

I look forward to seeing these scans!

turquoisedude · Mar 21, 2012

WOW! You have been busy! I can only imagine the time and effort this took - thank you for thinking of this and finding a way to make it available to everyone here!

I hope I can make a couple of contributions (I'll be digging through the 'files' on the weekend...)

Wonderful job, Robert - can't wait to start using this new feature!

kevin313 · Mar 21, 2012

Robert,

This is really incredible! I can't imagine the time and effort you have already invested in this project - sounds like it will be a virtual clearinghouse for vintage appliance ephemera and techincal information. This will be a very valuable resource for so many of us! The charge to download actually seems very low to me...to hunt and purchase these materials out in the world would take and cost so much more.

Thank you for all you do for us here - the Dispenser is going to be a wonderful addition to all the other AW features. Outstanding job, per usual!

mattl · Mar 21, 2012

Just curious, what if someone scanned an item into a .Pdf and sent it to you? If you set some minimum standards as to quality a lot of us out here have scanners and can do the work too. Might take some of the load off you. Plus - stuff I have, like the owners manual for my '59 Frigidaire CI range, I don't know if I'd trust it to the mail. Just a thought...

mistereric · Mar 21, 2012

Sounds super awesome. I like the idea. I have some scanning resources and some docs I can contribute. I'd be happy to send you the PDFs I already have scanned and cleaned.

Unimatic1140 · Mar 21, 2012

Just curious, what if someone scanned an item into a .Pdf and sent it to you? If you set some minimum standards as to quality a lot of us out here have scanners and can do the work too.

That would be just fine Matt and Eric, I would encourage that if possible and it would certainly be appreciated, BUT...

I have spent months becoming really good at scanning, so my minimum quality standards will be quite high, such as:

<ul>
<li>All pages of a document must be scanned at 300dpi and saved into a non-compressed .TIF file. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>I'll want all the original page .TIF files separately, not combined into one .pdf file. I want to keep the .pdf file/OCR conversion into searchable text all consistent, so I'll create the .pdf files once I get your page scans. Besides a file like the 1959 CI Frigidaire Range Owners Manual would be a totally fabulous edition to the Dispenser, but a .pdf file of that book is going to be 30mb to 40mb which cannot be emailed easily anyway. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The documents must be absolutely complete from cover to cover, no rips, no major fold lines, no big smudges or other imperfections and no missing pages. Punch holes for 3 ring binders are OK, as well as minor dust and scratches. I can remove those in Photoshop manually. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>All pages in an entire document must be scanned at the exact same size.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Pages must be scanned as straight as possible, if its off by a hair its OK I can rotate them in Photoshop but anything more than a hair off will make the text slightly fuzzy when you zoom in.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Scanning books can sometimes produce shadows at the page edges, if they are very minor and I can correct it in Photoshop fine, but otherwise I'll have to reject that document. </li>
</ul>
I realize my standards are quite high, but everyone will appreciate the high quality of the documents which will make them more fun overall.

By the way everyone, "FTP" software is special software that lets you drag computer files from your hard drive and upload them directly onto a web server. For those who know how to use FTP software (its very simple actually and FileZilla is free FTP software and a great tool if you don't already have a favorite FTP program), I can set up separate FTP accounts on the aw.org server for you guys to simply drag files to a secure directory and I can easily pick them up from there. 1-2-3 done, no need to email anything then.

How's that?

[this post was last edited: 3/21/2012-14:06]

hooverwheelaway · Mar 21, 2012

A super cool 1964 Frigidaire automatic washer brochure will probably get you more credit than a Rival Can Opener catalog might

Well, there goes my submission!

Unimatic1140 · Mar 21, 2012

Well, there goes my submission!

Don't listen to him lol, Fred has some absolutely beautiful Hoover vacuum, small electrics and Hoover Twin Tub brochures that are scanned and ready to go.

revvinkevin · Mar 21, 2012

Another possible payment option?

WOW Robert, what a fantastic and fun new feature!! I can't imagine the hundreds (thousands?) of hours you have (and will) spend getting all this set up, plus scanning all those documents!   Thank you for ALL of your time and effort on this, it's going to be AWESOME!

= = = = = = =

I don't know how much of a pain-in-the-butt this would be to set up or if it's even doable, but I'm throwing it out there.

What about an option for paying/upgraded members to "pay" the Daily Doctrine fee by deducting days from the pool of remaining upgraded days available?

Allow me to explain.

An upgraded membership is $12 per year.

$12 divided by 365 days = 0.03287.

Daily Doctrine fee, $1.39 divided by 0.03287 = 42.28 days.

So when an upgraded member wants to download a Daily Doctrine, have an option to either pay the $1.39 or deduct 42 days.

I have a feeling this would be a pain in the butt to set up, but HEY, it's a thought!

Kevin

foraloysius · Mar 21, 2012

Oh you poor thing! Scanning away so many evenings. Fred sure knows what a brochure widow is now.... ;-)

Unimatic1140 · Mar 21, 2012

Hi Kevin,

Good idea and I understand what you are getting at but combining upgraded days is going to be way too complicated and I do want to keep those systems separate. But what I am planning on implementing not too far after we launch is the ability to purchase "doctrine credit" in advance. So you'll be able to purchase like 10 or 20 or 30 documents in advance which will be kept in your account to be used whenever you wish.

This will prevent people from having to be brought to paypal and back every time they want to download a file. Of course the paypal process has been super quick in my testing, it take less than 45 seconds, but still it will be easier for everyone in the long run. I hope to have that done within a month or so from the launch.

Fred sure knows what a brochure widow is now.... ;-)
Lol Louis, he sure is the poor thing, but at least we are together the whole time that I've been scanning. Otherwise I wouldn't have wanted to do this and it would have taken years.

philr · Mar 21, 2012

Great idea!

I recently have scanned just a few old manuals and I was surprised to see the amount of time it requires! Didn't spend much time on Photoshop except for cropping some and resizing them but it ended being quite long! I hope I will find some time to scan more soon but I know what's involved now!

Robert, that reminds me something, I'll send you a PM...

goatfarmer · Mar 21, 2012

Great idea, Robert! Now I gotta find all that literature I've been hiding, somewhere.....

autowasherfreak · Mar 21, 2012

Scanning

I probably haven't scanned as much as you have Robert, but I've been scanning IBM typewriter manuals for a few of the typewriter groups that I moderate on Yahoo, and it can take some time, but I have a blast doing it.

Thanks again for everything you do Robert, looking forward to the Daily Doctrine Dispenser.

rp2813 · Mar 21, 2012

Robert, this is just another fantastic example of your dedication to making/keeping this the best web site in the world!

I will bring a box of manuals and literature to Kevin's next month (I was already planning to just for fun) and you are welcome to pull out any items of interest.

re563 · Mar 21, 2012

Robert

You just amaze me with all the work and inovations you put into this website. Very excited to see it launched

Unimatic1140 · Mar 21, 2012

Thanks everyone, I'm glad you guys like the idea.

Ralph, thank you!!! That will be fabulous and if you don't mind I can take the super fun ones home, scan then and send them right back to you.

I'm really looking forward to meeting you finally after all these years!

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