We got a pleasant letter from [Eric Willhelm], the owner of Instructables. He wanted to shoot a token of good will our direction, in the form of an EPUB of some of the projects we’ve linked to in the last quarter of 2010. These are Ad-free and have all images included. You can download it and view it on the e-reader of your choice, or even in your browser with the appropriate plugin. The videos still link back to Instructables, but he thought our readership might enjoy having an ad-free experience. He says that link should work for about a month.
For those who really want ad free content and are willing to pay for it, Instructables has been putting out publications that are collections of instructables on certain topics. For example, [Eric] pointed out that they’ve compiled some that might be of interest to us like “Better living through microcontrollers” and “Amazing LED Projects“. Actually, there are a bunch of titles and it looks like some are free as well.
Thanks [Eric], I’m sure your actions gained a little respect, even from those who dislike Instructables generally due to ads and registration.
Jimmy was is in the past, and a lot of the bitching and crying seems to be about today irrelevant stuff (and mostly by people who are too lazy to log into a site, so who cares as if they were going to do anything anyway)
oh boo hoo hoo, I ASS U MEd that this commercial site would be free and open until Jesus returned, your naive
but last year boo hoo hoo, so what, last year HAD’s parent company took my video off of their own website and filed a DCMA takedown, shit happens, its fixed move on
But I dont want to log in whaah, really? it takes seconds to make an account, and you can click the little box (unless your some tinfoil hat cookie nut that thing stays around for months)
But its a email farm get your guns!, as you enter an email address into a worpress blog to bitch about harvesting emails
Seriously people? you don’t have to use it if you don’t want, but almost every complaint against the site is down to lazyness, stupidity, or ghost’s from the past
and its just brilliant
@Osgeld
Those users “bitching and crying”? There is NO Instructables without them; no content, no nothing. If not for them “bitching and crying”, no one could view whole projects today without paying.
BTW, as is obvious from my previous posts, I’m still a member (with over 500K project hits), despite my reservations. I hate to abandon it; maybe things will improve.
But it’s the idiots who can’t take dissenting views (on pay accounts) who drove away most of the cool members. Idiots who post “mature” comments like yours.
What remains is more like a cult than a serious DIY community.
Osgeld: A lot of us won’t touch instructables with a ten foot pole after our previous experiences. A lot of us really have no idea if they’ve changed their ways.
Tell me, if you sign up for a free account, do you get ALL the features? Ability to view all steps on one page? Ability to view all the pictures, all the tooltips on those pictures, and view the pictures at full resolution? The ability to download as a PDF?
If that’s the case, then what exactly, do you get from the “pro” membership? Why would anyone pay then?
It’s been a good six months since I’ve been there, but the last time I went, none of the articles I read made any sense at all. Most people were including vital steps in their pictures, making it completely impossible to follow them, as unregistered users can only view one picture per page. I forget what I was reading at the time, but I recall it was a dangerous project, and all the safety warnings were on pictures 2 through 8, making this not only a stupid business model, but completely and utterly irresponsible.
Oh, and when I did sign up for a free account, maybe a year and a half, 2 years ago, I did in fact get a lot of spam. Just an anecdote, but I’m pretty sure they sell your info. How else would they benefit from registration?
Oh, and the censorship really bugged me, that was actually the last straw.
I posted something on the forums regarding the dangerous article, pointing out that the pictures were clearly illustrating vital safety information, and without them it’s irresponsible to even have the article on the site. My post was deleted within an hour, I tried reposting, and was banned.
jimmy, I was referring to the users here, they will never post an instructable and therefore are irrelevant to that site, I dont know why that was so hard for you
“Osgeld: A lot of us won’t touch instructables with a ten foot pole after our previous experiences. A lot of us really have no idea if they’ve changed their ways.”
Thats fine, but dont go screaming over stuff that is just not true today
No you dont get all the features, you do get to view all of the pictures, all of the tooltips and the pictures at full resolution, crap you can view them at the size they were uploaded at
http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/F5K/H5S6/GGPF3YKC/F5KH5S6GGPF3YKC.jpg
click the little I(nfo) box in the image and it gives you direct links, to whatever was uploaded. I am not sure what counts as “full resolution” but there you go, you have thumbnails, big pics, and 2 clicks away from (in my case) a 2mp image
no to steps on 1 page no to pdf files
“If that’s the case, then what exactly, do you get from the “pro” membership? Why would anyone pay then?”
