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$1k for Office

Boy, I'd like to be your vendor for software, because I'd make a fortune from your ignorance. You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

First of all, $1000 for Office? You must be crazy. You can legally get Office 2004 (the "Student/Teacher Edition") for less than $150, and it comes with all the apps that Office 2004 Standard includes. If you insist on paying the "full" price, that's $265. And an Access replacement would probably be FileMaker Pro 7, which I found for $218. And you've already got a replacement for Publisher if you're going to be buying the Adobe Creative Suite.

The Abobe figures are accurate. $450 for Acrobat, $1250 for Creative Suite

Secondly, why would you buy Acrobat separately when you can get it as part of Creative Suite Premium and save a couple hundred bucks? Furthermore, Creative Suite Premium is not $1250-- the freakin' MSRP isn't even that high, and only a complete moron would pay the MSRP. CDW sells it for $1139, and Pricewatch lists a few sites that offer it for even less.

~Philly

1. Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War by Producer/ Director Robert Greenwald, 2003, 56 minutes. Independent film by the Producer. Web site: Uncovered. Reviews: Powell's (out of stock, no reviews) Barnes & Noble Amazon

   This documentary shows the actual video of Bush administration officials justifying the war in Iraq. The overall effect is powerful.

   Quotes:

   • "... it is a federal felony, it's a crime, to mislead and distort information and present it to the Congress." -- 23:14 minutes into the movie.

   • "... the administration has not been honest..."

   • "... very disturbing ... intervention by people particularly from Vice President Cheney's office and Vice President Cheney himself ... to produce precisely the language which would allow them ... to support the decision to go into Iraq." -- Dr. David C. MacMichael, former CIA analyst. Page 7 of the transcript, 7:32 minutes in the movie.

   • "It is somewhat puzzling, I think, that you can have a hundred percent certainty about the weapons of mass destruction's existence, and zero certainty about where they are." -- Hans Blix, chief weapons inspector, referring to the administration's statements, at 34:44 minutes into the movie.

   This work is available several in several forms, some of which are free:

   • A transcript of the movie is available online. NOTE: Both forms of the transcript contain errors. The errors I've seen are minor. The quotes here have been checked against the movie.

   • The transcript is also available as a downloadable Adobe Acrobat PDF file. The Acrobat PDF Reader software needed to view the transcript is a free download for all computers.

   • You can buy the DVD online for $9.95 from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or from CafeShops.com, at a Cafe Shops online store that is inappropriately titled Disinformation. The store originally sold items connected with a humorous TV show called Disinformation.

   • The DVD is available on loan through Netflix.

   • Make your own copies: Kate McArdle, one of the producers, told me that they encourage people to make copies of the DVD and give them to friends (but not sell them, of course). Also, they encourage people to play the movie for groups of people, without extra payment.

2. Unprecedented - 2000 Presidential Election by Richard Ray Perez, Joan Sekler, and Robert Greenwald, 2002, reissued 2004. Web site: Unprecedented. Reviews: Barnes & Noble Amazon, DVD Amazon, VHS IMDB

   From a

But it doesn't look like they have embraced Adobe's new DNG format yet, wonder who is going to be first with that one? http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html

"Download the specification, which describes a nonproprietary file format for storing camera raw files that can be used by a wide range of hardware and software vendors." from Adobe'sweb page about DNG. (emphasis added.)

Patent Clarification Notice: Reading and Writing PDF Files Adobe has a number of patents covering technology that is disclosed in the Portable Document Format (PDF) Specification, version 1.3 and later, as documented in PDF Reference and associated Technical Notes (the "Specification". Adobe desires to promote the use of PDF for information interchange among diverse products and applications.

Accordingly, the following patents are licensed on a royalty-free, non-exclusive basis for the term of each patent and for the sole purpose of developing software that produces, consumes, and interprets PDF files that are compliant with the Specification:

U.S. Patent Numbers:

5,634,064
5,737,599
5,781,785
5,819,301
6,028,583
6,289,364
6,421,460

In addition, the following patent is licensed on a royalty-free, non-exclusive basis for its term and for the sole purpose of developing software that produces PDF files that are compliant with the Specification (specifically excluding, however, software that consumes and/or interprets PDF files):

U.S. Patent Numbers:

5,860,074

Unisys never did the same with their submarine patent. They simply said nothing and then enforced it. Adobe has already precluded themselves from that.

