A PC-Raised User Learns About Steve Jobs

Growing up, I was one of the lucky kids whose father was a programmer and got to bring home older PCs from the office. I remember playing Qbert and Burgertime on giant five inch floppies on my dad’s DOS machine, and I remember being one of the first kids in my class to turn in an assignment typed up in a DOS document program and printed on the perforated printer paper that used to feed through old printers. These are all great memories for me, and ones that I am glad to have experienced.

One thing I did not get to play with growing up was an Apple computer. This is mostly likely because Apple tended to be more expensive, as well as unable to integrate with many of the external plugins and software that my dad preferred. Of course, I knew that Apple was Microsoft’s big competitor; however, I never knew much beyond that.

My first big experience with Apple was my freshman year of college. When I walked into the computer lab to print out a document, all the PCs were taken and only these strange green machines in the back were available.


I knew they were Apple computers, but I am embarrassed to say that my lack of Apple experience was immediately evident when I tried to run a regular floppy disk on one. My face turned beat red as I struggled to remove my incompatible floppy, and the experience kept me away from Apple products for years. I’m actually blushing a little bit right now remembering this event. LOL

Since then, I have become a little more familiar with Apple products. I am on my second iPod and am still happily fiddling with the iPhone I purchased last year. As I got more exposure to these products, I became more curious about the man who built and developed this innovative company.


Recently, I picked up an audio copy of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. I did not really know what to expect as I started listening to performer Dylan Baker read through the book, but what I heard was all-together fascinating, horrifying (at times), and inspiring.

My first observation of Steve Jobs is that he was an asshole, but I will immediately follow by saying that he knew how to bring the most creative skills out of the people around him. His story shocked me with how hurtful, inconsiderate, and self-centered he could be, but then, I would be fascinated at how he was able to just walk up to someone he had never met and obtain the information or supplies he needed to produce his next masterpiece.

In short, I learned that he was human, while also being brilliant. Reading about both his masterpieces and his disasters was encouraging, and I loved his intensity for detail and love for artistry. His biography horrified me at times – hearing him doing things that made me shudder and shake my head. But no one can deny his amazing contributions to our society.

I definitely recommend this biography to anyone who has a love for technology, creativity, or artistry. You will learn a lot about life, both good and bad, and at the end, you will have hopefully gained a new perspective on what our future can be.

Eat, Pray, Love – My Review

A few years ago, everyone was raving about the book Eat, Pray, Love, but I never had the chance to pick it up. However, to celebrate JIAM2012, I decided to branch out from my usual fantasy audiobooks and pick up this book, and I just finished the last track!

As I review the book in my mind, my first thought is that I can hardly relate to it at all. I am not yet in my thirties; I have not been married, much less divorced; and I am still dreaming of the day when I can afford extensive international travel. Despite all that, I was able to understand the author’s desire to search for spiritual peace, or god.

I grew up in a church that, as an adult, I learned was complete and utter bullshit. Because of this, I wanted nothing to do with churches, god, or religion for a while. As time passed and the ingrained religious reactions faded, I found myself curious about what various religions were really about. I will not say I went into as much research as the reader did, but I was finally able to reach my own spiritual peace. It is because of my own search that I found the author’s own expedition interesting.

Unlike many people, I will not rant and rave about how fantastic this book was. In truth, I found it enjoyable and interesting, but not fantastic. I am glad I read it, and I did glean something from it, besides an intense craving for gourmet pizza. :)

In regard to the audiobook in particular, I liked how the author read the book herself. I feel this adds something to the story because her emotions are put into the words.

So this is my little, quick review:
Eat, Pray, Love is an enjoyable book that you will not regret reading. It is well written and informative of one person’s experiences and perspectives.

Happy JAIM2012! Now, onto my next book – The Magician King by Lev Grossman!

June is Audiobook Month!

Hurray! I just found out that June is audiobook month! Today, I am going to dispel some common audiobook fears, as well as give you list of my favorite audiobooks, readers, and production companies.

First off, I started listening to audiobooks during college. Do not ask me how long ago that was! Simply realize that it was a while ago, and I am now an audiobook veteran. :) Being a commuting college student, I drove to and from campus everyday, and anyone who has driven in Northern Virginia knows how long, frustrating, and stressful commuting can be. With driving taking up hours of my day, I began to notice a disturbing lag in my personal reading. For someone who grew up with the ability to walk behind her mother in the grocery store, while reading, and never run into her mother or anyone else, you can imagine how poignant a decline in my book intake would feel.

