Category: Writing

Considering the Fracus Over E-book Pricing

There is currently a debate raging over e-book pricing. The charge is one of price fixing and the debate affects all book publishers. Even though the press has focused on Apple as the target of the DOJ investigation, the lawsuit also affects five other publishers:
Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. Of these six defendants, three have settled with the DOJ: Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette. Any time vendors collude to set prices at a specific level in order to improve profits its price fixing. The law is blind as to the reasons behind the price fixing, engaging in this practice is simply against the law for any reason.

The supposed point of the lawsuit is to restore competition to the market, but more than a few people see the opposite happening if the DOJ is successful. There is a fly in the ointment—Amazon. It seems that Amazon has actually been pricing e-book content at a loss in order to promote the Kindle, which has placed the publishers in an unenviable position of losing money in order to remain competitive. Healthy debate on the topic is probably the best course of action until all of the facts come to light, but debate of this sort seldom occurs. Some industry pundits are wondering whether Amazon should be part of the lawsuit as well. A few have come outright as said that Amazon is more of a problem than the publishers for these reasons:

 

  • The lawsuit will hurt professional authors financially.
  • A decrease in compensation will end up closing smaller bookstores.
  • After Amazon buries the competition, buyers will be hurt by the resulting monopoly.
  • Lower book prices will adversely affect the quality of content available to readers.
  • Amazon already uses the same model as the publisher do, but hasn’t been named in the lawsuit.

At issue here is one of fairness and eventual results. It’s not fair for the DOJ to pursue price fixing for some actors in this situation and not others. If the DOJ is serious about fixing the current problems with competition in the e-book market, then it really does need to do something about Amazon. Otherwise, the result will be a monopoly that will hurt everyone and prove incredibly expensive to fix. More importantly, professional authors already make little money for their efforts—squeezing them further will definitely result in a loss of the incredible wealth of professional authors available today. Fixing the problems in the market will prove considerably more easy than trying to reestablish the author base used to write books when they become completely unprofitable.

Perhaps this will eventually work out in an unexpected way. This may be yet one more nail in the coffin that is currently killing books as a means for exchanging information. The interactive tools that are being developed for use with books may eventually take over and everyone will use them for all sorts of training. However, these tools are currently in their infancy and authors like me are only now beginning the build the expertise required to use them. In the meantime, it’s important that the DOJ take appropriate actions to ensure true competition in the marketplace.

What is your take on this issue? Do you even read books anymore to obtain information or do you rely on some other source? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Determining When Technology Hurts

I’ve been talking with a friend recently about a disturbing trend that I’m witnessing. Technology has started hurting people, more than helping people, in a number of ways. Actually, it’s not the technology that’s at fault, but the misuse and abuse of that technology. One of my goals as an author is to expose people to various technologies in a way that helps them. This goal is one my major reasons for writing books like Accessibility for Everybody: Understanding the Section 508 Accessibility Requirements. It’s also the reason I’m constantly looking at how our society interacts with technology.

I’m sure that there is going to be some sort of course correction, but currently, our society has become addicted to technology in a way that harms everyone. You could be addicted to technology if you’ve ever experienced one of these symptoms:

  • You’re with friends, family, or acquaintances, but your attention is so focused on whatever technology you’re using at the moment that you lose all track of the conversation. It’s as if these other people aren’t even there.
  • You find yourself making excuses to spend just one more minute with your technology, rather than spend time with your family or friends.
  • In some cases, you forgo food, sleep, or some other necessity in order to spend more time with your technology.
  • Suddenly you have more electronic friends than physical friends.
  • You can’t remember the last time you turned all of your technology off, forgot about it, and spent the day doing anything else without worrying about it.
  • You’ve had some sort of accident or mishap because your technology got in the way.
  • Attempting even small tasks without your technology has suddenly become impossible.


