I'm a bad Word Geek
I've been working for the last several weeks on the new edition of Learning ASP.NET. (I think I'm allowed to say that out loud.) Everybody involved agreed that we should re-take all the screenshots in the book in Vista, which keeps the book from looking dated, and also tests everything in Vista -- a long shot, I know, but hey, it never hurts to check. As it turns out, I'm the one with the Vista machine, so I volunteered to do all the screenshots (note to self: don't do that again). My Vista machine happens to be a laptop, so I've been working on the book while sitting on various couches around my house. I know, tough job, right?
Thing is, this is a revision, so I'm constantly referring back to the previous edition, which would be fine if I were at my desk, but sitting on a couch, there really isn't any place to put the book down safely. As a result, I've committed a number of terrible crimes against book-kind: I've put it down on the pages; I've bent the cover; I'd have broken the binding, except O'Reilly uses RepKover bindings; I even spilled water on it. I've done everything except deliberately dog-ear a page. I felt really bad about this, since it goes against my instincts as a book person, but then I remembered several things. First, it's my book, in the sense that I wrote it, in addition to it being my property. Second, they sent me ten copies back when it first came out, which I can't even give away, so it's not like I don't have another. Finally, I chose the copy that already had a torn cover when I got it. In the olden days, we used to cut the spine off the book and send the pages to the author when they revised; this is hardly that bad.
Even still, I felt the need to confess my sins to the LJ community, in the interest of fairness. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.
Thing is, this is a revision, so I'm constantly referring back to the previous edition, which would be fine if I were at my desk, but sitting on a couch, there really isn't any place to put the book down safely. As a result, I've committed a number of terrible crimes against book-kind: I've put it down on the pages; I've bent the cover; I'd have broken the binding, except O'Reilly uses RepKover bindings; I even spilled water on it. I've done everything except deliberately dog-ear a page. I felt really bad about this, since it goes against my instincts as a book person, but then I remembered several things. First, it's my book, in the sense that I wrote it, in addition to it being my property. Second, they sent me ten copies back when it first came out, which I can't even give away, so it's not like I don't have another. Finally, I chose the copy that already had a torn cover when I got it. In the olden days, we used to cut the spine off the book and send the pages to the author when they revised; this is hardly that bad.
Even still, I felt the need to confess my sins to the LJ community, in the interest of fairness. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.