All our Children need is love

Yesterday, across town, a high school student brought a gun to school and shot five of his fellow students. At the time I write this, two of the victims have died, and the other three remain in the hospital. The details of why this happened are still being investigated, but there’s been mentions of bullying, and family troubles.  I have been staying away from the sensational reporting of our local news, but enough of it has made it my way, that I have a picture of what is known right now.

Upon hearing the news from a Facebook friend on my way in to work yesterday morning, my first reaction was fear. Fear as a mother who has two grade school age children and wants nothing more than their happiness and safety. My whole being wanted to wrap them up in a little cocoon and protect them from the bad things in this world.

I didn’t bring up the shooting in our dinner time conversation last night. I waited to see if it had been mentioned in their school day yesterday, ready to answer questions, but none came. They are only in third and first grade, so their teachers might not have felt the need to talk about this event to their classes.

Bullying, however, did come up.

My son’s friend is a bit of a bully. He makes fun of younger children, and rarely has a nice thing to say to or about anyone. This perplexes my son, who has tried very hard to be friends with this young boy. They have been friends since they met in first grade, and hang out together at the extended care after school.

For about a month at the beginning of the school year, this boy wouldn’t talk to or play with my son. When my son tried to ask why, he’d been brushed off. Then, the friend started to try to get their mutual friends not to play with my son. Eventually, the boy apologized and they were back to being friends. No explanation was given.

Still, the questions remain. My son asks: Why does this boy say mean things? Why does he pick on younger children? Why does he insult people? Why?

The best explanation I can come to, simple as it might be, applies to all children who bully and all people who choose to act out of hurt and not love. They are somehow unhappy with their lives. The unhappiness can be anything, and might be hard for someone on the outside to understand, but I believe that all meanness comes from a deep unhappiness. If you are happy in your life, and have all that you need, then you will pass that  happiness on to others. If you are sad, then all you  have to offer others is that sadness.

My daughter jumped on that idea, and came up with home life reasons as to why children might be unhappy and therefore might be mean to others. Then they went through other children they knew at school that were mean, and tried to think of reasons why they would be unhappy.

My point wasn’t to analyze the state of their schoolmates, but was rather to teach them compassion and try to give them insight in to why people make hurtful choices. I am not trying to excuse these bad choices. We are all responsible for our choices. You can be happy because you choose to be so in spite of all that might stand in the way of happiness. But if you are never taught that you can be happy and choose happiness, how do you believe it? If you are a child and your examples are to be hurtful, how do you learn differently? Rather than excusing, I am only trying to understand, because I believe that understanding something allows you to deal with it and perhaps help to make it better.

My heart breaks for the parents who sent their children to school yesterday, and who did not have those same children come home. I cannot fathom that loss. My heart breaks for the boy who believed that this was the answer to whatever his problems were. My heart breaks for all children, everywhere, who are so sad that death is an option at the end of their stories.

Sometimes I worry that no matter what we do as parents, there are influences (media, movies, peers) that are beyond our control in the raising of our children. It’s that worry that makes me consider quitting my job and home schooling my children. Slowly, I let that worry pass by and allow myself to believe that the unconditional love I show my children and the compassion I teach them by words and hopefully by example, are what they need to prepare them for the bad and the good in this world.

As parents, loving our children, really and truly, is the best way to raise them to love themselves and to love others. A world with people that act out of love is a world worth working toward.

Thank you for listening.
RSM

Reading eBooks on my iPad2: My experience

About a year ago, I purchased the nook so that I could read eBooks since my iPad was almost entirely dominated by my children’s use. Last fall, my loving husband bought an iPad2 for my birthday so that I could have my own iPad to use. I share this one with my daughter, but she doesn’t use it nearly as much as my son uses my original iPad.

This year, I decided to give reading books on the iPad a try.

My first eBook was, naturally, the Biography of Steve Jobs written by Walter Isaacson. I purchased it via Apple’s iBooks store more out of loyalty than any other technical or monetary reason. I have the nook and kindle apps for my iPad, so I could have easily purchased it via Barnes and Nobel or Amazon respectively.

I enjoyed the experience of reading on the iPad2 more than I thought I would. Initially, I though that the lighted screen might be a strain on my eyes. While I still prefer the eink technology for eBook reading, I did enjoy the ability to read in the dark while getting my children to bed that reading on the iPad2 gave me.

Aside from the backlighting, the first thing I noticed was the speed contrast between my Wi-Fi + 3G nook and the iPad2 iBooks book. There was no comparison. The iPad2 page turning was responsive. The nook’s page turning was slow.  The iPad2′s iBooks layout was more book like, the nook’s was less so. Given that my nook is a generation old now with the introduction of the nook simple touch, I would hope that the new hardware might provide a little snapper response. I’ve only had the chance to check out the nook simple touch at Target in demo mode, so I cannot speak to it’s function.

Not all book reading apps on the iPad are as nice. I have tried out three other apps to read books checked out from the library (article with instructions coming).

First I tried Overdrive, an application recommended by my local library. For some, but not all, eBook (epub and pdf format) titled in my local library’s eBook catalog, I can check the book out from and read it within the Overdrive application itself. While the ability to do this within the app, and without having to go to an additional Browser or my Macbook in order to get the content onto my iPad was nice, the interface left a lot to be desired when compared to the iBooks reading experience. Gone were the paper-like page turning graphics. Instead of a page turn, the page simple changes to the pervious or the next page depending on which side you’d tapped on. It works and it’s fast but there’s something less graceful and less book-like and more computer-like to this experience.  What I did like was the ability to set type size as well as page color between white to ecru, both of which made reading easier on my eyes.

The next app I tried for reading library eBooks was Bluefire. From the app, it appears that there is a way you check out books out from within BlueFire through some of their affiliates, but since I don’t see my library listed there, I have not tried that method. How I got the content onto my iPad2 here was to check out the book via my Safari browser, download the DRM key to my Macbook. Use Adobe Digital Editions to verify the DRM and download the file. Upload that file via iTunes to the BlueFire app with my iPad2 mounted. Once in the BlueFire reader, you can also set night mode (white text on black background) and text size, as well as fit to page width in the settings. The page turning here is a slide to the left or slide to the right motion, not a page flip. It reminds me of the old microfiche readers our library at work used to have.

To read pdfs, my go-to application is GoodReader. I could write a blog post on GoodReader alone (perhaps I will). The GoodReader app is available as a free and a paid version. I liked it enough that I paid for the full version of both the iPhone and iPad versions. There are a variety of ways of getting pdfs into GoodReader to read on your iPad2. I’ve used most of them. You can use iTunes and upload to your iPad or iPhone at sync, you can link to a dropbox account, your MobileMe iDisk (for as long as that will be around), or download pdfs directly from the web. The application is easy, quick and intuitive. It’s hands down the best pdf reader on iOS.

Overall, reading on the iPad2 has been a really good experience. I don’t find the iPad2′s form factor too big and bulky to use as a ereader. In fact, the Isaacson book is heavier than my iPad2 even in it’s Protenzo case.  Now that I’ve figured out how to check out library books both directly to the iPad and via an iTunes sync, my nook might just be relegated to sitting unused on my nightstand.

Your experience might vary, but the iPad2 has become an everything device for me.

RSM.

Checking out an electronic epub formatted library book: part 1 – to read on my nook

About a year ago, I bought a refurbished Barnes and Nobel Nook so that I could check out eBooks from the local library and read them in my spare time. I already owned an iPad, but my children used it to play games and drawing applications so much that I didn’t think I’d have use of it enough to read.

I wanted to check back in here and describe the steps I had to go through, and still have to go through, to check eBooks out of the library and put them onto my nook. I found that doing this for the iPad was almost the same but slightly different. I will write up those instructions separately.

All of the instructions below are for the epub or pdf format and follow this simple path: check out the ebook, download the eBook to your Mac, put the eBook onto your eReader. I have found at least one eBook that I was able to check out directly to my iPad2 without having to use my Mac as an intermediate step.

Note: While I do not have a kindle, from what I have read, checking out a kindle library book is a different process altogether and takes place almost entirely in the cloud. Most libraries now have epub, pdf and kindle formatted books. Only epub and pdf formatted books are covered in these instructions.

Step one: Checking into and out of the library

Reserving and checking out an epub formatting ebook from the library is a fairly straightforward process. For the following instructions, the library in question is the Cuyahoga Country Public Library, although I would assume that other libraries will work the same. Once you have a library card and associated account number, you simply go to the library’s website and create an electronic login complete with a pin number.  At the library’s digital site, you can check out an epub formatted eBook by putting it into your “cart” or place a hold so that you will get a turn in the queue to check out the eBook.

Step Two: Downloading to your computer

Once you check out the cart from within your browser, you are given the option to downloadsa small file. I do not believe there is a limit to the number of times you can download it. This file is not a pdf or epub file itself. It is, I presume, is a link to download the ePub book (which is my choice).   To open and read the DRM marked file you will need another application.

Step Three: Adobe Digital Editions

In order to open the file on my Mac, I had to install the application Adobe Digital Editions. ADE requires an account. This account is needed to open these borrowed eBooks, whether you read them on your mac or some other platform.

From the ADE description: “Digital Editoins makes is easy to transfer protected eBooks between multiple computers and mobile devices”.

When you download the ebook file via your web browser and double click it, the ADE application launches and downloads the borrowed library book. The interface is similar in concept to the iTunes store, with the ability to create folders of books. A folder titled “borrowed” is created once you download borrowed material. Within the ADE window, you see the file name of your book with a designation of “borrowed” at the end as well as the date that the lending period will expire. Once you reach that date, you will no longer be able to open that document.  In the same way that iTunes is a front end for the content in your iTunes folder, the ADE creates a folder in your documents folder called “find the name” where it downloads the epub-formatted files. Deleting them from within the ADE window does not delete them off of your mac.

Step Four: uploading to your nook

With ADE launched, plug in your nook to the USB port. The nook will load within the ADE window as an additional folder, similar to the way that iPads, iPhones, iPods will mount within the iTunes window and allow the user to drag and drop content into them. With the nook mounted within ADE, you can drag the borrowed library book onto the nook.  Now, your nook has the borrowed library book loaded and you are ready to read. You can read it either on your Mac within the ADE application or on your nook.

Step Five: Reading on your nook

Now that the eBook is on your nook, simply unmount it from your mac by ejecting it, and you are ready to read. The DRM restrictions on the book file will lock it from being opened once your lending period has expired.  For me, this has left me with a number of epub files that no longer open. Every once in a while, in order to free up disk space, I try to go and clean up the files that have expired.

Loading the epub formatted eBook onto my iPad is similar to the above steps in some cases, but easier in others. I will write up those instructions in another blog post. I have found that for some digital books,  on the iPad I don’t need to put my computer in the download path, and for others, I do.  Since I found it all a bit of a process, I thought I might as well capture it here for others.  Consider that your coming soon preview.

Enjoy your reading.

RSM.