Talk:Osho Books on CD-ROM: Difference between revisions
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: | anyone know the first edition publication date? --[[User:Rudra|Rudra]] ([[User talk:Rudra|talk]]) 18:40, 6 September 2014 (PDT) | ||
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:Osho Books on CD-ROM, or Osho Books Database, as it has become known among net sharers, is pretty much the most stupendous and awesome tool for finding specific words of Osho's there is and ever has been. Even now (2014), more than twenty years old, it still cannot be beat, though various forces are chipping away at it. Herewith a brief history and overview of its features, limitations and availability. | |||
=== History === | === History === | ||
:In the beginning was the word. And the word was ... Oops, wrong liturgy! In the beginning was the Silver Platter, as it was first known. Emerging digital technologies were opening up an amazing array of possibilities, which dovetailed nicely with the need to "organize" Osho's words and make them more accessible than ever. And so it came to pass that all of Osho's English books were scanned and the images read and "translated" with new, primitive but adequate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software into editable text. | :In the beginning was the word. And the word was ... Oops, wrong liturgy! In the beginning was the Silver Platter, as it was first known. Emerging digital technologies were opening up an amazing array of possibilities, which dovetailed nicely with the need to "organize" Osho's words and make them more accessible than ever. And so it came to pass that all of Osho's English books were scanned and the images read and "translated" with new, primitive but adequate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software into editable text. | ||
:And this text could be put into one giant file, 100MB for 305 books, in which word searches could be carried out. And for such giant files, a special kind of search was needed, and so one came along to fill the bill. Folio VIP developed a kind of search that still has no equal, with tools that would allow finding words in proximity to each other and much much more. Subjects, themes, specific quotes, jokes, all findable in that mountain of books. Now it was | :And this text could be put into one giant file, 100MB for 305 books, in which word searches could be carried out. And for such giant files, a special kind of search was needed, and so one came along to fill the bill. Folio VIP developed a kind of search that still has no equal, with tools that would allow finding words in proximity to each other and much much more. Subjects, themes, specific quotes, jokes, all findable in that mountain of books. Now it was Osho Books on CD-ROM. | ||
:A CD-ROM is of course just a generic device, but for sannyasins with access to it, this was THE CD-ROM, needing no qualifying or descriptive terms. Access was restricted to certain workers for some years but its desirability was immense and it was inevitable that copies started leaking out. Soon copies of copies spread far and wide and it was not long before they were being shared on the net. Disconnected from its physical body, a disc, it | :A CD-ROM is of course just a generic device, but for sannyasins with access to it, this was THE CD-ROM, needing no qualifying or descriptive terms. Access was restricted to certain workers for some years but its desirability was immense and it was inevitable that copies started leaking out. Soon copies of copies spread far and wide and it was not long before they were being shared on the net. Disconnected from its physical body, a disc, it became known as the Osho Books Database, or just the Database. | ||
=== Features === | === Features === | ||
: | : The uniqueness of Folio's search tools is likely less because of their technical genius and more just because the market for such software is fairly limited, so that even now it has not been much developed. The history above referred to proximity searches. The basic building block of this function is first grouping all the words into paragraph units, so that searching for two or more words at once finds all their occurrences in the same paragraph. Other giant file search services do this too, but Folio added Boolean and other search modes, "or," "not," exact quote, "wild card" modes and so on, and its pièce de résistance, a search for two words with a specified closeness, eg within six words of each other. | ||
: | :Besides the variety of tools to refine searches, there is an excellent help section dealing with how to apply the tools specifically to Osho's words, and a well-organized set of appendices to assist in that application. Outside of their uses ancillary to the search tools, the appendices can be used directly by researchers as sources of information. One recent example in the wiki is at [[Talk:Who Is Progressive?]]. | ||
:Ah, this! | :Another feature of the CD-ROM/Database is its treasure trove of unpublished books. These are books whose text has been through a rough edit but never went further than that to actual publication. There are sixteen such Darshan Diaries, six volumes of Last Testaments and a few other books, most of which will likely never be published. Thus this is the only form in which this significant portion of Osho's oeuvre is available anywhere. Ah, this! | ||
=== Limitations === | === Limitations === | ||
| Line 24: | Line 27: | ||
:And with the technical fixes / updates, who knows?, may come content updates, all the new Hindi translations and ... well, that OCR was never perfect, so there are more than a few typo-type mistakes to clean up. Lots to do on the never-ending journey to perfection! | :And with the technical fixes / updates, who knows?, may come content updates, all the new Hindi translations and ... well, that OCR was never perfect, so there are more than a few typo-type mistakes to clean up. Lots to do on the never-ending journey to perfection! | ||
--[[User:Sarlo|Sarlo]] ([[User talk:Sarlo|talk]]) | === Availability === | ||
: So, dude, where can this, like, totally excellent product be obtained, eh? It is said that the CD-ROM was available as an authorized commercial product briefly in 1994-95 but this was discontinued. (The text on the image of the CD-ROM seems to support this possibility.) So now there are the copies of copies and whatever can be found on the net. Open sharing via file-sharing sites was prevalent for a few years but seems to have been finally (2010?) squelched by the (claimed) copyright holder. But web hosting in some countries such as India and Russia is out of reach of copyright holders and so there is [http://www.oshorajneesh.com/osho-books-database-download.htm a site in India] where it can be downloaded. The site owner, [[Sw Rajneesh]], enjoys his image as an Osho rebel and is willing to bear the bandwidth costs, so this situation may persist for a while. | |||
-- updated [[User:Sarlo|Sarlo]] ([[User talk:Sarlo|talk]]) 12:19, 7 September 2014 (PDT) | |||
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Revision as of 19:19, 7 September 2014
anyone know the first edition publication date? --Rudra (talk) 18:40, 6 September 2014 (PDT)
- Osho Books on CD-ROM, or Osho Books Database, as it has become known among net sharers, is pretty much the most stupendous and awesome tool for finding specific words of Osho's there is and ever has been. Even now (2014), more than twenty years old, it still cannot be beat, though various forces are chipping away at it. Herewith a brief history and overview of its features, limitations and availability.
