Willa's Journal:Weblog

2010-04-15T18:01:00.001-05:00

As I think I mentioned, Blogger is ceasing to support FTP publishing, so I'm going to be converting all of my blogs to something or other, I haven't quite figured it out yet. I'm only mentioning this again because I'm starting messing around with it, so things may be a bit wonky for awhile . . . The thing is, my blogs are VERY customized, in many cases I'm combining several different include files so that the sites are seamless, and it's not going to be easy. And I don't know if I'm up to the task of spending so much time on the technical end anymore, but I guess I'm going to have to. I also have a few clients who have Blogger blogs, and I'm going to have to figure it out for them also. Not looking forward to it, but oh well.

Different colors describe happiness, depression - LiveScience- msnbc.com

2010-04-11T17:28:00.000-05:00

Interesting article about a study that asked people which colors on a color wheel that would pick to describe their mood: Different colors describe happiness, depression - LiveScience- msnbc.com

Blogger

2010-03-28T13:10:00.000-05:00

Blogger has announced that they will no longer support FTP publishing after May 1. I've used FTP publishing since I first started my website, over 15 years ago. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm leaning toward switching the site over to a Wordpress blog. I've also got clients who are using Blogger for blogs that I set up for them; those will have to be changed somehow, too. I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

Privacy

2010-02-25T14:52:00.001-06:00

I often notice people expressing concern about privacy issues on social networking sites such as Facebook. I was looking at Sophos Security Software site today, and they have an interesting article called Facebook: The Privacy Challenge. Sophos is more geared toward privacy solutions for businesses rather than individuals, but I thought the article was interesting and brought up several good points.

I've been online a long time, so I'm used to it, and don't always give a lot of thought to privacy. The article mentions that you shouldn't accept "friendship" on Facebook from people you don't know, but I have a lot of people on there that I don't really know, mostly because it's easier. But it's something that I should probably be more aware of. I tend to be naive about things like that, too trusting. It's probably a good idea to read some of these things once in awhile to remind myself that everyone out there doesn't always have the best of intentions.

Sophos provides solutions for Antivirus, Malware Protection, Data Protection, and Encryption Software, among others. The site also contains information about viruses and malware that are currently out in the wild, such as Confickr, which has recently reared its head again, or at least I've started getting emails about it again.

Jeffrey Friedl�s Blog - On the Permanence of One�s Online (and Offline) Presence

2010-02-21T22:45:00.000-06:00

I wondered what will happen to his blog, to his online photos? Without help from an English speaker, I suspect his wife won't do anything (but even if she could, what would she want to do?). Will his Flickr site stay there until.... forever? Or will Yahoo eventually decide that since no one has logged in for X years, delete it? Will his blog stay there until a disk wears out, or will someone come in and dismantle it? Will someone put up a post-mortem post telling the world that the author died?

Jeffrey Friedl�s Blog - On the Permanence of One�s Online (and Offline) Presence

Amazon.com: Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1) eBook: Kim Harrison: Kindle Store

2010-02-21T22:17:00.000-06:00

The Kindle edition of the first book in Kim Harrison's "The Hollows" series, Dead Witch Walking, is free at Amazon. Ms. Harrison's next book, Black Magic Sanction, is due in April.

For Japan's cellphone novelists, proof of success is in the print - latimes.com

2010-02-10T08:13:00.000-06:00

For Japan's cellphone novelists, proof of success is in the print - latimes.com: "After getting its start as a tale told on tiny cellular screens, her three-volume novel 'Wolf Boy x Natural Girl' has gone on to sell more than 110,000 paperback copies since its release in May, according to Starts Publishing Co."

"Makers" serialized

2010-02-07T09:48:00.000-06:00

Kind of late to the party, but Cory Doctorow's "Makers" was serialized at the Tor Books site this summer, and is still available: Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Cory Doctorow�s Makers Index

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / SyFy to Mangle Beloved Fairy Tales; In Other News, Christmas Coming All Year Long to Bad-Movie Fans

2010-02-07T09:42:00.000-06:00

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / SyFy to Mangle Beloved Fairy Tales; In Other News, Christmas Coming All Year Long to Bad-Movie Fans: "Luckily, the network�s plan to churn out unintentional comedy continues unabated, and fans of timeless artistry will rejoice knowing that SyFy will produce a series of fairy-tale adaptations as movies of the week."

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Sunglasses

2010-02-04T13:34:00.000-06:00

This is kind of cool: Modo Sunglass sells wholesale sunglasses that are replicas of famous brands like Liz Claiborne, Gucci, and Juicy Couture. It looks like you can get a dozen pairs for the price that one pair of the brand names would cost. I guess it's mainly geared toward resellers (they have some fun looking package deals), but I'm thinking that buying a dozen pairs of reading glasses wouldn't be a bad idea at all since I try to have a pair in the car, a pair at the office, a pair in the bedroom, a pair in the living room, etc. Or you could buy a dozen pairs of sunglasses for inexpensive Christmas gifts. Now there's an idea . . .

