I just watched a video of Jon Stewart interviewing Jeff Bezos about Kindle 2Kindle 2.
My refer came from reading, Book Lovers: Stop Whining about the Wonderful “Feel of Paper” written by Chris Dannon for the Fast Company Blog.

Please wait to read that until after you finish reading this post, you’ll be glad you waited.

Book lovers how do you feel about Kindle 2, the digital book device from Amazon?

Before we go on, as a lifelong bibliophile, I have a confession to make. I haven’t read a
paper based non-fiction book in over a year. Mea culpa, mea culpa!

Come on give a guy a break. I’m computerized and IM’d. Where I used to feel guilty
reading a book when I thought I should be doing something else, now, I feel guilty
because I’m not reading books. No excuses. I live in Mountain View, CA, a city with
an outstanding library and it’s not far from my home.

However, I stray ..how are YOU doing on the book reading front? Better than me I hope. My wife, who was raised in a book starved home environment, now reads
several times as many books as I. Mysteries mostly - good- hard cover books -
not paperbacks, but hard cover ones out of the library.

Kindle 2? Not for her. Not likely for me. For different reasons we are not likely to pay
for a device that enables you to have access to thousands of books (at $9.95 each)
after paying the $395.00 for the Kindle 2. She’s not a techy and we both like to hold
books to read.

I may be an “early adopter” for some business things but not for pleasure, if you can
callreading a book off a Kindle - pleasure. The convenience I can see and appreciate.
However, I would miss moving all of my hundreds of books one more time. Being a
mobile pack rat bibliophile is a curse with its own punishment.

For those of you who have your own Kindle, what do you miss, if anything, using
the device and what particularly do you like about it ?

For those of you who have not had your Kindle fire lit, what, besides the price, is
keeping you from digitizing a bigger slice of your world?

Have you written about these digital developments affecting the publishing world?
Should you write about them? Can you afford to ignore them? If you are well
established perhaps not. Otherwise,…??

Let’s hear your views - comment or let us know where you have written on this
subject. At least get your feelings out and deal with them by writing.

Me? I’m going to reminisce about doing research in the special collections of the
top floors of the U. of Michigan libraries and remember vividly the smell, that
special smell, of old books. I may even get out a couple history books that were
first published in the 1860’s or 1870’s on the life Sen. James G. Blaine (Who?) I’ll
show Bezos and Kindle2.

Well, by now, I am sure you have a strong sense of my feelings about Kindle 1 or 2.
And, even more so, about the continuing loss of independent booksellers in the face
of the chains, the internet and Kindle. I hereby solemnly swear that I shall never
purchase a Kindle. And, if given one, I shall donate it to the library because I know
it has voice delivery as one of its features and those who are sight challenged may
enjoy its use.

This turned out kind of ranty didn’t it? There I go again with cause for another
“mea culpa”.

Now, I hope you turn off your computer and go read a book.

Me? I’ve got a couple of more posts to write ..

- Val Spangler, Mister Senior Blogger
@SeniorTweet on Twitter.com
Senior Writer Blog (you are here)
Comics Cartoons and Creativity
Business Twitter Uses(coming March 1st)

Tweet! It may be good for your writing.

Whether Twitter will improve your writing or not - it’s up to you.. I think it may have an effect. However, I can be sure that you will make new friends and renew acquaintences from around the country and around the world - some you’d never meet otherwise - expand your universe - it’s great fun! One caution: keep the discipline to manage your time to write. Let Twitter add to your writing - not detract from it.

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Who among you are using Twitter?

Do you know where to go to find out?

Here’s the place - Twellow.com

Yes it’s a take off on the Yellow Pages - only with a focus on Twitter members.

When I did my last Twellow search for “writer” there were 13,849 people found on Twitter with some connection to or participation in writing activity.

(Searches are done within the bio, name, and location
sections Twitter users provide on their profiles.)

Here is what the Twellow login box looks like - you must be a member of Twitter
to search because your User Name and Password are required to use the system.
They provide a link to sign up if you are not a Twitter member. They also explain
what protections they provide for keeping private that information

Yes, that is a bit scary and enough so to scare many of you away. (Shades of
Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451) Just gulp and do it or you become
too “out of it” for much of your audience. (I have to gulp! - sometimes two or
three times a day as I constantly modify my privacy protectionist nature.) Why?
Why do it? Curiousity and Legacy. Expand my audience - carefully.

Choices - so many choices!!! - - - Twellow?

Check it out - it doesn’t hurt for a writer, any writer, to be somewhat familiar with
the emerging developments in the digital universe, in this case the Twitterverse.
However, I will admit it does take a bit of courage to trust these systems and
those who operate or use them. You decide for yourself.

