• It dawned on me, just now, that there is one huge difference between the Music Industry and the Publishing Industry that, so far, has meant that eBooks haven’t taken off in the same way that music did.

    In the beginning, people began to rip their cd’s and put the digital files onto their computers, because it was convenient to have them catalogued and available on their hard drives. Originally, an mp3 player was piece of software that made it easy to find the music on your computer and make it play. Soon people were providing “skins” for the software to make it look more cool on the screen.

    Once all this data had been digitised, it was easy to start file sharing it and music took off as a downloadable product.

    The Music Industry hid under the covers and hoped it would go away, but it didn’t. Eventually they began to do something about it.

    Books are very different. It’s a huge bore to digitise a book, so no one does it (except for total nerds!). So, the material isn’t there to be shared. If everyone had piles of book data on their hard drives, clever software people would come together to make the data readable in beautiful ways, that would encourage more and more to adopt eBooks in favour of paper books.

    That is what is different and why eBooks are slow to get going. in the digital world, piracy is a necessary evil to get the show on the road!

    Want to read an eBook now? Click the picture above to read My First Picture Joke Book at www.magicblox.com. Enjoy!

  • Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays – whatever you want to call it, you can draw cards and posters with this fabulous, seasonal lettering style. Go on, get drawing!

  • I got new glasses recently. My eyes had deteriorated enough that I needed stronger lenses.

    Besing shortsighted, I realised that the time had come to try varifocals. Well – they were horrid. I really couldn’t see the point. To go from pretty perfect sight to a thin strip of distance vision and a narrow gap of nearer vision gave me an idea of what it must me like living with tunnel vision. Also, as I moved my head from side to side, my world moved up and down as if I was on a ship during a storm.

    I tried to get used to them I thought if I wore them all the time my brain would compensate, but I think I use my eyes too much. I don’t think most people actually look at things. Not all day long, like I do.

    So Now I have new, stronger lenses and I seem to view the world from a different perspective. I’ve noticed that if I reach out for some things I either bump into them or they are not there. My perception of the world is quite different to how it was before.

    I have found that that is true of life in general. Change your point of view or focus and what seemed to be really important before suddenly becomes quite irrelevant. We humans are apt to keep going without getting new lenses or even thinking about getting a sight test. This goes for our thought processes as well as our eyes.