I did absolutely nothing worth writing about this week…

Technorati Tags: software,writing and general goofing off

 

But I still got some things done, and found a dream I'd misplaced several years ago.

The first part of the week had me researching small business accounting applications. Right now I’m using Quickbooks Simple Start, the free Quickbooks starter app. It works very nicely, and is just about as easy to use as an accounting tool can be. It’s also very limited in what it does, but it’s enough to get started with. But to gain any real control over your business you have to upgrade to QuickBooks Pro.

I’m at that point now. But before I shell out $200.00 for the Pro version I spent a few days looking over other packages to see what they had to offer.

My bookkeeping and accounting skills can be summed up in one short sentence. I cannot balance a checkbook. No kidding. I have no business running a business, though I have run several over the years. My only saving grace is that I know how completely unsuited I am to be allowed that close to money and business ledgers. I know when and what to delegate, and to whom, which is how I’ve survived this long.

So those few days spent researching accounting software leads me to believe that I will indeed be shelling out $200.00 to buy Quickbooks Pro. It does what I need, and it’s reasonably easy to understand. Besides, they have really good support and a large community to fall back on if you’re stumped by anything the software throws back at you.

Now I need to get out and sell some books.

My next round of events starts next weekend in Middleburg, Florida, at their Historic Fall Festival. Stop by, purchase one or two books and help me get my financial affairs in order.

The rest of this week was spent playing with a long-held dream. Back in the 70’s I experienced a work-related injury that put me out of work for nearly eighteen months. I’d been an avid model builder as a kid, so I purchased an R/C boat kit from Sterling.  It was the Emma C. Berry, a Noank fishing smack re-rigged as a schooner. I loved the idea of building a 48” R/C schooner. The boat went together in a few months (I only had one hand at the time – my right hand was in a brace, so it made a good clamp for holding pieces in place). And when she hit the water, she sailed beautifully.

Well, Sterling is out of business and no one is selling the Emma C. Berry Schooner anymore. but the sheet plans, bulkheads and builder’s notes are available from other model builders, and I am in touch with them. I don’t have a lot of room (in fact I have no room for a project like this), but I am going to scale up the drawings and build a 6’ model from scratch. She is a pretty boat (in my head), and I look forward to getting her into the water.

Dreams are nice, aren’t they?

Happy Halloween

It’s been that kind of week…

Technorati Tags: Writing,Editing,Events calendar

 

I meant to post an entry on Monday, as I do most weeks, but life got in the way. Sorry about that, but it happens. I write for a living, rather than live to write as many do, or at least aspire to do. So if I have to, or want to, I do other stuff without batting the proverbial eyelid.

But I really did mean to post an entry on Monday. Really.

I will be working on “Twisted Key” over the weekend, cutting some stuff out of the first third of the MS that seems to be slowing down the pace of the story. It’s mostly background stuff from the first two novels that’s getting in the way. I wasn’t all that sure I needed to fill in the back story for new readers, but it seemed to be necessary. On the other hand, I don’t really like it when I come across that sort of thing in other people’s writing, so I feel perfectly justified in cutting it out of the MS.

Besides, a few test readers told me it slows the story down to a crawl. So there you have it; my opinions don’t always count for as much as I’d like to think they do…

The bookmarks for “Hog Valley” look really nice. I’m glad they were done before the next event at the Middleburg Historic Festival on November 6.

I’ve got four events confirmed, and four others I am committed to but don’t have dates/times for, yet. Here are the four confirmed appearances:

Book Signing Events
Fall, 2010

November 6    Middleburg Historic Festival
            9:00 - 3:00 pm

November 11    Books Inc, Gainesville
            5:30 - 7:30 PM

November 13    Historic Grounds Bookstore, Green Cove Springs
            5PM - 9PM

November 20    Andrea's Bookstore, Palatka
            12 Noon – 3PM

It’s Friday already. I hope you have a great weekend.

I’m late, I’m late…

Technorati Tags: writing,marketing

…For a very important date.

Actually, I’ve been extremely busy, preoccupied and cursed with a sour stomach. Which makes for a bad combination when you’re doing your darndest to make headway against an economy that seems to be going downhill in a hurry. With vigor.

