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Re: Paperwork for neXus

> Note also that the Netscape suite will occupy a significant portion
> of the ever-shrinking free space on the CD-ROM.

     owner    group        10768373 Dec 17  1997 cb32e404.exe

  10MB on > 500MB = 2% only.

    owner    group        18047392 Dec 17  1997 cp32e404.exe
  
  is twice the size but you do not need its functionality.

Of course,

ftp> ls -alF
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
----------   1 owner    group            1388 Jun 23  1997 00-index.txt
----------   1 owner    group         8590899 Sep  8  1997 cb32e403.exe
----------   1 owner    group        10768373 Dec 17  1997 cb32e404.exe
----------   1 owner    group        14270310 Sep  8  1997 cc32e403.exe
----------   1 owner    group        15937534 Dec 17  1997 cc32e404.exe
----------   1 owner    group        16368541 Sep  8  1997 cp32e403.exe
----------   1 owner    group        18047392 Dec 17  1997 cp32e404.exe
----------   1 owner    group         3554304 Aug 11  1997 g32e303.exe
----------   1 owner    group         5842432 Aug 11  1997 g32e303p.exe
----------   1 owner    group         4126208 May 15  1997 g32fr31.exe
----------   1 owner    group         6785536 May 15  1997 g32fr31p.exe
----------   1 owner    group         3512320 Aug 11  1997 n32e303.exe
----------   1 owner    group         5800448 Aug 11  1997 n32e303p.exe
----------   1 owner    group         8221605 Sep  8  1997 n32e403.exe
----------   1 owner    group         8448546 Dec 17  1997 n32e404.exe
----------   1 owner    group         4036096 May 15  1997 n32fr31.exe
----------   1 owner    group         6694912 May 15  1997 n32fr31p.exe
226 Transfer complete.

 this restricted selection of some of the more recent versions of
netscape (W95/NT) in a restricted selection of languages (e and fr)
comes to about 150MB. For the market that the NeXus CD-ROM is attempting
to fill this seems to me to have a message =>

 Personally I seriously doubt that you need to put general purpose (=
non crystallographic) software on the CD-ROM. The person who has managed
to obtain a pc with an operating system capable of running a browser
will also have found a browser as well. If you put browser software on
the CD-ROM expect to have to deal with questions concerning its
installation and running.

 Unless the content of the CD-ROM is focussed on crystallographic
information and crystallographic software and crystallographic anything,
expect the frowns of the finance committee and the executive committee
to turn into furrows! For my taste, better have the CIFs with the
structure amplitudes on the CD-ROM rather than netscape.

 Sorry to be an old bore!

> 
> >Do we agree about the fact that the primary use of Nexus is to deliver
> >information which is not accessible on the net to scientists in less 
> >developed countries?
> 
> I agree that this should be the primary function of Nexus.

  (a) For 'information' substitute 'crystallographic information'.
  (b) I did not understand the 'primary use' of NeXus in the way Yves
chooses to describe it and with which Pete is in agreement. I would
rather rephrase the sentence:

  "The primary objective of NeXus is to deliver to scientists in
developing countries lacking a reliable connection to the Internet, a
CD-ROM containing crystallographic information available on the
Internet."

  NB As opposed to Yves' definition, the information on the CD-ROM is
exactly information that is available on the Internet but which the
scientists with poor Internet connection can not tap.


H.


-- 
Howard Flack        http://www.unige.ch/crystal/ahdf/Howard.Flack.html
Laboratoire de Cristallographie               Phone:(+41 22) 702 62 49
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CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland                   Fax:(+41 22) 781 21 92

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