I hope your exploration will be worth your time. That is one of the challenges of
participating in the digital world and its access to new people and new information
- how do you manage your time exploring it?

You will note that there are very few, if any, “best seller names” in your “writer”
search results. Perhaps it is because they are too busy writing!

Twellow.com - Enrich your mind - explore your writer world - but don’t waste time.

Above all write!

Val Spangler, Mister Senior Blogger
Senior Writer Blog (You are here.)
@SeniorTweet on Twitter.com
Comics Cartoons and Creativity
Business Twitter Uses
(coming March 1st)

Expand your universe.

Meet new friends on Twitter. Friends from around the country and around the world - people you’d never meet otherwise - expand your universe - get new ideas - new contacts - expand your “writerverse”. Scary perhaps but great fun! My last caveat: Keep the discipline to manage your time to write. Let Twitter add to your writing - not be a distraction!

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Kiosk Hosting Services: Quality-Service-Dependability-Opportunity

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This post is a followup to previous Ampersands cartoons discussions.

My granddaughter had seen my Ampersands on my computer and the other day
she asked me if I had any more Ampersand stories. I did. So I got it up on her
computer and “PLOP” she was on my knee and wanting to read the dialogue
with me. Interesting idea for a parent or for teachers (absent the knee “touching”).

When we finished I asked her if she liked that - of course, she did- it was her idea!
Then she surprised me by indicating she’d like to do it. “Do what?” I said. She had
already written up a “newspaper” in her own handwriting and drawing with the
Ampersands - so that was what I thought she meant. NO, she wanted the
cartoon strip with blank balloons that she could fill in. So for me a new challenge.
How to get them printed out in workable order - - working on it.

My questions for you parent or teacher - Could you make use of such a product-
either a how-to-do-it for yourself or a block of cartoon templates with blank
balloons for the kids to fill in.

Writers? What is in there in this example and model that is of benefit to you?
I would imagine writers for children might find it somewhat interesting but what
about you more “advanced” writers - any use to you?

Take look and tell me what you think. Parents especially - what about this as an
addition to your rainy day activity arsenal? Imagination, writing, storytelling/
speaking, relationship skills, what else can you think of that might be a benefit?
Here goes…

What ideas pop into your head? Can you see yourself making use of writing exercise
like this for your children or students?

Writers - are you looking for a product model to develp for a new income stream?

Let me know what you think? I’ll keep at it and learn more about the most efficient
ways to get these cartoon blanks to you (and F*r*e*e!).

Tell me a story, _________, pleeease!

_ Val Spangler

@SeniorTweet on Twitter.com
Mister Senior Blogger
Senior Writer Blog
Twitter Uses
Comics Cartoons and Creativity

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If you can’t find something to write about in the descriptions of the innovations,
you are in an advanced stage of … writer’s block.

The Nightly Business Report- The Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years

An easy way to access the information is in a slide
show - the 30 innovations are presented in reverse order
30th first. Go here for the annotated list.

http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/features/special/subdir/top-30-innovations_slide-show/

For those that don’t have the time at the moment to look at the
explanations - here’s the list in descending order:

1. Internet/Broadband/World Wide Web
2. PC/Laptop Computers
3. Mobile Phones
4. E-Mail
5. DNA Testing and Sequencing/Human Genome Mapping
6. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
7. Microprocessors
8. Fiber Optics
9. Office Software
10. Non-Invasive Laser/Robotic Surgery
11. Open Source Software and Services
12. Light Emitting Diode products (LEDs)
13. Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs)
14. GPS
15. Online Shopping/E-Commerce/Auctions
16. Media File Compression
17. Microfinance
18. Photovoltaic Solar Energy
19. Large Scale Wind Turbines
20. Social Networking via Internet
21. Graphic User Interface (GUI)
22. Digital Photography/Videography
23. RFID and Applications
24. Genetically Modified Plants
25. Biofuels
26. Bar Codes and Scanners
27. ATMs
28. Stents (Heart)
29. SRAM/Flash Memory
30. Anti-Retroviral Treatment for AIDS

For those that have the time to study the list - go through the slide show and
then print out the list. Take a few minutes to review the list and see if you agree
or disagree with the order of importance.

If in the review of the list there is a topic in which you are vitally interested, go
with it and write. about it. You may focus only on that topic or in its relative
ranking on the list or both.

Or, take on the whole list and question the implicit bias in the ordering of the list.

Or, … have fun and enjoy the process - a lot of big ideas with very, very
interesting repurcussions on us and our world. Keep us posted about either
through commenting or email or Twitter.

