Song Sparrow

A new bird to add to my photographed list.

Song Sparrow
Melospiza melodia

Singing his little heart out right near where I was walking.

enature
cornell

npwrc
Sparrows of ND

UPDATE: 23 May 10
More, better:




One advantage to photo walking the same place is sometimes I get to do retakes.

Photo Walk

Bird Bag


I thought that looked odd.
It's a plastic shopping bag stuck in a tree and the shape looks like a bird.
It says on the bag: "Thank You. Have a Nice Day."

New Life Bursts Forth




Ocean Clouds


I used Clarify 4 times to give these clouds more definition and they look like the ocean.

I saw "Old Blue" (Great Blue Heron) and took pictures, but nothing better than I already have. Seems to show up same place spring and autumn.

The Canada Geese are very noisy and territorial this time of year. Lots of feuds. I've been trying to photograph them in action, but so far nothing I like.

Also a mallard duck couple with the geese.
I'm thinking I'll see babies sometime, but not sure when.

Music

Okay, I'll try some of this stuff.
Angels And Airwaves:
The Adventure Final
Everything's Magic
Breathe

Wiki:
"Angels & Airwaves is an alternative rock band led by Blink-182 guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge."

What do I have of Blink 182, not much - I Miss You, is all.

And how about:
Parachute
"Parachute is a pop rock band from Charlottesville, Virginia. The members graduated from college in May 2008 and since then have been touring and promoting their debut album Losing Sleep full-time."

All That I Am
(Reminds me of Goo Goo Dolls.)
She Is Love
(Acoustic Version)
Words Meet Heartbeats

Susan Boyle:
That's a last.fm link.
Wild Horses is my fav and last.fm seemed to have a good quality video there.
A lot of the YouTube videos of Susan are poor quality.
She has a very clear, strong, and beautiful voice on her album.

Mutemath - Valium
Odd title? But hey, I like the music.

Cathy Dennis - Why
Makes me want to dance.

City Girl - Stars Crashing Cars
(last.fm link.)

You Set Me Free - Michelle Branch

I'll See Ya Soon - Coldplay

Closer To You - The Wallflowers

Shining Light - Annie Lennox

I Can't Dance - Phil Collins

Most of these are direct links to YouTube videos--eek.
Probably be dead links, eventually.
If that's the case, you know what to do, right.

High Up In The Tree

Up in the trees so high...



a pair of shoes.

Not quite what I was expecting. lol

I was scanning the tree with my camera looking for that little chickadee chattering away at me.

Clouds

Skechers vs MBT

Skechers
vs
MBT

I tried these two shoes on at the sports store.

MBT has been around a long time and Skechers are a knock off of them.
MBT are way more expensive. They were around $225.00. (Skechers were about $150.00?)
At first they look very similar.
But note that shaded/darker colored part of the sole.
That's the squishy soft part, the area of your foot where you will feel most of the pressure when you walk in them.
I felt a lot of pressure in my arch area with the Skechers and disliked that. They were softer soled too.
The MBT felt totally different and better all around.
There are several different styles of both MBT and Skechers, so maybe some feel better than others, I don't know.

I didn't buy, but if I did, it would be a MBT.
I guess you can get the MBT resoled and save some money there in the long run.
I heard that lots of people who are on their feet all day, like nurses, are wearing Skechers, so people must like those too.
They both would definitely take some getting used to. My feet felt a little tired and stressed just from the little time I had them on and walked around in them.
Definitely something a person would want to try on before buying.

Blind Side

Bought The Blind Side DVD.
Nice family feel good movie.
I liked it, but just don't have a whole lot to say about it.

Based on the book:
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, by Michael Lewis.

Info

Michael Oher essay on
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Quote from imdb.

