Keith Graham

I published Space, Time and Other Dimensions a couple of weeks ago. I set the Kindle version to go on a free promotion for the three days on December 23, 24, and 25. This way I could take advantage of people at home during Christmas.

Why would I want to give away my book for free? The answer is that I wanted to make it into one of Amazon’s Best-Seller lists. It worked. My book made it to #3 in Kindle Science Fiction Anthologies. It was also in the top ten for Kindle Hard Science Fiction and Kindle Cyberpunk. As a result, I made about $20 in sales and got lots of interest in the book.

Today is Boxing Day, and the book is no longer free. It has dropped to about 1,000 in the lists. I hope that enough free versions have been delivered that it will create interest, and maybe get a few reviews.

This is how you game Kindle KDP. I will let you know next month if it was worth it.

Three years ago, I had a series of seizures and had to be heavily medicated. Nobody was able to figure out why I had these seizures. Every doctor that I talked to told me variations on “Damned if I know”. My diagnosis was “Partial Complex Seizure Disorder”, which is a catchall for seizures that can’t be localized or explained by injury or tumor. My brain is clear, so I just have seizures for some reason which cannot be pinpointed.

The good news is that I haven’t had a seizure since I’ve been taking my pills. The bad news is that seizure medication works by slowing down your brain’s reaction time. I was severely slowed down. I had short term memory loss, “tip of the tongue” syndrome, and I have lost about 30 or 40 IQ points. I can’t write programs. I can’t write stories. I fell down the stairs several times and trip over things, all the time.

I have nagged my Neurologist to find me a medication that lets me function the way that I used to. I have been taking a pill, now, for about a year, that is pretty good. I have been slowly and carefully experimenting with reducing my dosage. The doctors don’t like me doing this, but I can’t stand the status quo. I am down to a little over half of the recommended dosage.

Before I had the seizures, I would have occasional feelings of a loss of the moment. I would suddenly realize that, for the last minute, I had lost all thought. This is what I think is a mini-seizure, and a precursor to a full-fledged flop around on the floor seizure. Since I have been reducing my dosage, I have not had any indication or any clue of a problem.

Today, I feel good. I have started writing again. The other day, I wrote a computer program. I reconfigured my home Web Servers, which is not a trivial task. I think that the old Keith is mostly back.

I started working on my two unfinished novels. I have finished three short stories. They aren’t great, but they aren’t half bad.

I reworked and republished my Anthologies. I put together a new collection of short stories with 18 stories and published on Amazon.

I have been practicing playing harmonica and I think I am getting much better.

Wish me luck.

I’ve been working on a new collection of stories called Space, Time and Other Dimensions. I was saving my Classic Hard Science Fiction stories for this collection. I only had 15 stories, so I’ve been writing a little. Since I have dozens of stories that I have started but never finished, I found a couple of these that looked promising. I finished them and included them in the book.

I am not real happy with the way they turned out, but they are decent enough. I’d like to finish a couple of more.

I’ve already published a version of Space, Time and Other Dimensions. The Kindle version actually sold a little. It did well, for a moment. The book was #16 in new Kindle Science Fiction. It was 240th overall in Kindle Science Fiction sales. This was quick, though. I haven’t had any sales for a few days, now, so I don’t believe it will do very well in the future. None of my other books have sold in a long time.

There seems to be an issue here with someone uploading a Trojan to my websites. My virus software catches it immediately, but it is annoying. I wish there was a way to find out which page is doing it. This blog is the primary suspect, so I am considering ways to turn this site to 100% static.

I use FlatPress to publish these pages, but it is not static. Flatpress creates the pages, but then it uses another PHP program to present them.

I need to do some more investigating, but I don’t want to learn a new language to do it.

I upgraded my Wamp server and I find that the code that I have been using is full of problems with “Deprecation” errors.

I had to do some quick lookups and some global changes, and it is fixed. I have to keep testing, but I think I got it.

So if you haven’t been able to read this blog in the last few days, now you know why.

