Listening to: Sigur Ros, (3).
I've been reading William Gibson's Neuromancer - or re-reading to be precise, I've read it numerous times since I first came across it about 20 years ago (Gibson wrote it in 1983) - an amazing novel, even now that the World Wide Web has been around for 15 years and it was written a decade before the first browser became available, it's still a very credible story. Gibson has an amazing vision for sub-cultures and how technologies can affect humanity... way before the technology actually exists.
Revisiting Neuromancer has brought some inspiration back to me (the reason I dug it out of the bookshelf was in the hope that it would provide some motivation). I've cleaned up a little plot splice I had a few issues with and made that fit nicely with some new material I've been slowly working into the story.
After 5 years Coma City still isn't near finished but it's always nagging away in my mind. Sometimes that nag is loud enough to get me hunched over a keyboard for a couple of hours, other times it's barely a whisper.
To be honest I'm really pissed off at myself for not having finished the book. My sister was diagnosed with cancer at the start of the year and by the middle of the year her prognosis was very bleak so I set myself a goal of finishing my book for her to read, or at least having something close to a story, that flowed logically from beginning to end, within a couple of months. I had been telling her about my book for years and she was keen to see it come to fruition. Unfortunately her bleak prognosis of only surviving to the end of the year became a lot bleaker in August and she passed away that same month, leaving everyone with unfulfilled wishes and heavy hearts.
I love you Louise and miss you every day.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
The e-book Revolution
All this hype about Apple's iPad and iBookstore may be becoming a tad tedious but there is reason for some of the excitement, especially for unpublished authors.
Some commentators are saying that the popularity of the iPad could bring about the return of low cost reading matter like the old dime novels / penny dreadfuls or even pulp magazines that were popular during the late 19th and early 20th century.
Of course there are other (and some would say better) electronic book readers than the iPad (such as Amazon's Kindle) and most of these are more than capable of bringing about the revival of a inexpensive short stories revolution.
There are some caveats to Apple's iBookstore that complicate things for a small time author hoping to distribute their work. The first hurdle is Apple's requirement for all books to have an ISBN, which can be quite a costly exercise. The second hurdle is the requirement for a US Tax ID, maybe not such an issue to US citizens as it is to those in the rest of the world and hopefully over time Apple will open this up to tax ID's for each regional iTunes store, ie. Australia, New Zealand, UK, France, etc.
On top of that, your book must conform to the EPUB format and be encoded by Apple's dedicated software on a Mac with an Intel CPU running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or better.
Once over these, one must possess a valid iTunes account (so Apple can pay you) and one must be prepared to wait until enough of your books have sold to bring your balance over the earnings threshold set by Apple.
Does this all sound much too hard for a struggling author to cope with? Thankfully Apple have already anticipated your reaction and allowed for other self-publishing sites, such as Smashwords and Lulu, to do all the hard work to get your book on the iBookstore shelves. Most of these companies will also help authors (or anyone with something to publish) get their books into other e-book stores or even print hardcopies (I've mentioned Lulu in this regard before).
2010 is shaping up to be the year of the tablet (or slate) computer so expect to see more people reading e-books on these devices, as well as dedicated e-book readers, on a regular basis and hopefully authors will see a revolution similar to that being enjoyed by small time software developers creating apps for the iPhone (and other mobile device platforms). Stay tuned.
Some commentators are saying that the popularity of the iPad could bring about the return of low cost reading matter like the old dime novels / penny dreadfuls or even pulp magazines that were popular during the late 19th and early 20th century.
Of course there are other (and some would say better) electronic book readers than the iPad (such as Amazon's Kindle) and most of these are more than capable of bringing about the revival of a inexpensive short stories revolution.
There are some caveats to Apple's iBookstore that complicate things for a small time author hoping to distribute their work. The first hurdle is Apple's requirement for all books to have an ISBN, which can be quite a costly exercise. The second hurdle is the requirement for a US Tax ID, maybe not such an issue to US citizens as it is to those in the rest of the world and hopefully over time Apple will open this up to tax ID's for each regional iTunes store, ie. Australia, New Zealand, UK, France, etc.
