Extending a wireless network (and curing Kindle dropped Internet connections)

After lots of experiments with different router settings I've come to the conclusion that Amazon Kindles just don't like connecting to BT Home Hub 3 routers. The problem I have is compounded by my house having three feet thick stone walls. If I'm lucky I'll get a three bar wireless signal. I finally decided that if I was to avoid tearing any more hair out, the way to cure the problem was to add an additional wireless router to my home network.

What you will need

Over the years I've moved homes several times and changed ISPs several times too. I've acquired a number of wireless routers so I didn't have to buy a second router. This is what you'll need:

• A 2nd wireless router. I had a spare one already but if you need to buy one expect to pay about £35 for a new one or £20 second hand. Ebay and Amazon both sell them as do computer shops.
• A length of CAT 5 Ethernet cable with an Ethernet plug on each end. Get the length you need plus a little extra. These can be bought ready made, in various colours, quite cheaply on Ebay.
• Cable clips to fit your Ethernet cable.
• A short Ethernet lead (one probably came with your routers)
• A computer to change the settings with.

Position the second router

Decide where you need your extra router. It needs to be near a power socket and also somewhere easy to run a cable to. For the moment lay out the cable which will connect the routers without fastening it down or connecting it at either end.

Find out some information about your current router

Now you need to find out the IP addresses that your existing router uses. On your computer go to a command window and type in  IPCONFIG then press Enter. Make a note of your 'gateway'. Here's what I got typing this in on a laptop - the red arrow shows what you are looking for:

Next go to a web page and type the gateway address into the URL/address bar. In my case 192.168.1.254

You will need to know the router admin password. Usually this is written on the back of the router or is blank. On a BT Home Hub 3 its on the pull out tab at the top of the router. If you can't find it then read the manual which came with your router or go to the manufacturer's site and find the default password there. If you changed the password (as you should) and forgot it, then reset the router, usually by pushing a paperclip into the reset hole and holding it in for 10-15 seconds. Your router should be switched on while you do this.

Type in the password to get access to the router. Find out two things from it's settings:

1. The channel number the router uses. It may be set to auto. My BT router used Channel 6.
2. The DHCP network range of IP addresses the router uses.
   On my BT Home Hub 3 I found this by going to Settings > Advanced settings > Home network > IP Addresses. The addresses on mine were 192.168.1.64 - 192.168.1.253

Setting up the second router

Now we need to set up the second router. Connect it to it's power supply and connect the short Ethernet cable from it to your computer. Use one of the 4 sockets grouped together on the router NOT the one marked WAN.

You'll need to know the second router's IP address, administrator name and password. Again get this from the router manual or the manufacturer's website. Reset the router to it's factory default if you've forgotten a password you set.

I was using a D-Link router which used 192.168.0.1 as it's IP address, admin as the username and the default password was blank.

You need to make some changes to the second router's settings:

1. Find where you can change the router's IP address. On my D-Link I found this under Setup > Network Settings. Look at the gateway address you found and the DHCP network range of IP addresses the 1st router uses. Choose the nearest number to the Gateway IP address
   My BT Home Hub 3 gateway address was 192.168.1.254
   The DHCP network range of IP addresses the router used was 192.168.1.64 - 192.168.1.253
   The nearest IP address was then 192.168.1.253
2. On your computer open a command window and type in ping 192.168.1.253 (or whatever number was your nearest available one). IF that IP address is unused you'll see something like this:
   
   This is exactly what you want to see. Set the second router's IP address to this value
   
   If the IP address is already being used you'll get something like this:
   
   If this is the case you'll have to choose a different IP address - change the last part of the number only.
3. In the same area of settings (2nd router) look for DHCP server settings and disable the DHCP server
4. Save the second router settings. At this point your connection to the second router will end.
5. Disconnect the second router from your computer and connect it to the first router using the long Ethernet lead. Again avoid the WAN ports on both routers.
6. Back on your computer, in a web page type in the new IP address you gave the second router. Again enter the username and password to access it.
7. Change the Wireless Network Name (or SSID) of the 2nd router. Choose a simple to enter name but not one which contains personal information or the router type. On my D-Link router I found this under Setup > Wireless settings > Wireless network Name. I resisted the temptation to call it 'GoogleCameraCar' or 'MI5van'
8. Set the Wireless security mode to WPA-Personal or WPA/WPA2
9. Set the wireless access key (on D-Link routers this is called a pre-Shared key) to something cryptic, at least 10 characters long, and using both letters, numbers and symbols. Don't use a word found in a dictionary or a name. Make a note of this key!
10. Set the wireless channel to be different to the one used by the first router. If you have an older Kindle don't use channel 11. The further away the channel numbers are from each other the better. I used 6 on my main router and 10 on the 2nd router.
11. Save your settings again.
12. Now you need to set a new administrator password for the 2nd router. On my D-Link I found this under Tools > Admin. Again set this at least 10 characters long and make it a mixture of letters, numbers and symbols. NOT 'Password', blank, your car registration, your mother's maiden name, your pet's name, your date of birth or anything else easy to guess. Make a note of this password!
13. Save your settings again!

You should now find you get a MUCH stronger wireless signal and should be able to connect your ebook reader to the new network. If you are using a BT Home Hub 3 - no more lost Internet connections on your Kindle devices.

