Rohdesign Weblog: Books

Here you'll find all posts file under the Books category.

May 6, 2010

My Sketchnote Video Interview

Had a great time sharing stories about my sketchnotes and the REWORK book illustration process with Marquette grad student Daria Kempka. She turned my video clips and samples into this very cool 2:25 video. Have a watch and enjoy.

Thanks Daria!

Permalink | | Sketchnotes | add to del.icio.us

March 26, 2010

REWORK Artwork on ABC News

On Wednesday the 24th, my REWORK illustrations appeared on ABC News with host Tory Johnson on Job Club. In the segment below, Tory interviews the authors, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson about themes in the book:

REWORK has also become a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller in a little over 2 weeks after release.

It's very exciting to see the book really taking off, especially having been part of the team that made REWORK happen.

Related Links
'Long Lists Don't Get Done' - ABC News
Authors of 'Rework' Answer E-mails - ABC News
Order REWORK at Amazon

Permalink | | Books | add to del.icio.us

March 6, 2010

Illustrating REWORK (Part 1 of 2)

I'm thrilled to share with you an opportunity I've had to write a guest post for the 37signals company blog, Signal vs Noise.

Jason Fried of 37signals invited me to write the post Illustrating REWORK about the process of illustrating their new business book, REWORK.

I went into detail about how we started the book illustration process, worked with Crown Publishing, generated illustration concepts and prepared pencil sketches for review, approval and final production.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Pencils vs. Inking Initially I’d planned on inking each illustration in a Moleskine sketchbook, making the reviewable artwork as close to final artwork as possible. But after thinking about what would best suit the review and feedback process, I decided it would be smart to review uninked pencil sketches instead.

Pencil concept sketch for “Everyone on the Front Lines”. –Photo by Brian Artka

This proved to be a time-saving decision. Had I inked pieces as near-final art, I would have lost time re-inking multiple illustrations to accommodate changes.

Because I invested up-front time in solving the illustrations as pencils, I only had to ink once before moving to Photoshop for final artwork.

Writing Part 1 of 2 was great fun to do, because I've learned over the years here that people are fascinated by the design process. You can also read Illustrating REWORK (Part 2 of 2) for the full story.

Many thanks to Brian Artka for shooting my sketchbooks for the articles, and to Gabe Wollenburg for proofreading and editing tips on the pieces.

Listen to the Podcast

You can also listen to the latest 37signals Podcast. At 28:43 into the podcast, Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson and Matt Linderman talk about why they hired me for the illustrations and their perspective on the illustration process. Here's the MP3 file.

Review 5 Chapters

Check out Scribd to read 5 chapters of the book, including my illustrations.

Buy REWORK!

I'm very excited now that REWORK has been released. It became a New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller only a week after release! If you pick up a copy, please leave a comment here about the illustrations.

Order REWORK at Amazon

Permalink | | Sketchnotes | add to del.icio.us

May 3, 2008

The Amazon Kindle is Back In Stock

Just in case you were aching for an Amazon Kindle, I got word today they're back in stock at Amazon. If you buy a Kindle through my Amazon Associates link, Amazon pays me a referral bonus, in case you were feeling generous. :-)

Photo Credit: David King

Permalink | | Books | add to del.icio.us

June 6, 2007

Tour Fever Mini Review

Every year since 2003, I've been compiling online resources for Tour de France fans, and every year the list grows longer (2004, 2005, 2006).

Last year, I found the book Tour Fever: The Armchair Cyclist's Guide to the Tour de France by J.P. Partland, made a mention in the Tour 2006 list, and got a nice email from J.P. offering a review copy from the publisher.

This spring, with cycling thawing from a cold winter, I took J.P. up on his offer, and received a review copy a few weeks ago.

Darn! I wish I'd asked for this book sooner! :-)

This compact book offers a comprehensive yet brief overview of the Tour de France, from its history and early days, to the current Tours of Armstrong and Landis.

“Tour Fever is an insightful look at the world's greatest bike race, the Tour de France. It educates the novice while providing cutting edge information and reference for the seasoned professional.
—Tom Danielson, Discovery Channel Professional Cycling Team

I especially enjoyed the historical overview of the race, and being reminded that the Tour is rooted in a publicity stunt by a newspaper publisher to save his paper. Yet at the same time, a stunt borne of PR, can also offer a space where cyclists can still prove their endurance and tougness.

What's Inside
Tour Fever covers the basics of how the Tour works and why, and provides a sense of how complex of a beast it is. The book also provides newcomers a good overview of how and why teams are structured, how they operate, the different kinds of racers, the goals of each team and so on.

I've learned many these tidbits through years of following the Tour, listening to Paul Sherwen and Phil Ligget make the call year after year, reading blogs and articles on the web and talking over the details with cycling friends.

But having all of this information in a compact, concise book is so nice. This is an ideal guide for anyone interested in Tour de France and bicycle racing, who doesn't want to wade through bike-speak. In fact, J.P. is very good at writing like a regular person, as he explains the intricacies of the Tour.

If you're interested in checking out the 2008 Tour and want more background on the race, then I reccomend Tour Fever by J.P. Partland.

It's good stuff.

Related Links
Tour Fever Book Site
Tour Fever on MySpace
Pedal Pushers Tour Fever Review

Permalink | | Cycling | add to del.icio.us

February 26, 2007

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days Review

A few weeks ago I received a nice surprise from Apress books: a review copy of Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston.

This 456 page book is a collection of in-depth interviews with the founders of many high-tech startups, like Apple, PayPal, Adobe, Flickr, Six Apart, Blogger, Craigslist, Fog Creek Software, ArsDigita, 37signals and more.

I'm a little over halfway through the book, and have already thoroughly enjoyed the interviews I've read. Especially interesting to me were interviews with Mena Trott of Six Apart, and Evan Williams of Blogger, Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us, Steve Wozniak of Apple, and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals, since I've used products they've created.

Jessica asked good, open-ended questions, then let the founders speak freely, for very in-depth, detailed replies. I loved reading Steve Wozniak's interview, which is available in its entirety at the Founders at Work site, along with the full interview of Fog Creek Software's Joel Spolsky. This is a good way to see the depth and style of the interviews featured in the book.

Importance of Flexibility
As I read through the interviews, a common thread emerged — that each of the founders benefitted by remaining flexible and open to change. In many cases, the products which became blockbusters for these startups were internal tools, like Blogger, Basecamp, FogBugz, and Flickr.

With Blogger, Evan Williams and his team had a "real" application in Pyra, when their internal note capturing tool, Blogger, exploded in popularity and forced the team to shift. In Flickr's case, Caterina Fake's team was developing an online game, when they found their social photo tool Flickr was taking off. They reluctantly switched to Flickr, saw it grow and eventually sold it to Yahoo. In each these cases, shifting away from the original product proved quite difficult, though in the end, the choice to shift paid off tremendously for each of the founders.

There were some personal projects, created to fulfill the founders' needs, which turned into popular blockbusters, such as Steve Wozniak's Apple I, Craig Newmark's Craigslist and Joshua Schacter's del.icio.us. In these stories, the products were created because of a passion and a need to fulfill the creator's vision for a tool or service, which in the end became very profitable products.

In other cases the blockbuster products were quite different than the founder's original business plans. For PayPal, the company began as a PDA-centric money exchange utility, which shifted to a web-based money exchange utility when eBay users begged for the service. For Adobe's founders, they intended on creating a complete hardware/software system for publishing, until two potential customers begged for the software which became Adobe Postscript.

Present in each of the stories is that thread of flexibility — to not be too tied to your idea of what will work when the signs are leading elsewhere. I found this fascinating, because so often I've had the idea that every great product was planned that way from the start. Many times this approach seemed to be the exception not the rule.

Sharing Hard Times
In the interviews, I appreciated hearing about the "hard times" from each of the founders. it's natural to think that successful people just breeze through without a scratch — when in reality each of these founders faced tough choices, challenges and in some cases, very hard times. Phillip Greenspun's account of the demise of his company ArsDigita was an eye-opener, as was Evan William's revelation of the tough times he went through founding Blogger.

I'm enjoying Founders at Work, and I know it's a great book, because I can't wait to read the next interview. Reading these founders' stories is encouraging in a way that a step-by-step "1-2-3" book isn't. In the hearing of others' stories, I can relate to my own story and apply lessons these founders can share in my own life.

If you have an interest in tech startups, fascinating stories from many interesting people, Founders at Work is a great read. Who knows, maybe the stories shared in this book will help ignite the passion of technology's next founders.

Thanks to Pete and the kind folks at Apress for the opportunity to read, review and share my thoughts on this excellent book.

Permalink | | Books | add to del.icio.us

August 2, 2006

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone

As a fan of the Tour de France, one of my favorite Tour blogs is Martin Dugard's at Active.com. I've thoroughly enjoyed his writing while following the Tour across France. His writing style is approachable, easy to absorb and has generous portions of personal observations and interesting historical details.

Martin's blend of readability, observation and historical detail bring his subjects to life.

Because of his writing style, I picked up Martin's Last Voyage of Columbus last November. Just 3 weeks ago, I found a copy of Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone at my local library.

In a nutshell, Dr. David Livingstone was a Scottish explorer in the mid 1800s, credited with walking across Africa, is sent to search for the source of the Nile river. When he goes missing, several expeditions are sent to verify if he is dead or alive, but only one man, American journalist and adventurer Henry Morton Stanley, finds Livingstone alive, and utters the famous line to him: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

It would seem knowing the end of the story would make for a dull read — but no! Dugard does and excellent job of building up the back-story on both of these remarkable men, and their contemporaries. Dugard shares details on both their accomplishments and defeats, which led them their moment in history.

