Author: Dave Nelson

I listened to this as an audio book.

This book really disturbed me; the serial killer villain was not what I was expecting when I decided to listen to this book. The writing of the story is great, Spider Robinson can really write, but I did not find the subject matter to be appealing.

If you love Callahan’s and don’t like detailed descriptions of what a serial killer who thrives on causing others great mental and physical pain, then this book is not for you! If you like thrillers and books about serial killers then I think you would really like this book, especially if you have not been exposed to Spider Robinson before.

From the Author and Publisher

Aging baby-boomer Russell Walker wants only to retreat from the world and the shattering death of his wife, into the woods of British Columbia. Instead the hermit finds himself thrust into a frightening predicament, as the only possible intermediary between a telepath called Smelly, so sensitive he can’t stand to be near most people, and Constable Nika, a skeptical police officer who needs to hear – and believe – what Smelly knows about a particularly monstrous sadist and serial killer.

"This book is a departure for me," Spider says, "a kind of SF/thriller. The title is meant to cue readers that it’s considerably darker than the Callahan’s Place stories. My intention was to make the hair stand up on the back of the reader’s neck. This is my first (well, maybe second) foray into Stephen King country. Present day setting; just enough sf and mystery content to liven up the thriller genre a little; rated R for massive (but never quite graphic) violence and startling (but never quite explicit) sex.

"I envision it as merely the first in a long and hopefully popular series of sf thrillers about this Odd Couple-Plus-One – this strange and twisted crime-fighting trio who can barely stand one another: the young cop, the old hippie, and the telepath."

I rate this book a 2 out of 10 based only on my distaste for the subject matter. It is a really well written book, just not a story type that I enjoy.

I read this book using Safari Books Online web site and Firefox 5.

In my new position as a user experience designer I have the need to create flows, diagrams, wireframes, and mockups very quickly while keeping them attractive and polished. I have chosen OmniGraffle as my tool to do all of this and have been very happy with my choice.

“OmniGraffle 5 Diagramming Essentials” is a good place to learn the ins and outs of OmniGraffle and includes many of the hidden treasures that make the software easy to use. It includes everything you need to know to create great looking diagrams and wireframes quickly.

I found the coverage of keyboard shortcuts to be very helpful in laying out flows and diagrams very quickly, it is something I think I will use a lot.

From the publisher:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, why settle for anything less? Creating good visualizations to substantiate your ideas is essential in today’s corporate environment. Use OmniGraffle’s remarkably powerful and flexible features to get your diagrams right. Although fun to use, it can get cumbersome to find out exactly how to get what you want.

This book will teach you how to make stunning diagrams without spending much time and energy. No matter if you have never used OmniGraffle, or if you are using it on a daily basis, this book will teach you how to get the most out of this splendid diagramming tool. It will first teach you the basics of the program and then extend your knowledge to a higher level.

The book will teach you to make eye-popping visuals using a lot of useful, step-by-step examples. It begins with covering concepts that beef up your basics of using OmniGraffle. The earlier chapters will teach you to prepare dazzling diagrams from scratch with the many stencils, shapes, and fonts that are included in OmniGraffle. As your understanding of OmniGraffle broadens, the book will go even deeper to explain the less understood features of the software. It also covers some handy time-saving techniques such as workspaces and keyboard shortcuts.

By the time you reach the end of this book, you will have mastered OmniGraffle to turn your ideas into diagrams.

I rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it for anyone using OmniGraffle. If you have been using OmniGraffle for a while you may not get a lot out of it, but I recommend giving it a skim if you get the chance.

This is a collection of short stories published in 1959 that I listened to as an audiobook.

I found these stories to be kind of slow and mediocre. Maybe if I had listened to them in 1959 my opinion would be very different, but listening to them now they do not come across like they were written by a writer as great as Robert Heinlein.

If you are a time travel fan the story “By His Bootstraps” is a must read.

I recommend this book only to Heinlein fans and rate it a 4 out of 10.

Recently a book that I had been eagerly anticipating, “Dresden Files Book 13: Ghost Story” by Jim Butcher, was published and I immediately jumped over to Audible.com to buy the audio book. Just before clicking the “Add to Cart” button I noticed that the customer reviews for the book were really low.