I haven’t finished a story in a couple of years.
I found a story that was about half written. The first version I found was from 2004. It was one where I had no idea how to end it. The story’s direction obviously wouldn’t work, so I dropped it around 2011 according to the date on the file. There are a bunch of ideas in a file from 2017, but they involved a lot of silly action and escape scenes.
I started writing at the end of the story, adding romance, and the ideas started to click. It wound up being a far future cyberpunk love story, which I am better at than action with guns and complicated plots.
I went back to the beginning and started foreshadowing the ending, and getting rid of some of the stupid things that I had added along the way.
The name of the story is “The Short Run,” but the story might be better called “The Long Run,” from the John Maynard Keynes quote: “In the long run we are all dead”.
Now I have to wait on it and then reread it so that I can find any stupid errors. The story is about 4,000 words and I will be sending it out to some pro sites later this week. There is no chance that the story will sell. Pro sites get more than 2,000 subs per month, and it is hard to get by the first round of slush. (I am convinced that slush readers think that SF is something like the Marvel Universe movies, either that or Star Wars.)
This story rightly belongs in the Error Message Eyes anthology, but it does involve space travel, so I’ll be putting it in the hard sf book that I am working on.

It’s been about two weeks since I put the Honey Supers on my hives. I opened up the hives to check and there is no honey, yet. I do have honeydew, which is watery honey nectar that may make it to honey eventually. The honeydew means that the bees are working and that if they buzz their wings over it and reduce the moisture content I will have honey.
While checking the bees, I noticed some bees going in and out of a box that I had set aside. I thought that the hive had died. I popped the top, and it was full of bees. I have a free hive. I will have to put a honey super on it to see if it makes me any money.

I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to publish Error Message Eyes Release 2.0.

I am not able to concentrate well enough to be sure things are right. Amazon is reviewing things now. They don’t review much other than to make sure that I am not doing anything illegal.

I find that the act of correction causes new errors, sometimes many new errors. Several times, I pressed CTRL-F in order to find something, but I missed the CTRL key and wound up inserting an F and a search string into the text. I hope that I caught all of these.

With luck I can make an announcement tomorrow. I wanted to do it today, but many things got in the way that were far more important.

Wish me luck.

I can’t believe the number of errors that Shaun has found. One or two (out of hundreds) I’ve either not changed, or else changed in a way different from his suggestions. Technically, I could launch tomorrow. I want to launch on a Thursday to take advantage of the weekday and weekend potential readers, but I will need a day to apply the corrections and order the proof copy. It looks like the book will launch on the 16th.
I started trying to edit the stories myself, starting at the end and working my way back. Now I am nervous because it has become obvious that most of my mistakes are made in the revision process. I will now go through and check again (introducing even more errors.)

I have finished installing MacOs X under Virtual Box. In previous posts, I talked about upgrading my PC with this in mind. I used the following tutorial: https://www.makeuseo … -10-virtual-machine/
The only issue that I have is that the mouse is not responsive and jerks around as I try to select something. This may not work out as a development machine as I wanted.

Shaun just messaged me and told me had started proofreading the book. He said he had found a great many errors and would let me know when he finished.

Well, that puts the kibosh on launching tomorrow. I hope that I didn’t screw up my free kindle promotion. I unpublished the book, so let’s hope that the Amazon programs will show that.

5/26/22: Here we are a week later, and it still is not ready for prime time. Maybe I can get it going by June 2nd or 9th.

I knew that you could host web pages on GitHub.com, but I did not know how to go about it. The tutorials are all for Linux, and involve Jekyll software, which only runs on Linux.

95% of the world runs on Windows. I started slogging through the documentation, trying to figure out how to make things work. You can see the results on https://www.ErrorMessageEyes.com. Getting to the point where it worked was not easy.

I use Cloudflare as a domain registrar, so it was easy to set up the domain and DNS.

The rest was not obvious. I downloaded GitHub Desktop software, which is not all that useful, but it was good to set up a new repository and a branch for the project.

I keep the websites that I have on Google Drive so that I can work with them on any of the computers that I use.

