Russell J.T. Dyer
Writer
my other sites
Google+ Votes
On Kindle
Last December I bought an Amazon Kindle to begin to understand how one uses electronic books and the like. It took me awhile to get around to dealing with the software to format one of my books for Kindle, but I’ve finally done it. To start, I’ve added a Kindle version of my novel, In Search of Kafka to Amazon. If you’re prone to reading books in electronic format and have a Kindle, please consider purchasing my novel. It’s a fun read. If you do buy it, please let me know if you discover anything off with the formatting: it’s my first e-book.
Writing a MySQL Tutorial
A few weeks ago, I began writing a tutorial on MySQL. It’s coming together quickly. I’m already up to two-hundred twenty-five pages. Give me another few weekends and I’ll be finished and ready for tech. review. Since MySQL Replication has been going so well, I’ll self-publish this new book when it’s done. So watch for it in a few months.
For now, I’ve put together a mock up for the book cover. I used a photograph of a kingfisher chick and altered it in Adobe PhotoShop to make it look like a colored pencil drawing. Please let me know how you it looks to you.
A Dry Period
A couple of times a year the canals in Milan (in the Navigli neighborhood) are dry, either from lack of water flow from the moutains, or because the locks are closed upstream to drain them. It would be an excellent opportunity for the city to clean the trash out of the canals, but they don't. For a few years now I have thought it would be interesting to climb down into one of the canals to take pictures of the restaurant barges stuck in the mud. Today, I finally did it. These are some of the photos I took with a Lumix GF1 camera and a Zeiss 35mm f/2 Biogon M-Mount lens.
Musings
Below are recent musings of mine. Click on an entry heading to read its full text. Click on the musings tab at the top left to see all of them.
What's to become of me?
Sometimes I think of returning to the U.S. or moving to another country. But after having lived in Italy so long, I don’t feel like I can fit in anywhere. I’m not content in Italy and am frustrated when I’m in the U.S. I wonder what’s to become of me.
Alone in the Morning
Since I’m not a morning person, mornings are the worst times of my days. Living without a girlfriend makes them even more difficult.
My Books
Below are a few of my books that have been published and are still in print. Click on the book cover image to go to a site where you can buy each book.
In Search of Kafka
This is my first novel. It’s what I call a hi-tech comical thriller. It’s not about Kafka, incidentally. It’s about a computer programmer who inadvertently breaks into a Starbucks’ computer server and gets into trouble as a result. Throughout the novel he’s being hunted by Homeland Security.
MySQL in a Nutshell
This is a reference book (the second edition) which I wrote on the computer database software, MySQL. It’s not an interesting read, but it’s useful if you’re a MySQL software developer. If you’re interested in this topic, you should also check out my web site on MySQL Resources.
MySQL Replication
This particular book on MySQL Replication is a tutorial and a reference book which I wrote on the subject.