Surprised by this I started reading the reviews and found out that James Marster’s was not the narrator. WOW!!! How could that happen? James Marster’s IS Harry Dresden. I cannot imagine anyone else living up to the incredible job that he has done narrating and acting the first 12 books and “Side Jobs”.

Based on the reviews I decided that I did not want to hear even a sampling of the new guy and decided to buy the book and read it instead of listen to it.

After some thinking I decided to buy it as an ebook from Amazon to be read with the Kindle software on the iPhone 3GS, iPad 1, and various Apple laptops. Even though the price of $14.99 feels REALLY high to me for an ebook especially when the hardback is only a dollar more I bought it anyways. The book was delivered to my iPhone very quickly and I was able to start reading in a matter of minutes.

But, the font on the iPhone Kindle app is a terrible serif font that you cannot change to any other font. Every study ever done on the readability of text on a backlit computer screen has found that a sans-serif font like Helvetica, Arial, or Verdana is much easier and faster to read. I am not sure why, but the font made the book unreadable to me.

Then I noticed that the text was being fully justified so that the spacing between words is different on every line. I am unable to create a rhythm in my reading because my eyes have to jump a different amount between every word. That plus the font issue makes reading a chore.

A co-worker pointed out to me that Amazon has refurbished Kindle’s available for $99 so I decided that owning a Kindle was an experience I needed to have. A few clicks and 24 hours later the ninja UPS guy who never knocks dropped it off.

After an easy setup that required plugging the Kindle into a computer and registering it then leaving the Kindle alone for 3 or more hours to charge I was ready to read with it.

The device itself is nice and solid, the buttons give a decent amount of feedback when pushed, and the screen has enough contrast to be easy on the eyes.

I can choose from multiple fonts which include a sans serif one, I can change the spacing between lines of text, but I still cannot change the justification to be left aligned.
Reading on the Kindle is a decent experience; with its reflective screen it causes noticeably less eyestrain than the iPhone, iPad, or laptop screen, and when dropped into a Ziploc freezer bag it is comfortable to read from in the bathtub. The battery life is great, the selection of books is great, support for Audible is cool, and being able to listen to MP3s while reading is neat.

I find the device to be so thin that it is uncomfortable to hold, that the locations of the back and forward buttons still confuse me after reading a novel, the keyboard is tough to type on when playing word games, the web browser does not handle very many web sites well, and it is yet another device to drag around and worry about losing or breaking.

I doubt I will keep the Kindle; I will be giving it to someone as a gift unless my wife falls in love with it. I will continue to read ebooks using eReader on the iPhone and iPad as it allows a lot more customization than the Kindle app.

I rate the Kindle a 7 out of 10 and thing it is good for someone interested in ebooks and not in gadgets.

I read this book on a Kindle. There will be a review next week of the process I went through in deciding to buy a Kindle and what I think about it.

It feels like I was waiting for this book for a very long time. When I last saw Harry he was in big trouble. I think the previous book, “Changes”, is one of the best Dresden books and it ended with a real cliffhanger.

“Ghost Story” disappointed me a little bit, I felt like I knew what was coming next throughout the entire story. I was wrong a couple of times, which was nice, but most of the time the story unfolded exactly how I thought it would with very few surprises.

I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to the next one but it did not reach me the way many of the other books in the series did.

From the publisher:

When we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn’t doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin.

But being dead doesn’t stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has no body, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own.

To save his friends — and his own soul — Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic…

I rate this book a 7 out of 10. If you are a Dresden Files fan you will read this book, if not then you should begin with Book 1: Storm Front.

I listened to this book as an audiobook.

Published in 1961, Stranger in a Strange land is one of science fiction’s most influential stories. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith born during the first manned mission to Mars and the only survivor. He grows up on Mars where he is learns to be a Martian and does not learn how to be an earthling.

Over the length of the story Michael learns what it means to be an earthling and what it means to human. It is such a great story of growth and change.

There are a lot of elements in this story that have shaped the science fiction we know today. From terminology like “grokking” to ideas like “sharing water” this story is one of the most important science fiction stories ever written.

