The Espresso Book Machine has arrived

And the gadget geek in me is in awe. The machine is still hideously ugly and looks like a prototype, but if it catches on, I'm sure that will change. If it does become popular, it will change the way the whole book industry works, but I can't even begin to imagine how. If I were a bookstore owner, I would go have a quiet nervous breakdown in the corner, and then order me a couple.



Hat tip to the Harper Studio blog via Twitter and @MariaSchneider.

The Global Village is here

I love the social network sites, truly I do. I have met some truly incredible people there, ones that I had no hope of meeting in "real" life. Some are passing acquaintances, others are becoming fast friends. Between blogs, MySpace, Facebook, forums, and now Twitter, the opportunities are amazing. I've conversed with CEO's, assistant district attorneys, renowned intellectuals, journalists, experts in various fields and all kinds of wonderful "ordinary" folk. Am I going to give this up? No way!

I can also keep track of people I already know so much easier. How else could I watch my niece growing up from 3000 miles away, give or take a few hundred? Or read the out-of-town newsclippings about my various offspring?

But there's a downside to all this connectedness. You've probably all heard about the fellow on Twitter who lost his job before he even started. Or the fact that human resource personnel will often check out your Facebook profiles before even making the offer. On a more personal level, I suspect my kids had mixed feelings when they got my friend requests on Facebook and I was more than a little bemused to find my own mother had got there before me. Not that I mind. But there's no way I can tell her I was busy with X, Y, and Z if she can see my status updates there, now can I? (Just FYI, I don't lie to my mother... She reads my blog too.)



My isolated semi-suburban existence is taking on some of the quality of village life. The support is there: I can launch a prayer request and have friends and churches from Georgia to Australia praying for me. One of my online friends had his house burn down and with a couple of days his cyberfriends organized a blog accepting donations for the rebuilding. So many of us rallied to his cause that it attracted newspaper interest.

On Jessica Faust's blog, it is becoming rather evident that a lot of aspiring authors are having a hard time squaring literary agents' claims that they are too swamped with work to respond promptly with the fact that some of them spend a lot of time posting their thoughts on Twitter. They like even less what some of those thoughts have been. That was yet another cyberstorm that made its way into the mainstream media. For the record, I think a lot of those complaints are unreasonable, but not all of them. In any event, agents are also discovering that they have to weigh carefully how they express themselves online. Online communities are displaying that other characteristic of village life - you can't set a foot outside without all the neighbours knowing.

I myself am becoming a little more circumspect. I had a rather strange thing happen to me recently which I can't tell you about. I'm becoming all too aware of who might be watching. No, it wasn't anything bad or creepy or shameful, just yet another thing to make me realize my voice could carry further than I think.

So now I'm curious. As this realization sinks in, will we see a withdrawal from the social media? Will people prefer to abandon them for the sake of greater privacy? Or will we learn to live with greater transparency, too smitten with the advantages of connectedness to give it all up? Will we become like the inhabitants of real villages, constantly aware of the eyes on our back, reflexively close-mouthed, yet often comforted by that constant presence?

Are your habits changing?

Book trailers

Have you seen them floating around YouTube? Little one- or two-minute clips, designed to make your mouth water for a particular book: book trailers.

It seems logical, doesn't it? Like movies, novels are a form of story-telling. A good hint at the story should make people want to buy the book, right?

But how many people you know browse YouTube looking for books? Do you?

How many people buy books as a result of viewing a trailer? Do you?

Is it worth the time and effort and financial outlay to create a book trailer? Will anybody see them who is not already a fan?

Please answer the poll at the top of the left-hand sidebar, and then tell me why I should or shouldn't make a book trailer when the time comes. Or if you've made one, tell me what you've learned.

Nothing happens when I double click

Students wrestle with unfamiliar technology.



In all seriousness, I think it's time we gave students eReaders instead of paper texts. The texts are obscenely expensive and student backpacks obscenely heavy. It doesn't help that the publishing industry has followed an aggressive bigger-is-better policy regarding textbooks for years.

From the Practical Theory blog. Hat tip to Christa Allen.

Feedbooks

Get thee to Feedbooks, forthwith!

Two words: free books. Works in the public domain, available as free pdf's, no strings attached. Enough to make a booklover weep for joy. You can read them on your computer, on your iPhone, on your Kindle, or your addiction of choice. And if you fall in love with the book you download, you can go out and buy it on paper, knowing ahead of time that you love it.

And if you self-publish, they will distribute your manuscript too. Doubt if there's a payment model involved, but if you just want to get read...

This is one of the cool things I discovered on Twitter.