I was surprised by the hardships both Livingstone, Stanley and other explorers and their support staff were willing to endure to criss-cross Africa. Tribal wars, cannibals, slave traders, swamps, rivers, lakes, mountains, deserts, insects, wild animals, disease — you name it, they experienced it.

I knew this was a great book when I found myself yearning to read just a few more pages on my vacation last week. I would take time morning, afternoon and evening to read this intriguing story. It definitely passed my 100 page book test. :-)

After finishing Into Africa, I had a better understanding for the people involved: both Livingstone and Stanley, but also for their contemporaries, the state of the world and Africa itself. I've added a new piece of mental map to my understanding of the 1800s, and its impact on our current culture.

If you have an interest in history, exploration, Africa or just enjoy a good story, I highly recommend Martin Dugard's Into Africa.

Permalink | | Books | add to del.icio.us

November 23, 2005

The Last Voyage of Columbus

It was a spur of the moment choice to pick up The Last Voyage of Columbus as I strolled through the Milwaukee Public Library's Central branch one afternoon. I was awaiting the bus, looking for something interesting to read, when I spotted the book on the Librarian's Choice table.

I enjoy learning about world history, and I've not read much about Christopher Columbus, so I was intrigued by “the Last Voyage” in the title. The author's name, Martin Dugard, rang a bell as well. Then I remembered — Martin wrote some of my favorite coverage of the Tour de France this year, on his Active.com weblog.

I checked out the book, and am glad I did — it's an excellent job of historical storytelling and a tribute to the man who was Christopher Columbus. This was one of the rare non-fiction books I couldn't wait to read more of: reading a chapter at lunch-break or a few chapters before bed.

The story revolves around Columbus, of course, but provides significant insight into the times in which Columbus lived. Dugard did a fine job of providing a setting for Columbus' insane idea to sail westward as a way of reaching China and India.

But Columbus' first 3 voyages are not the main topic of this book, though they are recounted for perspective. The real meat of the story is about Columbus' 4th and final voyage from 1502-1504, in which he aimed to find a passage through the new world, as an alternate way to arrive in Asia.

The 4th voyage was indeed Columbus' toughest, as he and his fleet encountered many trials, problems and dangerous situations, including mutiny. Reading about the drive and dedication he had to his task was inspiring, especially in the face of the troubles he encountered along the way.

I was amazed me to read about the achievements Columbus had in his career as a discoverer. Not only “the New World” but South America and nearly discovering the Pacific Ocean — he focused on a location a mere 35 miles across the Isthmus of Panama from the Pacific ocean, at the current location of the Panama Canal.

Was Columbus perfect? By no means. He had his own flaws and made some bad decisions. What's interesting to me was how he dealt with the challenges presented to him on this voyage, how dedicated he was to discovery, and his skills as a sailor, captain and navigator.

If you're looking for a good historical storytelling and have interest in one of history's most interesting personalities, I recommend Martin Dugard's The Last Voyage of Columbus.

Technorati Tags: books, history, sailing, tour de france

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November 15, 2005

Cool New Site: InBubbleWrap.com

My friend and fellow Milwaukee-blogger Todd, filled me in on the latest project from 800-CEO-READ called InBubbleWrap, which just went public this week. The idea behind InBubbleWrap: a place online where you can compete to win business books (and eventually other stuff) online. It's a little like Woot! in that each day IBW offers just one item on the site. However, instead of selling that item, visitors can take a shot at winning that item in a drawing.

All that's required is an account at IBW, then Monday through Friday you need to check their RSS feed, or stop at the site and tell 'em “I Want One!”, then answer the trivia question to have your entry submitted. Trivia questions aren't difficult, I think they simply assure that a real person is competing.

Then at the end of the day the IBW crew reviews the entries and picks a winner — or in some cases several winners, based on how many copies of the book are up for grabs. If you win, you're notified via email, and then confirm you really want the prize through a URL in that email.

Next thing you know, you have cool business books arriving in the mail! In fact, I've just received Grapevine and a complimentary The Big Moo this week from my participation in the InBubbleWrap beta test. All in all a very cool concept and a great way to get some nice reading materials.

Ryan, the director of IBW tells me they're looking to expand beyond just books. If you're interested in having your product or service featured on IBW, I'd suggest dropping Ryan a line.

Best Wishes to Ryan, Todd and the InBubbleWrap crew! :-)

Technorati Tags: books, business, milwuakee, contests

Permalink | | Books | add to del.icio.us

June 29, 2005

Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town

I've been meaning to post something about Cory Doctorow's latest novel, Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town, which was released last week. I like Cory's conversational writing style, humor and sense of technology — nothing like the cheesy pseudo-technology so often experienced in hollywood films.

In fact, I'm about to install the e-book on my Zire 72 today and begin the story, so I can't comment yet. However, judging by Doctorow's works (which I've enjoyed very much), I think I'll enjoy this novel as well. We'll see. :-)

My posts on Cory's other books:
Eastern Standard Tribe
A Place So Foreign and 8 More
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

The e-book version is available as a free download in multiple formats, or it can be had in paper form at Amazon, or in signed/inscribed paper form at Cory's website.

Update 2005-12-30: After reading Cory's latest novel, I have to say it wasn't as good for me as Down and Out, Eastern Standard Tribe or A Place So Foreign. This story was not very focused in comparison, and I had a hard time grasping the idea of family members that were mountains, washing machines and dessicated corpses. I really wanted to like the story and did enjoy Cory's writing style, but the whole of the book just felt a bit too disjointed.

Permalink | | Books | add to del.icio.us

June 28, 2005

A Fez of the Heart: Mini Review

Several weeks ago, at a local rummage sale, I came across the book A Fez of the Heart by Jeremy Seal. It took a few moments to realize this paperback was one I'd purchased in 1994, lent to a friend, and never got back. So, I drove a hard bargain, and bought the book for 50 cents, happy to have a second chance at a reading it for the first time.

Jeremy Seal's account is a travelogue of his time spent in Turkey, searching for the origins and present day occurrences of a hat — the Fez. His interest in the fez brought him to Istanbul to begin a journey around Turkey, seeking actual wearers and historical information related to the country, the culture and its hats.

While I'm not an expert on Turkey, I enjoyed his description of the country and its history, particularly the end of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey. I learned a bit more about Turkey's history and the sometimes unusual blend of East and West, and of course quite a bit about Turkish headgear.

Probably the most interesting part of the book for me came at the 3/4 mark. Jeremy is given a hand-made Fez by an elderly hat maker and feels compelled to wear it on the street. As the Fez is technically "illegal" in Turkey and has cultural significance for Turks, this was a larger challenge than it might appear. Seal becomes quite self-conscious in his be-fezzed state, and receives added notice and scrutiny all the way back to his hotel — before removing and hiding his fez.

While Jeremy's travelogue-style account isn't what I'd consider a historical reference, it did increase me curiosity about Turkey's history. Several of the book's Amazon reviewers challenge Seal's history and information, so I do plan on exploring books like Turkish Reflections : A Biography of a Place by Mary lee Settle for more historical detail.

Still, historical accuracy and personal opinions of Seal aside, I looked forward to reading this book each night before bed, and passed the 100 page mark quickly. I found it an interesting perspective on Turkey, Turkish cultures and the Turkish people themselves.

As the book ended, I found myself drawn to learning more about the Turks and their country. I don't know if I'll have the honor of visiting Turkey, but I feel this book put the spark in my mind and heart to consider it, should the opportunity arise.

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June 17, 2005

Accelerando as a Free e-book Download

Last night on Boing Boing I came across this tidbit about Charlie Stross, and his new novel Accelerando, he's releasing as a free Creative Commons download. Charlie is also releasing the book in paper form over at Amazon (and I suspect other outlets).

It'll be interesting to see how this works for Charlie. I know it's worked pretty well for Cory Doctorow, who has released all of his recent novels in e-book and paper formats, and has found his paper versions (paid versions) selling quite well as a result.

I've already grabbed the Creative Commons copy for Palm Doc, and have begun reading and enjoying Stross' story about Manfred Macx.

It's got the same feel as a Doctorow, Gibson or Stephenson novel, set slightly in the future and written from the point of view of someone who's into technology. Here's a snippet:

Manfred's on the road again, making strangers rich.

It's a hot summer Tuesday, and he's standing in the plaza in front of the Centraal Station with his eyeballs powered up and the sunlight jangling off the canal, motor scooters and kamikaze cyclists whizzing past and tourists chattering on every side. The square smells of water and dirt and hot metal and the fart-laden exhaust fumes of cold catalytic converters; the bells of trams ding in the background, and birds flock overhead. He glances up and grabs a pigeon, crops the shot, and squirts it at his weblog to show he's arrived. The bandwidth is good here, he realizes; and it's not just the bandwidth, it's the whole scene. Amsterdam is making him feel wanted already, even though he's fresh off the train from Schiphol: He's infected with the dynamic optimism of another time zone, another city. If the mood holds, someone out there is going to become very rich indeed.

He wonders who it's going to be.

