{"id":1760,"date":"2010-05-09T20:56:50","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T01:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=1760"},"modified":"2010-05-09T20:58:08","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T01:58:08","slug":"wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress","title":{"rendered":"Wikipedia available in print via PediaPress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/byte\/120271201\/\" title=\"Book vendor by byte, on Flickr\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/56\/120271201_261e362f25_m.jpg?resize=240%2C160\" width=\"240\" height=\"160\" alt=\"Book vendor\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"\/><\/a>Over a year ago, I found out about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikitravelpress.com\/\">Wikitravel Press<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AWiNrvlrPLY\">Jani Patokallio, at BarCampKL 2009<\/a>. I was pretty excited since it was based on the open content <a href=\"http:\/\/wikitravel.org\/en\/Main_Page\">Wikitravel<\/a>, it was printed on demand, and it was updated on a regular basis. Imagine getting accurate travel guides when you were going somewhere (as opposed to a dated Lonely Planet guidebook)?<\/p>\n<p>When I was young, I used to pore through a set of encyclopaedias from Grolier, that my late grandfather had purchased sometime in the &#8217;60&#8217;s. These were wrongly disposed off, during a move, and the last time I encountered a traditional encyclopaedia, was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/11\/23\/on-wikipedia-and-traditional-britannica\">a few months ago<\/a>, albeit a digital version. For me, Wikipedia won.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, I&#8217;m excited to see that you can now get Wikipedia entries, printed in book-form now. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.pediapress.com\/2010\/05\/english-wikipedia-now-offers-custom.html\">PediaPress now offers custom books to all users<\/a>. Check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=Special:Book&#038;bookcmd=book_creator\">book creator<\/a> on Wikipedia.<\/p>\n<p>It got me thinking. Would we eventually see textbooks being printed out from Wikipedia? I took a look at some of the pre-prepared books, and found one for <a href=\"http:\/\/pediapress.com\/books\/show\/college-mathematics-algebra-a-study-guide\/\">College Mathematics: Algebra<\/a>. Its over 400 pages of dense mathematical content; about the typical size of a math textbook. Coursework preparation will be more open, and quality will be crowd-sourced.<\/p>\n<p>More interesting for me, and other developers using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediawiki.org\/wiki\/MediaWiki\">MediaWiki<\/a>? The tools for creating your own press are available at the <a href=\"http:\/\/code.pediapress.com\/wiki\/wiki\">PediaPress Open Source Repository<\/a>. Therein lies a Python library for parsing the MediaWiki articles (mwlib), another library for writing the PDF documents from MediaWiki articles (mwlib.rl), and a bunch of extensions to collect MediaWiki articles and output them to PDF, XML, or even <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/OpenDocument\">OpenDocument<\/a> format (ODF).<\/p>\n<p>What does that mean? If you&#8217;re using MediaWiki to create documentation, you can quite likely create a printed manual pretty darn easily. No mucking around with writing documentation in DocBook XML&#8230; you can use the friendly MediaWiki markup and syntax. <\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Wikipedia%20available%20in%20print%20via%20PediaPress&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2010%2F05%2F09%2Fwikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"da3c44a608\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-1760\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-1760\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-1760\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over a year ago, I found out about Wikitravel Press from Jani Patokallio, at BarCampKL 2009. I was pretty excited since it was based on the open content Wikitravel, it was printed on demand, and it was updated on a regular basis. Imagine getting accurate travel guides when you were going somewhere (as opposed to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Wikipedia%20available%20in%20print%20via%20PediaPress&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2010%2F05%2F09%2Fwikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"da3c44a608\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-1760\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-1760\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-1760\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2010\/05\/09\/wikipedia-available-in-print-via-pediapress?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[1119,53,199,200,1116,872,1117,1118],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4vJD-so","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2662,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/03\/04\/crowdsourced-wikipedia-google-results","url_meta":{"origin":1760,"position":0},"title":"Crowdsourced Wikipedia &#038; Google results","date":"4\/3\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In times of \"war\", Wikipedia can be used to sway Google results. Read: In Lahad Datu conflict, Google bombs & Wiki-wars. That's pretty much what I tweeted yesterday. Just check out the revision history for Sabah. Wikipedia tells an interesting tale. Even since 2005, you can see from the Talk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1606,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/11\/23\/on-wikipedia-and-traditional-britannica","url_meta":{"origin":1760,"position":1},"title":"On Wikipedia and traditional Britannica","date":"23\/11\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I was searching for information about an animal that is common in South-East Asia, and for once, Google not only had the Wikipedia link, but also the Encyclopaedia Britannica link. I thought I'd amuse myself and click it, considering I used to read dead-tree encyclopaedia's from the 60's. I can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"chevrotain (mammal) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2659\/4130034950_5c1251f457.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":541,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/05\/01\/photograph-of-melanie-c-in-wikipedia","url_meta":{"origin":1760,"position":2},"title":"Photograph of Melanie C in Wikipedia","date":"1\/5\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The other day, I got interesting Flickr mail. It was from a Wikipedia writer, who wanted to use a Flickr image of mine for an article. Whoote! I was pretty excited. One thing I found odd, was that the licensing should only be Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. You can't have the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1565,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/07\/28\/what-wikipedia-looks-like-when-their-database-goes-away","url_meta":{"origin":1760,"position":3},"title":"What Wikipedia looks like when their database goes away","date":"28\/7\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"An unknown error connecting to MySQL on 10.0.6.28? Oh dear me... It came back up within 2 minutes though from the time I got the screenshot.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;MySQL&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"This wiki has a problem","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3592\/3764893976_faaf817735.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":502,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/03\/29\/web-logs-are-a-part-of-the-daily-media-now","url_meta":{"origin":1760,"position":4},"title":"Web logs are a part of the daily media now","date":"29\/3\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Thats right, web logs are clearly gaining popularity in old media. I was reading the newspaper, and watching some television earlier, and to my shock, have just been bombarded with information about websites and the logs that people keep.Of interest would be related to the Moorabbin police murders, that happened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1174,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2008\/11\/24\/qurans-costing-rm13-million-wisest-use-of-tax-payer-money","url_meta":{"origin":1760,"position":5},"title":"Quran&#8217;s costing RM1.3 million &#8211; wisest use of tax payer money?","date":"24\/11\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This was in the news recently: Quran in hotel rooms soon. Excerpts: A copy of the Quran and its intepretation will be made available in most hotel rooms in the country to allow both Muslims and non-Muslims to have \u201caccess\u201d to the Holy book. Ahmad Zahid said Jakim would be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1760"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1762,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions\/1762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}