Buying Cakewalk mugs & manuals

[Davydh]

Does anyone have the link for where to buy Cakewalk mugs?

Also I recommend selling the manual as a book in the BandLab store for those of us who prefer to read it in physical form.

[abacab]

On 1/8/2020 at 1:31 AM, Davydh said:

Also I recommend selling the manual as a book in the BandLab store for those of us who prefer to read it in physical form.

The manual is available as a free download in PDF format for offline viewing.

[Davydh]

1 hour ago, abacab said:

The manual is available as a free download in PDF format for offline viewing.

In case I had not known, I would've appreciated you telling me that. It's just I'd prefer to read it in physical form, especially because of how big it is. I could self publish it just for myself, but I'd rather buy it from BandLab.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Davydh

[User 905133]

Mugs in different sizes?  Maybe Regular, Large, Quad, and All-Nighter sizes? (Or borrow from shirt sizes: S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 2XLT, etc.?)

Not sure if there are dishwasher and microwaveable safe plastic decals/coverings, but if so those might be a nice option.

As for printed manuals, I have long been a fan of reading huge printed manuals, and it is nice to have a professionally printed one that I can read while relaxing in a tub as opposed to a self-printed one with water-soluble ink!  The drawback is that when changes are made, a bound, printed manual can become out of date fast and having separate printed updates can get cumbersome.   Also, printed manuals with decent margins are great for personal notes--self-reminders, personally significant cross-references, sticky notes as tabs, etc.

Edited January 10, 2020 by User 905133
to add a missing "?".

[Starship Krupa]

Your username always reminds me of one of my favorite prog-pop songs, "10538 Overture." ?

There sooooooo need to be Cakewalk by BandLab laptop stickers. C'mon now. Everybody has laptop stickers! I'm going to start a laptop stickers thread.

I think it's a great idea for BandLab to offer print-on-demand bound Reference Guides. I've purchased several books in that format and the quality is indistinguishable from hardbacks and trade paperbacks from major publishing houses. Even though the deve-bakers are getting more aggressive about adding features, and @Morten Saether is rev'ing the Blessed Ref Guide to reflect them, a printed BRG would stay relevant for a good long while. Excellent!

In the meantime, we can have things laser printed and comb or coil bound at the local FedEx-Kinko's or similar print shop. Laser printer toner is of course not water soluble and they will leave whatever margins are necessary for the format. Get a quote. You will likely be surprised at how reasonably priced it is.

I'm fortunate enough to have my own monstrous HP LaserJet 8000 with duplexer, so I can crank out 2-sided pages at about 30ppm. Cost of paper only, then run it over to FedEx for binding if I want, or just sit there with my electric 3-hole punch while I watch The Expanse and stick it in a giant 3-ring binder found at curbside.

[Jim Fogle]

Back in the seventies the US Air Force handled manual changes with change pages.

Manuals were stored in manual binders.  The binders had three circular tubes on the bottom cover, rods with a sliding lock mechanism on the top cover and a hard back connecting the top and bottom.

Pages were three hole.  The top sheet was always a revision sheet listing every revision made to a manual since the initial publication.  Revisions were dated and labeled "A", "B", "C" and so forth.  Pages were numeric with revision data added as needed.

Pages were removed and replaced as they were revised.  If a page needed to be inserted between two pages the new page was assigned the preceding page number with a small "a", "b", "c" and so on.

The system worked real well as the pages were unbound and every change was transparent to the end user but it did require diligence and time to remain effective.

While great in the "old days" I can't envision a similar system working now as the old system was labor intensive.

Edited January 15, 2020 by Jim Fogle

[User 905133]

8 hours ago, Jim Fogle said:

Back in the seventies the US Air Force handled manual changes with change pages.

Manuals were stored in manual binders.  The binders had three circular tubes on the bottom cover, rods with a sliding lock mechanism on the top cover and a hard back connecting the top and bottom.

Pages were three hole.  The top sheet was always a revision sheet listing every revision made to a manual since the initial publication.  Revisions were dated and labeled "A", "B", "C" and so forth.  Pages were numeric with revision data added as needed.

Pages were removed and replaced as they were revised.  If a page needed to be inserted between two pages the new page was assigned the preceding page number with a small "a", "b", "c" and so on.

The system worked real well as the pages were unbound and every change was transparent to the end user but it did require diligence and time to remain effective.

As a child, I would help my dad (an accountant) update his accounting manuals--ring binders with tabs/sections and regular updates arriving by mail that had cover sheets saying which pages to remove and possibly replace.  Very durable/professional, like the ones you describe, although they were ring binders, not the ones with rods. I believe one set (at least)  may have also had a locking mechanism (slide lever), so when each volume was put away, the rings would stay closed. Thanks for reminding me of those long-forgotten loving father-child memories!

Edited January 16, 2020 by User 905133
to fix typo

[abacab]

Back in the 80's I used to have a wall full of binders on shelves with printed tech manuals. A couple of the volumes were indexes on where to locate specific topics in the bazillion pages of content. They occasionally shipped a full refresh that filled up a cargo pallet with boxes.

The vendor used to send us updates in a method similar to the one Jim described.

Then one day, along came a cool new invention called the "CD-ROM". The vendor discontinued the printed version and supplied everything on CD.

Having a search engine made it much more productive to find only what you needed, and not wasting time cross referencing from a printed index. This was life changing for us on the job!

I realize that the Cakewalk manual is not that big, but I still prefer using a search engine in a PDF file to reading a printed manual.

Just call me an old dog that prefers the new tricks!

[Jim Fogle]

Office supply stores and vendors use to have locking tube sleeves for ring binders and hole fortifiers for the pages.

A locking tube sleeve was placed onto one of the two rings while the rings were open.   So a three ring binder would need three locking sleeves.  To work properly the tube length was almost the same length as half a ring.  When the rings were closed the user slid the sleeve over the ring joint covering the exposed top half of the ring preventing the pages from getting caught in the ring gap.

Over time page holes deteriorate.  When that happens, or to prevent it from happening in the first place, you attached vinyl  or cloth hole fortifiers with an adhesive back to the paper around the hole.  If a page hole was in really bad shape you placed a fortifier on both sides of the page.  After a few years the glue dried out and the fortifier separated from the page.

I still have a three hole punch capable of easily punching  through 50 sheets.  It can punch 100 sheets but I don't think I have the strength to press that hard on the handle.

 I love manuals as I made my living either using or writing them.