Archive for July, 2009

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Kindle App for iPhone


31 Jul

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Posted in Reviews | No Comments »

I’m not going to write a full-blown review for the Kindle for iPhone app, as there are already fifty bazillion out there on the web. I just wanted to give you a quick rundown of my impressions of it in case you’re considering it.

Personally, I wouldn’t use the Kindle for iPhone app as my workaday reading device. I know some folks do, but my eyes tire a lot more easily than they used to, and it’s not all that comfortable to hold the iPhone for extended periods of time.

But if you don’t mind reading from the iPhone’s screen, the app has very nice features – especially since it’s free. You can change font sizes easily, and scroll forward and back through the book with a little touch-sensitive slider bar.

The app will also synchronize with your “farthest read” point in your Kindle, if you have one, so you can switch between devices and you’ll be at the same reading spot. And, just like it’s big cousin, you can send samples to your iPhone from your Amazon account, and can also search and buy from the Kindle Store straight from your iPhone.

All in all, it’s a very nice app that – for me, at least – has been stable and well-behaved. And the price is certainly a big plus: it’s free!

Personally, like I mentioned earlier, this would never be my primary reading device: I much prefer my Kindle for that. But it’s a great way to catch up on some reading if you’re out somewhere, maybe waiting in line or something and don’t have your Kindle handy – and at the price (zippo!), it’s a no-brainer to have on your iPhone.

XBox 360 Angst to PS3 Bliss?


30 Jul

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Posted in Reviews | No Comments »

Well, as of last night it was official: goodbye XBox 360. This was our second unit, the first having suffered the infamous “red ring of death.” That malfunction was under warranty, and I give Microsoft kudos for how efficiently they handled the return and replacement. But now the video output failed, and it’s no longer under warranty. I’m not at all keen to buy another one (hey, we got Macs to get away from Microsoft!), and so…

We ditched all of our Xbox 360 games, trading them in at Gamestop, and replaced them with Playstation 3 (PS3) versions – or entirely new games. We’ve had the PS3 for a while, just using it as a Blu-Ray player (and it’s an excellent one!), but now we’ll use it for what it was mainly designed for.

So, I’m sorry to see the Xbox 360 go, particularly since we all (well, the boys in the house, at least) really enjoyed the Halo games. On the other hand, if we’re only going to have one platform, the PS3 has the benefit of also being a Blu-Ray player, and  having built-in WiFi capability if you want to play networked games, or download content (we’re planning on getting Rock Band 2, and there are lots of downloadable songs).

Will it all be PS3 bliss? I don’t know. But I guess we’ll find out!

The Draft of In Her Name: First Contact is DONE!


29 Jul

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Posted in My Books | 2 Comments »

In Her Name: First ContactAfter hamming through over 156,000 words in fifteen weeks, I’d like to announce that the first draft of In Her Name: First Contact is finished!

I was very happy with the way the draft went, and it certainly came along quickly enough. I was originally planning to take a full year to have the initial draft done, and writing that much in odd hours here and there (with a few marathon weekend sessions) came as a complete, but pleasant, surprise.

There’s still obviously a lot of work left to go in revisions and editing, but at this point I’m hoping that I can make my goal of having it out on the street no later than early September (of 2009!).

So, stay tuned!

Getting My Eyes Fixed With Lasik


29 Jul

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Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment »

It’s T-minus two hours and counting until I’m supposed to show up at the eye center to get ready for my lasik surgery. I’ve put this off for years, not so much because of the cost (although it’s not cheap), but because I’m just a huge chicken when it comes to anything about my eyes.

But after having gone through three pairs of glasses (two of them lost to the ocean – go figure!) at great expense in the last several years and having to suffer being effectively blind until I could get new ones made, plus the advances made in lasik technology, I figured it was time.

