Economic Insanity

So far, 2008 has been a big financial disappointment for just about everyone. Every small business is making budget cuts. So much effort is being put into controlling costs, that there won't be anything left to cut back on in 2009.

I think this all started way before the home loan crisis. Back in the 90's, when corporations started outsourcing all those jobs to "low cost geographies", they didn't leave any good paying jobs for the working class in this country. Now with health care costs out of control, and our investments decimated, we have no money left to expand the economy.

I was laid off from my job in the electronics industry five years ago. I make 50% less now and my personal budget is very tight. When everyone starts to complain about the economy, you know it's bad out there. I wish I had some great advice for those just starting to cut back on expenses. There are lots of books and web sites for that. My only hope is that Obama and his team can turn this thing around. I hope that someday I will be able to retire like my father and grandfather. But as it looks right now, that isn't going to be an option for my generation.

Webcam Meetings

These days small businesses are looking for any way possible to save money. This past week one of my projects was to setup a business meeting between two offices using webcams. Like most small business technology projects, my first criteria was to accomplish the task by spending as little money as possible.

Each office had a 1.3 megapixel Logitech webcam, like the one shown here. I would have preferred to use a Philips webcam with higher resolution, but they already had the Logitech cams, so that was what we decided to use.

Next, we had to determine what software to use. First we tried Microsoft's Netmeeting, but found it had poor audio quality and no full-screen picture option. We decided to give Skype a try and discovered that it performed well. I have not been a Skype user since Ebay became their parent company back in 2005. Ebay ripped me off once, so I usually avoid anything to do with them, but that's getting more difficult as they continue to buy up more trustworthy Internet companies.

The webcam was going to be connected to a laptop on one end, so I added a set of external speakers and a three channel microphone mixer. I placed the extra microphones on the conference table so that the smaller site could hear everyone at the larger site. The built-in webcam microphone proved to be adequate for the smaller group.

To make a long story short, the meeting was a success. It was as if the other site was sitting at the conference table and the technology was completely transparent, as it should be.

Kindle Formatting

Last weekend I had a crash course in how to format a manuscript for the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle is an electronic reading device available from Amazon.com. I don't own a Kindle, but I do know that it is the most popular electronic reading device out there. With this in mind, I went to the Amazon web site to see how hard it would be to make my girlfriend's novel available in that format.

Just like most things on Amazon, I found the digital text platform information quickly and was able to get signed up for a content provider account quite easily. After that, the process was similar to what I had used on lulu.com to publish the paperback version. Once I got to the manuscript upload step, that's where things got a little tricky (mainly because I only had enough time to read about basic formatting tips). I first attempted to upload the pdf version and that did not look good at all.

They do simulate what the material will look like on a Kindle after you upload your content, which is very helpful. Next, I tried uploading the manuscript as an html document. This was accomplished by saving as html from Microsoft Word. This looked much better and I was able to make the necessary formatting adjustments working with the html version in word. Drop caps had to be replaced with large bold font and a few page breaks were needed to keep the chapter and title pages on separate pages on the Kindle. The Kindle allows a reader to change their font size on the fly, so it isn't important to make the length of every page in a chapter match your printed version.

The Kindle version of "In a Sense of Love" is now available for $6.56 at Amazon.com.