Overview of RamFAQs

I'm working on revising this overview. As you can see, I am always busy at work:

This overview serves as a preview to what each FAQ contains. The History section contains some background information, and the other sections describe what each FAQ is about.

Just a few definitions of terms used in this overview:

Bluebird
Originally, this term specifically referred to a series of scans made by a person named Bluebird. He had the reputation of having produced the largest scanned collection of asian models available, and these scans were well known for being high in quality. Although they are adult in nature, they are also typically in good taste, and as a comparison, they are softer than what you would find in the American magazine of Playboy.
Over the years the term "Bluebird" has come to be synonymous with all high quality scans.

If you want to see examples of Bluebirds, see my Adult site the 8th Shrine.

Masking
A process applied to computer images which allows a user to censor that image in a reversible fashion. Generally speaking, masking is only used in Japan, where all genitilia must be censored by law. Although that law has since been repealed last year, you'll find that many images on the web are still masked, since sites are often slow to react to laws.

RamFAQs started over a year ago, when I began to compile a list of technical questions that I was often asked. I decided that since so many people had questions, I'd put everything in writing so that it can be easily accessible to everyone. As you might guess, with every new FAQ that I wrote, new questions came up and turned into new FAQs.

Since the number of FAQs grew large, I made this website and other mirrors to store them. In order to connect all the FAQs together, I even had to write an overview of the FAQs. ;)

Some people ask why I get asked so many questions. I think it started last year at a message board by the name of Jade. Previously, I had been looking around the web trying to collect Bluebird scans (Bluebirds are explained in the intro). For that reason, I didn't really visit the message boards I knew of too often, since most of the people at message boards didn't even know what a Bluebird scan was.

However, one day I got bored and decided to revisit each of the message boards out of curiosity, and I eventually came upon Jade board. I noticed that a lot of people at Jade board were asking the same questions about "masking" but that they weren't getting any responses. I had a bit of free time, so I answered each of the questions and wandred off.

I checked back an hour later to see if they had any luck with the advice I gave, and it turned out that several more questions were posted. I answered them too, and I think this process repeated for several more hours before I went to sleep. As you might guess, this kept up for several days before I got tired of answering the same questions, which led me to write FAQ 1 (first posted to the Professor's board, which was the same format as Alpha BBS).

FAQ 1 is meant to help everyone learn how to mask and unmask images. As I mentioned in the introduction, at one time Japanese law required masks, and since many sites are reluctant to change from old ways, a lot of them still offer masked material.

As I mentioned at the end of FAQ 1, I don't usually bother with masking and unmasking; it's usually unnecessary. Take a look at the alt.pictures.bluebird newsgroup yourself and you'll see that masked images are rarely ever posted. For that reason, I decided to write FAQ 2.

Using newsbots was my second FAQ because many people had wanted to know how to only download images from usenet automatically (ignoring other messages including spam). If you don't know what newsgroups are, they are a forum based on a specific topic (ie. religion, video games, etc...) to which anyone may contribute by posting a message. In certain newsgroups, (generally the .binary ones) messages may contain attached file(s). For example, alt.binaries.bluebird contains postings of Bluebird scans. Some newsgroups are spammed very often, although newsbots generally are very good at ignoring spam if filters are correctly used. A filter is a set of guidelines you give the program so that it will know which messages to ignore. For example, a filter can tell the program to ignore any message that has the word "sex" or "money" in it (or any other words you choose). A filter might also tell the program to ignore posts that have been crossposted. Crossposts are messages that have been posted to multiple newsgroups. This usually indicates that the messages is off-topic and unrrelated to the newsgroup itself. Spam is bad.

This FAQ is one of the most useful and time-saving FAQs of all. Using it, you can either keep up with the latest news on Quake or complete your Bluebird collections.

In this FAQ, I start off talking about two newsbots: SBNews and Newsbin. They are the two I still use, though I am in the process of evaluating some others. Picture Sucker has some nice features, but they unfortunately do not make up for the features that it lacks (at least for my purposes). There is also Anawave Gravity (made by a company that has other good products) and Nomad News, though I have not finished evaluating them. Note that sometimes a person will say that SBNews or Newsbin are bad because they lack certain features. Read the instructions. Usually it turns out the person complaining never knew such features actually existed in the programs or how to effectively use the features. Of course, there are many real downsides to SBNews and Newsbin, but you can overcome almost all of them in one way or another. If you have any ones to add that you did not see mentioned in the FAQ, feel free to mention it. Getting back on the horse Sometimes a person trying to get a program to work gives up. They feel like it is impossible to get it to work. This is normal. I have felt exactly the same way myself. This is because normal people like me hate to read instructions. That's why I write FAQs. FAQs hopefully make instructions seem simpler and also give advice coming from a typical user. However, for your own sake, reading instructions will help you in the long run. There was even once this program that came with two instructions (yes, and the first instruction was: Run the program). If you read the instructions to that program, you would save yourself time. If you ask me, you will have to wait for me to reply.

Things left out
I mentioned that many things were left out of FAQs for a reason (I make mention of this in FAQ 6). In the case of FAQ 6, I left out information on how to pirate the programs that I recommended. My reason for this is stated in FAQ 7. Basically, while it doesn't matter to me what you do, I personally know many programmers and don't want to be a major part of promoting the pirating of software. Also keep in mind that plenty of people know far more than me, and so I am far from qualified to write FAQs on everything. I write FAQs because my philosophy is to look at the big picture, to plan for the long run. People are always going to be asking me for help, so it's a lot easier if I can use a FAQ to help instead and only answer questions that are not covered.

Looking for things left out
Many things are left out because I did not think of it or didn't get around to putting it in. However, if I left something out on purpose, you can definitely find the information I left out on your own.