K. Morris's Blog, page 841
January 19, 2013
Google Plus
I am on Googleplus (https://plus.google.com/103288647937368753912/posts). I am just getting to grips with the service, consequently not all of the posts on my other blog (http://newauthoronline.blogspot.co.uk/) may have found their way across to Googleplus. I’ll get there, eventually!
January 18, 2013
Book Review: In Her Own Words .. Interview With A London Call Girl by Ruth Jacobs
Yesterday I read “In Her Own Words .. Interview With A London Call Girl”, by Ruth Jacobs. You can find my review here http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B008OALF4S/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_four/280-6753202-9043007?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFourStar&showViewpoints=0. To purchase the book please visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/Words-Interview-London-Destruction-ebook/dp/B008OALF4S/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top.
January 17, 2013
The Rise of the British National Party by Matthew J Goodwin
As with all democracies the United Kingdom has a bewildering variety of extremist political parties on the extreme left and right. The largest far-right party, the British National Party has no representation in the UK parliament, it does, however have two Members of the European Parliament (MEPS) including the party’s leader, Nick Griffin.
As with many parties of the extreme right the BNP has attempted to throw off it’s image as a racist and anti-semitic organisation. The party’s policy of the forceable repatriation of non-white immigrants to what the BNP terms their “homelands” has been abandoned as official party policy, however scratch below the surface of respectability and the organisation remains the same racist and Nazi organisation (witness for example the clips on the internet of prominent party members making racist and anti-semitic comments).
In “New British Fascism: The Rise of the British National Party” Mathew J Goodwin examines the party in detail including in-depth interviews with BNP members and supporters. The book offers a fascinating insight into what makes extremists tick and I’d recommend it to anyone who wishes to understand the disturbing growth of political extremism. For Goodwin’s book please visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0053D73WC?ie=UTF8&ref=oce_digital
January 15, 2013
I am
Reblogged from My Write To Read:
I am life, the one you never wanted me to be. I am a breath of fresh air when you wanted to suffocate me with tyranny. I am virtuous, rising above your title wave of fury. I am remembrance of your memory often blurry. I am the sea, which washes away your cruelty. I am liberty in the face of your mutiny.
Caught out by Captcha
I am a blind computer user who is not able to read print. As a result I use Jaws (Job Access with Speech) which converts text into print and braille enabling me to have the content of the screen relaid to me. One of the major difficulties which I encounter as a user of access software is the need to solve Captchas prior to being able to post comments on websites or perform other functions such as contacting the webmaster. Captchas are visual puzzles which are rendered as images. Jaws and other screenreading software is not able to interpret images (the software sees a blank page), consequently many visually impaired people such as myself find it extremely difficult (sometimes impossible) to post on sites which utilise Captcha.
Some sites including blogger.com do have audio alternatives to visual Captchas which should, in theory allow access technology users to post in the same manner as non visually impaired people. However I know from bitter experience that many audible alternatives to visual Captchas are virtually unintelligible and that significant numbers of vision impaired people can not post independently as a consequence of the presence of Captcha.
In adition to this site (newauthoronline.com which is hosted at wordpress.com) I have, in the past few days started a blog at blogger.com (http://newauthoronline.blogspot.co.uk/). This presents me with a moral dilemma as Blogger does, as mentioned above employ Captcha, (I face no such ethical issues with wordpress.com as it does not use Captcha. WordPress utilises Akismet software which automatically detects spam without utilising Captcha and places suspected junk comments/messages in a spam folder for the webmaster to review. Akismet is in my experience at least 97 per cent accurate and it is only on rare occasions that I find a genuine comment consigned to my spam folder). I wish that Blogger used Akismet or similar software rather than the cumbersome Captcha which the user is faced with. However given that Blogger does not avail itself of alternatives to Captcha what is the visually impaired user of my Blogger site to do? One solution is for users of Firefox to download an extension called Webvisum. Among other functions Webvisum enables the blind access technology user to solve Captcha by pressing alt, control 6 which sends the Captcha to be resolved. I haven’t a clue how Webvisum performs it’s magic, however it does work in the majority of cases and I’ve successfully solved many Captchas through using Webvisum.
While many tech savvy blind people will be aware of Webvisum other visually impaired people will not. Again some people do not like Firefox and prefer to use Internet Explorer or other browsers. For such people Webvisum is not an option as it only works with Firefox. This being the case what is the solution to my dilemma? The short term solution is to place an email address on http://newauthoronline.blogspot.co.uk/ so that those unable to solve the Captcha have an alternative means of contacting me, however this may have the effect of attracting spam so I will break up the address to reduce the potential for junk mail (For example john smith at mydomain.com). In the longer term sites such as Blogger need to explore alternatives to Captcha. Akismet is not the only option. One can, for instance ask the person wishing to post a comment to solve a simple question such as “what is four plus 2”. I really can’t imagine why Blogger and other sites choose to stick to inaccessible Captcha when there exist much better means of detecting spam while permitting visually impaired people the same access as sighted individuals.
(Kevin Morris is the author of The First Time which is available in the Kindle Store).