Technology is meant to serve mankind, not the other way around. For example, I was quite excited to learn about the new exoskeleton technologies that I wrote about in my Exoskeletons Become Reality post. The idea that I’m able communicate with people across the world continues to amaze me. Seeing Mars through the eyes of the rovers is nothing short of spectacular. Knowing that someone is able to live by themselves, rather than in an institution, because of their computer sends shivers up my spine. These are all good uses of technology.

However, these good uses have become offset by some of the news I’ve been reading. For example, it has been several years now since scientists and doctors have begun raising concerns about texting being worse than drunk driving=. Drunk driving is a serious offense, of course, and no one wants to undersell that. If you get caught doing it, you will no doubt be in need of an attorney for DUI charges to help you out. What these various groups haven’t considered is that anything that distracts you while driving is bad. For example, radios now have so many gadgets that you can get quite engrossed in trying to get what you want out of them. Except for turning the radio on or off, or perhaps changing the station, I now leave my hands off the radio unless I’m parked. The fact that I daily see cars weaving to and fro in front of me as the driver obviously plays with something in the front seat or on the dashboard tells me that other people aren’t quite as able to turn off the urge to fiddle. Small distractions like this are often the main cause of accidents. It is so important to focus when driving, as an accident, no matter how small can be life-changing. It can also cost a lot of money and you may need to click here to find out more about how a lawyer can help when you’ve been involved in some way. Especially if you have been involved in an accident whereby the other person was at fault for being distracted.

I know of more than a few people who are absolutely never disconnected from their technology. They actually exhibit addictive behavior when faced with even a short time away from their technology. It’s not just games, but every aspect of computer use. Some people who work in IT can’t turn off from their computer use even when on vacation-they take a computer with them. I’ve talked about this issue in my Learning to Unplug post.

I look for the situation to become far worse before it become better. This past Sunday I was listening to a show on the radio that talked about how banks would like to get rid of any use of physical money. You’d carry an electronic wallet in your smartphone and that wallet would provide access to all of your money. In short, even if you’d like to unplug, you can’t because now you depend on that smartphone for the basics in life. At some point, everyone will have to have smartphone simply to survive if the banks have their way.

Of course, why bother with a smartphone when you can embed the computer right into the human body? The science exists to do this now. All that has to happen is that people lose their wariness of embedded computer technology-just as they have with every other form of technology to come along. Part of the method for selling this technology will undoubtedly be the ability to control your computer with your mind.

Technology is currently embedded in humans to meet special needs. For example, if you have a pacemaker, it’s likely that the doctor can check up on its functionality using a wireless connection. However, even here, humans have found a way to abuse technology as explained in my An Update On Special Needs Device Hacking post. What has changed since then is that the entertainment industry has picked up on this sick idea. It’s my understanding that NCIS recently aired a show with someone dying of this very attack. Viewers probably thought is was the stuff of science fiction, but it’s actually science fact. You really can die when someone hacks into your pacemaker.

The implications of what these various groups are working are quite disturbing. As technology becomes more and more embodied within humans, the ability to be alone, ever, will be gone. Any thought you have will also be heard by someone else. There won’t be any privacy; any time to yourself. You’ll be trapped. It’s happening right now and everyone seems to be quite willing to rush toward it at breakneck speed.

The day could come when your ability to think for yourself will be challenged by the brainwaves injected by some implanted device. Theoretically, if the science goes far enough, the ability to even control your own body will be gone. Someone is probably thinking that I sound delusional or perhaps paranoid-I truly hope that none of the future technologies I’ve read about ever come into wide use.

In the meantime, the reality is that you probably could use a break from your technology. Take time to go outside and smell the flowers. Spend an afternoon with a physical friend discussing nothing more than the beautiful day or the last book you read. Go to a theater and watch a play or a movie with your technology left at home. Eat a meal in peace. Leave your smartphone at home whenever you can. Better yet, turn it off for a day or two. Unplug from the technology that has taken over your life and take time to live. You really do owe it to yourself.

