The No Starch Press Blog

One of the best ways to learn about an operating system is to break it, and I’ve gotten very good at breaking operating systems over the years.

After a bunch of random tweaks to Ubuntu, I succeeded in breaking it, too. Well, not as badly as I’ve broken Windows. For example — everything was running, just really slowly. (Really slowly was the Windows-like behavior.) And I’d sometimes get weird errors that I couldn’t trace.

The best thing to have done prior to this problem would have been to place /Home in a separate partition, which I’ll be doing soon enough. Had /Home been in its own partition I could have just wiped out the OS, reinstalled, then pointed it to /Home. Anyway, everything was (and still is) in one place so I didn’t want to play that game.

The fix was easy. I used Simple Backup to backup everything in the /Home directory then simply wiped out Ubuntu (using a Live CD), repartitioned the drives (to give Vista even less space), and reinstalled.

Unlike the nightmare that can attend this sort of thing under Windows, I had a working installation in about an hour. After choosing a few programs from the Add/Remove menu, everything was pretty much there. Selective restores from the Simple Backup backups have worked without a hitch.

Ubuntu is running beautifully, all of my files are where I want them, I have no DLLs to worry about, and it’s smooth sailing. And it looks as good as ever, too.

Aren’t these new phones — like the Palm Pre — fascinating?

The invention embodied in the UIs on these phones is just stunning. Who thinks of this stuff? Creative people, that’s for sure.

It’s not easy to turn common metaphors on their heads. It’s a lot harder to step back and create; think about how things work and how they can be different.

When we choose books to publish we always take a step back to think about what’s already been done and what can be done differently. Our goal is to push the envelope, whenever possible, with titles like our “Manga Guides.” Or even beginner books like our “My New” series. And let’s not forget titles like Forbidden LEGO or even Cult of Mac.

So yes, No Starch Press is like a smartphone. Except that our medium is just a little bit anachronistic, except when it’s digital. And it’s really hard to change the UI on a printed book. Well, maybe you could cut the binding off and rearrange the pages. You know, make it into an art piece.

Those of you reading our RSS feed may have caught a post by me (since deleted) about typos and such in resumes. I couldn’t have posted this at a worse time because we’re actually in the process of hiring and it was an obnoxious post. Factual but snarky.

Anyway, I wrote this for internal distribution probably about one year ago and saved it as a draft. I was showing a couple of kids the Wordpress backend this past weekend and I must have pressed Publish instead of save as draft.

Apologies to anyone who was offended by the post. It’s been vaporized.

Today we realized that our Wordpress install had somehow been compromised. Somehow (and we still don’t know how), recent posts were tagged with ads for one of those stupid spammer drugs.

Let’s see if we’re still under attack when I post this.

Next: We work to identify the source of the problem.

Defcon is just around the corner and it’s time to reconsider how we process credit cards. The “grave rubbing” technique should probably be abandoned, especially because the last time I tried it (after a red eye flight) I mangled two credit cards. Really destroyed them.

So I’m shopping for the most cost-effective wireless broadband.

First call was to Verizon Wireless. The rep on the line was in total sales mode and was eager to sell me something without knowing anything about my needs. Don’t you just love salespeople like that? She recommended their $59.99 month-to-month plan, although I see that they also offer a $39.99 plan (with lower bandwidth limits of course). She was ready to take my order for whatever it was that she thought I needed but I told her that I’d rather not order from someone who hadn’t told me about their cheaper plan and who was going to try to sell me some high-priced card from Verizon. Not that I have an opinion on that, of course.

Next call was to T-Mobile. I figured I might be able to get a BlackBerry with data only plan at $19.95 per month, but it seems that’s only available if you get the phone service as well. T-Mobile doesn’t have a month-to-month plan for their wireless broadband and I’m not signing a two year contract for a service that we need only a few times a year, so they’re off the list.

I see that eBay has quite a few EVDO modems that are claimed to work with Verizon mobile broadband. Now I have to verify that. A live chat with a Verizon representative proves pretty useless. When I ask her what the requirements are for the card she tells me that I have to have a compatible OS. That’s fine, but does that mean that any card will work?

Anyway, my head hurts so I close the chat box.

Now to AT&T. Their plans look expensive compared to Verizon’s no contract plan.

I’m going to see if I can get an EVDO modem on eBay that sounds like a good one and that will work with the Verizon no contract plan.

First, let me say this: I think the jury is still out on this issue. No one really knows. But here are my thoughts.

I have seen nothing definitive that suggests, one way or another, that putting a book online for free increases or decreases sales. I’m sure that there are statistics out there and everyone has their opinion, but I think different books are affected differently for reasons that I attempt to address below.

In my opinion, the strongest argument that can be made for offering books for free online is that of increasing word-of-mouth. There is strong evidence that word-of-mouth, whether generated by reviews or simply communities that surround particular books, can significantly affect sales. A study by Judith Chevalier and Dina Mayzlin of the Yale School of Management, “The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews” attempts to quantify the effects. They conclude that online reviews can directly affect sales though they don’t really tackle the why.