"Courage is a hard thing to figure.
You can have courage based on a dumb idea or mistake, but you're not supposed to question adults, or your coach or your teacher, because they make the rules.
Maybe they know best, but maybe they don't. It all depends on who you are, where you come from.
Didn't at least one of the six hundred guys think about giving up, and joining with the other side? I mean, valley of death that's pretty salty stuff.
That's why courage it's tricky. Should you always do what others tell you to do?
Sometimes you might not even know why you're doing something. I mean any fool can have courage.
But honor, that's the real reason for you either do something or you don't. It's who you are and maybe who you want to be.
If you die trying for something important, then you have both honor and courage, and that's pretty good.
I think that's what the writer was saying, that you should hope for courage and try for honor.
And maybe even pray that the people telling you what to do have some, too."

Power Outage

Snow storm and power outage.
(Camping equipment comes in handy at a time like this. Coolers, cook stoves, lighting, etc.)

Power outage was from about 1p.m. Good Friday 'til sundown Sat.
I got a kick out of the symbolism of that, Easter weekend and all.
I even read the resurrection stories.
Lots of drama and emotion.

Read side-by-side here:
The Four Canonicals
Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20
(RSV)

The storm was thick heavy wet slushy stuff which disappeared from the roads the next day. The parking lots and sidewalks still showed signs of what it was like.



Thousands in the dark this Easter due to storm

Here's a pic of a snapped power line pole near where I live, taken Easter Monday. The snow is just about all melted already.



I also found some good detailed storm damage photos from the Flasher area:
Facebook home page
photos

More Tunes

More songs I've been listening to lately.

Hey, Soul Sister, by Train

The Haunting, by Above The Golden State

Sound Of Your Name, by Above The Golden State

Vivaldi

Sometimes I get into classical music.
Right now, I'm listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons Spring and Autumn.
Composed almost 300 years ago.

It seems like some version of the songs are better than others.
I like the ones that are faster and more intense.



Antonio Lucio Vivaldi
(March 4, 1678 – July 28, 1741)

Four Seasons
A set of four violin concertos.
Composed in 1723.

Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, "La primavera" (Spring)
1. Allegro
2. Largo
3. Allegro Pastorale

Concerto No. 3 in F major, Op. 8, RV 293, "L'autunno" (Autumn)
1. Allegro
2. Adagio molto
3. Allegro

Pic from
last.fm

Added the text.
Vivaldi Font

I Hope You Dance

I Hope You Dance
by
Lee Ann Womack

Not a country music person, so maybe that's why I'm not familiar with this song?
I like the lyrics.

Ronan Keating also sang it.
I kinda like the male voice better.
I'm not familiar with Keating either.

Heard it on the movie, The Family That Preys.

Lyrics:
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
God forbid love ever leaves you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance....I hope you dance.

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance,
Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin',
Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin',
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter,
When you come close to sellin' out, reconsider,
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance....I hope you dance.

Spring

Beautiful spring day today.
Photo walk.





Okay, so everything is still brown and snowy around here yet, but hey, it is officially spring.

Good Housekeeping Vintage

I picked up a Good Housekeeping Magazine (April 2010) and they had an old 1919 cover pic in there.
Can see more online.
I thought it was fun to look at.
Vintage Cover Art
(Link there takes you to art.com)

AND/OR
vintage

Freebie Ebook Find

I like this humor:
How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers
By: Robert Williams Wood (1868-1955)

Wood at Wiki.

Found booksshouldbefree.com
Via delicious.

Even though nothing new, I like the way the website is set up.
You get audios, pics, a short para, download links.
Very nice presentation.

Sony Reader And Calibre Notes

Calibre over compresses jpg bookcovers in epub's. It uses the equivalent of about 29 compression in Paint Shop Pro 9. I don't like to go over 10 compression when an image includes text. Otherwise, too many artifacts.
Knowing an epub is just a zip file, I can go in and replace that bookcover.

rtf vs epub
My Sony Reader will read rtf files.
However, the file size is much larger than an epub and it loads, formats, navigates much slower.
Text sizing is smaller initially and also when I use the zoom larger feature on my Reader.
No bookcover image with an rtf. I prefer using thumbnails instead filenames on my Reader.
All in all, it is much better to convert an rtf to an epub with Calibre and then send it to my Sony Reader.
Bold the text helps with the dull touch screen on the Sony.
And remember to strip out line spacing and para indention with Calibre. It just hogs too much display space.

