Category: Writing

Just writing

Categories
Weather Writing

Storm surges

Luckily Gustav calmed down before landfall, because I don’t think the New Orleans levees would have held if the surge was 18 feet as originally predicted.

It’s important, now, for Nagin et al to let people back into the city as soon as possible. If the city management continues to keep the citizens out, but let the business owners in, the next time the city officials call for an evacuation, people are going to say, “No”. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame them.

Gustav is still not through giving, though. We in St. Louis are getting tropical depression warnings, as we expect the storm to drop 8 inches, or more, on us on Friday.

In the meantime…how about that Atlantic, eh? If McCain and Obama continue their practice to discontinue campaigning every time we get hit with a hurricane, this may be the quietest presidential race, ever.

But then there’s Sarah. I could wish that we would spend more time on issues important to women, than one specific woman and her family challenges. This election is too important to continue to get distracted by the Palin sideshow.

PS Can you tell I’m half way through my book edits, and feeling more than a wee bit irritable?

Categories
JavaScript Writing

Future proofing books

The downside of the recent flurry of activity regarding JavaScript/ECMAScript is that I’m in the middle of tech editing Learning JavaScript, second edition, and not sure what to include.

On the one hand, it’s extremely important to me that the book be accurate, so my inclination is not to including anything that isn’t implemented in all four of my target test browsers (IE8, Firefox 3.x, Safari 3.x, and Opera 9.x). However, we plan on the book having a two year shelf life, and the discussion around Harmony notes implementations of ES 3.1 as early as next spring.

It used to be, at one time, companies and organizations would work with tech book companies and authors in order to ensure the accurate representation of information. What’s happened, though, is that many of the people working these issues on the committees are now writing their own books, and don’t particularly care about the accurate dissemination of information in other books. This in addition to everyone and their brother (rarely sister) having their own weblog, wiki, email list, Twitter, ad nauseum and if books like mine have inaccurate information, they can just publish The Truth in their own spaces.

So, now I’m left with a decision: don’t include anything at all on ES 3.1, and face emails and book criticisms about why I didn’t include coverage of such and such; or try to decipher what will eventually be implemented from this new effort, and run the risk of the pundits carefully pointing out everything wrong with the book, and how can O’Reilly publish a book by an author who is too stupid to know what she’s talking about.

Categories
Books

Grumbles in Kindletown

I have written before about my satisfaction with my Kindle, and even hope to write a couple of book reviews on new discoveries. However, not all is well in Kindletown at the moment, and reason is prices for Kindle editions.

I’ve been wanting the second book in Mercedes Lackey’s Obsidian trilogy, but Amazon only offered the first and third books. A few days ago, I noticed that the second book, To Light a Candle was available…for $22.63, which was equivalent to about 300% the price of the paperback (currently at $7.99).

I was astonished and more than a little peeved at the price, and posted a note about it in the Kindle forums. Not long after my note, another reader noticed that another Tor book by Mercedes Lackey, The Phoenix Unchained was also set to a price more expensive than the paperback ($16.61 as compared to $7.99). What’s even more odd about The Phoenix Unchained, it was originally set to a discounted paperback price of $6.29, and the price only jumped in the last week or so.

Today, To Light a Candle was reduced to $7.19, which compared to $7.99 for the paperback was an acceptable value. However, The Phoenix Unchained is still set to $16.61, effectively 150% the cost of a paperback. Though incidental to this discussion on books prices, I also noticed that the third volume in the Obsidian trilogy has vanished from the Kindle lists, which is odd considering that it makes no sense to “sell out” a digital book.

What seems to be happening with The Phoenix Unchained is that the Kindle volume is being offered at a discounted value…discounted from the hard cover price, not the paperback. Not for all of the books, either, but enough to generate some concerns.

In addition, I noticed my own Painting the Web has a discount of about 9% for the Kindle version, which is different from O’Reilly’s 20% discount it offers for the eBook bundle at the O’Reilly site. However, my paper book is discounted by Amazon, while the Kindle book is given less of a discount, so again, we’re talking about difficult to understand variations in Kindle pricing.

