Monday, June 21, 2010

personal finance books


One of the problems I’ve always had with online eBook readers is that they just doesn’t have the same look and feel of a real book or magazine. When you hold a book in your hands, you can grip the corner of the page and curl it back just as your finishing the last few words on the page, and then quickly toss the page over to the next page so you can continue without pause. This is part of the experience of reading, and it’s something that is very hard to give up as you transition to the digital medium of the Internet.


Luckily, there are eBook reader devices that now incorporate an animated sort of “page turning.” Those features are awesome, but they don’t help you much when you’re trying to read an eBook on your computer when you’re not mobile. This is why I was very excited to discover an awesome desktop eBook reader called MartView.




MartView is a unique digital reader application for Windows (Mac version available soon) that recreates this “authentic” reading experience. Using this reader, you can also read regular PDF documents as well, such as a free PDF eBook download. You can slowly or quickly turn or bend pages, scroll through documents using a variety of methods and orientations, and much more.


MartView Makes Reading Digital Documents Enjoyable


What I love about the free MartView eBook reader is the design that’s very easy on the eyes, and the functionality that really does make you feel like you have ultimate control over the motion of the book and the flow of your reading. Once you download and install the application, it looks like this.



Normally, the top menu bar is hidden, but when you bring your mouse near the top of the screen, it drops down. There are a lot of cool options available for how you’d like to navigate through your eBook. You can simply flip through (my favorite), or you can opt for the standard horizontal or vertical slide formats of typical PDF readers.



In the image below, I’ve grabbed hold of the lower right corner of the page and I’m turning the page in the example eBook. This shows the page in mid-flip, but you can actually hold it there as you would with a normal book. You can put it back if you want, or continue on to the next page. It’s a very cool feeling to have so much control over the motion of the page, and the shading and animation really makes it feel like you’re looking at a real book.



Changing views is as easy as clicking on the drop-down menu bar. Here, I’ve instantly changed the navigation to the vertical slide option. In this format you can use the scroll-bar (or your mouse scroll) to scroll up and down the entire eBook.



Another very cool view is the “thumbnails” view. Rather than sifting through a table of contents to find the page that you’re looking for, why not browse a thumbnail of all pages of the eBook? This makes it very easy to find diagrams or images that you want to refer back to but don’t remember the exact page.



You can use the MartView reader as a standalone PDF or eBook reader, but it also has the ability to connect through your Internet connection and download from the huge library of free eBooks at the MartView website. You don’t need an account, all you need to do is install the reader and you can start downloading free eBooks.


You can also create and upload your own eBooks and store them on the MartView library.



You can create and upload an eBook to the MartView library from a PDF eBook, from a collection of your own personal images, or from an archived collection of images and share your eBook with the entire community.



The upload process is really simple and fast. Just select the file, give it a title that you’ll remember easily (and a good category), and upload it to MartView.



The coolest part of MartView, in my opinion, is the library. I love free reading material, and the volumes of free content that you’ll find at MartView is seemingly unlimited. There are entire collections of online magazines, sorted into categories like Business & Finance, Computers & Tech and a lot more.


Of course, you aren’t limited to downloading and reading MartView eBooks only. You can open up any PDF on your computer or that you download from any other PDF-based eBook site using your MartView reader. Here, I opened a free download of A Tale of Two Cities.



You’ll notice that the shading and appearance gives your PDF document the look and feel of a real book. Just start paging through and enjoy your reading experience!


As with many good things, there’s a downside. I did notice that MartView is a dog when it comes to memory consumption. It’s best used with all other applications shut down and devoting the entire screen to the reading experience. Unless you have some massive memory, I wouldn’t advise trying to accomplish much else with your computer while running MartView.


With that said, I really like the software and plan to use it whenever I have some free time to sit back and enjoy an e-magazine or a free eBook.




Gabriel Schoenfeld's Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media and the Rule of Law is published today. I read Schoenfeld's book in galley proof. It is an important and (to borrow an adjective) necessary book. At our invitation, Schoenfeld has prepared a post for Power Line readers adapted from the book's preface. Schoenfeld writes:





I am a New Yorker who was in Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001. Like millions of others here, I saw the destruction wrought by al Qaeda firsthand, saw the dust-covered survivors trudging northward, breathed the smoke from the smoldering rubble and felt it sting my eyes. That afternoon, after the trek home to my family in Brooklyn, seven miles from ground zero, I found a layer of ash on my car. What was in the ash? Along with pulverized concrete, glass, and steel, did it contain the remains of firefighters and office workers turned to dust? That was just one of the many questions coursing through my brain on the evening of the day that war came to my city. I was again in Manhattan on March 11, 2004, the day that Islamic terrorists bombed the Madrid transit system, killing 191 people and maiming more than 1,700. And I was in Manhattan once again on July 7, 2005, when suicide bombers struck the London transit system, killing 52 and wounding hundreds. Like millions of others, I ride the New York City subways daily. So do two of my three daughters.