Images:
Increase contrast and sharpen helps images look better on the dull touch screen.
I think there are only 8 levels of grayscale on the Sony 600.

Up In The Air

Up in the Air (2009)
I loved this movie. It was even better the second time around when I did screenshots. Definitely a movie I'll watch again, so I'm glad I bought the DVD.

(Loosely? based on the book of same name, by Walter Kirn. Don't know how much different, but googling tells me he didn't have a traveling companion in the book.



Reminded me of In Good Company in some ways. Similar environment.

And (500) Days of Summer too. Maybe it was similar humor.

My first impression of the movie was not good because I didn't like the opening sequences and fast forwarded thru them. It was long. It was boring. Let's get to the movie already. But that was really about the only thing I didn't like and looking back, the opening fits.

Rated R for a brief bare butt scene and the F word.

Stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham,
Anna Kendrick (Twilight) as Natalie Keener.
I don't remember Anna in Twilight, but she is good in this movie. Plays the smart slick young woman on the fast track to success who hasn't been knocked around by life--yet.



I really didn't want anybody to change in this movie, which is unusual for me. I didn't want Ryan to have this big epiphany transformation and go for the relationship. I wanted him to stay the way he was.



I loved his efficiency at the airports.



I loved the cardboard picture he hauled around which didn't fit in his efficient travel bag.





I loved Ryan's sisters:
Amy Morton as Kara Bingham
Melanie Lynskey as Julie Bingham
I loved his brother-in-law to be.
Julie and Jim are getting married and my favorite scene is when Jim gets cold feet and Ryan talks to him. Jim is sitting on a tiny chair in the nursery reading the Velveteen Rabbit. He goes thru this long schpeel of what's the point.



Spoiler:
Alex? Here's the big hint about her.



She calls Ryan a "parenthesis." Ouch. But really, she was the parenthesis.

And the big mystery was who played Natalie's boyfriend, Brian? His name was not in the movie credits nor any place online that I can find.

MUSIC

OST CD

There is a long song list at the very end movie credits. Here are the ones that got my attention and I looked them up.

YouTube Video
Goin Home, by Dan Auerbach
At marker 43:47 panning the room where the office is emptying.



Song playing during the wedding scenes, about 01:25:25 marker:
YouTube Video

Help Yourself, by Sad Brad Smith

"I know you'll help us when you're feeling better and we realize that it might not be for a long, long time
But we're willing to wait on you
We believe in everything that you can do if you could only lay down your mind
I want you to try to help yourself

Take the time to take apart, each brick that sits outside your heart
And look around you
There's people everywhere
And though they don't always show it they're just as scared
And we'd be more prepared if you just pulled on through
I want you to try to help yourself..."

Then a few songs at the end when the credits are rolling.
Be Yourself, by Graham Nash
YouTube
AND
Up In The Air, by Kevin Renick, YouTube

-----------
OST Track List (Amazon):
1. This Land Is Your Land - Guthrie, Woody
2. Security Ballet - Kent, Rolfe
3. Goin' Home - Auerbach, Dan
4. Taken At All - Crosby, David
5. Angel In The Snow - Smith, Elliott
6. Help Yourself - Smith, Bradley Gran
7. Genova - Galvagna, Sacha
8. Lost In Detroit - Kent, Rolfe
9. Thank You Lord - Buchanan, Roy
10. Be Yourself [Demo Version] - Nash, Graham
11. The Snow Before Us - Jared Matt Greenber
12. Up In The Air - Renick, Kevin