Just a note about some of the new bells and whistles that are available nowadays: the two major advances over lasik of even a few years ago are bladeless lasik, where they no longer use a physical instrument to cut the corneal flap, but use a laser; and wavefront analysis. That’s the supremely cool thing now: before the surgery, they take a different (non-cutting) laser that can identify all the little aberrations in each eye. Then they take the “map” that it makes and program it into the cutting laser. The result is that you get a completely customized lasik job for each eyeball. It’s more expensive, of course, but I figure that if I’m going to do this, I’m going to go the whole way.

The only thing that I really had to laugh at in the pre-op information was the little note that I might smell something odd during the procedure. Yeah, it’s my cornea getting zapped! D’oh!

P90X Workout Sheets


27 Jul

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Posted in Get In Shape | 19 Comments »

I kept digging around for P90X workout sheets, and figured there probably others out there doing the same. So, in case you need them, those worksheets are on the Beachbody Fitness Tools page.

At last count, they have workout sheets in PDF format for the following workout programs (note: these links go direct to the files at the Beachbody site): P90X, P90X Plus, ChaLEAN Extreme, INSANITY, and RevAbs.

My personal favorite – currently only for P90X and P90X Plus – is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that is really cool: you input a bunch of starting information, and it keeps track of what you do in your workouts, even charting your progress automatically from the numbers you poke in as you go.

Hey, While You’re Here…

If you happen to be interested in sci-fi/fantasy sorts of things, check out In Her Name: Empire, which is completely free as an ebook in multiple formats. Why is it free? Because I want to hook you on a great story! No other gimmicks or gotchas. Download and enjoy it while you’re cooling down from your P90X workout!

The only downside is that the macros in the spreadsheet will not work on a Mac in Numbers or even Excel for Mac (if you have Parallels or VMWare and are running Excel 2003 or later, you’re probably fine). It will still work fine to log your workouts, but not all the functions (mostly run by some of the buttons on the spreadsheet) function.

Update: I’ve added another post on P90X workout sheets here…

A Beachbody Coach Who Cares

Getting through P90X or any of Beachbody’s other programs can be a challenge without someone there to help motivate you. You may also not know which Beachbody workout program might be best for your needs. That’s where having a coach can make a huge difference in your success. There are, of course, many Beachbody coaches, but I’ll happily make a shameless plug for my wife, Jan: yes, I’m obviously biased, but she’s been a huge factor in my own success, and she’s helped a lot of other people reach their fitness goals, too. She really cares about her clients and friends, and works hard to help them succeed. So, if you’re interested, please contact her through her Beachbody Coach page!

Rising Transfer Fees For Emailing Files To Your Amazon Kindle


25 Jul

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Posted in About Publishing | 3 Comments »

If you want to send a file to your Kindle, particularly if you’re an author or publisher who wants to check it for formatting or proofreading, Amazon offers a great service where you can just email a file in a generous range of formats – HTML, Word documents, etc. – to your Kindle. The file is run through their conversion process, and then magically appears on your Kindle via Whispernet.

For a long time, Amazon claimed that there would be a $0.10 fee, but it was in fact free. A couple of months ago, I transferred a file, and got a receipt from Amazon, charging me a whopping $0.15. Okay, sure, not a big deal.

Then last night, I transferred another file (I don’t do this very often): the charge was $0.30. Hmmm.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking, “What are you whining about, you dork? It’s only thirty cents!”

Well, my concern isn’t with the price itself – $0.30 isn’t a big deal for me, as I don’t transfer files very often. The issue is that, so far as I am aware, Amazon hasn’t announced this price increase (I could be wrong, but I don’t recall seeing anything), plus it’s a 100% increase over the last one.

And that gets us back to Amazon’s very lackluster customer service performance regarding Kindle publishing (at least if you’re not a major publisher), which is far below the customers service experiences we’ve had for the Kindle reader itself (Amazon ranks A+ in my book for that). I don’t mind Amazon charging me for services rendered – as long as the price is relatively reasonable – but I do mind them not telling me about pricing changes that can have an effect on me. And there may be folks out there who transfer files a lot, and that thirty cents can add up pretty quick.

So, Amazon, please just let us know what’s coming down the pike, okay?

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Michael R. Hicks

Tales and Musings

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