no, not driving that fast. I really doubt my Maserati, um, ancient Corolla, can go that fast.
that was the temp on my car's thermometer yesterday at a bit after 5 as we came home from the mountains. (moun-TAYNS as DH says).
it was about 90 up there, though the forecast had said 85. it's usually 80-ish, but 90 was better than 112. the water was cold in the little lake we went to.
there were some other kids there, picnicking like us, plus fishing and boating and whatever. I was a bit worried about the war and the sticks and the thrown pine cones, but everyone made it out without major injury.
officially, it was 107 here. oh is that all??
Monday, July 20, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
reading the Reader
In some ways, the eReader is great. I can start a new book without even setting the last one down and getting up and looking around. That's also a drawback, because I was lying there way too late one night and thought, "aw, I'll just start this little old thing" when I finished another book. I finally just turned it off, though, remembering that I had several physical books on my shelf, both purchased and from the library, that I wanted to read first. And it was late and I needed to sleep.
With the latest news on Amazon deleting George Orwell books (because they didn't actually have the right to sell them, apparently), it makes me wonder. The discussion is circulating around "who owns this book?" on the eReader loop. Turns out you don't own it.
One of the reasons that I am leery about going all electronic is that though I am allowed to read a book, I can't just tell my mom "this is a great book" and then mail it to her. Or buy her a book and read it before sending it (hehehe). People share books.
Also, in 20 years, am I still going to be able to read a .pdf file? I have paperbacks that are considerably more than 20 years old on my bookshelf, so don't tell me that all paperbacks fall apart.
And no, I don't think my high school copy (bought at a used book sale, even) of Pride and Prejudice is the Gutenberg Bible, but it will probably stick around for another 20 years.
And what is this about some agents and authors refusing to be published in eformat? Or at least waiting 6 months? Why are they not getting the same royalties both ways, since the price is generally the same AND the publisher and distributor don't have to make actual physical copies? Yes, they have to maintain larger servers, there is that, but the same amount should come to the author, shouldn't it? I think that's going to be the next big step: the same royalty to the author, no matter what the format.
And I know myself too well to think that if I find an eBook to be fabulous that I will go out and buy a hard copy. I won't. Sorry. It takes a heckuva lot to get me to buy something that I read from the library, at least not until a few years later when it's hard to get it from the library or else I want to reread it and I think "why not?"
With the latest news on Amazon deleting George Orwell books (because they didn't actually have the right to sell them, apparently), it makes me wonder. The discussion is circulating around "who owns this book?" on the eReader loop. Turns out you don't own it.
One of the reasons that I am leery about going all electronic is that though I am allowed to read a book, I can't just tell my mom "this is a great book" and then mail it to her. Or buy her a book and read it before sending it (hehehe). People share books.
Also, in 20 years, am I still going to be able to read a .pdf file? I have paperbacks that are considerably more than 20 years old on my bookshelf, so don't tell me that all paperbacks fall apart.
And no, I don't think my high school copy (bought at a used book sale, even) of Pride and Prejudice is the Gutenberg Bible, but it will probably stick around for another 20 years.
And what is this about some agents and authors refusing to be published in eformat? Or at least waiting 6 months? Why are they not getting the same royalties both ways, since the price is generally the same AND the publisher and distributor don't have to make actual physical copies? Yes, they have to maintain larger servers, there is that, but the same amount should come to the author, shouldn't it? I think that's going to be the next big step: the same royalty to the author, no matter what the format.
And I know myself too well to think that if I find an eBook to be fabulous that I will go out and buy a hard copy. I won't. Sorry. It takes a heckuva lot to get me to buy something that I read from the library, at least not until a few years later when it's hard to get it from the library or else I want to reread it and I think "why not?"
series books (suite et fin)
Just a week ago, I was saying that I couldn't finish four different series of books, but now it looks like I've got all the bits and pieces coming.
I used the gift certificate that came with my trial of the Sony ereader to buy book 5 of Body Movers and read that and #6 just arrived at the library. As I mentioned, I found out that the library did have the 2nd in a trilogy of cheesy books and got that and it's on my shelf. The next in Sabrina Jeffries' series has just arrived at the library for me. And the second Mary Balogh book somehow leap-frogged the third and came in this week I finished it yesterday.
Oh, and I thought the Balogh series was a trilogy because the three titles are linked, but there's a fourth one with the brother and an unrelated title, so I just requested that one, too. (Though I'm wondering if the cousin gets resolved in that one or if he's going to get his own book) Oh, and they have multiple copies already circulating, unlike the one before it, for which they have 3 copies county (and more) wide and another 7 ordered and not processed. I know they're surely processing books as fast as they can, but don't they have them in some sort of order?
