Short Video: Disconnect to Connect

Here is a short "commercial" from Thailand, titled "Disconnect to Connect."

It highlights our collective addition to gadgets, and then points the way to the joy of human-to-human (H2H) genuine interactions and experience.

http://www.wimp.com/disconnectconnect/


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Are The New Gadgets Cutting-Edge Tools or Dangerous Distractions ?

This article from the New York Times highlights the raging battle between the Internet and the Book.
Most young people today are choosing the Internet, and the many gadgets that access the Net.

The great problem of our era is the problem of education and technology:
How can use our advanced communication technology for education, enjoyment, personal growth and a deep connection with others --
instead of burying ourselves in the lonely emptiness of cyberspace ?


The image in this post is from the WikiMedia commons, here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Addicttv.jpg

and reproduced with a CopyLeft license.

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Video: Tim O'Reilly Talks at Publishing Point

O'reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly gives a talk, on Publishing Point, about publishing, technology and innovation. Watch the first of 7 parts here; the other parts are easily accessed from the right-hand menu.

http://publishingpoint.ning.com/video/in-conversation-with-tim


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InDesign CS5 Visual QuickStart Guide by Sandee Cohen (Book Review)

InDesign CS5 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide
by Sandee Cohen
Peachpit Press, 2010, 552 pages
Book Level: Beginning / Intermediate
Paperback: $ 26.99. Also available as an ebook from the publisher's website:
http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321705203

Last week, in answer to the question, "Why should I learn about ebooks and electronic publishing?", I described for my readers a book that offers 50 significant reasons. This week I have 4 reasons why you should borrow or buy this excellent book by Sandee Cohen, a book that skillfully introduces us to all the essentials of the latest version of InDesign.

1. To learn InDesign efficiently, you need a good book.

There are some new benches in the parks in the Republic of China. To use the bench, you insert a coin. When your time runs out, small sharp spikes — made of steel — emerge from the bottom of the bench. (The goal is to prevent one person from hogging the bench all day.) I wouldn't say it's impossible to sit on these spiked benches, but it would be very uncomfortable.
One could say the same thing about the InDesign software. It's not impossible to learn it by noodling around, clicking on the menu items one by one. But this method would be tedious, inefficient, and time-wasting -- about as comfortable as sitting too long on a park bench in China. InDesign contains too many features, and many that are far from obvious to the untrained hand and eye.

2. This book teaches InDesign expertly.

It's obvious that Sandee Cohen has years of experience teaching InDesign in a classroom setting. If the author is not experienced, then these kinds of books about complex software (and especially complex Adobe software) can never get off the ground, as the author bores the reader with page after page of how to navigate the scores of items on the menu. By the time you read through Cohen's succinct opening chapter, "Getting Started", your 5 o'clock shadow isn't out yet and you aren't bored to death. Instead, you're impressed by InDesign's vast feature set, and enthusiastic about learning how to use it.

3. You don't need a computer to read this book.

Lately, I've been spending so much time in front of the computer, I celebrate any opportunity to do something productive (such as mastering essential tools) that gives me a break from the screen. Like the "Maran Illustrated" books (which appears to have ceased) and O'Reilly's HeadFirst series (which is now going strong), the Visual QuickStart books, in general, are a pleasure to work with. The books contain many illustrations and screen shots; the information is always divided into small and easily-assimilated chunks.

And more: Cohen has a laid-back writing style that never uses jargon, and often adds a dash of humor. I would have laughed out loud at Cohen's anecdote about "Rules" — except that I have done something similar.

4. After you read the book once, you can keep it on your desk as a handy reference.

The book is so well organized that you can use it for two purposes: as an introduction to InDesign, and as a reference book. My copy is already filled with yellow sticky notes.

If you are publishing in today's market that demands not only paperbacks but ebooks, not only ebooks but ebooks in many formats, not only ebooks in many formats but "enhanced ebooks" that sing and dance and sell coffee — then it's likely that you will need to use InDesign. Cohen's clearly-written book takes all the sweat and struggle out the learning process for Adobe's powerful and complex software for design.

== Story Tools ==

For more information about the book, and for an interactive chapter that teaches you how to use InDesign's interactive tools, visit the book's companion website:
http://www.peachpit.com/indesigncs5vqs

To access this site you will need to create an account, but that process is free, fast, and worth the trouble.

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


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Head First WordPress (Book Review)

Head First Word Press
by Jeff Siarto
O'Reilly Media, 2010
Paperback (334 pages): $ 34.99
PDF ebook: $ 14.99
Visit the Book's Web page

[Reviewer's Note: WordPress.org is a content management system that lets you create blogs and websites, by first loading the Wordpress software onto your web host. This is different from WordPress.com, which, like Google's Blogger, provides the hosting for you. WordPress.org is more complicated, but offers many more features.]

"You had me at hello," is a famous line from the film, Jerry Maguire. Jerry begins a speech about how he loves Dorothy; and after only the first few words, Dorothy tells him: "Shut up, just shut up. You had me at 'hello'."