Then again, what would life be without a challenge, eh? Quiet? Maybe even peaceful?

Well, here’s a challenge for you. Actually, it’s another challenge for me, but you can chime in, if you want. “Twisted Key” is the third in my Terry Rankin series of murder mysteries. The problem is, as one reader of the manuscript puts it, that it starts slow. He’s read both “The Big Bend” and “Hog Valley” and is not interested in re-reading what happened in those two novels before he gets into the meat of the new story. So I have to pare down on the background. I already did, but what remains is still slowing down the pace way too much. New readers who pick up “Twisted Key” first might find the information useful, but then again maybe it will just be a distraction, instead. So I’ll get out my pruning shears and go to work.

I spent my weekend at the Orange Park Fall Festival and quite happily sold a large number of books. Well, not Carl Hiaasen large (no, he wasn’t there), but for me it was a lot of books. I offered a 2-fer, meaning if a customer purchased both “The Big Bend” and Hog Valley” I’d knock $5.00 off the price.  It worked, really well. I sold a lot of books (it bears repeating).

On the 6th of November I will be at the Middleburg Historic Festival, selling and signing. That’s going to be a lot of fun – they have some re-enactments scheduled, some music, lots of food and other stuff going on. The festival starts at 9:00 am and goes on until 3:00 pm.

I hope you’re having a good week.

Weekly wrap-up and more on Dropbox

Technorati Tags: software review,Dropbox,odds and sods

 

I’m a writer – okay – I’m a novelist. I feel so much better, finally getting that off my chest.  Writing involves weeks of field research (more, if I can get away from the computer and all that editing and rewriting my editors insist on),  a lot of hunting and pecking on line, and months of plotting and planning. And then I mix all of that together and tell a story. It’s what some folks like to call lying for fun and profit. Well, fun for you, anyway. I hope. Profit? Ahh, not so much.

Just like everyone else who works with computers for a living, I depend on the software I work with to do what it was designed to do, without errors. I need software that works, period. A nice, well laid out, easy to understand ergonomic user interface is good, too. There is a lot of good stuff out there, designed and written by people who know their jobs and love what they do.

I started work in computers in 1971, for Control Data Corp, in Atlanta, Georgia, as an entry-level database programmer. Without going into a lot of ancient history nobody really cares about, I’ll just say that I love the software industry and the people who make it what it is today. Good on yer!

Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is a very good example of this. Drew Huston is a man who thinks outside the box. In 2006, he was waiting at a bus stop and thinking of the code he was planning to write on the bus when he realized he’d left his USB drive at home. With all of his data. So the code he began to write on that bus trip didn’t have anything to do with the project he started his day with. Instead he worked on what would become Dropbox on its release in 2008.

There are other such products on the market today, some  hit the market a few years before and some after the Dropbox release. I don’t care all that much about the history or the financials around this piece of software or that. I don’t write software reviews for investors. I write these reviews for people like me, who need dependable, easy to use applications that will fill a need for them. My reviews focus on the use-ability of the applications, not the money they might make for the investors.

I tell you what works for me, based on my current needs and my years of experience in software development.

Dropbox fills my need for an easy to use tool for collaboration with my editors. Man, is it easy. No muss, no fuss, no unnecessary bells and whistles and lots of actually useful features. It doesn’t cost you a penny to register, and you get 2 GB of storage up front. It’s also free to invite others to access your Dropbox. Anyone who does join Dropbox from your invitation gets you another 250 MB of storage space. That's a deal you can’t afford to ignore.

So don’t ignore it.

“Twisted Key”, my third novel, is moving along. The first third of the story is rock solid and back at the editors for their final comments. I don’t anticipate any major changes in the story line at this point, so I am going to forge ahead on the next few chapters. With any luck the first complete draught should be done by January of 2011.

I’ve got a two-day event this weekend. I’ll be at the Orange Park Fall Festival, selling and signing. Somebody has to pay for all this software.

Have a good weekend. You’ve earned it.

