From Print to Ebook : The Digitisation Process

Do you remember the vinyl records, how awful, large and awkward were and how difficult was to find a proper storage or later the CDs and even the DVDs?  The latter are still being used by some oldies (40+) though!

I’m sure, we all remember with nostalgia all the music gadgets of the past and at the same time, we feel a relief having all our music, movies and books stored in one place.

Of course , for many people the print books are a norm and they don’t want even to think about this monster who eats  and converts them to digital. They still hang on them like fetish, being  unable to admit that the print books belong to the past.

Any way, it’s matter of time to realise it. All the big libraries are using  state of the art  technology in order to convert their print collection into digital one. For the simple reason,  it is more convenient and cost-effective. Although, some time soon they have to come to terms with the copyright issues. The Copyright law is still pending!

If you have one of those print books -  in my case ” Johnny and Me”-and you want to keep it as memorabilia without destroying the bound copy.

This scanner can do the job, but you have to do the scanning manually page by page.

This state of the art scanner – quite similar to Gutenberg’s invention - is used by all the Digital Centres, Libraries for the digitisation process.

The print book  is placed in the middle and a huge divider – a robot like – is moving up and down, turning the pages and at the same time scanning them.

On the PC screen, you can see the quality of the scanned page and adjust properly with the help of a software. The next step is to convert the text , usually and  most convenient,   into Epub file and  insert all the information about the book (metadata) in order to be  archived and searchable on the  internet…

In one hour, a whole book of 300 pages can be scanned and stored in digital form in the PC.

After the above process, which can take no more than one day for in-house use and around 2 weeks to upload on iTunes, you can store your Ebook in your virtual library on the screen of your iPhone and start developing your personal library on your mobile.  Easy peasy lemon squizzy! No need for bookcases, no need for bigger space in the house, no dust and ready to open and read it at your convenience.

But unfortunately until finishing this post something else came up on the news! And the above “state of the art scanner”  looks now so out of date!!

This is the ultimate fun scanner for now ! I don’t know for tomorrow….

Touchscreen interface for seamless data transfer between the real and virtual worlds #DigInfo

http://youtu.be/I2l0qklSzks

How to ebooks in the library

How to find ebooks among the fellow print books in the library? Here you are! The dummies are not only for displaying the pret-a-porter at the shop windows.

Strolling around the library,one dummy is popping out!

Calling you TRY Me! This little matrix sign/barcode is the QR code which brings you wonders when you scan it with your iPhone. Make sure you have already downloaded the QR application.

Open the QR application and start scanning…

In few minutes you have the whole book on the screen of your iPhone…

in the following 5 minutes you are already in page 15 !!

Time to sit down  and read the rest of your ebook by sipping your cappuccino somewhere cool!

Lean In

Lean In is the title of the new book of the wonder woman of the Facebook Sheryl Sandberg. In her book and new website, she urges women to create a supportive circle among them, in order to move forward in their career, their life and even to get help with their problems.  A concept that in many ways,  women and people in general, who are in a weaker and underprivileged position have already adopted it in order to carry on with their everyday life.

The first time I came across  a very sound supportive circle of women was the  Georgian women in Greece. After the collapse of their country’s financial system, many  women came alone-most of them without husbands and family- from Georgia to work, either as cleaners or looking after elderly people in Greece. They created a supportive cluster among them  by sharing apartments, finding jobs to each other, replacing each other in their shifts when a problem was arising and generally being supportive physically and emotionally to each other. Since I have quite a few acquaintances among those women,  I’m watching their way of life all these years and I noticed that they are getting happier by being altogether and trying to support their families back to their country.

Another example of a supportive circle of women that I came across, this time in a novel, was in Elis Shafak’s (turkish writer) book  ”The Bastard of Istanbul” . The theme mainly is based on a circle of women  living  in the same house. After the death of the men in an extended family, the women decided to live the same house  and support each other. At the beginning, I found a bit unbelievable the story but when I asked my mother, who has extended family in Turkey and she has experienced their way of life, she reassured me that it is not at all strange in this society, for women to live together or at least to have a very strong supportive circle among them.

Living in Kazakhstan lately, I realized that the above phenomenons are not limited to the female circles. Everyone , in some way, depends on  each other for carrying out everyday tasks. The oxymoron is that despite the widespread reputation of Kazakhstani being corrupted, the common people really support each other. It took by surprise the fact of how easily trust each other. An illustrative example is the way of finding a taxi : simply by raising one’s hand to stop the first car that passes  - the way we are doing hitchhike in the West. When I asked my Kazakhstani friends, how they  trust a totally stranger to drive them , they responded by shrugging their shoulders -meaning that it’s a common practice for them.

