Apple is all about consistency and the customer experience. Connect with your audience by following guidelines for the best experience. When your book is on iBooks (or music is on iTunes), use a button that quickly identifies the availability by following Apple’s Identity Guidelines as summarized below.

• use a recognized badge that gives your audience a clear direction
• do not use the iTunes or iBooks logo or likeness
• the badge should be secondary and link to the product
• make badge/button visually pleasing by observing spacing and position guidelines

Custom buttons are nice, but I’ve seen a few that borrow the iBooks likeness. The iBooks logo is for the app, which if used for a book, could increase confusion. Better to help your readers find your book download button as quickly as possible by taking advantage of recognized buttons.

Apple provides a few tools to help make widgets, banners, and links for your site. Widgets and banners come with layouts meeting Apple’s recommendations. Remember to test your links on other devices such as your phone.

The above widget was created using Apple’s marketing toolbox.

• Apple Marketing Tools: https://toolbox.marketingtools.apple.com/en-us/apple-books/us

If you distribute your ebook to Apple through Smashwords, use the tools to find your ebooks and create recognizable buttons.

Similar to the favicon, Apple touch icons support iPad and iPhone to promote brand identity. Larger resolutions than standard favicon appear much nicer on retina displays. You may create only one icon, but you’ll be at the mercy of scaling by the device.

An iPad or iPhone user may save a bookmark in Safari browser, or save the bookmark to the home screen, generating a web clip icon. Without a special icon on your site, Safari will use a generic placeholder and a tiny preview image will appear on the home screen.

See Apple guidelines on creating webpage clip. Like the favicon, place these PNG images in the root folder of your website. Optionally, you may use alternate icons for sub-pages. Here are the image dimensions and names to use shown with my (copyrighted) images for my sites, Kandy Fangs and this blog:

The base file is apple-touch-con.png with expected size at 60x60, which will be used if the others are missing. Other image sizes work for this file as well, but may be scaled. For each image, append a hyphen and then the size, such as, -76x76.

Here’s what my icons look like on an iPad saved to Safari Favorites and the home screen:

Notice the generic solid-colored icons for sites without apple-touch icons in Safari.

That’s it. When creating your favicon, don’t forget to include some icons for apple-touch.

Apple, Safari, iPhone, and iPad are trademarks of Apple.

The latest Dee Count for iPad update adds increment-by-tap for items in the list and also fixes an issue with text clearing when keyboard dismisses.

If items lack UPC codes, or you just need to add quick counts, tap the item in the list to open the menu and select the ++ button. This is quicker than performing a copy-paste, useful when you have many items to increment. Opening the menu first helps prevent accidental increments while still allowing for fast incrementing.

Other changes:

• fixed text in Add item box clearing when dismissing keyboard
• updated UI for more natural order of input

Dee Count inventory counting software for iPad started out as a custom solution for a client, and later released, aimed at small business owners without a need for dedicated counting system or service. Support for Bluetooth scanners and scanning with the built-in camera included. Read more about it on the Dee Count page.

I don’t see many clear mornings this time of year, but the morning of November 21st was cloudless. Some star twinkle, mostly on the horizon, indicated a thin layer of moisture. Taking advantage of the weather, I took a quick photograph of the sky over the eastern horizon capturing Saturn, Mercury, and Comet ISON among stars. I took three photos at different exposure times to be sure the barely visible comet (by my eye) would be visible.

I used a Canon Rebel Xs DSLR camera with a wired shutter click adapter to avoid shaking the camera and locking the shutter open on the bulb setting. The Rebel is great for astrophotography due to its ability to go completely manual and available telescope adapters to connect to a camera. My photograph was taken using the stock 55mm lens with camera sitting on a tripod.

The 6-second exposure makes the sky appear much brighter, and more importantly, the comet. On the 21st, the comet’s apparent visual magnitude was 4.6 which makes it visible to the unaided eye from beyond city lights. For comparison, Mercury’s apparent magnitude was -0.7. The brightest stars are magnitude of around 1, and magnitude 6 represent stars barely visible to unaided eye from a dark sky away from the city. At 4.6 magnitude and near the glow of the rising sun makes the comet more difficult to find without binoculars. I couldn’t see it without a scope.