On top of that, your book must conform to the EPUB format and be encoded by Apple's dedicated software on a Mac with an Intel CPU running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or better.
Once over these, one must possess a valid iTunes account (so Apple can pay you) and one must be prepared to wait until enough of your books have sold to bring your balance over the earnings threshold set by Apple.
Does this all sound much too hard for a struggling author to cope with? Thankfully Apple have already anticipated your reaction and allowed for other self-publishing sites, such as Smashwords and Lulu, to do all the hard work to get your book on the iBookstore shelves. Most of these companies will also help authors (or anyone with something to publish) get their books into other e-book stores or even print hardcopies (I've mentioned Lulu in this regard before).
2010 is shaping up to be the year of the tablet (or slate) computer so expect to see more people reading e-books on these devices, as well as dedicated e-book readers, on a regular basis and hopefully authors will see a revolution similar to that being enjoyed by small time software developers creating apps for the iPhone (and other mobile device platforms). Stay tuned.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Progress
I haven't been here for a long (too long) while but a comment by an anonymous poster has brought me back.
Whilst here I noticed that the Progressometer, in the right column had disappeared (and was, of course, not up to date). It turns out that the site for the word meter I had used (zokutou.co.uk) had vanished off the face of the web.
After a little hunting and googling I found another word meter. This one is actually better than the previous because it uses straight HTML code rather than images hosted on sites far, far away. Thus if the creator's site goes off air the meter will continue to function.
I have set the little meter in place, tinkered with the settings and updated the word count so that I can revel in the wonders of my advancement (sarcasm pushed all the way up to 11). Thank you to the author for so generously providing this handy little device.
Ciao
Whilst here I noticed that the Progressometer, in the right column had disappeared (and was, of course, not up to date). It turns out that the site for the word meter I had used (zokutou.co.uk) had vanished off the face of the web.
After a little hunting and googling I found another word meter. This one is actually better than the previous because it uses straight HTML code rather than images hosted on sites far, far away. Thus if the creator's site goes off air the meter will continue to function.
I have set the little meter in place, tinkered with the settings and updated the word count so that I can revel in the wonders of my advancement (sarcasm pushed all the way up to 11). Thank you to the author for so generously providing this handy little device.
Ciao
Friday, February 20, 2009
Monday, December 08, 2008
Times are bad
"Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book."
A quote from the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (106BC-43BC) as true today as it was in his time.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Cheap Mobil Computing
Listening to: So Easy, Röyksopp
For a while now I've been considering getting a small notebook computer with the idea that its portability will allow me to write more often and even provide me with the opportunity to write in locations that might induce inspiration - with my book set in Melbourne it would be very helpful to sit down and write in the exact place I'm describing.
At first I was set on an Apple MacBook - a natural thought for one who already owns a Mac - but then I started to rationalise what I expected to be doing with a portable computer and soon realised that a MacBook would be overkill (and over priced) for what would basically be a typing and Internet browsing tool. It would be wiser for me to upgrade my eMac to a more powerful iMac, with a larger hard drive and bigger screen than spend around the same amount of money on a MacBook with smaller screen, storage and lesser processing and graphics capabilities. Of course the MacBook has a faster processor than my eMac but I don't really need that when I'm away from desk, which is where I do most my CPU intensive work, ie. video editing and DVD authoring. When I'm out and about all I need is a keyboard, a screen and a small amount of storage (wireless Internet access would be an added bonus so I can write on-line using tools such as Google Docs - which I used to write this).
