Quote
The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.
– Moliere
Great quote
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
– Ray Bradbury
Favorite parts
An American site, that I’m guessing is something like a ladies’ magazine, asked its female visitors which body part/s on a man they appreciated the most.
That started me thinking about what I appreciate. I came to the conclusion that hands are pretty cool body parts, especially male ones. I mean, sure, I like my mom’s hands and my own and my sister’s too, of course, but men’s hands are so big and strong. Though it is impressive how incredibly strong my sister’s little hands are.
So, my dad’s hands. Above all there are two things I recall. In our family we love Macs. Quite a few years ago, the first iMacs came along, and their puck mice got a lot of criticism. Most people, especially men, wouldn’t have anything to do with them. One man said that his daugters had small hands, so they didn’t have much trouble with them, but they weren’t good enough for him. Only that’s not true. It has nothing to do with the size of the hands. I know that, because I conducted a test.
I asked my dad to use the puck mouse on one of our iMacs. He said it was fine, he had no trouble at all, using it. Dad’s hands were big, not disproportionately so, but as big as you’d expect on a man who was 200 cm tall. That means it’s got nothing to do with size.
Dad was great at fixing electric appliances too. He took care of our all electric cables. Anything a layman was capable of doing, and was allowed to do, he did, and he did it well. He also taught my sister everything he knew, so now she can do it too.
My maternal grandfater had big hands too, even though he was shorter than my dad. Grandpa’s hands could build just about anything. Once when I was little, so little I can’t remember it myself anymore, I saw a helicopter and pointed up to it and told a little friend: I’ll ask my grandpa to make me one of those. Apparently, she was very impressed, though my grandpa couldn’t build helicopters, no matter how many other things he could build. He could also boil potatoes and make rice porridge (rice pudding – typical Christmas food in Sweden).
Some internet services
A while back I blogged about some favorite sites and I feel it’s time for a little update. Some sites are gone and as for the others, I’ve had time to try them out some more and can be more clear on how I feel about them.
This time I’ll limit myself to one post.
Blogs:
WordPress. If you know you’ll be writing long texts and mainly text (as opposed to sharing links, quotes, videos etc) this is the blog for you. If you want to keep things simple use wordpress.com – a web host that provides free wordpress blogs (with some ads – in the years I’ve been using wordpress.com I think I’ve seen one ad, once, though I’m not sure). It’s very easy to setup and use and there are plenty of free (and premium) themes to choose between. Lately, many new exciting themes have been added, so there’s quite a lot to choose from. Of course, if you would like to put your own ads on your blog to advertise your etsy or cafepress store, for instance, or your ‘real’ business, you can’t do it here. You can post fan fiction here, but it’s not really a great place for it. I have read a fanfic or two on wordpress and as with any text wordpress does a great job of displaying it. Some people post original stories too, but mainly this is a place for ‘ordinary’ blog posts. As such it’s a great community.
WordPress can also be downloaded to your computer, then uploaded to a web host or your own server. In most ways it works exactly like wordpress.com, except for the fact that you need to do all the work of upgrading, downloading plugins, new themes and so on. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult. First you’ll need a domain name. You might be able to find a good web hotel for free and a provider of free domain names (usually subdomain names, which isn’t exactly the same thing, but close enough), but you could also find web hosts and domain name providers at very reasonable prices. It depends on what you want to do. What you can do here, that you can’t do at wordpress.com (with a basic, free account) is make your own themes, or edit existing ones.
Tumblelogs
Tumblr is one of my favorites in this category. It makes it very easy for you to share links, media, quotes and short blog posts, though there’s no one stopping you from posting long blog posts as well. There’s also a community of sorts. You search for whatever you’re interested in, and the search will turn up posts from other tumblelogs. You can like (note) these posts, if you like them, and you can also reblog them. That will get the other blogger’s attention and they might follow you or at least like or reblog your posts. There’s a way to create communities, for instance you can allow people to ask you questions or you can pose questions that you let others answer.