It took only a few minutes to realize that Head First Word Press was my perfect WordPress companion. "Had me at page one," I might have said.

First, I was able to read the book without using a computer. Of course, you should use your computer when you read these kinds of books, to follow along with the exercises. But there are so many illustrations, and each concept is so well explained, that I was able to get a much-needed break from the screen and just kick back and read.

Here's the second way the book hooked me: the book's first topic is the most challenging topic faced by every WordPress beginner: setting up WordPress. I have never had the pleasure of WordPress's famous "5-minute install". Installing WordPress has taken me up to eight hours — that was the first time, when I had to download something called "Putty" in order to move the files around. The fastest I've ever installed it was an hour and a half, when I had some tech support. HeadFirst WordPress tells you what is really happening during this installation, and how to manage it quickly and expertly.

The book started strong and it just got better. With the typical "Head First" series clarity, the book covers practical topics that you've probably been too busy to study on your own. You'll learn how WordPress organizes your files. Select the right FTP program and image editor. Design your own WordPress theme. How to make more than a blog — make a website — by using WordPress to create web pages. How to manage a blog with many people involved in the roles of owners, editors, authors, and contributors. How to add videos. And how to promote your blog.

An excellent chapter about WordPress security offers advice about how to prevent hacking, choose and use secure passwords, create a system of automatic backups, and restore your backups whenever needed.

One caution: the book is not written for absolute beginners. If you can answer "Yes" to these two questions, then the book might be for you:

Are you familiar with the concepts of web hosting, file transfer (FTP) and have a basic understanding of HTML and CSS? Do you want to learn how to build not just a blog, but a full-fledged WordPress site?

If you're using WordPress.org, or thinking about using it, putting this book on your desktop will make you a competent and confident user. Your brain will thank you, because all the learning happens without anxiety or confusion: all the learning is always simple and straightforward, and often fun.

—Michael Pastore
Epublishers Weekly



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Ebook Stress Test — How Healthy Is Your Ebook ?

Ebook Stress Test —
How Healthy Is Your Ebook ?

[Author's note: This is an expanded and revised version of an article that I posted in December 2009. &mdashMP]

Not all ebooks are created equal. There is much debate about ebook prices; there should be more discussion about ebook value. A healthy ebook is worth much more than a feature-reduced ebook. Locked by DRM, an ebook in the EPUB format can be read on a device made by one company only (or at most, on a small number of devices). An EPUB ebook with no DRM can be read on almost every device.

Before you buy an ebook, use this simple guide to evaluate the quality of the "ebosystem" — the ebook ecosystem. This includes two essential parts: the ebook (the digital file itself), and the ebook reading system of your choice: iPad, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Sony Reader, iPhone, cell phone, Calibre, WattPad, Adobe Digital Editions (ADE), Google Editions, reading on the web via BookWorm, and many more.

This guide is designed to be customized. You can (and should) add your own questions (and delete mine), based on the ebook's features that are important to you. ("Is the ebook free from geographical restrictions?" is a question that might matter very much to persons living outside the USA.)

You can give different weight to the questions that matter most to you. For example, if "no DRM" is very important to you, give 50 points instead of 10 for ebooks that are DRM-free.

The purpose of this guide is to educate consumers (and, unfortunately, publishers) about good and not-so-good practices in ebook publishing.


For example, the University of Michigan Press recently announced an ebook "rental" program (http://www.press.umich.edu/ebooks/index.jsp). Here are their prices for one of their books, titled "The End of History" (which answers the question of when I would rent an ebook instead of buying one):

—Buy (a Paperback): $ 29.95
—Buy (a PDF ebook with DRM, Adobe Digital Editions): $ 28.95
—Rent for 180 Days (a PDF ebook with DRM, Adobe Digital Editions): $ 22.00
—Rent for 30 Days: (a PDF ebook with DRM, Adobe Digital Editions): $ 12.00

This is what I would call a "not-so-good" publishing practice: the buyer does not get good value. (In addition to the time limit, the rental ebooks have restrictions on printing, whereas the purchased ebooks allow unlimited printing.) I would happily buy this ebook if it were offered as an unencrypted EPUB for $ 9.99 or less.

Early in my philosophy training, I was taught a basic principle: "Can does not imply ought." Because we possess the technological capability to do something, does not necessarily mean that it is good and useful to do it. In theory, it is a clever trick to build a "time bomb" into the ebook that makes it self-destruct (unable to be read) after any time period that you choose; in practice, this is a very foolish idea. The "rental ebook" is nothing more than a euphemism for the "perishable ebook." Healthy ebooks endure.

Take the Stress Test For A Healthy Ebook

In the sample questions below:
Score 10 points for each YES.
Score 0 points for each NO.

If the answer is not a clear "Yes" or "No", then you can assign partial points, from 1 point to 9 points,.

One reason to give more than 0 points for a "NO" answer: if the ebook is not in the EPUB format, but can be easily converted into the EPUB format, then that score might be upgraded from a 0 to a 9.