If you want to update your Camera Raw (w/in Photoshop 7 or CS) the direct links seem to be the only way to get to them (at least for Win versions):

Mac:
http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/photosho p/cameraraw/mac/DNG_Camera_Raw_2_3.sit.hqx

PC:
http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/photosho p/cameraraw/win/DNG_Camera_Raw_2_3.zip

If you want to update your Camera Raw (w/in Photoshop 7 or CS) the direct links seem to be the only way to get to them (at least for Win versions):

Mac:
http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/photosho p/cameraraw/mac/DNG_Camera_Raw_2_3.sit.hqx

PC:
http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/photosho p/cameraraw/win/DNG_Camera_Raw_2_3.zip

A DNG-format file is fully compliant with the TIFF 6.0 Specification Standard and the ISO TIFF-EP codification of that spec, which was designed from day one as a fully extensible raw, processed, or whatever image / metadata annotation spec.

BTW, TIFF was originally designed for offset printing folks, and in the 6.0 standard already supports a huge number of colorspace models besides RGB, and has an extensible mechanism for specifying color-data encoding and compression schemes (you can even store JPEG encoding in TIFF).

When I worked at the ground-data processing section of the Jet Propulsion labs, TIFF was occasionally used to store and transmit raw multispectral satellite data, which consisted of over 256 separate color-spectra bands from far infrared to ultraviolet, stored spatially in separate tiles.

Working together with Spot Image and other satellite providers, NASA also helped develop the GeoTIFF extension to TIFF, which annotates an image with exact georeferencing information.

It looks like Adobe went the route of using SubIFD's to define the extended data. A little bit unfortunate, since that data will not show up in a "tiffdump" listing of the file, but in any case I have no doubt that folks are already taking the spec and writing "libtiff" extensions to parse the stuff.

For more information on TIFF, see my old, clunky website that is chock full of invalid links,but still has a few useful things to say:

http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/tiff

--Niles (original GeoTIFF and TIFF webpage author)

See page 13 of the dng spec and check the Compression section, value 1 no compression, value 7 can be lossless JPEG or baseline JPEG. So where is the (more) efficient method?

Compression: Files can be stored as uncompressed (either bit-packed or padded to 16-bits per pixel) or with lossless JPEG compression.

Who modded this up?

This format is about putting all RAW files under one (DNG) format.

Eg. Nikon has NEF, Canon has CRW, Olympus has xxx, adsf has yyy....

Isn't it better to have one open/standard format which all manufacturers support/endorse?

If you are skeptical read this.

In my opinion, working with the bare bones of their technology, ALL of it is well thought out, comprehensive and well explained.

They consider all of the difficulties of the problem domain. For instance, see how easy it is in PDF to create changes to an existing document, great for low powered CPUs. Just append the changed object and add on a new footer to the file. 95% of the file retained, which is a lot less expensive than re-generation of the whole file.

I think Adobe will do a good job here and post the specifications ala PDF and Postscript.

Not mentioned in the other comments is the run time hardware cost of saving this Digital Negative. I think Adobe will put effort into making this as friendly to integrated hardware capture as possible. A large portion of this has to be very little re-ordering of data as it comes from the CCD, as these usually require an in memory buffer. This fundamentally changes the nature of the format.

In my opinion, working with the bare bones of their technology, ALL of it is well thought out, comprehensive and well explained.

They consider all of the difficulties of the problem domain. For instance, see how easy it is in PDF to create changes to an existing document, great for low powered CPUs. Just append the changed object and add on a new footer to the file. 95% of the file retained, which is a lot less expensive than re-generation of the whole file.

I think Adobe will do a good job here and post the specifications ala PDF and Postscript.

Not mentioned in the other comments is the run time hardware cost of saving this Digital Negative. I think Adobe will put effort into making this as friendly to integrated hardware capture as possible. A large portion of this has to be very little re-ordering of data as it comes from the CCD, as these usually require an in memory buffer. This fundamentally changes the nature of the format.

In my opinion, working with the bare bones of their technology, ALL of it is well thought out, comprehensive and well explained.

They consider all of the difficulties of the problem domain. For instance, see how easy it is in PDF to create changes to an existing document, great for low powered CPUs. Just append the changed object and add on a new footer to the file. 95% of the file retained, which is a lot less expensive than re-generation of the whole file.

I think Adobe will do a good job here and post the specifications ala PDF and Postscript.