Soup is similar to Tumblr, except in one way. So far I haven’t noticed much of a community here. You can search for, join or create groups, but they don’t seem to work very well. Also, though you can search for blog posts, I haven’t found Soup very good for finding interesting content. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Even so, I must say I like Soup anyway. It’s extremely easy and practical to use. You can either post directly or you can automatically import content from other sites, then share the link to Soup so your friends and family can check out your own personal mix.
Microblogs/Status updates
Twitter is the most famous microblog. Despite the name, I see very little blog-like about Twitter. To me it’s mostly a place to keep up with what others are saying and most importantly, sharing. I have found links to many fun and useful sites here. You can follow celebrities. Some of them are actally the real celebrity – look for the official approval. Others are very clever fakes, that are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Some are just jokers masquerading as a celebrity for fun or even to discredit the real celebrity.
Plurk is another relatively famous microblog. I have been using it for such a short time I can’t really tell much about it. So far I haven’t found anyone to follow, if that’s what you do. What I do know is that you can customize your background, and you can vary the verb that prefaces your post. You say, wish, think etc whatever it is you post. That’s about it. What I like about Plurk is that they don’t claim the rights to whatever you’re posting, like Twitter and Facebook do.
Friendfeed is sort of halfway between a microblog and a tumblelog, at least it seems that way to me. It’s owned by Facebook, but doesn’t claim ownership over your posts. There are groups/rooms you can join, but my brief attempt to network there didn’t work out. I still enjoy those groups a lot, though, for the links to interesting sites that they provide.
Here too you can automatically import feeds from your blog, tumblelog or other microblog, or other sites, like Goodreads too or simply post. You can also customize your background. They also provide little widgets you can put on your homepage or blog.
Search engines
At the moment, I only use Ixquick (apart from Wikipedia). It’s a very nice substitute for Google for those of us who don’t want to use that. Unlike Google, they don’t record your searches. It’s quick and easy to use and gives great results.
Gmx.co.uk is the best free email I’ve ever tried. Again, this is quite a good replacement for Google, although of course it doesn’t work exactly like Gmail. You get plenty of storage, you can collect mail from your other email accounts there and you get as many aliases as you like, that is email addresses. They allow you to download your email to your email program, or you can just access your mail online, whichever you prefer. Or you can do both, and choose imap. They offer quite a few different suffixes, ie .com, co.uk etc. And they use ‘green’ servers.
Social network/community
Care2. I’ve been a member of Care2 for years and I still love it as much as I did from the start. There’s not a lot that’s new about it, so I won’t go into all the features in detail. I’ll just list them. Free email, free e-cards, free donations, petitions. You also get your own profile page and you can join (or create) groups.
Livejournal, Insanejournal and Dreamwidth are blog communities, but to me they’re also very successful social networks. The blogging part works great, and the communitites are/can be great, depending on what you’re into. All three are fan fiction friendly. (Which doesn’t in any way imply that WordPress is against fan fiction. I have had absolutely no indications about that.) At LJ etc you’re far more likely to run into people interested in fan fiction, than on WordPress (can’t say anything about Blogger, since I don’t use it)..
Other
Book communities. Librarything and Shelfari aren’t at all bad, but Goodreads is the best book community I’ve tried. When I’m going to buy books, I always consult Goodreads first.
Though I still use AIM, MSN and ICQ as well as LJ Talk, I prefer to use Jabber, which is an independent chat/IM. To use it, you need a multichat program, like Adium for Mac or Trillium (?) for the PC. I could be wrong about the latter. It’s been a while since I used a PC. Wikipedia can tell you more.
Skype. I’m told you can use Skype for video chats. That’s not really my thing. I do know you can voice chat, which is basically like talking on the phone, for free. If you can use Skype in your mobile/cell phone, you can actually talk on the phone for free. Naturally, you can also text chat. The main drawback with Skype is that it’s kind of ‘heavy’ so if you are short on RAM, it might not be the best choice. If you’re wiling to pay, you can also talk on the phone for a very reasonable price. There’s even a real, physical phone you can use with Skype, which means you don’t need to have a computer online. You get a ‘real’ phone number that ordinary users, without Skype or even internet, can use to reach you.
