Adventures in Writing a book and then Publishing to Amazon

So I decided last year to write a book on WordPress when I couldn't find one I liked for a class I was asked to teach. And because I am such a fan of Google Docs, which has since become Google Drive, I decided to write the book using Google Docs/Drive. The neat thing about this was I could edit my book on any device that could access Google Drive. For the rest of this post, Google Docs and Google Drive will be interchangeable in case I forget to call it by its proper name. 

I wrote a chapter or five a week and I had the book over half way done when I started the class. When the class started WordPress was in version 3.2. I kept updating the book and it became very screen capture heavy as I find at times pictures tell a story better than words. So I began looking at what I needed to do to format the book for Amazon. First I had done all of my images in PNG, Kindle prefers JPG. Okay, so I fixed this by saving the book at HTML from Google Drive and it saved out my images to a folder called strangely enough, images. So I then loaded up IfranView and converted all of my images from PNG to JPG and left them at 100% quality. Oh, then I bought a book on formatting pictures for Kindle called

Pictures on Kindle: Self Publishing Your Kindle Book with Photos, Drawings, and Other Graphics, or Tips for Formatting Your Images So Your Ebook Doesn't Look Horrible (Like Everyone Else's)

 It is a good book and I learned how to format my cover and that my images aren't supposed to be over 128k, though if you read Amazon's Building your Book for Kindle. It says the images have to be 127k or less.

Building Your Book for Kindle

So I then went back into ifranview and after downloaded the filters file for IrfanView's RIOT plugin to tell it to set all of my images to 128k. It worked.

So next I used Calibre, which totally rocks by the way. I imported the html book and it created an epub of my book. I told it to format my book for Kindle. I edited the metadata in the program before doing the conversion. It created an epub of my book which I then loaded into the Kindle Previewer to see if it would turn out okay. And strangely it did. So I then went to Amazon and uploaded my book and entered my information to start the process. So I published my book on Amazon for Kindle. Once I published the book, Amazon tells you it will be 12 to 24 hours before the book will be available. And then after I published it, I realized I had a typo on the cover page. This happen as I was working on a subtitle and changed my mind on what it should say at the last minute. Luckily I still had the cover open in Photoshop so I fixed it. But my entry was out there with the typo for at least 7 plus hours before they fixed it. This was scary and I didn't want to tell anyone about my book until it was fixed. But now it is resolved and there it is. Here is a link to my book:

WordPress From Setup to Website

To say the least I am very excited and I have already sold some copies. I have some updates coming and everyone who buys the book gets the updates. That is a neat feature that Amazon now has. If you decide to buy my book, contact me via email and I will send you the book in a DRM free PDF. 

Formatting your eBook for Kindle and Kindle Fire

So I spent a great deal of time trying to get my picture heavy book to look good with the original Kindle only to have it look horrible on the Kindle Fire. What? I had originally written the book using Google Docs. That turned out well. But it turns out, first, all of my images needed to be jpg and not png. My screen capture program defaults to png and I just assumed it being an Internet standard it would not be an issue. I was more focused on finishing the book that what the guidelines would be to make my book into an eBook for publishing on different sites. My book looks the best as a good old fashioned PDF, but since Amazon and Barnes and Noble both have their own style guides and their own variations on ePub/mobi, I need to format accordingly. The first time I exported my Google Doc version of my document as zipped (html).

So then I ran IrfranView to convert all of my png files to 80% jpg. I then did a find and replace on my png to jpg and opened the html file in Chrome. It worked. So then I downloaded the Amazon Kindle Preview which you can find here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000234621 On that page you can download Amazon Kindle Preview and their command line eBook generator. You can also download a template for Adobe InDesign. Sadly I am still running CS3 of the Adobe Creative Suite so my version is too old to use it. But with just the Preview program you can generate a mobi file from your html or epub and view it in simulations for the original Kindle, Kindle DX, Kindle White, and Kindle Fire and HD.

