Q. Some of the FBI document images are huge on my screen! Why are they so large?
When the developement of BigBrothersWatching began, there were many considerations taken. One being file sizes, file visual sizes, and easibility.
The visual size of the image will be addressed here.
There were two options to scan in the documents, one was to make them fit on
a screen, but at what resolution should I choose. If I chose the average resolution of 800x600, those users with higher resolutions would not see the images well, since they would lose distortion. Also, the condition of the FBI files, being blurred and heavily blacked out, sizing down would lose a lot of detail, and be completely unreadable. I chose to scan those documents in larger than usual for a few reasons:
a) Easy to read - Even though you may have a horizontal scroll bar on the browser, you can still read the document easily and without squinting.
b) File sizes are larger, but not by much - I would only save about 10k an
image if I sized them down. Even though this will add up over time, 10k is a very small amount of space to download when only having to download an addition 10k at a time. In other words, there wouldnt be a visual speed increase if I were to size them down at all.
Q. I want to print, but my browser crops the image. What can I do?
This was also a consideration in scanning to the computer, which is the loss
of resolution. The images, as explained above, are scanned in to be able to see clearly, and in some cases more can be read with the digital copy then the actual copy. To print, I recommend the following.
You download an image program that will be able to print these documents as the program will print them to the page, and size them down for you. You can see
a list of Image Editors and viewers on the website of TUCOWS: [ Image Viewers | Image Editors ] For specific program recommendations which will do this, please e-mail them to: greeney@primenet.com
Q. This is great, where can I find more FBI files online?
Great question, and unfortunately, there is no other place.
BigBrothersWatching.com was launched to provide access for things you paid for in your tax dollars. Maybe some of these were out of your lifetime, and were done before you were born, but rest assured investigations into people are still being done today, with tax dollars that YOU have paid.
BigBrothersWatching.com is the largest online collection of FBI files anywhere in the world, even larger than the FBI website themselves.
Q. I want to download the entire file, why don't you have any .zip files available for download?
.ZIP files were another consideration in designing the site. Unfortunately, due to the amount of data BigBrothersWatching consumes, adding .zip files would nearly double the size
BigBrothersWatching.com. With over 3.5 gigabytes of data
on opening day alone, this is site which grows rapidly with content, and also disk requirements. CD ROM collections are going to be available soon, and will be a great price. Please keep a watch out for these products.
Q. Why in some cases do you only have the first 100 pages of the FBI file? And what does the sponsorship information mean, and sponsored by tag on the top of each file
Here at BigBrothersWatching.com, we are striving to give you the best information possible from the FBI. As some file, but not all, are just the first 100 pages, this is how many
under the Freedom of Information Act that you can get for free. Some files can range from just a few dollars, up to thousands
and thousands of dollars. This is a one man operation, certainly not something that I can afford easily.
Which brings me to the second part of this question. What is the "sponsored by:"tag located at the top of the FBI file? This is a system that I devised to
allow you to "sponsor" a specific file, and you get, in return, your name listed on that file, for the site's lifetime. This causes a large amount of exposure to your site! As each visitor will come to realize that your company sponsored the purchase of that file. Also, a link to your site will be given, and more traffic will be sent to your site. This is the return, which I know will work, as I tested it by having my other site The Black Vault sponsor some files, and that site gets more traffic as well.