Weekly wrap-up and more on Dropbox

Technorati Tags: software review,Dropbox,odds and sods

 

I’m a writer – okay – I’m a novelist. I feel so much better, finally getting that off my chest.  Writing involves weeks of field research (more, if I can get away from the computer and all that editing and rewriting my editors insist on),  a lot of hunting and pecking on line, and months of plotting and planning. And then I mix all of that together and tell a story. It’s what some folks like to call lying for fun and profit. Well, fun for you, anyway. I hope. Profit? Ahh, not so much.

Just like everyone else who works with computers for a living, I depend on the software I work with to what it was designed to do, without errors. I need software that works, period. A nice, well laid out, easy to understand ergonomic user interface is good, too. There is a lot of good stuff out there, designed and written by people who know their jobs and love what they do.

I started work in computers in 1971, for Control Data Corp, in Atlanta, Georgia, as an entry-level database programmer. Without going into a lot of ancient history nobody really cares about, I’ll just say that I love the software industry and the people who make it what it is today. Good on yer!

Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is a very good example of this. Drew Huston is a man who thinks outside the box. In 2006, he was waiting at a bus stop and thinking of the code he was planning to write on the bus when he realized he’d left his USB drive at home. With all of his data. So the code he began to write on that bus trip didn’t have anything to do with the project he started his day with. Instead he worked on what would become Dropbox on its release in 2008.

There are other such products on the market today, some  hit the market a few years before and some after the Dropbox release. I don’t care all that much about the history or the financials around this piece of software or that. I don’t write software reviews for investors. I write these reviews for people like me, who need dependable, easy to use applications that will fill a need for them. My reviews focus on the use-ability of the applications, not the money they might make for the investors.

I tell you what works for me, based on my current needs and my years of experience in software development.

Dropbox fills my need for an easy to use tool for collaboration with my editors. Man, is it easy. No muss, no fuss, no unnecessary bells and whistles and lots of actually useful features. It doesn’t cost you a penny to register, and you get 2 GB of storage up front. It’s also free to invite others to access your Dropbox. Anyone who does join Dropbox from your invitation gets you another 250 MB of storage space. That's a deal you can’t afford to ignore.

So don’t ignore it.

“Twisted Key”, my third novel, is moving along. The first third of the story is rock solid and back at the editors for their final comments. I don’t anticipate any major changes in the story line at this point, so I am going to forge ahead on the next few chapters. With any luck the first complete draught should be done by January of 2011.

I’ve got a two-day event this weekend. I’ll be at the Orange Park Fall Festival, selling and signing. Somebody has to pay for all this software.

Have a good weekend. You’ve earned it.

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Unless you’ve been living in a cave far from civilization as I have for the past two years, you’re probably aware of this nifty tool. But I have been living in a cave, so Dropbox hit me like a ton of bricks. Literally. I was setting up a collaboration between an audio book producer, a Voice talent and myself. We needed a quick and dirty way to move large audio files back and forth. By large, I mean over eighty megabytes.

Then I got an email invitation to join in a Dropbox collaboration from the audio book producer. Wow. You get up to 2 gigabytes of data, absolutely free, file sharing, encryption, automatic backups (I mean really automatic – you don’t have to do anything) and all sorts of other really neat stuff. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was like someone turned on a light in a dark room.

Dropbox works like a separate hard drive on your computer. The contents of the hard drive can be shared with others so they can see and interact with the files you place on it. From their computers, anywhere. You can invite others to share access to your dropbox and kick someone off if you don’t like what they’re doing.

Anything you place into your dropbox is available to you anywhere in the world, either by installing the Dropbox app on the computer you’re working on or via the web-based interface. Goodbye USB flash drives.

I’m a writer – okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a novelist – so I spend my days and often my nights hiding from the world while I plot and plan and write. And rewrite, and think of nasty things to do to my editors, my neighbors, the electric company, my landlord and anyone else who has the temerity to bother me when I’m writing.

If you’re collaborating with others on a file – as I do nearly every day – any changes by one person are immediately available to the other collaborators, and just in case, older versions of your files are backed up automatically and are available for restoration.

