A few months ago someone asked me why her mobile device could automatically open an email attachment, but her desktop computer could not. Her desktop operating system (OS) told her the file type could not be recognized. The attachment is a document for a popular office suite created by the same company as her OS. Not only did the OS not understand the common document, it failed to point her to an available solution (a reader made by the same company.) This is not just a failing of the OS or software company, this is an embarrassment to the entire software world.

History

Long ago (4+ decades) smart people thought about how best to interface with computers. Resources were limited, but imaginations came in great supply. The GUI (Graphic User Interface) concept (see “History of the GUI” at Ars Technica) appeared in the 1960s. Other ideas were about software design (flexibility, maintainability, and extensibility) including other programming concepts. Key results included that users should not need understand computer technology.

Software should simplify tasks and deliver a positive user experience. Bring the user closer to their data. IBM lists seventeen design goals and David Hooker lists seven, but I focus on four. The rest fall in line.

• Keep it simple, stupid (KISS.)
• High visual communication; no clutter.
• Maintain common actions; don’t surprise the user.
• Stay focused on the goal. Some problems are moving targets.

Adhering to these goals allows the consumer to reach their goal by using the best tool for the job. Consumers sometimes end up using software differently than intended, because the designer didn’t completely understand the problem or the problem changes over time. These four primary goals live on after the product is finished.

In the beginning (1980s,) personal computers achieved these goals, more or less. Technology was limited for better and worse. Computers limited in abilities made some tasks difficult, but tiny resources (memory and CPU) also kept software design in check. This forced programmers to focus on simple tasks. My favorite word processor born in the 1980s died in the early 1990s, even though new versions continue on like scary ghosts haunting the computer world. Today’s version has many more features, but doesn’t process words any better. And does it much slower on faster machines.

The thunderous beat, stomping feet, wiggle the wood floor rattling lights. The blue-haired vocalist screams about love and pain while the band thrashes about working their instruments into furious fits. Before the stage, the human sea writhes into a torrent, arms waving glowing bracelets, bodies splashing together, bounding and swaying in currents. Piercing through the heavy fog, red spotlights splash the crowd like blood raining inside Club Necropolis.

On the pedestal beside the band stage, Kandy grooves to the music. She snuggles close to the backside of the lovely Zypher. Arms in the air, hips swirling, they move as one. The waving currents flow around their feet, a cloud of orange-red body heat, except for a nearby bouncer dressed black, a dim red simmer, the only other Itoril in the club. Seeing all the pairs of beady orbs, it seems nearly half the guests wear special lenses glowing in the black light. The wannabes gather around the pedestal, and Kandy snarls showing them true fangs.

Someone watches her. Glancing over, she spots a pale form slinking into the dark sea. Turning with her partner, Kandy loses sight of him behind a fan of blonde hair. Cold rushes down her backside. She steps into shadowy folds of time.

Music fades into the background. The fan of hair slows into wispy haze, nearly transparent. The crowd dissolves, apparitions dancing in slow motion within the silence.

Stepping around a nearly frozen Zypher, Kandy gazes over the sea of ghosts. The pull of time draws her back, and the world becomes more tangible. Searching the still faces caught within the constant beat, she finds nothing unusual. Facing her partner, she falls back into the dance of life. Sounds explode, stomping feet, music, working into the pedestal, into her legs.

Eyes popping wide, Zypher stumbles and regains her groove again moving closer, arms wrapping around. “Stop showing off. They’re watching us.”

Kandy dances into a storm, and Zypher presses in tight, their black lace waving about them. They move together, wriggling like dark fire. Slipping from hard cries into angelic hymn, the vocalist tells her tale about dancing with the dead.

Falling into a gentle swirl, she latches onto Zypher, cheeks pressed together. “I’ll go easy on you, sweetie. I promise.” Hands sliding down over her partner’s hips, she grasps the bottom of the skirt and lifts. Hearing the roar of delight from the men gathered around the pedestal, she laughs.

She slithers down into a squat grasping Zypher’s warm thighs. She spots the nude-colored tape hiding the blood pack. Baring her teeth for the audience, she glances around finding ecstatic faces. Cold sparks rush up her spine. Something is out there. Not human. Not Itoril. Something cold watches her. She dives in biting the pack squirting red syrup running in rivers down creamy legs.

Zypher shrieks for the performance.

Unsatisfied, Kandy lifts the blonde up and slams her down onto the pedestal. Crouched over, she bites into thigh, tasting blood slithering about her tongue. The scream is a treat to her ears. Peering up over the trembling leg, she spots a familiar buzz of hair and chiseled chin, a face from the dead.

Dressed in a light-colored shirt, the man glows like a beacon in the dark sea. Reaching out, he claws at the pedestal, pulling himself to shore. Leaking from his cruel eyes, violet smoking wisps curl up over his buzzed hair.

Waves of cold splash inside, and she shudders. A single thought rises from the abyss: run.

Lunging into the folds of time, Kandy leaps over the nearly frozen apparition of Zypher and onto the dance floor. Hands latch onto hers, pulling her into a spin, twirling through insubstantial dancers, warm waves splashing against her. Never having gone this far, she cringes at each ghost passing through her leaving a wake of hot prickles on her flesh.

Spinning and gliding through the hazy cloud of ghosts, they dance to the frozen silence. Gazing at the cold expressionless face, the violet smoke pouring from dark eye sockets, is like looking at Death. As he turns, he leaves a trail of smoking bits. He tugs her deeper into the fold, and time pulls at her sending them into a lumbering dance.