Not mentioned in the other comments is the run time hardware cost of saving this Digital Negative. I think Adobe will put effort into making this as friendly to integrated hardware capture as possible. A large portion of this has to be very little re-ordering of data as it comes from the CCD, as these usually require an in memory buffer. This fundamentally changes the nature of the format.

Adobe has posted a DNG Primer online, describing some slightly technical details. Here are the key points from the document that helps to understand what makes the format useful:

Image format: DNG is based on the TIFF-EP format, but DNG specifies the inclusion of a number of additional tags that let the converter properly interpret the raw file.
Metadata: DNG enables inclusion of metadata in EXIF, IPTC, and XMP formats.
Compression: Files can be stored as uncompressed (either bit-packed or padded to 16-bits per pixel) or with lossless JPEG compression.
Color space: DNG fles are stored in a linear, nonwhite-balanced color space (usually the native color space of the camera).
Interpolation: DNG enables file storage either in mosaic (CFA) form or in demosaiced form. Generally, a mosaiced file is preferred because it represents the original data the sensor captured and enables maximum conversion fexibility. It is also smaller than a demosaiced file. In some instances, however, saving a demosaiced file can improve compatibility, particularly if the camera sensor contains an unusual mosaic pattern that all converters do not support.

Having to deal with multiple RAW implementations, this will be a lifesaver. Hope it takes off.

BTW, does anyone have a download link/torrent for the Adobe DNG Converter and Camera Raw 2.3 update? I tried to register, but all the site does is throw up errors.

Thanks,
CD

Hell yes. Unlike with a raster image such as JPEG or PNG, the data from a camera sensor is most likely a Bayer array - alternating lines of Red/Green and Blue/Green sensors, rather than RGB triplets, so it's not so much RGB, as RGBG. (There are some varients/exceptions in the in sensors from Foveon, Fuji and Sony). There is also a lot of data specific to the exposure; duration, ISO, lens details, etc. which would need to be applied in camera before a raster image could be produced. With RAW, you can apply these settings after the event in Photoshop or whatever. Exposed the sky correctly, but got the ground off by a stop? No problem; "develop" the RAW twice and use the sky from one shot and the ground from the other for a much better result than "enhancing" the ground in an image editor.

Yes, you could have most of this with a tweaked version of PNG and a bunch of ID3 type tags (and maybe that's exactly what Adobe has done, I haven't looked at the file format yet). The main benefit though is to make it very easy for data exchange and solve the nightmare situation whereby each new sensor has it's own RAW format. The state of play at the moment is a nightmare for vendors like Adobe who need to update their software for almost every new high-end camera release. Likewise for the makers of those "digital photo stations" that are cropping up like Starbucks, or their little brethren; the printers you can plug a camera into directly. With a standard like DNG to support you gain the much larger colour gamut of the RAW format and more flexibility in tweaking the image for a better print.

Anyway, you can read the actual Adobe press release, or download a free (beer) DNG converter here to find out a little more.

This DNG is apparently TIFF-EP with metadata added. The metadata content seems quite reasonable and contain information about the camera which is basically irrelevant in any other context.

The spec. appears to be unencumbered. Although there aren't bright yellow "FREE FOR ALL TO USE!" disclaimers, it does not bear any mention of a patent and it does state that the spec. is "free". Since it would be in Adobe's interest (as a market leader in photo editting software) to minimize writing kludgy compatibility code in the future, I don't see why anyone should assume that this offer is being made "in bad faith".

Oh yes, there might not be all of this "OMG PATENTZ!" hysteria, if the posting had included this link to the Adobe site, which features a pdf of the specification itself.

Even more happily, the pdf was a simple one & rendered promptly under xpdf/gs.

What about using the new version of JPEG, for 'digital negatives'?

There are no royalties, no licencing, it has 2x to 5x the compression efficiency, and it's inherently multiresolutional.

Actually, Adobe did a very similar thing: they took the TIF format (the industry standard storing images with lossless compression) and added a few special fields, using the extension mechanism already provided by TIFF. As far a I can see, Adobe doesn't intend to charge royalties for DNG. It looks quite open -- even the DNG guide for manufacturers doesn't mention any licensing requirements.

(Adobe's DNG web site is already online.)

so they made a new lossless image format. Don't we already have lossless image formats like tiff?

