Part of the purpose of the trip is to get to know these ministries in a personal way. Really I am supposed to go over there, spend time with them and build a relationship. I like those types of assignments. Of course, I will also have plenty of opportunities to preach. If it is like most trips I have been on I will exhaust all the sermons I have prepared and still have two weeks left. They always ask visitors to preach often. Sometimes you finish one sermon and they are still hungry for more. You end up preaching 2 or 3 sermons in one sitting.

I would appreciate your prayers while I am there. I am taking some running clothes so that I can challenge a couple of Ethiopians to a race. Of course, I will only pick competitors who are no older than 10 years.

I ran 9.5 miles on an out and back route. It is generally uphill for the first half, though the hills are rolling so you don’t get as much of a sense of one half being significantly worse than the other.

What was difficult is that I had no thought of any kind of wind on my way out. It wasn’t until I hit the turn around point that I realized that I had a tailwind pushing me the whole way. Though it wasn’t strong, the 5-7 MPH wind was very noticeable on the way back. By the time I hit the 6 mile mark I was ready to call my wife to come get me. I talked myself out of it, but it was tough. I even had the phone out and ready to make the call one time. I decided to try to make it one more mile before calling. By the time I finished that mile I was within a half mile from home.

“Oh! That was you?”

Also this morning in church one of the ladies came up to me needing to tell me something. She said, “I was thinking yesterday when I passed you while I was out walking I should tell you this.” I know I looked puzzled. I asked her when she saw me while she was out walking. She said that she had talked to me and I waved at her. It was then that I remembered there was someone who passed on the other side of the road, but I didn’t recognize her so I completely forgot about seeing someone yesterday.

When she reminded me of the encounter this morning I remember thinking at the time that whoever it was talking to me mistook me for someone she knew, because I certainly didn’t recognize her. I thought that she was probably embarrassed when I spoke to her and she realized she didn’t know me. I was the one slightly embarrassed when I realized this morning that I should have known her.

Ball of String

One of the fun things I enjoy while running is to see some of the odd things on the side of the road. Besides the tree full of 15 buzzards, I found a bunch of twine. I saw one piece that was probably 1/2 mile long. I kept thinking I would pick it up and bring it home as I ran by. But I talked myself out of it.

Then when I saw a broken section, I decided to pick up the second string. As I wound it up I finally came to a parking lot where I saw the string was wrapped around a couple of poles and probably would not pull loose. I didn’t have any way to cut it, so just threw the big bundle I had over into the parking lot.

At the end of the parking lot I saw the string again and decided to ignore it this time. I continued to watch it as I ran along. Not too far away, maybe a quarter mile, I saw the end of the twine and it was bundled up already. I found the source of twine and knew where the other end terminated. This time I picked up the bundle and started winding up what I had already run past.

All this happened between about mile number 6 and 7. It provided 10 minutes worth of entertainment on an otherwise difficult return run.

I have been working on longer runs each week and trying to be more consistent in my workouts. Though traveling has thrown me off a little, I have still managed to get some longer runs each week. This week was an 8 mile run.

The last couple of Saturdays have been difficult days to run (if I have been home). I decided that I would do my longer run during the week. I am a morning runner, but running for 8 miles (1 hour 30 minutes) means I would actually have to be disciplined and get up early before going to work. That meant I had to do an afternoon run if I was going to accomplish the task.

Tuesday was chosen as that day. I planned to leave the office at closing time (4:00 pm) and run the 8 miles to my house. Of course, things rarely go as planned. I was on an international phone call until 4:45. By the time I got changed and out the door it was a little after 5:00. I was concerned about it getting too dark before I got home, but I had 30 minutes to spare when I got there.

My wife was gone that afternoon and I was in charge of serving supper for the rest of us. Fortunately, she threw everything into the crock pot so that I did not have to actually make supper. The kids were ready for me to be home by 5:30 or 6:00. I finally arrived at 6:45.

