FRC Manual in Advance?

[Joe Ross]

I'm not sure it really reduced their bandwidth any, either. The password wasn't a type it in once and unlock it forever, you had to type it in each time you opened the pdf. For me, after doing it 10 times in an hour, I downloaded the unlocked copies. I'm sure everyone else did the same.

[Alan Anderson]

I figured the password-protected files were made available in advance for the benefit of those teams who wouldn't have a quick internet connection readily available on the day of kickoff. That way they wouldn't be at a disadvantage because they were without official documentation while others had it in hand.

If it were my responsibility, I'd have provided an option to retrieve the whole .pdf collection in one password-protected (and presumably compressed) archive. That way it would have been a one-time process to extract the actual files using the password.

[Joe Matt]

Mabey FIRST is going to bring back the hard copy manuals, or atleast a CD with the files on it...

[Scott L.]

Actually, if my knowlegde of adobe serves me right, you only hade to enter the password once per document. there was a security/encyption option that removed the password protection.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Somewhat off-topic, but is anyone preparing to start a Bittorrent seed of the documentation sometime shortly after kick-off? This would atleast reduce the load generated by the tech-savvy among FIRSTers.

[Max Lobovsky]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Somewhat off-topic, but is anyone preparing to start a Bittorrent seed of the documentation sometime shortly after kick-off? This would atleast reduce the load generated by the tech-savvy among FIRSTers.

I agree, a torrent tracker would really void the need for a early release of a password protected file.