Book Reviews: New Computer Books

The Matawan Aberdeen Public Library has recently acquired some new books that are perfect for tech-geeks and aspiring learners alike. The books range from topics such as:

·         Communicating with Siri

·         Cloud Computing

·         Pinterest

·         Searching the Internet Effectively

·         Blogging

Talking to Siri by Erica Sadun is a great way to learn how to maximize your productivity with your iOS device. Learn how to teach Siri to recognize requests and take dictation more accurately, launch apps, look up movie reviews, send messages by voice, answer math and science problems, and more.

Cloud Computing in Easy Steps by David Crookes is a great way to get started in learning to utilize the cloud. Written in plain English and full of illustration, this book is easy to follow from Chapter 1. Learn how to use Google’s cloud services, such as Google Drive & Google Calendar, as well as services such as Microsoft’s SkyDrive, Dropbox, Apple’s iCloud, and more.

 

My Pinterest by Michael Miller can show you how to get started on the latest social network, Pinterest. Read how to create new pinboards, pin items such as intriguing digital media, comment on your friends’ pins, and more. This easy read is complete with easily understandable pictures that will enable you to immediately get the hang of the site.

 

Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook by Randolph Hock is an excellent tool for power users. Learn how to optimize your search engine of choice to instantly redirect you to your page of interest. Whether you’re looking for Historical Documents, Statistics, Maps, Professional Directories, or Databases, this book will assist you in learning to become an efficient Internet searcher.

Blog Inc.: Blogging for Passion, Profit, and to Create Community by Joy Deangdeelert Cho is an excellent start on the journey to blogging online. Learn how to design an attractive site, manage content, choose the right advertisements (if any), use great photos, and more. While the book may be text heavy, it is worth the read for any aspiring blogger who wishes to make a name for themself.

 

Hybrid Cloud for Dummies by Judith Hurwitz is a book primarily aimed at aspiring technical professionals. Concepts include information management with regards to hybrid clouds, identifying business value, delivering cloud services, and making it all work together seamlessly.

Come check out these books and our technical book selection today!

Skyler Lutz

Computer Technical Assistant

Matawan Aberdeen Public Library

Freegal = Free and Legal Music

I hope everyone who comes into the library or has visited our website is familiar with Freegal, the awesome service for downloading FREE mp3 music files that can be played on any music device.  Freegal has changed quite a bit since it's debut a couple of years ago. First of all, there is so much more music – over 3 million songs from 10,000 labels including the labels of Sony Music Entertainment. They have tens of thousands of popular artists in hundreds of music genres.  You can find albums such as:



Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience

Brad Paisley’s Wheelhouse

P!nk’s The Truth About Love


Children will enjoy albums such as:



Blues Clues Boogie

It's a Wiggly Wiggly World!

Dora the Explorer Party Favorites

There’s a Freegal app for the iOS devices available at the Apple Store as well as an app for the Android at the Google Play Store.

Finally, if you want to keep up with the latest offerings by Freegal, check out their blog here.

You can download three mp3 files every week.  All for FREE with your library card from the Matawan Aberdeen Public Library!

Enjoy!

Book review: Color Me Vegan

It’s not what you think.

If you’re like me, you made one or two New Year’s resolutions back in January. One of my resolutions was to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into my diet since it seemed like there were days when I was lucky if I could count three servings of fruits and vegetables in my meals. This was somewhat alarming since the American Cancer Society recommends we eat at least five servings EVERY DAY for optimal health.   It’s not that I didn’t like fruits and vegetables; I just don’t always know how to prepare them. 

To work on my resolution I did what any good librarian would do – I checked some vegetable oriented cookbooks out of the library (and downloaded some from Freading, but that’s another post).  One book especially caught my attention – Color Me Vegan by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. I don’t aspire to become a vegan, but I figured adding grain and vegetable based meals would help me on my quest.

The first thing I noticed about Color Me Vegan is the way it’s organized.  The chapters are arranged by the colors of the rainbow and given names like Color Me Green and Color Me Red.  Patrick-Goudreau starts each chapter explaining the phytonutrients found in a particular colored vegetable, as well as the benefits of these phytonutrients.  Eating a wide range of colored vegetables means we get a full spectrum of phytonutrients that prevent diseases, strengthen the immune system, and slow the aging process.

What about taste? We’ve all been tempted by beautiful cookbooks only to be disappointed when the dish we cooked doesn’t turn out looking like the picture, or worse, the dish just doesn’t taste good. That’s the best thing about this book.  The dishes are delicious … and so easy! So far I’ve made about a half dozen of the recipes, a few of them multiple times. My new favorite breakfast is the “Green Smoothie” (p.129).  Yes, I was skeptical the first time I added raw spinach to a smoothie, but it’s absolutely true that you don’t taste it.  I now start my day having consumed a few servings of fruits and vegetables, probably more than I used to get in an entire day.  Another favorite recipe is the “Roasted Orange Beets with Tangerines” (p.49) from the Color Me Orange chapter of the book. Until I tried this salad recipe, I had always thought I didn’t like beets.  Even my very finicky father-in-law enjoyed this salad when we served it for Easter dinner!  This weekend I’ll be cooking “Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Apples and Pecans” (p.118). Yum!

