Dee Count 2.1 adds QR code generation for location title for sharing or printing. The image includes guides to help with sizing for print. Guides printed at full width of 4x6-inch paper produces an acceptable code size, or go smaller. Print and paste to your location for scanning using the Dee Count location search option.

Following up on my November Projects, I’m happy to report I made progress on my novel reaching the midpoint of the story. I don’t normally pay attention to my word counts, but since November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) with a goal of writing 50,000 words towards a novel, I’ll share my numbers. I had started writing my Draco Torre novel on November 1st on my iPad, and reached around 30,000 words by mid-month. After that I worked primarily on other projects. I also wrote more episodes for Kandy Fangs to be posted in December.

• Draco Torre novel (part 1): 41160 words (about half)
• Kandy Fangs: Venom: 2074 words

Keep in mind I tend to cut out substantial number of words during editing, so final published word counts for the same story material will be smaller. For writing on my iPad, I use a wireless keyboard so I can type comfortably at full speed.

This novel is actually a restart I originally began writing a decade ago. I’ve restarted once before several years ago, and after more thought, I’ve decided on the perspective. In a previous draft, I switched perspectives between the main characters in third-person. After reading the draft several times, I realized this story works better with limited perspective of a single character. Since this is my third restart, and I know this story better than my life, I’ve made good progress. I’ll keep at it, and perhaps I’ll finish the draft for this first part within the next few months.

In November of 2012, I went ahead with part 2 (book 2) before tackling the part 1 rewrite. Looking at my draft recently, I realized I nearly completed it at 92,000 words. It’s possible I’ll have both parts finished in the near future as one book or two.

December Dee Count Discount: 60% off until end of 2014.

Divide your area into locations, such as a shelf or wall rack, and count inventory with your iPad or iPhone by scanning bar codes with the device’s camera or a wireless bar code scanner. View total counts or totals by category. Requires iOS 8+. See the Dee Count page for more details and tips.

Jeff Atwood of stackoverflow.com (a forum for engineers posting questions and answers) shares his ideas on encouraging more reading instead of pushing for conversations in a thoughtful post, “Because Reading is Fundamental” on his blog. His observation is that many blog comments reveal ignorance of the post or wander off-topic. Too many blogs and forums encourage high post counts or push conversations.

I find that the value of conversations has little to do with how much people are talking. I find that too much talking has a negative effect on conversations. Nobody has time to listen to the resulting massive stream of conversation, they end up just waiting for their turn to pile on and talk, too. The best conversations are with people who spend most of their time listening.

This has been my view of conversations for years, the participants primarily talk (sometimes as if only to make noise) rather than discuss. It gets worse, though, as I see it in the workplace as well. I can’t count how many times I get an email asking a simple question that had been documented or covered in the previous email. I’m certain some employees never read beyond the second sentence. At my previous employment, I built sneaky crawlers to capture all your conversations on the web for analysis. The bulk post comments consist of random chat, flaming, off-topic, arguments where it’s obvious the participants aren’t listening to each other; stuff hardly worth reading. It’s noise.

Discussions are rare gems.

Atwood makes a case that a luker reading every article, posting a handful of comments, is far more valuable to a community than a frequent poster. I must agree. Reading adds to knowledge, and thoughtful response takes time and consideration. I made a similar point as part of my decision to remove comments from this site in that I’d rather read your email or blog post in response. The comment box is great for an immediate response in brief, but isn’t designed well for thoughtful discourse or lengthy conversations.

A couple of ideas Atwood shares captured my interest. His #3 idea is to reward reading, perhaps by raising trust levels of community members by how much or often the member reads. Are there other ways to reward reading? How about using a quiz question as a captcha to comment? In #4, Atwood suggests real-time conversations “preserving the back and forth, real time dynamic of an actual conversation.” Of course, Atwood has done more than offer ideas, he created Discourse comment system in pursuit of some of his strategies.

Comments Still Closed

Besides slow loading time, a big reason I hesitantly decided to disable my comments was due to lack of discussions. I continue to get responses via Twitter, G+, or email, all of them good. What I don’t see anymore are the thanks-for-visiting-my-blog and please-visit-my-blog comments, which were somewhat pointless anyway (shoot me a tweet to say hello). I read posts I’m interested in.

Will I turn comments back on? Perhaps. I may try a moderation strategy that encourages discussion.

Feedback is great, but please, come to read. Feel free not to comment, or share your thoughts if you have something to say.

You may reach me on Twitter, @dracotorre, Google+, or Gmail dracotorre.

Notes for technical types: Disqus works with Octopress, for Discourse check this post on Rails on Maui

When purchasing a new electronic device, it is wise to consider the advantages of options at a higher price point for expected usage. This year Apple offers a wide array of iPad models with choices of storage options, and due to questionable hardware decisions by Apple, careful consideration is in order. In general, avoid the bottom price point of an iPad model. I also recommend avoiding iPad Air (2013) and the iPad Mini 2 (2013).

Storage Options

For 2014, the lowest priced storage option of each iPad model remained the same at 16GB, but Apple doubled the storage on the larger choices making them more appealing. The 16GB model is aimed at the casual user, an extremely lightweight, casual user. The core system and basic applications consume nearly half of that 16GB leaving a realistic size of 7-9GB (10GB if cramming) available for adding apps and content. Even with storing content in the cloud, 8GB may feel tight for the majority of consumers. (My test iPad 2 uses 6GB with iOS 8 base installtion including default apps.)

Users with 16GB storage trying to update from iOS 7 to 8 over the air discovered a problem. Not enough space to update even after deleting most of their content and apps, as the update consumed 5GB of storage. The solution is to use iTunes to update to iOS 8, but many users rarely connect their iPads to a PC anymore. A smart decision by Apple would have been to inform users with 16GB to connect to iTunes instead of asking them to free more space.

A very lightweight user with limited storage needs should decide between no iPad and larger storage. Spend the extra money for 64GB storage. The improved experience is worth the extra price. If the iPad will be your primary PC, 64GB is the minimum and consider the 128GB storage option.