Let’s consider why this might be and how word-of-mouth might affect sales of different titles differently. (I just have to say that choosing between the use of affect and effect is driving me craaaazy!)

Visibility. One of the greatest challenges that we have as publishers is that of making our products visible. According to a 2008 Publishers Weekly article, nearly 300,000 books are published each year in the U.S. alone. Figure close to that number in the UK. That’s a lot of books in the English language.

Certainly, only a small portion of these books are computer/technical books, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the print book market isn’t competition.

Distribution. The number of retailers selling books is shrinking dramatically, although it’s easier than ever today to find a book that you want using one of the online book retailers. How does this affect a book publisher’s business?

For better or worse, before the dominance of online retailing, publishers used to control distribution to a significant extent by buying what is known as coop advertising. Yes, those featured books in the bookstore chains are usually there because some publisher paid for the placement. Sometimes they’re there because the store manager really likes a book, but most of the time someone’s paying.

That made a huge difference when there were only just so many stores and when we wanted books we went to a brick and mortar store. Those stores can hold only a portion of the 300,000 new books published every year so their inventory is already selective. But stick Amazon or similar in the mix and the inventory is massive. So much noise. So much to choose from.

Subject.

Competition.

Noise.

Convenience. The book as medium is convenient. It’s portable, has an instant refresh rate, high contrast, low glare, and reading a book is easy on the eyes. But that’s not an argument for why printed books will stick around. Technology will continue to improve and e-ink is already looking pretty good.

No. Not a bad idea but I don’t really trust questionnaires. Too, I don’t think this would actually measure the effect that offering a book online for free would have on both visibility and market penetration.

I’ve met many people who tell me that when a book is online for free they won’t buy the print version. That’s no surprise. I’ve even had people tell me that they turn to bittorrent first and don’t buy books anymore. That’s not surprise either.

But I think the issue is one of visibility.

There are so many books published and that means there is so much noise.  I think one of our primary challenges is to rise above the din. My theory is that putting something out there, getting it in front of more people, increases the potential number of buyers for any particular book. Effectively, it increases the portion of the market that we are able to reach by rising above the noise. And the more people who see a book, who know it exists and have perhaps paged through it, the greater the number of people who will buy it. Not a greater percentage of potential buyers necessarily, but a greater number of total buyers who will actually make the leap and pay for that book.

Well, I thought after “Comcast Cares” responded to my blog post about my inability to cancel Comcast, and after I spoke with a customer service person on December 26 (and received a confirmation code for terminating service), that my service would actually be canceled. I know, I’m being unreasonable here, but that’s the kind of guy that I am.

Today I got another bill from Comcast and it’s even higher than the last one. This one is for $127.52, for a service that I haven’t used since the end of October, 2008.

I’ve emailed Frank Eliason; the person who commented on my last blog post. Let’s see if he can actually cancel this account.

This experience is even worse than AOL Hell which I was fortunate to never experience.

Surreal is the only word to describe this.

OK, complaint filed with FCC. Let’s see if that shakes things loose.

I’m intrigued by a July 5 New York Times article titled “On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble.” Apparently, according to Joe Nocera’s report, there’s a bit of controversy and politicking within Google regarding day care. Google is considering raising the cost of its day care by 75 percent, and Googlers with kids don’t appear to be very happy.

I’m sure that there are multiple sides to this story but a few things stand out. For one, at least based on this writer’s report, Google has a bit of a problem with employee expectations. If I take a job at Google, expecting amazing free food all day, subsidized day care, and who knows what else, what happens when the money isn’t rolling in so quickly and benefits need to be cut? What’s Google to do? Start to cut to reduce the bleeding. That’s just business, especially when you’re a public company.

Granted, Google’s benefits are pretty amazing by any standard, but how long can the party last? And when the drinks and hors doeuvres start to run out, how long will the guests linger?

As Joe Nocera comments, Google’s stock dropped 44 percent from a high of $744 to a low of $412, though it has since recovered a bit back to $537 at Thursday’s close. Still, that’s a bit of a tumble as we continue our slide into a bear market. The bad news is coming from all sides and all sorts of companies, and money is already tight. Any business is going to need to pay close attention to their bottom line, and even more attention to that P&L when they’re public. Stockholders are pretty unforgiving and, when you’re a high flyer like Google, one slip can turn into a really bad fall.

Nocera relates a couple of comments from Sergey Brin that certainly make Brin seem arrogant and elitist. Who knows whether Brin actually made these statements, but here’s what Nocera has to say:

At a T.G.I.F. in June, the Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he had no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of “Googlers” who felt entitled to perks like “bottled water and M&Ms,” according to several people in the meeting. (A Google spokesman denies that Mr. Brin made that comment.)

Nocera also drew my attention to a very interesting blog by Sergey Solyanik, who writes of his return to Microsoft from Google. Granted, this is one voice (be sure to read not only his post but also the comments on his post), but it’s certainly food for thought.