E-book stuff. Now with bonus canoe!
Aug. 29th, 2010 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillThe Kindle 2 recently received a firmware upgrade that made it able to handle pdfs.
The pdf handling isn't stellar--you can't search or use the dictionary, or highlight or annotate at the moment; all stuff that the Kindle can normally do. But it will read pdfs.
It will read them in portrait (which means you need little teeny eyes for reading little teeny print if the pdf was originally formatted for 8 1/2 x 11 pages.) Or you can set the kindle to landscape view--and it shows the width of the page, and about 40% of the page length (you page down with the next page button.)
I just picked up A Wind From The South by Diane Duane. It is excellent (so far--but I know Diane Duane and excellence is not a fluke), and it is available from her website, for free, at least for now, in pdf. Furthermore, the pdf is formatted so that it looks fine in portrait on my Kindle 2--it's nice not to have to mess with landscape view. While I was there I also picked up Door Into Fire, Door Into Shadow and Door Into Sunset in DRM-free mobipocket (other formats are also available) for reasonable prices.
If you haven't read these books, by the way, I recommend them. I was introduced to the first about 25 years ago, and all these years later it remains one of my favorites. Theoretically someday there will be a fourth: Door Into Starlight will be the title, I think. Apparently the middle is giving trouble, but if and when it is finished I intend to move heaven and earth if necessary to get a copy. And in the meantime, my 20 year old falling-apart paperbacks now have e-book backup. And I have A Wind From The South thanks to the Kindle now reading pdf! And I now have her latest-- Omnitopia which is available at Amazon and is next on my wonderful-books-to-be-read list.
:-)
And the Kindle 3 (which I am steadfastly not spending my play money on right now because I am Saving Up for OVFF) *can* use the dictionary, highlight, annotate and search within pdfs. When it can also search across pdfs I will probably be getting a new Kindle--because then it becomes a real tool for use with scientific journal articles.
Bonus Canoe!
Yesterday I discovered that the cradles I had so cleverly built to put Constance in once I took her off the forms, were too short.
Grumpf. I worked on the inside for an hour or two and my back was Not Happy. Something Had To Be Done.
Why is it that whenever I build something that isn't adjustable I end up being sorry? However in this case making the cradles adjustable was just a matter of figuring out a consistent way to take up the slack in the slings. Grommets. Grommets were key--and, my fellow Makers, I am here to say that Grommets cross the line between sewing notions and hardware. Meaning that Walmart's sewing section didn't carry them anymore--but Lowes has them in the hardware section, complete with hole cutter and grommet mashing bits. Soo---
I put grommets through the ends of the slings and drove screws into the sides of the cradles. Instant adjustable slings. So far I have them on the second highest setting and it has been working much better. My back still isn't completely happy, but part of that is just that it's one seriously awkward position in which to be juggling a random orbital sander mated to a shopvac (and I hope they're having more fun than I am.)
I worked until 4 pm--but I don't think I finished making the cradles adjustable till noonish--and got a lot of one side of the cane scraped and sanded. I think it will take me several days to do this--there are parts where the random orbital sander just won't fit (in some places, even a sanding block won't fit) so there's a lot of hand sanding involved and I don't want to ruin my wrists. It's so frustrating to have to stop until I can use my hands without pain again.
Extra Bonus Wax Tablets!
And I have finished the wax tablets. I warmed them in the oven (I started at 150 F but kept boosting the heat, little by little, because I wanted beeswax melting temperatures and I didn't seem to be getting there. I ended up at 225 with the occasional brief pulse to 350 to get the damn element to turn on). Then I painted on melted beeswax without pigment--this was so the wood could drink as much beeswax as it wanted without the color bleeding into the wood. Then I put pigment in the beeswax, while rewarming the tablets. Then I poured in the pigmented beeswax.
Note to makers--don't get water in the beeswax. If you're melting it in a double boiler this can be a bit of a challenge, but water and beeswax don't mix, so you get holes in the beeswax when it solidifies. They are hard to get rid of. Also? Pigments that mix well with water don't necessarily dissolve in melted beeswax. They kind of...suspend. Also? Don't be shy with the pigment. Beeswax turns whiter as it solidifies. Red wax looks official. Pink wax... not so much. Also? Don't expect to use the paintbrush again. Yes, you got the kind of brush you can boil. No, beeswax doesn't care.
The varnish stood the heat fine. I was worried about that. The painter's pyramids...survived but aren't quite the same shape they started, though they still stack, mostly. I wonder if they make metal painter's pyramids?.
And--one last photo of something that really is some of my beeswax.
The pdf handling isn't stellar--you can't search or use the dictionary, or highlight or annotate at the moment; all stuff that the Kindle can normally do. But it will read pdfs.
