Change The World: Read Books About Utopia

Oscar Wilde, in one of his less cynical moods, wrote:

"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which humanity is always landing."

Wikipedia is strangely lacking in its page about Utopian novels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Utopian_novels

Here is a longer list from the blog, Best Colleges Online.net:
http://www.bestcollegesonline.net/blog/2010/20-essential-works-of-utopian-fiction/

Dozens of other captivating works about Utopia could be added, including The Blythedale Romance (by Nathaniel Hawthorne); Watch the North Wind Rise (by Robert Graves); The Adventures of Mr Marigold (by Michael Tobias); and Thoreau Bound: A Utopian Romance in the Isles of Greece (by Michael Pastore).

We can shape our destinies: we can change our personal lives, we can change the direction of our world. What is the value of these utopian works? ... In addition to being a joy to read, these books expand our imaginations, and give us positive models of societies that are designed so that the first priority is the genuine needs of each individual. A healthy culture supports our lifelong growth and development into creative, caring and compassionate human beings.

Michael Pastore, Editorial Director
Epublishers Weekly
http://www.EpublishersWeekly.com





Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)

Free Knowledge from the Best Universities in the World

"Knowledge is power," wrote Will Durant, "but only wisdom is liberty."

Nevertheless, knowledge -- when combined with compassionate intelligence -- is a very good thing.

Many of the world's leading universities are now offering their courses online, in the form of lecture notes, audio recordings, and even videos of the lectures.

An article in yesterday's (November 1, 2010) New York Times describes some of the course offerings, at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the University of Michigan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/world/europe/01iht-educLede01.html

Apple's iTunes University offers many free courses; you can begin exploring the jungle of knowledge here:

http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/
http://www.openculture.com/2007/05/10_free_university_courses_on_itunes.html
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

Additional links to free online courses can be found on the web page of Zorba's Guide to Free Ebooks, here:

http://www.zorba.us/?page_id=818

--Michael Pastore, Epublishers Weekly


Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)

EPUB Straight to the Point (Book Review of the Paperback)

EPUB Straight to the Point
Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders
by Elizabeth Castro
Peachpit Press, ISBN: 978-0-321-734686
Available Formats:
Paperback, 192 pages
PDF (watermarked with buyer's name)
EPUB (unencrypted, direct from Castro's web site)

Reviewed by Michael Pastore, Epublishers Weekly

We can dance on the moon, probe the depths of space, transplant organs, make maps of the murky mysteries of the deep seas and the 25,000 human genes, communicate instantaneously around the entire Earth, and — in minutes or less — access an unimaginable quantity of the world's accumulated knowledge.

Nevertheless, right now, it is impossible to find, borrow or buy any software that lets you push a few keyboard keys to create a perfectly valid, ready-to-read ebook in the format known as EPUB. Even the latest CS5 version of Adobe's omnipotent InDesign — listing for $ 699 — cannot get the EPUB files quite right.

That is why I am wildly enthusiastic about this new book by Elizabeth Castro: EPUB Straight to the Point. Beginners will learn all the essentials, thanks to the many illustrations (screen shots) and the step-by-step instructions that never fail to be clear. EPUB professionals and experts — and I am one of these — will find dozens of ideas for transforming ordinary-looking ebooks into ones that are beautifully designed.





Ye of little faith can easily see for yourself. Visit Castro's web page about the book, then download either of the two free sample EPUB ebooks (of Thoreau's incomparable classic Walden) created by Castro. Now open this EPUB ebook on your favorite ebook reading system: your iPad, dedicated device, smartphone, or computer desktop. You will see (as in the screen shot above) an example of an EPUB ebook with many eye-catching aesthetic touches along with practical features that improve readability: large colorful titles, the right amount of line spacing, headers, images inside the ebook, and even — in one of these EPUBs — a specially-chosen font.

You don't need to spend megabucks to make ebooks. You can use free text editors and free zipping software; however that no-cost solution works only when you understand a good amount about XHTML and CSS. To allow readers without XHTML-CSS skills to painlessly make the EPUBs, Castro's Chapter 1 describes how to use Microsoft Word for the first steps in the EPUB-making process. Don't worry that MS-Word's export to XHTML adds all kinds of bizarre coding to the file: the book tells you how to meticulously clean and polish the funky Word-export until it shines as a well-formed file of XHTML.

Because so many publishers use InDesign to lay out their paper editions, it makes sense to use InDesign to make the ebooks, and that is the subject of Chapter 2. Castro points out an annoying InDesign bug that corrupts the EPUB links; she writes "hopefully, Adobe will fix this". But until they do, you can use the workaround explained in the book.

The heart of the book is Chapter 3 — Inside an EPUB File — which, in just the right amount of detail — explains all the facets of every EPUB file. Whatever you choose to use to create your EPUBs — MS-Word, any text editor, Adobe's InDesign, or any EPUB-making shareware or freeware — such as Julian Smart's admirably simple eCub, or the superb program by Kovid Goyal named Calibre — you will still need to make many (and I do mean, many) changes and tweaks to get to a finished EPUB that is valid and works. This chapter tells you how to make all the necessary changes. The chapter also contains useful tips (such as how GREP-enabled editors can save tons of time); and a vivid explanation about how to understand and work with the dreaded "content.opf" file — the file, in my experience, that has been by far the most complex and troublesome file to create, fix, and update.

The subtitle of this book is: Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders. A smart approach, in my opinion, because the iPad offers the very best ebook reading experience; and yet the ebooks that you create with this book's guidance will look great on any EPUB-supporting device, and anywhere that EPUBs can be read. Although Amazon's much-hyped Kindle cannot read any EPUB at all, Castro has you covered: in a thoughtful afterthought to Chapter 3, she explains how to convert your EPUB to a format — .MOBI — that Kindles can happily understand.

