As someone who is interested in the creation and formatting of ebooks I eagerly picked up Accessible EPUB 3 from O’Reilly’s blogger review program. I know little about the EPUB format as most of my study of ebook creation has been for the Kindle. Reading about EPUB would have given me more tools for complete ebook formatting.

I read the title, Accessible EPUB 3, to mean that the author would show me in an easy to understand (accessible) way to create and format books for the EPUB platform. Even reading the short description at the O’Reilly website did not change my thoughts on what the book was about. But I was completely wrong on who their target audience was. This is not a book for people who are new to EPUB and wanting to learn about it. In fact, the EPUB spec is not even explained in the book. This book is written under the assumption that the reader is already familiar with and understands EPUB.

The book is actually about how to make ebooks that are accessible to people with different abilities. There are sections specifically on how to make books with pictures more accessible to visually impaired readers as well as making audio content more accessible to those with hearing disabilities. This is what is meant by the word accessible.

After getting a better understanding of what the book was about, I enjoyed the book from a thought experiment point of view. There were specific examples on how to implement the concepts the author was proposing. However, as someone who doesn’t even understand EPUB programming, this information was merely theoretical and thought provoking. There are even points in the book where the author, Matt Garrish, admits that there may be a better way to be even more accessible in the future. His point is that he wants readers to think about people with various abilities who will be reading books. What is it they need and how can you go about programming your ebook to fit their needs?

Accessible EPUB 3  is an excerpt from a larger work expected to be published later this year (2012) called EPUB 3 Best Practices.

Accessible EPUB 3 is available for free at both O’Reilly and Amazon.

[Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book through O’Reilly Media.]

I have been given the opportunity to share my writing on What Christians Want to Know. It is a new website dedicated to encouraging and equipping Christians in their daily walk with the Lord. Every few days you will see one of my articles over there along with the articles of a couple of other writers.

Please take some time to see what the website is all about. The article that appears at the top of the page now is one I wrote about following God’s call to the mission field. If you want to look at all of my articles at the website, you can read through my author page which will be updated each time one of my articles appears.

Though things have been quiet on the blog-front, I was very busy during the month of December writing articles at InfoBarrel. I was trying to win the monthly contest. You get points based on the number of words you write per article. I wrote 79 articles that were worth 5 points each and 1 that was worth only 1 point. I earned 396 points for the month. By the time we got to the last 10 days, there were only 2 of us fighting for the top position.

The girl I was competing against may have won 408 points, but we don’t know yet. Or, at least I don’t know. I can’t see how many points her articles are worth until the daily point tally is figured out. It usually updates about 3 AM, my time. But since last night was the end of the contest, the admins seem to manually review the points before posting the final numbers.

So we are in a waiting game.

Having cranked out so much content the last few weeks, I feel like I had to write something today even though there is no news yet on the final numbers. It probably won’t be until Monday or Tuesday before we know since the admins take the weekend off.

While it has been quiet here, I have been actively putting out content in different venues. Some are very targeted and therefore don’t really fit here at My Thought Spot. However, I wanted to share some of the projects here as a way of informing and inviting you to join in any that seem appropriate.

Deaf Ministry
First we have been busy with the deaf ministry here in Argentina. You can read about our ministry and get updates at www.dpeach.com. I will be posting a new prayer letter there in a couple of days. We have started our second round of sign language classes at the church. That is going well. I am also taking a sign language class at the local deaf club which gives me many contacts with the community.

Missionary Talks
Missionary Talks is going well. While I have not had a lot of interviews lately, I have been very encouraged by the feedback I get from some of the recordings. The most recent interview was with a family who is currently raising their support. God used a Missionary Talks interview to teach them of a ministry where they could be involved.

If you are on Facebook you can join the Missionary Talks page by clicking the “Like” button at the top. You will be informed of all future episode releases right in your Facebook news feed. I also post short clips from interviews that are interesting, but don’t seem to fit with the rest of the show. Consider the Facebook page to be like the bonus features on a DVD.

I use my @DavidPeach account on Twitter to share ministry related news. That would be our personal ministry, or information about Missionary Talks.

Missionary Geek
I started a new website a few weeks ago intended to share news and information from the technology world that would be of interest to missionaries. It is called Missionary Geek. Missionary Geek also has a Facebook page that you can join. I look forward to sharing things through the website itself as well as news and information links via @MissionaryGeek on Twitter.

Discover Spanish With Us
While our Spanish vocabulary site, Discover Spanish With Us, has been sporadic since we left Mexico, I have been trying to keep it updated recently. It is a website where my wife and I type up an occasional new word that we learn. We tell how it is used. These are usually not normal words. The purpose of the website is not to teach a person how to speak Spanish, but how to use certain words (as we understand them) that may not be as common. The secondary purpose is that people would leave comments and tell us how we might be wrong on the usage, which then helps us become better speakers of the language.

Info Barrel
I have been writing articles at Info Barrel that don’t seem to fit anywhere else. I mentioned this in a previous post. I was planning to give a weekly update with a list of all of my articles that I wrote. However I probably will just highlight certain ones on occasion. My articles range from beekeeping to podcasting. There are also articles on riding bikes and taking pictures.

Running
On top of all this, I am getting my running back under control. I have had a pretty miserable year since September of last year. I was plagued with different injuries dating back to October, 2008. Everything seems to be back in order and I am bringing my mileage up again. I am almost back to running as much per week as I was when I was in my best running shape.

Thanks for checking out the projects I have going. Join me in the different communities if they are appropriate for you.

I just wrote a very long article reviewing 9 of the best books about Attention Deficit Disorder. I have read some of them, but not all. It didn’t take long to figure out which were the best. There were certain titles that rose to the top on most every website I visited.

Here is the list:

• Driven to Distraction
• Healing ADD
• You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!
• Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception
• Learning Outside the Lines
• Women With Attention Deficit Disorder
• Delivered from Distraction
• ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life
• Answers to Distraction

You can read the full article with a summary of each book, or just click the titles above to be taken to the Amazon page about each book.