Reading: The Bourne Identity

Today had been quite unpleasant outside. It has been pouring with rain at times, then not. When it hasn’t been it has been blowing a gale and it is also quite cold. It’s bucketing down yet again. So very little has been able to be accomplished outside today. No great outdoors for me on this wet and miserable day.

I have been spending a bit of time, as a consequence of the weather, reading ‘The Bourne Identity,’ by Robert Ludlum. I haven’t read the Bourne series of books before, but have seen the movies many times. I’m a big fan of the Jason Bourne movies. However, having seen the movies it has been difficult to some degree reading the book. The book is very different to the movie, more so than what ‘The Hunt for Red October’ was to the film version. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still enjoying the book and will try and work my way through the other nine books (I believe there are now 10 books in the series).

So I’m making good progress through the first book and as I said, enjoying the read. I’m hoping to complete it before the end of the week, which I think I can achieve relatively easily. I’m approaching halfway through now – on the Kindle. I was only 10% through it a couple of days ago, so progress is going very well.

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PDFse – Ebook search

If you are looking for a book and want to see if there is an ebook version, you should probably try PDFse, which is a search engine for ebooks. These days you can read ebooks on a reader or on a laptop with pretty much the same convenience as that of a normal book. That’s my view anyhow.

Have a look at:
http://pdfse.com/

Google Pacman

Some time ago Google hosted a version of Pacman on its search page, as a memorial to the game. Now you can play the Google version of Pacman at:
http://macek.github.com/google_pacman/

penzu

Some people like to keep a personal and private diary or journal. It may be for just jotting down thoughts that you want to remember for some reason, perhaps private reflections on daily happenings or whatever reason it may be. I have tried to keep a diary on a number of occasions – with varying degrees of success. I was never able to keep it up for great periods of time however.

I am trying to keep a journal again now. I use two online resources for doing so now. The first is penzu – which I really wanted to test out and see if it was any good and if it met my needs. Penzu is an application that is allows users to have their own personal and private diary or journal stored online (or in the ‘cloud,’ as they say these days). You are also able to share your entries with the world should you so wish – but they are private by default.

Penzu is free to sign up for and there is a permanent free version of the application. There is of course also a premium or paid for version which offers more options.

The free version also allows you to insert photos (including those stored at flickr). There is a very useful auto-save feature, which means you won’t loose your entries by forgetting to save them. Should you choose to share an entry with others, there is a comments feature for others to share their thoughts on your entry.

The ‘pro’ or ‘premium’ version has a lot more to offer. I don’t have the premium account, just the free one at this stage. Should you choose to upgrade you are of course able to do so. Should you wish to secure your entries to a greater degree than the free version, the premium version allows for that. The premium version also allows for larger photos, more than one diary or journal, the ability to export data in a number of formats, mobile diary ability, email posts to your diary, set reminders, tagging of posts, etc.

Check out the site at:
https://penzu.com/home

SlideShare

Today’s link is to SlideShare, which is a web application/resource that allows you to share documents, videos, and presentations with others. It could also be described as a social networking type site. There is a free version and a pro version (more services).

With slideshare you can embed your material into your Blog and/or websites. There are plenty of things to like about SlideShare, so have a bit of a look at:

http://www.slideshare.net/

Garden Planner 2.4 Online

If you’re into gardening and feel you need to re-design/design your garden, there is an online tool you can use. It’s the online trial version of the software you can download (pay for) from the site – for Windows. It could be just what you need to draw up some plans for the garden.

Visit:

http://www.smallblueprinter.com/garden/planner.html

Namo Web Editor

I used to use Windows Live Writer to update my various Blogs. I found it to be a very useful application/tool. However, as the number of posts in my Blog grew, I found that the software slowed down dramatically and it also began to play up on a very regular basis. Eventually I decided I needed to try something different. This process has interrupted my Blog posting for months and I have now settled on using the same software I use to maintain my various other websites – Namo Web Editor.

I use Namo Web Editor 2006 on my Windows 7 lap top without a problem and feel I have no need to upgrade to the latest version. However, I suspect that at some point I will probably do so and will very happily pay to do so. I believe that Namo Web Editor is a brilliant product and very easy to use.

To post to my WordPress Blogs, all I do is copy the HTML code and paste it into the HTML editor in my WordPress dashboard. On the dashboard I input the various post categories and tags, as well as set the time for my post (often posting for the future). This way I get my Blog post to look exactly as I wish it to look – especially given that I prefer a fully justified paragraph format.

Visit Namo Web Editor at:

http://www.namo.com/main/?skin=productdetail_webeditor.html

PS: I wasn’t paid to advertise or comment on this product – I use it and love it.

Evernote: Changes to Premium Accounts Make Evernote Even Better

I use Evernote and have a premium account to which I save all manner of files and notes that otherwise would clutter my life. I use Evernote as an archive to which I can turn should I ever need something that I have stored digitally there. It is a great service which I will be using more and more as time goes by. This is why I am very impressed with the latest improvements to the Evernote service and why I have decided to post on Evernote for my post today.

Evernote now has a ‘history’ feature, allowing premium users to view a file over time as it develops. A past version of a note can be downloaded just as easily as the current version of the note. These historical views of files are not added to the monthly upload limit that premium users have for their accounts.

Another upgrade to the premium service is that individual note sizes have now been doubled from 25 Mb to 50 Mb, which certainly allows for much larger notes to be saved and uploaded. The current monthly limit of 500 Mb of file uploads a month may soon be increased also.

It is great to be a premium account holder at Evernote.

http://www.evernote.com/