When riding my bike back and forth to the office it is exactly 8 miles. However, when running I can take a couple of short cuts. I ended up having to run 2 houses past mine before the GPS on my phone said I reached 8 miles.

As I have always considered 8 miles to be mentally difficult, I know that I can do any distance now. Don’t know when I will get my 9 miles in, but I am looking forward to these long distances again.

It has, however, managed to frustrate and punish legitimate users. Here is my story of a book I acquired legitimately but yet find almost impossible to enjoy. To the point I have stopped reading it.

A Trip to Amazon

I love Amazon. I am a prime member. I buy what I can at the site when it is cheaper, which it isn’t always. I also love my Kindle. I love their customer service. But this isn’t about Amazon, it is about a book I wanted to buy there.

The book is The $100 Startup. I have heard several podcasters talk about the book and I have read quite a few reviews. I took a trip to Amazon to get the book for my Kindle. A few things stood out as soon as I got there. First the hardcover version of the book is only $13! That’s a great price for all that paper and ink. Independent bookstores are selling the book for less than $11 through the Amazon marketplace. That’s an even better deal!

But I don’t want paper, I want a Kindle version. I know plenty of people say that the ebook version is not as good as paper. I used to be one of those. However, I now see the digital version as being superior. I can highlight passages and take notes on my Kindle. I can then view all my notes and highlights online and use that information anywhere whether my Kindle is with me or not. Try that with paper. One other thing about digital is that I am paying for the content and not the paper.

Checking out the Kindle version of the book I saw the price was $11.99. That’s more than what I could buy a paper and ink version of the book for. I then noticed that Random House was the publisher. They have a history of setting prices at Amazon for their ebooks. Though they are not part of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple and five publishers for collusion, the result is the same in that they set the price of their books and not Amazon.

I am spoiled by Amazon’s price of $9.99 for Kindle books and I don’t like paying more than that. Rarely do I even pay that much for a book since I can often find good sales on books I want. And I certainly don’t like paying just $1.15 less than the hardback version of the book (or less if I buy it from a third party).

A Trip to the Library

I looked up the book at our local library hoping to score a copy for free. I did not find a physical copy there, but they offer it through their digital library system which is handled by Overdrive. “Great!”, I thought. That would be even better. I can take notes on my Kindle and have the book in a format I prefer.

When I got home I logged into the digital library system and found the book. Disappointingly it was only available in EPUB format and not the Kindle format. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal to get the book as an EPUB and then convert it to .mobi (the format for the Kindle).  However, after waiting in line for a couple of weeks to get the notification that it was my turn to borrow the book (yes, you still have to wait in line for other people to “finish” reading the book and “return” it to the library) I eagerly downloaded the book to my computer.

Opening the Book

The file wouldn’t open in anything I had as a reader. The file was DRMed with the Adobe Digital Editions system (ADE). This means you have to have some type of approved reader that will allow you to authenticate with an ADE account. There is no such reader available for Linux that I could find. So no way to read the book on my computer or convert it (without breaking the DRM and facing prison time for a DMCA violation).

Here is the problem with DRM. I legally obtained the book. I have done nothing inappropriate to acquire the book. Yet, because of DRM I am not allowed to read the book on the hardware I have. From my understanding, if I had a Barnes and Noble Nook eReader which has ADE on it, I still would not be able to transfer the file through my computer because I am running Linux. The file I got from the library was not the book itself that could be placed on the Nook. It was an authentication file that has to be approved by Adobe which then lets me download the book to place on the reader. All of which would have been impossible as a Linux user.

Using My Phone

I downloaded the Overdrive Media Console (the Overdrive ebook reader) for my Android phone. Thankfully I could download the book using Overdrive’s software. I even started reading the book.