Obtaining Kindle for Your Non-Kindle System

A number of readers have written me about my post entitled, “The e-Book in Your Future” where I discuss the future of printing and the viability of devices such as the Kindle. The problem for many readers is that they either don’t want to get a Kindle or they want the e-books they buy to appear on more than just their Kindle. For example, they may use a PC at work. It’s not impossible to use your Kindle too, but it could be inconvenient. Perhaps you want to cite the content that you found in a book as part of a report—being able to see that content on your PC would make it a lot easier to copy and paste the citation to the report.

What many people may not realize is that Amazon has made it possible to read your Kindle materials on non-Kindle systems. Because I want to encourage people to use the device that best meets their reading needs, I decided to put the following list of Kindle software downloads together.

 

 

After you download the software, you install it on the host system. Any Kindle-compatible e-books you own are now available on that device as well. I haven’t tested the setup on anything other than the PC so far, but it works well under Windows 7. I’d love to hear how the software is working for other people. If I get enough feedback, I’ll provide an update about the Kindle software here. Send me your comments at [email protected].

 

In Defense of the Hometown Newspaper

I’ve talked with more than a few people who claim the newspaper is dead. In fact, many of them cite articles that say the newspaper is dead mainly because people no longer trust themselves to discover what is true and false. There are commentaries galore about the fact that newspapers can no longer make a profit and the fact that they’re completely inadequate to the task of serving a world bent on news of the moment in sound bites. There is even a Web site called Newspaper Death Watch to herald the event. I imagine that this characterization of the plight of the newspaper is unfortunately true in larger cities where there is a lack of a cohesive community and the news is important enough to garner the attention of a news wire such as Associated Press (AP). However, this dire news doesn’t consider the newspaper that focuses on small-town life (of which there are many). The fact is that there are certain newspapers that are not only alive, but doing quite well. For example, the “big city” of our community, Reedsburg (population 10,014), sports not one, but two newspapers, both of which attract enough advertising dollars to remain viable.

The hometown newspaper remains viable for a number of reasons. An obvious and often overlooked reason in our community is that the newspaper is read by the Amish, a group that is unlikely to ever read it online. A lot of us find out what’s going on in the world by reading online news sources like https://darknetmarket.com but for the Amish, very few have ever even accessed the internet, let alone use it regularly. Because at least some of the advertisement is directly focused on this group and other advertising is at least of interest to this group, the newspaper will remain viable. Advertising that doesn’t reach its target audience is useless. The Amish are just one of many groups who aren’t exactly Internet savvy-these groups will continue to provide a cushion for the hometown newspaper for the foreseeable future (long enough that I don’t need to worry about it). Interestingly enough, most of these groups also live in rural areas where they tend to have a large impact.

That being said, it is undeniable that most local newspapers are now available in online formats too. This means that if you are a local business looking to promote your products and services online then you can market your company through print and online advertisements via a local newspaper. Although it is undeniable that print marketing still holds a lot of power, if you want to get ahead of the competition in business then you absolutely need to be advertising online. Besides, nearly everyone searches for things online these days.

Smaller newspapers typically service a particular area and therefore if you want to target a particular population then newspaper marketing is a common strategy. Moreover, one industry that has unequivocally embraced online advertising is the health and wellbeing sector. Dentists for example are in high demand and therefore in order to ensure that their practices stand out from the crowd, dentists must embrace the web and produce content and advertisements that are optimized for search engines. You can learn more about local SEO for dentists by taking a look at some of the resources on the Avidon Marketing Group website.

When the newspaper content focuses on the local community and the community isn’t large enough to attract the attention of a wire service, then the newspaper is likely the only source of information for community events. If you want to know about the fire that hit the local plumber, you’ll read about it in the local newspaper, not online. Of course, some people may question the need to hear about the fire from the newspaper when Joe at the restaurant can deliver the full report. If you know anything about small towns, you know that the gossip mill is completely unreliable and that you’ll hear different stories from Ann, Zelda, and Sam before the day is out. To get the real story, you need to read the newspaper (complete with pictures no less).

