Blurb crashing

When I woke up this morning, the most vivid thing that I remember from yesterday was the amount of times that my Blurb BookSmart software crashed on me.

I would work with it for about 20 minutes and then suddenly it was gone, with a pop up message that it had to close. No warning. grrrrr And their “auto save” did not automatic save all of my work. grrrrr redux. So I would make some changes to my template and then hit the File/Save command and be reminded that BookSmart does auto save. But my work around process did save my changes when the bugger crashed again. Now I was making some progress, a little slower perhaps, but at least I was not making the same changes two or three times.

The other alternative was to write my thoughts on my V1.1 Notes in Word and then cut and paste into BookSmart. Just a jerky thought flow, which does me no good;- (

So before you all try to come to my rescue, let me provide the following info: About two weeks ago I downloaded the most current BookSmart software (1.9) and I have not received any new updates. I am running on a dinasour of a computer, over 6 years old, on XP and I have 6 Gig of free space on the HD on my system. My bookSmart software has four books in the que, three of which are completed, one of those I am re-working.

As I said, I have a work around put it is still a pain the rear when suddenly BookSmart crashes and I have to restart it. First, I have to keep doing the save, which distrupts my line of thinking at the moment and does not allow me to build momentum and flow. Then the software crashes, re-read the previous line. grrrrrrrrrrr double-redux with cherries on top.

Okay, enough whinning and back to my re-writing (re-editing?).

Best regards, Doug

Follow on note: after running an advertising scan on my system and ditching 35 “extra” running processes, not as much trouble today. Joy! So I finished the re-write of the book, now up to 80 pages so that I get the spine printed and five pages of V1.1 notes. Which may or may not make sense (the notes that is). So good chance that I will upload the V1.1 tomorrow. Time is now very limited for the true First Edition!

A day of rewriting

I decided that I needed to get the version 1.1 rewrite completed for the Sharpening Photographs for Blurb Printing book. My thoughts are fresh and I am motivated. A good combination.

And it is taking most of the day. I did not think that it needed that many edits, but considering that this was a long week end project to begin with, it was rough. The how to add in the subtle needed changes; revised photos with the updated USM actions and a discussion about how to visualize the needed sharpening for the halftone printing. That was a tad bit harder. But its coming together and should be complete in the next day or so to upload to Blurb. I am also tracking my notes to send those who bought the first editon (v 1.0).

Since only three of these books were bought and printed before I obsolete it for V 1.1, I guess you could say that this will be a very limited edtion book!

Best regards, Doug

6/12/08 update: Per my Blurb account, 5 have been sold and there are 2 pending sales from yesterday = 7. nice, but I can’t buy that 50mm Distagon just yet. And now I want at least the CF version. sigh.

6/2/08 update, I have uploaded the V1.1 to Blurb and received my production proof. After a detailed review, it appears that my original book is okay after all.