-------------
Song Credits at end of movie ("Written by" not included--too long.):
This Land is Your Land, Performed by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Lonely in Love, Performed by Jeff Babko
Mood Indigo, Performed by Thelonious Monk
Goin' Home, Written & performed by Dan Auerbach
O.P.P, Performed by Naughty By Nature
Good Times, Performed by Chic
Bust a Move, Performed by Young MC
Sign You Name, Written & performed by Sananda Maitreya
By You Side, Performed by Blue Mountain
Time After Time, Performed by Anna Kendrick
Genova, Performed by Charles Atlas
Hurtin You, Written and performed by Ben Kweller
Angel In The Snow, Written & performed by Elliott Smith
Taken At All, Performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Help Yourself, Performed by Sad Brad Smith
The Snow Before Us, Performed by Charles Atlas
Thank You Lord, Written & performed by Roy Buchanan
Tickets To Life Theme, Written by David Winer
Up In The Air, Written and performed by Kevin Renick
Be Yourself, Performed by Graham Nash

Poetry Audios

BBC Arts - Romantics

Oh, these are good poetry readings!
Free mp3's to download.
Wonderful British accent.
Nice voices, good pacing, etc.
Four years old already (2006); can't believe I've never found these before.
I was looking for Keats and Wordsworth, but the rest are probably good too.

Also, here's one at YouTube that I thought was good.
Robert Frost's
Acquainted With The Night
Ron Perlman's voice.
I think the audio is from the Beauty and the Beast TV series soundtrack?

Via
shmoop

Note: I like shmoop's literature sections:
Classic Plot Analysis
Booker’s Seven Basic Plots
Three Act Plot Analysis

Google Books:
Keats
Wordsworth

At Gutenberg:
Keats
Wordsworth

Poems of Passion

I was looking for I Love You, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Found this:
Poems of Passion
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read online or pdf and epub format download.
It doesn't have the I Love You poem, though.

Here's the full text of the "I Love You" poem from poemhunter (link above):

I love your lips when they're wet with wine
And red with a wild desire;
I love your eyes when the lovelight lies
Lit with a passionate fire.
I love your arms when the warm white flesh
Touches mine in a fond embrace;
I love your hair when the strands enmesh
Your kisses against my face.

Not for me the cold calm kiss
Of a virgin's bloodless love;
Not for me the saint's white bliss,
Nor the heart of a spotless dove.
But give me the love that so freely gives
And laughs at the whole world's blame,
With your body so young and warm in my arms,
It sets my poor heart aflame.

So kiss me sweet with your warm wet mouth,
Still fragrant with ruby wine,
And say with a fervor born of the South
That your body and soul are mine.
Clasp me close in your warm young arms,
While the pale stars shine above,
And we'll live our whole young lives away
In the joys of a living love.

101 Famous Poems

A well-known book.

One hundred and one famous poems:
with a prose supplement
Compiled by Roy J Cook

Full View and download at google books in pdf format.

Available at MobileRead Forum

In Sony Reader lrf format.
(Has hyperlinks.)

Bedouin Song, by Bayard Taylor

Here's a little gem I dug out of a book at google books.



I love the pic with personal handwriting.

google books
The fireside encyclopaedia of poetry: Comprising the best poems of the most ...
edited by Henry Troth Coates
1881 - 1002 pages
Page 97

Complete Poem Text:

Bedouin Song,
by Bayard Taylor (1825-1878)

From the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die

Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die

Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more

Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

Google Books Appreciation

I've been digging around in Google Books for poetry books.
Wow.
I hadn't realized how powerful that search was.
Tons of books are available in Full View and Public Domain.
I'm not sure what the difference is between those two.
I do notice that sometimes the images are more protected.
Can download pdf and often epub, which my Sony Reader supports.

It's a bit like digging around in old books at a library only without the sensory experience of touching and smelling those books.
But then, if I really get a hankering, I can ask Google Books what libraries in my area have the book.

Something that was not readily apparent to me is that there may be several versions of the same book available. That was a little confusing at first.
Sometimes there are different editions of the same book.
And/or the book(s) come from more than one library.
Note the file name spelling is goofy sometimes too.

