Steve Umstead's Blog, page 5
January 18, 2013
Putting my trusted Nook Color w/Android (Jelly Bean) 32GB card up for sale…anyone interested?
My technology ADHD kicked in again and I’ve moved on from my trusted Nook Color. I used it as a reading device, then last year bought an n2a SD card to run full Android on it. But ever since I got the iPad, it’s done nothing but collect dust. A few months back I upgraded the Android from 2.3 Gingerbread to 4.1 Jelly Bean, and it was like night and day. Great system, very smooth, and quite usable. But I still didn’t find myself using it much. Only as a reading device once again. So, I’m about to part ways with it.
BUT before I let her go to some anonymous eBayer who won’t love her like I did, I thought I’d open it up to friends and readers if anyone is interested. It’s in great shape (I care for my tech very much…). It comes with:
• Nook Color (8GB internal memory)
• 32GB SD card now loaded with Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean)
• Leatherish folding case I bought from Amazon less than a month ago
• Charger and USB cable
• Original box and manuals
Now before anyone worries, the way an SD card works with Android is that it’s “dual boot”, meaning the original Nook software is STILL fully there if you wanted to simply use this as a Nook with a 32GB card for book/video storage. OR you boot into Android from the SD card and you have a fully functional 7″ tablet that runs all the Android apps (including Nook, Kindle, Kobo reading apps, which is what I did). This Nook is NOT rooted – it runs either regular Nook software or SD card Android. It’s also a clean install – I wiped everything and reinstalled the Android software on the card, so it’s all ready for a new user.
The 32GB SD card with Android alone is selling for $60 on n2a’s site; a used Nook Color is running in and around $100 on eBay for BuyItNows. I’d like to get a minimum of $100 for the full package with US shipping, to someone who will love it, and hold it, and squeeze it, and call it George.
DISCLAIMER: I’m only offering to sell/ship this to US addresses, sorry in advance. I just can’t get involved in international shipping, customs forms, and so on. Hate me if you must, but I’m inherently lazy.
If you are interested, email me (NOT a comment on this post…) at sumstead [at] gmail with an offer. I’d like to say the “first $100 wins it”, but first might leave out someone who really wanted it. Instead I’ll say 48 hours from now (2PM ET Sunday) I’ll “close the bidding” and best offer wins it, and I will ship it (US only, remember!) for free. I will provide a PayPal link to the winning bidder (no, no personal checks, money orders, or IOUs). If winner doesn’t pay, or lives somewhere on the Kamchatka Peninsula and never told me, I will award it to bidder #2.
This is a secret bidding, so no…I will not be posting current bids or anything. Offer what you want to buy it for. It’ll be like those charity functions that have the Chinese auctions. Or something like that. I think.
So…you in?
January 16, 2013
Gabriel’s Redemption, Book 1 of military scifi trilogy, just went FREE (until I feel like making it not free…)
Ho ho ho, a post-holiday sale for no reason whatsoever. And it’ll last until whenever. Yay, specificity!
GABRIEL’S REDEMPTION, book one of the military science fiction trilogy (shameless plug: currently has a 4.3 star average on Amazon with 117 reviews, 55 of which are 5-star), is now FREE for the following e-reader platforms:
Kindle US
Kindle UK
iBookstore (US/UK/CAN)
KoboBooks
Sorry I cannot make it free elsewhere – too difficult (sometimes impossible) and too time-consuming to put out a limited-time sale. However all of my books are DRM-free; you could conceivably download a freebie from any of those above and convert it for use in your desired device. Or read online. Or skip it altogether and read some quality free stuff from Michael Hicks instead.
And since sharing is caring, and caring is sharing, if you felt the urge to spread the word, I’d be eternally grateful. Plus I’ve even got some ready-made sharing tools:
Sorry, I can’t find the MySpace or Friendster sharing buttons, or the AOL dial-up numbers…
January 14, 2013
Excerpt from Gabriel’s Redemption: Drop Capsules
“Drop in five, four, three, two, one…DROP, DROP, DROP!”