Tidy up those cables

The final job is to tidy up the Ethernet cable and fix it in place so that you don't trip on it. It's a little more complex than fitting a telephone extension cable because it's thicker and you should try to avoid sharp bends in the cable. These will slow the signal down. I find it's OK to hide it under the edge of carpets, or tack it in place using cable clips.

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If this post has proved useful to you would you do me a favour in return? Download a FREE copy of the book I co-author - a romantic technothriller called 'A Vested Interest'. Even if you don't read it it will help our ratings. You can get it at http://smarturl.it/avi and if you want to read it, you can use a phone, a tablet, a computer or even a Kindle.

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Mother. Go home and let me work!

Translation: Let those without sin cast the first stones
Mother, go home and let me work!

Wrong time and date on a Kindle Fire HD?

Here's how to cure it:

• Press and hold the power button for a full 20 seconds
• Release the power button
• Switch back on

When it restarts it will get the correct time from Amazon. You won't lose any of your downloaded books.

Moans and confessions

It's a while since I had a good moan about the things people leave outside my house (See If I Were JayDax Almighty) but today there was something new.

I live on a main road and just outside my house is a small lay-by (US: 'lay-by' = 'roadside parking spot'). It seems to be a favourite spot to clear their cars of the rubbish they gather in them. Every few days I go out and clear the grass of the stuff people throw there.

It's 22 miles to the nearest MuckDonalds, but that seems to be just the right distance for people to eat their fries and drink their shake. presumably it either takes longer or shorter to eat their burger because I never find the empty wrappers for them.

Despite it being illegal to drink and drive in the UK, I always find a few empty beer cans.

Soda bottles and empty crisp (chips) packets I get by the sackful.

Each day there are five to ten empty cigarette packets. I always wonder why smokers seem to think that they are not litter.

Every week or so I collect a used diaper - If I'm lucky it's wrapped up.

I could have gathered a fair collection of CDs (some even play but definitely not the one chewed by a dog). I've found two mobile phones, both broken. One DVD player - also broken. A black and white portable TV - which still worked and even had charged batteries.

And today's new item? A packet of four Viagra which brings me to the confession bit.

Expect me to confess I need Viagra? Not me! I may be ancient but I've not had that problem (yet). My confession is that once I built a website for a person selling Viagra and other prescription drugs online. You know - the sort of site that spammers try to send you to today.

We built the site back in 1998 soon after Viagra became available. At the time I'd never heard of it. I was asked to research it and make a website to sell it. Now at that time spam wasn't a big problem so I didn't see anything wrong in making the website. Apparently many people in the US didn't want to go to their doctor to talk about this nasty little problem they had so on-line sites sprang up where you could fill in a questionnaire. A doctor (we had a real one in California) would look over your answers and write you a prescription. The pharmacy would then send you Viagra (again the real stuff) anonymously. The site lasted about a year before the state of California decided it was against the law to sell the stuff in California online and prosecuted it's owner.

Would I do it again today? No way! Anyone buying Viagra online has to be some sort of fool because:

• there's no guarantee that you'll get the real stuff - apparently it's often faked
• it's invariably promoted by spam and I hate spam!
• giving your credit card details to a spammer is just asking for trouble.
• you really would be better getting checked out by a doctor who can do blood tests and check blood pressure e.t.c.

OK moan and confession over. You can go back to whatever you were doing. Oh - one last thing. The doctor we used a picture of sure gets around. The same picture was used in 2010 as part of a National Front campaign in the UK.

Solving Facebook Game Problems

Solving problems which prevent Facebook games working properly (Applies to all Facebook games)

For game issues try:

1. Refresh the browser page
2. Clear the browser cache See http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser's-Cache
3. Can you not see all of the game screen or see an uneven edge to it? Try resetting the screen view size. First click in a blank area of the window. Then most browsers will let you reset the screen size by holding down Ctrl and tapping 0 (zero key but not the one on a number pad). If this doesn't work in your browser try doing it in Google Chrome browser. You'll find this resets the screen size of Flash in all browsers.
4. Is movement jerky and difficult to control (referred to as 'Lag')? Restart the browser completely. Make sure you close ALL browser windows before reloading the page.
5. Clear the Flash cache at http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html
6. Try a different browser. Chrome seems to work best; Internet Explorer seems to cause the most problems although Internet Explorer 9 has solved most of them.
7. Check to see if it's a Facebook issue at http://developers.facebook.com/live_status
8. Restart the computer
9. Check to see if there is more than one version of Flash installed and delete any older versions. (Current version is 11.2.) If you are using a 64 bit browser then you may find things are helped by installing the 64 bit version of Flash available from Adobe.
10. Check the page http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ This page tells you if you need to update your Flash player. If you right click in the Flash area (the bit that moves) you will get a menu which gives you the option to 'Show all'. Make sure 'Show all' is checked.
11. Are you using Firefox and any add-ons? Mozilla have a web page about add-ons which slow down a browser. You should disable any of them you have installed to improve speed. The list is at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/performance/#addon-11
12. If your browser is still slow then turn off the music, the sound effects, animation and reduce the graphic quality using the game options (often a gear cog icon).
13. If your game fails to load completely or you get a server error message - There are often multiple servers hosting facebook games. It's possible that one may need restarting.
    If you find this problem affects you, try this:
    a. Close down ALL BUT ONE browser window
    b. In the last window log off Facebook
    c. Shut down your computer
    d. Re-start your router/modem - if that gets you a new IP address (does for most)
    e. Restart everything, log on again and restart the game
    
    Hopefully that will get you on a different server but you have a chance of getting the same bad one so you may have to do it again :(
    
    The same method MAY work if you are badly affected by lag.