* * *

Manfred sits on a stool out in the car park at the Brouwerij 't IJ, watching the articulated buses go by and drinking a third of a liter of lip-curlingly sour gueuze. His channels are jabbering away in a corner of his head-up display, throwing compressed infobursts of filtered press releases at him. They compete for his attention, bickering and rudely waving in front of the scenery. A couple of punks – maybe local, but more likely drifters lured to Amsterdam by the magnetic field of tolerance the Dutch beam across Europe like a pulsar – are laughing and chatting by a couple of battered mopeds in the far corner. A tourist boat putters by in the canal; the sails of the huge windmill overhead cast long, cool shadows across the road. The windmill is a machine for lifting water, turning wind power into dry land: trading energy for space, sixteenth-century style. Manfred is waiting for an invite to a party where he's going to meet a man he can talk to about trading energy for space, twenty-first-century style, and forget about his personal problems.

He's ignoring the instant messenger boxes, enjoying some low-bandwidth, high-sensation time with his beer and the pigeons, when a woman walks up to him, and says his name: "Manfred Macx?"

He glances up. The courier is an Effective Cyclist, all wind-burned smooth-running muscles clad in a paean to polymer technology: electric blue lycra and wasp yellow carbonate with a light speckling of anti collision LEDs and tight-packed air bags. She holds out a box for him. He pauses a moment, struck by the degree to which she resembles Pam, his ex-fiance.

Enjoy! :-)

Permalink | | Books | add to del.icio.us

April 4, 2005

The Happy Isles of Oceania

Now and then, there are books that seem to carve out a space in my life, and connect to other experiences I'm having. These are also the kinds of books that I wish would keep on going for hundreds more pages.

Paul Theroux's Happy Isles of Oceania, Paddling The Pacific is one of those books for me. It's the last of Theroux's travel books that I hadn't read for one reason or another. Last year, I picked up a copy through the Amazon Marketplace and received a huge, 528-page hardcover a few weeks later. Even then I didn't begin the book, having already begun Theroux's Dark Star Safari.

So, this massive book sat on my shelf, awaiting the day I'd crack it open and start reading. That day came early in 2005, when I happened to remember and look at my copy of Happy Isles — so I took it from the shelf and begun digging in.

To start with I should to make it clear: I am a Paul Theroux fan who especially enjoys his travel writing. Paul has a way of describing a place, and characters living in that place which I can relate to and appreciate. But his style goes a bit further, mixing in his general observations, commentary on his own life and often very strong critique of the places and people he visits, and sometimes even of himself.

The idea behind Theroux's journey across the Pacific was to begin in Meganesia's New Zealand and Australia, then jump from island to island. He sees each island as a "star" scattered across the sky-like Pacific ocean. In the process of his travels, Paul shares his impressions of each country and its people, histories and oddities.

Now, this book in particular seems to contain even more critique than Paul's other books, probably related to the separation from his wife and discovery of possible cancer on his arm, experienced just prior to the start of his trip in 1991.

Theroux is at times pretty hard on the New Zealanders and Aussies with his commentary. He reserves some strong critique later in the book for French colonialism and nuclear testing in the Pacific and the building of resort hotel and golf course playgrounds on islands in the Pacific by the Japanese. He reserves some of his critique of missionaries and Mormons as he encounters them in the Pacific islands.

Some highlights of the book for me were his travels to the Savo Island egg fields in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, the contrast of cultures in Western and American Samoa, the comparison of perception and reality in Tahiti and his visit to the strange place that is Easter Island.

His description of the Hawaiian Islands was also quite interesting, especially his thoughts after spending 2 night stint in a $2,500 US dollar per day bungalow on Maui. Paul was alarmed at how quickly total luxury could spoiled him, so he left to spend a few nights camping on the beach nearby for a mere at $2.50 per day.

Overall the book provides good doses of information and history of places that are quite interesting. His critique challenged me to consider the impact visitors have had on these islands for the past 500 years.

Theroux's story of life on the water reminded me of thoughts I've had for the past year or two — how much of this junk I hang onto do I really need anyway? What could I do without? Would a simpler life free me from much of what I entangle myself with?

I recommend the book, but with the caveat that I am a fan of Theroux and probably have a strong bias toward his style of writing and description. Still, if you're curious about the Pacific from one man's perspective, I think it's worth a read.

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March 12, 2005

Clean Inboxes are Addicting

This week I've started re-reading David Allen's Getting Things Done this week. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the book, yet I've found it very satisfying. I'm happy to report that for the first time in my memory, I had a completely empty work and personal email inbox on Friday after work.

Actually, I this is my first real 'reading' of GTD — in reality I'd only scanned the book the first time. After my initial scan, I took a few ideas and sort-of made use of them, but not fully. Last weekend I finally got to the point of feeling the need for something to help me better manage all that I had to get done. I saw GTD on my bookshelf and resolved to really read it this time. So I started reading again...

Wow!

While I've not fully sorted out the whole 43 folders idea just yet, nor have I completely integrated the principles David suggests. But rather than wait to complete the book, I decided to take one overarching idea away from my 2nd reading — to turn as many inputs as I could, into 'next action' tasks, then file those inputs for later reference (if needed).

I decided on Monday to first focus on email. I resolved to go through any open email in both my work and personal email clients and do one of 3 things:

1) Reply to the email. David Allen suggest that anything which takes 2 minutes or less can be dispatched immediately, so I followed this advice. I even dealt with some emails that took longer, just to trim down the list of unanswered emails.

2) Turn relevant info into next action tasks. I've recently switched from Palm Desktop to Apple iCal and really like the simplicity if offers. I created several new contextual categories suggested in GTD, and created many, many next actions. It really felt good to put those things into a solid place like iCal (synced to my Palm).

3) File processed emails. Finally I filed away emails I processed, and deleted or filed emails which really shouldn't have been there in the first place. It felt so good to see my email inbox shrink as the week progressed!

By the end of the day Friday, I had successfully emptied out both of my email inboxes. What a great feeling it is having an empty inbox! Even better was knowing that all of the latent tasks embedded in my emails had been turned into tasks in iCal.

Actually, using the GTD approach at work was very smooth, even though I know I've not yet got my head fully around all of the GTD principles. I felt productive and active without the nagging feeling that I was 'missing' something.

I'm looking forward to finishing the remaining 2/3 of GTD in the next few weeks, taking notes in my Moleskine notebook for books I've started as a result of Bren Connelly's How to Read a Business Book postings. I'm finding that taking notes with books really helps me crystalize the concepts and better ingest them.

So, if you've considered the Getting Things Done approach but haven't taken steps to give it a full try, I recommend it. Even taking some of the principles to heart could positively impact your stress levels and work style.

For an interesting interview with David Allen on the concepts behind Getting Things Done, check out Richard Giles' Gadgets Show Podcast (39 min @ 13.6 MB).

Have a great weekend!

Permalink | | Books | add to del.icio.us

February 14, 2005

The Cluetrain Manifesto: A Refresher

Last week I re-discovered The Cluetrain Manifesto. I read the book four or so years ago, when it first came out. At the time it was quite a mind-shift for me. In my view, Cluetrain encapsulated what I saw and sensed was changing in the world, having been heavily involved in the internet part of that world since the mid-90s.

Fast forward to last week, when I heard a podcasted discussion with Doc Searls, (one of the 4 writers of Cluetrain) on Cameron Reilly & Mick Stanic's G'Day World Podcast. Doc provided wonderful background to the book, even offering his regret at blogging narrowly missing a mention in the book.

Inspired by this discussion with Doc, I scrounged up the free online version of The Cluetrain Manifesto, turned it into an iSilo book for my Tungsten E and began re-reading.

Wow, I'd forgotten just how direct and clear the message of this book was. Back in '99 and even 5 years later. The message certainly seems insightful in retrospect.

From the introduction:

What if the real attraction of the Internet is not its cutting-edge bells and whistles, its jazzy interface or any of the advanced technology that underlies its pipes and wires? What if, instead, the attraction is an atavistic throwback to the prehistoric human fascination with telling tales? Five thousand years ago, the marketplace was the hub of civilization, a place to which traders returned from remote lands with exotic spices, silks, monkeys, parrots, jewels -- and fabulous stories.

In many ways, the Internet more resembles an ancient bazaar than it fits the business models companies try to impose upon it. Millions have flocked to the Net in an incredibly short time, not because it was user-friendly -- it wasn’t -- but because it seemed to offer some intangible quality long missing in action from modern life. In sharp contrast to the alienation wrought by homogenized broadcast media, sterilized mass "culture," and the enforced anonymity of bureaucratic organizations, the Internet connected people to each other and provided a space in which the human voice would be rapidly rediscovered.

Or the opening statements of chapter 1, Internet Apocalypso:

We die.

You will never hear those words spoken in a television ad. Yet this central fact of human existence colors our world and how we perceive ourselves within it.

"Life is too short," we say, and it is. Too short for office politics, for busywork and pointless paper chases, for jumping through hoops and covering our asses, for trying to please, to not offend, for constantly struggling to achieve some ever-receding definition of success. Too short as well for worrying whether we bought the right suit, the right breakfast cereal, the right laptop computer, the right brand of underarm deodorant.

Life is too short because we die. Alone with ourselves, we sometimes stop to wonder what's important, really. Our kids, our friends, our lovers, our losses? Things change and change is often painful. People get "downsized," move away, the old neighborhood isn't what it used to be. Children get sick, get better, get bored, get on our nerves. They grow up hearing news of a world more frightening than anything in ancient fairy tales. The wicked witch won't really push you into the oven, honey, but watch out for AK-47s at recess.