Gabriel’s head was slammed back against the padded wall of the drop capsule, known to drop-troopers as coffins, as the Marcinko spat the team from the drop bay like bullets. Nine capsules shot towards the surface of Poliahu at over seven G’s.
After the initial shock, Gabriel relaxed his breathing and had his neuretics bring up the drop data in Mindseye. Nine green dots, falling towards the surface at over 18,000 miles per hour, all secure telemetry in order. He checked for an update of the LZ, and confirmed the team was on target and all probes showed the same quiet colony. All but one probe, he thought. I only hope that was a glitch.
He noticed one dot slightly off target, double checked that it was Sabra, and reconfirmed her flight path was taking her to the predetermined LZ at the base of the ridge. One more green dot was wavering. He sent a quick burst to Jimenez to adjust course, and his dot came back in line within a few seconds.
Gabriel adjusted his course slightly, tiny hydrazine jets on the outside of the coffin giving a few quick puffs. He wanted to land just outside the circle of his team to not only get a closer look at the colony upon landing, but also to be able to see Sabra better as she landed. He still wasn’t sold on her loyalty; something with her and Lamber still simmered below the surface, and he planned to make a point of keeping a very close eye on them planetside.
They began entering Poliahu’s atmosphere, Gabriel’s coffin buffeted by the ionized air molecules screaming past his falling capsule. The heat inside rose by several degrees as friction took hold, and he ordered the battlesuit he wore to lower its temperature a bit to compensate. His nose itched something fierce, but in his standing position with arms locked at his side, he couldn’t do anything about it. Not to mention the combat helmet would prevent it anyway. Standing upright, paralyzed, in a coffin. Great way to start the day.
The buffeting increased to a shudder and Gabriel’s teeth rattled. A quick check of the drop data showed them just a few seconds from retroburn, so he clamped his jaw and gritted his way through the shaking, hoping his recent filling stayed in place.
As one, the nine capsules reached their IP, ejected their heat shields with a bang, and activated the retroengines. Light blue tongues of plasma fired from the three conical jets on the bottom of each capsule as their heat shields fluttered away above them. Gabriel felt a massive squeeze in his chest and his blood began pooling in his legs, vision graying, as the g-forces of the burn took hold. Slowly the pressure decreased and he took a few deep breaths, checking data once again.
The capsules were all on target, Sabra just north of the others, as they all slowed their descents to a more manageable landing velocity. Twenty seconds to touchdown, he noted, so he began activating the armor’s servos and sensors, bringing the Otero battlesuit fully online. Heads-up displays illuminated his visor, the first bit of light he had seen since entering the capsule over an hour ago. The suit ran through diagnostics, everything in order he saw with satisfaction, and he tensed his leg muscles in anticipation of touchdown.
Gabriel’s retroengine rose in pitch, then abruptly shut off, and his capsule banged into the surface of the icy planet. The shell of the capsule split vertically and spread the doors wide, allowing the weak pre-dawn glow to enter. Gabriel quickly hopped from the capsule, taking several steps away, knowing full well how many men and women had been injured when the eight foot tall capsule had tipped over on them as they emerged.
He turned back to the capsule to see it still standing upright, steam billowing from its underside as the engines ticked and cooled. He stepped back to the capsule, sent a command, and its doors swung shut again. He pushed it over backwards and it toppled into the snow, exposing the blackened engine nacelles and a puddle of water that was quickly refreezing.
He turned back towards the ridge to catch a glimpse of Sabra’s capsule touching down near the base in a cloud of snow. He checked the data and his heads-up displayed her capsule landing safely and opening. Good, he thought. Hers was an important position, and he didn’t want to waste time trying to compensate for a bad drop. Although it did appear she may have landed a bit too close to the valley entrance.
Walking around to the top of his capsule, he reached down, and with the enhanced servos in his battlesuit, grabbed the tow handle built into the top of it and began dragging it to their rally point, leaving a furrow in the snow behind him that began immediately filling back in with falling snow.
