Archive for the 'Books' category

Here is a software tool that will allow you to explore the fonts installed on your Windows computer: FontEXPRO.

If you are interested in GNU/Linux and want some useful e-reading, you should jump to this list of free ebooks related to Linux from LinuxHaxor.net.

You may not have the time and money to go to University lectures. But there are other open options that the Internet is now offering. Many universities and famous institutions provide free online lectures. Let’s browse a few of the best ones I could find:

• Collège de France : the most famous French scientific institution has free-access lectures all year long. Most of them are available online too (from Mathematics to Philosophy through Archeology).
• The MIT publishes a number of lectures in video-on-demand (and has a large web site named OpenCourseWare).
• OpenYale is presenting seven free introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University.
• Courses of all levels from the Washington University (introductory, undergraduate, graduate).
• PodCasts from UC San Diego
• Lectures from Vanderbilt.
• Computer and Computer Graphics, from University of British Columbia or from Virginia U.
• Webcasts from Oxford Internet Institute.
• Webcasts from Rice University.
• Podcasts from York College (NYC).
• Harvard at Home.

I could also advise you to check the Lecturefox Blog with a lot of information about these free lectures.

The PDF file format is a little gem invented by Adobe that brought the enormous advantage of a portable file format able to display a document on nearly any kind of display and computer. Unfortunately, the Adobe PDF format and free player are not exempt from problems and this generated a wealth of applications worth knowing to support all your needs around the PDF format.

Here are the best ones solving what were problems (until now):

• PDF documents cannot be modified. Wrong! With the help of PDF Hammer (an online free tool suite), you can perform basic edits like: add, remove, re-arrange one of more pages from one or more PDF files.



• PDF forms cannot be modified. Wrong! Actually, if you use PDFescape (online), you’ll be able to fill PDF forms and make minor modifications to the document.
• PDF documents cannot be restored back to plain text. Wrong! Thanks to free PDF Text online, you can just copy-and-paste text from the PDF file you want. It can even preserve the bookmarks and font of the original file.
• PDF documents are always long to load. Wrong! Actually, it is a problem of the Adobe PDF reader. Despite being free, it became so bloated that it takes days (Ok, I’m prone to exageration) to open and load the first file. The solution is simply to use a free alternative PDF reader like PDF-XChange viewer.
• Opening PDF files on the web is slow. Right, but…, if you are the webmaster, you can use PdfMeNot to transform your PDF files into Flash media that will be easier to handle on your web site.

A guide published by Canon to help you better manage colour with photo cameras and photo printers from this brand.

Canon color management guide (2MB PDF file)

Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840) is certianly considered the greatest drawing artist of plants and flowers. Many copies of his paintings and engravings are available on line. Why not start with his page on BiblioOdyssey?

When looking for factual information about batteries, the journey of the Internet user is full of traps. Fortunately, I found a detailled, very readable and facts-based web site. It named BatteryUniversity.com. I like a lot the 3-part articles with a lot of details (and with German translations). You will know everything about all battery technologies, learn what the memory effect is and is not, about applications (including details about hybrid cars and plug-in hybrid cars).

Just check Part 2 of the associated book, to get information about how to prolong battery life. Worth bookmarking.

Specially for graphics designers, for those who cannot stop seeing the word in Pantone colors, W2 Products designed coffee mugs branded by Pantone.

Out of stock already.

Would you know what colour cerulean is? Or peach? Or spruce? Or watermelon? Or plum? Or rust?

The HP online color thesaurus is a great way to identify these and to get the precise formal definition of such colours. You type in a name, and it will give you the color, similar ones and anonyms.

These images come from the classic works of the German veterinary anatomists, Wilhelm Ellenberger and Hermann Baum, and medical illustrator, Hermann Dittrich. The texts, from which these illustrations were derived, are works published in 1898 and 1911 through 1925, all entitled ‘Handbuch der Anatomie der Tiere für Künstler‘ which can be translated as “Handbook (or Atlas) of Animal Anatomy for Artists” and are online at the University of Wisconsin – Madison Botany Department Teaching Collection. There are about eighty images in total relating to the lion, goat, horse, deer, dog and cow.

Source: BiblioOdyssey.

A library is not only a marvelous location to read books, but it may also be -simply- a marvelous location. This is the case with the collection of cultural culmination points that are offered to our eyes at Curious Expeditions.

Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staten-Generaal Den Haag, the Hague, Netherlands

A few weeks ago ManyBooks.net started to make available a number of SciFi books in PDF format and without any unreasonable restrictions (this is copyrighted material that has been left in the public domain).

Decided to give it a try and not knowing these books, I chose (randomly) to download Space Prison from Tom Godwin (published in 1958 in the middle of the Golden Age of Science Fiction).

I don’t know if it is similar to the other books found on this web site, but I can give you an idea of what I found. First, I noticed that the writing is simplistic (it won’t create any difficulty for non-English speakers digging into this English book). Then, I noticed how much the science was weak (or even shallow): For example, the derelict exiles attempt (and succeed) to build a hyperspace transmitter out of iron, copper and aluminium while their best technological success is a fast-reloading crossbow (that could not make a more-or-less reliable gun).

However, this is a nice story about men been exiled and living through generations for one single goal. Stamina and pure will transcend them leading to a quite predictible end. Despite all its shortcomings, it’s still a nice story. 80 pages is a little too long for what should have been a good short story, but I read it with pleasure.

It probably means that ManyBooks.net is publishing second-grade SciFi matter (unfortunately not some of the best works of a genre which has so few real gems), but it’s still worth the price you pay for it. You should stop there and download a couple of the most interesting books.

PS: For those of you who would be interested, I read the novel on my Palm T|X using the Adobe PDF reader: Adobe Reader for Palm OS. Very good.

John Obadiah Westwood (1805-1893), after obtaining a law degree, fell in love with entomology and archeology.

Thanks to the Oxford Digital Library, volumes 1 & 2 of his ‘Arcana Entomologica‘ are now witnesses of his passion-filled activity (both scientific and artistic).

Source: BiblioOdyssey.

I have always a little in love with old manuscript decorations. They form a nice example of a tightly codified elegance and of a technique serving art purposes. Thanks to BibliOdyssey, we can see a very nice sample of it.

Source: Plimpton MS 296 from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University (in Digital Scriptorium).

An excerpt from Julian May’s Orion arm (second book of the Science-Fiction Rampart Worlds series):

Dr Crystal diagnosed Matsukawa as a cretinoid coprocephalic -helpfully translating the medical terminology into its Standard English equivalent of ‘stupid shithead‘- who was lucky to be alive.

French translation: “crétinoïde orchydocéphalique“.

A masterpiece of Japanese painting is now available online since the Brooklyn Museum published brilliant reproductions of these exceptionnal prints that deeply impressed the European impressionists.

Brooklyn Museum – One hundred famous views of Edo

It is often quite difficult to know where a language idiom is coming from (it is less etymology than social history). For English, I foudn the ideal web site: phrases.org.uk.

In their own words:

The meanings and origins of over 1,200 English sayings, phrases and idioms.

Whether you want to resolve a friendly argument over how a saying or phrase originated or whether you just enjoy words, you’ll probably find something here to interest you.

Now, if you are more interested in the French language, you can get the corresponding information from the reference web site: expressio.fr. There, the phrase of today is: