Why do Nikon bother producing 'non-printable' manuals??

I wanted to get an electronic version of the D3's manual.

I get to a page:

http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bin...?p_faqid=14438

where it says:

"To protect against Copyright Infringement, Nikon offers two versions of
our current product manuals. A fully printable manual for existing
owners (which requires a valid, North American, Nikon camera serial
number and registration to download) and a non-printable version for
others (no serial number required).If you need an account, click here"

We then have two links:

* Printable, Requires Serial Number - File Size ~ 17.3MB
* Non-printable, No Serial Number required - File Size ~ 17.3 MB

There's then a link to download acrobat reader if one needs it.

My D3 is registered in the UK, not USA, so I downloaded the
non-printable PDF on my Sony laptop, which runs Solaris x86 and uses the
Evince Document Viewer 2.22.2 to read PDF files. The D3 manual prints
just fine.

It also prints out fine using Adobe's acrobat reader on my Sun Blade
2000, which runs Solaris 10 update 4.

Given the Adobe's non-printable protection system is next to useless,
and even Adobe's acrobat can print the D3 manual on Solaris, why do
Nikon even bother with this?

I'm sure anyone wanting to abuse Nikon's copyright would not be deterred
by this - it just might be a slight inconvenience at the most. For me,
on both my computers, which both run Solaris, it is not even a slight
inconvenience.


Dave

Dave wrote:

I'm sure anyone wanting to abuse Nikon's copyright would not be deterred
by this - it just might be a slight inconvenience at the most. For me,
on both my computers, which both run Solaris, it is not even a slight
inconvenience.

Sony do a strange thing too ... in the pdf manuals you can't cut out a
sentence to paste into an e-mail or usenet posting.

A little OCR, however...


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Dave wrote:

on both my computers, which both run Solaris,

Solaris lasted 3 days on one of my machines before I flushed it. For
some reason I could not get a DL'd Firefox loaded and running on it.
Complete frikkin waste of time...

Mac OS X. Just ... works.

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
-- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out.

On 8/15/2008 12:32 PM Dave spake thus:

I wanted to get an electronic version of the D3's manual.

I get to a page:

http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bin...?p_faqid=14438

where it says:

"To protect against Copyright Infringement, Nikon offers two versions of
our current product manuals. A fully printable manual for existing
owners (which requires a valid, North American, Nikon camera serial
number and registration to download) and a non-printable version for
others (no serial number required).If you need an account, click here"

[sni]

This post is off-topic for this newsgroup, rec.photo.equipment.35mm,
which is concerned with film cameras that use 35mm film, not digital
cameras that look like 35mm SLRs.

Please use an appropriate newsgroup for postings on digital cameras. One
of the following groups would be a good place for such postings:

rec.photo.equipment.digital
rec.photo.equipment.digital.point+shoot
rec.photo.equipment.digital.rangefinder
rec.photo.equipment.digital.slr
rec.photo.equipment.digital.slr-system


--
"In 1964 Barry Goldwater declared: 'Elect me president, and I
will bomb the cities of Vietnam, defoliate the jungles, herd the
population into concentration camps and turn the country into a
wasteland.' But Lyndon Johnson said: 'No! No! No! Don't you dare do
that. Let ME do it.'"

- Characterization (paraphrased) of the 1964 Goldwater/Johnson
presidential race by Professor Irwin Corey, "The World's Foremost
Authority".

Dave wrote,on my timestamp of 16/08/2008 5:32 AM:


"To protect against Copyright Infringement, Nikon offers two versions of
our current product manuals. A fully printable manual for existing
owners (which requires a valid, North American, Nikon camera serial
number and registration to download) and a non-printable version for
others (no serial number required).If you need an account, click here"

One of the puzzling things about all this idiotic
charade is: who the heck makes non-North American
Nikon gear? Canon, perhaps?


My D3 is registered in the UK, not USA, so I downloaded the
non-printable PDF on my Sony laptop, which runs Solaris x86 and uses the
Evince Document Viewer 2.22.2 to read PDF files. The D3 manual prints
just fine.

ghostscript. Although it still baffles me why folks print manuals:
mine are in a dedicated folder in an online source where I can
access them from just about anywhere, whenever I need them.
Save a tree: do not print manuals!

Given the Adobe's non-printable protection system is next to useless,
and even Adobe's acrobat can print the D3 manual on Solaris, why do
Nikon even bother with this?

sssshhhhhhh! Don't tell them that or they'll
pull out all manuals and then we'll be up the proverbial!...


I'm sure anyone wanting to abuse Nikon's copyright would not be deterred
by this - it just might be a slight inconvenience at the most. For me,
on both my computers, which both run Solaris, it is not even a slight
inconvenience.


Good for you. Now: shooooooosh!

Alan Browne wrote:
Dave wrote:

on both my computers, which both run Solaris,

Solaris lasted 3 days on one of my machines before I flushed it. For
some reason I could not get a DL'd Firefox loaded and running on it.
Complete frikkin waste of time...

That is more a measure if your competence with Solaris than of either
Solaris or Firefox. The fact is, Solaris is a non-trivial bit of
software. It is also pretty easy to install firefox, although it comes
with Solaris anyway. I've never used OS X myself, but I get the feeling
it is probably more user-friendly than Solaris. I note Apple are now
putting the Zeta File System (ZFS) into OS X. ZFS was developed by Sun
for Solaris.

Mac OS X. Just ... works.


