February 2008 Archives
Go this link: http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060558123&WT.mc_id=author_AmerGods_FullAccess_022208
Here for the next month you can read American Gods by Neil Gaiman courtesy of the author himself. He ran a survey on his blog as to which books his fans would like to see posted free on-line.
I voted for Neverwhere, but his more popular novel won. I liked it too, so everyone's a winner.
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The IHT blog list of its local color journalists is proving to be a relaxing read. No heavy world crisis or political news. It just tells you what is interesting about a place. It is written by people who live there.
It did come to light for me a dozen or so years ago that the only way a native gets to know what is fun to visit in their native town is by showing people around who are not from there. There have been many fascinating places in the cities wherein I have settled over the years. It took a visitor for me to have reason or even the energy go there.
The rest of the time we just stand around waiting for things to happen.
That may sound strange, to take Sunday off, but after a very long week we have canceled all social obligations for the day. I am sitting here in the home office, listening to Ingrid Michealson's The Way I Am to be followed by Stacy Kent singing Stardust.
These songs came about with my discovery of Amazon.com's music download. iTunes was just too complicated for me. I am listening to the music on my laptop with the GPL Licensed VLC cross platform media player. It is the simplicity the interface to this programs full set of features that appeals to me.
Mark Knophler's Coyote (Album Version) just started playing.
This could go on all afternoon, but I would rather just chill, thank you...
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...Stacy Kent is now singing I Got it Bad...
The tiny spell utility has been added to my laptop. I already have two spell checkers, but I figure, could it hurt to have another? Will they counter act each other, or show each other support. I am writing in Q10 now.
New boxes are popping up when I type words that are not in the tinySpell dictionary.
Will this be a war of spell-checkers or will it be peace and harmony on the writing screen. Stay tune.
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On the SixApart blog what they are calling, the movable type assistant link has been posted. We are going to go there. If you see major changes to the design of the this site, they will have originated there. If the site disappears, look to the same culprit.
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It was in something I read on the Internet that said chewing gum made you smarter. I am not so sure about that. I rarely chew gum but a piece was offered to me during Coffee Hour this morning and impulsively I took it. Normally, when people offer gum or a mint at a social gathering it means your breath might be on the brink of acting as a capable paint stripper.
But, as I am still chewing the gum hours later, I believe it has removed my ability to write at all. Or it could be because of how little I know about Association Football?
I do know that Manchester City has defeated Manchester United in a soccer game in the not too distant past. I do know that is like the New Jersey Giants defeating the New England Patriots. I do know that my friend, a new citizen of these United States, is a die hard Man City fan. That's all I need to know to be able to say: Congratulations Man City!!!
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On his blog this morning Neil Gaiman put up a poll that asks which of a list of his books would we give to a friend so as to introduce the friend to Gaiman books. If you look at the poll, as of now, American Gods is way ahead.
I voted for Neverwhere.
Amazon.com: Neverwhere: A Novel: Books: Neil Gaiman
This is partly because Neverwhere was the first of his books that I read, leading me out into the world to find the rest of his work to consumes ravenously.
Also, I believe American Gods, though his best novel, may be a little on the strong side as an introduction to Neil Gaiman's work.
Conversely, had my first exposure to him been one of his outstanding illustrated novels, I might never had gone on to read his novels and short stories. Quien Sabe, amigo!
Now it is time for my morning muffin, sorry, meditation....
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Using the Firefox Extension, Read-it-later, I was able this morning to hold for later viewing all of the links below while browsing through the Google Reader .
What assisted me in copying these links I as perused them in Firefox clicking on the Read-it-later and the Read-it icons was the newest note taking utility added to the laptop, Quicknote. Quicknote was praised in an earlier blog entry.
The Read-it-later extension is not only for Google Reader. It copies to its bookmark any link you may encounter while browsing. Therefore, one or two of the links below may have come from browsing places like Technorati or commandN, but most come from Google Reader, whither there are feeds from both of these sites
I have loaded the complete link below the names of the sites instead of embedding them. This way you can see, before you click on them, exactly where the link is taking you.
