Radiant Rachel Reflecting on Ruby, Rails, Righteous Rants and Random Rubbish
Archive for October, 2011
Add Books to Your iPad without Tethering
Open an eBook in Dropbox
So sue me, I like reading books on my iPad and I like using iBooks. Not the Kindle App, not the Nook App and heaven forbid you make me read a book in any of the dozen or so other third-party Apps available in the App Store or make me use Adobe Digital Editions on a desktop.
Another thing I hate to do is tethering my iPad/iPhone to my decrepit MacBook (circa 2007) when I buy an eBook online just so I can load it into iTunes and then sync it to my iPad/iPhone. I try to buy ePubs when I can and I usually do it on a desktop computer (maybe another Mac — like my work machine — quite a few miles away from my home computer.)
In the past I tried uploading the files to a server and downloading it to the iPad (doesn’t work) and even e-mailing it to myself (also doesn’t work, damnit!)
After using Dropbox to transfer the bought books to my home computer where I would then transfer it to iTunes, I then realized “You know what, Self? Maybe can I try to open these books on the Dropbox App on my iPad and read them there!” I attempted a quick drag-and-drop of the file into my Dropbox on my computer which quickly synced over to my iPad and ta-da — eBook goodness!
When you get to Dropbox on your iPad, just click on it and wait for it to download. You can’t view the book in Dropbox itself, but if you click the arrow in the top-right corner of the App screen, you can “Open In…” iBooks (or your choice of third-party App that can read the book’s format.)
However, the book will not automatically transfer itself to other iDevices or iTunes, but you can just do the same trick again to get the book on the device you want. The nice thing is that when you do get around to tethering and syncing your iPad to your computer, you will have no problem transferring the book back to iTunes.
You will run into problems if the eBook has DRM but there are ways around these things.
Try Something New
October 18, 2011
in Adventures
This week’s Blogenning Theme is Try Something New.
Lucky for me, I actually do that quite often, but this past week I took a class on something I wish I would have learned before my wedding.
I’ve been getting into crafting the past few years and I joke that I’m a middle-aged cat-woman because of my hobbies and the fact that I get to bed early most nights. Also a few years ago, I started attending “Crop Weekends” with a group of girls in the Tri-State area called “Cropper’s Delight.” Recently, they started adding more generalized crafting classes to the amenities they offered during their cropping weekends. I was particularly interested in their glass etching class after I saw Meryle’s various etching projects that she showed-off on Facebook.
After an exceptionally difficult car trip from Brooklyn to Mahwah, NJ, I finally made it to her class and learned how to etch a plate using a Critcutted vinyl template and some etching creme. I was absolutely amazed at how easy this technique was. After sticking the vinyl to the plate and applying a healthy coat of etching creme, it takes about 10 minutes for the chemical process to eat away at the glass and leave a permentant mark on your glass.
I say I wish I knew this technique before my wedding because it would have been much easier for me to create my own Sand Ceremony glasses rather than searching all over earth for someone to etch one for me and send it to me. It also would have been great to create my own favors with the technique.
After I showed Adam what I had produced, he immediately saw a deal on Gilt for recycled glass bottles and ordered me a few dozen with the aim of me taking custom orders off of Etsy. Now what am I going to do with all these bottles? 