I do not remember exactly how it happened, but one day, I walked out of the library with an audiobook. I cannot remember what book it was (which is usually a sign that it was not fantastic), but in spite of that, I have been an enthusiastic audio listener ever since. My listening has even extended to times when I am doing indoor or outdoor chores. Audiobooks also make a great listening option when you are running on a treadmill at the gym!

This is SO true! For both music and audiobooks!
One common complaint, that audiobooks are boring or put you to sleep, is not unfounded. There are audiobooks that have really annoying readers or whose readers are just plain boring, but do not let that scare you away! There are TONS of fantastic readers. Readers who you cannot stop listening to; readers who maintain dozens of unique character voices at the same time. They are out there, and you will never want to stop listening to them. I guarantee it!

Another complaint I have heard is that audiobooks are expensive, which is quite true. Buying audiobooks from a bookstore can get expensive, with prices ranging from $20 to $60 for one book. However, these prices can be easily avoided by borrowing audiobooks from your local public library. I have borrowed dozens of audiobooks from my library, and I only purchase the CDs or MP3 files if I really, really love the book. With libraries carrying the great selections they do today, there is no need to buy every audiobook you listen to.

Believe it or not, there are even health and knowledge benefits to listing to audiobooks. Numerous studies have shown that people who listen to audiobooks have a better vocabulary than those who do not, especially children. For myself, I find that I am less stressed during and after my work commute. I also find that I am more interested in new or unfamiliar topics. I have even branched out to a few non-fiction books, like Carrie Fisher’s “Wishful Drinking”.

This is not so scary when you have an audiobook!
Currently, I have two new audiobooks to listen to (The Night Circus and Eat, Pray, Love). With a little encouragement, my boyfriend recently picked up his first audio books (Dune and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Here is a list of some of my favorite audiobooks, readers, or producers:

• The Harry Potter Series – the audiobooks are really well produced and fun for all ages
• The Kushiel series and the Naamah series by Jacqueline Carey – tons of fantastic books for adults. Some have different readers, but they are all good.
• The Millennium Series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) – another great series
• Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series – fun teen girl series
• Wishful Drinking – written and read by Carrie Fisher
• The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan – a random find that I loved!
• Grimpow by Rafael Abalos – great boy’s book!
• Jim Dale – the audio reader for Harry Potter, Peter and the Star Catchers, and other fantastic books
• Listening Library – consistently wonderful producing company
• Tantor Audio – another good producing company

I hope this helps get you started on choosing an audiobook for yourself. When you find ones you enjoy, be sure to pass them on to others as well!

Lisbeth Salander is a Badass

By now everyone has heard of the book “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, but just in case you have been living in a fallout shelter for the last seven years, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is the first book in the Millennium series written by Swedish author Steig Larsson. The series includes two other books: “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”. The first book was originally published in Sweden in 2005, and it was republished in English in 2008. Since then, the series has become immensely popular, spreading like wildfire through book clubs and movie studios.

There have been many summaries of these books, so I am going to avoid writing another. Instead, I am just going to point out what I did and did not like, without giving away too many of the fun discoveries.

Because I do not have much time to read, I actually listened to all three books, picking them up on CD from my local library. The audio reader was very easy to listen to. His voice was not boring or annoying, and he made a good effort to give each character an individual voice. If you are not able to sit down and read all three books, the audio version is a nice alternative.

The Millennium series is a fun, suspenseful series that you will read in every spare moment until you are finished. There are tons of interesting, well-developed characters that I either loved or loved to hate. I found the plot to be complex and detailed, which is the most important element of a book to me. Larsson told multiple stories simultaneously without losing the strength of any of them!

By far, my favorite character was Lisbeth Salander. She undoubtedly had some personal faults, and she had an appalling childhood. However, I love how she held onto her standards and morals, and I admire her skill at bringing “justice” to anyone who wished her harm. To put it simply, Lisbeth Salander was Bad Ass. Cheering her on was an unconscious compulsion as I listened to the books.

While I thought that all the books were great reads, I did not like how different the first book was from the second two. All three books contain many of the same characters, but the plot of the first book is extremely different from the last two. This makes it hard for me to see them as a three-book series.


In addition to reading the books, I have also seen both the Swedish and the US movie productions of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. My personal favorite was the original Swedish version, because I felt that it was more true to the book and that the casting matched my imagination’s depiction of the characters. Another benefit of the Swedish version is that they have already created movies for each book, while the US versions are still in production. However, if you do not want to read subtitles, the US version is still fun to watch.