My friend Stephanie recently posted about her desire to move over to ebooks primarily. One of the problems she said she has is with sorting the books. Rather than displaying the books in a series alphabetically, why not display them in reading order?

My ebook collection is much smaller than hers, mostly consisting of just the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. However, I had that same concern. I'd prefer if my ebooks were displayed in reading order rather than alphabetically. Fortunately, since I use iTunes to organize my ebooks, I make use of the Sorting Name metadata.

I'm not on my home machine where my ebooks are stored, so my examples will make use of music, but the principle is the same and will carry over. Let's pretend that the album Audio by Blue Man Group is a book series (such as the Dresden Files) and that each track is one book in the series. If you sort by album, the tracks appear in listening order. This is because music has track information in its metadata.

Screenshots are under cuts, since a couple are fairly wide.

( First screenshot )
Because this track data is present, when you sort by album, iTunes will list each track in listening order per album, and then list each album alphabetically.
( Second screenshot )
Note at the bottom of that screenshot the first two tracks of the next album listed. The album is alphabetically after Audio, and the tracks are listed in listening order.

On the iTunes metadata window, however, there's a handy tab labeled "sorting" that often gets overlooked.
( Third screenshot )
If you look at the top right of the window with sorting tab selected, you will see a field named "sort name." This is the name that will be used when you sort by name. For my Dresden Files ebooks, I set my sort name like Dresden01 for Stormfront, Dresden 02 for Fool Moon, etc. For the short stories that take place between novels, I will name them, for example, Dresden 09.5 if it takes place between books 9 and 10. For my example with Audio, I'm simply naming each track in listening order Audio01, Audio02, etc.
( Fourth screenshot )
The result is that when I now sort by name, all of the tracks in the Audio album will appear in listening order instead of in alphabetical order. That's because when iTunes lists by name, it will list by sorting name, if it's defined, and then by actual name. In my last screen shot, you can see that the next album listed, The Complex, has had its tracks sorted alphabetically only (including one being listed above all the tracks from Audio).
( Fifth screenshot )
I'm not saying that this is a perfect solution. It works for me primarily because my ebook collection is fairly small. The initial setup for this solution would be quite time consuming for a large collection of books. However, maintenance afterward shouldn't be too difficult.

I can foresee some other problems with this system on a larger scale, though. Once you have dozens of authors, some of them with multiple series', what kind of naming scheme do you put in place to keep them easily identifiable? When you're sorting by name using the "sort name" field, how can you tell what series they're a part of unless you know the series titles by heart? For that last question, you can actually add the "sort name" column to your view along with name, genre, artist, etc. That will definitely help with that. The naming scheme can still be tricky, though.

Tags: itunes

First of all, I can't go to ArmadilloCon this year. It's taking place on what is traditionally the busiest weekend of the year for us, the weekend right before the start of school. I'll be working, not going to a convention.

Secondly, I've been out of the convention planning scene for quite a while. A-Kon 15 or so was the last I had a hand in running, and I haven't had a hand in programming or guests since before then. So I will admit that my finger may not be on the pulse of the con-running community.

But...

I find it highly suspect that ArmadilloCon has brought in Michael Bishop as a "Steampunk Special Guest," Has two steampunk-focused panels, yet has included Mr. Bishop on neither panel. In addition, they have actually scheduled him for a signing opposite the first of these two panels. This means that the ArmadilloCon programming person is splitting their steampunk fan audience. They must choose to either attend the panel "Steampunk: Literary or Social Movement?" or attend Mr. Bishop's one scheduled signing opportunity of the convention.

Additionally, the signings are scheduled in one-hour blocks. Readings are scheduled in half-hour blocks. Mr. Bishop's reading is scheduled during the second half-hour of his one-hour signing.

What I'm taking away from all of this is that ArmadilloCon is using Mr. Bishop's popularity in the steampunk genre to attract potential paying attendees. They are then giving him effectively half the amount of scheduled signing time as other guests, and are not utilizing him on any panels having to do with steampunk.

It's been a decade since I ran a convention and had to work on a programming schedule, but even I can see how this just doesn't make sense. Fortunately, the convention doesn't take place for another week, so they still have time to correct what I perceive to be a huge programming error.

On a slightly different note, I'm glad to see the "What You Should Have Read" panel is still scheduled. If anyone's going to ArmadilloCon, can you bring me back a list of the books discussed? Especially those that Willie Siros suggests?

http://www.armadillocon.org/ ArmadilloCon website
http://www.armadillocon.org/grid.shtml ArmadilloCon programming grid

Tags: conventions

I went to Fuzzy's Taco Shop (the company website)for lunch today. It's a new taco restaurant on Southwest Pkwy. across from the Kroger shopping center. If you're in a hurry and don't want to read a full review, here's the short version:

I probably won't go back unless accompanying someone who insists on going there.

