Free Classics for the Nook (B&N Classics Series) – Limited Time!

Right now, and I emphasize the “now” in that phrase, there are twenty free classics available from Barnes and Noble in their awesome Classics series!  I just checked each one this morning, and all are still showing to be free.  Please check each one to make sure it still says that it still says “free” prior to downloading, though, as I do not know how long each one will remain free. Normally these are $3-$4 each, which is still a very fair price to have such nicely formatted e-books.

This is another great opportunity to add to your e-library for free, even if you just archive them for a little while. These also have the “lend-me” function, which allows you to loan the e-book out one time for a two-week period.  If you don’t own a Nook, just download the free Nook app for your computer, tablet or smart phone!

Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Don Quixote

Gulliver’s Travels

Jane Eyre

Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man & Dubliners

Scarlet Letter

Tale of Two Cities

Three Musketeers

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Wuthering Heights

Picture of Dorian Gray

Paradise Lost

Odyssey

Jude the Obscure

House of Mirth

The Good Soldier

Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I

Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

Awakening and Selected Short Fiction

Art of War

Thanks to The Cheap for the information on first ten e-books on this list. I remain very grateful for all of the hard work you all put in on researching great, affordable reads!

D

“Just A Dog” – Author Unknown

I’ve read this wonderful poem before, but it really spoke to me again today as I get to know my precious puppy more and more and as I watch my aging elder dog slow down a little more almost every day, it seems.  They have been magic in my life and have loved me when I didn’t feel loved by anyone else.

Dogs are truly a gift from God above!

Just A Dog

From time to time, people tell me,
”Lighten up, it’s just a dog,” or
“That’s a lot of money for just a dog.”
They don’t understand the distance traveled,
the time spent, or the costs involved for “just a dog.”

Some of my proudest moments have come about with “just a dog.”
Many hours have passed, and my only company was “just a dog,”
but I did not once feel slighted.

Some of my saddest moments have been brought about by “just a dog,”
and in those days of darkness, the gentle touch of “just a dog”
gave me comfort and reason to overcome the  day.

If you, too, think it’s “just a dog,”
then you probably won’t understand phrases like
“just a friend,” “just a sunrise,” or “just a promise.”

“Just a dog” brings into my life the very essence of
friendship, trust, and pure unbridled joy.

“Just a dog” brings out the compassion and patience
that makes me a better person.

Because of “just a dog,” I will rise early,
take long walks and look longingly to the future.
So for me and folks like me, it’s not “just a dog,”
but an embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of the future,
the fond memories of the past, and the pure joy of the moment.

“Just a dog” brings out what’s good in me and
diverts my thoughts away from myself and the worries of the day.

 I hope that someday they can understand that it’s not “just a dog,”
but the thing that gives me humanity and
keeps me from being “just a man or woman.”
So the next time you hear the phrase “just a dog,”
just smile — because they “just don’t understand.”

– Author Unknown

Google+ vs. Facebook

I have had a Facebook account for several years now, coming a little later to that party that some folks, especially my kids and their own friends.  While I created a Facebook account more out of curiosity in the beginning and to hopefully locate a few old friends that I had lost track of my high school and college years, I found that I soon came to really enjoy reconnecting with so many people that I have known over the decades.  I was surprised at some that became “friends” and even more surprised that some that chose to not be my “friend” online.  Thankfully, I don’t base my self-esteem on such things, and I have certainly had fun and fellowship with the friends that I have connected (or reconnected) with there.  My contacts are either a friend to me there or not.  I actually turned down a few folks on my own, too, basically because I had no clue who they were.  I wanted to only interact on my Facebook account with people I knew personally.

My son sent me an invitation to join Google+ a couple of weeks ago, and my daughter and her husband had already joined there as well.  Oddly enough, my son never really wanted to be a friend on Facebook, so I found this development a little amusing.  I created my account and set out to explore the basics of what Google+ had to offer.  It is a very basic networking site as compared to Facebook, and that is not an issue with me.  I just like to post updates and photos and see updates and photos from my Facebook friends.  At this time, there are also no ads at G+, which I’m sure will change over time.  I doubt that Google intends for this to be a charitable effort, and I don’t have any issue with that either.

The biggest difference that I am seeing right now between the two social sites is the “Circles” offered in Google+, and I think this feature will determine who will switch to G+ and who will mostly stick with Facebook.  Here is how I see things “shaking out” in the future for these two.