The higher the point total, the healthier the ebook. Like Lemuel Gulliver bound by the 6-inch-tall Lilliputians, the healthy ebook is not tied down by publishers' restrictions. Therefore the healthy ebook offers more flexibility and more benefits to ebook buyers and readers.

1. Is EPUB the ebook's format ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

2. Does the ebook have no DRM ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

3. Can the ebook be read aloud ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

4. Can the ebook be shared ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

5. Is the ebook's price $ 9.99 or less ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

6. Is it a non-shoppable ebook (a "shoppable ebook" contains links inside that encourage readers to click and buy various items) ? Does the ebook contain advertisements? Is the story filled with "weldons" (paid product placements) ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

7. Is the ebook optimized for study, allowing students to print, highlight text, process text (cut, copy, paste) and add bookmarks and annotations ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

8. Is the ebook available for purchase only, not for rent ? (If purchased, it must not contain an expiration date).
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

9. Has the ebook been efficiently edited ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

10. Is the ebook well-designed ?
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 0

Add your own questions, and create your own criteria for evaluating the health of your ebooks and ebook ecosystems.

—Michael Pastore is a novelist, and the author and/or editor of a number of non-fiction books including The Zorba Anthology of Love Stories, and 50 Benefits of Ebooks: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Digital Reading Revolution. A new (2010) edition of 50 Benefits of Ebooks will be released by Zorba Press on September 8, 2010.

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A Protest Against the Commercialization of Ebooks

Acolorful advertisement at the top of the New York Times (online) today asks us to click to read "The First Shoppable Children's Storybook."

I hope it is also the last.

In an ebook, the marriage of videos and commerce creates a monstrous mutation, not a genuine reading experience that should bring delight and wisdom. Books are one of the last refuges in our world from the constant cry by advertisers to spend money and fill our lives with unnecessary things.

I am not against videos in ebooks (although they should not be called "books"); I am not against commerce, done with balance and integrity. But these two things together, inside a book for kids -- takes us backward into a world obsessed by consumerism and overconsumption, an approach to life that has been the cause of so many of our present troubles and crises.

You can read the ebook online, and then judge for yourself:

http://www.ralphlauren.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=4357818&camp=KidsStorybook_NYTimes

Technology can be used to enhance our lives, or to diminish them — here is an example of an ebook that I could happily do without.

— Michael Pastore, author
50 Benefits of Ebooks


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EPUB Straight to the Point - EPUB Edition

EPUB Straight to the Point
Creating ebooks for the Apple iPad and other ereaders
by Elizabeth Castro
Peachpit Press, ISBN: 978-0321734686
Available in Paperback: August 8, 2010
Available as an ebook (EPUB format): Now.


This is a preview (and a pre-review) of Elizabeth Castro's new book about how to create ebooks in the format called EPUB. (When the paperback is released, I will post a full review.) EPUB has become the industry standard format; a format which can be read on any personal computer, read on the web, or read on almost every ebook reading device.

Despite the growing importance, adoption, and popularity of this format, there has been relatively little written about how to create it. You can comb the Internet and gather information from a few dozen sources; yet to my knowledge this is the first book-length work about how to create ebooks in EPUB.

Simplicity was a key factor in designing the EPUB standards -- EPUB is essentially an HTML file. Nevertheless, there are no one-step, push-button solutions for making EPUB ebooks, and there are no simple and sure-fire ways to convert from other formats into EPUB. Whether you code by hand, use shareware, or work with InDesign, at the end of the process -- even using the best and priciest software -- in order to tweak and validate your EPUB, you will still need to know how the EPUB format works under the hood.

Castro's book fills an immense gap in this field, as an essential guide for publishers, designers and authors who need to produce books in the EPUB format.



I read the EPUB version of this book using the iBooks app on my iPad. The ebook looks gorgeous -- thanks to its nice font, ample line spacing, stylish headers and full-color screen shots. This ebook edition once-and-for-all dispels the foolish myth that EPUB ebooks cannot be (or look) well-designed -- Castro's ebook is beautiful and easy to read. My full review will discuss the content in more detail. For now, you can look at this expertly-designed EPUB edition, by buying a copy direct from Castro's website, for $ 20, at

http://www.elizabethcastro.com/epub/

This EPUB ebook edition of the book -- offered without any encryption -- will let you easily search through the text, create bookmarks, highlight interesting passages, and copy selections of text. For various ways to read EPUB ebooks (in addition to the iPad, the Nook, and other devices), see my FAQ at http://www.zorba.us/?page_id=243.

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


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Learning iPhone Programming (Book Review)

Learning iPhone Programming
by Alasdair Allan
Paperback, 384 pages, $ 29.99
(ebook editions also available)
ISBN: 978-0-596-80643-9
Published by O'Reilly, March 2010

With two million iPads sold in the first two months, and a new generation of iPhones just announced on Monday, June 7 (2010), it is obvious that the iPad/iPod/iPhone app gold rush has just begun. Two varieties of programmers will emerge: the full-time professionals, and a larger group of part-timers who will program for the pure pleasure of the work. As an enthusiastic member of the second group, I have been looking for a unique book. Learning iPhone Programming is almost exactly what I had been looking for.