The above steps fix most problems but if this doesn't work then:

14. Panic and raise the problem on the game's discussion board.

 

Artists - I need advice on a painting

Some years ago I was wandering round a car boot sale in Essex and saw what I thought was a print of a lake. Closer examination showed it was a painting not a print. I bought it for just £8.00.

Now I'm no artist and I have no idea what medium this painting used. I don't think it's a watercolour but it has a dull surface, not shiny like a varnished oil painting.

Here's a close-up of the signature:

I can't make out the artist's name either. You might be able to see a little of the texture of the paint though. Those fine branches are raised out of the surface and easily felt.

The painting is done on canvas and is full of colour but as I said, the surface is dull. Does it need varnishing?

Allen Banks

I'm quite proud of this picture. it's of a bridge over the River Allen near where I live. The original picture is very large (2048 x 1536) and makes a great desktop wallpaper. If you want a copy of it you can download it free here. The reason I'm so proud of it is it was taken with a low resolution camera. It's actually four pictures stitched together. Bet you can't see the joins! There's more of the picture - a 360° panorama at this location.

The area, Allen Banks, is owned by the National Trust in the UK. It is a great place to go for a walk on a hot summer day. It's not too bad on a winter's day either. I'm just waiting for about four inches of snow and I'll be back there to take more pictures - but this time I'll take a better camera.

I have no idea who the people on the bridge are. I'm glad they were there though because the image wouldn't have been as interesting without them.

The night I saw a ghost

I didn't believe in ghosts. I'd always told myself, 'There's always some sort of explanation.'  Either it would be an over-active imagination, something misinterpreted or just the words of a liar trying to sound interesting. Graveyards at night held no horrors and ruined houses? Only a fool would enter in poor light where they might easily hurt themselves. Ghosts? No such thing!

At least that's what I thought until the night I saw one.

I was driving in Northern England at about ten at night. There were no street lights and few cars sharing the road from Allendale to Hexham. I was on my way to Hexham, the site of a famous abbey. There was no Moon, an overcast sky and a slight mist. The road was mostly downhill though, fairly straight and the sort that it's easy to speed on. The council had even improved the road by taking out the sudden rise and dip which left your stomach behind near the racecourse turnoff. As I came round the corner near the turnoff just before I dropped down to the long straight stretch to Low Gate I saw it. A vaporous cowled figure with outstreched arms and two glowing red eyes. It was approaching rapidly and I was going too fast to stop!

Icicles ran down my back. I could feel my hair rising and with awful dread at that moment I BELIEVED IN GHOSTS!

Then I figured out what it was. The road although straight, had a sharp rise and fall in it. A car, hidden from me behind that rise, was lighting up the mist with it's headlights and the trees on either side of the road were the exact shape to frame the mist into the cowled figure. The two glowing eyes were the tail lights of a car in the distance braking to turn the corner at Low Gate.

The effect had only lasted a second or so but in that second I didn't know what I was looking at and jumped to the wrong conclusion.

I still don't believe in ghosts but I can now understand why some people do.

The ghost road in daylight (Google Earth image) Even in daylight you can't see the hidden dips in the road.

Oops! I just broke US law. Hope they don't extradite me.

When I click the 'Post' button on this blog I will have broken US law by linking to a site which hosts copyright material. Now that's not illegal in the UK where I live but the US has some pretty stupid laws and that is one of the things that they've made illegal. 


Richard O’Dwyer a a British computer student has just fallen foul of that law. He produced a website which listed sites where pirated material could be downloaded. Note he didn't host any of this pirate material on his website, he just linked to sites which do host it. The US says he made money from his website and that's against US law.


The US applied to have him extradited to stand trial in the US and used the Extradition Act, passed in haste by Labour in 2003, designed to allow terror suspects to be extradited. Richard and his family naturally objected but the law is the law and final approval now rests with the Home Secretary.


Now let me invite you to watch a video at this point which tells you about this. It's about ten minutes long so watch as much as you feel you want to, then I'll explain how I'm breaking the US law.




Did you find that interesting? It's hosted on YouTube and I just linked to it from my blog ...and that's where I broke US law!


You see there are often copyright videos hosted on YouTube. They are not hard to find and most shouldn't be there because the person who put them there did not have the permission of the copyright owner to do so. Now YouTube is aware of this problem and frequently takes down this pirated material but as fast as they do so, someone posts it back up.


Now linking to YouTube isn't illegal. You tube even were nice enough to give me the code needed to embed it in my blog. The problem is I posted it on blogspot and down the sides of this post you'll find some advertisements from which I make a few coppers a month. Heck just to make sure I'll post an advertisement for some of the books my wife and I write below:

			Take a touch of humour, add some genetic science and nanotechnology. Steep with conspiracy and stir in murder and despair. Season with romance between three people in a secret location. Garnish with morality. The result is 'A Vested Interest', a novel series by John and Shelia Chapman
UK £9.29	UK £1.91	UK £1.53

Now if someone decides to buy one of these items advertised here (Please do!) then I will have made money from a web page which has links to sites hosting pirated material and that's against US law!


This is a classic example of  'reductio ad absurdum' or taking something to a ridiculous but logical conclusion. It's a stupid US law and the UK allows another stupid law to compound it.


