Helen Gallagher's Open Salon Blog

Book Review: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Google+

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:02:20 -0500

The language of social media has moved beyond 'friends' and 'posts' and 'like' to a time-wasting mess resembling a dorm room during Finals week.

There must be a better way. With Google’s move into social media with Google+ I think we finaly have a way to manage the mess.

Here's a look at The Complete Idiot's Guide to Google+ by Michael Miller. We now can sort, manage, and grow our social media presence with Circles, Streams, and Hangouts in Google+. Add in video conferencing, a layout you can tweak, and ability to publish across all social media, and Google+ starts to look like the answer. And, its free.

You're probably thinking if Google+ was completely intuitive we wouldn't need an Idiot's Guide, but it is the quickest way to see the logic of Google+ so you can get started.

Not quite a year old, Google+ is differentiated by the ability to segregate friends into “circles” where you can follow messages, posts, photos, video sharing, even email and instant messaging. But what goes on in a circle stays in a circle. So when you’re at work, looking for the photo of a product concept, you don’t have to scroll through hundreds of friend’s photos to find it. The integration of Gmail and Google search is also a time-saver.

Unlike Facebook, which is stuffed with updates on kids, pets, and coworkers all mixed together, in this CIG Google+ book, you'll see the ability to post to circles is well explained by Miller. You’ll see that when you create a post you can choose to send it to specific circles, such as ‘family’ or extended circles that includes friends of friends. Go further and make a post public and it will appear on your Google+ profile, to any visitor, even if they are not in your circles.Or, you can choose to post to 'specific contacts’ to quickly communicate the same information to people in different circles.

Miller understands some of us want to find what we want, and move on. So in this Complete Idiot's Guide to Google+ he shows how to save time, such as working with streams which you can filter to read only posts from a particular circle. For most users, he says, the stream will be your go-to page on Google+. You’re informed about what your friends and colleagues are doing and can choose to focus on just a particular circle.

Miller discusses the current wave of concerns over privacy in social media, and states the Google+ advantage in that content is shared ony among Google+ users, and is within your control. Of course, these privacy issues are always in flux, so its a good idea to check your privacy settings.

As with most CIG books, the Google+ guide is well-organized, approachable, and does a good job of explaining what I think is the biggest benefit of Google+ --- the Hangouts. There you can share your screen, even do a webcast or video chat with your writing friends, co-workers, or everyone you met on a winter cruise.

Chapter 15 on mobile use and downloads will get any G+ user up to speed in a hurry with these advanced features. And Chapter 19 even explains how to transfer your Facebook data to Google+ if you're ready to make the switch.

If you want to make better use of your time, spend an hour with The Complete Idiot's Guide to Google+. Before long, Google+ will be your home base for all online communication. Now that’s a real improvement in the time-consuming world of social media.

Book Review: The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration

Sun, 8 Jan 2012 22:01:49 -0500

The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers by Laura Oliver, MFA, offers a fresh way to cover the basics of writing, beyond why we write and how to get past fear and criticism. Instead, The Story Within, written as a writer’s memoir, is packed with stories, examples, and insights into the roadblocks we place in our path. It is Oliver's style that sets this book apart from many other writing how-to guides.

Finally, a real page-turner that explains the concepts of story and getting to the heart of what matters. The bones of good writing structure are discussed, but we learn more about story and craft through humor, examples, honesty, and interpretation. Told through the author’s personal story, readers will relate to Oliver as a fellow writer, teacher, and mentor along the way. She gets right to the heart of the matter when she observes the faces of students around the table at her evening writing class: “They are glowing with hope, dampened by doubt.”

Unique features of the book include ideas to start essays, dubbed “rocket launchers,” which can jumpstart a stuck writer. The author is sincere in her efforts to motivate even the most blocked writer. She writes of procrastination and its ability to protect a perfectionist from reality by twisted logic: “When I do get around to it, it’s going to be spectacular!” The ultimate motivator, of course, is the physical act of writing. That’s what lets inspiration flow, and sends a signal to your inner-writer that you’re ready for ideas. Oliver conveys the importance of accessing both sides of the brain, but only in the correct order, so your writing sessions reach their unblocked potential.