The book is comprehensive, but it is not too large. It covers not only the nuts and bolts of the programming, but everything you will need to know before and after you develop your apps. It begins with a solid answer to the question; Why write native applications? Chapter 2 (Becoming a Developer) teaches how to register as an iPhone developer, install Xcode, install the iPhone SDK, and generate and deploy the developer certificates. Here also you will find a handy list of the four essential Apple websites that every developer will use again and again.

Chapter 3 guides you in the creation of your first app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Although the book's back cover recommends that you should have C-language experience before reading, there is a good deal of help for the uninitiated, including a concise introduction to key programming terms for new programmers. For those of us who have programmed in one of the members of the C language family (I have worked with C++), the author explains how the iphone's Objective-C is similar and different.

The heart of the book, the chapters about app development, contain easy-to-follow code and explanations, along with a generous supply of screen shots. Other sections that interested me included one about reasons why your app may be rejected; another about Regular Expressions; an overview of the PhoneGap platform; and a whole chapter about distributing your application after it's done. The final chapter (Going Further) provides a summary of books and resources for extending your education about Cocoa and Objective-C, the iPhone SDK, web applications, core data, push notifications and more.

The great strength of Allan's book is that it gives you a clear view of the big picture about iPhone development, and fills in most of the essential details. I can hardly imagine a better book to begin the great adventure of developing extraordinary apps.


--Michael Pastore


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Ebook Sales Show Enormous Growth in 2010 (first quarter)

Ebooks have arrived.

The sales of ebooks in the U.S.A. for the first quarter of 2010, more than 90 million dollars, predict a record year for ebooks.

I created this chart using data from the IDPF.org, which shows only the sales from the largest publishers.

If you've been reading on the iPad, which is a pure delight, then you can understand why more people will be enjoying reading on the screens.


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Sell Your Book on the iTunes Store, Read it on the iPad

Sell your book as an ebook, readable on the
Apple iPad.
You set the price (it has to end in 99 cents), and keep
70% of the profit. And your book will look gorgeous on the iPad -- if
you format it correctly.

Sell Your eBook on iTunes

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Ecofont is a font that you can download free, and use on your PC or Mac computer. There are small holes in the letters. When you print pages using EcoFont, since the holes do not consume any toner, you will save ink. EcoFont uses about 20% less ink than the average font.

An ingenious idea!

EcoFont can be used in all your projects, free. It works best when using 9-point and 10-point type. (When using larger type, you might begin to see some of the holes).

Download EcoFont from the EcoFont home page:

http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html


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Apple iPad Reads Ebooks With An App Called iBooks

Steve Jobs demonstates how to read ebooks on Apple's new iPad. The ebook reading software is called iBooks.

Jobs said that when the iPad launches, it will sell ebooks from five of the largest publishers, "and we're going to open up the floodgates for the rest of the world starting this afternoon."






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Stress Test for a Healthy Ebook

Important Note:
To read later version of this article — expanded and updated — click here.



All ebooks are not created equal.

How healthy is your ebook? ... Is your ebook free, flexible, strong (long lasting) and brimming with useful features? ... Or is your ebook feature-challenged, a hapless prisoner of one specific device, format, or content protection system?

There is much debate about ebook pricing; there should be much more talk about ebook value. A free and healthy ebook is worth much more than a feature-reduced ebook.

Take the Stress Test for a Healthy Ebook

Here is a simple stress test: apply this test to any ebook that you are planning to buy. Please note that this "point system" is arbitrary: some features are more important than others. You can customize this test, add new questions, and assign any point values that you like.

For each of the following questions, award:

10 points for the answer: "Yes / Full"
5 points for the answer: "Partial / Limited"
0 points for the answer: "No"

Using this scheme, 100 points is the highest and best-possible score.

1. Can you read the ebook in many ways, and on many different devices?

2. Can the ebook be read aloud to you, in a computer-generated voice?

3. Can you print the ebook?

4. Can the ebook be shared with a friend or family member?

5. Can you highlight text in the ebook?

6. Can you "process" text: cut, copy, paste, annotate?

7. Can you convert the ebook to different formats?

8. Does the ebook NEVER compromise your privacy, by including your social security number or credit card number in the ebook?

9. Can you re-sell the ebook, assuming that you are willing to give up your copy of it?

10. Once you have purchased the ebook, is it impossible for the seller to take it away from you?

Speaking round-aboutly about love and freedom, a poet once sang:
"If something is truly yours, nobody can take it away from you."

—Michael Pastore

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Learning Python 4th Edition (book review)

Learning Python, Fourth Edition
by Mark Lutz
O'Reilly Media, 2009
Paperback, 1,160 pages: $ 54.99
Ebook (PDF, MOBI, EPUB): $ 39.99
Visit the book's web page.

NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month — begins today, November 1, and runs for 30 days until November 30. The goal of this project is daunting: everyone who participates must write a novel in a month. The novel is defined, ala E.M. Forster, as a prose work comprising a minimum of 50,000 words.