Now SOPA and PIPA...?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087135/Richard-ODwyer-US-extradition-pact-misused-says-Sir-Menzies-Campbell.html#ixzz1jx8WgemZ

Cover to Cover

If you search the Internet you'll find lots of advice on how to write and also lots about how to get published. Up to now the route has always been:

• write the book
• edit it
• submit it to an agent
• get rejected
• submit to another agent
• get rejected
• revise the book
• repeat 'submit to an agent
• Either give up or self publish or, if you are one of the lucky few, negotiate a contract
• Agent submits to a publisher.... and so on

Now however E-books have made it possible for many new authors to publish work that would otherwise end in agents and publisher's slush piles. You can test the water by releasing your book as an e-book, publicize it yourself (For how to do that read John Locke's excellent book 'How I Sold 1 Million... ') and then, if there's a demand, produce a paper copy.

Somewhere along the line though you'll need a book cover and there the advice stops. Granted there are websites which offer template solutions but most of them leave a lot to be desired and frankly - a book is judged by it's cover.

We've written and published five books so far in our A Vested Interest series and in the hope that our experience will help, here's what was involved in designing the covers.

Book 1 - A Vested Interest

We wanted the cover of this book to reflect what the story was about so we had to include:

• DNA to indicate this was about medical science
• A semi-transparent mechanical bug to show that technology was involved
• A castle to represent the location Langston Castle in the book and to show there was a bit of history involved
• An old mine tunnel to represent the secret underground base

Now Shelia and I are not bad at using graphics programs - we picked up that skill when we spent three years as illegal immigrants in Canada, supporting ourselves by building websites. So we took some pictures using a very basic digital camera and started putting together a cover. The actual process I will detail later but here's the result:

The original background image was a picture I took of Blackett Level near Allendale, Northumberland. It was a little overpowering so I faded it out by putting a semi-transparent white layer over the top. Into that I merged a picture I took of Langley Castle and that DNA picture. The 'bug' was inspired by those in the film 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. On the e-book copy we moved that to the other side. Later we added the Triplet family coat of arms to help identify the book as part of a series.

Book 2 - Dark Secrets

The plot of this book involved an unpleasant secret buried in the family for almost a thousand years. The secret was revealed in an old diary. To reflect this we created a cover looking like an old book and featuring the coat of arms of the Triplet family. The old book was to be dark colored to reflect the title but when we got the first proof back from the publishers it was almost black. The final version was a lot lighter. For the old book I scanned an old copy I have of Uncle Tom's Cabin and then removed the text. With the aid of my son Adam we created a 'coat of arms' and then turned it and the book cover text gold.

On this one we didn't put the coat of arms on the spine since it was already on the front cover and the spine is much narrower.

Book 3 - No Secrets
No Secrets was very much a continuation of Dark Secrets so we decided to use the same layout. Obviously we couldn't use the same image on the front so chose a Celtic knot instead, symbolizing eternity. Of all the covers it's the one we are least happy with and it may change.

Book 4 - Stones, Stars and Solutions
In this book the Triplets travel the world visiting pyramids and other locations while following clues left in an ancient document. One of the locations is Death Valley, another is the Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza, Mexico. We started with a black and white picture of Death Valley which we colored dark blue. To that we added the pyramid viewed through a 'window' on the front cover and framed in vegetation from the jungle in Mexico. On the back we added our idea of the power mechanism revealed at the end of the book.

People liked this cover so much they asked if they could use it as a screen background. We obliged with a version without the text, coat of arms or vegetation. Find it here.

Book 5 - Leap of Faith
In this book there's a location Spirit Canyon in Arkansas. It was one of the places mentioned in Stones, Stars and Solutions and also appeared in No Secrets. Spirit Canyon features a stone cabin which you can only get to through a cave and a waterfall. We wanted to show this place on the cover. The problem is that though we know it's location, the actual place doesn't exist so we had to make it with bits and pieces of other pictures.
For a book cover you need high resolution pictures because the file you send to a printer is 5,700 by 3,900 pixels in size although the image I need is 3,510 by 2470 pixels. I start with a template document from the printer. It's actual size depends on the size and thickness of the book. If you use CreateSpace as your publisher this template is worked out for you when you upload the book contents. It can be a little difficult to find but it's there.

Here's what we started with:

• a picture of a log cabin in Texas
• A cave in Arkansas
• A woodland picture in Arkansas
• A stone cottage near where we lived
• A picture taken inside the old lead mine at Swinhope Moor, England
• a blue eye

   ...and here's what we ended up with

In case you wonder, here's where the joins are...

Now this picture is a little busy for a book cover and it's not perfect. I chose to add text with a semi transparent background to hide the imperfections.

Making a cover like this isn't hard. You just need a computer with lots of memory and a decent painting application which can use layers, masks, feathering and bézier text. The industry standard program is PhotoShop, but there are others such as Corel PaintShop Pro or The Gimp which can do the job and are much less expensive. There are lots of tutorials available on the web explaining exactly how to merge images so I don't plan on explaining this here.

 I'm still not happy with the front and spine text on the cover since although it's fine on a printed book it fails to stand out in the smaller versions used for e-books and at Amazon. The spine text could be made clearer by turning it through 90 degrees but I, for one, hate having to turn my head sideways to read the text on book spines.

Now - I've explained how we chose the covers. What are your thoughts? Which cover do you like the best and which do you think we should change?

If I can't write in the box...

According to an old diary I found, 45 years ago I watched my father filling in a tax form. I noticed he was busy rubbing a candle over part of the form.

