Archive for October, 2009
By now, you should have heard of eBooks. It is pretty much an electronic book. In the past few years, eBooks are becoming more and more popular as everyone can write a book and publish it on the internet. Just have a look at Make Use Of’s eBook collection. The only downside with eBooks is that it is only available online in an electronic format. What happens if you want to publish it and have it in print? You are up for a lot of fees, printing, and publication costs. You need to get legal advice, find a publisher to publish your book and the list goes on.
Thankfully there is a solution where you can publish your own book, or sell it in a bookshop. The best thing is, you don’t even have to spend a cent. And here’s how.
Lulu.com allows you to sell your book in bookshops, online and allow buyers to purchase printed copies in a simple 5-step process. If you have created eBooks before, this is a service that you must use. You easily and cheaply get your book published in a printed format with its own ISBN number.
Before you start, it is a good idea to already have an eBook created. It is also advised that you thoroughly check it and make sure it has been proofread and edited. If in the future you do find mistakes, you can easily add a revision to the published book.
Read the entire article on MakeUseOf.com and learn how to publish your first book.
Amazon and Microsoft have teamed up and will release an application called “Kindle for PC” in November. It will let you buy, download and read Kindle books on a Windows-based PC, regardless of whether you own a Kindle.
If you also own a Kindle, you can see any notes or highlights made on the e-reader. Amazon will also keep track of where you are in a book, so you can stop reading on your PC and pick up at the same place on your Kindle.
Windows 7 includes touch-screen functionality that will also come into play with the Kindle app, with users able to navigate through pages by swiping the screen, as well as zoom in and out with a finger-pinching motion.
The Printliminator is a bookmarklet with some simple tools you can use to makes websites print better. One click to activate, and then click to remove elements from the page, remove graphics, and apply better print styling.
I don’t care what you say, this is freaky stuff.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,James Dyson has reinvented a machine we never knew needed reinventing; a fan with no visible blades that he calls the Air Multiplier. Its key component is a hollow plastic hoop with an aerofoil cross section – like an aircraft wing bent into a circle. Set vertically on a pedestal, it contains a motor-driven “impeller” which forces air into the hollow rim of the hoop.
From there, air emerges through a slot that directs it over the hoop’s aerofoil surface. This generates low pressure towards the centre of the hoop, which in turn creates a steady draught by drawing the surrounding air through it. The strength of the draught can be varied by adjusting the speed of the impeller.
Original article posted on NewScientist.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,Looking to take brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to the next level, Dr. Christopher James from the University’s Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, set out to show that brain-to-brain (B2B) communication is possible. Utilizing electrodes, computers, and the internet, he claims that his experiment is a “proof of concept” that shows, for the first time, true brain to brain interfacing.
In his experiment, James had one person using BCI to transmit thoughts, translated as a series of binary digits, over the internet to another person whose computer receives the digits and transmits them to the second user’s brain through flashing an LED lamp.
Read the entire article by Christopher Jablonski at ZDNet.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,Amazon announced late Tuesday that it was introducing a new version of its Kindle e-book reader that can wirelessly download books in the United States and more than 100 countries.
The new device, which is expected to ship on October 19, is physically similar to the previous Kindle with a six-inch display. However, the new e-reader will be capable of downloading books and periodicals via wireless networks belonging to AT&T and its international partners.
The online retailer also announced that it would cut the price of its U.S. Kindle by $40 to $259, bringing it more in line with Sony’s Reader Pocket Edition, which sells for $199. The price cut is the second for Amazon’s e-reader in four months: in July, the price of the Kindle 2 dropped from $359 to $299. Amazon also sells a larger version called the Kindle DX for $489.
Read the entire original article at cnet.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,This apparently isn’t a new video but an old friend that works at Boeing sent it to me and I was pretty impressed with the technology.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,Microsoft Technet posted the following article that I think will help most Windows 7 users.
Windows 7 may be Microsoft’s most anticipated product ever. It builds on Windows Vista’s positives, and eliminates many of that OS’s negatives. It adds new functionality, too—all in a package that is less resource-hungry than its predecessor.
And whether or not you’re upgrading from Vista or skipping it altogether and moving up from Windows XP, you’ll need to know how to make the most of it in your environment.
Read all of the tips from TechNet.