At 12:29 AM -0500 9/17/02, Richard Moody wrote: >Greetings Andy and List > I would like to propose an "indexing" of the Pianotech >Archives. This would entail going through the archive and >retrieving all emails pertinent to piano technology. Then is of course a piece of manual labor, performed on the 117,000 posts in the archive. Did you have anybody in mind for doing this? I hope not Andy. He just finished the massive job of bringing all those records forward from a "legacy" format, with all the associated data cleaning. And that did not entail an judgement in each individual case as to whether the post was "OT" (on-topic) or "OT" (off-topic). We could certainly come up with an outline of subject, but it would still require someone going through 117K records and tagging each one ("Board/New/Ribs/Feathering"). Is this a job for a single person, or for a massively parallel team? Good question. >Then entering these posts in HTML or similar format so that they can be >indexed and accessed easily by the home PC. I'd like to encourage people to construct their own searchable databases of the archives. Certainly this is a local solution, based on an individual's platform (OS), hardware (Processor speed and RAM), and resident database. I've talked with Andy about this, and thanks to his fine work, the whole enchilada is both 1.) plain text uncluttered by embedded formatting, and 2.) easily readable by an app based on the widely recognized Unix .mbox format. My own database will have no trouble importing. The most difficult part of the job is converting data info in text format in to date format, and it's no special trick. But that's my local solution, based on Mac OS 9.1, DualG4 450MHz processors, 1024MB of RAM, and the RAM-based and extremely capable cross-platform database Panorama by ProVue Development. (<http://www.provue.com/panorama.html>). The whole enchilada barely takes up 36% of a CD-ROM. (No, I would not expect FilemakerPro to do a good job of this. I have no direct experience with MS Access. By hearsay, it has a steep learning curve but is otherwise well-equipped.) That's my solution which might be useful for list member with matching hardware/software. I'm sure there are others on the list with db experience who can work out solutions for local situations so common-denominator as to border on a general solution. (For instance, my conversion of the long text file into a database record/field structure would yield a tab-delimited text file with any data-cleaning already done, and ready for a simple import.) > This would leave the present archive intact with every message >every ever posted and also offer a "compiled archive" in which >specific information can be better and more quickly accessed. What I have in mind will include streamlined search/select capabilities ("Build me a list of every thread containing the words 'epoxy' AND 'bridge' in the message"), and also a writing console. Then of course, I'll need a way of transferring the the packaged email to Eudora for xmitting. ("Beautiful dreamer, dream unto me....."). Bill Ballard RPT NH Chapter, P.T.G. "The box said 'Requires Windows 98, or better.' So I bought a Macintosh." ...........a wag from the Web +++++++++++++++++++++
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