Also, sometimes I can't search the book in Adobe pdf after I download it (images not text).
BUT, I CAN search the book at Google Books which has highlighting features.

Here are a few examples with the Google Books web page elements pasted together so they would fit my blog.



The household book of poetry
By Charles Anderson Dana
Version 1
Edition: 3 - 1859 - 798 pages

Version 2
Edition: 11 - 1869 - 816 pages

Version 3
1906 - 853 pages

Version 4
1919 - 862 pages



The fireside encyclopedia of poetry: comprising the best poems of the most ...
By Henry Troth Coates

Version 1
Edition: 34 - 1901 - 1002 pages

Version 2
1901 - 1027 pages

Version 3
1881 - 1002 pages

There could be more versions available of that one.

Info at google books:

Where do the books come from?
Currently, we are connecting readers with books in two ways:
the Partner Program
and
the Library Project.
We're working with several major libraries to include their collections in Google Books...
If the book is out of copyright, you’ll be able to view and download the entire book...

Library Partners
01. Bavarian State Library
02. Columbia University
03. Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC)
04. Cornell University Library
05. Harvard University
06. Ghent University Library
07. Keio University Library
08. Lyon Municipal Library
09. The National Library of Catalonia
10. The New York Public Library
11. Oxford University
12. Princeton University
13. Stanford University
14. University of California
15. University Complutense of Madrid
16. University Library of Lausanne
17. University of Michigan
18. University of Texas at Austin
19. University of Virginia
20. University of Wisconsin - Madison

A Few New Tunes

The Time of Times,
by Badly Drawn Boy

I was checking to see if that movie, Love Happens, was any good, and discovered that this song plays at the beginning of it.
The movie sounds like a dud, but the song is good.

Disillusion
by Badly Drawn Boy
is good too.

Listen to the songs at last.fm.

EBooks and EPubs

I've been preoccupied with the whole ebooks thing.
I'm interested in creating my own ebooks and learning about the epub format.
I'm always doing research on something, and it would be nice to just put that on my Sony Reader to study.

I'll need to learn how to create my own epub's if I want more control over things like fonts, images, hyperlinks.

I'm not even sure what's all possible with my Sony PRS-600 Reader yet.

I installed the Firefox epub plugin which is handy if I want to take a quick look at an epub without loading a separate software (Calibre) to do it.

I have figured out some things in Calibre.
I changed the book cover image in the Edit Meta Info area.
Can make your own, look for ideas online.
Something fun to do:
Browse old bookcovers at coverbrowser.
Some of those make me laugh.
I found a few oldies for Jack London's Call of the Wild.
The old bookcovers show the St. Bernard characteristic of the dog, while the newer bookcovers emphasize wolf characteristics. Buck was a mix of St. Bernard (father) and Scotch shepherd (mother).



Google it.

See also: Photos of Jack London's first edition books.
Via: wiki.

Gutenberg's Call of the Wild has more accurate text than GoogleBooks. However, GoogleBooks has images in the EPub. I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

There is an Open Source EPub editing software called Sigil that I plan to try out.

Sigil Forum at MobileRead.

I found a GOOD newbie tut:
How to Make an ePub eBook by Hand
Via MobileRead Forum.

I figured out how to change the background color in the Calibre epub Viewer window.
I changed the background color to a gray.
Click on View, Click on Hammer, Enter code in User Stylesheet area.
body {
background-color:rgb(227,227,227);
}

Via MobileRead again. "Custom CSS Stylesheets for Calibre's Viewer."

I picked up the sparknotes for my freebie Gutenberg classics.
Paste into word processing software, save in rtf format, covert to epub in Calibre, and send to my Sony Reader.
(Sparknotes also sells readymade ebooks.)

Calibre gives me some control of line spacing and paragraph indents, so that helps tremendously. I find that with such a tiny viewing area on the reader, I prefer to eliminate all that extra space, so I'm not turning pages so much. I'd really prefer a larger viewing area on my reader.

