Re: [DL] Random RV&C2 quesitons [John Goff]

[darklord@dark-sky.net]

Nick Zachariasen wrote:

> ever thought of putting an HTML
> front
> > end to the books so people could pop in a few keywords and have it return
> a book
> > name and pg number?  Now that would be sweet!
>
> That would be nice, but you have to consider piracy issues.  One electronic
> document could easily become a thousand overnight.
>
> Nick "Arr, mateys!!" Zachariasen

ahhh, but I said nothing about putting the whole book on the net, open to the
public, available for download. What I was talking about was data basing all
the books (time consuming I know, but hear me out):

Set up a database (huge as it may be) like this

Column one:  Book Name
Column two:  Page Number
Column three:  Paragraph number
Column four:  "The actual paragraph from the book"

put the database on the web (some type of sql server I'd imagine)
set up a web interface to type in keywords (much like a search engine),
set it up to search column four for those keywords, which would return Column's
1-3's info, AND THAT'S IT, in no way shape or form would column four be
returned to the user so the actual material of the book would never be shown.
have the actual database file be stored someplace on the site with restrictions
that it can NEVER BE DOWNLOADED, only searched, and have it encrypted to boot.

oh, and NEVER distribute this on CD, with he proliferation of CD Burners out
there, you might as well reduce the prices of all the books to $.50 apiece
cause that cd would be duplicated a million times over... (I mean how many
people out there actually paid for the AD&D Core rules CD Rom, 1 outta 5, 1
outta 10?)

My point is it wouldn't be a bad idea if the proper security is placed on it
(I know now that I said that, that one of the other techno junkies on the list
will completely disprove everything I have just said.)

--Dirk