It’s also important to consider the community. Hometown newspapers exist because the community wants them. Many smaller towns are family towns, where intermarriage over the years has produced a super-family of sorts. You know that Marge is a third cousin and that she’s married to Harry who owns the local lumber mill. In fact, you’ve seen them at church and in the bank any number of times and pass the time of day with them when you see them on the street. However, you don’t know that they recently had a baby until you read about it in the newspaper. In order to keep up with these extended families, people in rural communities read what happens to various family members in the newspapers. Yes, it’s really that hard to keep up with everything happening in the lives of every family member. Hometown newspapers don’t focus on the negative–they contain a mix of the good and the bad, the outrageous and the sublime. Hometown newspaper editors realize that they don’t need sensational headlines to entice the reader–they need that picture of Jeremy’s triumph at the spelling bee.

Hometown newspapers are also personalized. The articles of interest in our local newspaper are written by local authors who include their telephone number and e-mail address as part of their byline. You don’t get that kind of service with AP. The reason that hometown newspapers will survive is that they’re written by people you know-real people you can contact and interact with. These aren’t faceless actors on the world stage, but the same guy or gal that you had lunch with this afternoon. Hometown newspapers haven’t lost touch with the community. Quite the contrary, they embrace community contact.

When a hometown newspaper does run a feed from AP or one of the other news wires, they tend to personalize that content too. So, Iran is planning to block the Strait of Hormuz? Why should I care? Well, it means that the price of gas at the local Kwik Trip will go up. The association between the world stage and a local condition is a reason that the value added content of the hometown newspaper remains relevant and useful.

My wife and I actually get two newspapers. There is the local newspaper from Reedsburg and then a second newspaper from Madison that fills us in about state events. The Madison newspaper isn’t quite as personalized, but still fulfills a need. Again, there are the personalized stories about the state and then there is the audience reading the paper, which includes the Amish and other groups who aren’t online. I doubt that the Madison newspaper is in trouble either because it has too many people reading it.

Are newspapers really dead? They’re dead in large cities because the newspapers got lazy and didn’t personalize their content. Profit took the place of intimate contact with the reader and sensationalism took the place of serious reporting of all of the facts, even the good ones. The fact that these newspapers also lack a cohesive community to write about and that community does tend to have a strong online presence has conspired to make the big city newspaper obsolete. I imagine the same thing will happen to the hometown newspaper someday, but it won’t be today and it probably won’t happen in my lifetime. Do you read a hometown newspaper? What is your experience with it? Let me know at [email protected].

Developing the Reader Profile

A lot of people have written to ask me about writing books—about the techniques I use to develop a useful book. So far, all of my books are technical in nature. Not all of them are computer-related, but the majority are. The sorts of books that I write is changing and you’ll likely see me write books in other areas in the future. Whether I ever write fiction remains to be seen, but I do plan to branch out into other areas. No matter what I end up writing, I expect that I’ll use many of the same techniques when writing future books as I use to write my current books. Mainly, I need to find a way to communicate the ideas that I understand in a form that the reader can understand. It doesn’t matter what those ideas are—they exist in my head and I need to get them out of my head and into the reader’s head.

When I’m putting an outline together, I try to put myself in my reader’s shoes. Sometimes that means actually doing a little play acting and trying out things to see how I’d feel if I were the reader. Yes, conveying technology, or any other topic for that matter, means understanding the reader and how the reader feels. It means respecting the reader as a person and understanding that the reader has specific needs, as well as specific skills. Sometimes I’ll talk to the beta readers who are reading my books about issues or bounce ideas off the technical editor for my book. I’ll review materials online and see what people are discussing online. In short, I develop a profile of my reader and roll it around in my head until I can start to see a technology from the viewpoint of my reader. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s a necessary skill to develop.

In a way, I’m creating a relationship with what I think my reader will be. Beta readers do offer the opportunity to interact with actual readers, but my reading audience is relatively large, so it really does come down to creating a rapport with an idealized reader—one who encompasses everything I expect that my reader will be. The relationship takes form in a profile that I write down and review relatively often as I write the book. As I come across additional insights during the writing process, I develop the profile of my reader more fully. I keep constantly asking myself how I would talk about the subject at hand if I were sitting in a coffee shop (or some other relaxing environment) with the reader.