History
- In the beginning was the word. And the word was ... Oops, wrong liturgy! In the beginning was the Silver Platter, as it was first known. Emerging digital technologies were opening up an amazing array of possibilities, which dovetailed nicely with the need to "organize" Osho's words and make them more accessible than ever. And so it came to pass that all of Osho's English books were scanned and the images read and "translated" with new, primitive but adequate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software into editable text.
- And this text could be put into one giant file, 100MB for 305 books, in which word searches could be carried out. And for such giant files, a special kind of search was needed, and so one came along to fill the bill. Folio VIP developed a kind of search that still has no equal, with tools that would allow finding words in proximity to each other and much much more. Subjects, themes, specific quotes, jokes, all findable in that mountain of books. Now it was Osho Books on CD-ROM.
- A CD-ROM is of course just a generic device, but for sannyasins with access to it, this was THE CD-ROM, needing no qualifying or descriptive terms. Access was restricted to certain workers for some years but its desirability was immense and it was inevitable that copies started leaking out. Soon copies of copies spread far and wide and it was not long before they were being shared on the net. Disconnected from its physical body, a disc, it became known as the Osho Books Database, or just the Database.
Features
- The uniqueness of Folio's search tools is likely less because of their technical genius and more just because the market for such software is fairly limited, so that even now it has not been much developed. The history above referred to proximity searches. The basic building block of this function is first grouping all the words into paragraph units, so that searching for two or more words at once finds all their occurrences in the same paragraph. Other giant file search services do this too, but Folio added Boolean and other search modes, "or," "not," exact quote, "wild card" modes and so on, and its pièce de résistance, a search for two words with a specified closeness, eg within six words of each other.
- Besides the variety of tools to refine searches, there is an excellent help section dealing with how to apply the tools specifically to Osho's words, and a well-organized set of appendices to assist in that application. Outside of their uses ancillary to the search tools, the appendices can be used directly by researchers as sources of information. One recent example in the wiki is at Talk:Who Is Progressive?.
- Another feature of the CD-ROM/Database is its treasure trove of unpublished books. These are books whose text has been through a rough edit but never went further than that to actual publication. There are sixteen such Darshan Diaries, six volumes of Last Testaments and a few other books, most of which will likely never be published. Thus this is the only form in which this significant portion of Osho's oeuvre is available anywhere. Ah, this!
Limitations
- One obvious limitation is that it is only useful for searches in English. A Hindi equivalent may eventually happen but would require everything to be done more or less from scratch, both scanning and software. A related limitation in the English Database is that many titles have been translated from Hindi since the early 90s but have not been added.
- And there are these technical limitations: From the very beginning, this marvel has only been available for computers using Windows, or with such shoehorn apps as allow Windows to run on Macs and other OS's. A more serious limitation has developed in the last five or so years whereby the newer versions of Windows will not run the Database at all. Win 7 32-bit and older will, Win 7 64-bit and newer will not. Is the Database on its way to the scrapheap of history?
- Negatory. There are signs that help is on the way. There are currents flowing. As before, it is too big to contain or stop, but the exact nature of the help that is being and will be developed to bring it back into use and accessibility by newer computers is not known. Stay tuned, and don't throw out those older machines just yet!
- And with the technical fixes / updates, who knows?, may come content updates, all the new Hindi translations and ... well, that OCR was never perfect, so there are more than a few typo-type mistakes to clean up. Lots to do on the never-ending journey to perfection!
Availability
- So, dude, where can this, like, totally excellent product be obtained, eh? It is said that the CD-ROM was available as an authorized commercial product briefly in 1994-95 but this was discontinued. (The text on the image of the CD-ROM seems to support this possibility.) So now there are the copies of copies and whatever can be found on the net. Open sharing via file-sharing sites was prevalent for a few years but seems to have been finally (2010?) squelched by the (claimed) copyright holder. But web hosting in some countries such as India and Russia is out of reach of copyright holders and so there is a site in India where it can be downloaded. The site owner, Sw Rajneesh, enjoys his image as an Osho rebel and is willing to bear the bandwidth costs, so this situation may persist for a while.
-- updated Sarlo (talk) 12:19, 7 September 2014 (PDT)