Instead of including something from the publisher I am going to include the text from the beginning of the Wikipeidia article located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land

Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who has come to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and the eventual transformation of—Earth culture. The title seems to be an allusion to the phrase in Exodus 2:22 (in the Biblical Book of Exodus). According to Heinlein, the novel’s working title was The Heretic. Several later editions of the book have promoted it as “The most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written.”

I rate this book a 10 out of 10. Not so much because it is masterfully written or a story that I want to re-read but because of the influence it has had on science fiction and our culture.

We bought this book from Amazon to get our Martha Jones fix. I read this book in one day, I guess I was really in the mood for Doctor Who and Martha. It features David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.

This is not a deep book diving into the characters and exposing their souls, it is full of action, angry computer intelligence run amok, and running, a lot of running.

People are people, even if they do dispense soggy crisps or their lights flicker and spark.

From the publisher:

Tiermann’s World: a planet covered in wintry woods and roamed by sabre-toothed tigers and other savage beasts. The Doctor is here to warn Professor Tiermann, his wife and their son that a terrible danger is on its way. The Tiermann’s live in luxury, in a fantastic, futuristic, fully-automated Dreamhome, under an impenetrable force shield. But that won’t protect them from the Voracious Craw. A gigantic and extremely hungry alien creature is heading remorselessly toward their home. When it gets there everything will be devoured. Can they get away in time? With the force shield cracking up, and the Dreamhome itself deciding who should or should not leave, things are looking desperate…

I rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend it to all Doctor Who fans.

P.S.
The cover of this book does not represent the story very well at all.

I have loved every book written by Terry Pratchett that I have read and “I Shall Wear Midnight” is no exception. I read the hardback version of this book.

This is the 4th Tiffany Aching book, which is preceded by “The Wee Free Men”, “A Hat Full of Sky”, and “Wintersmith”, all great books.

The story did not initially grab me the way many Discworld books do, but it builds momentum as it goes and has a fantastic ending.

From the publisher:

It starts with whispers.

Then someone picks up a stone.

Finally, the fires begin.

When people turn on witches, the innocents suffer. . . .

Tiffany Aching has spent years studying with senior witches, and now she is on her own. As the witch of the Chalk, she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: She does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.

But someone—or something—is igniting fear, inculcating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Aided by her tiny blue allies, the Wee Free Men, Tiffany must find the source of this unrest and defeat the evil at its root—before it takes her life. Because if Tiffany falls, the whole Chalk falls with her.

Chilling drama combines with laugh out-loud humor and searing insight as beloved and bestselling author Terry Pratchett tells the high-stakes story of a young witch who stands in the gap between good and evil.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend anyone who loves humorous fiction read any and all of the Discworld novels.

I read this book using Safari Books Online. Note that Mr. Schwertly does have something to sell with this book. He is founder of Ethos3 under which he provides presentation training and design services.

My goal when I started reading this book was to improve my ability to reach people through traditional slide presentations. I had recently given a presentation to a room fool of people and felt that I could have done better.

Just a couple of pages into “How to be a Presentation God” Scott Schwertly changed my goals. Now I want to change lives by helping people find their own excellence. The goal of my presentations may not change, I am still selling a service, but now I want to bring my presentation to a whole new level that transcends the sale. I am not totally sure what that means right now, but I plan on having fun figuring it out.

Here is just a little bit of what I am taking away from this book:

• How can I help the audience? How can I meet their greatest needs and desires?
• Creativity is about solving a problem while execution is about implementation.
• Failure is not permanent, be ready to fail.
• Simplicity is king. The message should be inspirational to the catatonic; understandable to the dumb; legible to the illiterate; and logical to the crazy.
• As a presenter you have a certain amount of authority solely because you are the only one allowed to speak.
• To be remembered do the unexpected and don’t be normal.
• Do and be. Do everything right, and be absolutely incredible.
• Focus on the little things that make us big things. Nothing is accomplished without first accomplishing simple, everyday tasks.
• Go forth and dominate.

From the publisher:

Learn how to build, design, and deliver a fire-breathing, wing-flapping, roar-bellowing behemoth of a presentation.