The reading experience on Overdrive’s Media Console was worse than a paper book for me. I have not found any way to make notes or highlights within the text of the book. Right at halfway through the book the author gives a 39 step checklist. The perfect kind of thing you would want to highlight and save for future reference. I can’t do it. I don’t even have the option of sticking my phone on the copy machine and grabbing the list since there are so few words that appear on a page with such a small screen. The list takes up 20 screens worth of text. I don’t want to make 20 pages worth of copies to get this seemingly valuable list.

On top of that, almost every time I open the book using Overdrive’s software it opens to the page previous to the one I was reading when I stopped. I say “almost every time” because 3 times so far I have been returned to the start of a chapter and had to click through several pages before getting back to where I left off.

The app is slow too. It takes 20 seconds to open the book. Then each time I change chapters it takes 20 seconds to load in the next chapter. That is just opening the book once the software is running. My Kindle takes just under 2 seconds to go from an off state to reading a book.

My solution? I am giving up on The $100 Startup. Chris, I am sure your book is a fine one. I have heard you interviewed by several podcast hosts that I respect; however, to legally read your book within my requirements of price and convenience I just can’t do it. I spent 2 weeks waiting for the book from the library. I have had the book for 11 days and am frustrated by the reading experience (which has little to do with the quality of the book). I’m done with it.

Circumventing DRM

I will admit that I did a little digging into the process of breaking the DRM on the book. It seems trivial. I have never done it on an EPUB, but I have converted a few Kindle titles that I own that I wanted to read on another device. For the Kindle books I have done it takes importing the book into Calibre with some special plugins and clicking a button.

For The $100 Startup it only took a few seconds on Google to find an Kindle formatted copy on the Internet for free. I could illegally obtain the book for my Kindle with much less hassle than the legally obtained DRM version of the book. Plus I would have a much better reading experience. However, I won’t do that. I am happy to pay the author for the content at a fair price (as determined by me). What I don’t want to do is pay a publishing company essentially the same price for the content that they are charging for the content, paper, ink, pretty cover and something I can put on my bookshelf.

Again, I don’t mind paying the author for the content. The truth is though, with the pitiful amount he will be paid by the publishing company for each copy sold, he could probably self publish the Kindle version, sell it for $3 and make 250% more per copy than he does currently. This sounds like it would be more in keeping with the spirit of a $100 startup than using a traditional publisher that has no interest in the author–only in their pocketbooks.

What’s your thoughts on DRM?

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.]

First Customer Service Rep

The rep on the phone took the information about my device and what happened. I told her that the Kindle was in a box that got hit by a large object. The Kindle was the only thing in the box that was damaged (thankfully my computer survived) and there was no physical evidence that the device was harmed in any way other than the screen would not redraw.

The kind rep (who spoke fairly good English) said that Amazon would allow me to buy a replacement device for $65 (which is 1/2 the price of a new Kindle Keyboard with the same features). To me that was more than fair since I am the one who broke the Kindle. It was not a manufacturing flaw in any way. However, I don’t have $65 at the moment and told her that. She said it would be flagged in my account if I wanted to buy a replacement at any point in the future I could get the reduced price.

Amazon was more than fair and the story should have ended there.

Second Customer Service Rep

However, I searched my account and found out that my device was out of warranty by 5 days. Certainly that should not make a difference. They had no obligation to do anything for me, yet they offered me a 50% discount on a new unit. But…seeing that it was only 5 days out of warranty, I wondered if it would make any difference if I pointed out to them that the warranty just expired (knowing full well that even under warranty my mistake should not be covered).

I jumped back onto the Amazon site and, instead of calling this time, I used the live chat feature. I quickly explained my scenario to the rep. Upfront I told him that I thought Amazon was more than fair to offer a new Kindle for 1/2 price and that the problem was one that I caused. At no point did I try to hide the fact from them that I was at fault. Then I asked him if it would make any difference if my Kindle was still under warranty. Without answering my question he asked me to do a couple of tests on the device to determine if it was really broken (if he could see it he wouldn’t question its brokenness). I patronized him.