I do not participate — like Nelson Algren, I believe that a genuine novel takes a skilled author one year or two years to write. Nevertheless, I am a strong supporter of this project. The NaNoWriMo project promotes writing and reading, and improves one's skills in both.

Months ago, I had a spectacular idea related to novel writing and computer programming. Suppose there was an open-source software program that would help the writer in three phases of the work.

1. Planning the novel.

Abraham Lincoln said: "If I had six hours to chop wood, I would spend the first five hours sharpening my axe." If I were NanoWriting I would spend the first five days planning the book, and the remaining 25 days writing 2,000 words per day. My software program would provide simple yet flexible frameworks for planning many types of novels.

2. Copy Editing the novel.

Why isnt' there a push-button editing solution, that would work similar to a spell checker, and cover all the essential aspects of copy editing?


3. Content Editing the novel.

After November's 30 days expire, you might have a reasonably acceptable first draft. The fledgling novel would now be processed by my software program, for what is known as "content editing" or "substantive editing", revising the work — its structure, characters, plot, dialogue, and themes — to raise its quality.

I named my program MacPerkins, after the extraordinary American editor, Maxwell Perkins, who nurtured many young writers to greatness.

What I needed now was some solid advice from professional programmers, about which programming languages might be used to make MacPerkins work. There is no shortage of programmers in this little town, and soon I had myself invited to a gathering, where "a hackle of programmers" — to coin a collective noun like a gaggle of geese, a flutter of butterflies, a crash of rhinoceroses, and a murder of crows — a hackle of programmers had gathered to discuss their favorite things.

After describing my project in great detail, I asked which language might be used.
Charlie replied: "Python."
Greg declared: "Python."
Kathy hummed: "Python."
Ann said: "Python."

"And how," I asked, "can I learn the Python programming language quickly and efficiently?"

Again, the answers were unanimous. All four of my programming-expert friends suggested the same book: Learning Python by Mark Lutz.

And now about the book itself. On the back cover you'll see a line that displays the level of the book rated as "Introductory". And the author writes that no previous experience (with Python, or with programming) is needed to use this book. Furthermore, "... compared to other programming languages, the core Python language is remarkably easy to learn. In fact, you can expect to be coding significant Python programs in a matter of days (or perhaps just in hours, if you're already an experienced programmer)."

The book claims to be "Introductory", but by the time you complete its almost 1,200 pages, you will not be a beginner anymore.

The book is written for all the major platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac. The focus is on Python version 3.0 (which the author recommends), but there is ample material about version 2.6, for those Python users who need to work with that earlier version.

Quizzes are provided at the end of each chapter, and the quiz answers are smartly situated immediately after the questions. Exercises are given at the end of each section, with answers in the back of the book.

I found the book interesting reading, as well. There are comments about the great debate that compares the features of Python and the features of Perl. There's a lucid explanation about the difference between compiled languages (such as C and C++) and interpreted languages, such as Python. There is a list of common Python mistakes, and common beginner traps. And all the geeky jargon is well explained: I might have been intimidated by the term "modules", but not after the author tells us that "Modules are simply text files containing Python statements" — and I'm not afraid of modules anymore.

I was in the middle of page 100 when I realized that I was reading a book about computer programming: everything to that point seemed so straightforward and easy to grasp. I said to myself: "This is not a typical programming book: it is better."

When the author provides sample lines of code, in the next paragraph he explains the meaning and the purpose of each line. There are no sudden and perplexing pits of literary quicksand: new material that leaves you scratching your head, and re-reading again and again, to grasp a scintilla of clarity from the murky text.

Lutz developed this book in conjunction with a very popular course he teaches about Python. That real-world connection explains how he skillfully anticipates all the questions and problems that beginners might encounter.

Flashing back to the party with my programming friends — before I opened my copy of this book — I asked what I could do if I had questions about the new language. Once again, my friends agreed: they laughed together and said: "Good luck." (They were joking of course: they are all happy to help in any and every way.)

But no luck is necessary when you have an excellent teacher between two covers, such as Learning Python.

Thanks to this book, I am already writing simple Python programs. MacPerkins, and next year's NaNoWriMo — here I come.

— Michael Pastore

Story Links

Learning Python web page: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596158071/

Python (programming language) in WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_%28programming_language%29

Python Official Website http://www.python.org

==END==


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Introducing Harley Hahn's Internet Usenet Center

Harley Hahn is a best-selling author, and one of the world's leading authorities about the Internet. Hahn is an extraordinary teacher; his books are models of how non-fiction computer books should be written: even when the concepts are difficult, Hahn's words are clear and easy to understand. Harley Hahn's new webiste is called Harley Hahn's Usenet Center, and it explains everything you need to know about the multifarious and information-rich worlds of Usenet.

Until I read some pages on Hahn's new web site, I never realized that Internet "Groups" consist of much more than Google Groups and Yahoo Groups. When that light bulb suddenly went on, I began reading Hahn's Usenet Glossary and Usenet Tutorial.