Sony PRS-900BC Reader Daily Edition
7" Paper-Like Touch Screen
$400.00
Same width as my 600, only one inch longer.
Comes with a leather cover so knock that off the price comparison.
Bottom line, it's about $100 for an inch more reading area.
That real estate is expensive.

Here's a good MeFi Link for free ebooks.
"What are the best short novels available from Project Gutenberg?"

See also Gutenberg Tag at MeFi.

EBook Reader Purchase

Well, I bought an ebook reader (14 day try out).
Surprise.
I wasn't headed in that direction at the beginning.

There are really only three main/top contenders on the market right now for ebook readers.
1. Amazon's Kindle
2. Barnes and Noble's Nook
3. Sony models

There are more models if a person wants to plow thru all that info.

There are tons of reviews online for detailed pros and cons of each device.
Basically, Sony is less restrictive than the other two, and that is why I focused more on Sony brand.

I found both 300 pocket and 600 touchpad Sony models locally so was able to get a hands-on look at them.
I was a little shocked at how small the display area was on the 300 pocket.
Even the 600 display seems too small.
Display sizes are diagonal.



My biggest concern about the 600 is the touchpad display's glossy sheen and low contrast.
Adjusting the tilt/angle of the device helps reduce glare.
Increasing the font size, which the reader can do, helps with the low contrast issue.
If the reader had the capability of bolding the text, that would even be better.
Just to experiment, I converted a non-DRM pdf to rtf using Calibre. Opened the rtf in Word and bolded the text. Then converted and imported to reader using Calibre. That worked, although formatting gets a little dicey and unpredictable with that method.

I like to read in bed, so I already have a good adjustable clip-on night light attached to my bed headboard. Light source is coming from the back right side and I found this to be one of the better ways to use the reader as far as the glare/dim issue goes.

I really like the touchpad/stylus interface.



And the more I use the Sony 600, the more I like it. A small reading display area requires much more navigation work. I'm constantly turning the page. Swiping with my finger is much easier than pushing a button to turn the page. Doesn't seem like a big deal until you do it repeatedly.

I've been giving the Sony 600 reader a workout, trying the different features:
navigation, search, dictionary, notes, highlight, underline, draw, etc.

Observations:
1. Use of features really sucks up the battery power. I had to recharge it already. If I have to recharge the battery that often, it would almost be better to have an AC adapter (AC-S5220E) to recharge it.

2. It does something really odd and unexpected with bookmarks, highlights, underline.
Every word underlined generates two separate IMAGE files, a jpg thumb and a svg line.
The "All Notes" folder on the Home Menu has a separate note file for every bookmark, every highlight, every underlined word. I expected ONE Note file per book. That would quickly become a mixed up unmanageable mess if you are marking up more than one book.
Fortunately, I was able to delete all those files thru the menu system on the device. Whew.

STARTUP NOTES:

Step 1
Recharge battery via computer USB port.
Battery is fully charged when red light shuts off.
Takes about 3 1/2 to 4 hours.

Step 2
Unplug device and wait for prompts
to press the center of the X's displayed on screen with stylus.
Some kind of setup or initialization process.

Step 3
Hook up to computer via USB again.
Prompt to install software.
Did not install--yet.
Refer to Troubleshooting Thread.

Step 4
Used Calibre software instead.
I put some free public doman classics epubs on the reader.

Tags in Calibre = Collections/Folders on Sony Reader.
WARNING: Can create new Collections/Folders, BUT there is no way to delete them.

Device Drive:\database\cache\media.xlm
<xs1:playlist title="
/>

To delete an *empty* Collection/Folder, I opened the above xlm file in WordPad and deleted the command line that referenced the undesired folder.
Look for "playlist title" followed by the Tag name Calibre assigned to it.
It worked.
Yikes!, though.
I've been hanging out at the mobileread forums.
This is where I get all these scary ideas.
If things get really screwed up, you can even hard reset.