"Dad - what are you doing?"

"You see this box with 'Do not write in this space'? If I can't write in the box, no-one else is going to!"

I often wonder if this was an original idea of my father's or if he had seen it on some comedy show.

A mean trick to play on your wife

I went rash and bought a new Kindle ebook today. 'Stairlift to Heaven' by Terry Ravenscroft. (@terryrazz) I'd heard the writer was funny (he was a scriptwriter for Les Dawson, The Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise , Ken Dodd and others) and I needed a laugh.

In the books he relates the story of  his wife 'The Trouble'. She'd put on weight over Christmas and as normal had gone on a diet to remove it. This time however she hadn't weighed herself before Christmas and relied instead on a pair of slacks which she'd bought before Christmas and which 'fit her perfectly'.  Now imagine you are a woman who's stuck to a rigid diet and after thinking you'd been successful try on those slacks.

...but even a nice figure cannot get away with an
attempt to force it into a pair of trousers deficient in
the waist measurement by two inches. Consequently
the small amount of fat she normally carries round
her waist had become a roll of fat spilling out of the
top of the trousers...

Terry had seen this as an opportunity and had persuaded his sister to take the slacks in two inches.

Now I've played some tricks in the past such as the 'Who nettled the teacher' but I'm full of admiration for Terry. I'm just not in his league.

So if you feel the need to relax and laugh check out 'Stairlift to Heaven ' - it's worth every penny.

How to fix the mess the government is in.

Browsing my Facebook account recently I came across this image copied from Revolution News Network's site:

Now of course someone was quick to point out that this would matter if the US was on the gold standard but that had stopped long ago. The problem is that the vast majority of people have this sneaking impression that if you spend more than you earn you are heading for disaster. No amount of explanations from economists will ever convince them otherwise either.

It's not just the US. Things aren't quite that bad in the UK; here we are only 146 billion in the red. Taking into account the US has five times the population of the UK that equates to 730 billion by US population standards.

So do these guys in government know what they are doing? Ask 'the 99%' and the answer will be a resounding 'NO!'

So what could we do about this? It seems simple to me - we change the form of government so that people who actually know what they are doing run the country instead. After all the last person who should be given the job of President or Prime Minister is the egomaniac who wants to do the job and tries to convince us that although he/she is not qualified, we should elect them.

So here's my suggestion. Make a selection of the top five industrialists - those that make the most profit and tell them it's their duty to run the country on our behalf for the next four years.

"...but what about democracy?" I hear you say. No problem. Allow the candidates selected to campaign and we then use standard election procedures to make the final choice. Of course there will be one subtle difference. None of the candidates will want the job and will therefore campaign for their opponents instead of themselves. As a result there will be no 'mud slinging' and no need for campaign fund raising. (Believe it or not but all these idiots politicians are currently asking me to give them £10/£20 to fund their next election campaign!) The candidates will fund their campaigns themselves - these people are rich. That may be a little unfair but they can afford it and anyone who manages to be so successful really has a duty to make the lives of the less able (us) better. Look on it as a minor tax which will help reduce those budget deficits.

How about local government? Use the same method, just apply the requirements on a local scale.

What incentives should we offer these people? If they do a good job and the electorate feel their lives have improved then we'll undertake never to elect them again! Fail and they still could be elected for a second chance.

The bad news is there's one tiny fly in the ointment. To modify government like this would require our current politicians to accept it. There is NO WAY they will ever vote themselves out and we are stuck with the present system.

Odd Page on the Right - Creating a Book in Word 2010

Like most authors, I use Microsoft Word and rapidly discovered one of it's limitations. Word insists on starting any new document on a left hand page in a two page layout. There is nothing you can do to change this. Microsoft tell us that Word isn't a publishing program and apparently expect us to import Word documents into a program such as Publisher before printing. Now that, for us authors, is the last thing we want. We want a single program on which to create our work and format it for printing. Word can be made to do it - almost.

So this is how to set up Word 2010/2007 to produce a layout suitable for self publishing through Amazon's Create Space publishing or Lulu.

First. If you have an existing correctly formatted document then create a new document using that existing document. It will be a lot quicker.

In Word 2010 the procedure is File → New → New from Existing

If you do not have a document to copy then you'll need to create one as follows. To illustrate it, I've used examples from our book 'A Vested Interest':

1. In Word choose File → New → Blank document


2. Select 'Print Layout' view


3. From the Page layout tab select in the Page setup group the 'Size' button and then at the bottom of the dropdown 'More Page Sizes'


4. Using the 'Paper' tab, select what size pages your book will have. I use a custom size of 13.33 x 20.32 cm (5.25 x 8 inches) which is one of the standard book sizes. Your self publishing firm will tell you what standard sizes are available. I suggest you measure a few books too.