When I originally did this I noticed my chapters didn't seem to be breaking like I wanted. Also it was doing a number on tables I had in the document and on some pictures. So I went and added more page breaks before chapters to try and address this. Before I did that, my book looked passable though my cover was not pretty. After reading this guys blog http://www.cjs-easy-as-pie.com/2010/03/kindle-cover-format.html I discovered my cover image needed to be 600x800 and it would go all around the edges of the Kindle screen. So it looks good that way. But it stretched my existing image so I have to go to Gimp and create a new properly sized cover image.

 Another blog that I found some help on what this guy's blog http://www.paulsalvette.com which is really about epublishing and his book, The eBook Design and Development Guide [Kindle Edition] It is a really good book and it shows me I have some work to do in order to make my book look best in all formats. But I can tell you after I added lots and lots of page breaks, my book looks horrible in Kindle Fire formats but looks pretty good in Kindle, DX, and White. So I am going to undo all the work I did and start over on the formatting. #ebooks #kindle Conversely I attempted to publish my book on Leanpub.com. But it wants me to do some much formatting changes that I would rather devote my time to getting the Kindle version right.

Ultimately I want to release my book in a DRM free version. Part of me says, offer the book on Amazon to get sales and then send pdf versions to anyone who proves they bought my book. And perhaps if I can build a following I can get added to O'Reilly Press which sells all of their books DRM free. I want my books to be usable on every device and in ever format. Sure, I don't want people sharing my book with everybody, but to lock a book down to one single device is wrong.

Neglected Blog

I am so embarrassed I have neglected this blog for so long. As with many things we start with such high expectations. I had planned to post and entry every day. I did okay. Then I told myself it was okay to post just once a week. Then I would visit but not post. I was slightly intimidated by the blank page. I am also worried that I will post something trivial. It is important that what I write moves people forward. I strive to write tech articles that explain concepts to help people understand thing they may not. My goal seems to write the technical articles that are part Dummies and part textbook. So many books leave us wanting more and wondering why did we pay for it and get nothing for our experience. I want very much to change that.

Google, the Innovator

Today I was thinking about Google and why I like it so much. I was asked what was so cool about the current doodle on the Google Search home page. The cool thing about it is that it is animated completed in HTML5. They couldn't see the movement. So I explained you have to be using a browser that is HTML5 compliant like Chrome or Firefox or even Opera. IE8 (which is the corporate standard because 1)Programmers keep writing for IE specific browser versions and 2)Because IE9 breakes those corporate things that require IE. So they loaded Chrome and Ah.... There is was, "First HTML5 Google Doodle Honors Alexander Calder, 'Inventor of the Mobile'" moving slowly around the screen. I started to tell them if they blew on the screen it would move, but that seemed cruel.

Google Innovates. How long did browsers stay stagnent until Chrome came along? Yes, it could easily be argued Mozilla caused the current browser wars but Chrome is winning and now Mozzila is promising more frequent updates to their browser after it took years to get out of version 3.x after being influenced by Google's rapid releases. Additionally Google practially make it required to download updates rather than optional. Now this is push behavior but if you asked Microsoft their feelings about this and IE6, they would say that is a neat option. Being that Microsoft has to keep the Enterprise Overlords happy as well, they can't easily play this card. But people let Google get away with this.

Google pushed the HTML5 standards to allow for better video and they and others really pushed AJAX into the forefront and brought us pages that seem to come to life without any plugin software (namely Adobe Flash). So we kind of wound up waiting for everyone to play catch up to Google and now Apple hates Adobe and Joanie Loves Chachi and Microsoft and Oracle and Apple all hate Google...
So Google must be doing some thing right.

I love my Android phone. I thought the iPhone would be the only game in town for so long. Apple deserves its own posting thanking it for making mobile phones useful. The word Smart and phone didn't go together until Apple came alone. I digress.The Android phone has given iPhone a run for the money. It is a great phone and for the most part I enjoy the fact that the Android phones are usually (given what mobile provider you have) open. I could root my Android phone but there isn't much reason to. There isn't really anything I am prevented from doing on my phone that I want to do. The only missing piece I have found is there isn't a Cisco VPN client for my phone. I would be willing to pay Cisco for this option. To be able to connect to work and fix a problem from my phone would be awesome.