Hahn writes:

Usenet was started in 1979, which makes it a lot older than the Web. In fact, when the first primitive ancestor of the Web came along in 1991, Usenet was already a robust, worldwide communication system.

Even today, Usenet is, in some ways, far more important than the Web as a vehicle for communicating with other people. Usenet is where people from many different countries and cultures come together to talk, argue, pose questions, help one another, and share information, including all kinds of files.

Exploring Harley Hahn's website, you'll find many other interesting pages. I found some things about ebooks and the future of reading:

• Will electronic books ever replace paper?
• Literature: Online Books
• Literature: Online Collections

Harley deserves our warm appreciation for demystifying that beautiful electronic labyrinth known as "the Net."

Michael Pastore


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Ebook Readers on the Cover of the New Yorker

New Yorker covers, the best of them, are funny and timely, and often point to an uncomfortable truth about the way we live now. The November 2 issue of the The New Yorker magazine, which arrived at my house three days before Halloween, is another memorable one. Here we see a line of trick-or-treating children, waiting for candy, while the accompanying adults stand back, all reading ebooks on their new ebook reading devices.

Instead of interacting with their children, or with each other, these adults are mesmerized by the latest new thing: a classic case of right technology in the wrong situation. Now that we can use technology 24 hours every day, does not mean that we should.

What this New Yorker cover does prove, to me at least, is that ebooks are here, and that this is the begining of the digital reading revolution. Let's hope that we can all work together — readers, authors, and publishers — and this time make it work.




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Does Your Web Host Offer Unlimited Bandwith ?

How important is unlimited bandwidth when you buy web hosting? ... This feature is very important. I imagine that most website owners use far below their quotas. But you always wonder about a spike in traffic, and how much it could cost you if, suddenly, tens of thousands of readers flock to your blog or web site to read an article, or to view a video.

Many web hosting companies have put that fear to rest, by offering unlimited bandwidth. I have been recommending 1and1.com as a web host for many years; now that they are offering this feature, I can continue to recommend 1and1 wholeheartedly, without any reservations at all.

When buying web hosting space, some important features to consider are:

• Tech support and customer service
• Cost per month
• Uptime
• Bandwidth allotment (unlimited is best)
• Hosting Space allotment
• Backup
• Control Panel (ease of use)
• Domain Name Registration (should be ten dollars or less per year)
• Company (how long in business?)
• Contact Information (do they have a physical location and a phone number?)

Before you buy, read a lot, compare features, talk with colleagues and friends.


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How to Upgrade WordPress (.org) Blogs

ZPZorba Press is moving from the hand-coded website, to a WordPress blog, at http://www.Zorba.us. The website is expanding, and we are keeping the best of the old site, and adding many new features to the new one. Why use WordPress? ... WordPress allows the publishing of "pages", rather than blog posts only. WP has has many useful plug-ins that make the site easier to manage, and add features for your blog readers. Best of all: there is an active community of very intelligent WordPress users, who will cheerfully answer your questions whenever you need technical help.

The inevitable happens when you least expect it: Soon after we added tons of content to the new website, a new version of WordPress arrived, version 2.85.

Do you let things be? or Do you upgrade to the latest, and risk losing your data?

First you backup everything (WordPress files and Database files) — and then you upgrade.

There are many ways to do this: here's mine.

1. Contact the creator of your WordPress Theme, and ask if it is compatible with the latest version of WordPress (at the time of this writing, that is WordPress 2.85).

2. Back up your WordPress files, using an an FTP program, such as FileZilla. Copy the files from your web host to your computer desktop.

It would be nice if that backed up everything: but it doesn't. Lots of important stuff is stored in your MySQL database.

3. Log in to your web hosting company's Control Panel. Access the database section. Find the database that is associated with your WordPress Blog. Now, using PHPadmin, download a zipped copy of your database files.

Details about that process, from better geeks than me, are here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database

4. Confirm that everything has been backed up. Look inside your WordPress folder; and peek into the zipped file with a zip preview program, such as Zipeg.

5. Now go to your WordPress blog Dashboard. You will see that near the top is a convenient reminder to Upgrade.

I tried "Automatic Upgrade" but nothing happened.

6. Download the zipped version of the latest WordPress. Unzip it, and you get a folder that says "WordPress".

7. Open FileZilla, and copy this latest version to the same directory on your web server as your current version of WordPress.

When FileZilla asks "Should it overwrite ... "

I changed the settings to Yes, if newer; only during this queue.

Files begin to upload before your eyes.

8. Now, before the test to see if you've just ruined the entire blog you've worked on for three weeks, leave your computer, and then make a strong cup of tea.

9. When all the files have been uploaded via FileZilla, look at your blog's Dashboard.

Does it say: You are using version 2.85 ? (latest version number).

Good! ... Something happened.

10. Now check your blog, starting with the home page.

All the pages, posts, images in the right place? ... Nothing disappeared without a trace, like money invested on Wall Street?

Congratulations! ... You have successfully upgraded your WordPress.org blog.

Here's a suggestion for WordPress 3.0:
A successful upgrade should be celebrated with an animated screen containing fireworks and stirring music.