I then said that I knew Amazon had no obligation to replace the device and that 50% reduction for a new Kindle was more than generous. But I also knew that Amazon was a kind and thoughtful company. Would they consider replacing the unit for me.

My Pleasant Surprise

Without hesitation the rep said he would send me a new one. He just needed a few bits of information to proceed. I excitedly provided the info he needed and he told me that a unit would be delivered by Monday. I got an email from Amazon later in the day today (Thursday) telling me that my new Kindle had shipped and that it would be delivered at my house tomorrow (Friday before the proposed Monday delivery).

Amazon is amazing!

Will they do this for you? I don’t know, but if you have a broken Kindle it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask. I think the biggest thing in my favor was that I didn’t demand anything from them and I didn’t try to pretend that the screen just broke on its own.

Yesterday we drove through a town with several no parking signs along the side of the street. She read the signs and then she asked me what the word for ‘parking’ was in Spanish. I told her it was ‘estacionarse.’ Then I heard her say to herself, “So the E doesn’t mean ‘No Elephants,’ it means ‘No Parking’ in Spanish.”

I think it was cuter when she thought that all those signs meant ‘No Elephants.’

Thanksgiving

We had a good Thanksgiving meal with a cousin who lives in the area. I am 15 years older than he is and his parents had moved away from the rest of the family when he was born. This cousin and I have only been together fewer than 10 times in our lives. It was kinda funny since we are cousins but don’t really know each other. But, since there are no introverts on my dad’s side of the family, we didn’t feel like strangers.

House

We got moved into our house. I think we are closing in on 3 weeks here. Most of the boxes upstairs are unpacked. It looks like we are settling in. That is, until you check out the piles of unopened boxes downstairs. There is still plenty of work to do.

Furniture

We had a friend over to the house a couple of weeks ago for supper. We only owned 2 chairs at the time (actually, they are borrowed from the office). Thankfully we have a couple of 5-gallon buckets and short trash cans to sit on. That is what we boys used while the girls used the real chairs.

When we were with my cousin for Thanksgiving dinner he gave us 4 dining-room table chairs. We let our most recent lunch guests sit in real chairs. Fancy.

While driving to the library on Saturday we saw some furniture sticking out of a dumpster. Not wanting to pass up a potentially good deal we had to check it out. We pulled enough parts out to scab together a recliner and threw it into the trunk of the car. With a few screws, a hammer and some ingenuity I was able to get a very comfortable recliner out of the deal.

It’s not pretty, but it’s functional.

Upcoming

Our daughter reminds us each morning how many days are left until my birthday. She knows that Christmas can’t come until my birthday is here. She isn’t sure how many days after my birthday that Christmas will come (10 days), but she does know it is a formality that has to be dealt with. [This ends your yearly subtle reminder that you still have time to buy me something. I don't mind if it arrives late.]

There are lots of Christmas activities coming up in the church. I get to speak at one of the Christmas gatherings next week. I am looking forward to it.

We will be home most of this month and the next. It is a great time to get settled in before we begin traveling in February.

Whatcha Getting for Christmas?

We got a new house. Top that!

A church we were in last month gave my wife a gift card for Target. She bought a Kindle. I got a “new” recliner. We bought a machete for our son so he can mow the lawn. He doesn’t seem that excited about it. Maybe we will get him a pair of scissors for Christmas so he can trim the bushes. Our daughter found 2 new friends up the street. We have all had a profitable December so far.

Start Your Engines

We left home on Thursday and traveled up to visit some missionary friends in Indianapolis. Technically we were working since I am their director at the mission board. However, we enjoy spending time with them and hardly feel like it is work to visit them and talk for several hours.

After meeting with them we moved on to my brother’s house where our kids played together and the adults snuck off and played board games. My brother taught a CPR class I was able to attend and where I got re-certified. If you need my services to beat on your chest I would recommend you try to book me early since I am trying to stay booked 6 months or more in advance.