January 12, 2013
Unusual (but very appreciated) care package from Stella Artois…
I’ll preface this post by saying “Don’t judge me”. No seriously, don’t judge. I take my “me time” wherever and whenever I can get it, whether it’s a quick lunch at Barnes & Noble with the laptop, or a coffee at Panera with the tablet, or as in this case, a single beer at Chili’s while my son is doing a 45 minute karate class next door.
I sit down, knowing (a) I only have 40 minutes, and (b) I can only have one beer since I’m the epitome of the responsible driver, and order my usual (again don’t judge), a pint of Stella Artois, draft. The bartender smiles sadly and says, “sorry, the manager replaced the Stella tap with Yuengling a couple of weeks ago.”
Jaw. Drops. Seriously? And before I get a flood of “hey, I like Yuengling” comments, I’ll cut you off: I don’t. At all. And I’m a beer snob. A crisp, clear, cold pint of Stella is hard to match, and Yuengling falls well short, in my opinion.
What does a socially-responsible person do? Tweet, of course:
Hrm. Some back-office manager at my local Chili’s decided to replace Stella Artois draft with Yuengling. Now how am I supposed to write??
— Steve Umstead (@SteveUmstead) January 9, 2013
What happens next is the unusual part. I get an email the next day via my site from the New York-based marketing company that represents Stella Artois in the US, saying “Stella Artois saw your tweet about replacing it at Chili’s, and wanted to send you something to fuel your creativity.”
Wha? I immediately email back with a “Stop it, seriously?” only to get a “Yes, seriously” right back. So stalking aside, I send back my address, thinking I’d get a logo coaster or two…but no. Next day UPS:
Which turns out to be 12 bottles of Stella Artois:
Fueling creativity indeed. A big thanks to Stella Artois to being aware, the HL Group for saying hello, and Chili’s for screwing up in the first place.
I think these will get me through a few new chapters. Or one. Mostly.
December 26, 2012
One Week Book Sale – Get ‘em while they’re hot. Or cheaper. Or whatever…
Hey look, it’s my annual Christmas Week book sale! I say annual not because I do this once a year, but because this week only happens once a year. So I’m borrowing the all-too-salesy “annual sale” tag an appropriating it for myself.
Every one of my full titles is now on sale through January 2nd, so if you’ve considered jumping into one or two, now would be a good time. I’ve done what I can to put them on sale through as wide a distribution network as I can, but there will be some exceptions, and for that I humbly apologize. As John Scalzi recently said, to paraphrase, most of my book sales and conversation happen within the border of the US, so as such most of my marketing takes place there as well. Meaning unfortunately in some cases, the price of one of my books in Botswana may not reflect the sale price, because I simply couldn’t get to it. Or the sale price on the Billy Mays Pocket E-Reader And Car Wash Kit is higher than on Kindle. Or the $.99 didn’t convert exactly to the same price in Dutch guilders. And in the case of Smashwords (where my Sony/Diesel distro lies), because of their absurdly slow processing time, I cannot do a limited-time price change there for fear it won’t trickle down to the Billy Mays device holders in time for the sale, or worse, trickle down weeks afterwards, then take weeks to fix.
And one final note: the Apple conglomerate saw fit to shut down their publishing arm for the holidays, and I didn’t make the cutoff, so all of the iBooks prices will be the same as last week. Sorry…
In other words, if you own a Kindle, Nook, or Kobo, you’re in luck! Gabriel: Zero Point is free (even on the iBookstore), Gabriel’s Redemption (book 1) drops to a whopping $.99, books 2 & 3 (Return & Revenge) drop by a buck, as does the complete trilogy. And my short story collection Wrinkled Shorts (like that name?) also drops to under a buck. I listed links below for Kindle/Nook/Kobo/iBookstore in the US; if you’re non-US hopefully those links take you to the appropriate non-US storefront. At least that’s the theory.
