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TECHNOLOGY SPECIFICATIONS |
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 We're
not sure but we think about 15,000 pages of original material comprise
the books here in Mable's Family Tree Pages. Converting those
books into a form readily accessible on the internet proved to be quite
a challenge.After
looking at the original material which Mable began compiling in 1965 we
discovered that many of the pages, particularly the early typed material
and photocopied material was in poor condition. We tried a number
of experiments using OCR (optical character recognition) software to
"retype" the original pages. But the quality of the
material, often faded with many different fonts, baffled the OCR
software.Finally
we looked at what libraries were using. North Carolina State
University Library stored articles and papers using Adobe
Acrobat, a program that can be downloaded free and is included with
many internet browsers. Adobe Acrobat allows you to look at a book
or paper as if you were looking at the original...almost giving you a
"picture" of each page. This is how Mable's books are
presented in this website. |
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Note that even when originals are old and faded Acrobat does a good job of presenting an accurate depiction of what the page looked like. However, using Acrobat in this way creates fairly large files, about one megabyte per ten pages. For those using the site from dial-up internet connections, this can mean lengthy downloads. This is why we're going to make a CD-Rom containing all the books available in the future. |
| The thousands of pages Mable has compiled over 35-years required many hours to scan and convert to Adobe Acrobat. Scanning was done on an HP 7450c scanner using a sheet feeder. The sheet feeder allowed the process to be completed in months instead of years. The scanner was powered by an IBM Netvista P4 running at 1.5 gigahertz, also vital to speeding up the process. |  |
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Once scanned and saved on disk, the Mable's Family Tree website was created using Microsoft Frontpage 2000. The website pages and photographs, including the hundreds of "family photographs" are stored on the servers of Valueweb in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Valueweb is a very reasonably priced commercial webserver with a high reliability rating and direct connection to the internet backbone. |
| Because the books were so large (nearly one gigabyte) a special Compaq Proliant DL 320 server was installed at the studios of Marine Grafics media productions in Apex, NC. Marine Grafics is owned by Mable's oldest son, Bill Lovin, who designed and maintains this website. Bill, you may remember from Mable's introduction, is the son who said "who would ever want to read this stuff!" |  |
| The "Mable" server runs on a 750kbps DSL line which allows the books to be served quickly in all but the heaviest internet traffic periods. Remember that it would have been impossible to find reasonably priced storage for this much material, so the DSL powered server (while not perfect) is the best alternative for allowing universal access to these books. Remember the server should run rings around your dial-up connection and in most cases keep up with your cable or DSL modem. If you are having any problems accessing the books or the site please feel free to contact the webmaster for help. Remember you must have Adobe Acrobat 4.0 or later. | |
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Thanks for visiting Mable's Family Tree Pages. |
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