Perhaps the West  has  to adopt  new ways of thinking and practice the “Lean In” concept to get through during  the hard times of this never ending recession. The Thatcherite era of individuality and independency -with her own words “there is not such a thing as a society”- may have come to an end for the time being.

In the background, woman stops a car in a main road of Astana.

Speak vs Roar

The news headlines are changing in an unprecedented way in our “Internet” times and surrounding the one and only constant  denominator, the financial crisis.  The facts can be translated by  the politicians, journalists, bloggers and everyone who has a voice through the social media according to their own political views and their own view about life in general.

One of the latest news, in Greece, was the  deadly “magali”, a self-made coal heater which some Greek  students used to heat their sleeping room.  Some people from the above groups were judgmental against the students describing them as fool and ignorant using this kind of heater. The reaction of the majority was an outcry against this criticism.

It is obvious, there are two mainstream views in the countries which have been affected badly by the economic crisis, especially Greece. The one view is  :Let’s carry on with the existing western political  system, the liberal capitalism, which wasn’t really fully developed in Greece but has affected the country greatly and for the worse. The other view is : There is no other view really! Except of supporting theoretically the underprivileged class without a sound theses of “how to do it”. How to lead the country out of the crisis.  It’s a view based mainly on moral issues. And which, I believe, is enough in the existing situation to stand by itself.

The Liberal Capitalism flourished in the previous decades and cultivated the laissez fair system of the banks, the Lehman brothers, the Maddox phenomenon… Generally, it supported the tribalism  among the people who are better educated, better connected and more canning than the others. The same people, of course, in nowadays are not suffering the disastrous consequences of this system. They managed once again to be on top of the tsunami wave and they are  preaching now through the mass media how good thing is to be liberal- “filele” according to  Greeks( still, we kept our sense of humour).

At the same time, they are giving examples of how well off are the countries which have adopted this system and how quickly recovered from the crisis. Examples, which most of the time are out of context- the history, the socioeconomic background of those countries. They speak arrogantly and advertise their motto “we want to be the solution and not part of the problem”.

I’m wondering if they really know what is the problem? What is the reality? Do they know that there are people who didn’t have their own privilege background, their “comme il faut” mediocre education, their canniness, their connections … even their average IQ?

Do they understand that the world is moving to a different era than that of harshness and arrogancy. Do they understand that they need to cultivate  their emotional IQ ? Did they understand why Obama was electing once again, despite the acute financial crisis?  Did they understand why the Americans didn’t elect Romney and rejected his legendary harsh statement ” let’s make America to roar again”?

People want to speak  and communicate in a human way among each other at the most. It seems to me that only this nerdy boy Mark Zuckerberg got the essence of the modern world. People want to communicate and share thoughts in a human way not to be patronised by the “average” cliques who want to climb the success lader no matter what is the impact on the rest.

The following youtube (aki) is totally irrelevant with the above but it’s my latest trend.

Chutzpah!

Last week I received an email from my friend Sarah, an accomplished writer, which made me feel good. The email was an account of her new life as an expat  in France,  accompanied by citations such as  : Pictures with happy children, nice landscapes with Chateaux as background, skiing in the French Alps, gatherings with friends  and drinking french wine in huge crystal glasses. “What a life!” I thought feeling at the same time happy and envious of her quintessentially french bon vivant.

And because our life is  in a constant comparison  to the others, in order to make sense,  I started thinking about my current status : Living beyond the borders of Europe in a brand new city , being surrounded by a totally different tribe of people and trying to learn a language which is remotely related to my mother tongue. Still, the history of this place is partially familiar. A country which has inherited all the pros and cons of the Soviet Union sovereignty and for sure  with no trace of aristocracy in the background to  establish some standards of good life. On the other hand, it has the advantages of a blank slate.  Someone can use all his/her  Western knowledge, education and creativity  in order to build something new and start learning a new language with a strong literature and cultural background. And at this point, there is  a real excitement and  extra bonus  of being in this place which counterbalance the easiness of the European  life.

My friend Sarah interpreted  my latter argument with the word “Chutzpah” by writing  to me, among other things :”I don’t have the Chutzpah of you to go for it…!” It was the first time I came across this word. The dictionaries define it as : the quality of audacity, the nerves that somebody has to carry on.. or simply the courage.

Perhaps, during hard times  it would be quite useful for someone to start cultivating  this characteristic  if it isn’t innate!