El Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado 2006

I ordered this from Paris via Abebooks. I ordered this version, not the one sold in the Americas because I wanted the CDROM too. The book is very good but not portable.

The basic problems with the CDROM encyclopedia:

• needs cd to run.
• RUNS CPU constantly.
• No auto highlight of search terms.
• No resizing of the screen.
• Scroll wheel on mouse does not work.

These issues are elaborated in Spanish below.

Solutions:

• Use the TomeRaider version of the Spanish Wikipedia. I note the link to DBs is returning 404 right now. . . But there is a link to a Spanish version from PDAexpertos. I registered TR3—the old version (legacy)—for $20 after using it unregistered for a semester with the English wikipedia.
• Use something to copy an ISO of the CD to your hard drive and run it there. Doing so might be illegal, however. I wonder if running the CD from your hard drive is illegal even if you paid for a CD-ROM designed to work only if you're using a CD-ROM-reader? Let me know what you think, and why. That method wouldn't solve the constant running of the CPU issue, however.

What a strange situation. In order to prevent copying of its product, a company releases an inferior and, for some users, non-functional product. On the other hand--Wikipedia has yet to see any money from me, but the people who made a reader that can handle the data get $20. I haven't given any money to the guy who made the TR3 files either. Someday I won't be bone-poor though and will be able to balance things out.

This suggests, though, that the person who can make a cross-platform reader of files that are difficult to copy may earn more money than the content producers. To some extent this is what has happened with the PDA.

In reading up on copy protection, targeted mostly to games, the sellers of the protection technologies are doing things like making game performance degrade if people use a copied version. The point is to really frustrate the copy-users by making them think they've succeeded, but then, once they get into the game, reminding them that they've failed, e.g, their gun jams inexplicably and they get shot down.

Is this just an ongoing battle between information trying to be free, and the people who create the content trying to gain resources for continued content creation?

I suppose Google is the prime example of a content aggregator/reader that makes money from providing access to content it did not produce--like TomeRaider. I suppose that Wikipedia is the testing ground to see if such a thing can happen without ads.

It is also curious that, to my knowledge, there is not yet an open-source offline reader for wikipedia. I did see signs of past attempts and a new KDE one for linux.

Mozilla, and Opera (what I use), are free. Here's why. I guess, ultimately, they are supported by advertising revenue. And including placement for google or amazon is basically advertising.

Conceivably Larousse could complement its emphasis on copy protection with advertising. Game manufacturers could do the same--like TV shows and product placement.

I suppose another place to look at for how to provide content for free is the Public Library of Science (PLOS).

Hmm.

El Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado 2006: problemas:

 Asunto: El Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado 2006: problemas
 28 de diciembre de 2005 10:47  
 Responder a: Colin Leath
 Para: larousse -at- larousse.es

Compré "El Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado 2006 Diccionario Enciclopédica Multimedia."

Me gusta el libro pero tengo unos problemas con el CD-ROM:

(1) El programa causa correr constantemente a un nivel de 100% el procesador (CPU). Es un problema grave y deja casi inútil el programa.

(2) Aunque es posible instalarse los ficheros en el disco duro, cada inicialización del programa requiere que se instale el CD-ROM. Eso no sirve porque mi computadora no tiene un CD-ROM fijado. Es una "sub-notebook" (una computador portátil: una Sony Vaio PCG-SR7K). Uso el CD-ROM sólo para instalar programas. Necesito la PCMCIA por mi adaptador de ethernet. Y no quiero traer conmigo el lector de CD-ROM.

Por esos dos problemas no puedo usar el Diccionario Enciclopédica Multimedia. Tengo cuatros diccionarios y/o enciclopedias otros (incluyendo el diccionario de la lengua española de RAE) y sólo el Larousse tiene estas dificultades.

Por favor hagan algo sobre (1) o (2), o mejor, los dos, y envíenme un edición nuevo del programa.

Otros problemas con "El Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado 2006 Diccionario Enciclopédica Multimedia" incluyen:

(3) La ventana del programa tiene un tamaño fijo pequeño y esto hace inconveniente el uso del programa.

(4) El termino de búsqueda en la casilla de consulta no se selecciona automáticamente cuando la ventana del programa tiene el enfoque de nuevo. Por eso, para borrar el término de búsqueda viejo se requieren cuatro tecleados en vez de cero.

(5) El rueda del ratón no funciona para pasar páginas, y esto hace inconveniente el uso del programa.

Felizmente, el libro funciona, aunque, igual al lector CD-ROM, no puedo traerlo conmigo.

Atentamente, Colin Leath

I got an answer! ¡Tengo una respuesta!

I'm happy to say that Larousse responded!! Contrary to his suggestion, even running the program only from the CD causes the cpu to run constantly at 100%.

Fecha: 02-ene-2006 0:40

Apreciado Sr Leath,

Lamentamos informarle que no existe una versión diferente a la que usted posee. Respeto a los puntos que usted nos indica, en el punto (1), posiblemente la utilización de CPU es debida a que el programa esta esperando encontrar el lector de CD-Rom.

Sobre el punto (2), el programa requiere del lector de CD-ROM para funcionar (indicado en los requisitos mínimos).

Respeto a sus observaciones sobre la GUI del producto, las tendremos en cuenta par próximas versiones.

Atentamente,

Larousse Editorial