yBook, a reader application for Electronic Books

Spacejock is a funny name for a software publisher, but this guy's the real deal, distributing a host of software solutions for the PC, all but one of which is no-cost, Open Source, really free, and no-nags software. I encourage you to visit the site and take a look at what else is there.

I am an avid reader, and I have been seen reading at the most inappropriate, surreptitious places. My wife checks my pockets before we go out for social visits. I have electronic books on my palm pilot, my E-book, my computer, my laptop and even my cell phone. I have some kind of gene for boredom, and my poor children have it too.

yBook is one of many software eBook Readers that operate on a slew of devices.

yBook works on Windows based devices, loading text files and web pages (including direct from an internet address), reformatting them into paperbacks for screen reading. It also includes a printout routine to generate booklets and hard copy for binding, plus a compiler to generate your own ebooks for distribution. All and all I found it to be lean, useful and unobtrusive. When I get my tablet PC, yBook will be one of the most used applications.

Applications exist to convert any particular file format into text, so if you have or receive an eBook in a non-text format, don't dispair! E-mail me at webstar@hughes.net and I'll tell you have to convert it to text so that yBook will read it.

Thanks Spacejock!

Mike Moore

Home at last - & Today's application

This is yesterday - I took a "down" day to actually salvage some of my vacation. I am still wonderous that we did so well. The flight home was uneventful, though I felt like I should be in two places at once - not the last time I'll feel that way!

Microsoft SyncToy v1.4 is a little free tool that allows you to keep two devices or directories "in Synch" with each other - that is, it doesn't matter what changes you make to either one, the other one will reflect those changes after each "sync." There are many such utilities, but I've found that SyncToy is the easiest to use and one of the fastest. It also does not bug you to buy anything extra, and contains no discernible spyware.

Note that this version is compatible with Windows Vista.

Suppose you have a computer at home and a computer at work, and they aren't laptops, so you can't reasonably bring them close to each other. So you have a USB ("keychain") drive, which by the way, have recently come down in price to about $30 for a 1 Gb model. You can set this up with a directory, let's call it "Portable Directory"

And on your home machine, we have a "Home" directory, and on the job, you have a "Work" directory. The object of this is to always have the two directories be equivalent, that is, always have the most up-to-date work in each.

The purpose of the Portable Directory on your keychain drive is to always have the most up to date copy of any work that you do. So therefore you will want to perform a synchronization on it using SyncToy at the beginning of your work and again just before you leave, no matter if you are at home or at work.

The SyncToy interface shows a "right drive" and a "left drive"

SyncToy can perform the following related actions between two drives, devices or directories:

Synchronize:

• New and Updated files are copied both ways. The freshest file "wins."
• Renames and deletes on either side are replicated on the other, so beware!

Echo:

• New and Updated files are copied left and right
• Renames and deletes are only repeated on the right, which means that the left drive becomes a sort of "master" drive that nothing is ever deleted from, but updates are okay.

Subscribe:

• Updated files on the right are copied to the left if the file name exists on the left

Contribute:

• New and updated files are copied left to right
• Renames on the left are repeated on the right
• No deletions are made.

Combine:

• New and updated files are copied both ways
• Nothing happens to renamed and deleted files

Between these five modes, any possible mode of storage can be modeled. I will just tell you that the Synchronize mode appears to me the best mode to use overall. Wow. I outmoded myself!

Here's a screen shot of my SyncToy in action. It's really amazing how fast this thing works.

Jerry Award - Honorable Mention

BGAMUG did it again! Or maybe I should say Gene Iglehart did it again!

This time an honorable mention for the Ongoing Community Service Project Jerry Award!

As you may know, this allows BGAMUG to sport the highly prestigious Jerry Ward emblem on our website and official stationary.

Thanks to Gene for all of the work he did, all of his volunteers, and Jerry Gillette for the sponsorship and nomination!

Mike Moore

Winner!

I am very happy to report that BGAMUG and Howard Margolis won 2nd Place in the Landscape and Flowers group of the 2006 Photo Contest! Congratulations, Howard!

The entry was entitled Dew on Dandelion. I photographed a number of the competitors, which I will post as soon as I find my cable.

Mike

The vendor showcase

Friday night, we went to the Top of the Riv, a beautiful view of North Las Vegas. It was a little sad seeing the Stardust all dark though. It closed in early November, and I found myself wondering why it's taking them so long to start on the demolition.

I saw a number of new vendors here tonight. Acoustica was here with its suite of recording and MP3 processing software. Applian weighed in with her Replay Music and other streaming capture utilities. They also have a great screen capture utility known as Screencast.

D-link was here representing the hardware wireless technology, and they also sponsored and set up the wireless internet in the lobby area. I couldn't get it to work, but I'm sure it was my wireless card set up, because others were happily typing away. Laplink, the computer information transfer people, had a nice display showing how to transfer old computer info to a new computer.

Migo Software
Migo creates an encrypted backup of your information (e-mail, address book, etc.) , allowing one to safely utilize public computers.

Of course, our old favorite, Smart Computing magazine was there, and we should all take advantage of the offers these folks provide.

Microsoft, Techsmith, Intervideo, TrendMicro and Grisoft had tables there as well. The food was great (provided by Corel, the WordPerfect people.

I just came back to edit this and realized I had not posted it. Sorry!

It looks like I'll be flying back tomorrow, as Cheryl's mom is in the hospital with some bad news.

Mike