We stayed with my brother for two nights and moved on to Ohio where we had a Sunday morning meeting in the church of one of my college roommates. He has been pastor of this church for about 10 years. It was good to see him and his family again.

Hang On

Between church Sunday morning and Sunday night we moved to a different city in Ohio where I spoke briefly in a church and stayed overnight before moving to another part of Ohio.

We stayed two nights near Toledo and then scooted over to Syracuse, NY. The church I taught in on Wednesday night is one which has been a friend to us for many years. The deaf group was excited to have us there and we enjoyed renewing acquaintances.

After a brief night in Syracuse we moved over to Massachusetts. We are staying two nights here without any meetings. This is a staging spot for our next meeting starting in New Hampshire tomorrow night (Saturday). We will be in New Hampshire at a church mission conference for a week.

Finish Strong

After the conference we will head to Maryland to preach in a church that we have never been in before. However, the pastor is a man we met when he was in Massachusetts. While we are there we will discuss the possibility of helping them get a deaf ministry established.

The next Monday we start a 3-day meeting in Tennessee near where we live. It is a meeting that our mission board organizes which gives pastors and missionaries a chance to meet and work on booking meetings.

The Back Story

We were supposed to close on a house the day before we left on this trip. Since the paperwork was not done we needed to have someone else take care of the documents for us. Though they could be overnighted to us, we weren’t sure where we would be when the papers were ready. Therefore, we gave power of attorney to my parents and they signed the papers yesterday. Today the former owners signed their part of the paperwork and we are officially home owners again. But, we won’t move in for another 2 weeks since we are traveling.

This has been a fun trip in that it brings back so many memories. For our children it will take some getting used to. This is a big transition from our ministry in Argentina where we didn’t even have a car to go across town, much less across the eastern part of the whole country.

Several pages in the book are dedicated to educating the reader on why they should consider going paperless. Scanning and archiving every piece of paper that comes through your hands (and then throwing it away or shredding it) may not sound very appealing, but Mr. Kissell gives some compelling reasons why it will help you in the long run when you are trying to find specific information. Even though you won’t have the original items of many documents, you also will have fewer storage and retrieval problems. By the way, not every item needs to be shredded or tossed. The author helps you know what you should keep and what is safe to throw away.

While the software and workflow recommendations are platform specific, hardware choices are a little easier. The book explains different types of scanners and why you might choose one over another. Within the different types the author gives you a list of recommended scanners. Each one has features that can help you accomplish your scanning needs. Regardless of which specific scanner you choose there are many settings that will be the same on all of them. He tells you why you should choose the settings he recommends.

Because of the hardware choices and settings recommendations this book is helpful for anyone wanting to decrease their dependence on paper. But, it would have been better had the author provided more information for the other operating systems.

For many of us, we would feel overwhelmed at even getting started. After he tells you how to set up your software, hardware and workflow, the author gives some tips for catching up on the 20 year’s worth of paper you already have piled in your office.

The majority of the book deals with scanning documents then filing them locally and off-site. However, there are many other ways to go paperless. The book deals with sending and receiving faxes via email, signing documents digitally and how to cut down on your need to print as much.

This is certainly not a book for casual reading. I would only recommend this if you are serious about cutting down your dependence on paper. If you are only interested in learning how to effectively scan a few documents, this book probably goes into much more detail than what you need.

I read version 1.1 of the book on my Kindle. Like many reference books, the Kindle is probably not the best device to read on. If you find yourself needing to jump back 8 pages to get a snippet of information then it is pretty frustrating. Was it really 8 pages? Or was it 6? Or 10? The nice thing about the ebook is that you don’t have to read it on just one platform. The publishers let you download various formats once you buy the book.

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

Since we got here last week we have looked at several houses to potentially buy. There is one that has stood out. The price is a little high, but there are a couple of problems with the house and sellers that may drive the price down significantly. The house is within the area we want to live and has all the amenities we wanted. We just can’t pay the asking price.