I use Kompozer to create the website. The days of me being able to code CSS by hand are gone. My brain no longer works that way.

GitHub Desktop updates my repository and branch easily.

I had to log into GitHub on the browser to get at the options to use the GitHub pages option. It is a menu item hidden deep in the settings menu. I can’t remember what I did exactly, but I fiddled a bit with the settings, and when I set the custom domain to ErrorMessageEyes.com, it all magically worked. If I had to do it again, I am not sure that I could get it to work at first. If I wanted to add another domain, I think that I would have to add another repository and branch.

One last thing, if I make changes to the HTML, I have to clear the cache in Firefox in order to see them. There is some option that tells the browser to use the cached version of the page, even if the page has changed. I find this annoying.

GitHub looks like a fairly dumb hosting option without Java, PHP, Perl or any other scripting language. That’s why you need something like Jekyll to make it work. I wish that someone would create an easy way to create a static website that I could push to GitHub using Windows.

Tomorrow Eventually, my book goes up for free on the Amazon Kindle store. I feel like a mad scientist trying to conquer the world. I have this crazy plan to reach the top 10 in the Amazon book store Best-Seller list.

I will hit Hacker News with a link to my new domain, www.ErrorMessageEyes.com. I am emphasizing the word “free”. If it hits, it will be good for a few hundred downloads.

I joined six Facebook user groups that are based on cyberpunk or Science Fiction. Each group has 50,000 or more users, although I suspect that most of the users are either bogus or inactive. I will spam each group with a link to the new domain. With luck, they will be good for another few hundred downloads.

I can count on a dozen or so downloads from my FB friends. They might even share the page, helping me get a few more.

It is possible that I will be able to hit 500 downloads, and if it goes viral, I may make it up to a few thousand downloads. This would be enough. When the free period ends, I will still be high in the Amazon bestseller algorithm and may sell a few dozen books for real money.

But it is more likely that I fizzle and get 100 or so downloads at best. I’ll know better on Tuesday morning.

In a previous post, I talked about upgrading this server to 16Gig of ram. I had problems on the system after that. It threw all kinds of errors and this morning I came down, and it was frozen. Anyone trying to access one of my sites got the Cloudflare copy of archive .com.
I finally opened up the case and pulled two of the 4Gig chips and put in the two old 1Gig chips. Now I have 10Gigs. So far, so good.
I am going to wait awhile to see if it stays good. It has been running for about 6 hours now and there hasn’t been an issue. I have been using some memory hog image editing software, and it never burped.
Keep your fingers crossed.

I put 16Gig of memory in my machine and the 256M SSD. I formatted the new SSD as exFat, but I am willing to bet that’s not what a Hackintosh needs. Everything seems to be working, so far.
I have the old 4Gig of memory in a bag. Erica’s machine has 6Gig. I don’t know how the memory is configured. If there are 8 slots on the motherboard, I should be able to get her up to 8Gig. I have to wait until she is not using her PC.
I suppose that I should order Erica’s new SSD. It will cost around $85. I think I might order a power supply, too. Hers has lots of fan noise.
Update
Erica’s computer has 4 slots on the motherboard. This means that she probably has two 1Gig and 2 2Gig memory cards. There are other possible combos, but my lowly 1Gig cards won’t help her.

