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PDF documents - is there a good tool for remote collaboration: highlightings, annotations, comments, notes?
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Posted by 22111
Jan 14, 2014 at 06:37 PM
“I focus on the intellectual labour market because only in this domain have we been spoilt to expect something for nothing. I know of no manual labourer who has ever expected his/her tool to be provided for free, be it a tractor or a screwdriver. But the fact that information reproduction is very cheap, doesn’t reduce the effort required for its creation.”
Well, that’s simplifying. In fact, for any tractor/screwdriver, there is a specific cost of production, and thus a specific profit margin (depending on scale, and of other factors, of course) - in sw/info/creation, there is no such relationship.
As we all know, this has made the fortune of Billyboy, and all that money he today gives out to Africa and to whatever it may be (some people who are more interested in his today’s doings call him a “killer”, a “murderer”, so it seems they are not d’accord with his choices to spend money), HE STOLE FROM ALL OF US, by charging his products way too high - on the other hand, whenever it was suitable to throw away his products, for a time, or for specific user groups for some time, he and his men did so, in order to “get the market”, fully, i.e. in order to ruin possible alternatives.
Mr. Jain invariably touting his products here, he’s right in not wanting to give away his work; it’s just “the market”, i.e. the immediate competition’s prices that makes his prices appear rather “high”. Also, many developers live in third-world countries (e.g. Bulgaria ;-) ) where regular families live on 200 euro a month, at best, and they “profit” from a MyInfo price of 100 dollars plus VAT much more than would profit a US developer from Ultra Recall’s 100 dollars plus VAT; on arrival, the first might seem “overpriced”, whilst the second one might appear “cheap” (and that explains at least some of the differences in motivation for both developers).
Now back to tractors and screwdrivers: You, as a consumer, have some notion (which might be partly erroneous) of the “real value” of that tool, which means you assume a “real production cost” (including all costs up to the arrival of the thing at your place) of x, and you include some “assumed gain”, and if that price seems acceptable (or even “advantageous”) to you, and you want to have that product, you buy, at the price they are asking. Of course, there are many manufacturers where it becomes quite evident if they charge too much since in the papers, you’ll read about their crazy profit last year (but even then, as a consumer, you do some little, spontaneous maths in order to see of how many deals those profits come from (e.g. you accept the profits of big food conglomerates since you rightly assume that on that piece of food you buy from them, they just “make” 1/2 cent, and you “allow” them that 1/2 cent - perhaps it’s even 3 cent since they exploit their supplier, but you won’t know that; on petrol/gas, it’s different, but there you can’t do anything about it - when crude oil was very expensive some time ago, petrol prices roared; they did not fall accordingly in the meanwhile, but the difference forms additional, undue profit for the oil conglomerates now).
There is a more or less direct relationship between value and price, since for products like tractors and screwdrivers, the market will proceed to some nivellation, and so in most cases, margin costs will make that no “regular” maker of some “regular” product will get an outrageous profit out of his sale to you. (We’re not speaking of Porsche who are said to make 30,000 euro benefit on a 90,000 euro car (in Germany; abroad they sell for much less), we’re not speaking of Hermès who sell their ladies’ bags for some 8,000 euro (lizard being 40,000 or much more), we’re not speaking of John Lobb shoes… and certainly not of iPad and all the overpriced Jobs stuff or other Rollers: here, you pay the regular price for the regular value, and then 50 p.c. on top in order to prove to third parties you own the means to have those products - and indeed, it’s a very smart move to have been able to introduce such statusware even in the easily-attainable 800 euro price range, as Apple did, when in former times, status only could be bought by a minority (but even then, Hermès sold scarfs for some hundred of euro “only”, of which many women made “collections”, depending on their individual means)).
But again, those are statusware, whilst for regular products, you accept regular profit margins, and both users and makers accept those rules of the game, of some “10 p.c. for them, for their efforts”.
Now all this direct relationship between product and acceptable price is doomed with sw, with novels, with copyright products, and you perfectly know that the bestseller in the bookstore which they sell you for 48 euro there, has some printing cost of 3 euro 50.
In ancient times, sw was sold in physical packages, and with often splendid manuals of sometimes thousands of pages, so at least in part, you were aware that the makers had spent some real money on you (margin costs for the package delivered to you).