So I guess I can read series books. :)
P.S. Oh, and somewhere, presumably in my house, is the 7th Robyn Carr book. I have it checked out and I can't find it. I might be buying the library a new copy. SIGH.
I used the gift certificate that came with my trial of the Sony ereader to buy book 5 of Body Movers and read that and #6 just arrived at the library. As I mentioned, I found out that the library did have the 2nd in a trilogy of cheesy books and got that and it's on my shelf. The next in Sabrina Jeffries' series has just arrived at the library for me. And the second Mary Balogh book somehow leap-frogged the third and came in this week I finished it yesterday.
Oh, and I thought the Balogh series was a trilogy because the three titles are linked, but there's a fourth one with the brother and an unrelated title, so I just requested that one, too. (Though I'm wondering if the cousin gets resolved in that one or if he's going to get his own book) Oh, and they have multiple copies already circulating, unlike the one before it, for which they have 3 copies county (and more) wide and another 7 ordered and not processed. I know they're surely processing books as fast as they can, but don't they have them in some sort of order?
So I guess I can read series books. :)
P.S. Oh, and somewhere, presumably in my house, is the 7th Robyn Carr book. I have it checked out and I can't find it. I might be buying the library a new copy. SIGH.
Friday, July 17, 2009
More about the Sony Reader
I'm bloggin bit by bit as I think of stuff, then will pull together the most important parts for the first review, which is due to the Smart Bee-yotch who set this up for 30 people to borrow Readers for a couple of months. Sort of rough draft and then editing. The review is only supposed to be 250 to 500 words, so you all are going to have to see the long, blah blah blah versions. Or ignore them, That's OK, too!
I downloaded some books from my local library the other day and it took an age and a half. For some reason, the Adobe Digital Library software that i used to have on this computer had disappeared. Did I take it off when I knew I wasn't going to use it? Or did DH blast it to make sense for whatever he wanted to put on here to go demo for someone? Anyway, I had to re-download that from Adobe after futzing about, trying to figure out where it was. And then I tried to download the books i had checked out, but all got was the little tiny file that is the DRM (which stands for, uh, licensing thingie). Once you open the tiny file in Digital Library, it's supposed to download the book. Only it didn't. So I ended up closing the Dig Lib and then rebooting and then magically all my missing USB ports were suddenly alive and then it would download the books and then I could just slap them into my eReader. All this took over an hour.
Then I was giddy with my own success, so I decided to use the Sony eBookstore gift certificate (good for Harlequins) the next day. And spent about an hour trying to figure out how to get the freaking thing to recognize the eReader and allow things to be loaded onto it. Turns out that the "temporarily unavailable" page that it hits to do that isn't the right page. It's a good thing there's an email loop for the testers and I asked the question on there and someone knew and told me how to set it up. So another hour blown and then a few hours between asking and getting back on the computer to find the answer. But anyway, i got 5 books for a bit over $3. Cool!
One was the 5th Body Movers book by Stephanie Bond that I had complained earlier that my library didn't have, even though they have the 6th one.
Right.
More on the actual reading later, after lunch and after I get the baby to take a nap.
I downloaded some books from my local library the other day and it took an age and a half. For some reason, the Adobe Digital Library software that i used to have on this computer had disappeared. Did I take it off when I knew I wasn't going to use it? Or did DH blast it to make sense for whatever he wanted to put on here to go demo for someone? Anyway, I had to re-download that from Adobe after futzing about, trying to figure out where it was. And then I tried to download the books i had checked out, but all got was the little tiny file that is the DRM (which stands for, uh, licensing thingie). Once you open the tiny file in Digital Library, it's supposed to download the book. Only it didn't. So I ended up closing the Dig Lib and then rebooting and then magically all my missing USB ports were suddenly alive and then it would download the books and then I could just slap them into my eReader. All this took over an hour.
Then I was giddy with my own success, so I decided to use the Sony eBookstore gift certificate (good for Harlequins) the next day. And spent about an hour trying to figure out how to get the freaking thing to recognize the eReader and allow things to be loaded onto it. Turns out that the "temporarily unavailable" page that it hits to do that isn't the right page. It's a good thing there's an email loop for the testers and I asked the question on there and someone knew and told me how to set it up. So another hour blown and then a few hours between asking and getting back on the computer to find the answer. But anyway, i got 5 books for a bit over $3. Cool!
One was the 5th Body Movers book by Stephanie Bond that I had complained earlier that my library didn't have, even though they have the 6th one.
Right.
More on the actual reading later, after lunch and after I get the baby to take a nap.
summer
We've had a mostly nice summer up until the last week or so. For DS2's birthday party, we had some light rain before and during which cooled off the air, though it made it a bit humid. The kids were in and out of the wading pool and the grown-ups (other than me, who was running around) had time to talk.