Around the same time I came to this conclusion along came the ASUS Eee PC 701. For the next few months I enthusiastically followed news and blogs on this remarkable little "Ultra-Mobile-PC" (UMPC). It's tiny proportions (225 x 165 x 21mm) and around 900 grams in weight are also matched with a small price of around $400-500AUD which even includes Wifi and a web camera. But there were two other features that had the tech world going gaga: First is the operating system, it's Linux based and includes 40 Open-Source programs arranged under four simple to understand banners: Internet, Work, Learn and Play. There's two advantages to Linux: It's open source (meaning it's free) and a well composed distribution doesn't bog down a system like Windows does so less powerful (and therefore cheaper) CPU's can be used.
The second thing that captured the tech jornos imagination is that the Eee PC stores it's data on Solid State Drive (SSD), rather than the normal Hard Disk Drive (HDD) found in most computers. The big advantages of SSD's are lower power consumption and no moving parts - so if you drop your Eee PC your data is less likely to be lost (shame about that cracked casing though). The disadvantage is the cost per Gigabyte of storage; meaning the storage sizes on offer are a tiny 2, 4 or 8GB. Asus later offered the option of having the Microsoft Windows XP operating system installed, to tempt those who couldn't possibly live without Solitaire and several hundred thousand viruses to keep them busy.
Of course the Eee PC's small proportions also means a small display of only 7 inches and a small keyboard that many reviewers say is too cramped, or at best, takes a while to get used to. Then ASUS brought out a 8.9" display model called the Eee PC 900 in a casing that was only a smidge bigger than the 701 and still weighed under 1 Kilogram. A nice additional feature is a multi-touch pad that allows finger gestures to perform actions such as zooming and scrolling. However the tiny keyboard remained, leaving me pondering whether I could learn to live with an Eee PC.
Then, just this week, at the COMPUTEX expo in Taiwan, comes the announcement of a 10" Eee PC in 2 models the 1000 and the 1000H. The 1000H uses a 80 GB HDD (hence the H) and comes with Windows XP installed, while the 1000 sports a 40GB SSD and runs the Linux OS. Both now run on the new Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor (as does a new 8.9" model, dubbed 901) which benefits from some clever power conserving technology, allowing for longer times between battery charges (up to 7 hours!). Something worth noting about the 10" models is that their casings are larger than their 7" and 9" brothers and therefore allow for a bigger keyboard; ASUS are saying it's 92% the size of a conventional keyboard (it will be interesting to see what the reviewers think).
So, has my search for a small, light mobile computer ended with the Eee PC 1000? In a word, no. Not since the MSI Wind blew (excuse the pun) into the UMPC market. This one is practically identical to the Eee PC 1000, with one major difference, price. MSI will sell the Linux version of the Wind for $399 USD, ASUS have gone bananas and put a USD$600+ sticker on the 1000. The 10" Wind is even cheaper than the Eee PC 901, although, part of this price difference can be attributed to the fact that the Wind uses a hard disk for storage and lacks the multi-touch pad. ASUS kicked off the low-cost UMPC market with a cheap, feature rich device and now they look like they'll be beaten in the very market place that they created. I hope they enjoyed their year in the spotlight.
However, something else happened in the last week that made even the $400 MSI Wind look pricey. My employer was getting rid of some old computers and offered them gratis to anyone who wanted them. Amongst these cast-off's was a Toshiba Portege M100, of 2003 vintage, with a 12.1" display, 1.2GHz CPU, 512MB RAM and wireless (albeit 802.11b). Needless to say, I snatched this one up.
As always there's a catch: my employer wouldn't allow the computers to go out into the wild with hard drives still installed, lest they carry some data of a sensitive nature. It's also a bit scuffed and grubby but I can live with that (at least I won't have that horrible feeling one gets when they put the first scratch on their nice shiny new toy). It's also nearly one kilo heavier than the Wind but it does have something none of the low-cost UMPC's have; a CD-RW/DVD-R drive, which I've been using to boot a variety of Linux LiveCD's to try out - I've never been impressed by Windows and so decided to set myself the target of getting this computer functional for as little or no cost.