Windows Run Line Commando

I have always found it faster to run many commands via commandline or a DOS command window than to do Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad (for example). Start, Run, Notepad cranks up fast and I don't have to take my fingers from the keyboard. I have also written some batch files that do some amazing things. I need to become a wizard on PowerShell.

Someone asked me about sysedit. Strangely this still exists in Windows XP but I see no trace of it in Windows 7. It isn't on my Mac either, ha ha. So I explain about msconfig and how those config.sys and autoexec.bat files are no more and if they exist at all it is because you may have a 16 bit program that for some reason you have clung to for dear life. And of course, there is dxconfig to tweak Direct X settings as well. So I was Googling around to find other command line options. I was amazed to see a long list for XP (most still work on Windows 7). I have used many of these before but I don't really considered them commandline options. But if you can kick it off via Start, Run, it is pretty cool.

Here are over 100 Windows Run Commands

If you want to control what starts up on boot, then these utilities are a great way to resolve and keep a watchful eye.

Startup Monitor This monitors things that attempt to put themselves in Run Once or HKCU/Run or HKLM/Run. So many things try to run on Start up. Granted this program is really XP-ish and hasn't really been rewritten to be used on Windows Vista or Windows 7. But I am using it and it is working.

Additionally is the Startup Control Panel. This is an easy way to tweak after the fact. Granted in Windows 7 it takes some changing of the view in Control Panel to see it but it still a great program.

When you install this on Windows 7, you will have to right click and choose "Run As Administrator" in order for it to copy its cpl file into the correct Windows directory.

If you really like to tweak things or you really want to find that peskey trojan that is still running after running antispyware software ten times, HijackThis is another way to go.

WARNING: THIS CAN REALLY MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With HijackThis you can tweak what starts and what doesn't every time your computer boots as well as often track down evil things that are starting that should not be.

Off Topic-- Government at its finest

When you have the opportunity to enjoy quantity time with your state and local government offices, take it. It is a level of comedy and irony.

I went to the local department of vital records to request a replacement birth certificate for my daughter. My daughter has four names or I should say a first name, two middle names, and a last name. We had gotten a replacement birth certificate a few years ago so I thought no big deal. After waiting a long time, after being told I would have to wait a long time, the lady looks at my application and tells me she can't give me a birth certificate because her typewriter was recently replaced and the font size on it is too big to print out the 38 characters my daughter's name entails. So I have to request it from the state office near the state capital as they have a typewriter with smaller fonts.

Welcome to the 20th century.

Calibre - an awesome ebook manager regardless of your reader

I was looking for some thing to manage my ebooks. I have several PDFs that I wanted to read on my new Nook (see previous entries about that). Sure, I could open up the microSD card I have placed in my Nook and use the USB cable to upload to it. But I noticed my PDFs did not have pretty covers when I looked at them on my reader. At first I thought this was because they were PDFs instead of ePubs, but in reality, the PDFs just didn't have the appropriate metadata. So at first I was Googling ™ ™
to find a way to turn a PDF into an ePub document. Many of the options cost money and I prefer to find an open source or freeware method that sort of works than to spend money on something I will not use very often. That is when I came across Calibre. It will convert books from PDF to ePub format. But in my experimentation it did a horrendous job with images in PDFs so I gave up. (On a side note, I have Adobe CS3 Design Suite, which includes inDesign. So I looked to see if I could import a PDF into inDesign and create an ePub document. This particular version doesn't give me the option so bummer.) So I gave up on this tangent.
I played around with Calibre more and discovered it was an awesome ebook manager. It can edit metadata on PDFs (though strangely not consistently), import metadata from Barnes and Nobel and Amazon for books it can parse the titles of, and add "covers" to your books so they show the thumb nails on your reader.

Take a look at the interface.

Notice the drop down to allow access to move files to the microSD card in my Nook. It even recognizes my Nook when I plug it up. It has support for Kindle, Nook, Sony's eReader, and others.

(Soapbox) Also notice the book, Head First PMP (Second Edition) from O'Reilly And Associates. I love that O'Reilly doesn't put DRM on their books so when I buy a book from them, I can read it on any device I want. DRM free doesn't mean sharing with others, but supports the fact that once you buy a book, you own it. It is yours to use until you lose it. (/Soapbox).