5. Still in the 'Page Setup' window, on the 'Margins' tab select a top margin of 2 cm; bottom margin of 2.54 cm; inside margin of 1.27 cm; Outside margin of 1.0 cm; gutter of 0.96 cm; Gutter position Left (greyed out); Portrait; Multiple pages should Mirror margins; Apply to Whole document.
6. Still in the 'Page Setup' window, on the 'Layout' tab select Section start New Page; Check in the Header and footers tab Different odd and even; Un-check Different first page; set the header and Footer to 1.25 cm from the edge; Under Page select vertical alignment Top. Then click OK.
7. Turn on the ruler and set it as shown in the image above with no indents.
8. Double click the page area where the header would be (i.e. above where the cursor is currently flashing)
9. Check 'Different Odd & Even Pages'. You should now see 'Odd Page Header' at the header and 'Odd Page Footer' at the footer.
10. Close the Header and Footer view
11. A little down the page type in CAPITALS your book title and center it. (This is NOT your main Title Page)
12. 
    Insert TWO page beaks . If you are looking at the document in Print Layout view, two pages per screen your first page will appear on the left
13. The next page will be your main title page where you put the title, the author. I also add at the bottom the location and year of writing. Format this page as you wish it.At the end of the page insert a Page break.
14. Your next page will be a copyright page and if you have one, put your ISBN/EAN number here. Example text - customise and space appropriately:
    
    

    John and Sheila Chapman have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

    
    
    

    This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

    
    

    Copyright © 2010 John & Shelia Chapman

    
    

    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American

    
    

    Copyright Conventions.

    
    

    ISBN 1-456-30018-0
    
    EAN-13 9781456300180

    
    
    Add a page break at the end of this.


15. Your next page will contain any acknowledgments you wish to make or will be blank. Add a Page break then a Section Break (Odd page) at this point.
    The 'Section Break (Odd Page)' is the crucial step!


16. You are now ready to start the text of your book, to reset the ruler, to add a page header and a footer with page number 1. If your book has contents pages add them at this point. Contents pages should always be an even number of pages so add a page break if needed then a 'Section Break (odd page)' so that Chapter 1 of your book always appears on a right hand page.
17. At the top of the Chapter 1 page (or first contents page if you have one) double click the header area. In the Navigation section of the Header & Footer toolbar make sure 'Link to Previous' is NOT selected. make sure Different Odd & Even Pages IS checked then add the book title in Capitals. Center it.
18. Double click the Footer area of the page (or click the Footer button on the toolbar) Use the Page Number button to add a page number either centered or at the right. Format the page numbers so that they start at '1' (Right click the number to find 'Format Page Numbers...').
19. In the Navigation section of the Header & Footer toolbar click 'Next'.
20. In the Navigation section of the Header & Footer toolbar again make sure 'Link to Previous' is NOT selected.
21. In the Header add in capitals the author's name and center it. In the footer section again make sure 'Link to Previous' is NOT selected and add a centered page number at the bottom. Select and right click the number and choose Format Page Number. It should be set at 'Start at 1'. The actual page will show page 2.

You should now find that from your 'Chapter 1' the pages will be displayed on the correct side in 'Print Layout' view. If you Add the 'Print Preview Edit Mode' button to the Quick Access toolbar (22) you'll find on using it that all pages (in a two page view) are shown on the correct sides. Extra blank pages will be inserted to make sure the main title page and Chapter 1 pages are on the right hand side.

Following chapters should each start on a new page but usually it is not important that they should start on right hand pages. If you have a short book of less than 80,000 words though you might like to insert a 'Section break (odd Page)' rather than a standard 'Page Break' to force this.

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If this post has proved useful to you would you do me a favour in return? Download a FREE copy of the book I co-author - a romantic technothriller called 'A Vested Interest'. Even if you don't read it it will help our ratings. You can get it at http://smarturl.it/avi and if you want to read it, you can use a phone, a tablet, a computer or even a Kindle.

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Follow @JChapmanAuthor

Clairol nice'n difficult

Shhh... don't tell anyone but my wife uses hair colourant.

Clairol have been advertising on TV a product called nice'n easy colour blend foam. The advert made it look easy to use and I'm the one who gets to apply it so we gave it a go. Here's my opinion and you can probably tell from the title what it's going to be like.

First - it's NOT a foam. A foam is defined as a colloidal suspension of gas in a liquid. In other words it's thick and creamy with very small bubbles. Think shaving cream or spray cream - they are foams but Clairol nice'n easy is a FROTH - much bigger bubbles, think of the froth you see sometimes under a waterfall or the froth on top of a bubble bath.

Second - it's NOT easy. In fact it's the hardest colourant to apply I ever used. It runs. It fails to wet long hair. it's far too easy to get on skin and clothes.

Third - the results are poor. There's not enough 'froth' to cover hair as long as that in the picture on the box. Added to that the colour isn't as deep as it's made out to be.

Maybe if you have very short hair this stuff might be OK but we will NEVER buy this rubbish again. Back to the drawing board Clairol!

Well done Number 10!

Today I went to the 'Number 10' website to find out if anyone had created a petition about one of my pet hates - VAT on ebooks.

It took a while to find what has to have been the last government's better ideas the e-petition site but when I did find it I discovered that it had been closed down in the run-up to the general election (6th May 2010) and hasn't re-opened for new petitions.

Just after the election we were told that it would reopen later in 2010 but now here's what you get if you go through the process:

Notice that the date is now 2011 and that no date other than the year is given!

So well done UK Government! You've taken a valuable method of the UK public making their feelings known to government and squashed it! Maybe those petitions were just too inconvenient? So much for your 'big society' policy!

So I can't voice my opinion on the Number 10 petition site. I can however put the details here and the public can voice their opinion by adding comments.

Petition to the UK prime Minister

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to remove the VAT charge on the sale of electronic books and magazines.

More details from the petition creator

Paper copies of books, newspapers and magazines are subject to a VAT rate of 0%. It is anomalous that electronic copies of these same items are subject to the current standard rate of VAT (20%). The effect of this tax is to make, in many cases, the e-book version of literature more expensive than the paper copy despite being less expensive to produce and requiring almost zero shipping costs.