In 2010, I put together 13 computer related stories and published Error Message Eyes. It made me a couple of hundred dollars over the last 12 years, but it was not what I would call an overwhelming success.
It occurred to me recently, that I had written quite a few more computer oriented stories in the last 12 years, so I started collecting Error Message Eyes, Release 2.0. The new book has 24 stories, but I only used 5 from the last book. I took all the Mizuki stories and put them in order. I then wrote three new stories by assembling fragments and finishing them, so that Mizuki is now a novella.
One of the things that I hated about the first book was that it was riddled with errors and typos. I used a combination of straight quotes and curly quotes. Every time I read it, I cringed.
This time I installed something called LanguageTool, https://languagetool.org/. I have to absolutely recommend this software for anyone who is suffering, as I am, from brain fogging drugs to treat seizures. The Firefox and Chrome plugins make your web writing much cleaner (although not 100% error free). I use LibreOffice and the installation there is much more complicated, but worth it. It freezes up LibreOffice regularly, but CTRL-ALT-DEL lets me kill it, so I can start again. You just have to save your work whenever you stop to think. In spite of its faults, I like it.
Shaun Lawton volunteered to do the artwork, so I am eager to see what I get. I like Shaun’s art. It is high-tech, bold and colorful. He said it would be done quickly almost two weeks ago, but I think he underestimated the time investment he would have to make.
I have done two proofreads of the book and am 30 pages (out of 220) from finishing the third time through. I like to rewrite as I proof and wind up adding new typos. I will be starting over again tomorrow for the final proof. I don’t want to be surprised when I check the book and find typos that I missed.
I want to do a major spam operation to all the editors, forums and FB groups that I can find. The digital version of the book will be free for the first 4 or 5 days, and I hope that it will get enough downloads to make it to the Amazon top 10 list. If I do this, I might even make money when I start charging for the book. I’ll charge as little as I can for the paperback.
For vanity’s sake, I want to make a hard cover version and buy a few for myself, and one for Shaun and one for John Shirley. John was a major inspiration for the stories in the book.

I have been listening to Gibson’s Count Zero while I take my walk. The weather hasn’t been cooperating, so I am only 1/3 of the way through after two weeks.
Gibson uses a phrase ‘The Hard and the Soft’ meaning hardware and software. I have not done anything for my computer upgrade plans.
I want to upgrade my old Dell i5 that has 4G ram and a 1 TB drive. I bought 16G of ram on eBay. I have a 256G SSD that I want to add as a second drive. At the same time, I want to take the 4G chips that I replace in my machine and put them in Erica’s old Dell, so she has 8G of ram. I figure I should get another SATA SSD, so I can upgrade her and get rid of the clunky old hard disk.
Recap: Replace ram on my machine and add another SSD. Add removed ram to Erica’s machine and replace HD with SSD.
Replacing Erica’s HD involves cloning her current disk, which is time-consuming. Adding ram is trivial.
Replacing my ram is trivial. Adding the new SSD is only a matter of figuring out how to format it for a Hackintosh.
I need a SSD SATA data cable for my new SSD and one to use for Erica’s new SSD to run the clone.
I have a 256G SATA SSD WD Blue for my addition disk. I need a 1 TB SSD for Erica’s machine, which will cost me $85. WD Blue are best rated, so that’s the way I’ll go.
I ordered a handful of SATA cables because I can’t find my stash (brain fog). I need to order Erica’s SSD, and I am thinking about doing that.
While I have Erica’s machine open, I’ll vacuum it because I think that it is full of cat hair.
So you see, I am still working on Hardware, just not moving forward very fast. I need to finish this step before I can move onto creating my Hackintosh.

