Book Review #19

Debt Free Living
How to Get Out of Debt (and Stay Out)
Larry Burkett

I am rather ambivalent about this book. There is no doubt that the author is skilled, experience, and knows what he's talking about. However, I see a distinct lack of specific step-by-step in the book. It's closer to something that a wise grandparent would tell the young ones the pitfalls of money management. The book opens up with sample cases, three of them, and walked through their bad experiences. I think it's good that there are these cases, but I think they can be shorter. This long-drawn story-telling is closer to counseling, instead of lecturing. This is neither good or bad, but if you're deeply in debt and want to quickly get to the core solution, then this book will seem to be pandering.

50 pages later, on part two, we begin to see the basic principles of debt, as laid upon by the bible. We see time and again, the bible is brought forward as guidance regarding debt and borrowing. This may seem to be preaching to some people, but I don't see it as Christian-centric. The principles given forth are basic universal principles that everyone should adhere to. And it's only 10 pages. See how the core ideas of debt and borrowing are very simple and direct? Tales of woe has more pages than basic principles!

There are some forms to fill, but unfortunately, they are scattered throughout the book. There is no simple, "Here are the steps". So the reader will be forced to take their own paper and write their own form. This, itself, isn't bad, but despite long winded sample cases, there is no direct one-on-one relation for different cases. This is fine, if you're in counseling. The counselor can help you with your budget. But as a stand alone book, I'm afraid it's lacking.

Minimal debt treatment. Lots of stories. This is something that is closer to counseling than a genuine get out of debt book. If you really need to get out of debt, I suggest you keep looking. If you are already in the process of getting out of debt, and being discouraged because there's no progress, then give this book a try. You may just change your mind.

Cooking Journal #19

Exotic Butter

I usually just pick up the butter substitute. However, when I was wandering over to the butter section, I saw this butter, and I can't resist. It's certainly unique, and I'm glad I tasted this one. Something like a specially made butter. Not too sure that I have use for special ingredient, though. Yes, it's better. No, it's not so much better that I want to hunt this specific butter.

Nintendo Journal #19

Craftsman Drill

I love this tool. I even use it around the house! Install this, install that. This is my first go to tool. It has light, auto tension, and all around a good tool.

Of course, the magazine review makes it only a so-so value. But I really don't care. This one is good enough for me.

Petit Computer Journal #19

 Randomous Klondike Solitaire

Although normally I'd showcase my own games, this time I want to make an exception. There is a computer game that is extremely well done: Klondike Solitaire by Randomous.

Here's the link in Petit Computer Wikia:

http://petitcomputer.wikia.com/wiki/Klondike_(Solitaire)

I would like to mention the fact that this game is special in that it comes with special package where all the components are downloadable separately. That means you can play around with the program and even come up with your own special program. Look for "Klondike Depackaged"

I like the fact that I can change the playing card to my liking. You can use CHRED to do it. Even though you have to be careful since the card shape is hard-coded and you don't want to introduce any holes to the card, it still represents the power of open software.

For that reason, I'm showcasing the program here. I think this extremely simple, yet well-done program is worthy for your consideration.

It also represents an example on how to do SPRITE on the touch screen.

Raspberry Pi Journal #19

E-Book with Calibre

Printing and making book is fun. But what is really interesting, is to have an e-book you can take with you wherever you go. With e-book, that means Kindle, Nook, or other dedicated e-book reader. Sure, you can bring along your laptop to view your PDF or PowerPoint files, but that's not fun. For true fun, we want dedicated e-book reader. That means EPUB file format for most. Kindle has its own format. MOBI for old Kindle, and EZ3W for the new Kindle Fire.

So, how can we convert our books into those format? Amazon has a converter service that converts Microsoft Word Document into its format. I will probably investigate that later. In the meantime, I'm using a program called Calibre.

This program is designed to function as all-in-one e-book solution. It shows. The download is quite sizable, and the program runs like a hog through mud. Just struggling to move. CPU at 100% at all times.

The important thing is that it works!

The first thing you want is a proper format for the book. This means that you should put proper formatting in place. Let's use Abiword for example. The formatting is usually set on "Normal". For different parts, we need to specifically specify each type. It's not enough that it looks right. It has to be the right type.

For Chapter Heading, use the Chapter Heading format. Bullet list? Use Bullet List format, and so on. This is very important. The reason for this is so that the automatic Table of Content generator can pick this up. It just makes things more convenient if you do.

Here is my novel. Well, short story. I did this during Nanowrimo event last year. Notice that everything is formatted properly. Abiword can save epub file format, and that's what I'm using.

Open the Calibre program. Add book into it. If you're using Raspberry Pi, you'll probably notice the extremely long load times. Most of the functions is provided by Python, I believe. So, not only it is running its own program, but also Python interpreter. And well, heavy slog.

Edit your Metadata here. That means Title, Author, and Cover. There are other info as well, such as Publisher. If you're feeling lazy, there's a button called "Generate Cover" that will automatically generate the book cover for you.

It's time to convert the book! In this case, I'm converting it to MOBI format for Kindle reader.

I'm leaving everything as default. I do make sure that the program automatically generate the Table of Contents. Notice that even though the size of the document is small, it takes a long time to format the piece. About 2 minutes to format 20 kb file? That's unbelieably long time!

If all goes well, you'll have an e-book! Normally, you can upload the document directly via USB connection. For some reason, I keep getting "Low Voltage" error, and the book refused to upload. How can I transfer the book to Kindle? There's always the PC method, but I'm going to see if I can skip PC altogether.

Sure enough, there is! Calibre comes with its own Content Server. What that means is, you start some kind of document provider over the net. Since I'm doing local, it's just a local connection.

I set the Server Port to 8088. Then it's time to fire up my Kindle! What I need to do is to connect to server on my Raspberry Pi at port 8080. Like this:

http://myhostname:8080

On my Kindle Keyboard, it falls under Experimental feature. Launch the internal web browser, and type in the URL into the address bar. Just remember to use your Raspberry Pi Hostname.

There it is! Both epub and mobi format are downloadable. We want the mobi format. All you have to do is click on it. If you have specified the cover in the metadata, then it will show up here. Otherwise, the default cover is the first picture on the book.

Oh, look! My very own e-book! Isn't that nice!

Well, enough time for gawking. Now, let's see. Next on my To-Do list is to write The Great American Novel. Yup. That's the ticket. See you later.

Oh, one more thing. You can have images in your e-book. But remember, e-book format does not have pages, so there's no point of you aligning the pictures so it looks nice on your word processor. It all depends on the set up on your e-book reader.

Have fun making your own e-book format!