That may be a moot point as we found out last night that foreclosure proceedings have already started. That means they can’t sell it at any price at this point. We will have to deal with the bank unless a couple of big hurdles get knocked over.

While it sounds like a mess, it really is a position I like to be in. The decision is not ours at this point. The bank has to process the house and deal with it in one of a couple of different ways. It depends on how everything falls together over the next three weeks that will determine if we can buy the house. If it doesn’t go in our favor, then we will take it as a sign that this was not the house for us.

While looking for a house to buy, we have a friend in the church who is letting us rent his house for a reasonable price without any obligations. If we stay a year, that is fine. If we move out next week, that is acceptable as well.

We won’t be doing our normal traveling until the end of October. We will be in town over the next few weeks to deal with everything that is necessary with buying a house.

Exciting times!

Up until this morning the App Lock app had worked without any problems. But today I turned on the Accessibility features of my Android phone to play with a new keyboard. When the Accessibility screen comes on it puts a layer over the bottom half of the screen which lets you navigate the device with gestures. In doing so, when I tried to go back to the settings in my phone to turn off the Accessibility option, I could no longer press the numbers on the number pad. For some reason the passcode screen would not move up from behind the gesture screen to allow me to put in the numbers.

I thought that I was locked out of my phone and would have to somehow wipe the system and start over. That was not a prospect I was looking forward to.

In my research to find a solution I came across a security flaw in the App Lock software. This is a serious flaw and I assume that the App Lock guys will work to fix the problem. Until then, maybe this will help someone else get control of their device again. I realize that bad people could get this information and use it to exploit someone’s phone. I regret that the possibility exists, but I am personally thrilled that this security bug saved me from having to rebuild my phone setup from scratch.

Here are the steps that I was able to take to get control of the device again:

• Turn on App Lock and press Protection list
• Press the Home button on your phone
• Turn App Lock back on again
• Press FAQ
• Press the back button

This will reveal your list of applications that are blocked and give you a chance to turn the block off. For me that meant that I could remove the block from my Settings menu and make the changes I needed to make. For others this means that their information isn’t as well protected as they would hope.

Obviously the makers of the App Lock software may fix the problem by the time you read this. That is a good thing…unless you are locked out of something because of turning on the Accessibility feature on your Android phone.

I showed up at 8:00 for registration with a race start scheduled for 9:00. Other than the workers, there was only one other runner hanging around the registration table. Though we were not supposed to get a shirt after a certain registration date, the registration lady still had about 100 shirts in boxes to give out. There was no problem with offering shirts to late registrants. This was a good indication that I might be able to win my age group. They said they would give out prizes for first place in each group.

Because I had an hour before the race started I went to the top of the mountain of Panther Creek State Park, where we were running the race, and enjoyed the scenic overview of the lake for a few minutes.

I warmed up as usual and headed to the starting line. There were only about 25 runners. From what I gathered, most of them signed up the morning of the race. There was even one man who came to the park for a normal run and saw that there was a race being held. Just a few minutes before the race started he jogged up to the starting line and joined us after registering.

The course was pretty hilly. I expected that since I had run at this park before. I was not familiar with the particular trails that we ran on. I had to do my share of walking on some of the uphill sections. This was my first time to run a trail race. I have always loved running trails, but all my previous races have been on roads.

Within about 5 minutes of the start we spread out to our own little groupings. I never passed anyone else and no one passed me after that first few minutes. In fact, after about 8 minutes I didn’t even see any other runners for the rest of the run.

I finished in 30:16. That is a slow time for a 5K for me. I don’t know if the distance was accurate. But I took solace in the fact that the first place runner had a time in the 25 minute range. It was a tough run for everyone.

A meal was provided after the race. It was hot dogs with chili and hamburgers. There were no condiments. I thought it was a terrible meal to have after a 9:00 race. We were supposed to be interested in lunch at 9:45 in the morning? I would have rather had fruit or something with a potato salad. The lady mentioned that they thought about salads as a meal, but since it was going to be hot today they thought the salads would not go over well. I would take a salad any day over a chili dog immediately after a race.

