Home-immediately access 800+ free online publications. Download CD3WD (680 Megabytes) and distribute it to the 3rd World. CD3WD is a 3rd World Development private-sector initiative, mastered by Software Developer Alex Weir and hosted by GNUveau_Networks (From globally distributed organizations, to supercomputers, to a small home server, if it's Linux, we know it.)

Home

CD3WD - open system - click here to enter the full list of books contained on this CD - 730 Meg

Version 3.3 - 2004 April 30

Welcome - what is this CD About?

It is a CD full of free electronic information for technical development info for the 3rd world -

Agriculture
Appropriate Technology (which also covers stuff in these other sectors)
Construction, Building, Civil Engineering
Electrical Trades and Electronics
Fisheries and Fish Farming
Food Processing and Storage
Post Harvest
Forestry
Health, Medicine
Metalworking Trades, including use of many machine tools
Miscellaneous other Subjects
Soil and Water Conservation
Veterinary Medicine, Animal Health
Water and Sanitation (WATSAN)
Woodwork, Carpentry, including use of many machine tools

Where does the info come from?

German, Swiss, UK, USA, UN and other Aid Programs, NGO's and other bodies worldwide.

Why this CD? Doesnt it just duplicate material from other sources?

A. VITA (Volunteers for International Technical Assistance of the USA) have a CD which they issued in 1994, which covers about 190 subject areas, 4500 diagrams and 13 megabytes of text. But it is in a propriety windows format - textware lite, which is difficult to read and which may become obsolete. Also it is unuseable by Unix, Mac, and Linux users.

B. Humaninfo NGO have many CD's which they have issued over the last 5+ years. Their content is excellent and the searching capability is highly useable and extremely fast, but:

1. A lot of 'hard' practical technical info is mixed in with 'soft' subject areas

2. the CD's again use a proprietry windows format (Greenstone Digital Library) , which may at some time become obsolete

3. their material is bundled up together and difficult to split up for re-packaging

4. Various CD's contain a lot of the same core material, without any easy guide to tell which is which

C. Other content providers (especially ITDG of UK) have a lot of high quality material, but of which very little is available digitally.

This CD brings together:

A. The VITA Material remastered into HTML ISO 9660 format, with machine translation into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German as well as the english original. (Note that these translations are not on this version of the CD - for space reasons - but they are available on request and/or on other CD releases...). 190 subjects, 13 megabytes text per language, 78 megabytes diagrams. VITAHTML - open system.

B. A lot of the same material as contained in the Humaninfo CD's is available here as HTML ISO9660 format; this is 'hard' or 'non-soft' technical information. 490 books or booklets; approximately 130 Meg of text plus 200 Meg Diagrams. There are no machine translations yet into French, Spanish and Portuguese, but that is planned for future - pls contact us to encourage, offer help, or request translation. CD3WD - open system

An Approximate breakdown of the CD3WD info as in (B) above by sector is:

APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY - 22% by CD or Hard Drive Space
HEALTH - 22%
AGRICULTURE - 16%
CONSTRUCTION - 14%
FOOD PROCESSING - 9%
SOIL AND WATER - 6%
WATSAN (WATER AND SANITATION) - 5%
ELECTRICAL TRADES - 4%
METALWORKING TRADES - 3 %
WOODWORK - 3%
FISHERIES - 2%
FORESTRY - 2%
MISCELLANEOUS - 2%
VETERINARY - 1%

FAQs (Frequently asked questions)

2004 April 30
Mr Alex Weir
Harare, Zimbabwe Africa and London UK
cd3wd@cd3wdproject.org
https://www24.brinkster.com/alexweir/