I dont know I got mine for being featured on the front page, you get less ad’s but so does using adblock, you get 1 page and PDF’s but I never use those, the only advantage I see is a much more featured editor, but if you dont want to pay, thats 3 whole features and a little icon next to your name
“It’s been a good six months since I’ve been there, but the last time I went, none of the articles I read made any sense at all. Most people were including vital steps in their pictures, making it completely impossible to follow them, ”
when your asking for free content it sometimes sucks
“I forget what I was reading at the time, but I recall it was a dangerous project, and all the safety warnings were on pictures 2 through 8, making this not only a stupid business model, but completely and utterly irresponsible.”
thats not my place to say
“Oh, and when I did sign up for a free account, maybe a year and a half, 2 years ago, I did in fact get a lot of spam. Just an anecdote, but I’m pretty sure they sell your info. How else would they benefit from registration?”
funny I receive like 3-12 spam messages a year on that email account, maybe your email service is just shit? as far as benefit, maybe they are trying to build a community of regular readers?
whether its working or not is another debate
and btw that email address is the same one I use pretty much everywhere for public sites including hack a day
I even posted it in plain text on hack a day and it spiked to 6 whole spam messages over a couple months
It’s really rather funny hearing the same half-baked responses to criticism here, rather than at Instructables, where there is always a cheering section.
If the users at HAD are irrelevant, why respond at all? Alternate views have been suppressed at Ibles, but I doubt you’ll succeed here.
Go back to the fold, Osgeld. Return to Instructables. Sink into the warm embrace, where everything is golden and there are no dissenting voices…
sorry jimmy the cheering section is like 2 people, and I have no intent to win
what I do see is a bunch of grouches fussing over the stupidest crap, and stories from half truths from last year to flat out bullshit
so while I may find instructables warm and fuzzy, remember that it is hack a days end goal too, from the lovely login only answers section, to newbie guides and non technology hacks
just like every other DIY site has ever became
Don’t leave the orange-tinted fantasy world, Osgeld, it’s much more comfortable…
I had signed on to Insrtuctables a year or so before they offered the paid Pro options; I could get in for awhile download a complete pdf and get on my way, that ended abruptly. bug me not works in part, but well enough for my needs.
While Insrtuctables has been bashed pretty well here, they did a great service to the disabled community; they teamed up with Humana Health Services, and ran a contest to come up with alternatives to costly aids for everyday living. There is now an incredible amount of DIY projects in the Public’s Domain– yeah that was a part of the contest, no one can patent or copyright any of the entries including the sponsors.
If you want a version of Insrtuctables as they once were, try blog.makezine.com, its Make Magazine as a free version.
omg what a bunch ” well most of you ” of moanin fucks,
End of the day if you want to use them then doso, if you dont then bloody don’t, NO ONE is forcing you to use them by holding a gun to your head.
Shit some of you just need to grow up and get a life and perhaps even a girlfriend.
Rant Over
Wolfy
is anyone still reading this? i need to go see what instructibles is, i came across HAD by accident and thought this was one of the coolest most innovative sites on the web, I like checking out the cool projects people put up here, but if i can find something i might be able to pull off somewhere else why shouldnt i at least have the goodsense to look, maybe what i find could solve everything, maybe not, if their site is massive, and requires huge bandwidth i see the point in “selling” content, not everyone can support a site (hosting/mastering/admin/ ect) without having to have an income from it. google doesnt do it for free, they make their money from ads and paying users just the same.
It’s not that readers demand an “ad-free” environment, but it sure would be nice if it wasn’t and “ad-saturated” one.
Sadly, Instructables seems tone deaf to complaints from its readers. Even civil comments or criticisms are met with snarky replies from a gang of “PRO” users, which appear to be employees (posing as outside users), that spend most their day defending Instructables poor decisions.
If it is lower the Studio365 will tell you and let you know that it will not sound well.
These gadgets also have USB ports where you can also connect any device you have.
Raima has options to limit individual file sizes in the
preferences dialog.
After more research i use this tool to download any instructable:
http://abuouday.com/tools/instructable/