The first picture is the unedited photograph showing the eastern horizon. In the second picture, I cropped the size and used an HDR filter to improve the contrast making the comet easier to see. Saturn sits within the glow of the rising sun near the horizon. The comet is that barely visible fuzzy object within the circle. Click to see larger images.

I didn’t bother taking a photograph using a telescope due to the amount of moisture in the air.

Comet ISON will be brightest in the first week of December when the comet is closer to Earth and heading away from the sun. EarthSky.org has a chart showing Comet ISON’s position in December in “Comet ISON nears the sun” along with a pretty picture of the comet photographed using a telescope.

Like thunder, deep laughter rumbled.

Spinning around, Draco Torre raised her guns and thumbed hammers back. Three pyres burned illuminating the dusty road, and two others smoldered. A body lay face-up in the road before the saloon. Uncertain where the laughter came from, Torre continued turning around, her left arm trailing behind until both guns aimed nearly in opposite directions. Two bodies lay at the base of the steps to the church.

Nothing moved.

Completing the circle, she faced the line of pyres splashing light on the pale faces of the buildings. The putrifying stench of charred former residents mixed with the smell of released bowels and blood from their fallen murderers. Shops and homes gazed on in mourning.

A deep voice cracked into Torre’s skull beating against the back of her head. Foreign thoughts pierced deep inside.

My angel, said the thought, translated within Draco Torre’s mind. The deep laugh pounded from within.

Shouting, Torre said, “Show yourself!”

From the saloon, a shadow flowed against the firelight, a snaking tendril creeping on the road. Black smoke rising, the shadow-snake coiled together at the center of the road and swirled, rising higher into a pillar. A burst of fluttering appendages unfolded, bony fingers with black fingernails like talons extended from the growing sleeves. A smoking boot took a silent step becoming solid. The next step crunched on gravel, and a dark duster gathered around the form.

Hat pulled low left most of creature’s face in shadow except for the end of his snarling grin over his pale, pointed chin, and the plume of white hair falling over his shoulders. He laughed, a normal audible laugh, almost as deep as before. That rumble grated on Torre’s nerves.

Searching the depths of her memories, among the bodies, the valleys of the dead, the rusty, sweet taste of blood, Torre found the name of this dark visitor.

“Ramiel!”

“Farmers and ranchers,” said Ramiel. He scanned the fallen bodies. “And my angel slaughtered them.”

“Savage murderers, they were,” said Torre. If only she had arrived sooner, the farmers of Hope Hill might have survived the night.

Ramiel pointed a talon at Draco Torre. “Dressed like a man—like a rancher, my angel forgets her path.”

“I’m not your angel,” said Torre. Barely realizing her fingers squeezed triggers, she fired both guns.

Looking down the barrels, beyond the swirl of smoke, she saw the row of pyres.

Ramiel was gone.

A crunch of gravel sounded from behind, and she spun around.

Beyond the end of her barrels, wild hazel eyes flooded by tears gazed back.

Standing twelve steps away, a young woman raised her hands holding a revolver. Torre recognized her gun discarded earlier in the fight, and she knew, one bullet remained inside.

Gazing into the frightened eyes of the sole survivor of Hope Hill, she lowered her gun.

Draco Torre didn’t even hear the sound. The kick knocked the small frame of the girl back, barrel flying up. The shot was high, but not high enough hitting Torre in the shoulder, knocking her sideways and stumbling back.

The report fell away leaving a droning ring in her ears.

Legs giving out, she sat on the road.

Torre gazed up at the sky finding the half-face of the moon, Nulan. She found the face wishing her mother had never shown her that devious grin. Nulan gazed down at Torre and laughed. And laugh she should. After all the battles, even a war nobody deserved to win, Torre felt embarrassed, shot by a girl with her own gun, and after the fight was already done.

Nulan laughed, and then she cried.

Torre gazed at the survivor sitting on the ground.

“I apologize for shooting you, sir,” said the young woman. “I thought you were one of them.”

“Sorry for your loss,” said Torre. She lowered her head in prayer for the girl, the last hope for Hope Hill.

---

Râmîêl is the name of the fallen angel of thunder in charge of watching over the rising dead awaiting judgement. In female form, she is known as the angel of hope. See: Whispering Worlds, Wikipedia.