I liked the laid-back atmosphere of the small race, but was very disappointed with one change. The race registration form said they would give a prize to the first place winner in each age group. Since there were so few people, they decided to only give a prize to the first and second place men’s winners and the first place ladies’ winner. That meant everyone over the age of 25 had no chance of winning any prize. This was not announced until after the race was over. It should not have mattered that there were few people at the event. If they were prepared to give away 10 prizes it doesn’t make a difference if there are 20 people or 200 people at the race. It would still be 10 prizes given away that did not cost the organizers anything. The 3 prizes they did give away were all donated items. I assume the other prizes were donated as well.

There was talk that the race was really under promoted. I wouldn’t know anything about that since I have only been in town a couple of days. However, if they want to make this race a success next year they need to make sure they promote it more heavily and not bungle the prize decision next time. I don’t know if I would have won my age group, but I never even got a chance to find out.

I am glad for the chance to have run a race, but I would really have liked a chance to see if I could have won my age group.

I first heard about Linux in 1995. I was immediately drawn to it. I think it is something about my personality that wants to do things differently than everyone else. I am usually the first of my friends to try new things. Sometimes those new things become very popular and I have to move away from them to find something different (my recent move from the iPhone to Android). Sometimes that new and different thing never catches on and dies a quick and painless death (Sharp Zaurus which ran Linux).

Linux is one of those things that I have been able to find a group of sympathetic friends who share my passion and frustration. Linux will probably never be mainstream by itself, but there are some pretty neat technologies that are built on top of Linux. While not strictly Linux, the guts of Mac OS X shares the same roots as Linux. Google’s Android platform is built on Linux.

I remember spending hours with the dial-up modem trying to download different distributions of Linux to try out. I would tie up the phone line as soon as I got home from work and leave the connection running all night. If there was ever a need for bittorrent technology it was back in the dial-up days.

From 1997 to 2001 I played with Linux heavily. I was never willing to commit to it as my main OS, but I spent a lot of time with it. I did not trust my work to Linux back in those days, but I probably dedicated more of my computer time to Linux.

In 2001 I took the plunge and loaded Linux as my main OS. Since then I have used it exclusively for work. I continued to dual boot for several years because of having certain games or specific programs that I wanted to use. Until recently I was booting Windows in a virtual machine because there were only one or two programs I wanted to use. Since I loaded on the latest version of Kubuntu Linux (11.04) I didn’t even bother to rebuild my virtual machine.

I am celebrating 10 years of Linux being my main OS and Linux is celebrating 20 years. It has been a fun journey.

This 32 page ebook is full of pictures and written explanations on how to rebind a magazine. The information can be adapted to many projects, but the example of magazine rebinding is probably something many people would like to do. It is a non-technical process. I guess I was a little surprised by that, but I shouldn’t have been. People have been binding books for years. The bigger surprise is that this book claims you can get all the supplies at a local hobby store. While there are products made specifically for book binding, I can easily imagine many substitutes for the actual products if your store doesn’t stock them.

After reading the book, the only thing I wished I knew more about is the types of paper or cloth that can be used to cover the binder’s boards. While the author gave some generalities of what to look for, I think more examples would have been helpful.

A couple of pictures in the book were not quite in focus. It is hard to take good close-up pictures with a cheap camera. But the author works directly for O’Reilly. It seems that they would have had photographers and good cameras to capture sharper images.

Those two critiques aside, this is a book I would highly recommend to anyone who is thinking of rebinding a book or magazine. While there certainly could be more said about the process than 32 pages can provide, this book gives you all the essentials. Armed with the information in this book I can confidently jump into a book binding project and expect good results.

DIY Bookbinding by Brian Sawyer. Ebook. O’Reilly Media, July 2011.

[Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book.]