Watching creeping shadows eat at the floor, she claws at the arms holding her trying to break free. As the abyss closes in, she reverses her fight.

Meeting the rhythm, Kandy dances with the dead. Turning with her lead, she adds her own groove complimenting his steps. Time rips at her, but she dances through the shadows between worlds beneath a storm of lavender and azure clouds. As her insides begin to tear apart, she breaks the beat rushing into time.

Music slams into her, perspiration and leather attack her nose, and a person knocks her spinning sideways. Pushing against bodies, she stumbles through the crowd. She punches a man square in the face and escapes the dance floor. Spinning around, back against stone wall, she scans the club.

Glowing bracelets wave above the waving currents of the human sea, but nothing unusual stirs within. She imagines the wraith lurks deep within the folds of time or somewhere between this world and another.

Finding the rhythm, Kandy walks to the beat of life, up the steel stairs and out the door into the crisp night air leaving Club Necropolis behind.

Below is my incomplete list of ebooks by Friday Flash participants. The best part about Friday Flash is diversity, and the same is true for this list of books. There is something for everyone.

I have read several of these titles, and the rest are on my reading list. Sure, ebooks don’t impress people like print books sitting on a shelf, but you’re a reader! (You could always take a snap of your digital bookshelf like I did.) Even if you don’t have a fancy ebook reader, you can enjoy their books on your PC, phone or iPod (and some are available in print.) Smashwords supports many formats or read online.

If you’re creating an ebook for Smashwords, consider formatting working contents supporting PDF, epub, mobi, and iPad. See my post on formatting.

Books are cheap. Buy them all! (At least sample.)

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13 Horror Stories by John McDonell (McDonnellWrite.) Sample on Smashwords.

A Breath of Life and Other Stories by Eric J. Krause (ericjkrause) is a collection of shorts. Find it at Smashwords or Amazon.

A, B & E by Marc Nash (21stCscribe) is in paperback at Amazon.

Deadlands Hunt by G L Drummond (Scath) is part of a world of stories. Sample on Smashwords .

Don’t Fall Asleep by Laura Eno (lauraeno) begins the Dream Assassin series. Find it on Smashwords or Amazon.

A Fine Cast of Characters by J. Dane Tyler (DarcKnyt) is a collection. Sample at Smashwords.

The First Tale by Icy Sedgwick (icypop) takes place in her Vertigo City from her serial shared on Tuesday Serial available at Smashwords.

From Dark Places by Emma Newman (EmApocalyptic) is a collection available on Smashwords.

Must Love Dragons by Monica Marier (lil_monmon) is a novel available at Lulu.

Password Incorrect by Piotr Kowalczyk (namenick) is a collection. Sample on Smashwords.

Prophecy Moon by Laura Eno (lauraeno) is a fantasy novella about love, wizards, and worlds. Sample at Smashwords or Amazon.

RealmShift by Alan Baxter (AlanBaxter) is a novel. Available at Smashwords and Amazon.

Something’s Not Right by Trevor Mcpherson (3S_stories) is a collection of shorts. Your biggest disappointment might be how short this book is, but the stories pack a punch. Available at Smashwords.

Strange New Feet by Shannon Esposito (soesposito) is a science-politics novella available at Smashwords and Amazon.

You’ll also find some of your favorite Friday Flash authors in these collections:

• Best of Friday Flash - Volume One edited by J.M. Strother is available at Smashwords.
• The Yin and Yang Book edited by Jodi Cleghorn and Paul Anderson at chinesewhisperings.com

You want a working contents page in your ebook. Readers love them. Anything that improves navigation is good. Done properly, the Smashwords Meatgrinder will produce epub and PDF with working contents page linking to your chapters or parts. Software like Adobe Digital Editions and iBooks on iPad will allow the reader to jump to chapters in your book. Below are screen shots of my novel, Raven Memory in Adobe Digital Editions and iBooks. The iBooks contents work by scrolling. In addition, iBooks reveals how many pages remain in the chapter. Note: In my first revision of Raven Memory, I used flowing text between chapters, and my recent revision (Sep 3) uses chapter headers.

Every once in a while, a person catches a glimpse. Out of the corner of an eye, or a fleeting glimmer, a person sees them. Not spirits, but what I call memory ghosts. From there when they pass through into our here and now.

Memory burns into the cosmos. Gazing at the stars is looking at memory. The light traveling across the galaxy spanning years transfers information reaching the observer forming new memories. From a painting of an artist, bits of information travel to the eyes speaking to the viewer. The dead continue their ghosts caught within the information. Everything passes through the fabric of the cosmos. Like fingerprints in the information, memories leave their mark.

I see her still, my little girl. In the passenger seat on the way to school, or sitting at her desk, studying, she fills my life with joy as I view the world through her eyes. Many memories cling like the beaming smile of a child opening her birthday present finding all her wishes, charms in life worth remembering. Even if the world forgets my little pumpkin, I see her memory ghost.

They say I never had a daughter. The world forgets. Her fingerprint is there, like everything else, caught within the information. But sometimes, memory changes.

From the moment a memory blossoms in the mind, the brain works connecting the patterns. Information not immediately connected to any known pattern dives into the abyss. Other details fade as more information flows linking related patterns together. Connections build a network of memories, blurring some details while reinforcing others. Memories change. Blue becomes gray, tall becomes average. And sometimes something out of the ordinary blazes like the sun floating above the other memories, an interpretation hiding other details, always there.

Does the tapestry of reality mutate altering memory?

Even if the tapestry changes, and only I see her, my girl is here. The information holds all the ghosts. One only needs to look, and interpret.

They never leave, these cosmic fingerprints.