Would OS X "just work" on my Sony laptop? Solaris runs fine on an iMac,
but I believe it quite difficult to run OS X on non-Apple (i.e.
reasonably priced) hardware.

I'm sure OS X does sometimes "just work" on your Apple, like Solaris
does sometimes "just work" and even Windows. But I'm sure you get
problems with OS X too. (As a matter of interest, does the Nikon D3
manual 'just print' on your OS X system?)

I'm not suggesting Solaris is the most suitable operating system for
photographic purposes. The Nikon NX software does not run under Solaris
for a start. But Gimp can open .NEF files.

What I can honestly say is that Solaris works well for me. I can browse
the web, read my email, copy images off my Nikon D3 35 mm camera, write
reports, develop software and all without spending a penny on software.
And I can also print 'non-printable' manuals!!


Dave

Dave wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
Dave wrote:

on both my computers, which both run Solaris,

Solaris lasted 3 days on one of my machines before I flushed it. For
some reason I could not get a DL'd Firefox loaded and running on it.
Complete frikkin waste of time...

That is more a measure if your competence with Solaris than of either
Solaris or Firefox. The fact is, Solaris is a non-trivial bit of
software. It is also pretty easy to install firefox, although it comes
with Solaris anyway. I've never used OS X myself, but I get the feeling
it is probably more user-friendly than Solaris. I note Apple are now
putting the Zeta File System (ZFS) into OS X. ZFS was developed by Sun
for Solaris.

I know the roots and yes it installed with FF, but an obsolete v. I
DL'd the up to date package for Solaris and installed it per the readme.
Never got it to fly.

Compared to most Linux, I just found Solaris to be something I might use
in an office full of clerks who I didn't want to do anything too exciting.

And I'm not crazy about Linux either... (I've gone through a bunch of
distros over the past couple years...)

Mac OS X. Just ... works.


Would OS X "just work" on my Sony laptop? Solaris runs fine on an iMac,
but I believe it quite difficult to run OS X on non-Apple (i.e.
reasonably priced) hardware.

Mac h/w is still a premium ... but not by much. I just priced a Dell
laptop v. a Mac laptop with similar doo-dads, CPU, memory, etc. The
Dell came out about $250 less, but they charged shipping where apple
does not... further, apple will throw in a free iPod nano 8 GB...

I'm sure OS X does sometimes "just work" on your Apple, like Solaris
does sometimes "just work" and even Windows. But I'm sure you get
problems with OS X too. (As a matter of interest, does the Nikon D3
manual 'just print' on your OS X system?)

I don't run Nikon...

I'm not suggesting Solaris is the most suitable operating system for
photographic purposes. The Nikon NX software does not run under Solaris
for a start. But Gimp can open .NEF files.

Well, for one thing OS X recognizes all raw file formats. So as you're
browsing photos, you see the raw near instantly. (And I mean real fast
during a directory browse). Apple got that just right.

I have few complaints about OS X except the same ones I have about
Linux' where they assume because Canada is metric that we use A4 paper
to print... hard to get around little nits like that.

For installing s/w Mac OS X is the simplest procedure I've seen in the
last 10 years of personal computers. And it is fast (because of the
simplicity. In effect it delivers what Linux should be delivering but
so often does not.



What I can honestly say is that Solaris works well for me. I can browse
the web, read my email, copy images off my Nikon D3 35 mm camera, write
reports, develop software and all without spending a penny on software.
And I can also print 'non-printable' manuals!!

A true 'nix man. I use Photoshop CS 3 too, so ...

And VMWare Fusion so I can run WinXP in parallel (not emulated, though
some instructions are trapped and sub'd). Comes in handy for some of
the real old stuff I cling to.

Cheers,
Alan

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
-- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out.

In message , Dave writes
I wanted to get an electronic version of the D3's manual.

I get to a page:

http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bin...ser/std_adp.ph
p?p_faqid=14438

where it says:

"To protect against Copyright Infringement, Nikon offers two versions
of our current product manuals. A fully printable manual for existing
owners (which requires a valid, North American, Nikon camera serial
number and registration to download) and a non-printable version for
others (no serial number required).If you need an account, click here"

We then have two links:

* Printable, Requires Serial Number - File Size ~ 17.3MB
* Non-printable, No Serial Number required - File Size ~ 17.3 MB

It's probably because Nikon USA are a bunch of prats.

--
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\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:10:37 +0100, Chris H
wrote:

In message , Dave writes
I wanted to get an electronic version of the D3's manual.

I get to a page:

http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bin...ser/std_adp.ph
p?p_faqid=14438

where it says:

"To protect against Copyright Infringement, Nikon offers two versions
of our current product manuals. A fully printable manual for existing
owners (which requires a valid, North American, Nikon camera serial
number and registration to download) and a non-printable version for
others (no serial number required).If you need an account, click here"

We then have two links:

* Printable, Requires Serial Number - File Size ~ 17.3MB
* Non-printable, No Serial Number required - File Size ~ 17.3 MB

It's probably because Nikon USA are a bunch of prats.

It's more likely to be because Nikon USA discourages the purchase of
"gray market" Nikons that don't come with manuals or don't come with
manuals in English.



--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

tony cooper wrote:

It's more likely to be because Nikon USA discourages the purchase of
"gray market" Nikons that don't come with manuals or don't come with
manuals in English.




A far more effective way to stop these 'gray imports' would be to sell
the products for the same price in each country.

The only reason I did not get my D3 from outside the UK was that is was
more money than I was willing to risk. But for a £500-£1000 lens I would
not think twice about it if the savings were sufficiently large.