Pretty amazing to come right out and say it — we all die. Life is short. As I grow oder I realize my time gets more valuable. There is no time for messing around — no time for bad TV shows or lousy books, no time to waste instead of spending it with my family, or doing what I love to do: communicate, design, write, read, sketch, think.

I'll leave today with one more excerpt from the introduction:

But companies don't like us human. They leverage our longing for their own ends. If we feel inadequate, there's a product that will fill the hole, a bit of fetishistic magic that will make us complete. Perhaps a new car would do the trick. Maybe a trip to the Caribbean or that new CD or a nice shiny set of Ginsu steak knives. Anything, everything, just get more stuff. Our role is to consume.

Of course, the new car alone is not enough. It must be made to represent something larger. Much larger. The blonde draped over the hood looks so much better than the old lady bitching about the dishes. Surely she'd understand our secret needs. And if we showed up with her at the big golf game, wouldn't the guys be impressed! Yeah, gotta get one-a those babies. This isn't about sex, it's about power — the greatest bait there ever was to seduce the powerless.

Or take it one slice closer to the bone. Leverage care. For the cost of a jar of peanut butter, you can be a Great Mom, the kind every kid would love to have. You can look out on your happy kids playing in that perfect suburban backyard and breathe a little sigh of contentment that life's so good, with not a wicked witch in sight. Just like on television.

Now that gets right to the bottom of things, doesn't it? We're human beings — so much more than just consumers, designed to consume product or services. The question I ask myself is, why do I settle, at one time or another, for being treated this way?

Good question.

My suggestion: if you haven't read Cluetrain yet, do so. If you've already read Cluetrain, read it again as a good refresher.

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October 22, 2004

Neal Stepenson & The Baroque Cycle

About a month ago, I'd come close to buying Quicksilver, the first book of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle Trilogy over at eReader.com. There was a special deal available for all 3 books, but I was hesitant to buy without having read any of the books.

I decided against the purchase, choosing to ordered Quicksilver from the local library. Well, I've now had a chance to read a fair bit of Quicksilver, and am enjoying the story. It's set in the 1600s, and features famous characters from history mixing it up with characters created by Stephenson. From the eReader site:

Set against the backdrop of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Quicksilver tells the intertwining tales of three unforgettable main characters (ancestors of characters from Cryptonomicon) as they traverse a landscape populated by mad alchemists, Barbary pirates, and bawdy courtiers, as well as historical figures including Ben Franklin, William of Orange, Louis XIV, and many others.

This breathtaking story ranges from the American colonies to the Tower of London to the glittering palace at Versailles, and all manner of places in between — and plays out during a singular nexus point in history, when rationality triumphed over mysticism, monarchy was overthrown, markets become free, and religious tolerance gained ground over harsh oppression.

If you're a history and historical fiction fan like I am, The Baroque Cycle sounds like (and is) an interesting story.

So, today, when I came across two tidbits related to Neal Stephenson and his latest book series, I thought I'd share them:

First, eReader.com is offering the entire 3 ebook Baroque Cycle Trilogy, for $29.95. That includes Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of the World.

There are advantages to buying the ebooks, most notably the additional material available only in those editions. Further, buying the trilogy as ebooks is cheaper than buying all 3 of printed editions (even used). Finally, it's much easier to haul ebooks around on a Palm handheld! Just the hardcover edition of Quicksilver is a massive 927 page volume.

The second tidbit: Neal Stephenson was sent questions posed by the folks at Slashdot. Today, his answsers have been posted in Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor.

So, if you're at all interested in Stephenson or his books, I hope you take advantage of the ebook deal and have a chance to read the interview at Slashdot.

Have a great weekend!

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September 28, 2004

The Joy of New Books

One of my fondest memories as a grade school kid, were book days. More specifically, Scholastic Book Club order sheet days, and Scholastic Book Fairs each year. I was reminded of this Monday night, while submitting an order at Amazon.com.

Now, American kids growing up will probably remember Scholastic Book Clubs and Fairs, but in case you're not from the US, here's a quick overview. Scholastic Book Clubs distribute book sheets with about 100 book selections (photos and descriptions) to participating US grade schools. Book sheets are given to students, who review the selections, choose books, and fill out the order form on the back page. Sheets are given back to the teacher for mass ordering. In a few weeks, all the books arrive, packed in cardboard.

Oh, I savored the Book Club order sheet each month. I'd carefully review the entire sheet several times, honing in on just the right books to buy (if I could afford them). I'd fill out my sheet and return it, then patiently anticipate delivery.

A few weeks later, our books would arrive, and there was happiness in the air! I loved the unwrapping ceremony, though I must admit it generally didn't last long. There was, and still is, something wonderful about unpacking a crisp new book.

The yearly Book Fairs were another long-awaited event. In our school, the library's reading tables would be stocked with books to browse. This was even better than a Book Club order sheet, because stacks of freshly printed books could be seen, touched and read. I remember spending lunch hour and time before and after school at the fairs, carefully choosing my purchases for the year.

I'm very grateful for this formative book experience. Scholastic, along with the reading atmosphere established by my mom and the stacks of titles we'd gather at the public library, built my enjoyment of books and reading. I sincerely hope I can pass along this same foundation to my son Nathan. He does love his books now, so I'm optimistic.

So what are your memories of books as a kid? Please feel free to share your own book memories that established a love of books in you in the comments area!

If you're curious, my latest book purchase included: Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek, Eric Brende's Better Off, and Chump Change, a comedy on DVD comparing Milwaukee and Hollywood. I can't wait to receive my packages from Amazon.com next week.

The unwrapping ceremony will live on. :-)

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September 3, 2004

Moleskinerie featured on BrandChannel.com

This evening, my friend Armand Frasco, IM'ed me to mention that his Moleskine weblog, Moleskinerie, was just featured in the branding website, BrandChannel.com!

A nice snippet from the article:

One measure of the strength of a brand is by the amount of fervor that it inspires among its devotees. “I love my Moleskines, and you can have them when you pry them from my cold dead hands,” says one anonymous contributor to the blog, moleskinerie.com, which is “dedicated to the proposition that not all notebooks are created equal.”

Armando B. Frasco, a “photo/documentarist” and graphic designer in Chicago, Illinois, started moleskinerie.com on a whim in January 2004, after doing a Google search to see whether there were any other people as “crazy” about the “little black book” as he was (today, searching on “Moleskine” nets 54,900 results, and Frasco’s results were probably no less astounding).

Asked why he thinks people are so fond of Moleskine notebooks, Frasco says, “I believe it has something to do with the provenance of Moleskine. Using the same notebook that Chatwin, Matisse, Hemingway, et al., supposedly used somehow lends cachet to one's notebook.”

What a great thing, seeing the effort Armand has poured into his weblog, starting to pay off. I know how hard he's worked on the site, starting it out and maintaining it on his own dime, working hard to find interesting stories to post, and searching out famous and non-famous Moleskine users from all walks of life.

Congratulations are in order to Armand and all of the volunteers over at Moleskinerie who are now enjoying the fruits of their efforts.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

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August 4, 2004

Better Off

In this month's Wired Magazine, I read a story about an MIT graduate who left the high tech world for a life without electricity, out in the countryside. Eric Brende is the chap who turned in his high tech lifestyle for a simple one similar to the lives the Amish / Mennonite live — low tech and off the grid.

Drawing on the experiences of living a simple life for a year with his wife, Eric has written the book Better OFF; Flipping the Switch on Technology. It appears the book is just out (or soon will be) because when I tried to request the book from the Milwaukee Public Library, it spit back an error "Object not in System".

Here's an excerpt from Eric's personal About page:

My new book, coming out from HarperCollins this August (2004), is entitled "Better OFF; Flipping the Switch on Technology." It describes the journey my wife and I have taken from the fast-paced life of high technology at MIT to a richer, more leisurely and savory existence, using our own arms, legs, and heads to perform most of the everyday tasks machines once performed for us--from washing clothes to walking to the bank or grocery store to thinking through a frugal plan of "home-economics" in a modern city. Most of the book focuses vividly on a year Mary and I spent living in the country with an Old Order Anabaptist group that I call the "Minimites," where we learned practical knacks and principles of technological selection we now apply in our urban home.

Looks very interesting indeed. I'll have to keep an eye on this book and maybe even buy it before borrowing from the library, to see Eric's insights. It's especially relevant to my thinking lately, as I have written on the topic of being in control of technology, rather than driven by it in On Keeping Technology in Perspective. I do try to manage the tech in my life, but I'm sure I could improve.

So, if you too have an interest in simplifying your life by hearing insights from a fellow techie turned low-techie for a year, Better OFF seems like it might be worth checking out.

BTW, I must express my thanks to Wired Magazine, which I have decided to continue for another year. You might recall I contemplated dropping Wired not long ago, but decided to hold on for another year, at $10.

Oddly enough though, my "loyal" subscriber rate was $12, while the new subscriber cards (you know, the pile cards that fall out of each issue) were at $10 per year. I let my old subscription lapse and sent in a $10 card instead, saving $2. :-)

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May 25, 2004

The Joy of Magazines

There's something special about the arrival of my monthly Wired magazine that still beats any e-zine or website or weblog. A magazine tactile and local in a way an electronic thing cannot be. Even on my Tungsten E, an iSilo'ed version of a weblog is still digital bits, held virtually inside of an electronic thing.

That's not to say electronic or digitally delivered items are not wonderful, they indeed can be. I thoroughly enjoy many websites, ezines and weblogs for the ideas and writers who generate them. Still, they can never quite match the feeling of a fresh magazine arriving in the mailbox.