To a certain extent, I need to consider the reader’s need for self help. I can’t provide any reader with a specific answer for most problems the reader will encounter. To do so, I’d need to write immense books that no one would want to read because they’d be too bulky. I can provide the reader with knowledge and insights, but I can’t provide the reader with a precise response to any given problem because at the time I write my book, the problem is undefined. So the communication takes the form of ideas, rather than a specific procedure, in most cases.

Authors are hindered by a number of factors. The most important of these issues is the inability to communicate with the reader in real time. It’s the reason that I try to make myself so accessible through e-mail and by writing this blog. Even with these additional levels of communication, however, there are still barriers to communication. For example, I can’t easily read your body language to determine whether my response is actually helpful—I must make my best guess. When writing a book, I have to anticipate your needs and hope that my guesses are good ones because they are, in fact, guesses.

The reader profile doesn’t have to take a specific form, but it does need to provide you with a complete picture of the reader. Even if you define a few reader aspects incorrectly, having a reader profile will help you remain focused throughout the writing process on a particular reader. Here are the sorts of questions I ask myself when creating a reader profile:

 

  • What is the reader’s education level?
  • Will this reader understand these specific concepts?
  • When will the reader be reading my book?
  • How will the reader react to certain types of information?
  • Are there social biases I need to consider when communicating with this reader?
  • How does the reader view the subject at hand?
  • Is the reader likely to have language issues or special needs?
  • Will the reader be alone or part of a team?
  • How does the reader view me?


Most of my books require that I ask other questions, but this a good sampling of the sorts of questions that I ask myself. You’d think that with all of this effort spent considering my reader that I’d communicate quite well. However, there have been books where I ended up missing the reader completely with my profile. I directed the book at one audience, but another audience actually found the book more helpful and purchased more copies of it. When that happens, I get a lot of e-mail from a lot of disgruntled readers (and the online reviews are also less favorable). These failures require that I go back and review the premises on which I based my book and make corrections. I maintain statistics for the book, and if I get the chance to write an update, I tweak the reader profile accordingly to better meet the needs of the audience that purchased my book.

Anyone writing anything can benefit by creating a reader profile. If you currently write documentation, but don’t create a reader profile, I encourage you to do so because you’ll end up with a far better document as a result. As the years have passed, my profiles have gotten better, but I’m under no delusions that I’ll ever write the perfect profile. Even so, I’d never consider writing a book now without creating a reader profile first. Let me know your thoughts about using reader profiles at [email protected].

 

Desire

Desire,
the fire
that keeps everyone thirsting for more.

We buy
and pile
our stuff in ever greater hoards.

To spend
without end
seems rude in a world starving by inches.

Our lust
gets stuff
to pile so high, there is no end.

Some homes
so filled
with things no one will ever use.

Such waste
a stain
as the world looks on in tears.

Your heart
can sense
the needs of those around you.

Your eyes
see pain
our consumer society sows and reaps.

We can
become
the solution to economic woes.

Learn how
the less
you need, the more you get.

Our life
is not
about goods we have, but the good we do.

Copyright 2012, John Paul Mueller

 

Entering the New Year

Today is my first day back from vacation. I’ve been looking forward to telling you everything that has happened during my down time! In fact, unlike many people, I really look forward to getting back to work. Well, the crammed inbox is a bit of a pain, but even the e-mail surplus is a reminder to me that you’re finding the help in my books useful.