I live in Orange Park, just south of Jacksonville, Florida. One of my editors lives in Ocala, and the other in Silver Springs. We’ve been transferring files back and forth using email, for the most part.  In comparison to Dropbox, email attachments are ancient history. So now I don’t have to do anything but drag and drop my files into my dropbox and then I can go right back to work. My editors have access to my files immediately (or when they get around to it, anyway).

Here’s a  list of features I snagged off the Dropbox web site:

File Sync

Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically.

• 2GB of online storage for free, with up to 100GB available to paying customers.
• Sync files of any size or type.
• Sync Windows, Mac and Linux computers.
• Automatically syncs when new files or changes are detected.
• Work on files in your Dropbox even if you're offline. Your changes sync once your computer has an Internet connection again.
• Dropbox transfers will correctly resume where they left off if the connection drops.
• Efficient sync - only the pieces of a file that changed (not the whole file) are synced. This saves you time.
• Doesn't hog your Internet connection. You can manually set bandwidth limits.

File Sharing

Sharing files is simple and can be done with only a few clicks.

• Shared folders allow several people to collaborate on a set of files.
• You can see other people's changes instantly.
• A "Public" folder that lets you link directly to files in your Dropbox.
• Control who is able to access shared folders (including ability to kick people out and remove the shared files from their computers).
• Automatically create shareable online photo galleries from folders of photos in your Dropbox.

Online Backup

Dropbox backs up your files online without you having to think about it.

• Automatic backup of your files.
• Undelete files and folders.
• Restore previous versions of your files.
• 30 days of undo history, with unlimited undo available as a paid option.

Web Access

A copy of your files are stored on Dropbox's secure servers. This lets you access them from any computer or mobile device.

• Manipulate files as you would on your desktop - add, edit, delete, rename etc.
• Search your entire Dropbox for files.
• A "Recent Events" feed that shows you a summary of activity in your Dropbox.
• Create shared folders and invite people to them.
• Recover previous versions of any file or undelete deleted files.
• View photo galleries created automatically from photos in your Dropbox.

Security & Privacy

Dropbox takes the security and privacy of your files very seriously.

• Shared folders are viewable only by people you invite.
• All transmission of file data and metadata occurs over an encrypted channel (SSL).
• All files stored on Dropbox servers are encrypted (AES-256) and are inaccessible without your account password.
• Dropbox website and client software have been hardened against attacks from hackers.
• Dropbox employees are not able to view any user's files.
• Online access to your files requires your username and password.
• Public files are only viewable by people who have a link to the file(s). Public folders are not browsable or searchable.

Mobile Device Access

The free Dropbox application for iPhone, iPad, and Android lets you:

• Access your Dropbox on the go.
• View files from within the application.
• Download files for offline viewing.
• Take photos and videos and sync them to your Dropbox.
• Share links to files in your Dropbox.
• Export your files to other applications.
• Sync downloaded files so they're up-to-date.

A mobile-optimized version of the website is also available for owners of Blackberry phones and other Internet-capable mobile devices.

I’ve read several reviews of Dropbox over the last few days. Most of them are very positive, some cautious and a few critical (those reviewers probably don’t like sunshine, small bunnies or carrot cake with cream cheese icing, either). On the whole, though, I’m far more concerned with my opinion of the software I use, and I like Dropbox. A lot.

Way back in the bad old days when I was working for living, I spent several years beavering away in the high-tech industry. I ran software testing labs for a few software houses. It’s a great job, and I loved it. The term VPN crossed my desk one day and out of curiosity I looked it up on the Microsoft web site. Virtual Private Network. That sounded really neat. VPN’s work over the internet and are set up in such a way that if you’re not part of the vpn you can’t even see it, much less what it contains. Dropbox seems to be built along those lines. As you can see in the Features list, they don’t stint on security or encryption.

I’ll be posting a wrap-up on Dropbox near the end of this week or early next week. But to end this introduction I want to say that if you need to share files with anyone, for any reason, you can’t go wrong with Dropbox.

Have a good week.

Technorati Tags: Dropbox,software review

If Life is what happens when you’re busy doing other things, writing is what you do when you really can’t be bothered doing anything else.

SnapIt 3.7 by Digeus

Technorati Tags: Screen capture application,software

SnapIt 3.7 is a nice little screen capture utility.