You have probably heard the joke about the very amateur Shakespearean actor who, while playing Puck in the middle of A Midsummer Night's Dream — was booed and pelted with organic tomatoes. The actor ripped off his mask, stopped performing, turned to audience and then shouted: "Don't blame me, I didn't write this junk!" ... For a while, EPUB ebooks shared the same fate as the Bard: some hasty critics looked at some badly-made EPUB ebooks, and then griped that the EPUB format is a failure because it cannot make nice-looking books. Castro dispels that myth; her Chapter 4 — Advanced Epub Formatting — covers advanced topics including how to prevent ebook reading devices from overriding your CSS; how to choose the fonts in your ebook; how to create drop caps and small caps; how to control spacing and indents (essential when formatting poetry); how to insert images and their captions; and how to enhance (or, as some people might say, increase the distractions in) your EPUB ebooks by adding links, tables and videos.

Publishers, authors, book designers — everyone interested in making EPUB ebooks — can buy Castro's book with complete confidence; the book will teach you to build a better ebook than you've ever built before.

Michael Pastore, editorial Director, Epublishers Weekly
Author of 50 Benefits of Ebooks:
A Thinking Person's Guide to the Digital Reading Revolution


== Story Links ==

The Book on the Publisher's Web site:
http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321734688

Elizabeth Castro's website for the book:
http://www.elizabethcastro.com/epub/

Elizabeth Castro's blog:
http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/

Sigil: A WYSIWYG ebook editor, with full EPUB support
http://code.google.com/p/sigil/

PADILICIOUS.COM: Creating Digital Books for the iPad (Mac only)
http://padilicious.com/epub/index.html



Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr (book review)

The Shallows:
What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr
Published by W.W. Norton
Hardcover, 276 pages, June 2010
ISBN: 978-0393072228

It takes great courage, as well as insight, to stand up against prevailing practices, to shout or whisper to the fad-following crowd that the way we are living is unhealthy for us.

More than 50 years ago, Aldous Huxley, interviewed by a cigarette-smoking Mike Wallace, warned:


“We must not be caught by surprise by advances in technology.”

Other eloquent warnings about technology's dangerous side effects have come to us from the works of Lewis Mumford, Erich Fromm, Neil Postman, Sven Birkerts, Mark Slouka, Theodore Roszak, and Bill Joy. A famous debate about this issue, "What Are We Doing Online", (from a 1995 edition of Harper's Magazine), thoughtfully explores the Internet's benefits and harms.

The latest voice speaking against the sacred cow of our technologies comes from Nicholas Carr, in his extraordinary book "The Shallows." Carr is not a Luddite; he uses technology capably, and acknowledges his appreciation of the Net. Carr, however, is concerned that there are losses along with the gains. Thanks to the Internet — the most sophisticated and useful tool for communications ever invented — we are losing our ability to concentrate and to think deeply. Carr cites indisputable evidence to show that the passive activity of using the Internet for short, skimming searches and shallow reading, is creating measurable changes in the structure and development of our brains.

Musing on the classic passage by Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose calm reflections were interrupted by the strident noise from a passing locomotive, Carr writes:
"The problem today is that we're losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind. Mentally, we're in perpetual locomotion."

Like Neil Postman in Technopoly, Carr shapes his book not to point to solutions, but to illuminate the problems -- and he has done this work expertly. Despite his confessions that his powers of attention have been diminished by the Net, Carr's book is always thoughtful, and often captivating and profound. He cites Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, where HAL the computer shows more feelings than the human characters. Carr's concerns, that begin with the loss of our powers of attention and concentration, conclude with worries that too much Internet and too little reflection may lead to a loss of our humanness.

We need computers, we need the Internet, we need quick access to the latest information — but we need it in the right amounts. All told, The Shallows is a superb starting point for the kinds of face-to-face discussions that might help us to break our collective addiction to screens, and to renew our interest in the slower, more personal, and more profound realms of our inner lives.

—Michael Pastore, Epublishers Weekly
Author of
50 Benefits of Ebooks:
A Thinking Person's Guide to the Digital Reading Revolution.

Story Links

Get a sample of Carr's book by reading his essay in the Atlantic:
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/

Carr's Blog Rough Type ... http://www.roughtype.com/

What Are We Doing Online?
Ironically, this fascinating and deservedly-famous debate (which first appeared in Harper's Magazine in 1995) is not easily findable online -- the link from Kevin Kelly's website is now broken.

Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace in the early 1960s:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/huxley_aldous.html


Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)

Apple Sells 3 Million iPads in 80 Days (article in Macworld)

The article also reports that of the 225,000 apps for sale from the App Store, more than 11,000 apps are specifically designed for the iPad.

The more apps, the more valuable the iPad is; and as the iPad grows in value, more apps will be created -- and more iPads will be sold.

http://www.macworld.com/article/152201/2010/06/ipad_3m.html

Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)

Computerworld Article: 8 Apps for reading and writing on the iPad

Mitch Wagner reviews iPad apps for reading and writing.
My favorites are, for reading, iBooks; and for writing, Pages.






http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178441/8_highly_useful_apps_for_reading_and_writing_on_the_iPad

Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)

iPad Reader Apps Compared by Jason Perlow of ZDNet

The article describes iBooks (my favorite), Kindle for iPad, the Barnes and Noble eReader, Kobo Reader (from Borders eBooks), the iBis Reader, Stanza, and vBookz.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/apple-ipad-showdown-battle-of-the-ereader-apps/13248
Read more! ... (or go to this post's PermaLink)