So far I've had Puppy Linux, gOS and Mandriva One running on the Toshiba and all have performed well. The most impressive, simply because of it's tiny size, is Puppy. The entire OS can be loaded into the computers memory (as long as it's over 256Mb) and run from there even after the CD has been removed. Amazingly Puppy still includes applications for web browsing, e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets, media players as well as a bunch of utilities and games. I was able to quickly access my wireless network and Puppy even asked if I wanted it to to save my configurations to a USB flashdrive (remember, I haven't instaled a HDD yet). At no time did I need to consult the manual or look for help. Microsoft should be paying close attention to how well Puppy operates using only as much space as a 2 page Word document would consume.
Mandriva One, which is the LiveCD version of Mandriva, is also impressive. It looks a lot more professional than Puppy (and is about 10 times the size, at 500+ Megabytes, so it ought to) and includes the OpenOffice suite, Firefox web browser, Gimp image editor and media players, plus all the utilities that most Linux's include. I was pleasantly surprised when I plugged in my Bluetooth dongle into one of the USB ports and it was instantly recognised and once the passcode was entered I was connected to my mobile phone and transferring files.
The only issue I had with Mandriva was that the CD had to be read when ever a new program was opened, meaning things took a bit longer. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if I had a hard drive and doubled the RAM to 1GB; something I could easily do with a visit to a computer swap meet and $50 spending money.
Looking remarkably like Mac OS X, gOS looks beautiful with a dock full of Google applications and very easy to use... as longs as you don't want to change any configurations. It took a bit of searching of the gOS forums (their online help is dismal) to find out how to enter my WEP password so I could access my wireless network - a program with the non-descriptive name of Exalt is the wireless manager, I found it tucked away in a sub-menu of a sub-menu. Still, once that was sorted out, there's much to be impressed about. Along with all those convenient Google application links on the desktop there's a solid collection of on board apps., including OpenOffice.
I haven't completed my quest yet. I intend to try out Ubuntu and Fedora before I settle on an OS for my new free laptop... Sure, it's not as petite and sexy as the modern UMPC but what fun! I'm like being a kid in a candy shop.
For a while now I've been considering getting a small notebook computer with the idea that its portability will allow me to write more often and even provide me with the opportunity to write in locations that might induce inspiration - with my book set in Melbourne it would be very helpful to sit down and write in the exact place I'm describing.
At first I was set on an Apple MacBook - a natural thought for one who already owns a Mac - but then I started to rationalise what I expected to be doing with a portable computer and soon realised that a MacBook would be overkill (and over priced) for what would basically be a typing and Internet browsing tool. It would be wiser for me to upgrade my eMac to a more powerful iMac, with a larger hard drive and bigger screen than spend around the same amount of money on a MacBook with smaller screen, storage and lesser processing and graphics capabilities. Of course the MacBook has a faster processor than my eMac but I don't really need that when I'm away from desk, which is where I do most my CPU intensive work, ie. video editing and DVD authoring. When I'm out and about all I need is a keyboard, a screen and a small amount of storage (wireless Internet access would be an added bonus so I can write on-line using tools such as Google Docs - which I used to write this).
Around the same time I came to this conclusion along came the ASUS Eee PC 701. For the next few months I enthusiastically followed news and blogs on this remarkable little "Ultra-Mobile-PC" (UMPC). It's tiny proportions (225 x 165 x 21mm) and around 900 grams in weight are also matched with a small price of around $400-500AUD which even includes Wifi and a web camera. But there were two other features that had the tech world going gaga: First is the operating system, it's Linux based and includes 40 Open-Source programs arranged under four simple to understand banners: Internet, Work, Learn and Play. There's two advantages to Linux: It's open source (meaning it's free) and a well composed distribution doesn't bog down a system like Windows does so less powerful (and therefore cheaper) CPU's can be used.