Google+:  Right now, G+ is very easy to use.  The look of the page is very, very basic… honestly quite boring to me even compared to Facebook’s own blandness.  There is just too much empty white space.  The biggest new feature there, though, is the ability to classify people into circles, even multiple overlapping circles.  This solves the issue of narrowing down the audience for the user’s posts and pictures, and it makes it possible to “friend” someone but never actually have to interact with them.  Of course, this is all possible in Facebook, but the mechanism to get this result is more complex… more of an “exclusion” process than an “inclusion” process as I understand it.  After posting a test post in G+ to see what it would look like, I soon discovered that there is no way at this time to edit or delete the post if I wanted to do so.  I think that is quite lame, to be honest, especially on the deletion front.  G+ also has a feature called “Hangouts” that enables small groups of friends to interact together… I believe up to ten people at one time.  I just don’t have a need for this feature in my own life.  I still interact with the people in my life on a more personal level, but again, for friends or relatives scattered in different areas, this might be a nice little feature, provided everyone actually joins G+.  One thing that may actually impact the level of success for G+ is how quickly Google will open their doors for anyone to join that would like to do so.  Their policy of limiting membership during this beta offering may actually keep G+ from becoming the next big thing.  Potential users may ultimately just lose interest in not being able to join their friends for the opening “fun,” especially if they are limited in joining for months and months to come.

Facebook:  In my opinion, Facebook was based on getting more and more people to interact with each other online, and in my opinion, it strives to have all of the user’s friends included in the discussion by default, as opposed to a more selective process with the Circles in G+.  For someone like me, this is just fine.  If I don’t want to interact with someone, I just don’t add them as a friend on Facebook.  I don’t see any value in “friending” someone there, only to then exclude them for most or all of my posts.  My posts are quite tame, too.  I don’t mind the average friend hearing all about my kids, my spoiled dogs, things that I find funny or informative or something that inspired me that day.  But I can certainly see where someone that has more private or opinionated things that they would like to share online would appreciative the more restricted options that G+ offers.  Even after I have “friended” someone at Facebook, if I don’t want to continue reading their constant stream of daily posts, I can easily just remove them from my feed without “de-friending” them.  That leaves me the option of still being able to visit their page from time to time to check in on them, too.  Right now, I’m not sure if such a feature exists in G+ – to hide posts from someone, even when they have opted to include me in their circle of posts.

The only other issue that I think should be considered when making a decision on which site to use is the issue of privacy and ownership of original material.  I cannot directly attest to this, but I have heard that G+ may have some policies that I would not necessarily approve of, especially on the possible ownership and/or use of photos.  For that reason, I will refrain from posting anything right now on my new G+ account.  I guess I will just check in occasionally to read the few posts that people opt to share with me there, mainly my son at this time.  To be honest, there is just no reason for me to leave Facebook either.  Right now, I am satisfied with my rights on Facebook because they claim no ownership rights to my photos, but I do try to stay current on any policy changes that they try to implement, too.  That is a good idea when using any online sharing site of any kind.  I’ve spent several years reconnecting with friends there, and I really just have no interest or desire now to try something new, especially since a jump to G+ likely means the user wants to start limiting who they share with anyway.  That’s just no fun!   This wheel isn’t broken for me, so there is no need for a fix.

Of course, there is always the option of just picking up the telephone, too.  Wish my grown kids could find their way to do that more often.  That will have to be the subject of another post sometime, but I just hope that we as a society are not starting to lose our way in communicating in more direct ways. 

Happy Friday!

D

Check Out “The Cheap – Nook Deals”

I just realized that I have not yet blogged about the Nook that I received as a gift earlier this year, and I will most definitely do that very soon, along with a few of the great books that I have read so far this year.  For now, though, I would like to share a new site that has been created as of today to share free and discounted e-books for the Nook.  This is the result of two popular sites that have now merged their resources on Nook finds, and I have regularly checked both sites each week for deals with great results.  I am quite happy that they have now combined their efforts, and the new site is even better than before as far as ease of use and the ability to find books that I am interested in reading.  The site’s owners obviously do a lot of research to find so many great freebies and discounted reads (that are actually good), and I am excited about this new direction that they are taking as of today.

The site is called “The Cheap – Nook Deals.”  Check it out if you have a Nook device or a free Nook app for your computer or mobile device.  I have also linked the site under the “Fun” listing on the right side of this page, along with their “piggy” page logo, and they can also be found on Twitter at @theCheapNook.  I am a big fan, and if you are a Nook user, I think you will be, too.  I am all about saving money, even though I don’t mind occasionally paying full price for a book that I really want to read, too.  It’s nice to have options!

Happy Reading!

D

A New Love in My Life

Several years ago, we lost our family pet poodle that was seventeen years old.  She was a miniature poodle, and both of our kids literally grew up with her.  She was truly one of the family, as was her younger “big” (standard) brother that came along several years later.  Losing our precious family pet was harder on me than anyone else in our family, probably because that’s just how I roll.  I get very attached to both people and animals, and I cried for days and weeks off and on after she died.  We have enjoyed “big” brother and so blessed to still have in as a family pet, even though he is now fourteen years old, but ever since big sis’s passing, I’ve had a hole in my heart where she was.