Kindle
Kindle
Kindle
Kindle
Kindle
Kindle
Nook
Nook
Nook
Nook
Nook
Nook
Kobo
Kobo
Kobo
Kobo
Kobo
Kobo
iBookstore
iBookstore
iBookstore
iBookstore
iBookstore
iBookstore
December 21, 2012
One of the most powerful speeches I’ve ever listened to. Coach Kelsey on the CT tragedy
Here’s a guy, speaking his heart, and using the rare opportunity of playing a highly ranked team and being in the national spotlight to voice a strong, powerful, and stirring speech. I saw an interview with Pat Kelsey today; his remarks were completely unrehearsed, off the cuff, and unplanned. When the reporters said, “Anything else?”, he had something else.
Take a listen, and give your kids a big hug.
December 20, 2012
My son and the Philly Boys Choir will be singing live on Good Morning America Friday 7-9AM ET
What? Another gushing-about-my-kids post? Stop, you say. But nay, I will not stop!
In any case, I’ll be rising at 3AM Friday morning to take my son to the drop-off point, where he will join the rest of the Philadelphia Boys Choir for their annual trip to Times Square to sing LIVE on Good Morning America. This is his first year in the full choir, so this has been a whirlwind of activity for him (21 performances in December alone). But I couldn’t be more proud. And I’d love it if my friends out there got a chance to see them (these kids are simply amazing…angels indeed).
If you are able to watch ABC from around 7AM to 9AM ET tomorrow, they’ll be singing various songs as they go to commercial break, some featured Christmas songs, and so on. My son will be easy to pick out: he’s the only one who will be wearing reindeer ears instead of a Santa hat (unique…wonder where he gets that from…). Look for the cute blond on the right side.
CBS taping – this is how they line up. Evan’s on the right with reindeer ears.
Hope you get a chance to catch them – would love to hear from you if you do!
December 18, 2012
I gave up using Instagram a while back, but now it’s official. It’s worse than sushi photos:
My experience with Instagram was brief: like a summer fling, only without the benefits. Meh, it was fun, for about four days, then I tired of liking photos and looking at a stream and being liked and all that jazz. But what really put me over the edge and made me delete my iPhone app was endless amounts of these:
Yes, sushi. Someone else’s sushi, to be specific. Sushi you can’t eat yourself. Instagram seems like the home for the wannabe Oriental takeout menu creator. Pictures upon pictures of sushi, all run through countless filters that make the iPhone’s fabulous camera* seem like a Viewmaster. And more than once, I was Rickrolled on Twitter into clicking a link from a friend that said something innocuous, like “guys, you gotta see this shot”. And boom, it’s their spicy tuna roll from the night before. Yum…
* What the hell is it about Instagram users that just won’t let them post a freakin’ 8 megapixel photo without making it look like crap? Here – which one would I rather hold onto for a while?
I’ll stick with the one on the left. You know, the 3200 pixel wide one I could probably get made into a decent 16 x 20 print and hang on a wall, not the one that looks like someone printed it on an Epson C80 in 1997 and stuck it in the spokes of their Huffy.
But now that Instagram’s new privacy policy has been pored over, and it states quite unequivocally that they are allowed to sell user’s photos, or use them for advertising without compensation or attribution, I’m gone.
Wil Wheaton made a great point in that article link above: “If someone Instagrams a photo of Seth Green walking through an Urban Outfitters, does that mean Urban Outfitters can take that image and use it to create an implied endorsement by Seth?”
I’m not under the false impression that things posted online are “private”. If you do think that, well, welcome to the Internet, boys and girls. However, I’m not leaving my photos, as few there were, up for some company to use without my permission for advertising or promotions. Most of my photos I use for MY advertising and promotions, and I spent a lot of time taking them. Including the one above of the Hard Rock Cancun (not bad for balancing an iPhone in one hand, mojito in the other, eh?)
No thanks. I’ve deleted my Instagram account. Oh, and you sushi posters? I’ve added a filter to my Tweetdeck that blocks any Instagram post from my feed. So don’t ask me to check out your sashimi with wasabi nuts.
December 13, 2012
Gotta love NASA…already have a “See? Told you!” video prepared for the day after the apocalypse.
December 12, 2012
A quick rant on why 12/12/12 only happening once is NOT special, why bad things DON’T happen in threes, and so on