No, they made a set of TIFF extensions that are designed to store the raw CCD data produced by the camera. Read Adobe's DNG primer: in essence, camera CCDs are *not* full colour, but have a mix of pixels filtered for R, G and B and the camera processes these scattered R, G and B values into a colour image. DNG stores the raw CCD data before the colours are combined.

It seems to me that this is just adobe re-inventing the wheel into a new proprietary wheel.

The spec (also on Adobe's DNG site anounces itself as "non-proprietary". The improvement is providing a common format for camera manufacturers to use.

so they made a new lossless image format. Don't we already have lossless image formats like tiff?

No, they made a set of TIFF extensions that are designed to store the raw CCD data produced by the camera. Read Adobe's DNG primer: in essence, camera CCDs are *not* full colour, but have a mix of pixels filtered for R, G and B and the camera processes these scattered R, G and B values into a colour image. DNG stores the raw CCD data before the colours are combined.

It seems to me that this is just adobe re-inventing the wheel into a new proprietary wheel.

The spec (also on Adobe's DNG site anounces itself as "non-proprietary". The improvement is providing a common format for camera manufacturers to use.

The Digital Negative Specification is based on the TIFF EP format, an accepted standard, and already the basis of many proprietary raw formats. The power of .DNG format lies in a set of metadata that must be included in the file to describe key details about the camera and settings. .DNG-compliant software and hardware can adapt on the fly to handle new cameras as they are introduced. The new file format unifies conflicting raw formats, enabling the preservation of a pristine version of the original raw image and the metadata associated with it. .DNG is also flexible enough to allow camera manufacturers to continue to add their own "private" metadata fields.

Adobe has put up a page regarding the new format on their site. But for those who couldn't be bothered to read the original article and are posting questions like, "Why bother..."

There are currently two image formats in wide use for high-end cameras. RAW is the format of choice for people who demand high-quality shots with no compression artifacts. Unfortunately, different camera manufacturers have implemented their RAW encoding differently, which means that two cameras that can save to RAW don't necessarily use the same format. As a result, professionals often have to convert between their vendor's RAW format, and that used by their software.

The other format is good old JPEG, but as you probably know, JPEG is a lossy compression algorithim, making it unsuitable for those who demand a certain level of quality in the shots as captured.

The new format is designed to provide the same advantages of RAW, without the cross-vendor incompatibilities. Adobe is calling it "a publicly documented and readily available specification," although I didn't see any kind of license data around the download of the spec (which is on the Adobe page listed above).

Adobe Systems has today announced a new unified public format for raw digital camera files and a free software tool, Adobe DNG Converter, for translating raw photo formats into the new .DNG format, which is compliant with the Digital Negative Specification. There is no standard format for raw files, which vary between manufacturers and cameras. Digital Negative Specification will introduce a single format that can store information from a diverse range of cameras. An updated Adobe RAW File Converter adds support for DNG as well as several other cameras.

Click here for more information on Adobe DNG

Press Release:

Adobe Unifies Raw Photo Formats with Introduction of Digital Negative Specification Free Converter Tool Kick Starts New Digital Negative File Format by Translating Raw Formats into Easy-to-Use, Archive-Ready Files

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Sept. 27, 2004 -- Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced the Digital Negative Specification, a new unified public format for raw digital camera files. The company also launched a free software tool, Adobe DNG Converter, which translates many of today's popular raw photo formats into the new .DNG file format, compliant with the Digital Negative Specification.

Raw files, which contain the original information captured by a camera sensor prior to any in-camera processing, have become popular due to their promise of greater flexibility and image quality. Until today there has been no standard format for these files, which vary between manufacturers and individual cameras. The Digital Negative Specification solves this problem by introducing a single format that can store information from a diverse range of cameras. Technology leaders, major customers, and professional photographers today also endorsed the new specification (see separate quote sheet).

"Professional photographers and other creative professionals are moving to raw camera workflows because of the outstanding creative control they get over digital images," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Digital Imaging and Digital Video products at Adobe. "However, clients and publishers have difficulty working with disparate raw file formats and nobody can be sure that today's raw formats will be supported ten years from now. Adobe customers asked us to work on a unified, public format for raw files and that's what we've delivered with the new Digital Negative Specification."

