This is a Literary Blog

Posted on by Dana
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I have decided finally that the focus of this blog will be my reading, which should come as no surprise to regular visitors, as that has been it’s unstated focus for some time. I may still share non-literary information from time to time, but I wanted to warn you in case you no longer desired to read this blog if its focus is on books. I felt a change in theme was in order in honor of this blog’s new purpose.

To do:

  • Clean up CSS so that the sidebar looks right.
  • Clean up archives and categories. New archives page and tag cloud in sidebar.
  • Widgetize sidebar and put my extras back in sidebars (Currently Reading, DailyLit, etc.)
  • Change favicon.
  • Implement WordPress tagging and do away with Technorati tagging. Tag cloud in sidebar.
  • Put credit for Literary Life theme in footer.

Not to do:

  • Delete non-literary posts.
  • Categorize old literary posts — too much work and not enough time.

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Cool Tools for Book Lovers

Posted on by Dana
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Ever since I became a regular user of StumbleUpon, I have been introduced to a variety of cool tools for book lovers.

The one I’m most excited about is Book Glutton (found via Sylvia’s blog), which allows you to read with a group and annotate passages as you read. Here’s a video demonstration:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/TkCoknkwua4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I have mentioned DailyLit before, and if you’re a regular visitor, maybe you’ve even kept track of my DailyLit reading in the sidebar on the right. Tom Hand contacted me through my education blog to tell me about DailyReader.net, a similar tool. You can also browse thousands of free books online at FullBooks.com. ReadPrint is another good source for online reading.

If swapping books is your thing, you might be interested in BookMooch or BookCrossing.

Listen to audio selections from great literature at Norton’s website for their popular British literature anthology. You can also download classics on audio at Free Classic AudioBooks.

If you’re looking for suggestions, you might consult What Should I Read Next, which will guide you to a selection based on

If you’re looking for something different to read, you might choose one of the selections in “10 Books for Inquiring Minds” from BookStove.

Blurb allows you to create your own books (the samples look pretty slick) for as little as $12.95. You can also use Lulu to publish your books (I was happy with the results when I published my own book on Lulu).

If you would like to keep up with the sites in my StumbleUpon feed, you can subscribe here.

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Now playing: Tony Steidler-Dennison – Roadhouse 156
via FoxyTunes

[tags]stumbleupon, literature, books, tools, reading[/tags]

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Sporcle Games

Posted on by Dana
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Sporcle is a website I would probably never visit if not for its fun games section. I found Sporcle’s games via StumbleUpon (which I highly recommend if you are not already using it). With some practice, I can name all the countries of Europe and South America. I can get most of the countries of Asia, Africa, and North America, but I stink at Australia/Oceana. I do pretty well with the United States and their capitols. My score on the US presidents was abysmal. I did respectable on Shakespeare’s plays, but should have done better as I am an English teacher. I aced Star Trek: TNG crew, but forgot Sulu on the Star Trek crew (and Nurse Chapel, too). I only did OK on Bible books, both Old and New Testaments. I stank at Tom Hanks films. I didn’t even try British Prime Ministers (although if there had been a quiz on British monarchs, I feel confident I would have aced it).

The games are addictive, especially the geography ones. I found myself remembering better each time I played. I always liked geography and used to spend hours looking through my stamp collection and examining my globe. So many changes have occurred with countries created and names changed. Names I remember from my stamp books, like Dahomey and Upper Volta are no longer used, and the break-ups of the USSR and Yugoslavia have changed the the map considerably. I thought it was interesting that the Asia quiz accepted either Burma or Myanmar and the African quiz accepted either Côte d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast, although whichever answer you type, the map will read Myanmar and Côte d’Ivoire respectively. And I learned how to spell Kyrgyzstan, but I still don’t know how to say it.

[tags]geography, games, sporcle, stumbleupon[/tags]

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GarageBand.com

Posted on by Dana
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So I may be one of the last people on the Web to discover GarageBand.com.  On the off chance that you are, too, I decided to share it with you.  It is a great place to discover new artists and music you likely would never have heard about otherwise.  You will find music in all types of genres from all over the world.  You can search by artist, location, or musical sub-genre.

I have only been poking around the site for a couple of days.  I initially found it through the Facebook application iLike.   When you activate that application on your Facebook profile, you can choose to display short clips from your favorite musical artists.  I happened to select Kelly Richey as one of mine.  If you select an artist that has mp3’s available for download at GarageBand.com, a button appears on the application that allows you to download the song.  I clicked through to discover the site.