Thanks, WordPress, for making upgrading relatively simple -- and without a problem.

What is the key step in this process? ... Back up all your files and database data before you begin to upgrade.

Michael Pastore
http://www.Zorba.us


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Ebooks Save Millions of Trees: 10 Ideas For Sustainable Publishing

Is print publishing an environmental catastrophe?

Summary:
This article, about sustainable publishing, provides an overview of the environmental benefits of ebooks, and offers ideas and resources for reducing print publishing's environmental impact.

Ebooks save trees. That is one of the many environmental benefits of digital publishing and reading. A larger list of the environmental benefits of reading ebooks includes:

• saving trees;


• reducing paper consumption;


• saving energy used in book production;


• eliminating packaging materials, and all the energy and cash costs associated with those materials;


• saving fuel used for transporting paper books: from the printing company to the warehouse, and then from the warehouse to the customer;


• eliminating the pollution caused by producing and shipping books;


• reducing the energy, cash costs, and pollution required to dispose of books;


• saving money. These days, money is a "scarce green resource." If the 2 billion books sold in the USA last year had been sold as ebooks — at five dollars less per book — we might have saved about 10 billion dollars.
  

Environmental Benefits of Free Ebooks

In just over three years (the 37 months from July 4, 2006 to August 4, 2009) more than 200 million free ebooks were downloaded from two websites: Project Gutenberg (PG), and the World Public Library's annual event, the World eBook Fair (WEF).

Had these 200 million books been made made of paper, how many trees would have been saved?



Let's do some math. In the USA in one year, 2 billion books are produced. To get the paper for these books requires consuming 32 million trees. We can estimate that one tree yields enough paper for 62.5 books. (Of course, these numbers vary depending on which expert you choose to believe.)

The 200 million free ebooks downloaded from Project Gutenberg and the WEF saved three million and two hundred thousand (3,200,000) trees.

This number (200 million free ebooks downloaded) is from two free ebook sources only; there are many other sources of free ebooks, including Google Books, the Internet Archive, Feedbooks, Manybooks, Scribd, and many more.

Paper and Newspapers

Every year, the world produces more than 300 million tons of paper. Books are not the only source of paper consumption.

How many trees are used to produce on week's worth of paper for the Sunday edition of the New York Times newspaper?

• One Sunday issue of the New York Times consumes 75,000 trees.


• One year of Sunday newspapers , produced by the New York Times, is responsible for the destruction and consumption of more than 3,900,000 trees.

The newspaper industry in the USA, each year, consumes 95 million trees.

And is the U.S. recycling all its paper? ... Hardly. According the website Rainforestmaker.org, 40 percent of our garbage is paper and paper products.

The Impact of Published Books

There's an old story about a man who was trying to save money for his company. Instead of taking the bus to work, every day he walked. After a year, he told his boss that he had saved the company more than one thousand dollars.
The boss replied: "You are fired!"
"What?" said the loyal employee. "I didn't take the bus for a year and I saved the company more than a thousand bucks!"
"That's right!" said the boss. "But if you would have not taken a taxi cab to work for a year, you would have saved us thousands more!"

Similarly, we of course cannot assume that every free ebook downloaded means that the person downloading the ebook would have bought a paper copy. In this section we focus on paper books that have been actually sold.

(Note: At this time we are not examining the environmental impact of dedicated ebook reading devices. Most people now are reading ebooks on their desktop or laptop computers, or on iPhones, iPod Touches, or mobile devices that they already own.)

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

How many trees are used to make books published in the USA?

The blog Eco-libris tells us that the book publishing industry in the USA uses 16 million tons of paper every year. They estimate that about 20 trees yield one ton of paper. Therefore, the USA book publishing industry consumes 32 million trees per year.

In addition to the paper for the books, there are many other cash and environmental costs of book production, described in the beginning of this article.

According the website of the Green Press Initiative (more about the GPI, below),
"The U.S. book and newspaper industries combined require the harvest of 125 million trees each year and emit over 40 million metric tons of CO2 annually; equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of 7.3 million cars."

Ten Steps For Sustainable Publishing

I love paper books, and I am not calling for a boycott. Instead, let us find a more thoughtful approach to paper book and periodical publishing, an approach that might be called "sustainable publishing."

There are many ways that publishers can make book publishing more environmentally friendly. Readers should be aware of these options, and support publishers who are practicing them.

1. Offer a Cost-effective and Environmentally-Friendly Option: Ebooks

Print publishers can offer ebook versions of their paper books -- in universal formats such as PDF and EPUB -- at a lower price than the paper editions.
This is not only a sound environmental practice, it is a forward-thinking business strategy for the future. O'Reilly Media CEO Tim O'Reilly recently wrote:
"We are no longer a print publisher that happens to sell digital books too. We're a digital publisher that also sells print books. All publishing is now digital publishing, and all writing is writing for the Web. Books must behave like the web they're now a part of."