I suppose I should mention Blip.fm. My use of Blip.fm is a bit erratic. Sometimes I more or less forget I have an account there. At other times, I ‘blip’ lots of songs that occur to me. When I’m in the mood for it, I like Blip.fm a lot.
Fan fiction. I can’t leave Archive of Our Own out. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a really great (relatively) new online fan fiction archive. It’s absolutely awesome. If you’re into fan fiction it’s a must. AOO is a major reason I’ve started reading fan fiction again. Actually, I never stopped, but Archive of Our Own (along with LJ, IJ and DW) makes it such a pleasure.
Finally, Project Gutenberg. It’s a treasure trove filled with older literature available for free. You can read it online or download it to your computer, smartphone or e-book reader. There are other sites with free books, but Project Gutenberg is the most famous one, I think. I’ll finish with a list of a few of the authors you can read for free at Project Gutenberg’s site. Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie (just a few early titles), LM Montgomery, Edith Nesbit.
A bit of luck for once
For once I’ve had a bit of luck. A while back, my sister entered a contest to win a pair of glasses, frames and all. Strangely enough she won. I decided that if there was ever such a contest again, I’d enter. And there was. I was sure I wouldn’t win too. I mean, what are the odds for that?
This time around, ‘only’ five hundred people would get free glasses, as apposed to a thousand the first time. Still, it was worth a shot. There was a bit of room for more than luck, a little tenacity. Every contestant received a code and on a certain day at a certain time, you were supposed to click, then enter your code.
Needless to say I was waiting in front of my computer for the specified time to come, then just clicked as fast as I could. Later that day I got an email saying I’d won. If it hadn’t been for my sister’s experience, I would have been sure this was just a trick, but fortunately for me, it wasn’t.
Yesterday, the glasses arrived. I need some more time to get used to them, then maybe there’ll be a photo. Not making any promises, but maybe.
At least that’s over now…
Most of yesterday I was at a funeral. A relative has passed away. She was old and I suppose we should have expected this, but somehow, you’re never prepared. In a way, we weren’t all that close, but in a way, we were. It’s only now that I’ve realized how different it will be without her. We didn’t meet in person, not for a long time, and now I feeel guilty about that. I always meant to try to see her one way or another, but it never happened and now it’s too late. We did talk on the phone now and then, but it was mainly my mom she called. They were cousins. For many years she was the only person, outside the immediate family who remembered my birthday. She always sent me a postcard and I always called her and thanked her. She was also my sponsor, at my christening.
That meant that there was no question of my not going to her funeral. I hate funerals, but this time, I definitely needed to go. After the ceremony – which made me cry – all that talk about death – all visitors were treated to food and coffee and cake. Not for me though. Being vegan, I couldn’t eat anything that was on offer. Not that it mattered to me. I’m used to it.
During the meal, we were encouraged to share memories we had of our relative or friend. I couldn’t think of anything in particular. Partly, I suppose, because I was so tired. I hadn’t slept all night. I sat at the table, next to my mom, in a room full of strangers. Some people were nice and tried to include me in their conversations, but most ignored me.
Losing someone always makes me think about others I’ve lost and that definitely didn’t help. While we were in church, it started to snow. I’d been hoping we wouldn’t get any more snow, but as it turned out, none of it remained on the ground. It all melted away before the guests began to disperse.
It was a bit slippery though and I’m totally out of shape, so when I got back, I was hurting all over. (Shame on me.) I was completely exhausted and had to go to bed early and slept until very late. I’m still not back to normal.
There’s another thing that’s made me think about dead relatives. A while back, my sister had someone ask to do a ‘reading’ on her. She didn’t feel she could refuse. Some of what this woman told her could be just general stuff she could have told anyone, but there were a few things that made us think. Stuff only we knew about the relative she claimed to speak for. It was an eerie sensation, being forced to consider things in a new way. Whether or not there’s anything in these psychic readings, it got me thinking about this relative. What we knew about him and all the things we didn’t.
All this has put me in a very strange mood. I hope I’ll snap out of it soon.