It was in light of this history and these circumstances, a personal history and personal circumstances in no way unique to me, that I was incensed by the publication in the New York Times of a series of stories in 2005 and 2006 compromising some of the secret counterterrorism programs that the U.S. government had initiated to avert a repetition of such terrible catastrophes. But along with outrage, I was intensely curious about the legal regime that permitted, or appeared to permit, this kind of tell-all-and-damn-the-consequences journalism. This book is an outgrowth of my impassioned curiosity.



The disclosure of wartime secrets and the role of the press in protecting or disclosing them is a subject both important and complex, pitting our most cherished values against one another and bringing key institutions of democratic governance into collision. In exploring this terrain I have been drawn into the broader task of constructing a counternarrative to the standard history of free expression in America, which, as I have discovered, has ossified into orthodoxy. Its adherents have fallen into the trap described by Herbert Butterfield in The Whig Interpretation of History, in which the historian stands on the summit of the present and peers down upon the past to affirm and reaffirm his own political convictions, a mode of mountaineering that obscures a proper view of history's slopes.



Although my attempt at historical correction leaves me sharply critical of the recent conduct of the New York Times and the First Amendment absolutism that underpins it, my book is not intended as a prosecutor's brief. The problem of governmental secrecy has become a burning issue in American political life and cries out for historically informed analysis. It is my hope that a fuller understanding of our past can help us skirt some self-imposed perils and return us to a proper balance between the exigencies of national defense and the blessings of our cherished liberty.





Here let me reiterate what I wrote last week about Schoenfeld's book. Schoenfeld's book does something that, to my knowledge, hasn't been done before. It provides an unexpurgated account of the media's disclosure of highly classified national security information, some of which -- such as the James Risen/Eric Lichtblau New York Times story blowing the NSA al-Qaeda eavesdropping program, and the Risen/Lichtblau story blowing the SWIFT terrorist finance tracking program -- has violated the espionage laws of the United States and done great damage to American national security. Unfortunately, such acts of espionage will land you a Pulitzer Prize rather than time in the clink.



Alarmed into reflection and research by Risen and Lichtblau, Schoenfeld investigates the conflict between free expression and national security in American history. The standard legal history presents an unfolding story of unfettered freedom; Schoenfeld finds the standard legal history wanting. Schoenfeld is a model of tact in formulating the problem with the standard legal history: "Major histories of First Amendment law prefer overwhelmingly to argue by omission, with the result that they conceal as much as they reveal."



Schoenfeld cites Geoffrey Stone's Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism as a prime purveyor of the standard legal history that he now seeks to revise. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.



Schoenfeld notes that Stone's book has been hailed as "a masterpiece of constitutional history" by no less a figure than Elena Kagan. "Yet this 'comprehensive' tome," Schoenfeld writes, "fails even to mention episodes that cut against its thesis, such as the so-called Black Chamber affair in the 1930s, the nearly catastrophic Chicago Tribune leaks during World War II, and an array of cases from Marchetti to Snepp in which the federal government has gone to court, successfully, to rein in the printing presses to protect national security secrecy in times of both war and peace." Among other things, Schoenfeld's book thus fills in some large holes in the standard history.







penis enlargement

It is the holiday season again. You are scurrying around, trying to make sure that you have bought gifts for everyone on your list. You are worrying about what is the right gift for each person. Almost everyone, including you, that is shopping right now is forgetting one important person to buy for, one person not on their list... themselves! What better time to invest in something for yourself than Christmas? It is a great time to gift yourself with some items to help you save money, to get your finances in order, and to relieve a little of your financial stresses.

One nice gift for yourself is a receipt organizer. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to get your rebates or refunds without the right receipts. Don't spend hours every year searching through desk drawers or piles of papers for your charitable-gift receipts, medical bills, and any other tax-related documents that you might need. Also, it is easier to see how much you are spending if all of your receipts are in one place.

Another great gift for yourself is personal finance software. This software can help you create charts showing where you are spending your money. Many of the softwares available allow you to set up automatic bill reminders, which will save you money on late fees. Take a financial inventory to see what you owe and to where or whom. Set up a home budget goal and future financial goals using this software. This software can help you get peace of mind about your future personal finances.

One of the most important gifts that you can give yourself is knowledge. Educate yourself on finances and investing your money wisely. The more you know about your finances and how to invest your money, the more likely you will be to have financial stability. Knowing how to save money and how to invest that money can be the most important knowledge you can have for your future finances. There are many websites and books available, some for free, with which to educate yourself. Sign up for free financial newsletters that will give you good advice and tips on a variety of things.

So, do not forget yourself this holiday season. Take your personal finances in hand today to ensure that you have many more happy holidays to come. Let some of the stress slide off of your shoulders as you give yourself a great gift for your future... personal financial security.


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The former Oregon State and West Linn High School star batted .256 during his first stint with the Diamondbacks earlier this season.

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UK UK Banks - George Osborne will on Tuesday announce a GBP 3bln tax on banks while promising lower taxes for other businesses. In his first budget, the.