Serious photographers want to store raw files in long-term image archives, because -- unlike standard JPEG's and TIFF's -- these files represent the pure, unaltered capture. Current raw formats are unsuitable for archiving because they are generally undocumented and tied to specific camera models, introducing the risk that the format will not be supported over time. The unified and publicly documented Digital Negative Specification ensures that digital photographs can be preserved in original form for future generations. The new .DNG file format also simplifies digital imaging workflows for creative professionals who today have to juggle multiple file formats as they bring raw images, from different cameras, into print and cross-media publishing projects.

New Specification Built on Existing Standards

The Digital Negative Specification is based on the TIFF EP format, an accepted standard, and already the basis of many proprietary raw formats. The power of .DNG format lies in a set of metadata that must be included in the file to describe key details about the camera and settings. .DNG-compliant software and hardware can adapt on the fly to handle new cameras as they are in

Elements? a good starter for photoshop, Adobe Premier LE...

take a look at this page with all these free tryouts

Acrobat

Adobe Encore DVD

Graphics Server

Adobe Graphics Server

After Effects

Atmosphere

Audition

FrameMaker

GoLive

Illustrator

InCopy

InDesign

PageMaker

Photoshop

Photoshop Elements

Premiere Pro

Streamline

Create Adobe PDF Online

What about PDF? I see patents

• 5,634,064,
• 5,737,599,
• 5,781,785,
• 5,819,301,
• 6,028,583,
• 6,289,364,
• 6,421,460,

It works pretty well. We use Adobe audition for the audio editing, and we have a near-pro setup for well under 6K total. Quite a bit cheaper than the old days!

Not to mention, getting every popular 3rd party app to conform even if they didn't mind publishing that kind of data about documents seems like it'd be a long and tedious task.

Please don't write "& etc." You see, the ampersand is actually a ligature of "et" (the common Latin word for "and"). "Etc." is an abbreviation for "et cetera," which is Latin for "and such" (basically). Instead, you could write &c or &ca, which are older ligatures for "etc." (I prefer &c myself).

Sure, I can create PDFs with no problem using various software (it's built-in to OpenOffice, for one)... but I haven't seen free or open-source software that will let me create PDF *forms*, where the user can fill in the fields before printing it out.

Actually, that brings up another issue -- even if I had Acrobat, would it let me generate PDF forms that could be saved? Most of the ones I see (I'm thinking tax forms here, actually) only let you fill in the fields and print out the result, not save your modified document with the field data.

The encryption over the air accomplishing nothing.

What I meant to say is "...nothing in terms of copy protection".

Apple knows this. Quoth Jobs:


When we first went to talk to these record companies -- about eighteen months ago -- we said, "None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.s here who know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content."


And I'm sure the record companies are figuring it out now too.

So why encrypt?

Because thanks to the DMCA which makes it ILLEGAL to crack even the most trivial of encryptions, Apple has a powerful anti-competitive tool at their disposal, which lets them use the force of law to lock out anyone who would make devices and software to compete with theirs by supporting the same formats. There, I said it. Sorry, Apple fans, but it's dirty business over there.

According to reliable sources (an anonymous forum post from google) "Each number is a multiplier used on a basic frequency of 3.375 MHz" - it relates to the analogue bandwidth (i.e. information) stored per pixel. In digital formats the representation may be quite different; in YUV formats all values are represented with 8 bits, but 2 pixels share the U and V information (it's only sampled once).

Here is some linkange.

See: here

I remember running it a couple of years ago, it was just another ugly motif applications to me ;-) But I was not a pro user.

I guess the demand for publishing under Linux stalled...

I assume you mean the adobe plugin. The project I linked to, on closer inspection, isn't actually a plugin - its built right into mozilla, but isn't enabled by default, since it lacks support for some of the necessary features.

-jim

Because something is proprietary doesn't mean it isn't a standard. There's lots and lots of examples of standards that are proprietary--GIFs, PDF, MSWord, the Philips CD, Intel's Audio Codec. That's the way things work.

Once you want to publish it to XBox, there is a licensing fee, but if I recall correctly, it's quite a bit less than Sony's or Nintendo's fee.

Linkie. There are no legal issues involved as far as I know.

I think your argument is correct. Who could possibly think there's other companies or organizations that build influential software that people use all the time?

No, truly, Microsoft is the only place to create influential software...

When looking into metadata, people should probably be sure to check out XMP

It's from Adobe, and whereas RDF just says how to format metadata, XMP addresses what to include in your RDF, and how to place it into different types of files. They have free libraries, but it's simple enough to follow even with your own code. And... given that it's how all Adobe products are doing metadata, at least in the publishing world it will probably stay something to pay attention to.

