Surfboard design and construction DOWNLOAD

LESider · April 29, 2004, 3:09am

I thought I’d put the link to the book on a new thread so everybody doesn’t keep bugging EyeSurf.

Thanks again to EyeSurf and Doc who kindly hosted the download site.

http://jfmill.home.comcast.net/swaylocks/Surfboard_Design_and_Construction_1977.pdf

tridrles · April 29, 2004, 3:17am

YES! Please e-mail me the book. I made my first two boards, after surfing (on and off) for the past 35 years. Their GREAT, I’m hooked, need to learn more!

Les

PS - if my hotmail doesn’t work try tridrles@netzero.net

Thanks!

LESider · April 29, 2004, 3:20am

just click on the blue url and it will download for you no email needed!!!

doc · April 29, 2004, 4:13am

Due to popular demand… or at least 'cos so many people seem to want it and maybe they are having trouble getting to it…

In addition to http://jfmill.home.comcast.net/swaylocks/Surfboard_Design_and_Construction_1977.pdf you can also try

http://jfmillbiz.home.comcast.net/swaylocks/Surfboard_Design_and_Construction_1977.pdf and http://jfmillbox.home.comcast.net/swaylocks/Surfboard_Design_and_Construction_1977.pdf which just got uploaded and tested: they work.

One of 'em should work for you. You can either click on the link and when it comes up in acrobat reader (http://www.adobe.com if you haven’t got it ) you can Save it to disk or even easier, right-click on the link and Save Target As to save it to your hard drive. It’s a big file, nearly 4Mb, so it’ll take a while if you have a dialup connection, but be patient.

have fun

doc…

dubstar · April 29, 2004, 2:59pm

so I downloaded the file…looks good. but when i try to print, it’s taking over a minute a page to spool and print. the file size says 3.46 mbs or around there, but the print manager shows it counting up towards 300 mbs by the time I cancelled. 6 pages in 10 minutes. anyone know about acrobat, does it always take this long to print? relatively fast computer on a fast network at work…60 pages files in word take 10 minutes or less. thanks.

doc · April 29, 2004, 3:27pm

I’ll preface this with saying that this works on my setup, win2K and an HP inkjet printer via USB, but it might not fly on yours.

When printing use the Print icon, and when the Print window comes up you can hit the Properties button and select Draft quality rather than ‘Normal’ or ‘Best’, prints a helluva lot faster and the printout quality is ‘good enough’ . Takes maybe 1/3 the time that ‘normal’ print quality does, though the file size sent to the printer remains the same.

The thing about PDF documents is, as I understand it, that the printer sees 'em as graphics which are huge files, not formatted text like a Word document, and the only workaround I know of is to knock down the resolution/darkness a little with the Draft quality option. There may be other ways to get around it too, but this one works for me.

hope that’s of use

doc…

Sean · April 29, 2004, 4:18pm

Doc, I can host the file on my site, too if it helps lighten the load. I’ll upload it when I get home later.

rKelly · April 29, 2004, 4:21pm

Yea… Doc’s got it about right (a Worldly guy that Doc - not to shabby for someone who didn’t grow up with one of these things).

PDF is a highly compressed document, that needs to be opened up when it prints… and actually, all files do this - even Word document get bigger when you send it over to the printer. But PDF supports integrated graphics. A Word doc often consists of mostly words (sure you can put lots of graphics and charts in there - but lets keep it simple for sake of argument). Your printer has fonts loaded on it, so Word can tell it how to print a document simply by a string of ASCII character… a byte that is 8 bits long (which is small by today’s standards) can represent any of 256 characters. PDF can use ‘Post Script’ fonts too, and actually is smaller and quicker if that’s all that’s used. But most likely there’s a few graphics in there to slow things down.

Now this PDF document is a little different, it was scanned in. That means that this is a 60-something page document of all pictures… even the text are pictures – note that they’re a little fuzzy, and you can’t edit them. These are bitmap pictures (TIFF), which means that for every page your computer has to tell your printer what color every single pixel is – even white. That creates a big document. You also are most likely using a smaller printer designed for home use. Once you use up all your printer’s memory it needs to start paging – it has to transfer the information a few pages at a time, print it out, download new info, etc.

dubstar · April 29, 2004, 4:34pm

I’m actually using a large fast printer connected to a network at work, but thanks for the description of pdf files.

PS

no problem with the actual download, took 5 seconds.

thanks

doc · April 29, 2004, 5:44pm

Sean, if you'd like to put up a copy then by all means, muy appreciado.

rKelly...funny you should mention that, actually I started with the $#@& things just after punchcards started to go away. I still hate the sight of 8" floppies and magnetic tape reels. Don't even mention DecWriters. Was I ever happy when I got my first GUI machine, running Windows 1.04 on grayscale. Still have it too, have to figure out how to tie it into the network here. And it's still capable of running my business stuff, all that I really need, with the mighty 10MHz 8086 processor and upgraded to 2MB of RAM and a 20 MB hard drive. Ah, the tyranny of the new......

I was also real glad to get back to working with my hands and my back.

Good description of PDFs, thanks. Never realised that they used TIFFs as native graphics format instead of some other format that was actually compressed some; gaht-demm , that'd make it huge all right. Makes sense when you think about how long PDFs have been around.

Dubstar, I may be way off on this, but.... if your setup there is high end, that may actually be working against you in a way. With all that horsepower, it maybe depends on printer RAM and processor power rather than using the computer's, at least to a greater extent than our smaller, more lightweight setups. Optomised around text files with a few graphics for speed, plus queuing and so on, umpteen MB documents like this are kinda outside its envelope.

Now, my lightweight arrangement, with less printer RAM than one page of this PDF takes up, well, all the processing is done in my machine, including shrinking the data that actually gets sent to the printer in Draft mode. There's probably a way to futz with your settings, spoolers and such, to make it work faster for you there, but this is a one-time problem so I'd just figure it as a Real Good Time for Coffee, , y'know?

ForestFisher · April 29, 2004, 6:08pm

Send it in parts, 5 or 10 page groups at a time. This will help not overload the printer, which as everyone has said already can not really handle a print job of that size. If you are on a shared printer, this has the added advantage that your co-workers will be able to get there small quick print jobs inbetween your big jobs. Always a good idea to break up large pdf prints into several small ones.

–4est