I am not going into log tutorials about Calibre as the author of the program has gone to great strides to provide great tutorials on his site. The software is available for multiple OSes and even has a portable version you can take anywhere on your Thumb drive.

Barnes and Noble and the Great Nook adventure

First up, I am still for the most part in love with my Nook. As a reading device it is great. It is a one trick pony and it does it very well. I am currently reading a book called Brains: How They Seem to Work by Dale Purves. It seemed interesting and I have been very surprised at how good a book it is. Yes, the book is full of technical terms that I am trying hard to wrap my brain around, but it is a very good read. It is fascinating how the field of neuroscience developed since the early days and how much we have learned about the brain and the methods discovered to study the brain, the nervous system, and how it all interacts together. I am a good ways into the book and I am really enjoying it.

I have told myself I will not buy any more books until I finish the first one. I read about study that said it takes longer to read ebooks and in another study, most users never finish reading ebooks. I hope this is not the case. So far I am enjoying the fact there are so many free ebooks and being able to load my PDFs onto the device to read as well. But PDFs do not read as well as epub books. The font clarity is not the same on the Nook and it is not as easy to select text in PDFs. Also it would be good if one could zoom in on images in the book. With the small screen, it would be good to be able to do this. Granted if these pictures were in a paperback book, I would have the same issue.

I do have one big complaint about the Nook though. Barnes and Noble markets books that will only work on the Nook Color. In fact at times it seems they "prefer" I use one of the software ereaders or the Nook Color over the device I purchased. I would be happy if under preferences if I could filter my search so it only shows books that will work on my display. Barnes and Noble offered a free book on Mickey Mantle by Jane Leavy to suck me into the Nook world. It isn't free now. But I added it to My Library looking forward to reading it on my Nook (I started stockpiling free and paid books just to read when my Nook would arrive), but this book can't be read on my Nook (the New Simple Touch Reader one). Even worse, it won't let me download it on my Nook for PC or Nook for Mac. So the book is in "My Library" but is unreadable for me so far. My Android phone seems to have an option to download it but not anything else I have.

So Barnes and Noble, please fix this one small thing. Let me be able to search and only find books that my reader can actually use.

By Hook or by Nook

Okay. So I put off picking a winner in the ebooks war for the longest time. Then I decided I didn't want to pay the price it costs for the winner, but instead base it on features that mattered to me. So I bought a Nook (the new edition) I would prefer to call it the Nook Touch, but that isn't want Barnes and Noble is calling it.

When a geek decides subconsciously that he wants new technology items, he goes through a justification processes. Some how he logics that that he can justify the cost of the device by some notion. In this case I am using the lame excuse I need to study for my PMP exam. And because this device has limited functionality (meaning it has less bells and whistles) I would be able to focus. I have a really short attention span so I thought if I had a device that only does one thing and it does it really well, then I would read and focus.

Why I choose the "All-New Nook 'The Simple Touch Reader'"?
1. microSD card port - This way I can easily add my own books and pdfs.
2. Two months of battery life -- Okay, this is more cool and mostly marketing as you have to turn wireless off and it is assuming you will read one hour a day.
3. Super light -- It weighs about the same as a paperback book. Seriously.
4. Touch -- The Kindle just has so many buttons on it and is bigger than it needs to be because of this. I know the Kindle will come out in a touch screen version. I even guestimate Amazon will be releasing their own Android based tablet with Kindle eInk built in. I also speculate the next iPad will have a way to display eInk to save on power and improve readability and then bounce back into normal display mode when you want to do other stuff. So perhaps I jumped in the wrong place. Let's not talk that way as you will cause me buyers remorse.

I see some cons to this device already.
1. Not color, which means there are books on barnesandnoble.com that I can not download to my device. Ugh!
2. Device can't do a lot with pdfs except display them. I can't really zoom a lot with a pdf to try and get bigger texted. I am not going blind but it displays the table of contents really small.
3. The site does not tell you easily that your particular nook won't work with it. They seem to want you to buy the color nook yet they are hyping the newest one.

