Fantastic Flying Books....

Charming little video has a glimmering of The Wizard of Oz. It's available as an interactive children's book app for the Ipad for $4.99 too.

Two Apps to Consider

I recently downloaded the Kindle app to my Ipad and personal computers so that I can read library books downloaded from Overdrive on them. I wanted some experience with them so I'd be familiar with the app and what it can do to share with library people I work with.

I was pleased with the ease of use. If you have multiple devices in your "Manage Your Kindle" account, you can specify which device you want to send the downloaded e-books to.

I was even more pleased to learn about the Send to Kindle for PC app that Amazon recently introduced. You install the app on your PC and can use it to send any document to your Kindle. If sent using the print function, the document is sent in a pdf format to the cloud storage where you can again manage which device you want to send the document to. I experimented and was able to send documents easily not only to a Kindle Fire but also to my Ipad which has the Kindle app installed on it. The beauty of the Kindle app for Ipad is that it simplifies reading pdf files on the Ipad, which has no native ability to handle pdfs.

To send personal documents you can do either one of these:

From Windows Explorer, simply right click on one or more documents and choose Send to Kindle. To send multiple documents to Kindle without opening them, simply select documents and choose Send to Kindle from the right-click menu in Windows Explorer

Or, from any Windows application that can print, select Print and choose Send to Kindle (documents are delivered in PDF format).

Send to Kindle is supported on Kindle Library on Kindle Keyboard (with the latest software update, version 3.3), Kindle, Kindle Touch, and Kindle for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch (running Kindle app version 2.9 or greater). Kindle Personal Documents Service is currently not supported on other free Kindle Reading Applications, although a Mac version is said to be coming.

In addition, you and your approved contacts can send personal documents to your registered Kindle devices, supported Kindle reading applications, and your Kindle Library in the Amazon Cloud by e-mailing them to your Send-to-Kindle e-mail address ([name]@kindle.com)as well. Your Send-to-Kindle e-mail address is a unique e-mail address assigned to your Kindle device or supported Kindle reading application upon registration. To have a document converted to Kindle format (.azw), the subject line should be "convert" when e-mailing a personal document to your Send-to-Kindle address. Converting the document enables you to use functionality like like variable font size and annotations.

You can find more information about the Amazon Kindle Personal Documents service here.

Let It Snow

A New Year greeting from Michigan's Upper Peninsula where the snow this winter waited a long time to show up...starting about midnight on New Year's Eve:




Everyone is thankful that some snow finally arrived, but it remains to be seen if it will be enough to help the faltering business climate in the area when all that is left is tourism. Winter without adequate snow doesn't generate the income needed to survive. Blizzard warnings have everyone hopeful that the snow is now here to stay and hoping enough piles up for the Porkies ski hill to open.

Curious Christmas Revisited

Back in December 2009 I posted a picture of one of my favorite 'junking' finds, a stein meant as a holiday piece. I found it in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.




At the time I wondered "Who was A.E. Hemke?" I believe that today I've found the answer to that question and satisfied my curiosity.

I decorated a small tree and put out some of my other Christmas decorations over the weekend and took a picture of my small pencil tree. The stein was in the picture and reminded me that I'd never been able to track down the name. So this evening I googled "A.E. Hemke" and found a Google Books result. It appears that A. E. Hemke was a liquor dealer in Detroit in 1904 according to this record I found from the Journal of the Common Council of Detroit:

Shared by a Facebook Knitting Friend

A Facebook knitting friend shared this video link with me when I mentioned eliminating the 'hole' where the gusset joins on the sock.

The video is very well photographed and the explanation is clear. He makes it look very easy. Have to try his method which is simpler than what I'd figured out, but my way works too. I just add one or two extra stitches when picking up the stitches, and then decrease that many stitches back to what the pattern calls for.

Old Norwegian Cast-On Demo

Censorship Rears Its Head

Watch the video and then read this Lifehacker article that further explains the bill and what you can do to make your voice heard. We need to to defeat the attitude "We're from the government and we know what's best for you." The Internet has worked pretty well without interference from government. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.