The manufacture of printed paper products requires thousands of tons of raw materials and an enormous amount of energy in production and transport each year. The public is reluctant to pay more for an electronic copy than for a paper copy. Many look for a less expensive and often 'pirate' source.

By charging VAT on e-publications the government is encouraging piracy, squandering raw materials and adding to fossil fuel use.

That darn cat...

...decided to have a lazy afternoon.

...decided that it wasn't a good idea to jump from the fence onto the surface of the neighbor's algae-covered pond.

...is convinced that if it's raining at the back door then it will be just fine at the front door.

...decided not to play with the goldfish.

...decided that the Christmas tree was a new toy for him to climb.

...somehow decided we were moving and made sure she wouldn't be left behind.

...decided to sing to us every inch of the 300 miles to our new house.

...decided to wait and see if anything came along.

...decided earphone cables and broadband telephone lines make a great teething ring but power cables don't taste nice.

...decided that baby rabbits should be carried over the rabbit-proof fence round our garden so that they could play with them. Since they proved pretty boring playmates they were left to munch on our flowers.

...decided to jup onto y laptop and in doing so hooked a claw under a key on it. As a result y '' key no longer works!

Installing MS Office 2010 - What a palaver!

Having finally bought Microsoft Office 2010 to replace the pre-release version I've being using for the last year I sat down to install it at 11:00am this morning. I finally completed the process at 3:30pm; a four and a half hour marathon!

Now if you just bought Office 2010 when it was released you probably were able to install it without problem completing the whole process within 20 minutes. Some of us tested the beta product and then the pre-release version. Now, however these are about to expire and it's tie to install the full product. That's where the problem started.

As soon as I tried to install Office 2010 I got this error message:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of

Microsoft Office 2010. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of

Microsoft Office 2010 products and associated technologies.

Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.

Oh well - that meant a trip to the control panel and 'Uninstall a program'. I selected the Office 2010 pre-release version and uninstalled it. Back to the installation DVD and I got:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of

Microsoft Office 2010. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of

Microsoft Office 2010 products and associated technologies.

Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.

Huh? I just uninstalled it! Maybe I needed to do a restart first? One restart later I inserted the installation DVD and got:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

OK. Now let me just check I actually uninstalled the right version - Yep - it's gone and I remember that I had to remove Office 2007 before I could install the prerelease of 2010. Time to go visit Microsoft's site to see if there's a fix!

As usual, finding what I wanted on the MS site was a torturous business but at least their introduction of using Bing to search the site makes things a little easier. Eventually I copied out the error message and searched for that.

I found quite a few people were having the same problem and I eventually found a post on http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officeinstall/thread/52c744aa-d1c5-4aec-9c52-d76bc05eea40 where a Microsoft Support Moderator suggested I run a tool called cleanc2r to fix the issue. I followed the link provided to get the tool and of course discovered it had been replaced by a different tool. Fortunately the link took me to the new location of this 'Fixit' tool and of course when I got there it referred to removing Office 2007 from Windows XP and not to Windows 7. back to Google search engine where I entered the error message AND "Windows 7"

This time I found another Microsoft Support Moderator who pointed at a page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 This time the link actually worked!

The new page told me to do exactly what I had already done but if that didn't work I should use the 'Fix it' link below to remove the problem. This time there were three of them and I chose the one for Office 2010; Microsoft Fix it 50450.

Running it gave me a brief flash of a command window followed by the usual confirmation window to confirm I really wanted to use the program. A licence agreement window followed next followed by a window making a backup of the registry. Finally I got another brief flash of the command window and - nothing! 'A bit unsatisfactory' I thought ' I would have expected the program to tell me it was finished'.

Back to the Installation DVD and I got:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

This was beginning to get tiresome! Back to the search engine and I followed a few more of the 29 results to find that all of them eventually pointed me back to the same page which I'd just tried. Eventually I found one saying the 'Fix it' link didn't always work first time and I should try it again!

Back to 'Fix it', the same procedure but this time the second command window stayed open and took ages to run through. Once it finished it was back to the installation DVD and I got:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

More searching on Internet eventually found Microsoft instructions to delete a couple of registry entries, to clear temporary files from the computer and to empty the recycle bin. 5Gb of temporary files deletion later it was back to the installation DVD and:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

At this point I began to wonder how someone who is not quite as computer literate as I would be coping. Back to the search engine.

Looking on the forums I found lots of people with the same issue who had all followed the Microsoft advice and still couldn't install Office 2010. Eventually I read something about making sure all Office ad-ons had been deleted including the 'Add a smile' feature installed with the pre-release version. Mine was still there and promptly got deleted and...

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

Out went the Windows Live Office stuff...

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version...

Out went 'Outlook Hotmail Connector (Funny! I never use Hotmail so I definitely didn't install that!) and...

SUCCESS! I was now the proud owner of an Office 2010 installation.

It only took me four and a half hours. Simple huh?

Finally I could get back to editing my book 'A Vested Interest.'

US Version	UK Version

Facebook Games

I wonder how many Facebook users have stopped to consider just how much money the writers of the more popular Facebook applications - especially games - are making?

• Let's assume that just 5% of users occasionally buy 'extras' for their game.
• Lets assume that they spend just £10 on this per year.
• Lets assume that the figure of 'monthly active users' you get from the games Facebook website is wildly inaccurate and the true figure is 50% of what is stated.