Vacation is a bit of a misnomer for me. Yes, I do unplug from the computer as described in my Learning to Unplug post, but there is plenty to do outside. One of the new experiences I had during vacation was working on a large tree. My uncle had an oak with a 44″ diameter trunk fall several years ago. It was time to cut it up this winter. I only have a 22″ bar on my chainsaw and a 22″ bar doesn’t quite reach 22″ into the trunk, so we had a bit of trouble getting the rounds cut from the trunk. Cutting as much as I could and then using wedges to do the rest worked fine. Moving pieces that large is also a problem because you can’t lift them (or barely budge them for that matter). I learned how to use a cant hook to move the large pieces of wood onto the splitter (my uncle has a hydraulic splitter attached to his tractor). I still use a 20 pound splitting maul and splitting wedge to hand split all of my wood. Most people use a lighter splitting maul, but the abundance of white and red elm, black locust, and hickory on my property makes a heavier maul a necessity. Lets just say that between helping my uncle and cutting a bit of my own wood, I didn’t lack for exercise during vacation .

This year we did get to spend quite a bit of time with family and friends, especially since the weather here is Wisconsin is unusually mild. We don’t have any snow on the ground to speak of at the moment and none is in the forecast. Of course, the lack of snow makes travel easy, but it’s also worrisome because our plants will miss the moisture come spring and we could experience problems due to the lack of cover. However, each winter is different and I’m sure we’ll get clobbered by a snowstorm or two before all is said and done.

Rebecca and I also spent time putting a puzzle together (a review will appear later this week) and we had some fun watching movies. Of course, the tea kettle received a workout as we spent time in front of the wood stove enjoying something good to read. Overall, a nice way to rest during vacation. We didn’t just stay at home though. The new Sherlock Holmes movie called to us, so we went to see it at our local theater. Of course, there were visits to Deli Bean (a local coffee shop) and Stone Hollow (our local restaurant), where we enjoyed some nice treats.

This was a lot of fun and it was made even better because of the time we got to spend together. This is something that doesn’t happen as often as we’d like, which is a shame. Of course, we would’ve loved to have taken an actual vacation during this time, and one place that always comes up in discussion is Iceland. After reading this article about the best things to do in this country – https://www.carsiceland.com/post/best-things-do-in-iceland – it became even more tempting because who wouldn’t want to explore all of their glaciers, waterfalls and to witness the Northern Lights? This is something that I definitely want to plan for the new year, and I really hope we get to visit. Perhaps I should look at some private jet pricing calculator as it appears that flights to certain Icelandic airports might be a hassle. But I should take things one step at a time, I’m just glad that we could fill our break with as much enjoyment and activities as possible.

The mild weather also made it possible for me to walk in the woods. During one of my visits to the woods, I kept track of a fox. Cody (see Many Hands Make Light Work) and I had spotted a dead raccoon near a den in the woods, so I perched a distance from the den to see if anything came out. The den had a fox in it last winter and it appears that the same fox is there this winter. So, I sat on my stump for a while and watched. I find nature amazing. The woods provides us with food, heat, and entertainment–what more could anyone ask?

However, in addition to these activities, I also worked on some ideas for upcoming books, which is one of the focuses of this post. I’m planning to write some books on self-sufficiency. The books will have the same focus as my blog posts. I want to make things simple and to demonstrate ways you can also receive a financial benefit from your activities. Self-sufficiency is great because you help the environment, improve your health, and get a better product. For many people, these reasons look attractive until you start considering the financial element of self-sufficiency. Surprisingly, many people are unaware of the fact that self-sufficiency saves considerable money-enough that you really need to consider it as a source of income, rather than as a money sink. My new book will emphasize what you get in exchange for your efforts and how to optimize the benefits you receive. If you have some ideas on what you’d like to see in my book, please be sure to write me at [email protected].

Vacation is a time for equipment maintenance as well. I was able to get a few necessary maintenance tasks done during vacation. Another week off would have been nice, but I did get the essentials done.

One of my favorite activities during vacation was baking cookies with Rebecca. She makes the most delightful cookies and it’s always a pleasure to give her a hand when I can. We made sugar cookies this time around, but next time we may do something a bit more exciting.

Today is the first in-office work day of the year for me. Please be patient if you’ve sent me an e-mail while I’ve been gone. I promise to answer every e-mail that I’ve received while I was gone, but with a little over 900 reader e-mails in my inbox, it takes a while to get the job done. In the meantime, I hope that you’ve had a great start to the new year and I’m looking forward to presenting you will all sorts of really neat posts this upcoming year on just about every topic imaginable!