Genesis 1 - LOLCat Bible Translation Project

2010-02-04T08:27:00.000-06:00

Genesis 1 - LOLCat Bible Translation Project: "1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. 2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz. 3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1"

eHow

2010-01-24T20:50:00.002-06:00

How to Videos & Articles: eHow.com

Willa's Wild Life

2010-01-07T18:57:00.000-06:00

How come I never heard of this before? Willa's Wild Life

Nic Cage as Everyone

2010-01-07T17:28:00.000-06:00

Love this: Nic Cage as Everyone

2010-01-07T09:03:00.001-06:00

Booksellers Seek Antitrust Probe of Price War - WSJ.com

2009-12-05T09:49:00.001-06:00

This is an article about a lawsuit that has been filed by the ABA regarding the price war between WalMart and Amazon (and now, apparently, Target) on bestsellers this winter. Of course, independent booksellers won't be able to compete, and that's sad, but I can't afford $35.00 for a book. If I want to read a book before it comes out in paperback, I put myself on the reserve list at the library and wait a few months.

I took advantage of the deal and bought Stephen King's "Under the Dome," a hardback priced at $35.00, for $8.98 on Walmart.com, and got free shipping. It was a ridiculously good deal--should I have passed it up and spent $35 I could ill afford at a local bookstore, assuming that there are any left (bookstores, not books)?

I understand that the demise of local booksellers is bad, just like the failure of any small local business is bad, but unfortunately, in this economy, that's just the way it works. If I want to keep reading, and I do, I either read books I already own, go to the library, or buy books at the used bookstore. Even in a good economy, I don't buy hardbacks at full price. The WSJ article says:

Although independent booksellers typically stock only a smattering of best sellers, the steep discounting of such well-known authors ultimately could cause consumers to question whether all hardcover books are priced too high, at $25 or so.

I don't think the steep discounting is the cause of people thinking $25 is too much for a hardcover book, people already think it's too much. I haven't seen any sales figures, but just from my own perspective, $35 is ridiculously expensive for a book. Granted, "Under the Dome" is something like 1700 pages, so it's not something I could read in an evening, so in that case, yes, it might be worth it to me for a few weeks' worth of entertainment. But a regular-length hardback? I'm willing to wait a couple of months to get it from the library.

I haven't started King's opus yet, mostly because it's too heavy to carry around. He required his publisher to delay the release of the Kindle version until Christmas Eve so that ebook sales wouldn't hurt sales of the physical book.

In an interview, Mr. King said that he wanted to delay the e-book edition in hopes of helping independent bookstores and the national bookstore chains sell the hardcover edition.

"I never thought we'd see people preordering a copy for $8.98," he said. "My thinking was to give bookstores a chance to make some money."

Sounds like the "price war" caught him by surprise, too.

I plan to buy the Kindle version when it comes out later this month. Since it will probably take me a month or more to read it, it will be a lot easier to carry around.

What Amazon's Bestselling Items Say About America

Booksellers Seek Antitrust Probe of Price War - WSJ.com

Publisher Delays Stephen King E-Book - WSJ.com

Amazon.com: Already Dead: A Novel eBook: Charlie Huston: Kindle Store

2009-12-02T14:54:00.000-06:00

Amazon is offering the ebook version of Already Dead: A Novel by Charlie Huston, for free in the Kindle Store. I don't know how long it will stay that price, some of them stay free a long time and others go back to regular price fairly quickly.

Already Dead is the story of Joe Pitt, a vampire detective in New York. I listened to it in audiobook format recently, and loved it. I grabbed the ebook this morning.

The Happiness Project: Who's in a Starring Role, Who's in a Walk-On Role? All of Us.

2009-10-20T18:07:00.000-05:00

I thought this was a very interesting article:

The Happiness Project: Who's in a Starring Role, Who's in a Walk-On Role? All of Us.: "Everyone is a main character. And everyone is a minor character. And as I started thinking about this, I realized that many of my favorite happiness passages concerned exactly this shift: someone re-interpreting a situation, by understanding how different circumstance would seem if someone else were placed in the starring role."

Juliet, Naked

2009-10-04T13:23:00.000-05:00

An excerpt from Nick Hornby's latest, Juliet, Naked, is available on his website. I just finished the book--I read the Kindle edition on my iPhone--and loved it.

P3 Blog

2009-09-02T22:28:00.002-05:00

I'm now writing at the Propaganda3 blog as well as my many personal ones.

Modern Love - Raising a Princess Single-Handedly - NYTimes.com

2009-07-07T17:35:00.000-05:00

Lovely article: Modern Love - Raising a Princess Single-Handedly - NYTimes.com.

Living together means that we sometimes have to manufacture our own kind of happiness, because the world's idea of it is out of sync with our reality.

Linked from Bead One, Pray Too

2009-06-15T07:32:00.001-05:00

Amazon.com: Dust: MP3 Downloads: The Benjy Davis Project

2009-05-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

I just happened to see this free download on the Amazon site, and I love it! It's a whole album: Dust: MP3 Downloads: The Benjy Davis Project

I don't know how long it will be free, but give it a shot, it's really good!

Oh, forgot this one

2009-05-20T07:30:00.003-05:00

I seldom save things to show to Bob, but this one I did:

Under the desk snugglin, and Under the desk snuggling has moved to hallway.

Deja vu all over again

2009-05-20T07:30:00.000-05:00

Remember the story from last spring about the duck who nested in the awning, and the guy caught the babies as the jumped off? It happened again. Apparently she liked the service.

Watch: Banker Rescues Darling Ducklings - The World Newser

Also: Owlette enjoys ear scratch from Cute Overload.