I could go on praising the variety of recipes in this book, but I think you get the point.  The best recommendation I can give Color Me Vegan is that I actually purchased a copy for myself since I had renewed the book the maximum number of times and it needed to go back on the shelves for someone else to enjoy.

For once in my life I stuck to a New Year’s resolution and I feel great!

Are You a NJ Business Owner?

Do you own a small business in New Jersey, or are you an aspiring entrepreneur?  The New Jersey State Library has organized a FREE breakfast event so you can learn about the many cost-effective resources available to help your business grow and thrive.

 From the New Jersey State Library's website:

You are invited to a FREE, 2-hour breakfast event, which will bring together NJ business partners and a team of business marketing experts, for a training session on Social Media and Email Marketing. Join them for a showcase of useful resources for business planning and research. Representatives from participating agencies will be onsite to answer your questions, and discuss how these resources and programs can help you rebuild, improve and grow your business.

Click here to read more of the article and to register for the event at a library location near you.

Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Genre: Science fiction, Dystopia

If you liked the Hunger Games, you are sure to like this new dystopia trilogy beginning with Book 1, Divergent by Veronica Roth. In a future post-apocalyptic Chicago, you are born into one of five factions, each of which has its own strength and focus: Abnegation (service), Candor (truth), Erudite (intellect), Amity (friendship), or Dauntless (fearlessness). But on your sixteenth birthday, you can choose a new faction if you so desire. That is what happens to Tris, a teenage girl forced to choose between her routinized, selfless family and the adventurous, unrestrained future she longs for. She shocks everyone by exchanging the drab gray robes of Abnegation for the piercing and tattoo stylings of Dauntless. What follows is a contest, where only the top 10 initiates are accepted into the final group. This is another Young Adult novel that is also for Adults. Roth tells a riveting and complex story with well-developed characters. It is an unpredictable journey that will hold you to the very end and leave you wanting to check out the second in the trilogy, which is the book, Insurgent.

I have read both trilogies, Hunger Games and Divergent and thoroughly enjoyed both. These books are filled with suspense and action packed. After reading Divergent, you may even want to speculate as to which faction you would be born into and which faction you would choose.

Submitted by: Cecelia Ruegsegger

eLibraryNJ has a New Website!

          The Matawan-Aberdeen Public Library is pleased to announce that eLibraryNJ has launched their new website! Intuitively redesigned from the ground up, eLibraryNJ has never made it easier to borrow your favorite eBooks and Audiobooks. Choose from a massive selection of titles, and download them right to your Amazon Kindle, Nook by Barnes & Noble, iPad, or Android Tablet. Best of all, every one of the thousands of titles offered are completely free of charge.

          eLibraryNJ’s new website comes loaded with new features. Users can now borrow digital eBooks and Audiobooks, and read or listen to them directly in a web browser—with no eReader needed! Other features include easier-to-use advanced search, overhauled title filtering, and bookmarking/wish lists—so finding your favorite title is a snap. If you are using Internet Explorer, you may be prompted to install the Google Chrome Frame Plugin, to allow the site to behave properly. Fortunately this plugin is free, and can be installed in minutes.

          To take advantage of all of these wonderful features and more, simply type in http://www.lmxac.org/mata/pages/resources.html in a web browser, click on the eLibraryNJ link, choose a title, click Borrow, then Read (In your browser), and begin reading from a remarkable selection of eBooks that our library has to offer. For assistance on reading eBooks and listening to Audiobooks on your mobile eReader/tablet device, feel free to stop by our eReader Hour held between 2:00pm and 3:00pm every Saturday. Happy Reading!

By Skyler Lutz

Book review: Some Kind of Fairy Tale

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce

Genre:  Psychological fiction, Urban fantasy fiction

When 16 year old Tara Martin suddenly goes missing, her parents begin to fear the worst for her survival and believe that her boyfriend, Richie, has something to do with her disappearance. As years begin to pass, the Martin's begin to move on, but Richie is physically and emotionally hurt from the outcome of being blamed for her disappearance.

20 years later on Christmas Eve, Tara turns up on her parents doorstep looking as if she barely aged, and telling them that she was traveling the world for 20 years and finally decided to come back. However, when her brother Peter, now an older man in his 40's, married with four kids finds out his missing sister is back, he is less than reluctant to believe her story. As they dig deeper into Tara's explanation, she begins to reveal where she was for 20 years, even though she believes she was only gone for 6 months.

This was a great psychological drama and it really deals with the question, "How can you prove to your family and friends that you're not crazy?" I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book with depth and character. I really felt for Tara as she was trying to fit back into the reality she left. 

This book review was written by Library Assistant, Dennis Kuhn