The last few days have been over 100 and the next few days bode to be the same.
I just got the electric bill for last month, which wasn't even as hot, except a couple of times (and, oh yeah, that one day when it was 108 and the hot days right around it). Yeah, it's steep. The next one will be worse. Sigh. It would be nice if they had built the houses around here with enough insulation to keep out some of the heat, wouldn't it? And double-pane windows? I know they existed and that they were recommended, even in the late 70's, when this house was built. But hey, cheap materials mean big profits, right?
The boys are watching season 2 of Rocky and Bullwinkle. We watched the first 2 Star Wars movies at the beginning of the week, but haven't watched the 3rd one yet. The old ones, from the late 70's, speaking of the late 70's :)
The last few days have been over 100 and the next few days bode to be the same.
I just got the electric bill for last month, which wasn't even as hot, except a couple of times (and, oh yeah, that one day when it was 108 and the hot days right around it). Yeah, it's steep. The next one will be worse. Sigh. It would be nice if they had built the houses around here with enough insulation to keep out some of the heat, wouldn't it? And double-pane windows? I know they existed and that they were recommended, even in the late 70's, when this house was built. But hey, cheap materials mean big profits, right?
The boys are watching season 2 of Rocky and Bullwinkle. We watched the first 2 Star Wars movies at the beginning of the week, but haven't watched the 3rd one yet. The old ones, from the late 70's, speaking of the late 70's :)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
First impressions of Sony Reader
Mine got here yesterday (a 505) and DH had my laptop to meet with a client. Our Mac is the only computer with a compatible port that I can reach (there's one on DH's work computer, probably, but it's lost in a tangle of wires and dust) so I charged it up on the Mac. Then he got home, but our wifi isn't working and my kids had the cord I use plugged into the Mac so they could watch old Transformers cartoons on YouTube, so I could only transfer stuff I already had on my laptop.
I saved my work-in-progress (WIP) as a pdf file and transferred that, too. Since we went for a playdate at my beta-reader-friend's house (her sons are the same ages as mine), I showed it to her and had her read the intro that I had changed (and more and more I keep thinking I need to take it out completely. It's very prologue-y. And ooooh I have an idea for it (quick jotting things down...)) But anyway.
So yesterday and so far today, I have only uploaded my book and a couple of free Harlequin books that I had already put on my laptop. Once I went back and read the instructions (and I didn't like the fold out format of the instruction sheet, so got most of my answers from the reader computer program - oh, which I had already installed from the Internet), it made more sense, but they still were a bit vague, I thought.
I read one of the Hqn books last night while getting the baby to sleep. When magnified one click, one page almost fits on a screen, but sometimes there are some orphan lines on the next screen and I have to click again 2 seconds later. It would be nice if it could figure that out and go from one screen to the next, but it is just a pdf reader and reads a page. Oh, and it messes up the formatting quite a bit, especially in dialogue. There were a couple of places that I had to click through the magnifications (I know it's only 3 sizes, but wouldn't it be nice if there were a zoom out button, too?) to get back to the original, small size just so I could see who said what.
It is a bit dim in the light of one lamp while the baby is falling asleep, but generally it has been all right. The reason I don't like reading on computer screens for too long at a time is the backlight. I'm glad to hear from others that it is visible in bright light, it doesn't just disappear like cell phones screens usually do.
It's going to take some getting used to the blinking when going from one page to the next. I read quickly and am used to just zooming on, but I have to give it a couple of seconds which is throwing me off. Obviously, that shouldn't be insurmountable!
I'm still pretty paranoid that I'm going to drop or leave it where the baby can get and she's going to hurl it across the room.
Right, all that and I haven't even downloaded anything new from the Net for it, have I? Well, once I have, I'll write a review for Sarah at the smart bitches :)
I saved my work-in-progress (WIP) as a pdf file and transferred that, too. Since we went for a playdate at my beta-reader-friend's house (her sons are the same ages as mine), I showed it to her and had her read the intro that I had changed (and more and more I keep thinking I need to take it out completely. It's very prologue-y. And ooooh I have an idea for it (quick jotting things down...)) But anyway.
So yesterday and so far today, I have only uploaded my book and a couple of free Harlequin books that I had already put on my laptop. Once I went back and read the instructions (and I didn't like the fold out format of the instruction sheet, so got most of my answers from the reader computer program - oh, which I had already installed from the Internet), it made more sense, but they still were a bit vague, I thought.