Book buyers do not need any special devices to read ebooks. Ebooks can be read on your personal computer, or on your Smartphone or iPhone, or iPod Touch.
Multi-purpose ebook reading devices are coming in the future, devices that would do more than just read ebooks. For a glimpse into that possible future, take a look at this French video, with English subtitles.

Note: the first 60 seconds of this video are blank: it gets better after that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vBb3_aZN7g&feature=player_embedded

2. Buy and Sell Books Using Print on Demand.

Instead of printing thousands of books at once from a printer (a book printing company), a publisher or an author can use a Print-On-Demand (P.O.D.) company, such as Lulu or Lightning Source. P.O.D. is a method for printing and binding books (using a digital printing machine) as they are ordered, one book at a time. For most books, the quality of P.O.D. now equals the quality of books printed from an offset press. P.O.D. not only reduces the risks of unsold books, it saves energy and costs regarding shipping and transportation of the books sold. The P.O.D. books are not shipped to a warehouse, they are shipped directly from "the factory" to the customer.
This will become an even more viable option when P.O.D. technology advances, so that we see a steep fall in the price per printed book.

3. Use 100% Recycled Paper In Your Paper Books.

Book buyers: Tell your publisher and bookstore owner that you would prefer to buy books printed on 100% recycled paper.

Publishers: Ask your printing company about their options for recycled paper. For more information about recycled paper, a great place to begin is the Green Peace Book Campaign
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/


4. Join the Green Press Initiative.

The Green Press Initiative (GPI) is an invaluable resource for everyone in the book industry. Individuals and businesses may join for a reasonable yearly fee.

According to their website:

"Green Press Initiative (GPI) is a non-profit program which takes a collaborative approach towards working with publishers, printers, paper manufacturers and others in the book and newspaper industries to minimize social and environmental impacts, including impacts on endangered forests, impacts on climate change, and impacts on communities where paper fiber is sourced."

GPI members not only use recycled paper, they use paper that has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). FSC paper is made from trees that are not grown in endangered forests.

Currently, more than 180 book publishers have joined GPI -- these are many of the large publishers, comprising 42% of the market share of in the U.S. book publishing industry.

5. Support Your Local Book Exchange or Library Book Sale

At the town dump in Greenwich, Connecticut, there is a shed where dump patrons can donate books, or take them home. It is a free bookstore.

Another way to reuse unwanted paper books is to donate them to your local library book sale.

6. Ensure that your unsold books are reused or recycled, not banished to a landfill.

It is difficult to find information about the fate of America's unsold books. That makes me suspect the worst: there are a lot of them, and they are not being recycled.

In the Netherlands, every year, more than a million paper books are shredded, and transformed into toilet paper.

The book Thirteen Moons was published in October 2006. It was written by Charles Frazier, whose first novel, Cold Mountain, enjoyed a stunning success. A bidding war for Thirteen Moons had resulted in a cash advance for the author of more than 8 million dollars. From the initial print run of 750,000 books, about 368,000 books were sold. The publishers lost 5.5 million dollars.

Who knows the fate of the remaining books?

7. Support the unofficial standard Ebook Format: Unencrypted EPUB

Ebooks were never meant to be hidden like the lost city of Atlantis, buried like the treasures of Monte Cristo, or guarded like the gold in Fort Knox.

Unfortunately, many ebooks are sold in proprietary formats that prevent sharing. Even the new format, EPUB, that is quickly becoming the industry standard format, may be unfriendly for sharing, if the EPUB is encrypted with DRM.
Before buying an ebook, check with the publisher or ebook seller about your rights to reuse the work.

8. Support Your Local Library

Sometimes it's better to borrow than to buy.

9. For each paper book bought or sold, plant a tree.

Book buyers and publishers should consider planting one tree for every book bought or sold.

To plant your own trees, get advice from the Arbor Day Foundation; or Trees Forever.
www.arborday.org
www.treesforever.org

The United Nations will be happy to plant some trees for you, through their excellent project:

Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign
http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/about/index.asp

From the website:

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a major worldwide tree planting campaign. Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, people, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments are encouraged to enter tree planting pledges online with the objective of planting at least one billion trees worldwide each year. In a call to further individual and collective action, UNEP has set a new goal of planting 7 billion trees by the end of 2009. The campaign strongly encourages the planting of indigenous trees and trees that are appropriate to the local environment.

10. For each *ebook* sold, plant a tree.

Why not plant a tree for every ebook sold?
And plant a tree for every free ebook downloaded?

Learn More About Sustainable Publishing and Sustainable Living

For sources of this article, and for more information about green living and sustainable publishing, see our page of resources. (Which will be linked here, and coming soon!)

Page of Resources: Coming Soon.

Credits:
The image of chopped tree trunks (which we have remixed onto the book) comes to us courtesy of the photographer Wagner T. Cassimiro.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wagnertc/ / CC BY 2.0

— Michael Pastore, a long-time advocate for the sustainable society, is a novelist and a non-fiction author who lives in Ithaca, New York. His latest book is 50 Benefits of Ebooks: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Digital Reading Revolution. Pastore is the Editorial Director of Zorba Press.


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