Learning to Unplug

It’s the last day of the year for me. I won’t be writing any new blog entries in until next year. Rebecca and I take each Christmas off and don’t come back until after Epiphany, which is the actual 12th day of Christmas (just in case you were wondering about the songs that use it). If you send me an e-mail, I won’t respond until January 9th-the first work day after Epiphany. I completely unplug while on vacation and you should too. Here are the top reasons I unplug during my down time–perhaps you’ll find a reason that works for you.

  • Rebuilding Our Marriage: Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m devoted to my wife. I consider my marriage far more important than any other element of my life here on earth. Rebecca patiently waits for me the rest of the year, but vacations are devoted to her and our marriage. I look forward to our time together and count the days until we can spend time doing something interesting together.
  • Focus on Family, Friends, and Neighbors: My family has always been good about working around my schedule. There are times during the year where I simply tell them that a book deadline is far too important to visit with them and they understand. My closest friends and even my neighbors are equally cognizant of my need to work. I try to make up for the lack of attention during the rest of the year with visits throughout vacation.
  • Personal Health: I want to provide my readers with the best service that I can. That means taking care of my personal health: spiritual, mental, and physical. Disconnecting from everything gives me time for self-reflection and helps me to grow as a person. It also provides me with much needed rest. No one can do a job well unless they have received the proper rest and nourishment.
  • Organizing Personal Finances: Believe it or not it is never too early to sort out your retirement plans. I have been doing lots of research into retirement planning on websites like Key Advice and have decided that I might release some equity from our home to fund my retirement. In case you were not aware, equity release is a way for homeowners aged 55 and over to release tax-free funds from their homes without having to move. It is an increasingly popular way for people approaching retirement age to boost their finances. This makes it one of many finance options in retirement for those who are looking to make a retirement plan. In fact, a friend of mine recently decided to release some equity from his home so I must remember to ask him for some advice about what to do. Apparently, nowadays you can even use an equity release calculator to work out how much money you might be entitled to claim. Naturally, I am very interested to see how much money I might be able to claim from my own property. Furthermore, although no one likes to think too much about no longer being around, I have also established who I want to take on the responsibility of lasting power of attorney over my estate. After talking to a solicitor and writing a will, I found some brilliant estate planning resources online that explained how to establish an LPA. You can take a look here if you would like to learn more: https://willstrustslpa.co.uk/serviceareas/lasting-power-of-attorney-online/.
  • Personal Projects: It seems as if too many people wait until retirement to work on anything fun. I’m not planning to wait. During vacation, I take time to work on personal projects–things I want to do for the sheer pleasure of doing them. I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to retire anytime soon, unless an injury or some other unforeseen issue makes retirement necessary. So, I plan to do a few of these projects while I’m still able to do them. Vacation provides the opportunity.


During this holiday season, whatever your beliefs or wherever you live, I hope that you take time to unplug. Do something interesting, exciting, spiritual, or simply satisfying. The world of work will still be here when you get back–you’re truly not indispensable. It may seem as if the world will come down around your ears if you disconnect, but that’s a lie. I’ve been doing it for many years now and nothing terrible has happened. I have no cell phone, no computer access, no connectivity of any kind to impede my efforts to relax and recharge.

Rebecca and I will spend the next two weeks putting puzzles together, baking cookies, working on crafts, and sitting by the wood stove reading. We’ll spend part of the holiday in church, addressing our spiritual needs. Yes, there will even be some movie watching on our television, but that’s going to take second place to getting reacquainted after months of hard work writing, gardening, and generally making a living. Of course, I’ll need a little exercise after my lack of restraint in holiday eating (I hope my doctor doesn’t see this), so I’ll do a little wood cutting too. I’m sure that we’ll spend plenty of time with family, friends, and neighbors as well. See you next year!