What I really like...
1. The display quality is amazing.
2. The touch functionality works great.
3. There are so many free books on barnesandnoble.com and other sites I have yet to actually buy a book, but I will. I have my eye on some already.
4. Wireless works great.
5. Response time is great. Books pop up quick and pages turn fast.

My next post I will tell you about the amazing software I downloaded, Calibre. It is a great ebook manager for what ever device you choose.

Adventures in Droid 2

So I had to drive to Raleigh, NC for a training class so I used my trusty Droid 2 as my GPS. Normally this goes okay, but after 3 hours of using it the phone gives me an error message saying it is too hot. I had never seen this message before. Luckily I was on I-85 and I didn't really need to know where I was as duh! I knew where I was. So I turned off the phone and it was really hot. I probably could have fried something on the back of this phone. After a time out I turned the phone on and it helped me complete the rest of the trip.

Funny I did an entire road trip with my original Droid and I never had any problems like that. It either worked or didn't but it never showed an error message like that.

Screen Recording on Mac OS X Snow Leopard

I needed to create a video showing how to do something on my Mac for a class. I have used CamStudio on Windows, which works pretty well. Though I have to admit the program creates some really large AVI files. CamStudio also gives you an option to create Flash video from your completed AVI file. Also, while you are creating the screen recording, you can narrate and it will record your audio to the video.

But what can I use for Mac OS? I "Googled" ™ and found many free and paid programs to do screen recording. All of the free ones seem to only capture video and not allow audio. The ones that did both all seemed to cost money. I continue to search and then the answer arrived. You can do screen recording with QuickTime X, which comes with Snow Leopard. Here is how:

First, open up QuickTime X.


From the QuickTime File menu choose:


This brings up the Record button and options:
(Choose your audio source and where you want to save the file)


Then click on the record button.
This window pops up.


It tells you how to stop recording, by selecting Command-Shift-Escape. You will also see a Stop Recording button in the tool bar up top. See picture.


Once you stop recording, it will then bring the video into QuickTime Player where you can see the results of your handy work. Notice the VCR style buttons at the bottom of the video screen.



That's it.

Removing heavy metal from water and other random news

No, not Spinal Tap type Heavy Metal...

Sadly my Brita Water purifier probably doesn't have these features...

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/27/shells-metals-water.html

More on this from a blogger

http://cricketdiane.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/solutions-ways-to-remove-heavy-metals-pollutants-from-water-and-soil-a-new-light-bulb-materials-science-conferences-first-international-conference-on-materials-for-energy-july-4-8-2010-lo/

Yikes, maybe they need to purify my movie popcorn too.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-popcorn-20110323,0,3759568.story

Hopefully the BSOD will be a 3D Avatar telling me to "just try to press control alt delete" 3D Windows Phone

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Glasses-Free-3D-LG-Thrill-4G-HTC-HD75-AT-T,news-10564.html

Ah, man... I wanted to be sure all of the world's books were backed up on disk somewhere...

http://www.smh.com.au/business/google-library-plans-shelved-20110323-1c6pm.html

Chrome OS Update

I kept hearing everyone talking about Chrome OS updates. Strangely though when I choose "Check for Updates" nothing returned. It always said I was up-to-date. So I decided to log off completely and shut the device down to see if that coaxed the update out of Google. It did. Finally I was running

Chrome OS 0.11.257.18 (Official Build) dev-channel x86-mario
Google Chrome 11.0.696.14

Having been running a 1o version of the Chrome browser on every OS I use, I was wondering when I would finally see a version 10 of the Chrome OS. But it seems I am not up to 11 (not to be confused with Spinal Tap's 11).

So right off the bat I notice a couple of things:
1) The trackpad seems a little more responsive.
2) Now there is a button in the upper right corner to make it easier to switch between windows.

I am sure there are others but those two jump out the fastest.
A PC Mag article says Google has tweeted it has shipped out all the Cr-48's it plans to ship out. In other news Sony is supposedly working on their own ChromeBook and a hybrid that would be both PC and ChromeBook in the same notebook. The hybrid would have an externally accessible graphics card that would allow you to use the notebook as a workstation after you hook it up to either a docking station or some type of device similar to a small form factor PC>

I will keep you updated once I find other fixes.