Despite this gaping hole in my heart, I realized that I probably was not ready to get another dog to replace her.  I needed time to mourn her passing and really think whether or not I wanted another dog, since I am already past fifty and not getting any younger.  I also love to travel, and I thought long and hard about adding a second dog back into our lives and how it might impact the travel we would like to do while we are able to do so.  Sometimes, I think I over-think things, though, and that is definitely what I did on this decision by waiting so long to “think” this over.  I think I knew all along that I needed another four-legged love in my life in addition to “big” brother.

We picked up our new sweetie on Sunday after a few days of exhaustive searching for a standard poodle puppy in the price range we wanted to pay.  We were quite stunned to find how much some of them sell for these days, too.  Since we only wanted a loving pet, not a dog to show or breed, we kept looking beyond the expensive breeders.  I would love to have adopted a standard poodle, but there are no rescue groups within a reasonable drive of where we live.  My husband finally located a newspaper ad for some puppies in a town about two hours away, and off we went to check them out.  The only female in the litter was soon to be ours, and what a sweetie pie she is… Mon Cherie!  (My Sweetheart)

Our new standard poodle puppy at 10 weeks!

She is possibly the cutest, softest, most loveable little four-legged creature on the planet, too… but that’s just me.  She also weighed in at 11 pounds, 4 ounces on her first visit to the vet on Monday, and she is a healthy little girl all around.  Her owners opted to not have the tails of the puppies cropped at birth, too.  We will possibly revisit that when she is old enough to be spayed at six months of age, but right now, that long curly tail is just pretty darn cute.

Here’s to many puppy hugs in the days to come!

D

New Phone – HTC EVO

Well, while I may be a little late to the EVO party, I’m glad I have finally arrived!

I upgraded from my HTC Hero a few days ago, and so far, I am very impressed with my new HTC EVO.  I learned to appreciate Android for the first time with my Hero, but that phone was so horribly laggy that I finally had to just give it up and just keep it on hand as a backup if I need it down the road, since Sprint was only willing to give me $17 for it on trade-in… a phone that is barely a year old.  One other thing I found out… Sprint downgraded their Premier program on April 1.  To received the full upgrade pricing on a new phone now, you must be a Sprint customer for 10 years.  Customers for less than ten years only receive a $75

At first, I wasn’t sure if I would like a phone as large as the EVO, but after using it for three days, that fear is gone.  In fact, using my iPod Touch now makes it feel like a miniature device until I use it for a bit.  But, I still enjoy using my iPod Touch, too.  Having an iPod Touch and an EVO certainly seems like having the best of both worlds from a mobile technology standpoint, and if I was willing to part with $30 more each month, I could even use my EVO as a mobile hotspot, too.  Right now, though, that is not really necessary.

I didn’t even need to have the folks at the Sprint store transfer my contacts to my new phone because I already had them all in my Google contacts.  In fact, I asked them to not transfer anything and just let the Google sync transfer them.  It worked like a charm, as well as transferring all of my calendar information, too.  It was the most seamless phone transition for me to date.  All of my information was there in my new phone before I left the store.

The only slight issue I’ve had is not with the phone, but in the 4G coverage in my area.  It seems that our house sits right in a tiny 4G “hole.”  Supposedly 4G coverage will improve for us in about 90 days, according to tech support.  I certainly hope so.  Sprint’s call-in customer support continues to be top-notch for me, even if I often have to ask to speak to a supervisor.  Once at that next level of support for issues like this, I have never been disappointed.  They can’t help that I live in a 4G “hole,” but they did what they could and got me the answer I needed for now.   As far as a 4G review… sorry.  Looks like I’m out of luck for now on that front.  I’ll have to test it out elsewhere sometime.

I have played with iPhones that friends and family members have, and I think the EVO is as good, if not better in a few respects, than their iPhones.  I could certainly be happy with either one, but right now, I would keep my EVO over their iPhones because of the home screens that can be customized any way I want.  The live wallpaper is also a fun touch that the iPhone does not have right now, too.  My EVO is very fast, unlike my former Hero that was so laggy that I was tempted to just throw it against a wall at times out of frustration.  The EVO screen is crystal clear and vivid, even after I put a Zagg Invisible Shield screen protector on it.

The other important feature to me is the 8 megapixel camera.  My Hero’s camera was less than desirable, for sure.  I have wanted a decent mobile camera for a long time, and now I have one.  While EVO also has a smaller forward facing camera, I don’t really see me using it too much.  It is just a nice little extra to have if I ever need it.  To enhance my mobile photos even more, I also downloaded Photoshop mobile, Little Photo and Vignette.  Photoshop is good for some very basic edits, while Little Photo and Vignette offer some great enhancements that are not gimmicky like some of the other photo apps.  I will also patiently wait for Instagram to make its way to Android, too.  I hope it is available soon.