Inspiration becomes habit and is addressed in over thirty places in The Story Within, because it is so important. The more you write, the more you train neuron pathways to connect with your artistic right brain, even trick the brain into it by doing other tasks, especially repetitive tasks, which free your mind. You’ll also learn why writing in cafes and libraries often sharpens our focus.

Practical resources will keep you returning to The Story Within when you’re writing, as you’ll review the strategies to excise the excess, and edit your work for the essential components of good story. And best of all, you’ll be encouraged to submit your work.

Review originally published: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-the-story-within-new/#ixzz1ivWtemDY

Book Review: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:12:42 -0500

Somewhere along the way,
people who love watching cooking shows
stopped getting off the couch,
turning cooking into a spectator sport.

Many people, busy and distracted, reach for fast food and convenience products when just a few ingredients and a little technique can provide satisfying, nutritious meals at lower cost. We’re only limited by the incentive to purchase and prepare fresh food at home. Author Kathleen Flinn quickly wins over her audience, in her second book: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School.

Whether she commandeers a woman in the grocery store, or leads an evening class in a kitchen. Flinn, determined to get people cooking at home, inspires people to take charge, and get past the fear of handling new ingredients, as she builds knife skills and teaches cooking techniques.

If you’ve ever watched Jacques Pepin’s cooking program on public television, you know what its like to feel you’re right in the kitchen with him. You’ll get the same feeling with Flinn. Her conversational style draws you into her cooking classes, so that you’ll want to grab a pan and start sautéing.

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School combines a love of food, cooking and personal narrative that begins when the author nearly takes a hostage in a grocery store, in an effort to show the woman the benefits of real food instead of packaged, preserved, over-processed food.

Trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Flinn uses her talent to create classes that demonstrate the benefits of home cooking. The book is packed with recipes that inspire anyone to get started. Most recipes are simple, and all instill confidence.

Exercises help readers reveal the truth about all the choices we make. We have time to stand in fast-food lines and prepare packaged or frozen dinners at home, but don’t think we have time to shop for simple fresh ingredients that would provide more meals at lower cost.

To drive home her point about nutritious at-home meals with just a few ingredients, she reveals a pasta-Parmesan side dish has 27 ingredients in packaged form. For the class, she whips up the real deal with only three natural ingredients: pasta, Parmesan cheese and olive oil; a big improvement over what she calls ‘antinourishment.’

Examining the home freezers of the people who take her cooking class, Flinn discovers “The land of food that time forgot” and illustrates the convenience of fresh ingredients. And, in a world where some drink Red Bull for breakfast as an “energy drink,” Flinn is proof that there is a better way, by making nutritious meals at home.

With an easy style, humor and rich descriptions, Flinn satisfies the basic cook’s need for a friend in the kitchen. From learning about equipment to knife skills, and fast recipes, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School wins hands-down for a terrific kitchen companion. Like a fine meal, the book is appetizing, satisfying and leaves you wanting more.

Full review at: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-the-kitchen-counter-cooking1/page-2/#ixzz1h4sncXDh

Book Review: How My Mother Met Stalin: 18 Very Short Stories

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:12:19 -0500

For many of us, "the old country" conjures up images of our grandparents, who told stories of life in another country before coming to the United States. For some though, the stories remain in our minds and must be written. The pace of life, hardships endured, and thoughts of family, food, and conversation are too precious to leave undocumented.

Borko Jovanovic is one such author. He has published extensively, both in English and Serbian, and his works include plays, poetry, and stories such as those told here in How My Mother Met Stalin.

One of the joys in reading such a collection is the hints into the author’s personality. For beyond telling stories, authors in biographical pieces are also revealing themselves to us.

