Book holder

I've gotten a book holder for the pad (alternative brand). It's brilliant for long reading and watching movies. And writing.


The plastic book straps it comes with could hold the iPad, but not securely (they are made for book covers), so I inquired about this for tips, and for now I use stick-on Velcro, a simple and strong solution. (If you do this: don't put velcro in the center of the pad 1's curved back, leave that empty, that's give you a greater contact area.) [Update: there's a useful adapter now.]

The plate rotates, which is great with the pad. It has click stops at 90 and 45 degrees it easily slips into. Unfortunately due to the weight of the whole thing, it's a little tilted, this I have solved by simply putting the pad on it slightly tilted the other way. This works fine in both orientations.
Of course it takes just three seconds to take it off or put it on.
Once can also strap an iPad case to it, and take the iPad in and out of the case. When you don't use it, you just swing the whole arm out of the way.

If one wants, it can also be set with the screen pointing down so one is looking up at it. Or be set lower and further away, so one looks down at it. It's flexible.
It's quite heavy, as it has to be, but it was not too hard to assemble, took me twenty minutes.

This setup is great for video or for long reading. E-books or instapaper articles.

With a bluetooth keyboard, is also great for writing. I find it more comfortable than with a notebook, even if it has a stand. No arm strain at all.

Ah, l'amour!

[Thanks to Tommy]

Pretty he ain't, but what a swimmer! And a gentleman on the first date.

Brian Dettmer

[Thanks to Melisanda.]

Here is another way to do an "art book". Very intriquing.

Kodak Photo CDs

Do you have any photos on Kodak Photo CDs? Then I recommend that you convert all of the files on them to big JPGs to your hard disk, because it's getting very hard to get hardware and software which can read those old discs. After only a decade!
(I managed to read mine with GraphicConverter on the Mac.)

About the Domai art contest

Notice: if you know any artists or artists' forums, could you please mention this art contest? The prizes are nice.

staircasing

Here's an example of staircasing, or whatever that pricing model is called...

Say you make a heavily illustrated book.

• Then you sell the ebook for a tenner.
• And you sell the paperback for twenty.
• And you might sell a hardcover for thirty, with special paper, if it's promising.
• And you sell a deluxe version in special binding and extra metal inks or whatever, and signed by the artist and author, for, say, $100.
• And at launch, you have an nice exhibition where you sell the originals of the illustrations.

AirVideo

I'm trying an iPad (and iPhone/Touch) app which seems quite promising. "Air Video".

You set up their free server software on a Mac or PC, and it streams to a padform device. It can play many more formats than iTunes can, and usually can also convert on the fly (if not, conversion is fast, and can be queued*). And of course it's space you save on the smaller device.
(Streaming over the Net is possible, but experimental and slow.)

I have a hard disk I don't use, with a terabyte free. That's almost 1000 converted DVDs. That's a lot of shelf space I could regain. (I don't even have that many I'd want to get rid of but keep, as it were.) (Update: I recalled wrong: it has 1.9TB free!)

* That's actually the spelling. Ridiculeuse.

Frost comment

"A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity."
- Robert Frost

----------

(You can see why I am always pushing tolerance... :-)

Too smart for our own good

Like I've said, though I love Apple and their products, sometimes (not often, fortunately) they're a leeeeeettle bit too smart. A classic example is the circular mouse which came with the original iMac. It looked kewl, but you couldn't feel which way it turned, so you had to look every time you grabbed for it. :-)

Here's another: I just looked at the surely fine "Pages" word processor (and desktop publishing app) which I bought for the iPad ($10, super-bargain). I just wanted to see if the app would open a JPG I had placed in its documents folder from my Mac. But Pages already had a document open, one which was a Getting Started document about Pages.
... And I couldn't figure out how to friggin' close it!

I tried everything to close the document. I tried all the things I have learned so far about the touch-screen interface. I looked up the help file on Apple's site. Nothing helped. The document which was open talked about a Tool Bar, but there wasn't any such thing visible anywhere, and no amount of tapping or holding or sliding or singing Hello Dolly helped.

Then came one of my Insight(R) moments, when I extrapolate something from how computers/programmers think, and it works: I rotated the blamed pad to vertical position... violin, there was the gold-durned tool bar!

Clearly, in their brilliance the programmers had decided that the landscape format view is a Full Screen view, and there's nothing you can do to get out of it, except turn the device. And no hint that this has happened.
Where do I get hold of the programmers to Talk to them about this? Ah, never mind, they are probably hanging out down in the Tool Bar with the other tools.

"Smooth", Santana

An ALDITCS magazine

My Italian friend of Ganesha Games is making a new magazine, designed for a handy-sized print and for the ALDITCS (A Leading Device In the Tablet Computing Space). Here is the first cover as seen on my pad:


Even if you don't speak Italian, it should be apparent that it's an illustrated magazine with pulp-type crime stories. Sounds cool to me, I almost wish I read Italian.
He already has success as an ebook publisher, some of them gaming books for role playing games.

TTL points out it's a pulp-less pulp magazine. :-)

GG expands:

Not only crime, also superhero, adventure, SF and historical. Basically we try to apply the pulp short story formula to the "padmag" format.
If this goes well, we could find the resources (or the volunteers) to make an international English language version.
By the way, the title reads "Lead" in Italian (as in the metal of which bullets and old typefaces are made).

-

Please turn off your ALDITCSs