The e-Book in Your Future

Back in February I wrote a post entitled, “Paper or e-Book?” where I stated a personal preference of using paper for fiction books and e-books for anything technical. I expanded on that post by writing about the advantages and disadvantages of online media when compared to technical books in my “Is the Technical Book Dead?” post. I even considered the effects of electronic media on libraries in my “Future of Libraries?” post. Let’s just say I’ve given this topic a lot of thought, but up until now, facts have been a little hard to come by. Most people speculate about e-books, but they can’t truly back up their speculation with hard facts of the sort that just about anyone can accept. However, I’ve been seeing articles such as, “Ebook Sales Both Rise and Fall in Wiley’s Divisions” (by Mercy Pilkington) as of late.

It seems as if I’m not the only one who finds the convenience of e-books addicting when it comes to technical topics. However, according to this article (probably the best of the batch I found online), the sales of e-books are stratified. Someone is less likely to buy a cookbook in e-book form, than a tome on writing your first application in C#.

My take on everything I’m seeing is one of practicality. A technical book in e-book form is convenient. You can pack entire bookshelves in an incredibly small form factor. Even the least expensive Kindle can pack 1,400 books in a tiny form factor. You can read all of your books anywhere you go and modern screens have become better at presenting information under a range of conditions, as long as you can focus on the e-book, rather than the surrounding environment.

I also see e-books becoming status-quo in the classroom. In addition to being able to store a hoard of books in an incredibly small space, schools will find book updates far easier to provide and less expensive as well. The media options provided by e-books will enhance the learning experience. From what I’ve seen, e-books are already becoming well established in the school system and I see a day coming soon where a student won’t touch a paper book as part of the educational process.

However, e-books are less useful in some situations. If you spill a sauce on your paper cookbook, you wipe it off and continue on as if nothing happened. Spilling the same sauce on your Kindle will have disastrous results as the sauce oozes into the device and damages it. Even a cheap Kindle costs $79.00 (at last look), which makes for a mighty expensive sauce.

I can also see problems using a Kindle for woodworking. For one thing, the print is small enough that it would be really hard to read construction instructions while using a Kindle. Not only that, but imagine trying to use a drawing in the Kindle—good luck. In addition, dust specs from the woodworking environment would eventually end up inside the device. I haven’t met an environment yet that wood dust can’t penetrate.

It’s hardly surprising then that e-books have become quite popular in some areas, but not in others. The debate is over though. Sometime in your future you’ll likely find yourself using an e-book for a practical need. The more time I spend researching the topic though, the less likely I find it that paper books will go away anytime soon. Paper is still quite practical for many needs and people will use something that’s both inexpensive and practical. Not many people are into gizmos for the sake of having them.

That brings me to my latest project. For the first time I’m writing a book that’s designed from the ground up for the electronic environment. The book is entitled, “Java eLearning Kit for Dummies” and the more I work on it, the more fascinated I become with the possibilities that this book provides. You’ll receive a CD with this book that contains a fully interactive environment. In fact, for the first time ever, you’ll be able to engage in one of my books without bothering with the paper content. You’ll gain access to the book’s information by interacting with the content on the CD. The entire concept is amazing and I’m having a great time working on it.  I’ll let you know more details when the book gets closer to release, but for now, it’s something to think about as you look over the book offerings online. Expect to see more books of this sort.

What is your take on e-books? What niche do you see e-books filling? Do you see yourself using e-books in the future (why or why not)? Talk to me about your expectations for e-books at [email protected].

 

Christmas Remembrances

The firelight,
Eye’s delight,
Rest upon a pudding made with plum.

Holiday cheer,
Christmas is near,
Putting smiles on faces glum.

Mistletoe,
Love will grow,
In hearts dressed for love.

A tree bright,
Lights delight,
An angel peers down from above.

Cookies sweet,
What a treat,
When served with beverages festive.

Fire’s warming,
Friends charming,
With nary a soul that’s restive.

Choirs sing,
Bells that ring,
A service of children’s design.

Christ is near,
Source of cheer,
In a manger of another time.

Copyright 2011, John Paul Mueller