I bought my first Wired magazine at the grocery store, because it looked a bit funky and right up my alley as a designer interested in the tech culture. Shortly after my first newsstand copy, I became a subscriber. For nearly 8 years (I think that's right) I've enjoyed each issue of Wired, arriving the snail-mail way to my mailbox. I've even archived each issue for future reference.

Normally I'd hide myself away somewhere and scan the new issue, mentally marking articles I had to read, noting others that seemed interesting. Either at that moment or not long after, I would read the new arrival from cover to cover.

Funny thing is, I'm currently thinking of terminating my Wired magazine subscription. For me, it seems to have lost the original vision and feel it had just a few years ago. It could be changes in the magazine and its leadership, changes in our times or even changes in me.

Whatever the reason, I don't have the same level of interest in Wired as I once did. It feels like a shadow of its former self. I will still visit the website, read the news and interesting articles, but I no longer feel compelled to stay a subscriber.

I've already been considering other magazines, such as Communication Arts (a design magazine), as a replacement. I truly love the feeling of a new magazine in the mail — pulling off the wrapper and reading cover to cover. I want that feeling back.

Any other suggestions?

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April 26, 2004

What To Do with Dust Jackets?

Okay, you may know that I love books — reading them and collecting favorites. I'm by no means a high-end collector (no money for that), rather, I collect books I have enjoyed and either want to re-read or lend to others.

Over the years I've wondered what to do with the dust jackets that come with hardcover books. I'm not sure if I ought to throw them out or keep them. Dust jackets drive me nuts when reading hardcovers, so my gut says "toss 'em!" However, it's possible that a dust jacket could increase the price of the book, should I sell or I might love the graphic design.

What to do with dust jackets? Legendary book designer Jan Tschichold didn't understand why readers insisted on keeping dust jackets. He pointed out in The Form of the Book, that dust jackets were designed as "wrappers" meant to sell the book then tossed out after the purchase.

So, I have Jan on my side... but should I really toss the dust jacket? Sometimes I have no problem with this, if the dust jacket isn't that attractive or is damaged. However, sometimes these graphic wrappers really do make the book — especially for books like Gibson's Pattern Recognition or Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I love these and other dust jacket designs, but dislike dealing with them while reading.

My practical solution has been to keep dust jackets I like, but park them on the shelf when it's time to read the book. That way, I can hang onto the wrappers I like, but won't have to deal with slippery covers when reading.

Any suggestions you can share? Are you a dust jacket collector or do you toss them away like candy bar wrappers? Is there a protocol for dealing with dust jackets I should be aware of? Inquiring minds want to know. :-)

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April 16, 2004

Meeting Paul Theroux

Tonight I feel very fortunate, as I met Paul Theroux, one of my very favorite authors. I'd read about his appearance in the Milwaukee Journal on Sunday and resolved to go see and hear him. This would be the first author appearance and book signing event I've ever attended, so I was very excited.

I was encouraged to go by my friend Andy, who recently met Carrie Fisher in London at a book signing event. He had his copy of her latest book signed there, and he shared his enthusiam for book events with me afterward. I guess his enthusiasm was infectous. :-)

So, on Thursday evening, my wife Gail and I headed off to the east side of town, to Harry W. Schwartz's bookshop in Shorewood. At 6:40 p.m., we walked in the door, to find the café seating area at the front of the store, completely full of chairs and people in them. I would need to do a little reconnaissance to locate a spot.

But first, I visited the register to pick up the copy of Dark Star Safari I had pre-ordered online. As I paid for my new book, the announcer mentioned that Paul was delayed — which might afford me time to locate a seat — if there was one to be had.

I left Gail to wander the store, while I found my way between the bookshelves, looking for a seat. I was fortunate to find a spot just behind the main area between other guests, with a nice view of the podium.

I estimated about 100 - 120 people in attendance, seated all around the bookshop on folding chairs or on the floor. The less fortunate stood wherever they could find a spot with a view or in the worst case, within earshot.

At 7:10 the event began, with an introduction by a Schwartz staffer. Paul stepped to the podium in a black turtleneck, burgundy corduroy pants and black rimmed glasses. I was surprised by his accent — a blend between a Bostonian and a Londoner. He sounded like a smart, yet friendly guy.

Theroux began by mentioning his happiness in seeing so many readers in attendance. This was followed by a bit of humorous Literary Trivia. Theroux asked the crowd about various imaginary places mentioned in books. Some were very obscure, and those who answered correctly, were given points.

Paul has a reputation as a cranky, cantankerous traveller with reviewers, so he addressed this straightaway. He contended that he really wasn't grouchy at all, but much more Hobbit-like, always spreading cheer. "I'm an optimist" he said. "Grouches are pessimists who prefer staying at home on the couch rather than traveling. After all, if you have a great time traveling, with no challenges, there's nothing much to write about."

Next, he announced that there would be no reading of his new book — that we were all capable of reading it ourselves. Instead, he offered us commentary and his own list of what travel writing is and is not:

• Having a miserable time during travel, lets you really see yourself. You can often see what is sometimes overlooked in your comfortable daily life.

• Location is not as important as observing. Where you go has nothing to do with good travel writing. Henry David Thoreaux went only a few miles from home to write about Walden pond.

• Travel writing is about leaving things behind: phones, computers and the rest of it — it's an opportunity to un-hitch from life and possessions.

• The best travel writing happens when you're alone. Being alone forces you to make friends, to learn the language. It also offers you a chance to take an inner journey.

• It can be good to do something you love while traveling — giving away whatever you can offer. As an example, Paul mentioned a dentist he crossed paths with, who carried novocain and a pliers, pulling teeth as he wandered across Africa.

• Travel writing is a process of leaving home and then returning. And opportunity to leave daily life behind and then see it with fresh eyes upon your return.

• Travel on the ground is best for interesting tales. Difficulty in travel leads to discovery. Going across frontiers on the ground is more engaging than simply flying over borders in a plane. Often the most difficult means of travel offer the most interesting experiences.

• The difference between a tourist and a traveller is clear: a tourist is bound by the return home — they must get back for work on Monday and fit everything within a narrow timeframe. Their time is limited.

On the other hand, a traveller can afford patience. There is no hurry to return, so exploration is the primary goal. Patience provides opportunities for observation and experiences a tourist would miss.

• Each person has a different perspective when they write about their travels. Two people on the same trip will write completely different stories. This is a good thing — we should each embrace our own travel stories.

Theroux ended with a question and answer session and then this quote:

"Fiction gives us the chance that life denies us"

A very interesting idea, don't you think? Maybe it's time for me to write some fiction? :-)

Once the talk had finished, those wanting books signed were called up, starting with the letter 'I' written on slips of paper. These were given to us at the start of the night, to help manage the signing. Why did they begin with I rather than A? I have no idea. I was a J.

After some browsing with Gail, we jumped into line, and chatted with a few other Theroux fans waiting to have books signed. The gentleman behind me had a hardcover edition of The Great Railway Bazaar from '75, and woman behind him had a hardcover edition of Kingdom by the Sea. Ahead of us, a few people literally carried stacks of his books...I had just one book — that was enough.

The line moved quickly, and before I knew it, I was standing at the table, greeting Paul Theroux. I was happy about this and also a bit dazed, realizing that indeed this was the man whose writing I sincerely love to read.

Paul offered a warm hello, so I thanked him for all of his work and how I enjoyed reading it. I shared how I'd stumbled on a book of his fiction at the library (The London Embassy), which led to the discovery of the Mosquito Coast, and finally to his travel writings — the most enjoyable of all. He seemed very pleased to hear this as he signed my copy of Dark Star Safari.

Gail stepped in after our first exchange, to mentioned my travel writing. Yep, my wife was bragging about her husband's travel writing to the very king of the genre! It was freaky and wonderful at the same time. Hearing about my own travel writing seemed to please Paul even more.

I responded to her comment with, "Yes, I do keep travelogues of my trips, for myself. They help me remember my travels much more clearly." He encouraged me to continue writing and reading, shook my hand one final time, and wished me a good evening.

Quite the evening, I must say. I was impressed with Paul Theroux in person — he certainly seems like a nice, likable guy. His talk was funny and entertaining, and I have a new Theroux travelogue to read, signed by the author.

Yes, Thursday was a great day, indeed. :-)

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April 5, 2004

Paul Theroux Coming to Milwaukee

Sunday night, a headline in the arts & entertainment section of our local paper that caught my eye: "Theroux on a long journey of discovery." I thought "hey, could that be Paul Theroux, the travel writer?" Well, sure enough, it was about him — he's coming to Milwaukee on April 15th, just 10 days from now. Cool!

In case you're wondering why this is such great news, Paul Theroux, happens to be one of my favorite authors. I've written about his work previously, if you're curious to see a more detailed review. I especially enjoy Theroux's style of travel writing, for his vivid descriptions of places and people, his troubles (which would be tempting to hide) and his funny, often brutal honesty.

I find his writing draws me into the story, making me feel as though I'm along for the ride. Theroux is often self-critical too, which provides an authenticity, because this is also the kind if travel information that's tempting to hide.

I've not yet read every Theroux travel book — specifically Happy Isles of Oceania and his latest, Dark Star Safari : Overland from Cairo to Cape Town. However, I have read many of his travel books, including The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Riding the Iron Rooster, Pillars of Hercules, The Kingdom by the Sea and Fresh Air Fiend. Each one was unique, yet follows the same Theroux style I enjoy.