Jovanovic comes across as a gentle, thoughtful writer, a man who is kind, not only to his family, but to others, as shown in the humorous story of a building handyman with little understanding of language or of his duties. The author's thoughts turn poignant in the personal essay “We Are All Equal in My Country” regarding his decision to leave his home country of Yugoslavia.

How My Mother Met Stalin will be of special interest to those who share a similar experience, and certainly the foods, language, and customs of Serbia will bring back special memories to readers with a similar background.

This lovely collection shows how far we travel, how much we can achieve in life, and still we yearn to look back. We go home in our quiet thoughts. We go home again and again, to memories around the table, recalling special foods, such as bread and chocolate; a particularly sweet essay. As readers we are able to share in Jovanovic's experiences as we reflect on the sadness of times past and people now departed. We are richer for the opportunity to share in his reminiscences, which leave us with a future filled with memories of who we were and how far we've come.

How My Mother Met Stalin is filled with humor, history, literature, but most of all remembering home and family.

Book Review: The Future of Looking Back

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:11:24 -0500

How will we reminisce when all our bits of data are obsolete?

The Future of Looking Back is a small book that delivers a big message on how to preserve personal values in today’s tech society.

Part 1, Stuff and Sentimentality, considers why we keep things and how to transfer them from physical to digital objects

Part 2, A Digital Life, where we take technology for granted

Part 3, New Sentimental Things, is about how to capture things and how to let them go.

We wouldn’t have seen a book on this topic even just ten years ago. Ours is a time of unprecedented change, in a world of rapid technological innovation, and we are in charge of preservation.

We are reminded that the future we get is the one we design. We should give as much thought to the legacy we will leave behind as we do to the one we inherit. How will we create and preserve digital history? This topic is of special interest to those who create and can influence the design of all things tech.

Take digital images: they might seem like permanent archives but they are as subject to obsolescence as cassette tapes and VHS family home movies. For all its advantages this is still an impediment to true permanence. Just as we trash MP3 players year after year, and upgrade devices that blend our personal, social, and work history, we confuse upgrading with sliding too far past recovery. We may find our stuff is too far gone to allow us to catalog, sort, and find the relevant bits we want to preserve, as we run out of physical space for objects.

The need to adopt digital means to preserve physical objects and memories makes us think about what we keep out of sentiment, obligation, or a desire to preserve the past.

Author Richard Banks works as a Microsoft researcher and has written this guide after giving a lot of thought to preserving archives from his father and grandfather. We learn through his personal experiences, as he puzzles over what media of today can possibly serve as a record he can leave behind for his baby daughter.

Many of us have experienced the problem of storing old family photo albums and small boxes of memorable items our parents carried with them, from house to house, city to city, through their long lives. What are we to do with those, other than repeat the pattern? If we add their stuff to our stuff, are we only deferring the decision and possible burden of disposing of a generations memories. Our grandparents likely left no digital history. In our own time, we long to preserve phases of life; key moments that matter in our lives, much as our parents did by keeping a record of a first tooth, first day of school, first bicycle. In our digital world, are we even capturing and saving anything of memorable value today?

While our motives for preserving memories differ, Banks quotes five reasons to consider preserving our rapidly changing past:

Reminiscing, reflecting, recollecting, retrieving, and remembering.

Again, we are reminded that the future we get is the one we design.

The Future of Looking Back offers ideas and descriptions of new technology that can allow digital preservation of objects, even in three-dimensional models for artifact preservation.

And as for saving the masses of our digital life, have you ever wondered what would happen to all our online content? Consider our email, documents, music, photos, financial records, health records, for example. Do we even own those, or are we just renting space where they reside? In Chapter 8, “The Things We Put Online,” Banks suggests four sane approaches to data preservation, including content mobility with cloud services. For many, this will be the most important chapter in the book.

The Future of Looking Back includes a rich reference section and design challenges to consider at the end of each chapter.

Helen Gallagher

Originally posted: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-the-future-of-looking/page-2/#ixzz1f1VT11En