I cannot view a standard via the web!
Original article date: June 2000
It has always infuriated me that I cannot view a standard via the web to see if it is the one I want to buy. BSI clearly thinks that such a resource would be abused, and that even it it charged a small fee for an online read – say 50p – it would still be waving goodbye forever to the full sale price because we’d all simply save it off the web.
Well, the technology now exists to stop that being an issue, so I hereby call on the BSI to pull its finger out and announce that within a year all standards will be readable on the web for 50p a throw. What is the technology to which I refer? A company called Vyou (pronounced ‘view’) which has created way to protect content from being copied or printed from the web.
The way it works is fiendishly clever and quite simple. When visitors arrive at a website which includes ‘objects’ protected by Vyou technology, they will need to download (once only) a ‘plugin’ (some software written by Vyou) which adds some functionality to their web browser. Prior to that, the protected object will be invisible. After the visitor has downloaded the plugin, the protected objects can be seen.
The web page will then look entirely normal, but the objects are being displayed not by the visitor’s normal browser but by special Vyou software in the plugin. The object can only be printed, copied or saved if the web site’s publisher has chosen to enable those functions at the server end. If the functions are not enabled, the visitor cannot even do a screen dump – it’s that secure. If you want to check this out, try www.vyou.com where you can see a working demo.
So, the BSI could set up a simple system where you open an account, pay a fiver by credit card, and then get a chance to mooch through ten standards online to see if they apply to you. And this would probably mean that the BSI would sell more as we all realised how useful and applicable some standards were for our business. At a stroke, the BSI would also slash it’s telephone support costs, and raise a bit of cash from luddites who never have and never will shell out on a full standard.
What’s more, there’d be some large companies who’d probably find it cheaper to continually pay per access than have multiple copies of the full standard strewn across their premises. Remember BSI, there are no printing costs with online documents.
But it’s not just people like the BSI who can use this technology. Have you ever done a project where the final ‘deliverable’ was a report? You have to hand it over so the customer can see you’ve finished. But suppose having got their hands on a copy, they decide not to pay? With Vyou, you can simply show the customer the finished thing on the web. The customer will be able to see it’s finished, but not get a copy.
And now it’s time for a quick e-rantlet. I have been using the nice Mitsubishi Technical Library online but I have noticed something daft. Sorry to pick on you, Mitsi, but the page is such a perfect example of what not to do. I started at Mitsubishi UK’s main page, a handy site with everything on it that Mitsubishi makes. From there I jumped to Mitsubishi’s Industrial Automation site at industrial.meuk.co.uk, and bookmarked it. When bookmarking it, I accepted all the options, and it was automatically filed in my favourites under the page title. Sadly, the page title was ‘Automation Systems Division’. When I went rooting through my favourites the next day, I couldn’t find any bookmarks referring to Mitsubishi. So I say to you Mitsubishi, you are not the only company with an automation systems division.
Easy mistake to make, but it nearly meant I didn’t go back to the company’s site. How many others should correct the same mistake?
June 2000