( Here's the longer version: )

Tags: food

I'm just going to cut this, since it likely contains spoilers of the first three Dresden Files books.

( Why I hate the character of Murphy. )

Tags: books

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. :) I made sure that my friends had a good sampling of Texas cuisine, though we ended up not being able to fit a good, solid steak into the schedule. Freebirds, Blue Bell ice cream, Cafe Maya, Durkin's Pizza, Baker's Ribs, Studio Movie Grill, Fillmore Pub.

Tags: weekend

Ok, my Dallas-dwelling friends, I need some fast advice. If you need to impress someone not from Texas with our Texas food, where in the Dallas area would you suggest? By "Dallas area" I'm meaning north to Plano, west to mid-cities, east to Mesquite. South to... uh... I-20, I suppose.

I've got some friends coming into town from Bermuda to see Eddie Izzard on Thursday, and I promised them some good Texas food. And I just realized that I don't actually know any authentic Texas food places in the Dallas area. When I'm up there, I usually eat Chinese, Italian, etc. Also, suggestions on Dallas-unique stuff is appreciated. :)

The internet the last couple days has been awash with messages on Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal and other places stating "Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross." So far, I have not done this. Why? Because there are people like Pat Robertson who will use a tragedy like this to push their own agendas or attempt to capitalize financially from the misfortune of others. Maybe I'm just a cynic.

However, I do want to help, so I did a little Googling to figure what the 90999 number was, and who it went to. After all, perhaps it was like the "every time you forward this email, Microsoft will donate $.05 to education" spam letters that were so popular back in the early days of the internet (and still float around occasionally).

I had a couple main questions:
1) Was this legitimate?
2) Who actually pays the donation?
3) How does the donation get paid?


1) Fortunately, this all looks to be completely legit. A company called mGive Mobile Donations (website here) is a company that is set up specifically to allow people to donate to charitable organizations using their mobile devices. They also provide web page widgets that charities can put on their web pages to allow donations through their cell phones. Charities include The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, The American Heart Association and many others.

2) So who makes the donation? Whose pocket provides the money? Was it something where texting HAITI to 90999 would have AT&T or T-Mobile or Sprint or whomever donate that amount? Seems unlikely, but then I was also worried about it being similar to the "Microsoft will donate" spam. In the end it's you, the person paying the phone bill, who makes the donation.

3) The way the donation works is this: You text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the red cross (or DOB to donate $5 to Doctors without Borders, etc.). They send a confirmation text that you respond to. Once you respond positively, they have a non-taxable $10 charge added to your monthly cell phone bill. You pay your bill. Once our bill is paid, your carrier (AT&T, etc.) sends mGive your $10. mGive takes a fee out of that $10 for administrative purposes, and the remainder ($9.35 in the best case) goes to the charity. The time between when you donate and when the charity receives their money can be up to 90 days. If you donate today, the money will be there sometime between now and April 15.

After reading through mGive's site, I'm much happier about the legitimacy of the donation process and of the amount being given to the charities. I am, though, a little concerned that some people may not understand that the $10 is actually coming from *them*. I mentioned the Microsoft spam email from years ago, and I do sort of worry that some people who don't think about this entirely will wonder why their cell phone bill is $10 more next month. Or parents who are paying for children's phones suddenly having extra fees show up. How many people will see the charge, not know what it is, and then try and dispute it?

That all said, the donation process via text message does say that the money is charged to your cell phone bill and you can reply STOP to cancel the donation. I still worry that people will claim to be confused.

(edited to add: mGive looks to be part of the Mobile Giving Foundation which has a larger list of charities you can donate to via other partners (such as Mobile Cause, Give By Cell and others).

I saw a couple movies recently. Here are my thoughts. There may, indeed, be spoilers, so whatever.

( Avatar )

( Sherlock Holmes )

Tags: movie, weekend

You know, I should just make that a tag....

So a few days ago I spoke about how we are on the brink of required technology to bring about a real-life Young Lady's Illustrated Primer as portrayed in the novel The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Today I was appraised of this website, which is an attempt to bring into reality the game of Spads and Fokkers from the short story "Dogfight" by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick. It's still really basic, but for an open source, unfunded project, it's still pretty neat! Get a major publisher/developer behind it, like the folks that develop for the EyeToy for the Playstation, and who know what you could do. :)

Tags: living in the future

Yep. I'm a gamer. You all know this by now, yeah? Anyway, I thought I'd review a few games I've played in the last few months.

( Scribblenauts )

( Duck Duck Go )

( Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story )

( New Super Mario Bros. Wii )

( Dragon Age: Origins )

Tags: games