It would be interesting to meet Paul at this book signing, assuming it's not a packed house at Harry W. Schwartz Books. It'd be great fun to have his latest book signed and maybe talk for a few minutes with Theroux about his work. Should I ask his advice for an aspiring writer? I'd like to. We'll see how much time I have for that. I'm planning to attend the free event, so I'll be sure to report back on the 16th how things go.

Anyway, this is probably only interesting to me, but hey, it was a chance to promote Theroux's writing, which is in my opinion, very good reading. Hopefully this post will encourage a few readers to check out one of Theroux's books at the library, or at the bookstore. If you like travel, I think you'll really enjoy Theroux's work.

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February 5, 2004

Eastern Standard Tribe

Well, Cory Doctorow has done it again! He's just released a new novel, Eastern Standard Tribe this week. I really enjoy Cory's work because it's funny, smart and aimed at tech folks like me, without speaking over my head or using goofy tech that's wildly unbelievable.

By goofy tech I mean the stuff in many feature films and books that drives me nutty. You know, things such as completely unbelievable computer interfaces and utterly foolish devices. Somehow Cory is able to take the technology we have here and now and make a believable projection into the future. I mean, the stuff Cory dreams up may be wild, but I always find myself believing it could exist at some point.

Maybe Cory's ability to portray tech stuff that doesn't yet exist (but might) convincingly, is related to the fact that he spends his days dealing with real tech stuff at Boing Boing (his weblog) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He seems to take what happens in his own world, both failures and possibilities and extrapolates them into what might be. Cory does this way more clearly than a writer who's maybe faking it because they're over their head, or are just being a bit too utopian for their own good. Whatever the case, it's nice (and sometimes scary) to read about the future and actually feel like this could happen.

I've only just installed and read a few pages in the iSilo version to my Tungsten E, but it's right on track for Cory's enjoyable writing style. You can of course buy the physical book, but Cory puts heavy attention on electronic distribution of his new book in open, Digital Rights Management-free formats for download. For Palm users, there is both an iSilo and Palm Reader edition of Eastern Standard Tribe for free download, and for others, plain text, HTML and PDF versions are also available.

If you don't know Cory Doctorow's work, then by jove ol' chap, check it out! You can start with any of his books, though currently my fave is Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, about the future of Disneyland run by self-forming ad-hoc groups who backup their brains and live for peer approval (Whuffie). His second release was a compilation of short stories called A Place So Foreign and 8 More. Great stuff!

And once you've read his books, share them with others. Give away his links, mention them in emails and on your weblogs, beam copies of his books to other PDA users... you get the idea. Cory's intent with this freely distributed approach to books relies on his fans spreading the love around so I say, lets accommodate him! Our participation in this experiment could mean even better things to come for authors, book distributers and readers! :-)

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February 2, 2004

The Idea Journal

As you may have noticed, I've been on a journalling and Moleskine kick. Well, while the iron is hot, I thought it might be interesting to share more details about my latest addition, the Idea Journal:

As mentioned in another post, this book is quite different from my first two journals. I began with a personal journal late in 2003, where I could write out daily thoughts in a stream of consciousness fashion, without worrying about editing or perfection. Whatever is on my mind goes here, whether a page, half page or multiple pages.

My sketch journal is specifically for sketches of observed objects, or of objects that might be on my mind. I suppose this could be categorized as a "traditional" sketchbook, since there is very little writing and lots of sketches -- purely art stuff.

I began to think about what I might be missing in my journaling experience and realized there was a gap between my personal journal and my sketch journal. What if I had ideas that came to me during an average day? Do I put them in the personal thought journal or sketchbook? Ideas and concepts could go in both, but would be even better in a dedicated place.

So, after selling my old Sony Clie, I took $10 and bought a second Moleskine with gridded pages (graph paper) and designated this the "Idea Journal". This is the place where ideas for projects (or whatever) would go, with a blend of sketches and writing on each page. So far I've entered four ideas: a bathroom towel rack, ideas for color-coded Moleskine journal covers, ideas for presenting my Travelogues on the web and an idea for a toy control board for Nathan (full of switches and buttons).

I've started carrying the Idea Journal around with me all the time, because I realize that ideas can come at any moment. I want to be prepared to capture these ideas right away, and a pocket-sized notebook works perfectly for this.

As for the grid pages, I felt this would offer structure for sketches and writing if needed. I also I enjoy sketching on grid pages for some odd reason (always have). Lastly, the paper edges of the journal display grids on the pages, which helps me quickly identify the Idea Journal when stacked on top of my plain-edged Sketchbook.

I've been pleased with the gridded paper stock, especially when using a Pilot G2 gel pen. It's a very smooth surface, yet withstands the gel ink without bleed through. I'm still not completely used to the way the G2 cartridges write, since they don't always release ink as immediately and consistently as my old Sheaffer fountain pen. Still, I'm adapting. :-)

I do hope this focus on journaling has helped others try journaling themselves, whether on paper with a pen, on a Palm with a stylus or on a computer with a keyboard... whatever suits your needs best.

In the end, this is all about processing through your thoughts and opening up your creativity. Who knows what might be in there! I just know that journaling and sketching has helped me immensely, so I hope it might just help you too.

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January 24, 2004

My Moleskine Dream

Last night I had a curious dream. I was at the airport and as I headed toward a gate, saw someone from the corner of my eye waving and calling out "Moleskines for sale!" Intrigued by this, I walked over to this quiet section of the airport and found several Europeans from various countries selling Moleskines for $2 each, because the exchange rate to the dollar was so low. Well, that's a good deal, I thought.

I assumed they bought a bulk shipment from Modo & Modo in Milan Italy -- but the weird thing about the dream was, when I bought my two books for $4, I was given a business card of a local Milwaukee bookseller that seemed vaguely familiar, where I was to pick up my books. The European Moleskine seller had written something on the back of the card, which would apparently work as a receipt.

After the sale I was worried, but then this gentleman showed me a big, burgundy fold out journal he had which looked like a Bible. For some odd reason I felt the guy was being straight with me and I would certainly get my Moleskines at the store I was being sent to.

Then the dream ended or changed, and I can remember nothing more of last night's dream session.

This was odd for many reasons, not the least of which was giving $4 to someone I didn't know for only the promise of two Moleskines (something I'd never normally do). Even stranger was the idea that a group of people would be in an airport selling Italian notebooks and not even actually selling the books, but receipts for books to be picked up locally. Most interesting is that I actually recall this dream now... it was that vivid.

I have no idea what this dream means, other than I'm apparently very into Moleskine notebooks lately. :-)

On a related note, I've received two comments here from readers who being encouraged by all of the Moleskine posting, have bought themselves a Moleskine. I've also received several comments from several other readers whom have been Moleskine users for a while, or have dusted off their own little black notebooks, because of the recent Moleskine posts here. Woohoo!

One of the guys even mentioned his handwriting being pretty bad after years of journaling in DayNotez on a Palm device. I could relate too, as this was one primary reason for getting a Moleskine and earlier, doing an analog journal. That and the idea that there are no undos with ink on paper was actually very refreshing.

Okay, lots to do. Have a great weekend!

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January 21, 2004

The Molskinerie & Moleskine Fans

Sometimes the web amazes me.

Yesterday I received an nice invite from fellow blogger Armand Frasco, about the new blog he's begun, called Moleskinerie, dedicated to Moleskine notebooks. Oddly enough, I'd already visited the Moleskinerie just last week, via Witold Riedel's blog (another Moleskine fan) and thought it was an interesting idea... a blog dedicated to the love of a little $10 book.

So, I replied to Armand about this and offered my recent WorkPod sketch for his site, which he posted mere minutes later at Moleskinerie! Apparently the blog is just a week old but already has been getting nice traffic. Even better, the Moleskinerie has fans like Witold Riedel, Howard Rheingold (SmartMobs author), Danny Gregory, Fazal Majid, Mike Shea and others. Pretty amazing for a week's work Armand! :-)

Some other Moleskine serendipitous moments occurred yesterday. I had a short, friendly chat with Rael Dornfest of Mobile Whack and Raelity Bytes -- turns out Rael carries his Moleskine everywhere. I also remembered that Michael Ashby started carrying a Moleskine as an idea book after a discussion we had weeks ago... seems he too carries his everywhere and loves how well it's working for him. Ausgezeichnet! :-)

After all of this Molskinery lately, I'm starting to wonder if there's something too these little books. Seeing respected people using them one way or another, I feel like they might be a small but potent catalyst for creativity. A book shouldn't make a difference that way... but somehow it does.

Mike Shea sums this up wonderfully, in his Moleskinerie post The Moleskine Obsession:

Part of me rebels against these words. Its just a notebook. Its paper. Words matter. Stories matter. The little faux-leather covered overpriced notebook does not matter. It's stuff. Its degradable material that will be dead in probably one or two hundred years max. It doesn't promote thought. It wont make you a better writer. It doesn't create life changing experiences.

But it does. Somehow, when you pick up one of these, you want to fill it. You want to travel and write about it. You want to record your thoughts so that perhaps in two to five hundred years someone else will read them and know what you were thinking. They are useful to the point of artistic beauty. I feel like Winston Smith in 1984, risking his life to record his thoughts in a world that steals them from your head with doublethink and thoughtcrime.

I love my Moleskines and you can have them when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

So well said. Something about these little books is just perfect -- not too large or thick, but endowed with deliciously smooth paper that beckons that you fill them up. Very hard to describe, but once you have the Moleskine bug, you'll know it.

