Fun Plants

I just can't wait until I can get my own little greenhouse. I have been looking at plants and plotting my plan of attack. One of the things I just love, is getting the more 'exotic' plants. You know, the ones you won't find at the local garden center. Every citrus variety, olive, avocado, tea, coffee, etc. It's like a collecting hobby to me - finding and caring for these exotics.

A place I found here in the UK gets two thumbs up from me as a supplier of these sorts of plants. Carreglefn Nurseries. I have ordered a few plants from them now and have had great success. Each plant comes nicely packed up and includes feeding and care instructions. All the plants have been very healthy and only shipped during the right part of the year for each variety.

Check them out if you are in the UK and just want to check out something different. They aren't cheap (for that, you'll just have to get some seeds from the various catalogs) but how many people do you know that have their own coffee plant?!

:)

Coffee Tips

Ran across this great article from Freakonomics on how to make the perfect cup of coffee with a French press.

I was all excited to try it out when I realized my French press got packed up when we moved house at end of last year and it now is lost in a box in a storage unit. Booooo!

Oh well, I'll get it sometime. Meanwhile, here's the link for you to check it out:

Coffee

Garden: Planting Schedule

Ran across this Planting Schedule by Mel Bartholomew online for raised bed gardening. Nice chart to plan your veggies for the year.

iPhone: Gardening Apps

On one of the gardening blogs I enjoy reading, they did a post on the best gardening iPhone apps that is very informative. As we now in the thick of springtime and enjoying the emergence of flowers and bees and visits to the garden centers, here is the link to check out these apps and website:

My Garden School iPhone Garden Apps

Letterboxing: Dartmoor Spring Meet

It's that time of year again. The clocks spring ahead in the UK, so that means it's time for the Dartmoor Spring Letterbox Meet. It's always held the Sunday of time change weekend, so here's the details if you want to go - their typo with the Autumn wording. There are always tables, new box clues, supplies, and lots of boxers to meet:

The Autumn Meet will be on 27th March 2011 at Lee Moor Village Hall ( NOT AT PRINCETOWN! ), commencing at 10am.

For those individuals and organisations wishing to put out a Charity Letterbox Walk in the Spring, please remember to obtain permission from D.N.P in plenty of time. Contact Sue Bishop 01626 831006, or visit their website www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk

For more details on hiring stalls at the Meet contact Stephanie & Roger Paul 01647 231080. Email: rogerpaul@eprimus.co.uk

iPhone: Location Games

I have been trying out a few of the location-based 'games' on the iPhone. (I think they are available on other devices, but don't quote me on that!) The 3 I have looked at are: Gowalla, FourSquare, and SCVNGR.

You use these apps as you check in to various locations as you either travel or just go about your daily life. The only people who see where you are your friends who are also on these apps and you have okayed. You can check in, take a picture, make comments on any sort of locations - parks, resturants, buildings, roads, stores, etc. At first the idea was lost on me, but after giving it a go, it is actually kind of fun to check in various places, read comments from others, and compete against others for most check-ins.

Over the weekend, I went up to Oxfordshire, so had a good chance to try all of these. First off, there is a nice comparison post on Gowalla vs FourSquare here, so I won't go into any specifics.

Now, on to what I found. My favorite of the 3 was Gowalla. It was visually interesting with great icons, easy to use, and my fav feature was that it updated spots as you moved so I didn't have to keep refreshing the screen. This was really handy while in the car as I could see places I could check in if I wanted.

FourSquare is fun as you can become the Mayor of each place. I think this works by whomever visits that loacation the most. I haven't become Mayor of anything, so can't really say if it works and how well. I like FourSquare as a friend is on it, but I had a hard time getting it to update locations as I traveled.

SCVNGR wasn't bad. It tried to pull in parts of both of the others, but didn't really have any outstanding features for me.

Gowalla was the best one for me and I will stick with it. FourSquare and SCVNGR seem best if you just want to check in while you are at a location, not moving about. If the Mayor idea sounds fun, then give FourSquare is your best option.

