Ever since iBooks came out with the iPad, I have wanted to publish some of my own content. Yet, as anyone who has ever tried can attest, this is not easy. Creating EPUBs is just awkward and inconvenient. Think of it as writing a web page before WISWYG editors, or composing an essay on a pre-GUI word processor.

The recent release of Pages allows a document to be exported as an EPUB, but then to actually see it, a transfer to the iPad is necessary. In theory, this should be easy, but iTunes is such a piece of junk, that nothing like this is ever easy. (Say, Apple, when are you gonna fix this obsolete piece of bloatware anyway?) So, until the release of iBook Author, writing electronic books was not exactly convenient or easy.

Supposedly, iBooks Author is changing all of that. Roger Rosner’s demo was way cool — the video above gives you a bit of a look. The keynote emphasizes textbooks, but the potential for any kind of electronic publication is there. For example, I’ve started publishing literary content on LitMUSE, but wouldn’t delivery on the iPad be so much better, especially since you can annotate it and take it with you even without a network connection? Yes, maybe this is one more nail in the Web’s coffin. Plus, the ability to add multimedia content — e.g., Eliot reading The Waste Land, excerpts from a documentary on Homer, or photos I recently took in Greece — would boost it to the next level — especially in a Humanities class. I already have a ton of original content.

And speaking of the end of the Web, perhaps LitMUSE’s days as a course Web site are numbered in the light of the new iTunes U. It provides a slick way to deliver all sorts of content in a convenient format. They did not demo the course construction during the keynote, but Apple’s web site makes it look pretty easy. I know I would be perfect for this. Maybe this will be LitMUSE 2.0?

I already have ideas for my next semester’s classes, and I can’t wait to get started. I predict this is the beginning of a whole new chapter in my academic life.

What struck me first is Daisey’s description of himself as an Apple Fanboy. Most of how he describes himself Geeking out to Apple fan sites and the loving attentions he bestows on his Apple hardware reminds me much of myself. However, I posit, perhaps naively, that I can have a critical eye toward Apple — this position does not mean that I don’t own most of their gadgets.

Yet, after listening to Daisey’s experiences in Shenzhen and Foxconn City, any Westerner with a conscience would have to question his or her use of gadgets that negatively affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of impoverished Chinese citizens — some likely underaged. Is an iPad or iPhone so important to my life that I’m willing to condone what amounts to slavery in the twenty-first century?

At least that’s what I thought after listening to part one of the program. After Daisey’s 40-minute narrative, I found myself still in my car; I had made it home, turned off the engine, and was sitting in a dark garage. I went inside to listen to act two.

This part provides a step back from Dasiey’s narrative — some analysis and fact checking. While there were some mitigating perspectives and evidence, the fact still remains that our tech that has become so ingrained in our lives is made in sweatshops.

Why is this the case? Really? Why don’t we make our own fetishized tech right here in the US? I know it would be more expensive — our gadgets would likely double in cost — but isn’t that the right thing to do? Should we, as one of the commentators suggests, just accept the grim realities for Foxconn workers as the growing pains of a nascent capitalist economy?

Is it really that easy?

The other night I sat on the porch with some friends and acquaintances discussing this and that. I had my iPad with me, and I was showing a friend what I had been doing with some old books. I explained that the process of getting the books on my iPad involved destroying the physical form of the book so it could gain a new life in digital form. Someone I hardly know got truly offended: “how can you do such a thing to a book?! I love books, and you’re destroying them!” She couldn’t even look at me.

Her reaction might have been mine just a year ago. Until the iPad came out, I would have been the first to argue that our current incarnations of microprocessing technology — the personal computer — does not provide the same reading experience as a book. Period. Perhaps it’s the nature of the machine that necessitates the opposite behaviors that are required to really read. There is something about sitting down in a quiet corner with a book that inspires careful contemplation, thoughtfulness, and introspection. Real reading — the kind that you need to practice to actually take in something in a meaningful and profound way — deserves all of the attention we can bring to it. One thing I’ve learned from teaching is that you never read more carefully than when you know you have to teach something. This I read books: as if I’ll have to teach the text sometime soon. The web? Not so much.

Reading on the web — probably the most popular form of reading done off a computer screen — is not the same thing. I’m not saying that it necessarily can’t be, but in my experience it is not. Something about the computer — even a laptop — inspires a cursory, quick, and superficial consumption of text. Perhaps because it looks more like a television than it does a book? Perhaps we are trained that what comes to us through a monitor should be consumed in a certain way, whereas that which is found on leaves in a cloth binding must be absorbed in another way. Books are like holy artifacts; computers, to paraphrase Norman Mailer, are machines of the devil.

I still hear people say that they can’t proofread or edit on a computer screen. There’s something about the printed word on a physical sheet of paper that allows our minds to take it more seriously than we would something appearing on a computer screen in a web browser. Seriously, I’m pretty sure I could never read a book on a PC.

