I've been watching the technology books on the shelves at my local book store dwindle over the past few years. Especially hard core books for subjects like programming and certification. I know you can buy books online for a fraction of the price and that's where most people are buying books these days.
But in the work place who actually uses tech books anymore? With the Internet at my fingertips and the all knowing Google, do books actually have relevance any more?
Programming
Used to be when I had a programming question I would grab my Professional XML book, or the Programming in C# book. But no longer. Now, I zip over to Code Project for relevant code examples that are based on current technologies. And that's not the only site. There are hundreds of portal sites, blogs, examples, forums and so on. It's a good thing Google knows how to program, because I might not look very good to my customers without it... kidding of course.
Certification
When I started studying for my MCSD, I dusted off a couple of older books I had on the core topics like SQL 2000 Administration, Analyzing Requirements, and C# Development. But even now, I can get as much from study forums and blogs than I ever could reading a book. I can get almost immediate feed back and assistance from the community when ever I need it. A book can't give you that.
Digital Books
In the fast paced world of software development, I don't have time to thumb through a book for help. Some might wonder, if I need a book, should I even be doing this? Well, not everyone has a photographic memory, nor do I have the necessity to remember every little nuance of a programming language. I know a good amount, and don't typically need help, but when I do, it's nice to know I don't have to throw down $70 to have access to a small and typically outdated piece of information.
One more indication that tech books are becoming extinct? My local library. Where they used to have almost two entire rows of tech books, it has been reduced to half of one row. Wow... that was amazing to me.
If you write tech books are you concerned that your efforts may not get the attention it once did a few years ago? Is the effort worth it?
I'd pay for an e-book maybe. They are portable. But as I said. With technology, information becomes outdated quickly. That's why maybe book blogs would be a good idea. Sell an e-book online, then sell upgrades or revisions for a fee. Users would subscribe to an e-book. Then be given periodic updates for a set amount of time. What if an Author could continue to make money on books already purchased? I'd pay for that if I knew the information was going to be updated or improved.
Now I'm just thinking on the fly but it seems to make sense. By the way, I have a shelf full of outdated books that I don't use. Probably a thousand dollars worth. If anyone would like them, let me know. I am planning on donating them to the local library very soon. I'm going digital.
Canon seems to be the leading camera among those who post pictures to Flickr.com; by a lot. Canon has 3 of the top 5 cameras. That's good for them. It's also interesting to me, someone who doesn't own a Canon or a Nikon, the other two cameras in the top 5. What am I missing. I need to know more.
I took a few minutes to read through Darren Rowse site about Photography to see if what he had to say about these cameras. As usual there was more than enough for me to read.
Here is the link to the Flickr story and a list of cameras that are in their most popular brands section. But when it comes to Point and Shoot cameras the Canon PowerShot takes the cake. No other camera comes close. The top 5 are all PowerShots. Interesting.
In summary, the top 5 most popular cameras on Flickr are Digital SLR's. Not one Point and Shoot.
DSLR: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Kodak and Fujifilm.
The other stat Flickr shows is the use of camera phones. Sony Ericsson started way out in the lead but has basically been caught by Nokia. Camera phones are a little different than point and shoot or DSLR cameras. The quality isn't as good, usually, but you can take and post pictures to Flickr fast. I was in T-Mobile the other day looking for a replacement phone and I think every model they offered had some type of camera built in and had BlueTooth(tm) capabilities.
Point and Shoot: Canon.
I have been posting articles with future dates for one of my other blogs using Windows Live Writer. I like doing this, because I set aside a block of time to write several articles at a time and then just set the date for some time in the future. Then I move on. It's a great feature in WordPress. However, Windows Live Writer doesn't play so well when it comes to future dates.
My example is I set a post this morning to be available on November 27th at 12 AM. When I looked at the post, I noticed the date was set to 1969. Ha, that won't work. So I tried it again, thinking maybe I fat figured something. But not so. Even though, in the Properties section of the editor, I set the date to something in the future, it always defaults to something in the distant past. Not good.
I look around today and couldn't find a fix or even mention of it. Oh well. Maybe I didn't look hard enough. The support forums are basically non-existent, so I'm not sure where to turn. I hope some time a developer for the product reads this and can help me out.