All 3 are free on iTunes, so pick them up and give it a go. Make sure you add me as a friend!

Using Library e-Books with iPhone

For the most part, I have gone to ebooks nearly completely. There does always seem to be some books which don't make it to ebook format until much later than the hardcover versions - if at all. In those cases where I just can't wait, I will get the hard copy of the book. But frankly, it just collects dust afterwards unless I can sell it on Amazon. (Where is PaperBackSwap when I need them?!)

I use the Kindle app (free!) on my iPhone to read books. I love it. A lot of people have commented that the screen is too small to read. Perhaps. But I always have my phone with me. If I spent the money on an actual Kindle unit or iPad, it would probably stay at the house most of the time and I would miss out on some quick reading opportunities (school pickups, school lessons, appointments of various types, etc.) All times where you just sitting for a short while and could be reading your book instead of twiddling your thumbs. Duoh!

Unfortunately, the downside of all of this is the cost. Regardless of what form you buy your books, the cost adds up for those of us who love reading. I have tried to use the library in the past for books, but find that the books I am looking for never seem to be there. Either they are out and there is a waiting list, or my book is just too vague to make the cut on books they purchase.

What about combining ebooks and the library? Would the books be more available? Would I use the library more and not purchase books as much? I decided to check it out.

First I had to get out my library card and check it online to make sure everything worked and it was all registered. Check. Now, how do I get the books to appear on iPhone?

For that you need an app called 'OverDrive'. This gets the books from the library to your phone. It's free, so add that to your iPhone. Also, you will need an Adobe ID (Adobe owns OverDrive. Go to their website and get this before you try to check out a book as it will hold up the process if you don't.)

Once you have those in place, you are ready for OverDrive on the iPhone. When you open up OverDrive, you'll see an option called 'Get Books'. Click on that. Next you will need to search for your library under 'Add a Library'. In my case, I have both a Surrey (county) card AND a Hampshire (county) card as I lived in both. I found the Surrey library listed first and clicked it. At the bottom of the screen, you should see your library system listed along with the formats available. (I can check out ebooks and audio books with both Surrey and Hampshire.) After clicking on your library, you should find yourself at their log-in screen at the library. Here is where you put in your library card number and password.

Once you are logged in with your library online via OverDrive, you are ready to find and checkout books. I was a bit disappointed by what I found. Surrey only had about 400 ebooks and only 29 MP3 audiobooks. Hampshire was much better at just over 1400 ebooks and 295 MP3 audiobooks. I browsed through the books to find anything I was interested in checking out. MANY of the ebooks were checked out and I had to go in a waiting queue/reserve for them. (They will email you when the book is available and you have 3 days to check it out.) I clicked on one and did this. (Note: I got the email less than a week later so that wasn't too bad.)

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything else I was interested in, so just picked any available ebook to try to download it. I clicked on the book and it added to the basket. Then 'Proceed to Checkout'. (You will be asked to login here if you didn't do it earlier.) Confirm. Then you should see the Download button for each book you checked out. They will download to the OverDrive app.

From this OverDrive app, you should see all the ebooks and audiobooks you have checked out along with how many days you have left on the loan via a little calendar symbol. I have books my OverDrive from both libraries so it is possible to use more than one - this is probably handy if you have both a local library and say a county, or university library you use.

And that's it. Just click on the book and you are reading library ebooks (or listening to the OverDrive MP3 audiobooks) on your iPhone! The books will automatically close once your loan time is up, so no more overdue books either.

I'm sure all this is the same for Android or the iPad or Kindle unit, so give it a go if you haven't yet. I haven't seen a lot of specific books I want, so not sure how much I will end up using this. The libraries REALLY need to do a better job of educating people on ebooks and improving the selection. Ideally, I would like to see a massive library available AND unlimited users checking out the same book at once. THEN, it would really be an awesome feature - and think of the popularity of libraries!