Perhaps it’s the notion that what we see on the computer screen is somehow transient and impermanent — that it can disappear with a flick of a switch or the press of a key. Books sit heavily on shelves. They are weighty matter that can be handled and not so easily disposed of. Until recently, the idea of publishing was like, in Gilgamesh’s words, “having one’s name stamped in bricks.” If you were mentioned by a poet, you achieved a kind of immortality. “Literature” deserves this treatment, after all. It is weighty. It matters. It should be in books, not on computer screens. Sven Bickerts echoes this sentiment: “our entire collective history–the soul of societal body–is encoded in print. Is encoded, and has for countless generations been passed along by way of the word, mainly through books” (20). This is significant, no?

Birkerts goes on to lament what he sees as an inevitable paradigm shift away from print to the digital. He states that we have lost the ability to read, and now it seems I am destroying books. What’s going on? Am I really committing some sort of heresy against humanity? Against the holy book?

I think not. The iPad is a new medium, something less like a computer and more like a book. Computers are for business; iPads are for personal time. I create on the computer; I enjoy on the iPad. Indeed, these are too easy generalizations, and there are many crossovers between the two, but I use my iPad in a different way than I use my computer. If anything I can say the following: I read more now because of the iPad than I did just a year ago. This is profound because I am a professional reader. Yes, I do it for a living. I enjoy the experience of reading from my iPad more than I do from a paperback book. I can also carry around a library with me on the iPad, dispensing with the need to pack ten books for a short trip.

The only advantage I can still see in using a physical book is that I can more easily annotate it. Yes, I must annotate all of the books I teach. But I do not teach all of the books I read. I predict within the next year that this will not even be an issue. Apple has already made significant improvements to reading PDFs using iBooks. I also predict that we will be using our word processors to easily make EPUB files that are meant to be read from the iPad rather than printed. Long live the trees!

Yes, we are moving closer to being all digital. This is not something to be lamented.

I tried to explain this to my indignant porch friend, but I’m not sure how convincing I was. In fact, like her, I still have an irrational nostalgia for the book — especially when considering rare or new books — that I will discuss later. Also, I’ll discuss the implications for publishing, especially for those of us who have not been too successful in traditional markets.

Work Cited

Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1994.

I was originally going to replace the MBP with a new one. Since I bought my current one in November of 2007, the product line has had significant upgrades. Perhaps the most noticeable is their carved aluminum bodies. I really think the reason why my MBP’s keyboard and trackpad died is because of the flimsy body. The difference between new and old is like the difference between the old and new iPods.

While the new MBPs are very nice, I simply needed more room to edit photos. I have been doing a lot of photography work lately, and I really needed a machine with the processor to handle it, plus the screen real estate to allow me to see details. The iMac does both of these very well: Aperture works well on this machine. I would still like to see it move faster, but it is a pro application, so there’s a lot going on under the hood. Its workspace looks beautiful on the iMac’s monitor. This machine is perfect for photo editing; now I just have to teach myself to use Final Cut.

I do miss having a portable Mac. One of the drawbacks to the iMac is that it has to live in the office. This is not such a great drawback now, since we cleaned the office, but I enjoy sitting in front of the tube while working, MBP resting on my lap.

The old MBP will be acting as the home server. I installed Snow Leopard Server on it this morning, and it’ll probably take me a few days to get it totally configured. I must admit: I do miss the Ubuntu server I was running, but the machine I was using was just too loud. While the Mac Server software has come a long way, I still prefer the ol’ Debian command line approach to administration. However, 10.6 server looks pretty bad-ass already. It has a pretty powerful web server built-in, complete with wiki, blog, address, and calendaring functions. This could be a cool family server.

OK, back to work. I still have some configuring to do.

It's so BIG!

Sleep, what the peecee laptop community calls “suspend” and “hibernate,” did not work. The CD/DVD drive did not mount CDs while booted into Ubuntu. Here’s what I changed: I booted into the BIOS and switched the drive interface to IDE. Shazam, this seems to have fixed both problems.

So, under “Main” in the BIOS, select “SATA Mode.” You have two options: “IDE Mode” and “AHCI Mode.” The latter was chosen by default, and I chose the former. I tried this as a fix for the CD/DVD drive, but it seems to have fixed the suspend/hibernate problem as well. 2-for-1!

Currently, I’m using the laptop in my office, and I was able to join the encrypted Wi-Fi network with little difficulty (I needed the security certificate) and mount my Windoze server share. No problem. My sweet Ubuntu machine is playing nice with MSC’s network. I figured it would.

Now, I need some stickers for the laptop case. The image I used for this entry is from Cafe Press, but it’s a bit pricey at $4. Still they have some cool ones, like this oval Tux with the Ubuntu colors; this Powered-by Intel and Windoze replacement; this classic Tux oval; this Apple/Tux oval (not sure what it’s supposed to signify; maybe that I use both?); and this — maybe the best to cover the “Acer” on the lid — Linux oval (though it does look a bit like a Jesus fish).