So here's a list of how much the top 30 Facebook games are making based on those rather conservative assumptions:

Game	Users	£ Earned
1 Farmville	60,343,013	15,085,753
2 Frontierville	31,031,304	4,654,696
3 Café World	22,180,662	3,327,099
4 Mafia Wars	21,793,134	3,268,970
5 Treasure Isle	15,509,210	2,326,382
6 Happy Aquarium	13,052,368	1,957,855
7 Bejeweled Blitz	11,995,628	1,799,344
8 Petville	11,628,197	1,744,230
9 Restaurant City	9,696,574	1,454,486
10 Happy Pets	9135056	1,370,258
11 City of Wonder	8,840,339	1,326,051
12 YoVille	7,579,517	1,136,928
13 Zoo World	7,036,293	1,055,444
14 Fishville	6,873,782	1,031,067
15 Happy Island	6,286,697	943,005
16 Kingdoms of Camelot	5,891,589	883,738
17 Social City	5,575,999	836,400
18 Hotel City	5,246,913	787,037
19 Baking Life	4,904,453	735,668
20 Country Life	4,412,287	661,843
21 Farm Town	4,065,029	609,754
22 Monster World	3,905,525	585,829
23 My Empire	2,819,505	422,926
24 Island Paradise	2,422,170	363,326
25 Tiki Resort	2,364,724	354,709
26 Tiki Farm	1,278,580	191,787
27 My Vineyard	919,963	137,994
28 Zoo Kingdom	727,327	109,099
29 Crime City	628,109	94,216
30 Middle Kingdom	378,463	56,769

It seems to me some of these games are making a fortune! While they are considered 'free' games, sooner or later the majority of users will buy an item for their game and these repeated purchases quickly mount up until they exceed the value of a game purchased on CD/DVD. Unlike the CD/DVD game Facebook games are in a constant state of development too so there is something new to keep the players coming back.

The question is are we, the users, getting value for money from our games? A quick trip to the user forums of many of these quickly lets you know just how many people are unhappy with them. What amazes me is that people keep playing them! Especially the people who are spending real money. I guess it's a matter of not wanting to waste the money spent already.

Let's look at two examples from these games; both zoos. Zoo World and Zoo Kingdom.

Zoo World is making millions yet go to it's discussion board and you'll find complaint after complaint. The only people answering these complaints, however, are the other game players.

Zoo Kingdom's discussion board is the opposite however. There are few complaints and those that appear are quickly answered by the game developers. Read the comments there and you'll find many end with praise for Blue Fang who developed the game.

So why is it that the positions of these two games are not reversed? It beats me! I do know though that I like the community spirit there so much that I host a Zoo Kingdom Hints & Tips website for it.

It seems to me that those game firms who have not yet caught on to the potential of social media websites for earning money are missing out and if you are looking for a profitable investment a small business just starting the climb up the Facebook games league is worth looking at.

The Election. What went wrong?

The UK held a general election on 6th May 2010 but things didn't quite go as smoothly as expected.

here in the UK we've grown accustomed to feeling smug about how 'we hold elections properly' and smile at the feeble efforts of other countries where there are complaints about vote rigging and people being denied their right to vote. "It could never happen here," we say. Except it did!

Today's news is full of stories about people who went to vote, stood in a queue for an hour or more only to be denied their right to vote when the polling stations closed at 10:00pm. Some people were even in the building but because they hadn't been given a ballot paper by 10:00pm they didn't get to vote.

That wasn't my problem though. I arrived earlier at 18:45 and passed the clerk my voting card only to be told that it's number had already been marked off the lists as having already voted.

The clerk phoned someone to ask procedure and after about 15 minutes got a call back to say I was to be given a pink voting slip and that it and my electors card were to be sent in in a sealed envelope rather than put in the ballot box. Hardly a secret ballot.

I asked the clerk that I be informed of the result of the enquiry that would be made about this.

I told the clerk that I had lived at my address for two years but this was the first time I had voted in an election there (I was away in previous council elections).

It seems to me there are three possibilities:
1. That the clerks made an error and both crossed off the wrong number on their lists.
2. That the number on my electors card for some reason was duplicated
3. That someone had given in my name and address and had 'stolen' the vote.

Let's assume that the first scenario happened. There were two clerks checking the electors lists for each voter. Is it likely they both got it wrong? Only if they were copying each other's work - surely that would be poor procedure.

How about the second scenario? I've seen the electors list used and didn't spot a duplicate - neither did the two clerks.

What about the third possibility? I asked the clerks what happened to the lists they marked the voters off on and got an evasive answer. It seems to me that these lists should NOT be allowed to fall into anyone's hands since knowing who did not vote in elections would allow someone to impersonate that person in a new election. I was surprised to see the clerks giving back electors cards to voters. That hadn't happened in previous elections and I can imagine quite a few being added to street litter or deposited in bins outside the polling station from which they could be retrieved.

It seems to me that apart from a need to get more people through the system quickly there is also a need to tighten up security. I suggest at a minimum voters should be asked for proof of identity if they turn up at polling stations without their poll card.

On a lighter note I received an e-mail from David Cameron. Here it is:
You'll notice that the e-mail was sent to me at 12:24 am on Friday 7th May.
No wonder David didn't get a majority in parliament. He's been telling his supporters to go vote 2½ hours AFTER the polls closed!