Here’s the URL: http://digeus.com/downloads/snapit/files/3/snapit_3_7.exe

With this little app you can grab photos from anywhere to post into your blog just as quick as a bunny. SnapIt has two modes of operation – automatic or manual. You can choose which mode to work in through the Properties menu. Right-click on the camera icon in the Tray and select ‘Properties’. Choose a Hot Key to start the Snap. The default is the Print Screen button, but you can select any button on the keyboard. Then specify a folder to store your snaps and select a file format from the 5 available; JPG, TFF, BMP, GIF or PNG. You also select a file name prefix – say, “snap”, and a number generation system such as 01, 02 and so on. You have two choices here – it can be Incremental or Random. Finally, if you want to automate the photo collection process, click the “Auto Save Images to Folder” box just under the Hot Key option at the top of the Properties dialogue box.

When you work in ‘auto’ mode all of your choices in the Properties dialogue go to work. You left-click on a photo on a web page and a cross-hair cursor appears. Crop the photo as you need and release the mouse button. Your selection is stored to the folder you chose, in the format you chose and with the file name generation system you chose. Neat, huh?

You can capture anything you see on your display – windows, menus, full screen or cropped images and even images from a video clip. Like I said, this is a neat little tool to have on hand.

In manual mode, you click on a photo, get the cross-hair cursor and crop the photo as you wish. The photo is placed in the system clipboard. You then copy/paste direct into your blog or into MS Word, your photo editor or any other application that will take it.

SnapIt 3.7 really is a handy piece of software.

Download SnapIt 3.7 from the URL above and play with it for a while. You’ll find it as handy as I do, I’m sure. Here’s another nice little option – if you post a review in your blog or on your website and send a link to your review to: Julia.taylor@digeus.com, she’ll be tickled pink to send you a registration code for your copy of SnapIt.

So you get a very nice little tool, lots of people get to hear about it and it doesn’t cost you a penny. What a deal. That is a business model I can live with.

WordPress migration redeux, SnapIt 3.7

Technorati Tags: Blog app headaches,SnapIt 3.7,software

 

Here we go again. I’ve got enough on my plate without having to deal with Microsoft induced headaches.  I’ve worked in and around computer hardware and software since 1971, so I’ve seen my share of migration screw-ups, thank you very much. I host my web site, www.garyshowalter.com, at the Microsoft Live site, and keeping my blog updated is important to me. The web site service is good, generally speaking, if limited. That’s all I need, so a few limitations are okay with me. But the other day Microsoft migrated their blog hosting to WordPress for one reason or another, and that meant my blog no longer appeared on my Author’s Blog page on the web site.

You can’t configure WordPress to automatically mirror your blog post to a blog page on your MS Live web page. They just ain’t innerested in doing that fer yeh, nosirree, Bob. So over the next several days I have to figure a way around this issue, or give serious consideration to my options.

On another note, I’ve got a neat little utility to play with. It’s called SnapIt, version 3.7. You can think of it as your PrintScreen button on steroids. Here’s a link to their web site:

http://www.digeus.com/products/snapit/snapit_screen_capture_3_5.html

It’s being marketed as a great tool for bloggers, and I can’t argue with that. But blogging aside, I’ve got a nasty suspicion there are a whole lot more uses for this little tool than snagging shots for a blog post. I’ll let you know as I give this little app it’s sea trials over  the next week or so.

Enjoy your weekend.

Wordpress migration headaches, audio book progress and “Twisted Key”

I am one of several bloggers using Microsoft Live Writer to produce my blog posts who suddenly found themselves dealing with an unexpected migration to WordPress. I’m still not sure everything is working as it should. Guess we’ll find out when I try to post this.

“Hog Valley”, my second novel, is in print and available now in both large-format paperback and Kindle. I am currently putting together a downloadable audio book version that should be available at most major audio book retail sites by the end of October.

I’ve got a few pages of edits for “Twisted Key” from one of my editors earlier this week. I’ll get them into the manuscript over the weekend and then start writing new material (Oh, Happy Day!) the first of next week. The novel is close to 30% complete, so a few months of concentrated work should see the first draft back in the hands of the editors.