Blurts

Apple has an upcoming event focused on education. In addition to speculation about lower priced hardware suited to the education market, there was mention of an upgrade to iBooks

The last time Apple held an education event, it was to announce iBooks 2 and a new iBooks Author app in 2012 to make it easier to create textbooks. It stands to reason that Apple could announce updates to its bookstore at this event too. Plus, Apple is also already said to be working on an overhauled iBooks app, according to a report from Bloomberg, which adds credence to the possibility.

I have always thought that iBooks Author was a great platform for ebook authors, but I have focused on writing for the Amazon because Apple assumes authors will write for Apple devices only. I just don’t see the iBook getting much traction as long as it is unavailable to those who prefer to read on non-Apple hardware. To this point, this is how Amazon has dominated this market.

I have written a few things related to this recently mostly because I think this is important and I want to encourage others to make this commitment. Mostly, I have complained about things that have happened that threaten my independence in doing so. I certainly do not intend to scare people off. I think what is important here is to control your own content. When you post to sites such as Facebook, Blogger or WordPress.com you have access to powerful capabilities, but you trade your content for access and you offer up some of your own information and the information of your viewers in using such sites. This is the reality of free and easy enough to understand when you consider these companies need a source of income to stay in business (and generate the huge profits that they are generating).

I invest a little money to have a way to serve my own content. Facebook, Blogger, etc. could disappear tomorrow and my own content would still be available. I understand this may be a pointless position to take, but it is a matter of pride to offer information you can view without giving up personal information to do so. Yes, I do post to Facebook and Blogger, but what I consider my own intellectual property always goes on the server I rent.

I decided to write this post after reading a post generated by Wesley Fryer. You might be a little frightened reading his personal history of self hosting. Wesley and I appear to have similar histories. We both have been running a server for more than 15 years. We both appear to have started by operating a server within a university setting. This allowed me to have a dedicated IP and I could turn pretty much any computer into a server given a dedicated IP. This means that the address for my content would stay consistent and would not change every time my server was turned off and then back on (a dynamic IP). At some point, I began working from server space I rented. Because I was offering content (for free) associated with books my wife and I had published, I thought it best not to use university resources.

I now use bluehost to rent server space (Fryer went through this same phase). He moved on to more powerful and more expensive options quickly. I have not. He describes hosting 40+ WordPress sites and he has committed heavily to podcasting. His costs are now more for a couple of months than I do for a year, but I host only 4 blogs, a couple of websites, and no podcasts. Most cost runs about $200 a year. If you are interested in BlueHost, the price you see to start is just that. I would estimate basic cost as about $100 a year (maybe a little more).

My son (a director and video editor) uses SquareSpace to share some of his work. The cost for SquareSpace is listed at $12 per month. This has always looked like an attractive option to me and the tools for content creation are great. I have too much invested with the service I use to make a change for the purpose of exploration, but you can explore SquareSpace for free and pay month by month ($16 per month) if I have convinced you to set up content resources of your own.

We heard Kimberly McDonough play several times while we were in Kauai. She seemed so talented to be playing at farmers’ markets and art fairs. I guess this is what you do if you are a musician on a small island.

She mentioned being on YouTube and having a collaboration with a singer from Italy. I finally found the YouTube video. Note, these two musicians are not in the studio together. They met and traded content online and skilled editors spliced their music together.