It will read them in portrait (which means you need little teeny eyes for reading little teeny print if the pdf was originally formatted for 8 1/2 x 11 pages.) Or you can set the kindle to landscape view--and it shows the width of the page, and about 40% of the page length (you page down with the next page button.)
I just picked up A Wind From The South by Diane Duane. It is excellent (so far--but I know Diane Duane and excellence is not a fluke), and it is available from her website, for free, at least for now, in pdf. Furthermore, the pdf is formatted so that it looks fine in portrait on my Kindle 2--it's nice not to have to mess with landscape view. While I was there I also picked up Door Into Fire, Door Into Shadow and Door Into Sunset in DRM-free mobipocket (other formats are also available) for reasonable prices.
If you haven't read these books, by the way, I recommend them. I was introduced to the first about 25 years ago, and all these years later it remains one of my favorites. Theoretically someday there will be a fourth: Door Into Starlight will be the title, I think. Apparently the middle is giving trouble, but if and when it is finished I intend to move heaven and earth if necessary to get a copy. And in the meantime, my 20 year old falling-apart paperbacks now have e-book backup. And I have A Wind From The South thanks to the Kindle now reading pdf! And I now have her latest-- Omnitopia which is available at Amazon and is next on my wonderful-books-to-be-read list.
:-)
And the Kindle 3 (which I am steadfastly not spending my play money on right now because I am Saving Up for OVFF) *can* use the dictionary, highlight, annotate and search within pdfs. When it can also search across pdfs I will probably be getting a new Kindle--because then it becomes a real tool for use with scientific journal articles.
Bonus Canoe!
Yesterday I discovered that the cradles I had so cleverly built to put Constance in once I took her off the forms, were too short.
Grumpf. I worked on the inside for an hour or two and my back was Not Happy. Something Had To Be Done.
Why is it that whenever I build something that isn't adjustable I end up being sorry? However in this case making the cradles adjustable was just a matter of figuring out a consistent way to take up the slack in the slings. Grommets. Grommets were key--and, my fellow Makers, I am here to say that Grommets cross the line between sewing notions and hardware. Meaning that Walmart's sewing section didn't carry them anymore--but Lowes has them in the hardware section, complete with hole cutter and grommet mashing bits. Soo---
I put grommets through the ends of the slings and drove screws into the sides of the cradles. Instant adjustable slings. So far I have them on the second highest setting and it has been working much better. My back still isn't completely happy, but part of that is just that it's one seriously awkward position in which to be juggling a random orbital sander mated to a shopvac (and I hope they're having more fun than I am.)
I worked until 4 pm--but I don't think I finished making the cradles adjustable till noonish--and got a lot of one side of the cane scraped and sanded. I think it will take me several days to do this--there are parts where the random orbital sander just won't fit (in some places, even a sanding block won't fit) so there's a lot of hand sanding involved and I don't want to ruin my wrists. It's so frustrating to have to stop until I can use my hands without pain again.
Extra Bonus Wax Tablets!
And I have finished the wax tablets. I warmed them in the oven (I started at 150 F but kept boosting the heat, little by little, because I wanted beeswax melting temperatures and I didn't seem to be getting there. I ended up at 225 with the occasional brief pulse to 350 to get the damn element to turn on). Then I painted on melted beeswax without pigment--this was so the wood could drink as much beeswax as it wanted without the color bleeding into the wood. Then I put pigment in the beeswax, while rewarming the tablets. Then I poured in the pigmented beeswax.
Note to makers--don't get water in the beeswax. If you're melting it in a double boiler this can be a bit of a challenge, but water and beeswax don't mix, so you get holes in the beeswax when it solidifies. They are hard to get rid of. Also? Pigments that mix well with water don't necessarily dissolve in melted beeswax. They kind of...suspend. Also? Don't be shy with the pigment. Beeswax turns whiter as it solidifies. Red wax looks official. Pink wax... not so much. Also? Don't expect to use the paintbrush again. Yes, you got the kind of brush you can boil. No, beeswax doesn't care.
The varnish stood the heat fine. I was worried about that. The painter's pyramids...survived but aren't quite the same shape they started, though they still stack, mostly. I wonder if they make metal painter's pyramids?.
And--one last photo of something that really is some of my beeswax.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 05:49 pm (UTC)(I must get Omnitopia, for some reason Amazon UK didn't want to let me pre-order it...)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-12 02:27 am (UTC)Regarding _Omnitopia_ I notice that there are a lot of problems with e-books being available in one country and not in another due to geographic restrictions. I hope that won't be the case with this book, though. Duane lives in Ireland, I believe... though I suppose that's no bar to making a book deal with a US company, now that I think about it.
Anyway, I hope you can get it soon; I really enjoyed it.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-30 02:42 am (UTC)That is one seriously gorgeous canoe!
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-30 09:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 01:36 am (UTC)