The second thing that captured the tech jornos imagination is that the Eee PC stores it's data on Solid State Drive (SSD), rather than the normal Hard Disk Drive (HDD) found in most computers. The big advantages of SSD's are lower power consumption and no moving parts - so if you drop your Eee PC your data is less likely to be lost (shame about that cracked casing though). The disadvantage is the cost per Gigabyte of storage; meaning the storage sizes on offer are a tiny 2, 4 or 8GB. Asus later offered the option of having the Microsoft Windows XP operating system installed, to tempt those who couldn't possibly live without Solitaire and several hundred thousand viruses to keep them busy.
Of course the Eee PC's small proportions also means a small display of only 7 inches and a small keyboard that many reviewers say is too cramped, or at best, takes a while to get used to. Then ASUS brought out a 8.9" display model called the Eee PC 900 in a casing that was only a smidge bigger than the 701 and still weighed under 1 Kilogram. A nice additional feature is a multi-touch pad that allows finger gestures to perform actions such as zooming and scrolling. However the tiny keyboard remained, leaving me pondering whether I could learn to live with an Eee PC.
Then, just this week, at the COMPUTEX expo in Taiwan, comes the announcement of a 10" Eee PC in 2 models the 1000 and the 1000H. The 1000H uses a 80 GB HDD (hence the H) and comes with Windows XP installed, while the 1000 sports a 40GB SSD and runs the Linux OS. Both now run on the new Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor (as does a new 8.9" model, dubbed 901) which benefits from some clever power conserving technology, allowing for longer times between battery charges (up to 7 hours!). Something worth noting about the 10" models is that their casings are larger than their 7" and 9" brothers and therefore allow for a bigger keyboard; ASUS are saying it's 92% the size of a conventional keyboard (it will be interesting to see what the reviewers think).
So, has my search for a small, light mobile computer ended with the Eee PC 1000? In a word, no. Not since the MSI Wind blew (excuse the pun) into the UMPC market. This one is practically identical to the Eee PC 1000, with one major difference, price. MSI will sell the Linux version of the Wind for $399 USD, ASUS have gone bananas and put a USD$600+ sticker on the 1000. The 10" Wind is even cheaper than the Eee PC 901, although, part of this price difference can be attributed to the fact that the Wind uses a hard disk for storage and lacks the multi-touch pad. ASUS kicked off the low-cost UMPC market with a cheap, feature rich device and now they look like they'll be beaten in the very market place that they created. I hope they enjoyed their year in the spotlight.
However, something else happened in the last week that made even the $400 MSI Wind look pricey. My employer was getting rid of some old computers and offered them gratis to anyone who wanted them. Amongst these cast-off's was a Toshiba Portege M100, of 2003 vintage, with a 12.1" display, 1.2GHz CPU, 512MB RAM and wireless (albeit 802.11b). Needless to say, I snatched this one up.
As always there's a catch: my employer wouldn't allow the computers to go out into the wild with hard drives still installed, lest they carry some data of a sensitive nature. It's also a bit scuffed and grubby but I can live with that (at least I won't have that horrible feeling one gets when they put the first scratch on their nice shiny new toy). It's also nearly one kilo heavier than the Wind but it does have something none of the low-cost UMPC's have; a CD-RW/DVD-R drive, which I've been using to boot a variety of Linux LiveCD's to try out - I've never been impressed by Windows and so decided to set myself the target of getting this computer functional for as little or no cost.
So far I've had Puppy Linux, gOS and Mandriva One running on the Toshiba and all have performed well. The most impressive, simply because of it's tiny size, is Puppy. The entire OS can be loaded into the computers memory (as long as it's over 256Mb) and run from there even after the CD has been removed. Amazingly Puppy still includes applications for web browsing, e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets, media players as well as a bunch of utilities and games. I was able to quickly access my wireless network and Puppy even asked if I wanted it to to save my configurations to a USB flashdrive (remember, I haven't instaled a HDD yet). At no time did I need to consult the manual or look for help. Microsoft should be paying close attention to how well Puppy operates using only as much space as a 2 page Word document would consume.
