Treading into technology

Over the weekend, I practiced using the Nook e-reader that my Beloved bought me for Christmas. The tiny keyboard is hard on my big, clumsy fingers. But I am beginning to get the hang of the thing.

First book downloaded: Remembering Smell, by Bonnie Blodgett. As a person who unabashedly delights in the joys of the senses -- touch, taste, hearing, smell -- I've wanted to read Blodgett's exploration of the olfactory world for quite some time.

It cost fourteen dollars to download. Not much of a savings from the bookstore shelf. That was irksome. For what one pays for an e-reader, the books should be a lot less expensive, methinks.

Later, I downloaded a free edition of St. Augustine's City of God,the paper and ink version of which I am about half-finished reading. Disappointment number two: It was apparently scanned from paper and ink, and utterly unreadable, with gibberish goofing up most of the text.

On a brighter note, my little brother convinced me this weekend to try out Skype, and that was fun.

Pondering e-books

Within my lifetime -- nay, probably within a decade -- ink and paper books could become as antiquated as leather scrolls.

Every day brings more news about electronic books, once a prop of sci-fi novels, now a reality. Borders is studying a plan to take over Barnes and Noble, and e-books are very much a part of the discussion.

It's exciting to think that I could carry around the equivalent of a thousand books or so, in my pocket, ready to whip out and peruse wherever I may be.

But knowing me, I would probably drop the thing in the washing machine or leave it in a meeting hall somewhere. Would my collection transfer to a new e-book machine?

What if some future government decided I had no right to read a certain book? Would it mysteriously vanish from my machine or be blocked from being loaded in the first place? Would Big Brother track my e-book selections to ferret out my seditious leanings?

Twitter world

I do not twitter. Yet. Then again, ten years ago I had never surfed the Web. Five years ago I had never blogged. Two years ago I had no idea what Facebook was. In time, I probably will twitter.

In the meantime, those of you who are tech-savvy and/or own small businesses, might find this article of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/business/smallbusiness/23twitter.html?em

All your books are belonging to us

The following column exposes a terrifying possibility with that trendy innovation, the ebook, as typified by Amazon's Kindle. Such books have "digital strings" that can yank them away from you.

http://www.slate.com/id/2223214/

Leaving your comfort zone

Today I rented a rug doctor machine to clean up the sooty spots on the carpet from the vacuum cleaner disaster of a week or so ago.

I've never rented a rug doctor before. It was a bit of a challenge, the whole process of renting it, figuring out how it worked, etc. Got me thinking about other challenging "first times" in my life, such as the first time I ever drove a car through an automatic car wash.

I picked an evil place for said challenge -- a facility that required the driver to angle his left front tire up a ramp that was about three inches wide. If you missed, you'd run over pipes or something and make a mess.

So there I was, in that dark, steamy hell, trying desperately to put my tire in the right place, using ugly words that would have earned me a mouthful of soap if my Mother had been present ...

...It was a disaster and I never went back there again.

A peek at Lance

Does technology permanently make life easier?

That's a good question -- the latest in a series of brief posts posited by one of my first blog buddies, Lance. Check out his site and add your input!