Postscript. Since composing this post earlier today I have come across a number of posts which explain how to turn off Captcha (word verification) in Blogger. For example please see http://britpins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/tutorial-how-to-turn-off-word.html. A number of these postings argue that turning off Captcha does not significantly increase the amount of spam received while several comments in response to the posts state that turning off Captcha has increased the amount of spam received significantly. For the reasons set out above I wish to make commenting on my Blogger site as easy as possible while avoiding so far as is possible the menace of spam. I will (assuming that I can find the relevant settings on my Blogger Dashboard) turn off word verification and monitor the effects over the coming weeks. If spam is not a major problem then all well and good, however if turning off Captcha results in a large number of spam comments I may have to reniable word verification while including a contact me link on my blog so that those who experience difficulty with Captcha can get in touch.
January 13, 2013
The Snake
The below short story originally appeared in June 2012.
THE SNAKE
Amie loved the wood. she liked the huge oaks with their spreading branches many of which had stood for centuries defying storm and the woodman’s axe. Most
of all Amie loved the greenery of the place. Recently Amie found herself wishing to run and run into the forest’s greenest recesses, to disappear and become
one with this tranquil and beautiful place.
In the depths of the forest there was no snake with it’s horrid touch. Thinking of the reptile Amie shuddered and tears filled her hazel eyes. The creature
had only recently invaded Amie’s life which had hitherto been a happy and an uneventful one. She had played with her favourite doll, Molly, gone shopping
with her mum and lived the life of a happy well adjusted little girl. All that ceased when the snake slithered into her life.
The creature would appear at night . It made little sound as it probed where no snake should ever insinuate itself. Amie’s body hurt in a way in which
it had never done so before. It hurt inside but it was not a pain susceptible of medicines, it was beyond the ministrations of the most potent drugs.
Amie haden’t confided in anyone about the snake. They wouldn’t understand and in any case the creature would hurt her even worse than it had done thus
far where she to summon up the courage to tell.
As she walked Amie became aware of a slithering sound as the loathsome thing followed her through the wood. “Christ I didn’t know that it knew about this
special place” Amie thought as she began to run. Amie ran ever faster until at last she became a mere blur of movement. As she picked up speed she became
ever less child, she became part of the green and beautiful forest until at last the snake could see her no more.
My blog address is now newauthoronline.com
My blog address is now http://newauthoronline.com/. The old address (newauthoronline.wordpress.com) will continue to work, however the primary address is now http://newauthoronline.com/.
My blog on blogger.com
I am now on blogger.com (http://newauthoronline.blogspot.co.uk/). The purpose of my new blog is to explore themes in my writings while newauthoronline.com (the blog you are reading)will focus primarily on showcasing my writing by, for example the inclusion of stories. Of course there will be cross overs, however that is the intention.
The kobo mini eReader - and a bit more
Well, I hope everybody has enjoyed the last couple of days. Our Christmas Day was very quiet, just myself and Jenny this year. Boxing Day (more properly, St. Stephen's Day) was a bit more busy as we visited our daughter and her family - which exposed us to two grandchildren and several other people, who were in high spirits!
To the matter of this post's title.
January 12, 2013
The Disadvantages of self publishing
Self-publishing brings many benefits not least of which is the ability to get one’s work published quickly (indeed for many aspiring authors self-publishing is the only option given that most established publishing houses will not “risk” publishing unknown authors). The purpose of this post is however to deal with some of the downsides associated with self-publishing.
I self-published my collection of short stories, The First Time, using the services of a company which specialises in the field of self-publishing. The company offers a variety of packages ranging from an ebook only option through to the publication of both an ebook and a printed version (Print on Demand or POD). They also offer editorial services, book cover design and a press release service. I plumped for the ebook only option and paid for book cover design as an optional add-on.
One of the advantages of utilising the services of a self-publishing company is that they will arrange for the formatting and distribution of your work. In the case of authorsonline.co.uk (the company I used) they distribute titles to approximately 200 outlets including Amazon and Google Books. As of today (12 January) my book, The First Time is available from around 10 ebook retailers. While it gives me a sense of achievement to Google The First Time and see it displayed on a number of sites the speed at which publishers are adding the title is frustrating. In particular my book has still not yet appeared in Apple’s Ibook Store.
Another disadvantage associated with self-publishing is that you, the author must put a great deal of time and effort into promoting your book. This can (and often is) fun, however it entails a good deal of hard work the benefits of which are not always obvious (I.E. blogging about your book will not, necessarily lead to a take off in sales). One must be patient and keep plugging away.
Many bloggers specialising in the area of writing and publishing will recommend that authors use a variety of sources to promote their work (for example WordPress, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads). While I’d endorse this advice I’d also caution against spreading oneself to thinly. If one has the time to regularly update multiple social media then all power to your elbow. If, however one has a fulltime job or other commitments the regular updating of several platforms may not be possible. In such instances I’d recommend concentrating on one (maybe two) platforms as it is better to produce quality posts on a limited number of social media than risk imperilling the quality of your writing by attempting to post on a wide variety of platforms.
I’ve often heard it said that one should attempt to post every day in order to keep your blog’s (and your writing’s) profile high up in the ranking of search engines. While this is good advice there may well be occasions when one simply has nothing to say or you are so exhausted that anything which you do post will not show off your writing at it’s best. In such circumstances it is best not to post. In such situations have an early night and your writing will be all the better for it on the following day.
In conclusion self-publishing has much to recommend it, however it does require a great deal of time and effort by you the author.
