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Manual Overdrive

 One Stop Owner's manual website
 
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The biggest pain in the rear is when you need an owner's manual and can never find one when it's been misplaced only to be further disappointed by the company you gave your money to by purchasing a product that they no longer supply a manual for or worse, charge for. I thought computers were supposed to be used to extend the time that information lives. This would be a global website that has an owner's manual, technical details and specifications all in one website for every and any product in the world. The website could be divided into two parts: a freebie area where end users can upload manuals not listed and share them and then a pay section where the official manuals for A)more complex items that require alot of space to store or B) involve sensitive information actually cost money but you sign up for a 3 year subscription fee. It would be nice to go to a centralized location that has information and the manual on every product ever made. The benefits to any business that offers a product would be that there is one easily navigable place that customers could go to for their manuals and the owner's manual website frees up the participating company websites for other content and maximizing their hosting/promotional options while lowering overhead bandwidth costs by surfers just browsing the manuals. This would have to be a voluntary effort on the part of manufacturers to centralize any and all present and past product manuals and imagine this would be the biggest hurdle.
—fritzmusic, Nov 02 2003

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       a) Halfbaked - we did this before a couple of times.
b) Baked, which is why my idea for it is no longer here.
—DrCurry, Nov 02 2003
   

       If you were talking about the full series of factory shop manuals for each vehicle, I might be interested.   

       There seem to be enthusiast groups for every kind of car ever made. Maybe someone in one of those groups would photocopy a manual that you are in need of.
—half, Nov 02 2003
   

       Yes, this would be a website for ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING under the sun.
—fritzmusic, Nov 02 2003
   

       That's a pretty tall order there, fritzy.   

       Welcome to the halfbakery.
—half, Nov 02 2003
   

       Kinda like a British Library/Bodleian of manuals - everyone who makes anything has to put one copy of the blasted instructions in the archive - I like it.
—waistcoat, Nov 02 2003
   

       I used to think this would be a great idea for video game instructions...considering half the ones you rent are missing theirs.
—Overpanic, Nov 03 2003
   

       I know of several places online you can get complete Suzuki microfiche in handy-dandy PDF file format.
—Letsbuildafort, Nov 03 2003
   

       Manufacturers copyright their manuals and I don't see them being too happy about a site that draws traffic away from their own. Would be good though.
—intellimat, Dec 02 2003
   


 

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