Another reader mentioned wanting to read the Janis Ian Autobiography, but the Kindle price is $16.01, while the hard cover is $17.79. Both are discounted from the retail cost of the book, which is $26.95. However, what happens when the paperback of the book is offered? Will the Kindle then become discounted from the paperback cost? Or discounted from the original hard cover?

Chances are, the pricing issues we noticed with the Tor books are related to Amazon being a bit overwhelmed with trying to load books, and making mistakes in the pricing. I can’t see how a publisher would expect to charge more for a Kindle book than a paperback, though I’m not sure I should make this assumption. Without any understanding of how the pricing schemes work, with books appearing, disappearing, and then appearing again, as prices vary significantly between publishers, we readers have become the ebook version of a Wall Street trader: forced to continuously check book prices, and be ready to scream out “Buy!” when the books we want hit that sweet spot (as O’Reilly has defined it).

I never knew book buying could be such an adventure. Or so stressful.

Categories
Writing

Last of the book and attack of the women

I put the finishing touches to the draft for my current book, and now it begins the technical review process. I don’t want to say it’s my last book, but there is no other on the horizon, as I return to the world of software development and consulting.

First, though, I need to spend time upgrading my own skills. When you write books, you have to let so many new and interesting technologies slide by because you don’t have time to stop, and play. You also end up coding in small pieces, because you’re focusing primarily on book samples, with little time for larger applications. Or that playing, I just mentioned.

I want to spend more time with Drupal, because I’ve only scratched the surface of this application. I am extremely pleased, nay tickled to see Angela Byron from Lullabot win an award for Best Contributor at OSCON for her work with Drupal—affirming that my move to this software was the best move for me. In fact, in sounds like women made significant inroads in the open source community at OSCON this year, aided, in part, I think, because of software communities, such as Drupal, which are decidedly woman friendly environments.

In particular Emma Jane Hogbin’s Form an Orderly Queue, Ladies presentation at OSCON provides details of a dastardly plot to infiltrate women into the ranks of the tech through open source. I love evil plotters, like Dr. Horrible, and evil plots, like women invading open source through innocent seeming applications like Drupal. Drupal and Dojo.

Bwa-ha-ha.

Categories
Books

Kindle and book freebies

In between accounts of the smog over Beijing, James Fallows at The Atlantic has been writing about his new Kindle and being able to use the device overseas. He also mentions a couple of free ebook download sites. I wanted to add to that list that the science fiction book publisher, Tor, is making several books available for free downloads through today (including PDFs for online reading). Hopefully this isn’t too late a notice for most of you.

I am still enamored with my Kindle, so much so that I’ve filled it up with free and purchased books, as well as samples, research reports, and other documents. I recently added an 8GB SDHC card, and am now happily trying to fill it up, too.

I do agree with one criticism of the Kindle in that it would be nice if there were a way to categorize the writings, as well as organize them into folders. However, you can search on any term, as well as display them by author, title, and status, so that will have to do for now.

Returning to using the Kindle overseas, Amazon is still not selling the device or Kindle books overseas and this decision isn’t because of Whispernet, it’s because of distribution rights and issues of copyright. Most publishers sell rights to distribution in foreign countries, an old practice that doesn’t live well with new ways of delivering content.

However, if you have a US-based address (in order to receive the Kindle) and credit card that works with Amazon purchases in the States, you could get the Kindle delivered and buy books. It’s just that instead of having them download via Whispernet, you download them to your computer and copy over using the USB cable. You can also use the same approach for updating your Kindle’s software.

It’s not as convenient as Whispernet, but it is workable. Perhaps we in the States should “adopt” our friends overseas, though there are other ebook readers that can be purchased regardless of country.

It’s also important to note that you don’t have to purchase books with Amazon. Many companies, like Tor, O’Reilly, and others are also selling ebooks direct, in formats that should work with a Kindle, a Sony ebook reader, and so on. It’s not as convenient, but other approaches may not be so locked in.

As for whether ebooks will replace the paper books, Fallows writes:

My theory: television didn’t eliminate radio, telephones didn’t eliminate personal conversations, eBooks won’t eliminate real books. People always find more ways to communicate, and this will be another way. Very good for some kinds of information, not so much for others. A welcome new addition to the mix.

Yes, but isn’t Twitter destroying our brains?

update A timely and interesting article on the internet’s impact on reading in the New York Times.