JANUARY 2003 - Vol 19 - Issue 01

Newsletter - Internet Edition

Just about everyone with a computer has probably tried their luck with downloading MP3 files. In the past two years I've put together quite a collection of songs from the 1920's through the 1970's, accumulating almost 3,000 songs during that time. I've covered the Big Band era, easy listening, holiday music, country, folk, classical - just about every genre you can imagine. During one of my many afternoons of surfing the net looking for that one elusive MP3 that would fill another CD-R, I came across a genre that was new to me but may be of interest to members of our club.

The name of these new finds is "Old Time Radio Show" or OTR's for short. What could be a better use for the MP3 format than OTR's! Most OTR's length is from 15 minutes to 1 hour. In regular "wav" format the size of one of these files could be from 60 MB to 400 MB but in MP3 format an average show is from 3 MB to 30 MB. Another advantage is that since most of these shows are from the 1920's through the 1950's the sound quality of course are not up to par with newly recorded material. This again saves you room on your hard drive because you don't have to use a bit rate of 128 kbps but can use 24 to 64 bits. (Most OTR's I've downloaded from the net are in 24 to 32 kbps.) This lower bit rate saves much space and when played back kind of gives the performance that "old time radio sound". You can easily record 60 hours of OTR's onto one CD-R, using the lower bit rates, without sacrificing sound quality.

As to the quantity of OTR's available on the net, I have found at least 560 different series and as many as 57,000 different programs. Some of the more popular and easy to find are - Amos & Andy, The Shadow, Fibber McGee & Molly, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Dragnet, Inner Sanctum, I Love a Mystery and the list just goes on. Most of these shows include the original commercials that were aired at that time. The shows started becoming popular in the late 1920's and I have some from as recently as the 1980's. I have many of the "Classic Books" presented in OTR format. These are not audio books where one person just reads to you, but full productions with sound effects, music and such. Most of these last from one hour to three hours. The late Orson Wells was involved with many of "Classics". Some titles are "War of the Worlds", "A Christmas Carol", "Pride and Prejudice", "Time Machine" etc.

Finding these programs on the net is even easier than music. There are thousands of individuals who collect OTR's as a hobby. Most of them have their own websites and offer a few selections to download changing the selection each week or month. Many sites will also send you an email when new offerings are available. You can go to Google or any search engine and key in "OTR" or "Old Time Radio Shows" and you will get thousands of different sites. Also using one of the many music download sites, such as KaZaa, keying in the name of the series will bring up hundreds of results. You can join OTR clubs at any of the major websites like AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. There are OTR trade and share sites where you post a listing of the shows you have and can trade via CD-R with others for shows you need.

If you are running out of hard disk space or don't have a CD burner you can still enjoy the experience of OTR's. There are many sites on the web that broadcast the shows over the web in different formats. All you need to listen to these is one of the many free media players available on the web.

Turn off the TV some night, relax and listen to one of these shows and you to may find that MP3's are not just about music!!

Here are a few sites to get you started: http://old-time-radio.com/ http://www.starcreations.com/otr/links/MP3links.htm http://www.homestead.com/repsonline/BrowserDownloads.html http://users2.ev1.net/~ey/audio.html http://www.otrcat.com/index.html

This article was originally published in the July 2002 issue of the PC News. There is no restriction against any non-profit group using the article as long as it is kept in context, with proper credit given to the author. This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization to which this user group belongs.

Beginning with version 3 of Distiller over 4 years ago, to present, I've been creating PDFs with a wide variety of applications. I was asked to share some of my tips in how to create not only a great looking PDF document, but also one that has a small filesize.

The latest version of Adobe's Acrobat (v5) is available for all versions of Windows and Mac systems. [www.adobe.com] Although I use a Windows XP based system, most of what I have to say applies to all users.

Postscript Printer Device.
Install a postscript printer driver for your system if you don't have one installed yet. Every version of Windows since 95 has a generic postscript driver available. There is also a free version included on the CD of nearly every Adobe product. Adobe's website has a free download for the latest version; simply download the one appropriate for your operating system. This is usually newer than the one included on system CDs, so this is the one I would recommend obtaining. After you've installed it, make sure you have the output set to go to file if you don't actually have a postscript printer.

Desktop Publishing and word processing programs designed for both Mac and Windows systems are WYSIWYG. This means they do their best to show you on screen what the document you are working on will look like when printed. If the program you're using won't let you specify that postscript printer as the output device, make it the default printer before opening whatever program you plan to use. Make the WYSIWYG properties of your system work for you!

Font Choices.
One of the beauties of PDF documents is that they can include fonts within them, so whoever receives it can see and print it exactly as you've intended. This will increase the filesize though. As much as possible, stick to core fonts used within all systems so they won't need to be included in PDF. For Mac users, and those with Adobe Type Manager (ATM) installed on Windows, stick to Times & Helvetica. Windows users without ATM get nearly the same results by sticking to the True Type fonts of Arial & Times New Roman.

The exception to this general rule of thumb is Windows XP users. All of the fonts included within XP are in the new OpenType format. These fonts are equally supported under both Mac, and Windows XP systems.

