What I'm Up To
“2008 sucked. Why would anyone want it to be any longer?" Stephen Colbert on the "leap second" added to the end of last year
What? Christmas? New Year's? Yes, they were great; thank you for asking. Short version? eowyn797 and xantus are incredibly wonderful and ass-kicking people and I am damned proud to have them in my life. But actually I just came here to talk about what I'm up to (as the title suggests with such delicate subtlety).
Blurb (or, as I like to refer to it, CafePress for books) is now my favorite gift idea and I want to make a million things with it. I also wish I'd known about it a few months ago, given its potential for some slick-looking one-shot, one-of-a-kind gift books. I also wish we had always been taking pictures on our PowerShot at the highest resolution, because any lower resolution will apparently look less-than-optimal when stretched onto an entire 7"x7" page (at least, according to the Blurb BookSmart software). Still, such potential. Amateur photographers can finally self-publish all those coffee table books they've always wanted to make. Doing the whole NaNoWriMo thing? Copy all the content into a 5"x8" hardcover as a keepsake / trophy! And there is a "book to blog" option that currently exports from Livejournal and Typepad, but I haven't gotten it working yet; far too many entries, I'm guessing, as the connection keeps choking and dying. But, for the prolific, a real hard copy backup. Or for those of you who are parents, very special records of your kids' scribbly drawings or other paper goods (requires scanner).
Anyway.
The other thing I'm doing, on and off, is tinkering with music, thanks to one of my christmas gifts: a hand-me-down midi synth and the hardware needed to hook it up to the computer. I fell in love with it before I even hit a key, but that's also because it was a thoughtful gift from someone who'd overheard me say how much I wanted a keyboard at all.
And for those of you still paying attention, I've been using TiddlyWiki to keep lots of my stuff, work and not-work, somewhere that I can easily reach it. I'm kind of surprised at how much I'm using it now, actually, because I thought I would be sticking more to my tangible notebooks.
What? Christmas? New Year's? Yes, they were great; thank you for asking. Short version? eowyn797 and xantus are incredibly wonderful and ass-kicking people and I am damned proud to have them in my life. But actually I just came here to talk about what I'm up to (as the title suggests with such delicate subtlety).
Blurb (or, as I like to refer to it, CafePress for books) is now my favorite gift idea and I want to make a million things with it. I also wish I'd known about it a few months ago, given its potential for some slick-looking one-shot, one-of-a-kind gift books. I also wish we had always been taking pictures on our PowerShot at the highest resolution, because any lower resolution will apparently look less-than-optimal when stretched onto an entire 7"x7" page (at least, according to the Blurb BookSmart software). Still, such potential. Amateur photographers can finally self-publish all those coffee table books they've always wanted to make. Doing the whole NaNoWriMo thing? Copy all the content into a 5"x8" hardcover as a keepsake / trophy! And there is a "book to blog" option that currently exports from Livejournal and Typepad, but I haven't gotten it working yet; far too many entries, I'm guessing, as the connection keeps choking and dying. But, for the prolific, a real hard copy backup. Or for those of you who are parents, very special records of your kids' scribbly drawings or other paper goods (requires scanner).
Anyway.
The other thing I'm doing, on and off, is tinkering with music, thanks to one of my christmas gifts: a hand-me-down midi synth and the hardware needed to hook it up to the computer. I fell in love with it before I even hit a key, but that's also because it was a thoughtful gift from someone who'd overheard me say how much I wanted a keyboard at all.
And for those of you still paying attention, I've been using TiddlyWiki to keep lots of my stuff, work and not-work, somewhere that I can easily reach it. I'm kind of surprised at how much I'm using it now, actually, because I thought I would be sticking more to my tangible notebooks.