Saturday, April 22, 2006

Various and Assorted

A number of bloggers are talking ebooks and I'm just feeling left out of that party. I haven't read 99% of them :( I' m really interested in giving many of the hot authors a try but I still haven't joined the ebook army yet. I'm still of the old fashioned school that likes to hold a book in my hand. As a data analyst, I spend most of the day at work staring intently at the computer screen. Anyone ever try and find six incorrect postal codes in an excel spread sheet out of thousands? UUUUGGLY! I have to blow the sucker up to 200% and go through each one - letter, number, letter number, letter, number. Then around 357 I'll find one where they have replaced a number 0 with a letter O. Anyway - when I get home, I'm just not into staring all evening at a computer screen. I've thought seriously hard about getting an ereader, came very close to getting one a while ago, but then something came up and I had to use the money for something else. A lot of ebooks are coming out in print now, but the book stores here don't carry them and besides I've looked at the price of them online and it's a bit prohibitive. So, this sadly is one topic I don't get involved in *sigh*.

Any one else besides me cringe when they go back and read a comment they made somewhere and it's filled with typing/grammar errors? I gotta tell you, I've been doing some major cringing lately when I see what I've written. I want to post another comment saying "I'm not that bad! Really I'm not!" Part of the reason why this seems to be happening is when I take a break at work - from finding postal code errors and other various and asundry errors - and do a bit of blog hopping, I keep my extra curricular web surfing screen very small, just in case someone wanders by my desk and sees I'm at someplace called Smart Bitches. I dart in and out of various blogs very quickly and don't take time to spell check. That plus I'm eager to see what the next person I visit has to say and I don't take the time I should to double check. I do that with my own blog too. I write it out, post it, read it over, cringe, go back to edit, fix mistake and it continues. I can't remember the last time I didn't have to go in and edit two or three times until it met my rather wonky standards. When I go back to the same blog later at home - where I use a full screen - I want to delete half the comments I've made and screwed up :)

I'm getting curious now what the attraction of Word Press is. So many seem to be switching over there from Blogger. Now I am the first to admit that blogger can be a real pain in the ass at times (boy do I remember) but is word press that much better? Not that I'm about to migrate there. The thought horrifies me! But I'm just curious about the differences. I did set up a blog in Word
Press about 3 or 4 months ago but I couldn't get in to activate it. Something about needing the correct password. I USED the correct password I tell you. I DID! But, as with all arguments with technological things, it won - I lost and I gave up the battle.

And along those same lines - aren't we an artistic bunch! I've been looking at some of the new blog looks - and there are a lot of them these days. I'd link but it's 6:30 am on a Saturday morning and I'm headed back to bed shortly, but they are gorgeous!!!

And after this brief stop - back to bed for me


'til later

10 comments:

Angela James said...

I switched to WordPress because my blog seems to be a little bit of everything, and I wanted to be able to categorize my posts, especially when I start doing some editing posts for writers, I want those to be easily accessible in the sidebar later on, if that makes sense.

But I will tell you, after the initial headache of set-up on my own hosting, I'm a WordPress convert. I'd recommend even the "free" WordPress over Blogger. You can switch your themes at the press of a button without having to recustomize every little thing, like sidebar links. I'm oversimplifying, of course, but just taking out the aspect of republishing makes it worth it. And the time delay posting is a really nice feature as well. For when you're feeling really chatty but know you might not want to post the next day :)

Samantha said...

I'm with you on the e-books. I haven't read any either. It's for pretty much the same reason of wanting to be able to hold a book in my hands and not have to stare at a computer screen to read it.

I'm thinking about moving to wordpress. What attracts me to it is that you can have different pages and there's some other nifty gadgets that go with it. All I have to do is figure out how to change to background to what I want. I'm still trying to figure that out.

Marg said...

I haven't read any e-books either.

~ames~ said...

I'm in the same boat regarding e-books too.

Anonymous said...

I use to feel the same way you did about ebooks. I hate reading things longer than a page on my computer. But then I got an ebook reader called the eBookWise and I actually prefer it to print books in a lot of ways. The best thing about it is that you can make the text size bigger which is great for those of us with bad eye sight. You can also hold it and turn the pages with one hand. I do think ebooks are ridiculously priced but there’s also a lot of free ebooks around. I’ve more than made up for the cost of the reader with all the free classics I’ve downloaded.

Lori said...

I read ebooks quite a bit. I have the ebookWise also. You hold it in your hands and it is the size of a paperback. I do have to say, though, that nothing feels quite the same as having a book in your hands, and finishing it and having all those balck smudges all over your fingertips. It just feels better.

Kristie (J) said...

Like I said - I do want to give them a try. I came close in November and maybe with all the buzz, I'll look seriously into getting an ereader (I had one all picked out and everything)

ReneeW said...

I have only bought one ebook and it was excellent. Maybe I should post a review. I have a few more on my computer but I'm like you, I prefer holding a book in my hands. More cozy. And I don't like the price on some of them.

I'm not tempted (yet) to switch over to wordpress although I would like categories. but it's too much trouble to think about right now.

Rowena said...

I feel the same way about ebooks too!

As for switching over to Wordpress, it's really complicated over there (I set up a blog over there just to see what all the hype was about) and maybe I'm just so used to everything here at blogger that I'm just going to stick with it and stay here...

Anonymous said...

Coming in a bit late, but I'm a total wordpress.com convert. I actually found it much easier to navigate than blogger. It has extra pages that are easy to make, categories (as Angie mentioned), and pingbacks that give a greater sense of community (imo). I think it's prettier, too.

There's only one theme at wordpress.com where you can have your own banner, but I like it and I'm using it.