- Val Spangler
Senior Writer Blog (you are here).
@SeniorTweet at Twitter.com
Mister Senior Blogger
Twitter Uses
Comics Cartoons and Creativity

@SeniorTweet at Twitter.com

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I thought John Updike was a helluva writer but I didn’t care for his stories.
You’ll have to read others to hear praise for his novels. I respected his care
with words - carefully selected without a lot of fancy flourishe. Good writing.

He wrote of the mundane - bottling little glimmers of life to get at the truth
of it. When there was time to read him, I was not in the mood for the mundane.
That says more about me than about him or his writing. Perhaps I’ll give
Rabbit another chance - but I’ll have to be in the right mood. With all that
I have to do, those times may not come very readily. We’ll see.

In retrospect one of his writings I most enjoyed was a magazine
piece, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, a tribute of sorts to Ted Williams about the
day of his last game with the Boston Red Sox.

Yes, I am a jock and I was then - one of those always was and always will be.
Even jocks can appreciate good writing. This piece explored the complexities
of athletes, athletic heros and the love/hate relationships that frequently
develop around them. I think that Ted Williams and Updike’s Rabbit shared
some of the same qualities that fascinated Updike enough to write about them.

Complexity. How does one write about complexity and do it simply?
Not easily. You must love to write - to be happy enough to continue to write
nurtured and motivated to continue by even the smallest elements of writing.
Writing because you must write. Nurtured by the process and the smallest
elements of the process. The right word. A turn of phrase. Capturing the
essence of a character, fictional or real, without just describing him or her.
And moving the story along in the process. Turning the page but …
begrudgingly, because you want to savor the writing or the wellness of
the story told.

Yes, John Updike was a helluva a writer but, for me, he was a lot like the
Ted Williams he wrote about. Great stats but he never won a pennant or a
world series of writing for me. However, he was a nicer man than the
“Splendid Splinter”, and he had a writing batting average like Ted Williams.

How can one truly give tribute to a great writer? Simply by writing.
Write what you have to as ably as you can - but write. You may not make
the world any better but you will be better for it. And that’s a start.

You may even enjoy it.

Please follow me on Twitter - http://.twitter.com/SeniorTweet. - @Senior Tweet.

Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu
(Author: John Updike ©. Published: 1960-10-22.  Appeared In: The New Yorker.)

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Thanks to my main “social” mentor, Jack Humphrey, I became aware that
this SeniorTweet was not getting off to a good start in the Twitterverse.
As you can see in the sidebar to the right, Jack’s Blog Success is my
primary promotional website. There is good reason for that but let’s
just address this one: he points me in the right directions.

Jack tweeted a suggestion to check out what kind of Twitter bird I was
being on Twitter. He directed us to Darren Rouse’s TwiTip blog and his
post: Types of Birds on Twitter and How to Be an Eagle.

If you Twitter, read it and answer for yourself what kind of bird you are .
I’ll not confess and you may guess - but after reading this article, I’m going to
become a Twitter bird of a different feather.

On Darren’s TwiTip blog, he also had a Related Post to Jenny Cromie’s
article: 8 Sure-Fire Ways To Tick Off the Twitterverse.

If you already Tweet, these two articles are a good self check to know who
you are on Twitter and how to change your Twitter behavior for better
results.

If you are either new on Twitter or considering getting started, I whole-
heartedly recommend you read these two articles - being forewarned is
being forearmed. Brings to mind Icarus - a bird of a different feather.

On that note and before I fly to high, I will end this post. ( And go Tweet!)

- VS, Tweet Me @SeniorTweet

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Collections: Writers on Writing - video clips from the PBS Charlie Rose Show:

Writers in the clips:

• John Grisham
• Dorothy Atwood
• Ian McEwan
• Salmon Rushdie

I am a big fan of the Charlie Rose Show on PBS. However, being on the West
Coast, the show times aren’t always convenient (noon and midnight - Pacific)
The reason I mention this is that it was in the process of getting the show’s
(who is on) schedule online that I came across the Video Clips Collection.

The point of this post: Watch the collection of  ”Writers on Writing“.

Although the clips are short, I am sure you’ll glean a nugget or two and, possibly,
even a bit of motivation from them. Or, at the least, some measure of reaffirmation.
Most bloggers will get a sense of that from Grisham’s clip on “Stealing”. (As if they need it.) Repurposing?

I was struck by the similarity of viewing these clips to reading blog posts.
Kind of like getting finger food when you are really hungry for a full meal -
but much better than a “tweet” … or two … or three. (I’m not dissing - just comparing.)

Take a look and let me know if you got anything out of them - remember …
the comparison I made was to “finger food”.

 Collections: Writers on Writing

 - VS, Blogmeister, Senior Writer Blog.

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