Free library books online
Since I found out that library books are available as free downloads here in Sweden, I’ve wanted to try. For various reasons, I’d really prefer not to have to go to the library and pick up actual books (though when it comes to buying new copies at the book store, it’s the other way around.)
Anyway, last night I decided to have a go. I did a search for a couple of mysteries I’ve wanted to read, but not felt able to buy – a combination of lack of money and doubts about the quality of those books – and found five titles. I thought ‘Great!’.
Most of the books were supposedly available in several different formats, including mobi and epub. I’d read that you could download the books from your computer to a portable device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, any kind of e-book reader…). That’s interesting, even though I don’t own any such device, not personally. However, it was soon evident that all those symbols next to the title didn’t mean a thing. Adobe Digital Edition was the only software that worked. It gets worse.
I typed in my library card number and borrowed the first book on my list. So far, so good. I checked that I could at least open it on the computer and I could. Then I went on to the next two books and unfortunately, I got them in the reverse order of publication. When I’d finished the download of book nr 2 in the series, I get an error message saying I can only download three books in a seven day period. Three? I looked over the download window and the file where the books were saved. No. Just two. But the site was convinced. I’d already downloaded my three books. Since I refuse to read book 2 in a series before book 1, for all intents and purposes, I only got one book out of the whole frustrating experience. Three books might have been enough for seven days, one definitely isn’t.
Then my sister tried to transfer the book to her iPhone, just to see if it could be done and – to make a long story short – it couldn’t. Well, to be clear, it could be transferred, but then it couldn’t be opened. She went to check on the newspaper article where we’d found out about electronic book borrowing, and eventually found a couple of solutions that were supposedly going to work. Again, to make a long story short, neither of them did.
By that time, I was beginning to regret thinking of this idea in the first place, but at least I’ll now be able to read book three in a series where I’ve actually read books 1 and 2. And I’ll be able to try again in seven days time.
All this has also given me food for thought.
After our successful experiment with the Kindle, I had begun to plan ahead to a time when I’ll be able to afford an e-book reader and/or an iPod Touch or possibly an iPad. Now I’m wondering if I should bother. I love the Kindle. I’m sure I’d like the iPod Touch and the iPad, but would I actually have any real use for them?
I’m a book lover first and foremost even if I do love a shiny gadget, but the way I see it, I’d primarily be getting the e-book reader so I can download all those free books from Project Gutenberg and similar sites. I don’t see myself spending any money on new e-books. For one, they’re actually a lot more expensive than a paperback, and as far as I can understand, I won’t be able to read my free downloads on the Kindle. Secondly, in my opinion, nothing beats the feeling of holding a ‘real’, printed paper book in my hands.
I could get an iPod Touch when my old iPods (very old) stop working, which might be relatively soon, judging by the time it takes to charge them and how long they last before the next charge. But if I can’t even read my library books on it, maybe it won’t be worth it. As it happens, I really prefer listening to something with better sound quality. I’m not into taking all kinds of gadgets along when I go out. It’s just not worth it.
Maybe I should just be grateful I’m leaning towards an option that will save me a lot of money, but somehow that doesn’t seem very cheering. At this time I could really use some cheering up.
Oh, well, I should probably just wait and see. For all I know, my financial situation could change in the near future and then I could take the whole thing under consideration again.
The Kindle
My sister and I are working on getting our own books published. Eventually, we hope to be able to publish other people’s books too. In the course of our work, we decided that we’d need an e-book reader to optimize the file formats.
So I set to work doing a bit of research online.
To begin with, the Kobo was my primary choice and my sister was preferred the Nook. Unfortunately, we found out that neither are available here in Sweden, or at least that they’d be very hard to get. The only readers we can easliy get our hands on are some European ones, that were probably great when they were first made, but are beginning to look old. The iRiver Story looks great, but for various reasons I won’t go into now, eventually we decided against that too.
So we were back to square one. Early on, I’d looked at the Kindle and been very impressed, but I didn’t like the fact that you can’t change the internal battery. If the battery dies you need to send your Kindle back to Amazon and get a replacement, which will cost you almost as much as buying a new one, if I’ve understood correctly.