Read-It-Later Links
What is Relativity?
http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/080208-relativity.html
Tinker
http://www.tiinker.com/
GMail Skins
http://www.dailybits.com/25-incredible-skins-resources-tools-for-the-gmail-power-user/
WOT For Firefox
http://www.freewarefiles.com/wot-for-firefox_program_39708.html
The Draco Tavern
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786159472/omnivoracious-20
Archbishop Defends Remarks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7236174.stm
Google Map Mashups
http://gmapsmania.googlepages.com/100thingstodowithgooglemapsmashups
Stephen King On Writing
http://www.amazon.com/
First Look at Firefox 3.0
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061212-8409.html
WiFi Sites
http://hotspotr.com/wifi
Photo Enforced
http://www.photoenforced.com/
The Elegant Variation
http://marksarvas.blogs.com/
eHub-Flexadex
http://www.emilychang.com/go/ehub/app/flexadex/
Duke of York Trashes US
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7227627.stm
Creative Swearing (This is very fast but funny)
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-swear-creatively
Configuring GMail Imap in Thunderbird
https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77662&topic=12814
Daylife
http://www.daylife.com/
Romney Exits (Herald Tribune)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/08/america/07cndrepubs.php
Dignity Village
http://www.dignityvillage.org/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=28
commandN #121
http://commandn.typepad.com/commandn/2008/02/commandn-121-fe.html
Create PDF Magazines
http://www.pdf-mags.com/index.php
Cram Magazine (PDF)
http://www.cram-mag.com/
Daily Dose of Imagery
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/
The Tenant Who Wrote Macbeth
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/books/08book.html?ex=1360126800&en=57b8d88d2cb05eac&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Word and OpenOffice Compatibility
http://lifehacker.com/352676/make-word-and-openoffice-more-compatible
How to Fold a Towel Monkey
http://lifehacker.com/354549/how-to-fold-a-towel-monkey
Digital Camera Reviews
http://www.dpreview.com/
Blogger Buzz
http://buzz.blogger.com/
It should be mentioned that Firefox, though no manipulation of my own, is now back up and running.
When it activated all of my add-ons, along with their associated websites. I had to go in and turn off the add-ons not currently in use. It did surprise me there were so many. I am a taster. When I find mention of something that may make the browsing experience more interesting, will try it. Mostly the reason I turn it off as to do with loading time or its conflict with a already running feature. I only delete the ones that have an obvious detrimental effect on my set-up.
I wonder if this huge patch, whose pending arrival was all over ZDNet news. (Google Read Feed), was a precursor to Firefox's version 3.0.
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It was good to start the morning with my newly arrived loose tea now on standard order with Amazon.com and a podcast from snowy Toronto.
Work in the trenches has kept me from keeping the blogs in good working order. I would love to promise improvement, but there is this quirky eating thing to which I have grown so accustomed. The other two distractions are, as before, the Google Reader and Kindle.
Out Google Reader subscription list is now a ridiculous number. However, the shortcuts, such as the letters m and j as well as the space bar do let me browse at a quicker pace. There is literature out there that says the human attention span is diminishing due to browsing in this manner. I don't know about that.
When mankind had little more to do then contemplate the ashes from last night's fire, the attention span may have been longer, but now with the entire world coming to our face on the computer screen, we need to be able to triage the information.
The program Q10, a full screen editor that brings me back to my DOS 8086, with the blue back ground and yellow print it helps to remove the distraction of bars and pop ups. I am using it now for the first copy of this entry.
The sound effect of the typewriter also soothes my ancient soul.
On the Kindle front, I have discovered Samples. I have mentioned a comparison between the Kindle and heroin. The offering of samples is along the same line.
This morning, before anything else, I went to the Amazon.com kindle books Web site and chose a dozen or so books to sample. Of the dozen, I chose to buy Gore Vidal's memoir. I am toying with The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes but will decide that after finishing Gore Vidal's book.
If you go down the right column on Belltowernews.com you will see the Google Reader box. I am constantly adding links in that box even when not making entries to the blog.
So, if you come to Belltowernews.com or any of the other Grazing Blogs, and there are no new entries, it would behoove you to at least glance at the Reader links.
Some of this stuff is fantastic.
Back to Google Reader!!!
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The only one from whom I seem to be getting any information on Twitter is Leo Laporte. He used the twitter email address to get his information from his visit to the Nile back to US. Now, did the Internet connection for North Africa and India collapse while he was there or after he left. Hmm.
Then, in today's CommandN, Twitter add-ons were part of the weekly Tech-Tips. Realizing I hadn't been on Twitter since last December I went in to see what I had left behind. Pretty much nothing.
I let Twitter look at my GMail contacts only to find none of the several hundred people on my list seem to have Twitter accounts. More likely, if they do, they're not using the official email address that would be found in my Thunderbird address book.
Jaiku makes much more sense. That, and we have it as box on in the right column of Belltowernews.com
I need to read more about Twitter and see about the fuss.
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