Maybe I'm indulging in the love of a funny little book a little too much... but it seems a positive obsession if it encourages me to express myself. Hopefully all this attention on Moleskines will encourage creative people (and those who wish to be creative) the nudge they need to express themselves. If that happens through all of this blogging and so on, I'd be pretty happy to have been a part of it.

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January 16, 2004

What is a Moleskine?

Ach! I've just realized today, that I've been jabbering on about sketching in a Moleskine notebook this week (relative to my sketching resolution) but neglected to describe these little books for those who don't know about them! Sorry about that.

Moleskines are small, black hard-bound notebooks that measure about 3.5 x 5.5 inches (3/8 inch thick) and feature 80-120 pages (depending on the style of book). They were originally made in Tours, France and used by many famous artists and writers starting in the mid to late 1800s for notes and sketches. Moleskines were made by a small family company in Tours until 1986. After a short lapse, the small books were revived by the Italian firm Modo & Modo.

Actually, Modo & Modo makes many variations of the Moleskine now -- from notebooks and sketchbooks, to larger sized journals, address books, yearly journals, special edition Moleskines with fancy bindings and more. This is great, because just about any kind of Moleskine you might want is now available!

I bought my first Moleskine sketchbook at a local Barnes & Noble for $10 (with birthday money), though they can be had online for about $10.75 at Moleskine US and are also available at Moleskine UK starting at about £8.

I love my Moleskine sketchbook, because it's small enough to put in a pocket yet is tough enough to take a beating. The design has very nice touches: rounded corners, an elastic strap to keep the book closed and an integrated gray fabric bookmark. The paper stocks are also very fine, providing a nice surface for writing or sketching.

So, if you need a small, pocketable book for your writing, sketches or ideas (or whatever else) I can highly recommend a Moleskine. In my mind, a Moleskine is one of life's simple pleasures. Think of them as a nice little gift to yourself. They're so cheap (around $10) and yet offer you a nice place to capture your thoughts or imagination wherever you are!

Update 2004-01-20: Just got a nice note from Armand Frasco at the Moleskinerie, his weblog for Moleskine fanatics! Man, the Internet is a great place. :-)

Hey, have a great weekend!

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October 27, 2003

A Place So Foreign

Cory Doctorow, the Canadian sci-fi writer and blooger at Boing-Boing, is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers. Cory wrote Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which I talked about here, back in March. I really loved Cory's descriptions of people and places, and his humor, which reminded me of Douglas Coupland and Carl Hiassen, two other fave writers of mine.

This Friday, I heard from Dan Royea, that Cory had a new book out called A Place So Foreign and 8 More, a compilation of 9 short sci-fi stories he'd written. Even better, Cory is following the success of his freely downloadable Down and Out e-book with a downloadable e-book version of A Place So Foreign. The only caveat to the free version is, just 7 of the 9 short stories are available. To get all 9 stories you'll need to buy the paper version of the book.

Still, I think 7 out of 9 stories for free is very generous in this day of Digital Rights Management. I think Cory's idea about getting his writing out there via free downloads is a great approach, and I hope it sells him lots of books. Judging by the success of Down and Out, his idea seems to be working.

Of course I grabbed a copy on Friday evening and began reading. I'm happy to report that the book is really enjoyable! I've read Craphound (the name of Cory's website is derived from this older story) and am about halfway through the title story, A Place So Foreign.

Cory has a knack at describing realistic settings and characters in a way that makes them believable, even though there might be surreal or even weird things going on with the settings or characters. He seems to know just how much sci-fi oddness he can get away with and when he does include something strange, he manages to make the reader feel as though those odd things are quite normal.

So, if you enjoy a good read, with great writing and humor blended with funky sci-fi, then be sure to check out Cory Doctorow's A Place So Foreign and 8 More. I'm only on the 2nd story of the book, but already I can highly recommend this collection! :-)

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October 23, 2003

Neuromancer

Late last night I finally finished William Gibson's Neuromancer, so I thought it would be good to post about it, while the story and my comments were still fresh in my mind. Of course, as I mentioned before, I am probably the last tech geek on earth to have read Neuromancer (released in 1984) so I felt a little guilt for not having read it earlier. Well, I am happy to say that I can now claim to have read Neuromancer.

In a nutshell, the story is about a washed up high-flying hacker named Case, who lives in Japan, in a place called Chiba City. There he, along with the other dregs of his futuristic society, eke out existences and fill their addictions, remembering better days. Case was caught embezzling funds on his last hacking job and had his neural brain networks purposefully damaged as a retribution. Through some odd situations, Case is hired to do a hacking job in exchange for his neural network being restored. The story follows Case, and several other characters as they prepare to complete the mission they were hired to do, complete with surprises and plot twists.

I mostly liked Neuromancer. I say mostly, because I felt like I could just barely follow the story-line. There were so many twists and turns in the plot that I often felt a bit lost. In this book, Gibson has a tendency to use rapid scene transitions without any setup or warning, suddenly switching between the real world and the virtual network world that Case experiences. This rapid scene switching combined with a complex plot and the dense description of the future world all combined to keep me constantly on the edge. I felt like someone clinging to the guardrail on the caboose of a speeding freight train. Maybe a second reading would resolve some of these issues for me.

As for the futuristic society, it was hard for me to follow fully. Gibson is envisioning a wild sprawling new world where the east coast is one big sprawling city, with no real borders. I must prefer present day modern society or something, because I found myself having trouble envisioning his future world. In this sense I enjoyed Pattern Recognition much more than Neuromancer, because it felt like today's world with some twists. Maybe that's a bit of my love for travel writing and travelogues bobbing to the surface?

Gibson's world of the real and the world of networks is quite interesting when taken in context. Reading Neuromancer in today's context, with the Internet so commonplace, makes it feel somewhat pedestrian. However, when you put Neuromancer into proper context, being released into a world where the first Macintosh was announced during the Superbowl, and PCs had green screens, it must have hit like a ton of bricks. Now I'm a little bummed that I'd missed this book, way back when.

Spoiler Warning: I'm going to invoke the excerpt feature of Moveable Type, so that my comments about the guts of the story won't spoil the book for other interested readers. Continue at your own risk!

I did like many of Gibson's descriptions. For instance, he calls the security systems "ice" which Case and his comrades try to cut through. Gibson was the first to use terns like cyberspace and matrix in relation to computer networks. In fact, I kept feeling that the Matrix (the film) took quite a bit of its ideas from Neuromancer: jacking in to your head port, living in a virtual world called the "Matrix" and even the characters of Case, Molly and Maelcum are reminiscent of the Matrix movie. I can really see how the Wachowski brothers are giving homage to Gibson through the Matrix.

I did really enjoy Dixie (a.k.a. Flatline), the old hacker who had been stored in ROM. The idea of someone's mind being stored like that was just odd and unusual. Like a hall of heads or something. I liked his humor too.

Rivera was a bit weird though, with his ability to create holograms that appeared real. Several times his holos popped up without warning and threw me. In this case I liked being thrown, because it seemed to give me a sense of how the other characters must have felt around Rivera. Funny too that he made a final error with 3Jane's samurai in the end. Ooops.

I'm still not sure about the ending and in particular, about Molly. Why did she have regular eyes re-installed and (I assume) her blades removed? Maybe she had tired of the razor girl lifestyle with its risks and danger? Maybe she needed a break from that life and the reminder of her first love who was lost due to it?

Why did Molly walk away from Case? Did he remind her of her first love, or was she fearful of loving him only to lose him eventually? I guess that means the story hasn't been completely resolved in my mind. All indicators point to a re-read in a year or so. :-)

So, do you Neuromancer readers, who have ventured into this nether-area of spoilers have any comments? Maybe you can clarify some details on the story for me? I'd love to hear from you, if you do.

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September 4, 2003

Why I Love the Library

Since my early childhood, one of the places I still love to visit is the public library. I'm privileged with a mom who happens to be a voracious reader, so I suppose the Library was a natural place to end up.

In fact, the library was a regular weekly outing for my brothers and I. On library days, mom would pack us into the car and head over to the local branch, where we'd spend hours and hours looking for and at books. Inevitably, we would come home with a huge pile of books: one pile for mom and another pile for us boys.

My mom's appetite for reading and her love of the library have rubbed off on me, which is a good thing. When I think about it, I love the library because I can find almost anything there: books, books on tape or CD, music CDs, music tapes, videos and movies (VHS and DVD), reference manuals, magazines and more. At my local library, you can even borrow artwork!

For me, the library is also a refuge from the rest of the world. When I spend time in those quiet halls, I feel relaxed. I love walking down rows of shelves, sometimes dragging my fingers along book spines, other times stopping to turn my head sideways, so I can read the book titles. The library even has that distinct scent of oxidizing paper and aging comfy chairs, which to me is very inviting and comforting.

But in the past few years I've come across a great new feature of the library system -- online reservations and requests. I can't recall how I stumbled on the Milwaukee County Federated Library System website, but I'm glad I did. I can use tools on this site to search for any title in the entire system and request it, using my library card number and PIN.

Once an item is requested online, I simply tell the system at which branch I want to pick up the item, and usually a week later, I'm alerted by email that it's arrived. This is a great tool, because I can now get most any book (even new releases) right from a web browser as soon as they cross my mind. Having online access is also helpful for busy times when I just don't have time to stop at the library and browse.