Mandriva One, which is the LiveCD version of Mandriva, is also impressive. It looks a lot more professional than Puppy (and is about 10 times the size, at 500+ Megabytes, so it ought to) and includes the OpenOffice suite, Firefox web browser, Gimp image editor and media players, plus all the utilities that most Linux's include. I was pleasantly surprised when I plugged in my Bluetooth dongle into one of the USB ports and it was instantly recognised and once the passcode was entered I was connected to my mobile phone and transferring files.
The only issue I had with Mandriva was that the CD had to be read when ever a new program was opened, meaning things took a bit longer. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if I had a hard drive and doubled the RAM to 1GB; something I could easily do with a visit to a computer swap meet and $50 spending money.
Looking remarkably like Mac OS X, gOS looks beautiful with a dock full of Google applications and very easy to use... as longs as you don't want to change any configurations. It took a bit of searching of the gOS forums (their online help is dismal) to find out how to enter my WEP password so I could access my wireless network - a program with the non-descriptive name of Exalt is the wireless manager, I found it tucked away in a sub-menu of a sub-menu. Still, once that was sorted out, there's much to be impressed about. Along with all those convenient Google application links on the desktop there's a solid collection of on board apps., including OpenOffice.
I haven't completed my quest yet. I intend to try out Ubuntu and Fedora before I settle on an OS for my new free laptop... Sure, it's not as petite and sexy as the modern UMPC but what fun! I'm like being a kid in a candy shop.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The Great Search for Life
I love science news and this past week has had some fantastic finds.
NASA have landed another robot on Mars, this time near the northern pole. Theyŕe searching for ice in the hope that the robots scientific equipment might find signs of the building blocks of life in the frozen water.
Meanwhile, another bunch of boffins, using a telescope atop a New Zealand mountain, have discovered a distant planet 3 times the size of Earth orbiting a distant dim star. Some have even speculated that the planet has a thick atmosphere and even liquid oceans and even the possibly of these oceans being made up of water. Again, the idea is that where thereś water thereś life.
And then comes a story from deep inside the Amazon jungle of Brazil of the discovery of a previously unknown tribe of indigenous people.
Ironic, is it not, that there is billions of dollars spent every year looking into space for life and yet new life can be found with a small aeroplane and a camera right here on Earth.
The Brazilian government have a no-contact policy for the many ¨uncontacted¨ tribes in their country, which I must commend . The worst thing that these people could have happen to them is to come into contact with the so-called Civilised World. First thereś all our diseases that no longer bother us thanks to our built-up immunity and vaccinations. And then thereś all the other things that would be horrible to pass on to these people; like money, TV, Top 40 music, the Internet and blogs :-)
I wonder what the policy is for when life is found on another world?
NASA have landed another robot on Mars, this time near the northern pole. Theyŕe searching for ice in the hope that the robots scientific equipment might find signs of the building blocks of life in the frozen water.
Meanwhile, another bunch of boffins, using a telescope atop a New Zealand mountain, have discovered a distant planet 3 times the size of Earth orbiting a distant dim star. Some have even speculated that the planet has a thick atmosphere and even liquid oceans and even the possibly of these oceans being made up of water. Again, the idea is that where thereś water thereś life.
And then comes a story from deep inside the Amazon jungle of Brazil of the discovery of a previously unknown tribe of indigenous people.
Ironic, is it not, that there is billions of dollars spent every year looking into space for life and yet new life can be found with a small aeroplane and a camera right here on Earth.
The Brazilian government have a no-contact policy for the many ¨uncontacted¨ tribes in their country, which I must commend . The worst thing that these people could have happen to them is to come into contact with the so-called Civilised World. First thereś all our diseases that no longer bother us thanks to our built-up immunity and vaccinations. And then thereś all the other things that would be horrible to pass on to these people; like money, TV, Top 40 music, the Internet and blogs :-)
I wonder what the policy is for when life is found on another world?
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