GroupMe - New Android and feature phone app

At SXSW a new program was introduced, GroupMe. I have downloaded and installed it and I have found it very useful already. With GroupMe you create groups of friends or family by their cell numbers. Then you can text to one phone number, which GroupMe gives you, and all of your group get the message. This server even works on non-smart phones. So you can go online, create the account, get your conference phone number, then you can text this number to communicate with all of your friends. So far the app and service are free. I do not yet know what the business model for this is, but I like it so far. You can also call the number and ring all your friends at once. Pretty cool. The site for GroupMe is http://groupme.com/ Give it a try. They have an app for Android and for iPhone.

Using the App
Once you create your group, the interface on Android phones looks similar to a chat session. Or the messaging interface that came with Android 2.2. You see the pictures of those you are chatting with and their messages in cartoon balloons. Reply to the session and everyone in your group gets the message. When they reply all see their reply back. It is great.

The Art of Meeting

I live in a world of meetings. Most meetings are unproductive and at times counter-productive.
How do you prevent wasting valuable time? Download one of the meeting calculator. Type in the number of people, take a guess how much the group of people make per hour, and how long the meeting the meeting is going to last. How much will it cost per hour or per minute to have this meeting? Yikes. Throw in pricy consultants and a project manager and this meeting could bankrupt small company.

So how do you fix this?
1)Plan the meeting before you schedule the meeting.
Create an agenda; plan what needs to be discussed.
2)Only invite the people you need to the meeting.
Counter-productive people need not attend.
3)Meet with stakeholders seperately.
Give stakeholders a seperate meeting. Give them their updates and statuses. By meeting with them seperately your team meeting can focus and avoid politics. Plus your team can be more open with ideas and even unpopular status information.
4)Assign someone to take notes.
Sometimes a meeting happens and everyone forgets what was said. Someone other than the meeting facilitator needs to take notes so the meeting can stay on track with the agenda.
5)Have a timekeeper.
So many meetings go on and on about a point and time gets away. When you create the agenda try to determine how long each topic should take.
6)Send out the agenda ahead of time.
This allows others to ask questions ahead of time that may help provide information ahead of time. This may even shorten or even eliminate the meeting.

Good luck out there. Think before you schedule that next meeting; the time and sanity you save may be your own.

How to remotely install software

Over the years I have used many Jedi Mind Tricks and utilities to install software onto remote users' PCs. For a while I used to run Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) to push out software and when SMS (not to be confused with "Short Messaging Server", though it is easy to confuse it with "slow Microsoft software") worked, it did a great job of pushing out software. After a while SMS became a problem child at times and I had done some creative things using DOS batch files and registry hacks. In fact those are still my favorite way to do things. I have also done some VBScripting to push out things as well but this doesn't work as well as I would like.

Today I received a message, "How do we push out software with a batch file and have the install run with admin rights?" Well, I knew I had done it before using some Windows Resource kit utils but I hadn't done it in a while. So I began "Googling" to refresh my memory. Along the way I discovered a utility from SysInternals (which Microsoft wisely bought out a few years ago). This utility is called psexec. With it, you can remotely execute programs onto a machine. In my case, I used it to push out Google Chrome browser to people.

You can use this very easily, here is how:

First, you need to go to this page and grab the psexec tools.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553

I put mine in the c:\windows\system32 directory. But you could also open it in another folder and add it to your system path. You will need to run the psexec once to accept the license agreement. When you copy, don't let it overwrite your existing DLL.

Next, create a file In my case, I created a file on the root of C: called serverlist1.txt

Populate it as follows: (one PC name per line)

yourpcname
myneighborspcname

When the file is ready, run this. I ran it on my cubical neighbor's PC and my machine. Probably not perfect test subjects, but the psexec runs as you unless you specify a different user, which is an option if you know their password.

Here is the command (I drop to a DOS command window and run it as follows:

psexec @c:\serverlist1.txt -s -i -d msiexec /i \\mmyserver\public\chrome\GoogleChromeStandaloneEnterprise.msi /qn

The /qn is a MSIEXEC thing that tells it to install quietly. Here are some helpful links along the way.