I received my 128GB SSD from China for one of my Chromebooks for a little over 20 bucks. It took about 20 days to make it. I find that Orders from AliExpress make it to the East Coast pretty fast.
Here is the link to the item that I ordered: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32965273842.html
If the link has expired just do a search on NGFF 42MM SSD. You can buy them on eBay or AliExpress.
Before you begin you need to backup your Chromebook. This requires creating a bootable SD or USB memory stick. You need more than 2GB, but you don’t need too much more. The specs say 8GB, but I was able to do it with a 4GB USB memory stick. The instructions for installing the OS Restore app on Chrome is trivial and you can google how to do it.
You can then remove the dozens of screws in the back of the Chromebook, Including the one under the warranty sticker. The back pops off the help with the help of a kitchen knife. The SSD simply unscrews and you put in the 128GB SSD in its place.
When you start up the Chromebook it complains and asks for the recovery media. Plug it in and then Bob’s your uncle. It takes 15 minutes or so.
Put the 16GB SSD aside in case everything fails.
Now it’s time to install Linux.
CHRX.org has a script that you can run that does the whole thing for you. It lets you pick from half a dozen different Linux distros.
I decided on a full blown UBUNTU Linux install. The instructions on CHRX are a little screwy.
Chromebooks are running a simplified Linux and you need to get into the Chrome Linux. The easiest way is to use CTRL-ALT-T. Then you type shell and you get some instructions for logging in and a prompt. Type shell to get in.
The CHRX site says in the instructions to enter
curl https://chrx.org/ | sudo tar xzfC - /usr/local && chrx
It didn’t work for me. What did work was
sudo curl https://chrx.org/ | sudo tar -xzfC /usr/local && chrx
I am not sure that this is right. I did this late at night over the course of a couple of hours of false starts and re-dos. You have to learn a little Linux. The sudu command at the beginning means run as a supervisor. The dash before xzfC are instruction flags to tar which is like zip. The flags are case sensitive and I forgot to capitalize the C more than once. The dash on its own is a typo, I think. Taking it out fixed things.
You will have to watch while it messes with your disk. It wants to know how much disk space to use for Linux and I entered 72,000 MB. The first time I did this I tried to use all of the free disk space for Linux, but Chrome OS won’t run on the little that I left behind. You need leave behind a good chunk of disk for Chrome OS.
It takes a good while to get going. Reboot and Chrome will take 20 minutes to repair itself and format the new disk space that you left for it. Chrome will repair itself if you do things like this.
Get back in the shell and run chrx again, this time pick one of the Linux distros listed on the website.
I typed in
sudo curl https://chrx.org/ | sudo tar -xzfC /usr/local
to get chrx back again. Chrome erased the last one when it repaired the disk. I then typed in
chrx -d ubuntu
This gives me a good size Ubuntu installations, although it is missing some of the stuff I wanted. I know very little about Linux, but I was able to install gnome-software and gnome-tweaks after the installation in order to get things going. Google is your friend here.
You can choose one of the simpler versions of Linux that are sized for the 16GB disk. Then you can start adding to them.
Now when you boot your Chromebook you’ll get the screen complaining about the OS. Hit CTRL-D for Chrome, or hit CTRL-L for Linux.
I have been messing around with Ubuntu, trying to make it do some of the stuff that I do in Windows.
I like the little Chromebook. It is very light. It has a very long battery life. The screen is small and I had to bump up the default font sizes so I could see everything with my myopic 70 year old eyes. It runs Chrome and Linux very well with a snappy response, even with 2GB ram.
Now, if I can every get it to work with my Windows network, I will be happy. Google has offered no useful help in connecting to my four Windows 10 computers. I can see them, but I can’t connect. I would like to be able to print on a printer attached to Erica’s computer from Linux or Chrome, but so far there is no joy.

I installed Linux Mint on my $7.50 Chromebook C720/C740. The machine has 2 gigs of ram and 16 gigs of SSD. It has an Intel CPU so I can installed things intended for a PC.
I started by backing up the Chrome installation.
I downloaded Linux Mint (the smallest one) and burned the ISO to a thumb drive. I tried several utilities to do this, but the problem wasn’t in the software. I was using a 2GB drive that was actually a little smaller than the ISO required. As soon as I tried a larger thumb drive it worked.
I put the Chromebook into developer mode and then rebooted off the thumb drive.
I thought that I was going to get a dual boot, but the install fooled me and reformatted the disk.
Linux installed smoothly.
I kind of like Linux. The Linux windows system is different, but everything is findable. I had some issues with the Chromebook touch pad buttons being reversed, but the built in utilities let me change it. The last time I installed Linux, about 25 years ago, I really disliked it. It has come quite a long way in usability. and is quite friendly.
I installed WINE which is a program for Linux that lets you run Windows programs. I installed Notepad++ using Wine. This is the first thing that I do when I set up a new windows computer. It worked well. Linux is very slick.
I think that I will install some other operating system on the other Chromebook that I got in this deal. I would like to install Android, but the search results all cover how to install Android apps on a Chromebook. Chrome seemed pretty much useless so I have to do something. The other thing that I might try is installing Window XP. I think that might be fun.