8 Responses to Typewriter Database: Weekend Update!

1. maschinengeschrieben says:

   January 28, 2013 at 1:33 pm

   That’s a really cool idea. Count me in.

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2. Scott K says:

   January 28, 2013 at 2:16 pm

   Dude…. you’re on fire with this. The database is going to be bigger and better than ever!

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3. Richard P says:

   January 28, 2013 at 9:09 pm

   OK, this is like adding bacon to salad!

   Or something like that. My point is that you are thinking creatively and this could be big.

   I think some whining in the early stages may make things better in the long run, so: Your main image of the Smith-Corona Electric is gigantic (1.5 MB). Not everyone has a T1 line.

   The “last updated” time is a good feature.

   “Seidelnau” won’t make sense to most users, by the way. In fact, even “Seidel & Naumann” will mystify many people looking for info on their Erika or Ideal.

   I have a large collection of photos harvested from eBay over the years, but I assume those are not fair game. You mean that we should upload photos that we took ourselves, whether or not we own the machines we photographed, right? The policy would make sense to me.

   Thanks!!

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   • munk says:

     January 29, 2013 at 10:58 am

     Re: 5TE Pic; yes, I know – that’s a test pic that is a 24bit PNG with a transparent background. I’m using it to test the ability of the watermarking function to embed the watermark in these types of files without jacking up the Alpha transparency of the original image. It still chokes on GIFs and BMPs. Normally, people will be just uploading JPG’s, I’m sure, but the anal retentive programmer in me insists on properly error-handling any format that someone might try to upload. :P

     Re: Erika, etc. Yes, One of the things I did this weekend is finally import the manufacturer data into a relational database (this is what allows me to attach machine galleries to manufacturers in a way that makes sense to the computer). The next step for that particular sub-project is to set up aliases for manufacturer alternate names, such as equating Erika == Seidelnau == Ideal, etc. The main quandry I’m facing there is figuring out how to handle certain store brands like Tower, where the actual manufacturer could be one of 5 or 6 different companies. Still pondering that, but soon these aliases will start appearing in the Manufacturer list and will direct to the appropriate parent manufacturer page.

     RE: using eBay pics (or pics stolen from other blogs or sites). That will absolutely be verboten, for a few reasons:

     1) eBay users probably wouldn’t appreciate us stealing their pics any more than we appreciate them stealing ours.
     2) eBay pics are unlikely to include serial numbers or well-researched dates, so are counterproductive to the research goal of the site.
     3) Typewriter Hunters should get out and hunt in the “Big Room With The Blue Ceiling And the Billion-Watt Lightbulb”, not sit in their chairs and swipe JPGs while sucking down Cheetos and Mountain Dew. Typewriter Hunting is about fieldwork and the Thrill of the Find and getting the T-Bone tingling.

     So yes, Use only your pics, or ones taken for you (like if you get your buddy with the thousand-dollar DSLR to take nice pics of your collection). I would also be OK if you convinced a friend or two to go out on hunts and take pics, note down serial numbers and get type samples for you. The game is about the fun of the hunt! (:

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     • munk says:

       January 29, 2013 at 11:12 am

       oh, while I’m thinking about special cases, I could use some advice from academics and library science people about certain cases like Museum displays of typewriters. How do museums regard people taking pics of their displays and copying serial numbers for research purposes? Are they likely to be against that, or for it, if the records are properly credited?

       Also, I expect to spend some time photographing machines at my local typewriter shop during my hunting. I think that, properly credited and researched, this sort of thing would be OK too.

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4. Dwayne F. says:

   January 28, 2013 at 9:53 pm

   This looks amazing! Thanks for getting the database up to speed. I can’t wait to see what shows up on the collection sections.

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5. Nat says:

   January 29, 2013 at 6:34 am

   Sweeeeet!
   Can’t wait to see it all done up!

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6. Michael Höhne says:

   January 31, 2013 at 6:35 am

   Holy Cow! I knew someday someone would improve (i.e., salvage) the olde Typewriter Database, but I didn’t dare hope for this much! Wonderful! Thanks!

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