I read one of the Hqn books last night while getting the baby to sleep. When magnified one click, one page almost fits on a screen, but sometimes there are some orphan lines on the next screen and I have to click again 2 seconds later. It would be nice if it could figure that out and go from one screen to the next, but it is just a pdf reader and reads a page. Oh, and it messes up the formatting quite a bit, especially in dialogue. There were a couple of places that I had to click through the magnifications (I know it's only 3 sizes, but wouldn't it be nice if there were a zoom out button, too?) to get back to the original, small size just so I could see who said what.
It is a bit dim in the light of one lamp while the baby is falling asleep, but generally it has been all right. The reason I don't like reading on computer screens for too long at a time is the backlight. I'm glad to hear from others that it is visible in bright light, it doesn't just disappear like cell phones screens usually do.
It's going to take some getting used to the blinking when going from one page to the next. I read quickly and am used to just zooming on, but I have to give it a couple of seconds which is throwing me off. Obviously, that shouldn't be insurmountable!
I'm still pretty paranoid that I'm going to drop or leave it where the baby can get and she's going to hurl it across the room.
Right, all that and I haven't even downloaded anything new from the Net for it, have I? Well, once I have, I'll write a review for Sarah at the smart bitches :)
Sunday, July 12, 2009
series books that make me crazy
I am not sure why, but the library (covers the whole county and then some) has plentiful copies of books 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 in the Stephanie Bond Body Movers series and book 5 is still in the computer as "On order."
I finished book 4 last night and unlike the first three, it completely leaves you hanging. Well, they all do to a certain extent, because they're a series and not all issues are resolved, but in #4, they solve a minor mystery, but - not to give too many spoilers - they don't solve the big one where people are dying.
I greatly prefer series that have some sort of closure at the end of each book, where each book could possibly stand on its own. Especially in a mystery. Eeesh
So anyway, I have #6 on its way from the library, but who knows when I'll be getting #5. Maybe I'll use my Harlequin gift certificate to buy it for the e-book reader that should be here soon... hmmm.... Still, seems a waste of money.
PLUS, I am reading the Sabrina Jeffries School for Heiresses series. I have read 2 or 3 of them before, but out of order, so now am going to read them all in order, since there's a new one out, apparently the last in the series. So I read the first one and am stuck because I didn't realize which was the 2nd one and have just now requested it from the library, so I have 2 books on my shelf which i have to forcibly restrain myself from reading - and probably have to renew at the library - until i get it.
Oh, and a cheesy series that i read the first of and the third is in transit, but the 2nd one is stuck on hold - only one copy in the system and suddenly it's marked "claims returned" so it's disappeared. I'm not sure this particular series is worth holding my breath, so I'll probably read the 3rd book and turn it in and call it done. Oh, wait. It seemed odd that they only had one copy, so I searched for it by keywords of author and title and they have it in there twice. Phew! My OCD self will just have to pass on the 3rd book for a bit. So there it is on my bookshelf...
Oh wait, one more: I have read the first in the latest Mary Balogh series and the third is on its way to me, but the 2nd is hung up somewhere with more people ahead of me in line.
Maybe I should stick to single title books.
I finished book 4 last night and unlike the first three, it completely leaves you hanging. Well, they all do to a certain extent, because they're a series and not all issues are resolved, but in #4, they solve a minor mystery, but - not to give too many spoilers - they don't solve the big one where people are dying.
I greatly prefer series that have some sort of closure at the end of each book, where each book could possibly stand on its own. Especially in a mystery. Eeesh
So anyway, I have #6 on its way from the library, but who knows when I'll be getting #5. Maybe I'll use my Harlequin gift certificate to buy it for the e-book reader that should be here soon... hmmm.... Still, seems a waste of money.
PLUS, I am reading the Sabrina Jeffries School for Heiresses series. I have read 2 or 3 of them before, but out of order, so now am going to read them all in order, since there's a new one out, apparently the last in the series. So I read the first one and am stuck because I didn't realize which was the 2nd one and have just now requested it from the library, so I have 2 books on my shelf which i have to forcibly restrain myself from reading - and probably have to renew at the library - until i get it.
Oh, and a cheesy series that i read the first of and the third is in transit, but the 2nd one is stuck on hold - only one copy in the system and suddenly it's marked "claims returned" so it's disappeared. I'm not sure this particular series is worth holding my breath, so I'll probably read the 3rd book and turn it in and call it done. Oh, wait. It seemed odd that they only had one copy, so I searched for it by keywords of author and title and they have it in there twice. Phew! My OCD self will just have to pass on the 3rd book for a bit. So there it is on my bookshelf...
Oh wait, one more: I have read the first in the latest Mary Balogh series and the third is on its way to me, but the 2nd is hung up somewhere with more people ahead of me in line.
Maybe I should stick to single title books.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