Font Issues.
There are several known font problems & issues which can affect your ability to create a PDF document. I'll try to cover the most common in a brief manner here. For more on specific fonts, and other less common issues, I'd suggest reading the free FAQ files for Acrobat found on Adobe's forums. These are updated frequently. One issue involves specific Type 1 (postscript) fonts used under XP. Until XP, Windows users had to have a version of Adobe's Type Manager (ATM) installed to obtain support for these fonts. Unfortunately, some Type 1 typefaces will not work as they should under XP unless the Deluxe version of ATM is installed. (See Adobe's FAQs for font list.)

The next known issue is a little more complicated. All fonts, True Type or Type 1, include a setting which indicates if the font designer was willing to allow the font to be embedded. Unfortunately, thousands of TrueType fonts were released and or included with software set not to allow embedding either by mistake, or because the company chose not to allow it. Corel Corp. is the only company I know of that offered `fixed' versions for their users. (For those who had purchased the 2000 version of WordPerfect Suite.)

Complicating this mess even further is that it is rather difficult for most users to tell which way the fonts they use are set. The easiest way, I think, involves Adobe's PDF Writer included in the Acrobat package. Switch to your Printer folder, and open the Properties for PDF Writer. Click on the Font Embedding tab. (XP users will need to click on Printing Preferences, and then Font Embedding.) Scroll thru the list under the `Never Embed' section to see what is listed. In Acrobat v5, fonts set not to allow embedding will appear in a red typeface. (Those appearing in blue are considered `core' fonts as mention previously.) Either install the Type 1 version of that font, or switch to a different typeface.

The last most common problem I'm going to cover involves corrupted fonts on Windows systems. Any typeface can become corrupted, or perhaps it was never installed properly to begin with. Detecting these kinds of problems can be difficult. Font Agent, a font optimization tool created by Insider Software [www.insidersoftware.com] can become a lifesaver. It can check True Type, Type 1, and OpenType fonts either installed, or not and reports what it finds. The demo version (unregistered) stops there, but the full version will assist you in correcting whatever problems are found.

Reduce Color Palette.
Some programs will automatically include a basic palette of 4 to 16 colors, even if you've never used any of them in your PDF document. The more colors in your palette, the larger the file size will be. Check your program's documentation to see what you can do to reduce the included color palette. Use settings for `spot' colors, or find an option in your print menu to include only colors actually used. Graphic Formats. A PDF document is a special type of postscript, so using graphic formats close to that is the wisest choice. EPS (encapsulated postscript) is considered the standard for all vector (raster) based graphics. There is some debate over which bitmap format is the best, so I'll share what I know. By default, bitmaps are usually converted to JPG images during PDF creation. However, the JPG format is a `lossy' format. When creating documents, I prefer to use the TIF format so there won't be any loss of data until the final step. Further, as I'm usually using PageMaker to create the document, I can control how much compression is used for the JPG images as the PDF is created. In general, compression of 10 to 25 percent usually doesn't detract from image quality.

One thing all users should remember to do is to optimize the bitmap before placing it inside your document. Check the documentation for whatever digital editor program you use for how to reduce the color palette, and resolution. In general, I aim for a color palette of under 256 colors, and around 96dpi. However, how much you reduce it is a matter of personal preference.

Other tips for PageMaker users.
Use the Place command in the File menu to import all graphics. This forces the use of PageMaker's import filters. Due to large image size, especially for publications to be printed, linking to the file rather than including it within the document is common. Just make sure those files are present prior to creating the PDF.

Use PDF Writer or Distiller?
Distiller clearly creates better PDF files, averaging anything from 25% to 50% smaller. Some programs have trouble using it as a print device, so here's my work-around for that situation. Create a postscript file by `printing' to the postscript printer you installed. (Make sure output will go to file!) Change filename, if needed, to have the PS extension. Open Distiller, and have it work on the results.

If PDF Writer must be used, do the following: Open the PDF in Acrobat and use the Save As command under File. Make sure the `Optimize PDF' setting is enabled. Compare the results to the one created by PDF Writer, and you should see a significant drop in file size.

Optimize for Screen or Print?
Unless you're creating a PDF to be printed on a high-end device (printing more than 1200dpi or better), use screen optimization. It will reduce file size. Enough information is included that, if printed, the results should be quite satisfactory.

Summary.
Some of these tips may seem obvious to anyone with experience in creating PDF documents. They would, I hope, be of value to someone creating their first one. If anyone has another suggestion they'd like to share on this topic, send it along!

Irene M. Kraus is a writer, graphic and web page designer, and heads Computer Erie Bay User Group (CEBUG) based in Erie County, Ohio. Write to her at [info@design-comp.com]. Samples of past work can be found at [www.design-comp.com]. This article was originally printed in APCUG Reports July 2002 Vol. 13 No. 3 Page 24 Reprint Policy (this section need not be reprinted if publication includes statement like this)

Reprints in nonprofit publications, such as that of computer user groups, may be done without need to request permission provided article content is not modified in any way. Author bio paragraph, including e-mail & web site address is considered part of article and must be included. If long, please split into 2 or more articles and run in consecutive issues. Copyright to article remains with author: Irene M. Kraus, 1406 Dixon Dr., Sandusky, OH 44870-4341. Voice (419) 626-2606. Written May 6, 2002.

The GENSIG group's January meeting is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Saturday, January 11, 2003. The meeting will be held in the Conference Room of American Mortgage and Financial Services, 216 North Main Street, Goshen, IN 46526. We use their High Speed Internet StarBand Satellite System for Genealogy Research during the meeting, and we use the Video projector for sharing our information during the meeting. The coffee pot will be on. Bring a friend.