Also, you were aware that sw development was man time, i.e. real cost, born by somebody, and those were the times both Word or Word Perfect were more than 800 Deutschmarks each, today’s value at last 1,600 euro, perhaps 1,800.
Now back to MS - they PROVED TO ANYBODY that sw prices had NOTHING to do with any real cost on the side of the developer, and so today’s users say, it’s not my problem if the developer (individual or corporate, no matter) isn’t smart enough to recoup his cost on a max number of users; I’m unwilling to enrich him unduly (with some exceptions in the professional area where it’s more a “what does it offer to us, on top of what we would get with alternatives”) - and as said, this “risk” is bigger when buying from Beijing, than from Utah.
In the end, the unwillingness of users to pay for sw, and to pay for content (where so much content is provided for free, or seemingly for free), has two sources: Total opacity of the profits the providers makes on the price he’s asking from you, which triggers your fear you will be paying too much, and also your (real) lack of responsibility in the maker’s success in finding a sufficient user base, by which then he would be correctly paid: You’re not (morally or financially) responsible for topping up a “fair” price (i.e. a price you deem “fair” when the developer / copyright owner arrives at selling many copies of his “work”) by 50, 100 or 300 p.c. for the only reason that that copyright holder isn’t “smart” enough to sell in (adequate) numbers. (We ain’t speaking of “select sw” here, i.e. a kind of sw where the developer could rise the price by giving you status - it seems that sub market is held by individual sw only. (Of course, it could be worthwile to muse a little bit about such an alternative, “999 installations worldwide” - but giving exclusive access to WHAT, to make such a scheme tempting for the buyer?)
Perhaps I overlooked additional factors, but one thing is for sure, it’s again Gates (and the Oracle owner and what you can read about his riches) that makes people think, above any other factor, that sw developers take too much whenever they don’t ask but for a real cheap price, so it’s certainly a simplification to assume that people, for sw or for literary right, might think, “there’s nothing tangible, there’s no physical product, so I want it for nothing”.
It’s the perceived value, even of non-tangible products, and which is not presented in any plausible way to the consumer, and which thus is simply not there for the consumer.
All this in pre-conscious, not consciously “weighted” by the consumer, but he gets a “feeling” for the “right price”, and since no developer except for MS/Oracle and such (and where you can see they charge far too much) communicates his “numbers”, the consumer will never ever pay 1,800 euro for a thing like Word or Word Perfect anymore.
(As for Hollywood films and for bubble gum music, that’s another phenomenon even: it’s all for immediate consumption, it doesn’t have any (perceived or real) “standing power” value - cf. people of “art house films” and “special music” who are much more willing to buy what they consume - and then, let’s face it, the consumer will also tell himself, well, the “artist” will get all those chicks I won’t get, and by that alone, he’s “paid enough” (since I would do it for the chicks alone).)
Sorry, folks, but if you insist on just writing some lines on a subject, you’ll leave out important things, very often, and just some months ago, the (German) Harvard Business Manager published some research on CEO papers (“Vorstandsvorlagen”, “executive summaries”), being wanted “short”, becoming so simplifying, so leaving out things the “bosses” might better had considered, that the quality of top M decisions in big corporations, during these last years, has greatly suffered: Really smart people, paid millions, take more and more stupid decisions, by lack of complete information, i.e. by lack of thorough thinking.
No further comment, as Kühn says.
Posted by Nana111
Jan 22, 2014 at 02:19 AM
HI there
I am a newbie in PDF processing issues.And i found a free trial which supports to annotate PDF files effectively.
http://www.rasteredge.com/how-to/csharp-imaging/pdf-annotating/
BUt it can not work with my windows8 set up.I want to know that if there is any program supports to do that
Thanks for any suggestions
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 22, 2014 at 10:16 AM
Nana111 wrote:
HI there
>I am a newbie in PDF processing issues.And i found a free trial which
>supports to annotate PDF files effectively.
>http://www.rasteredge.com/how-to/csharp-imaging/pdf-annotating/
>BUt it can not work with my windows8 set up.I want to know that if there
>is any program supports to do that
How about PDF-XChange Viewer or Editor (they’re both free):
http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jan 22, 2014 at 10:19 AM
You’ll find many of us in the forum are enthusiastic users of PDF-Xchange Viewer and derivatives. We’ve been using it for years as a substitute for Adobe Acrobat (the Pro version only costs ca. USD 40; Acrobat Pro costs ca. USD 250 - go figure, as our American cousins say).