Here at the 'Jolly Penguin' we love to embed stuff. What blogger doesn't? Easy access to free quality content is a dream come true. In the past the mighty 'Google' has led the way in this department:- YouTube, Spreadsheet entries via Forms (see earlier post) but today we want to sing the praises of Scribd.
Basically Scribd is a site where you can upload, publish and share your documents. They accept documents in a wide variety of formats (including non-proprietary ones) and offer free accounts with unlimited storage. It is also possible to embed documents in web pages or blog posts, although of course, if you are not the creator of the document you will need to check the licence first.
We have included an example document on this page that we think deserves to be more widely known. It is a collection of 'Unix Administration Horror Stories' compiled by Anatoly N Ivasyuk. The central thesis is that:- "More systems have been wiped out by admins than any hacker could do in a lifetime". Some parts of it make for very chucklesome reading.
Below is another document from Scribd. It consists of the first two installments of an occasional series that we are putting together on Hubpages entitled: "The Linux Command Line For Beginners".
Embedding documents in this way allows you to escape the formatting restrictions of html and the many online wisywig editors provided by blogger, squidoo, hubpages etc. It means that documents can be prepared for easy online distribution using Word Processing or Desktop Publishing software. Scribd is an extremely useful site with great potential.