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Now playing: Driftwood Groove – Old Susquehanna
via FoxyTunes

[tags]garageband.com, iLike, facebook[/tags]

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Wonky WordPress

Posted on by Dana
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Ever since I upgraded to WordPress 2.3.2, I have noticed a really strange error.  I am trying a fix found here, and this post is partly a test to see if it works.

Also, a reader of my husband’s gracious donated a used Apple iBook G3 for my use so that I might have computer time to continue to create interesting opportunities for my students to learn.  Thanks, Betsy!  One of the main reasons for the light blogging here is the increasing need to Steve to use our desktop for his writing (which he gets paid for and I don’t).

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Now playing: The Kelly Richey Band – The Blues Don’t Lie
via FoxyTunes

[tags]wordpress, mysql error, apple, ibook[/tags]

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Peanuts/Outkast Mashup

Posted on by Dana
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Steve showed me this video last night. I have to say that the mashup’s creators, Ryan King and Dan Hess, did a really good job syncing up the video with the music.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/KGnYw-OuCnI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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Reading Update

Posted on by Dana
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Sarah chastised me for putting aside Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in order to re-read the Harry Potter series.  It isn’t that I wasn’t enjoying the book — on the contrary, I was enjoying it quite a lot.  However, ever since I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this summer, I have been wanting to re-read the series from start to finish just to see what interesting connections I could make.  Therefore, while you won’t see Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in my current reading list, it’s just been put on hold on my nightstand, as has The Great Mortality.  I will be reading Thomas L. Friedman’s The World is Flat as part of a professional learning course, so look for my thoughts and a review soon.

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Year in Review

Posted on by Dana
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In 2007, I didn’t have enough time to do all that I wanted, and that includes reading, but I read the following books (links will take you to my reviews):

That’s a little more than a book a month, which I suppose isn’t too bad. My favorite book was obviously Harry Potter, but aside from that one, the ones I am still thinking about are A Thousand Acres, Ahab’s Wife, and, surprisingly, The Myth of You and Me, which I wasn’t sure would stay with me at the time I finished it.

I also made two great musical discoveries this year: Kelly Richey and Tony Steidler-Dennison’s weekly Roadhouse Podcast. I am finding as I get older that I don’t keep up with musical trends, and I barely ever listened to music on the radio this year. I bought few CD’s. My favorite new CD is by an old band — the Eagles’ Long Road Out of Eden (only available from third party sellers at Amazon because the album is a Wal-Mart exclusive — and incidentally, I thought that was odd given Don Henley’s politics).

My favorite movie this year was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but I also enjoyed viewing Possession. I do like movies, but despite instituting a weekly movie night here at the Huff household, I have not found that too many I’ve seen this year really stuck with me.

I did a small amount of traveling in January, when I had the opportunity to accompany the juniors on a class trip through Birmingham, Tupelo, MS., and Memphis. I absolutely loved Memphis, and I can hardly wait to go back. During the trip, a colleague and I accompanied one of the students to ER when he broke his nose. Some of the most interesting places I saw were Elvis’s birthplace and Graceland, the Rum Boogie Café, the Rock and Soul Museum, and Sun Studio. Actually, the Rock and Soul museum didn’t so much have interesting exhibits to look at, but their musical exhibits were amazing.

Happy New Year, everyone.

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Movable Type Goes Open Source

Posted on by Dana
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When I first began blogging after moving away from a hosted online journal, I used Movable Type mainly because it seemed to be the biggest game around.  It was, at that time, a bear to install.  I always had difficulty with upgrades, too.  Updating was not easy, as I had to rebuild after each post — a time-consuming process.  Finally, I found tech support to be unhelpful or nonexistent because, as it seemed to me, MT was interested in you only if you paid for a license, which was not something I could afford to do.

I switched to WordPress in early 2006, and I have been very happy ever since.  I rarely have any problems with upgrading, and I love the ease with which I can change themes (templates).  To my way of thinking, what WP got right from the beginning that MT got wrong was going open source.  Yesterday, MT announced they are going open source.  My personal thinking is that they waited too long, but I’m glad they’re making this move.  If I had paid for a license, I think I’d be pretty angry about it.  I think MT will be a much better product as a result, and competition will only be good for WP and MT both.

[tags]mt, movable type, wordpress, open source[/tags]

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