Creative Commons has addressed this, and I first hit it in researching implementing metadata support for Inkscape.

After installing this patch, I found that several of my existing programs ceased working, not that I need them for anything important - see the list below

• Adobe Creative Suite

  Macromedia Studio MX 2004

  Mozilla Firefox 0.9

  Symantec Antivirus Coprorate Edition

  Windiows Media Player 9

  Microsoft Excel 2003

  and most perplexing - Windows XP

"Finding a non-Adobe Acrobat reader that is not itself the result of a violation of an Adobe IP claim [...] is a bit problematic."

No it's not! Adobe has deliberately made PDF a public format; they freely distribute the specs and encourage others to support the format. Finding (e.g.) xpdf is not a bit problematic - there's barely a Linux vendor out there who doesn't ship it. Even The Open Group (the guys who own the UNIX(tm) trademark) have an xpdf page. Getting it to run on your platform might be problematic if you don't run a Unixlike system, but that says more about that platform than about the format.

We did this because we primarily use Discreet's 3dsmax (with Brazil and V-Ray) and Eyeon's Digital Fusion. We have found that most existing render farm solutions do not support these two packages very well -- thus we decided to develop our own custom solution. We also support After Effects, Alias|Maya, AIR and other RenderMan compliant rendering packages.

Of interest to the general Slashdot crowd may be that this Deadline Render Management Solution is based on the open source (BSD License) Exocortex C# library originally released with this C# 3D Engine. Deadline is built with C# in the hopes that using Mono we will be able to start supporting Linux with minimal extra effort.

I'll be reading all the posts on this Slashdot thread but I would also appreciate any direct feedback on our current beta product. We also found solutions such as Rush and Smedge to be less than user friendly in many respects. Thus we have tried as best as we could to increase a 3D package that is not well supported by most render farm management solutions -- except for Discreet's Backburner (which we found not that that scalable.)

Further information on running costs is available in this document (Starting at about Table 14) and this document
According to the second document licence fee revenue is 2,659million pounds.
License fee information on the bbc website

TV Licensing Website

To summarise:
Standard license fee is 121 pounds(colour television)
Black and White Television is 40.50 pounds
Registered blind people can apply for a discount of up to 50%
People over the age of 75 do not need a license

Further information on running costs is available in this document (Starting at about Table 14) and this document
According to the second document licence fee revenue is 2,659million pounds.
License fee information on the bbc website

TV Licensing Website

To summarise:
Standard license fee is 121 pounds(colour television)
Black and White Television is 40.50 pounds
Registered blind people can apply for a discount of up to 50%
People over the age of 75 do not need a license

Try here.

Sorry, this is a more direct link.

If you are looking for an SVG viewer (as I was), Adobe has one for download.

on a side note, if the professors are utilizing a lot of additional material which includes might include3 handwritten information, you might consider getting encouraging them to transcribe that material(hopefully your not the TA that has to do the transcription) into a digital for, be it text or WORD. this'll difinitely help in reducing the size of your files.

also consider looking into adobe's pdf service, if you're overwhelmed with just orginizing the material itself. probably not so kosher to suggest ity on /. but it could be something the school already has an agreement with adobe(taking into account the units of acrobat the school itself might be using). i know it's not rolling your own, but sometimes using an "out of the box" solution to get thing up and running so you can explore other solutions has it's merit as well...

"Microsoft uses DCERPC, an extension of TCP/IP, as a transport mechanism."

and this is relevant how?

it is *another* protocol in the sense that nobody would be running it if it weren't for Svn

WebDAV is an open standard that plenty of products support, including your precious arch. I'd hardly describe it as a lame duck.

Note that now they've given up on getting everyone to install Apache2 and use DAV/SSL, the recommended protocol is svnserve, which was invented from scratch.

do you have any idea what you're talking about, or do you just make things up as you go? they seem to still think that DAV is still an option. And how is it possibly bad that they give you the option of a standalone server (as well as tunelling via ssh, or filesystem access)?

the same Anon Coward

Here is a link at Adobe where you can turn any PDF into HTML.

Try the alternate Adobe Reader Download Page

All of the software, less of the HTML insanity.

That being said, I prefer XPDF. On many occasions I've found it can open PDFs that Acrobat (even Professional) can't, due to file corruption or strange PDF generation techniques. Highly recommended.