Windows Environment Variables

A good article that gave me the clues I needed to get this working

Suffering burn out in the IT field?

Here is a good blog post on alternative careers for burnt out IT professionals.

10-alternative-careers-for-burned-out-it-workers

My favorite apps for Android OS

My list of useful apps for Droid:

Dropbox -Great file sync tool

KeepassDroid -- Great password keeper.

OI File Manager (lets you see files on the phone and on the SD card
and helps KeepassDroid work better).

Advanced Task Killer (Works like a task manager to allow you to kill
unnecessary programs)

Android System Info (tells you everything that is running and how much
memory or CPU is being utilized)

App 2 SD (moves apps to the SD card saving memory in the phone)

Antivirus (AVG Antivirus for your Droid)

Nice to have apps:

Barcode Scanner (should already be there but if it isn't this is
amazing app to have. You can scan any barcode and search for it on the
Internet. Good to compare prices with)

ChromeToPhone (Allows you to send links from your PC's Chrome Browser
to your Cell. You have to install the extension on your browser first,
then install the app, log in and connect)

CityCallerID (not to be confused with the stupid program that is
loaded on your phone already and wants you to buy their service. This
is a freeware that looks up numbers that call you and tell you where
they are calling from. This has to be installed from your computer as
it is not on the Market). You will have to do a Google search for this one.

Discount Calculator (tells you how much a discount will save you on a
price, including tax)

Evernote -- this app allows you to create small notes and sync them
over the Internet so you can access them on your PC as well.

AKNotepad -- Great app to make a quick list or note that you don't
need to sync with anything. I do quick grocery lists using this.

Google Sky Map -- This app eats battery while it is running, but run
it and point it at the night sky and it will tell you what stars
planets and constellations are above you where ever you are on the
earth.

Pandora -- Internet radio app. Pick an artist you like and hear music
by them and others like them. Pandora.com is their web site. You need
to create an account to get maximum use out of it. Uses battery and
data so don't use it a lot.

RingDroid -- Turns any MP3 into a ring tone. Awesome.

The Weather Channel -- Good app for the weather in multiple cities at once.

Uninstaller -- After you get tired of an app, you can more easily
uninstall it with this app.

Wifi Analyzer -- This app is great to find access points near you. If
you phone doesn't have a 3G signal but you have wifi, this will tell
you what is available around you.

YellowBook -- Good yellow pages app for Droid.

Calendar Snooze: Android's built-in snooze for appointments can disappoint. This one is a lot better and gives you more options.

Addictive apps you may or may not want to download:
To while away the hours in a doctor's office Angry Birds is an addictive app.

Hands on with the Verizon iPhone

This video from CNET is a good view of the Verizon iPhone. Enjoy

Foodie Adventures: Chicken and Dumplings

A few weeks ago my wife wanted me to make chicken and dumplings. I am not a huge fan of chicken and dumplings but I would go to the ends of the earth for my wife. So I started "Googling" to find a good recipe. Now you don't know this yet, but I am a mad scientist type cook. If I don't have an ingredient, I try to find a substitute. If it has a very unhealthy ingredient, I try to find a healthier substitute. Most of the time no one is any wiser, other times it is a failure.

For example, I made vegetable soup and my wife wanted some biscuits to go with it. I don't make biscuits often as they are not healthy if they are made correctly. I "Googled" a recipe and I only had fat free milk. I have made biscuits with soy milk. The biscuits looked great. They tasted horrible. Strange soy milk aftertaste. That was unexpected.

Anyway, I found a recipe online and I changed it some and it turned out great. Everybody raved about the chicken and dumplings. My wife wanted me to make it again yesterday, but I misplaced the original recipe I found online. You would think I could improvise and come up with it again, but I really don't remember what I put into it other than chicken and frozen (but defrosted) biscuit dough.

So we went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. I am not a huge fan of CB usually, but my wife is and that is all that matters. She, of course, had chicken and dumplings. I had the Cracker Barrel Sampler, which is meat loaf, chicken and dumplings, and country ham. I added turnip greens, fried orca, and brown rice. The brown rice was cooked with mushrooms. It was great.