But since we felt that the Kindle was our only really positive option, we looked into it again. Apart from the battery issue, everything else I’d read about the Kindle was fantastic, so in the end, we decided to get one.
Ordering one to have it shipped to an address in Sweden was no trouble at all. We just had to get an adapter, but that was easy enough.
Then we just settled down to wait. Can you imagine our surprise when we got a notification only two days later? Two days after we ordered it, it was delivered to our house. All the way from America.
Alright, I’ll stop gushing now. LOL.
Perhaps I should mention that I’m a major book lover, if you didn’t know that already. Books (and animals) are my life. Printed books, that is. However, there are thousands of free books available on Project Gutenberg, and though in the past I’ve read some of those on my computer, I thought it might be time to get something more lightweight. (Not that my laptop weighs more than about two kilos.)
I don’t think e-book readers will ever replace the feeling of holding a paper book in my hand, but I’m also a bit of a tech freak, so the thought of another gadget is rather appealing.
In any case, iearning how to use it was very easy. I only glanced at the manual, because the controls on the device are more or less self-explanatory. Easler in fact than handling my sister’s and my mom’s iPhones.
It’s also really cute. 🙂 And not very heavy. Holding it with one hand for a long time, might get a bit much, but you can always switch hands or put it on the table or on your knees etc. We named it Spock, because my sister’s iPhone is Uhura. (Ok, enough with the geek talk.LOL)
My sister promised she’d get round to writing a more detailed review of the Kindle including a comparison with an IPhone as an e-book reader, and also, if we’re lucky, and some store near us begins to sell it, with an iPad (at least as much as they’ll let you play with it without buying it. LOL:)
Reflections on music and movies
I’m a big fan of 80’s music. From what I can tell, without being an expert at music, the songs made in those days really were good, no matter how you define ‘good’. In any case, I’m not the only one who thinks so. I rather like 90’s music too, but not quite as much. The same goes for 7ö’s music and older music as far back as to the 1950’s.
Lately, I’ve begun to realize that at least in my opinion, the 90’s was a time of great tv series and movies. That didn’t dawn on me until relatively recently, when I was considering the lack of good tv series these days. Up until 2004 or so, there were still a few good series coming along and movies too, but from then on they’ve become more and more scarce. Fortunately, there are still exceptions but I’m dreading a future when no good tv or film will be made. But to use an expression from the Oz books: no need to borrow trouble. Here we say ‘don’t grieve over a day you haven’t seen’. Who knows? The current penchant for ‘reality’ tv and game shows might vanish.
Facebook again
As some of you know, I a while back, was debating with myself whether I should join Facebook or not. The end result of that was that I reluctantly signed up. I used to be very negative, but in fact I’ve gradually changed my mind.
It’s like with me being vegan (except the other way around) – on the one hand I’m sorry there aren’t many more delicious flavors of icecream, pralines etc that I can eat (I’m also lactose intolerant), but on the other, I’m grateful I can’t eat those things anymore. If I could, I’d probably be even fatter than I am. (Ok, I’m not exactly fat, but a bit overweight, especially now.)
With Facebook one reason I like it are the games, but those games make me waste even more time there, so the less said about that the better. However, in my defence, I really need a distraction from my life so I’m not apologizing either. I do what I have to do.
Apart from the games, I have come to realize that Facebook has its advantages. Again, some of them might be disadvantages at the same time.
‘Everyone’ is there. It annoys me, but it’s undeniably good to be able to reach all my friends in one place. Almost all my friends (a few are still holding out and I admire that, but I still wish I had a way to contact them more easily).
The ads – strangely enough I like them. Normally, I hate ads, but these seem to be a little targeted and it makes me think I could use them for my own advertising. I’ve found so many useful links in those ads, that I hope other people appreciate them as well. LOL. I never thought I’d say this, but it’s true.
As you must know, I also have causes that I’m passionate about. Facebook (as well as Twitter) is an ideal place to promote them. I only hope it will help. Still, given that ‘everyone’ is there, it should help a little at least.
So, I guess all in all, I have to say that Facebook is alright. Nothing is perfect, but so far I haven’t regretted signing up.