I put the unzipped User Manual PDF (zipped on device) and startup manual PDF (found online) on device.
I made some screenshots of the user manual, saved them as gifs (cleaner text), and put those on the reader also. I wanted to see how those would look on the reader.
Gif image sizes ranged from 488x619 pixels to 516x753 pixels and they were readable. I wouldn't go any bigger than that.

Step 5
I removed the books and images that came with the device.
Used Win Explorer to access the Device Drive and found the files and moved them off device to hard drive for now.
I kept the two mp3 files that were on there.

Step 6
The Sony 600 does come with a neoprene carry bag, but I bought a leather book cover with light that's especially made for this model (pic below) so snaps together nicely and still have access to all buttons, etc. The book light is a little weak, so probably need more lighting than that alone.



Sony Reader Info Links:

Can buy online at B&H:
Sony 600
Sony PRS600BC Reader Touch Edition (Black)

Book Cover Light
Sony PRSA-CL6 Reader Digital Book Cover with Light

Sony Readers (wiki)

Manuals

EBooks:

EBook Search (List prices/format)

Gutenberg
Free. Several different formats.
epub is for Sony Readers.

google books
Look for Classics (free EPUB downloads).
Can download pdf or epub file type.
DRM-Free

Kobo has a free ebooks section.

GirleBooks
also has some freebies.

Ebook Readers, Netbooks, Laptops

I've been delving into the land of ebooks and readers.
The readers are too expensive and too restrictive.
A Laptop is too heavy, bulky to use as a reader.
Netbook maybe? That would not replace my main computer, but it could do lots more than the ebook readers.

So Netbook vs Ebook Reader.
Well, the Ebook reader might be easier on the eyes.
But the Netbook would give a whole lot more for the price. I'd have a lot more flexibility over ebook formatting and would have more adjustments available for any eye strain issues.

If I buy anything, I'll blog about it.

I like the mobileread forums for information.

Here's one post in particular I was studying/researching:
Netbook Tablet as a Viable eBook Reader Option
02-13-2010
jswinden
ASUS T91MT TABLET NETBOOK
2.1 lbs
8.9" Screen
1 GB RAM, up to 2 GB
LCD screen can be rotated and folded back onto the keyboard to form a tablet netbook.
A resistive touch screen responsive to fingers or a stylus.
Just reading, he gets at least six hours battery use.



Video review embedded there or here's the direct link.

Amazon Link:
ASUS Eee PC T91MT 8.9-Inch Black Tablet Netbook - 5 Hours of Battery Life
$484.00

Another Review
1.33 GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor
Only 32 GB Hard Drive
two USB ports
two SD or SDHC memory card slots.
Windows 7

From there I could install whatever ebook software I wanted, which is free, evidently.
While I was reading this, I found out about Calibre software that's good for converting non-DRM eBooks to other formats.
I installed it and ran it thru a little test drive conversion. It has a lot of different options/settings, so lots of control over the conversion. I like that.
It converts pdf to txt format.
Adobe Reader 9.3.0 will do that too, but became a memory hog and made my computer really grind.
So Calibre is much more efficient at the job.
Another thing I noticed while poking around in Adobe Reader is it has a read outloud option. So had to try it. That also was sluggish, but it did work.

Amazon Links to Kindle Ebook Readers:

Kindle 2
Kindle 2 - 6" display is $260.00

Kindle DX
Kindle DX - 9.7" display is $490.00

Winter Rec Trail

We have a lot of accumulated snow (snow depth) this year.
I stuffed my little S3 camera inside my coat to keep it warm and went for a walk along the rec trail.



You can't see this trail from the road like you usually can, cuz the snow is banked up too high. Yes, the trail is faithfully kept cleared of snow during the winter so we can use it year round. Isn't that nice.

There's lots of talk about flooding problems this spring.
Again.
It was pretty major last year.
That will probably be the main focus of the news in March and April.

Info Links from last year.
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