My photo apps for the EVO with the aquarium live wallpaper running in the background

For now, I have opted to try to get by with the original camera battery and not buy the extended life battery, which is about $60.  The extended battery is huge and adds more weight to the phone, and there are presently no covers that will fit on the phone while using that battery.  I knew in advance that this phone sucks the battery pretty badly, so I’m aware that I’m going to have to work with that situation more in the future.  I will likely go ahead and buy a second (regular) battery for it, and I already have the car charger and a second wall plug for convenience.  I also plan to keep Wifi, GPS and some other battery draining features turned off unless I need them, including some of the automatic syncing capabilities.

I’m still researching apps in the Android Market, but I think I’m just about done with setting my up new EVO.  It really is a great phone!  I will be quite happy to use it for the next two years!

D

Catching Up

I am a bad, bad blogger, especially when I am sick.  From about the first week of December to nearly the end of February… I was sick.  Thankfully, I think I’m finally past it all and getting back to a more normal routine.  But in retrospect, I don’t think that I have coughed more in my entire life.  It makes me quite thankful for the times that I am not sick, which is most of the time.

December Cruise:

Fortunately, my illness was not too bad while we went on our cruise in mid-December.  It was such a great time, and I would go again in a heartbeat.  I’m actually hoping we can possibly do this again next year as well.  It was a nice break during the hectic Christmas season, but I will admit that I had to hit the ground running once we got home.  It was a bit unusual to not have any real gifts to open on Christmas morning, but trading that for an entire week of vacation at sea and on land in Florida was a good deal for us.  I will post more about our trip here soon, as I got a few really great pictures while we were gone.

Christmas:

Our Christmas was very laid-back this year, which was actually pretty nice.  I cooked way too much, too.  I won’t be making that mistake to that extent in future years.  I will try to remember that I said that, too.    We had too many calories laying around this house for too long!

Springtime:

Spring is once again springing forth in our neck of the woods, and while I wish we could have had more rain/snow this winter, I’m actually hoping for a nice mild Spring season this year, keeping the hot temperatures of summer away for a while.  Our winter was pretty bi-polar this year, as we either had very mild temperatures or record-setting cold ones.  We had two cold spells that were just bitter cold, with chill factors around -15 to -20 overnight.  While we did not suffer any frozen pipes, others around town and the area were not so fortunate.

I miss our bird bath in the backyard, and we should be able to retrieve it from storage in a few days since our overnight freezing temperatures are starting to subside.  I miss my birds and taking pictures of them, and I suspect our “regulars” are missing their watering hole now as well.  In fact, I have hardly taken any pictures since our trip and Christmas, which is very unusual for me.  That’s how bad I have felt.  Needless to say, my “photo a day” project has not taken shape, so I will just look to revisit that another time when I feel so inspired again.

New Nook:

My husband surprised me on Valentine’s Day with an unexpected gift… a Nook of my very own!  I gave him one for his birthday last fall, and he liked it even more than I thought he would.  He started reading every day, just as I had started reading more with the free Nook and Kindle apps on my own laptop.  But, I think he picked up on the fact that I was wishing I had my own Nook, even though I really did not talk to him about it.  I have truly enjoyed learning to use it to its potential, including learning how to download and read e-books from our local library for free.  So, I blame my new Nook in part for my lack of photography adventures for the past few weeks.

It’s just been so nice to just relax at home (or at the library or at my local Barnes and Noble store) and just read a good book.  It is noteworthy that Nook owners can read select books for free on the B&N in-store Wifi for free for an hour each day… and it really does work.  We own the non-color Nooks… the original version, and honestly, I think I like it better than I would like the back-lit color version.  I can literally read for hours on my Nook with the e-ink, and my eyes never tire.  I’m not sure that would be the case with the back-lit Nook.  The battery life is much better on our version, too, due to the difference in the technologies, and I really like the fact that I do not have to charge my Nook for about a week, even reading it every day.  I’m pretty sure that we are both now “hooked” on reading books electronically now, and I can’t see either of us opting to buy a traditional book if we can find it electronically now.  If I do have to buy a paper book for some reason, I now plan to donate it to my local library or a retirement community when I am done.

Japan Earthquake / Tsunami:

Finally, my heart truly goes out to everyone in Japan that is suffering after the historic and tragic earthquake and tsunami last Friday.  I was actually up late reading that night and checked the news updates before I went to bed.  The earthquake had just occurred about twenty minutes earlier, so I turned on the TV news and watched it all unfold throughout the night.  We know a young woman that is teaching in Sendai, and I found myself praying for her and everyone affected off and on throughout the night.  She is fine, for now… prayers continuing for everyone in Japan and their families, wherever they are.

D