Internet Listings

[Ron Berry]

I have been sitting back reading the ideas about putting the RPT listings on
the WWW page.  There have been many things that I had not thought of.  It
does strike me however, that  a large percentage of those on this list are
University technicians.   I can see that the idea of doing some kind of
"Yellow Pages" advertising may not seem necessary or even desirable.  I have
a feeling there may be a large group of PTG members who would feel very
differently.

I can see that it would be necessary to have a mechanism so that people can
be kept off the list.  Perhaps even having it be only those who sign on
would be there.  It appears that it would take a fairly large amount of work
to produce and maintain.  The home office could use a special code and
produce the files.  Some technicians might want to have their own WWW page.
I think this could be a benefit to RPTs and the public, but the question is
whether it would be worth the effort.

I agree that we can start adding pictures of interesting pianos.  The
magazine I was reading about Web pages said they need to have enough changes
to keep people coming back once a week or so.  That may be a bit ambitious.
We have a 2Meg limit for all our files,  we currently have 175K there now.
Pictures and especially video will take up lots of space.  Even sound files
hardly seem worth downloading at 14,400.  It always seems to take about 10
minutes to get 20-30 seconds of sound.  But this will all change.  In the
next few years we will see better cable coming to our homes and faster
transfer rates.  My next thought for more material is to contact Bruce
Dornfeld of the PTG Foundation and see what historical pictures he has.  We
must be careful about copyrights here.  There are some great books full of
pictures, but I'm sure we can come up with some new ones.

I have announced the page on rec.music.makers.piano and have asked the
teachers there to supply us with information they might like to have on the
page.  They are working on some FAQs and those seem like the kind of
information that can go on a Web Page.

I kind of pushed this project along just so we have something in place.  It
will grow and change and take on a life of its own.

Ron
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Ron Berry, RPT (Registered Piano Technician)
ronberry@iquest.net

Check out the Piano Page at http://www.prairienet.org/arts/ptg/homepage.html
for some great information and links about pianos!
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