So, today is a good Linux day.

First the good stuff. It is quick, even on my Acer Aspire 4810T’s single-core processor. It looks great and has a pretty consistent look and feel throughout the OS. Software is plentiful and very easy to install using the “Ubuntu Software Center.” Firefox and all of my favorite plugins work very well. In fact, the fonts are gorgeous; maybe even better than the Mac’s, and definitely superior to Windoze’s.

I originally installed Ubuntu 9.10 in 32-bit, but decided to try the 64-bit flavor after reading a few articles that discussed the difference. While I will not be a power-user on this machine, I always like to use the most advanced technologies available.

My favorite program besides Firefox is Amarok. The interface is kind of dumb, but iTunes could learn a thing or two about interoperability from this awesome music player.

There are a few issues. First, and perhaps the most annoying, is that the computer won’t “suspend” or “hibernate.” They just don’t. I worked for a few hours trying to find a solution, but so far I have had no luck. This is the biggest problem, especially since sleep is crucial to how I use a laptop. Hopefully, an update to Ubuntu will solve this.

Secondly, the optical drive doesn’t work. Yes, it was fine installing Ubuntu, but while booted into the OS, the CD/DVD drive does nothing. Zip. This one is really not too big of an issue. I didn’t plan on using the drive anyway.

The screen is very cold. I cannot adjust anything on the LCD: not temperature, brightness, or color. Again, not too big of a deal. I’m not editing photography.

That’s about it for now. More later, I’m sure.

I was actually not too optimistic about the whole process, but the folks at Mini of South Atlanta, including my sales guy Terry Huddleston, were able to work it out. I wasn’t worried about the tag price of the Mini nor trade-in value of the CR-V; I was just concerned with keeping the monthly payment at about where it already was. After a bit of negotiating, we pulled it off. I went in with this attitude: if they can’t get the price I want, then I have a great Honda that I’ll drive for another year and try again. This allowed me to stick to my guns, so to speak.

My new Cooper is red with a black top. It has the sports package, including Bluetooth and an iPod connector. It’s a six-speed manual (an automatic was not an option — sorry, A) and includes ride-flat tires, a bad-ass computer, cool cabin lights, and a ton of other features that were obviously designed by folks who understand that the details are important. I can’t say this was true about the Honda.

For example: the CR-V had an audio-in jack right below the stereo. It was a standard headphone plug, so a double-male cable would allow me to plug my iPod in and listen to it. Cool, but not really. Yes, I could listen to the iPod, but I had an ugly looking cable strung down my console and I actually had to control the iPod by picking it up. Not only that, I had to have a separate cable for power. Inelegant and inconvenient. The Mini’s is a USB plug that’s hidden at the bottom of the console, behind the shifter. Everything goes through the cable to the computer — playlists, artists, albums, track info — everything. I can actually use the Mini’s stereo to control the iPod without ever even touching the iPod. Awesome.

OK, the best part: it is a fuel-efficient sports car. So. Much. Fun. Need I say more?

You can check out my Mini gallery on Flickr.

I started a new set on my Flickr account to feature some shots from this gorgeous piece of glass. I’m sure I’ll add to it for a while, at least until the novelty wears off. The first impressions are excellent: solid and well built, it feels just right on the 5D.

Before this lens, I had the excellent Tokina AT-X 124 AF PRO DX 12-24mm f/4 which I bought the day before my wedding, May 19, 2006, and used for about 3 years. The Tokina is a tank, and I took some wonderful pictures with it. However, it had two drawbacks for me: it was slow, both to focus and in aperture. It is a wonderful lens in good light, but forget about using it in low-light situations. Also, the focal length was a bit too far at 30cm, especially at 12mm. Still, even with these “drawbacks,” the Tokina is an excellent lens, and I have no regrets about purchasing it.

The Canon 16-35mm makes up for the Tokina’s drawbacks. It’s fast: the USM is quick and silent, and the aperture is f/2.8, letting copious light to my 5D’s full-frame sensor and creating creamy bokeh. The focal length also bests the Tokina at 28 cm, though it seems like I can get much closer than that.

If the rain stops, I should be out there giving this beauty a full test this weekend. Stay tuned.

It was really time. I just couldn’t fathom buying another RAID case for a couple of hard drives that I would outgrow in a month or two. The Drobo was $429 at OWC, and they offered a $50 mail-in rebate. So, I picked up one and a single 1.5TB drive. I should have gotten two drives.

The only negative about it is the copying speed. It took about 8 hours to copy 500GB. Not speedy, but everything else is aces. I currently have the 1.5TB drive in it along with 2 500GB drives and a single 25GB drive. With all that, I have just over a TB worth of usable storage. Yeah, not a lot, but I’m comfortable with that. Seeing that I’m going to use the Drobo for irreplaceable data (what data isn’t), I feel better that it keeps a backup in case of drive failure. That’s something a standard RAID won’t do.

I really have nothing else to say.