Unlike most presentation books that say the same things regarding presentation design and delivery (less is more, get rid of bullets and use images, emulate Steve Jobs, and so on), How to Be a Presentation God actually divulges step-by-step secrets for how to build, design, and deliver blockbuster presentations.

By providing entertaining and clever presentation insights, veteran presenter Scott Schwertly gives you the in’s and out’s for presenting yourself, your business, and your cause with an easy-to-implement approach.

• Focuses on content, design, and delivery
• Author is a regular speaker at national and regional industry conferences such as PowerPoint Live and Presentation Camps, and is the founder of the award-winning Ethos3 Communications
• Author is the creator of an app, Present, that landed in the top-20 iPhone apps in the Business category on iTunes

How to be a Presentation God will ensure that your presentations reach a new level of effectiveness.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who has a need to give presentations and change the world.

Rory finally gets a time to shine. I read this book while on vacation and it was a great read. It was a very fast and funny read while adding depth to Rory and Amy’s love for him.

From the publisher

‘Why are you here? I mean – who are you, exactly?’ An archaeological dig in 1936 unearths relics of another time… And – as the Doctor, Amy and Rory realise – another place. Another planet. But if Enola Porter, noted adventuress, has really found evidence of an alien civilisation, how come she isn’t famous? Why has Rory never heard of her? Added to that, since Amy’s been travelling with him for a while now, why does she now think the Doctor is from Mars? As the ancient spaceship reactivates, the Doctor discovers that nothing and no one can be trusted. The things that seem most real could actually be literal fabrications – and very deadly indeed. Who can the Doctor believe when no one is what they seem? And how can he defeat an enemy who can bend matter itself to their will? For the Doctor, Amy and Rory – and all of humanity – the buried secrets of the past are very much a threat to the present…

About Gary Russell

Gary Russell is one of the script editing team for Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the author of many novels and reference books in the Doctor Who range. A former editor of Doctor Who Magazine, he also was the producer of Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish Productions for eight years. He lives in Cardiff.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it for all Doctor Who fans.

I listened to this audiobook from Audible on my iPhone over vacation and while commuting.

At Home is a wonderful collection of trivia about the objects in and around our home and our homes themselves. It does not delve into the type of details that A Short History of Nearly Everything does, but includes a lot of interesting Tidbits.

I don’t have much else to say about the book, I found it interesting and a good listen but it did not wow me.

From the publisher:

Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.

As an audiobook I rate this 6 out of 10 and recommend it to people that enjoy trivia about the origin of things in and around their home.

I read The Kings Dragon while on vacation recently and really enjoyed it. Written by Una McCormack and featuring the Mat Smith Doctor with Amy and Rory.

The Doctor’s curiosity is peaked when he discovers the town of Geath covered in gold even though gold does not exist naturally on the planet. And to top it off Geath now has a king after thousands of years of self-rule.

The pace of this book is a little slower that other recent Doctor Who books, it was kind of nice slowing down a bit.

From the publisher:

In the city-state of Geath, the King lives in a golden hall, and the people want for nothing. Everyone is happy and everyone is rich. Or so it seems. When the Doctor and Amy look beneath the surface, they discover a city of secrets. In dark corners, strange creatures are stirring. At the heart of the hall, a great metal dragon oozes gold. Then the Herald appears, demanding the return of her treasure – the ‘glamour’ – and next come the gunships. The battle for possession of the glamour has begun, and only the Doctor and Amy can save the people of the city from being destroyed in the crossfire of an ancient civil war. But will the King surrender his new-found wealth? Or will he fight to keep it? A thrilling, all new adventure featuring the Doctor and Amy, as played by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan in the spectacular hit series from BBC Television.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and a good read for any Doctor Who fan.

I had a great time at the workshop and learned a lot. I have posted a few more pictures.

This is Dana posing on a Steamer trunk.

I have finally finished reading this book after loosing it in a piece of luggage for a couple of months.

I did not have LEGOs as a child; my interest in them began as a means to build robots and prototype enclosures for electronic gadgets. My interest grew quickly after buying a couple of small kits and now I am putting kits together on a regular basis. I am currently in the middle of building the 8070 Supercar.

