April 10th, 2009
The International Digital Publishing Forum, the key trade group promoting eBooks and the standards required to support their growth, recently reported that in Q4 2008 eBook sales reached $16.8 million, just over double the volume in Q4 ’07. Full year sales exceeded $50 million. As always, the chart looks great, and 100+% sales increases sound…
April 9th, 2009
Received this email April 4th: Britannica Online Subscription Dear Thad McIlroy, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online has just introduced a new program that makes it possible for you as a reader and subscriber to contribute edits, revisions, and suggestions to the encyclopedia. It also gives you credit, by name, for any contribution you submit that’s accepted by…
April 9th, 2009
An excellent article, disguised as a book review, in the current New Yorker by the always well-informed Nicholas Lemann, called “Paper Tigers” and subtitled: “What Media Moguls Make.” It’s a great precis of the careers of the likes of Pulitzer and Hearst, and up to the present, Murdoch. The final paragraph does tug at one’s…
April 9th, 2009
Last night I wrote to the calligrapher featured in my previous entry: Dear Mr. Karimaei, PLEASE do let me know if I’ve posted it incorrectly! Today I received the response from Mr. Karimaei: “I write another two your name’s script in two style of Persian Calligraphy that you can replace in the previous script because…
April 7th, 2009
Last Saturday I had the unexpected pleasure of attending a festival in Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver welcoming in the Iranian New Year, sponsored by the Canadian Iranian Foundation. My friend Jill and I wandered through the damp ground to booths and stalls, stopping briefly to meet Massoud Karimaei, a master calligrapher. I watched him…