Technorati tags: Feedbooks, Free books, Free downloads

Facebook backs down [Updated]

Ever since Colleen Lindsay's blog gave me the heads up, I've been following the Facebook saga with some interest.

For those of you who aren't in the loop, Facebook quietly changed its Terms of Service (TOS) a couple of weeks ago, and basically granted themselves full rights in perpetuity to anything you post on Facebook. In theory, that means they could lift any of your content - photos, poems, your name, your essays - and use them in any way they saw fit. It even sounded like they wanted in on anything you linked to that streamed in from another website. (Not too sure about that - that's my amateur reading of the legalese.)

Mark Zuckerberg must have been shocked by the uproar. Several Facebook groups opposing the new TOS sprang into existence, and the major media took an active interest also. Zuckerberg's claims that Facebook would never do anything nasty with your data, that they just wanted to make formal the fact that even if you delete your account, your pictures and such will still be kicking around your friends' pages for a while. In essence, "trust us, no matter what it says, we won't really use it." This made a lot of people legitimately nervous, particularly anybody doing creative work. We're not too keen on granting rights to Facebook - in perpetuity no less - for our fiction, our music, our artwork, our photography.

The ruckus was loud and global and Zuckerberg caved. He went back to the old TOS. I, for one, am not so sure I want to reinstate my blog feed on Facebook. I've only ever posted one piece of flash fiction here, but it's the principle of the thing. I'm going to double-check my privacy settings there too.

I sure hope Blogger isn't next. Are you re-evaluating your online practices as a result of the recent brouhaha? Or have you always been ultra-careful?

[Update] And here is a wonderful link that explains Facebook privacy settings and how to customize them.


Technorati tags: Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Privacy rights

I hope this idea is contagious

The Outaouais transit corporation is going to ask those annoying bus riders who bellow into their cell phones to pipe down. In extreme cases, they're even prepared to apply fines.

Now can they do something about the people who have loud prolonged conversations in movie theatres and churches? Please?

Apparently Australia has prohibited cell phone use on trains altogether. A bit of overkill there, it seems to me.


Technorati tags: Cell phones, Public transportation

Do Not Call!

That's it! I've had it. I signed up on the Canadian Do Not Call List. I am so sick of getting umpteen calls a day from telemarketers - half of them fraudulent - that I could scream. Registering on the DNCL was the first proactive step I have taken. Unfortunately it was just a small one.

The problem is that most of the telemarketers are calling me from the US, and the American DNCL won't let me register. I know, I tried. It keeps telling me to correct my area code.

I used to see advertisements on TV, back when I still watched TV, for a doohickey that would detect computer-dialed phone calls and automatically block them, sending back a message that your phone number is invalid, which would delete you from their database. Are those gadgets still on the market? What are they called and where do I find them?

I've tried a google search, but all I'm finding is the machines to MAKE those annoying calls.

Or do you have any other tips for me, other than systematically asking every telemarketer to remove me from their call lists? And how do you ask a recording to do that?


Technorati tags: Telemarketers, Do Not Call

Evaluating the Compaq Presario CQ50

I got this little baby over a week ago, and have spent many, many hours on it since. If you're thinking of buying one, here is what I've liked and what I haven't. (Click on the picture for a product description.)

On the whole, I'm happy. I wanted a pretty basic machine, primarily for writing and web-surfing, so I was willing to go with a fairly stripped-down model. And it is stripped down. There is a DVD/CD drive, a built-in mike, and that's about it. I'll have to use CD's and USB keys for data transfer: the ports for other memory cards are not included in this model, although the space is there if you buy a more expensive model.

I've found the 2GB of RAM to be sufficient for my needs, and I can supplement it at any time with a flash drive, or upgrade later to 4GB.

Where I am less happy is with the tracking device. It has a touch pad with a scrolling zone which can be a bit problematic. It will sometimes click on an item all on its own, and the scrolling "bar" is quirky. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This can sometimes depend on where in the document you're pointing when you try to use it, but not always. It's only caused me minor irritation, but I'm still thinking this should work better.

The lithium-ion battery only gives about two hours of working time, which disappoints me a little, but again, that will meet my needs most of the time. I won't often be using it for extended periods away from an electrical outlet. Your mileage may vary. It is very easy to swap out, if I were interested in buying an extra battery.

The case is a very classy-looking glossy black. It also shows every finger-print. A cloth is included for wiping them off, but it doesn't work that well. Fusspots should abstain.

I hope this will be of some use for people thinking of buying this laptop. Feel free to ask any other questions you might have.


Technorati tags: Compaq Presario, Laptops, Notebook computers