Using the library is also a great way to save cash, especially on fiction novels (what I call "read-once" items). Since I generally read a paperback once and never again, I really don't want a collection of fiction novels cluttering my shelves. It just makes good sense to save $7 (or more!) by borrowing a novel instead. The 3 week deadline also works well, since either I'll have incentive to finish a book, or I'll realize the book is not what I expected (100 page rule) and return it. This works for reference books too, since I can review a book in-depth before deciding to purchase.

As an example, last week I requested Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age after seeing a mention of his work in the Palm Digital Media newsletter. I visited the MCFLS website, keyed in the author's name and book title. Within seconds I'd found and requested the book. A week later, a library alert email told me my request had arrived, so I visted the library to pick it up.

Before picking up my requested book, I went upstairs and checked the non-fiction, new releases and found an interesting book called Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age by Duncan J. Watts. In his book, Watts tries to explain the science of networks and how many of the networks we're part of, yet often take for granted, operate. Often I'll stumble on interesting non-fiction books here, like Silicon Boys, mentioned in my weblog.

Finally, I hit the music CD rack and grabbed 6 world music titles. These included music from Africa, India, France, Portugal and even a selection of tunes from Cape Breton Island. You never know what you might find in those bins!

Then I checked out, picking up my requested book, Diamond Age. Total cost: nothing but the time it took to visit the library (which to me was a pleasure) and a small portion of my property taxes.

So, here's the upshot: if you used to be a library fan but haven't been there for a while, I encourage you to renew your card and check out the library again. If you've never been to the library, find out what you've been missing! You might be surprised! :-)

The library is an amazing place, especially for kids. Now is your opportunity to gain access to a wealth of knowledge and information. Maybe you'll leave your children with fond library memories and positive habits like mine.

I for one hope to make the library as special of a place for my son as it has become for me. That's the least I can do for him.

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August 15, 2003

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy e-book Deal

Hey, great news if you're a fan of the late, great Douglas Adams! Palm Digital Media has now released all 4 of Adams' "trilogy" titles in Palm Reader e-book form: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything and So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Even better, when you buy book 1: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you can buy book 2, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe for half price. Same deal applies if you buy book 3, Life, the Universe and Everything; you get book 4, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish for half price. The total for all four e-books comes to about $24 (less for Palm Digital Media subscribers).

If you've never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its sequels -- it's a story about an unsuspecting guy who lives in Islington, London, UK, Earth, who's snatched up by a spaceship along with his friend, Ford Prefect, who turns out to be an alien. Through the story Dent learns the truth about the universe and the earth, while meeting kooky characters and finding himself in tough situations all across the universe. Adams provides funny anecdotes throughout the narration of the story.

I recommend The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" of 4 books highly as a great read with many, many laughs. Douglas Adams was a very funny writer, who had a great way of making the future funny and not as picture perfect as other sci-fi writers have the tendency to do. Oddly enough though, the books actually followed the BBC radio series, which Adams did initially (available in audio CD format).

Have a great weekend all!

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April 21, 2003

The Old Patagonian Express

I love travel writing. I thoroughly enjoy learning about far flung places in the world, their cultures, history, and people. For me it's a real treat to settle into a comfortable chair and experience the travels of a travel writer. It's also an educational experience for an amatuer travel writer, like me.

So what makes a great travel writer? In my opinion, it's primarily the writer's awareness of their surroundings and the ability to express their observations of places, people and events in a way that makes the reader feel as though they are right there, along for the ride.

One travel writer whom I feel has these abilities is Paul Theroux. I've read nearly all of his travel books and have enjoyed each one, though my absolute favorite is The Old Patagonian Express.

The concept of The Old Patagonian Express is quite simple: can someone take a metro Boston commuter train from North America, all the way down to Patagonia on the southern tip of South America? Theroux manages to pull off his goal (sans a few dangerous parts of Central America) while weaving a great yarn about train travel, interesting people and the colorful places he experiences along the way.

What I especially enjoy are Theroux's detailed character descriptions of the people he meets on and off the train, like the Raw Foodist on an Amtrak train in the US Midwest and Thornberry, a fellow American traveller Theroux bumps into while wandering in Central America. The book is filled with many interesting characters that greatly enhance Theroux's story of train travel in Latin America.

I should also warn you that Paul Theroux is often a bit grumpy on his travels, which sometimes gets him into trouble. However I find this gruffness part of his charm. I also like that Theroux bares his grumpy side for the reader, because it shows that a travel writer's life is not always sunshine and ice cream.

So, If you have any interest in trains, travel to South America, or travel adventures but just can't strike our on your own at the moment, I highly recommend The Old Patagonian Express. If you've never read a travelogue before, I encourage you to find a good one and give it a try. Reading about travels makes for interesting reading and can even teach the worldly traveler a thing or two.

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April 10, 2003

Microserfs

One of my all-time favorite books is Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland. The book is about a group of Microsoft programmers (called Microserfs) and their struggles at work and their attempts to find a meaningful life. While it's a fictional account, I get the feeling that Coupland did some serious research and probably conducted interviews with current and former Microsoft employees to help paint an accurate picture of Microsoft culture.

I was most intrigued by Coupland's character development, his detailed descriptions of life inside Microsoft and his dry sense of humor. As a single guy at the time, I could (to a degree) relate to many of the characters lifestyles. I certainly knew what it felt like to pull an all-nighter for a hot deadline and was also very interested in all things tech.

Funnily enough, I originally read Microserfs when it first appeared in the January 1994 issue 2.01 of Wired magazine, long before release of the book. At the time I thought it was just a short story published by Wired, and maybe it was. I don't know for certain if Microserfs was published to promote the book, or whether the short story was so popular that it became a book.

I still recall the evening I first read Microserfs. I'd just come home from work, and was excited about receiving the latest issue of Wired magazine. I immediately found a comfy chair and skimmed the issue (a ritual I still continue to this day). When I came across the Microserfs article, I stopped to read it and was immediately drawn into the story.

Two hours later, I finished the article, thoroughly enjoying the read and wanting more. Little did I know I'd only read a small portion of what was to become an entire book entitled Microserfs.

Four years later, I was at Barnes & Noble and found a book called Microserfs in the discount bin. I checked the book out and sure enough -- it was the same story I'd read in that Wired Magazine with much more to read! I bought the book and devoured it over the next two weeks, enjoying every twist of the plot and nuance of the characters I'd known from years earlier.

So, if you're at all interested in a great story centered around technology, interesting characters and the quirky atmosphere of Microsoft, I can highly recommend Microserfs.

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March 31, 2003

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

I've found a great little science fiction ebook to recommend called Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. It's written by Cory Doctorow, a writer, blogger and Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The story is interesting because it combines recent technological breakthroughs and potential technological discoveries, then extrapolates how they might find practical application in the future. The story's setting is a future where cloning and brain backup are commonplace, direct wireless connections to the Internet are installed in people's brains and where ad-hoc groups working for Whuffie, a type of peer recognition, have supplanted corporations.

Disneyworld (The Magic Kingdom) is the backdrop in which we find two ad-hoc groups battling for control of the park. The narrator tells the story of this epic battle from his own perspective, revealing the history of the world he's in bit by bit. To me it seemed to have the humor and feel of writing by Douglas Coupland (Microserfs) and Carl Hiassen (Lucky You), two of my favorite writers.

Even cooler, Doctorow has decided to offer his ebook as a free download in a multitude of formats for desktops (ASCII text, PDF, HTML, etc.) and for PDAs too (Palm Doc, PalmReader, iSilo, Mobipocket, etc.). Apparently this idea of sharing his work electronically has been a very popular option. Of course, the paperback book is available for purchase if you prefer that format.

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March 28, 2003

Silicon Boys Follow-Up

Well, I've completed The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams this week and am pleased to report it was a good read. I got a little glassy-eyed in the 'Profits' chapter about venture capital, which was not terribly interesting to me, other than describing how venture capital works. But then I'm not an accountant either. :-)

The Epilogue chapter provided an interesting contrast to the prologue, though it didn't really cover the change in a post Internet-boom Silicon Valley as I'd hoped it might. I suppose I'll have to find another book to learn more about that phase of life in Silicon Valley. If you can suggest a good book on this, let me know.

One thing is sure -- Silicon Valley has more than its share of wacky people. But maybe that's why they're willing to take the risks and start companies... they're just crazy enough to think their ideas will work!

Verdict: If you're interested in a good general history of Silicon Valley peppered with some funny stories and insights on what life is like there, I can heartily recommend The Silicon Boys and Their Valley of Dreams.

Enjoy your weekend!

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March 5, 2003

Hacker Tales from the Underground

I was reminded today of an excellent non-fiction e-book I read about a year ago and had forgotten until recently. It's a great yarn called Underground written by Suelette Dreyfus. "Tales of hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier" is indeed a perfect description of this book.

The story follows several computer hackers in the US, UK, Australia and Germany back in the days of old computers and BBS systems. If you're thinking to yourself that a non-fiction book about old time hackers sounds incredibly boring I'm here to tell you that you're wrong!

Now I'm not sure how I came across this book, but after getting into the story was very glad I did. I was amazed at the flow of the story and how interested I became in the characters. Suelette's writing voice is nicely transparent to the story itself, and the background information seems very well researched. I was amazed at how hard it was to put this nearly 500 page book down. In fact, after reading the book I sent in my $12... it was that good!

So, rather than go on about the book, I'll just direct you to the download page where you can grab a copy in one of many different formats, including Palm Reader, iSilo, Doc and Plucker to name but a few. Give this book a read -- I'm confident that you'll enjoy it.

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