LEGO: A Love Story is a first hand account of Jonathan Bender’s journey into LEGO as an Adult Fan of Lego (AFOL) and the people he meets along the way. He attends conventions devoted to lego, travels to LEGO headquarters in Denmark and Connecticut, to Legoland in California, and meets great fans of LEGO everywhere he goes. Jon’s passion for LEGO is clear and the way it brings him closer to his wife and father are inspirational.

From the publisher:

There are 62 LEGO bricks for every person in the world, and at age 30, Jonathan Bender realized that he didn’t have a single one of them. While reconsidering his childhood dream of becoming a master model builder for The LEGO Group, he discovers the men and women who are skewing the averages with collections of hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks. What is it about the ubiquitous, brightly colored toys that makes them so hard for everyone to put down?

I rate this book a 7 out of 10 and recommend to any AFOL.

Jonathan also shares some of his family’s difficulties with getting pregnant and having a child. My wife and I went through a similar experience and I found myself feeling very emotional during that part of the book. One of the situations they experience mirrored ours and it really hit me hard. Also similar to our experience, they were eventually blessed with a baby. I wish them the best of everything and hope they enjoy JEGO for a long time to come.

Written by Neal Bascomb and Narrated by Kirby Heyborne the audiobook version of The New Cool from Audible is absolutely incredible. After a number of books that fell flat for various reasons this one really came through as a great listen.

Over the last few years I have been getting into electronics, micro-controlers, and robotics and in 2010 my wife and I were able to catch the very end of the FIRST championship at the Georgia Dome. We didn’t really get to see much and what I saw didn’t make a lot of sense to me, after listening to this book it does now.

This book is the story of a school in California and its FIRST robotics team made up of rookie high-school seniors competing in the annual FIRST competition. If you don’t know about FIRST check out http://www.usfirst.org/

I really like the mission statement of FIRST found on the web site:

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

I hope that stories like the ones told in this book are being repeated all over the country and that by reading this book will encourage more people to get involved. I hope that I can work in time to volunteer for some FIRST activities this year even if it is just a couple hours taking pictures or helping to setup.

Publisher’s Summary

That Monday afternoon, in high-school gyms across America, kids were battling for the only glory American culture seems to want to dispense to the young these days: sports glory. But at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, in a gear-cluttered classroom, a different type of “cool” was brewing. A physics teacher with a dream – the first public high-school teacher ever to win a MacArthur Genius Award — had rounded up a band of high-I.Q. students who wanted to put their technical know-how to work. If you asked these brainiacs what the stakes were that first week of their project, they’d have told you it was all about winning a robotics competition – building the ultimate robot and prevailing in a machine-to-machine contest in front of 25,000 screaming fans at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.

But for their mentor, Amir Abo-Shaeer, much more hung in the balance.

The fact was, Amir had in mind a different vision for education, one based not on rote learning — on absorbing facts and figures — but on active creation. In his mind’s eye, he saw an even more robust academy within Dos Pueblos that would make science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) cool again, and he knew he was poised on the edge of making that dream a reality. All he needed to get the necessary funding was one flashy win – a triumph that would firmly put his Engineering Academy at Dos Pueblos on the map. He imagined that one day there would be a nation filled with such academies, and a new popular veneration for STEM – a “new cool” – that would return America to its former innovative glory.

It was a dream shared by Dean Kamen, a modern-day inventing wizard – often-called “the Edison of his time” – who’d concocted the very same FIRST Robotics Competition that had lured the kids at Dos Pueblos. Kamen had created FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) nearly twenty years prior. And now, with a participant alumni base approaching a million strong, he felt that awareness was about to hit critical mass.

In The New Cool, Neal Bascomb manages to make even those who know little about – or are vaguely suspicious of – technology care passionately about a team of kids questing after a different kind of glory. In these kids’ heartaches and headaches – and yes, high-five triumphs — we glimpse the path not just to a new way of educating our youth but of honoring the crucial skills a society needs to prosper. A new cool.

I rate this book a 10 out of 10 and recommend it for anyone and everyone.