The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Book Review

** I am currently taking a Young Adult literature course and I will be reading and reviewing several materials using a new format. This review follows a template given to me by my professor.**

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Publication Information

Name: Christopher Jimenez	Media Format: Book (eBook)
Title: The Invention of Hugo Cabret	Genre: Fiction, Graphic novel, Children's literature, Mystery, Historical fiction
Author: Brian Selznick	Selection Source: 2008 Caldecott Winner
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.	Recommended Audience Age: 8-12
	Reading Recommendation: 3 out of 5
	Curriculum Connections: Literature, Leisure, Filmography, Technology, History

Review

Hugo Cabret is an orphan, a thief, a magician, a prodigy and alone. He is consumed by his late father's desire to repair a curious automaton that is poised with a pen. Hugo is convinced that the mechanical man is programmed to deliver a personal message to him, perhaps from his father.

Hugo embarks on an adventure with the George Méliès family as he struggles to maintain his anonymous lifestyle in a Paris train station. The narrative, and its characters, are clearly influenced by love of the cinema. As the story unfolds, we find that things are not always as they appear. 

This novel has achieved the following awards:

• 2008 Children's Choices Selection
• 2008 ALSC Notable Children's Recordings

Evaluation

This is another novel that features an orphaned child who desperately tries to avoid the orphanage. Hugo Cabret does all he can to remain undetected by adults who may inquire about his living situation. His salvation turns out to be his love of technology and ability to build. Through his devotion to his father's project, he is able to establish a relationship with the George Méliès family, who ends up vouching for him.

A major influence in this novel is the cinema. The magic on the silver screen is evident in the characters, the language, (audiobook) the production of background sounds and (the monograph) the illustrations. This book presents a well-rounded experience for the reader.

iOS7 Beta 3 and The Broken Phone App

Image via CrunchBase

The Developer Life

A friend of mine gave me the awesome privilege of being an Apple Developer so I could get the shiny, new iOS7 on my iPhone. It has been pretty much everything I expected. Cool User Interface. Buggy third party apps. Glitchy native apps. Overall probably not something I'd want to pay for but the fact that hardly anyone else outside of work (I work in IT) has it makes me feel cool, so I put up with it.

However, Beta 3 brought a big problem. I noticed that I was getting voicemails with no record of a missed call. What? I know, crazy. And unacceptable. I mean, messaging UI issues is one thing, but making people feel like I was ignoring their call when I actually wasn't? Not cool.

My first thought was to blame the Google Voice app for interfering with my Phone App. I made several changes to GV that did not resolve the issue. Then, I did what I should have done in the first place. I googled the problem.

Disturb Me Please

According to the internet, iOS Beta 3 may have issues with the Do Not Disturb function. So if you find that your iPhone running iOS Beta 3 is not allowing calls to come in, change your DND settings to "Allow Everyone" to interrupt. I know, it defeats the purpose of DND, but if the Phone app doesn't display incoming calls, it defeats the purpose of owning a phone.

I'm not going to go through the trouble of giving screenshots, the link to the article I found will be posted below. It has all that fancy stuff. Please refer to that for more detailed instructions.

Happy developing!

Related Articles

• Did iOS 7 beta 3 Break Incoming Calls? Here's How To Fix It.

RSS is Dead

English: Don't Panic towel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Welcome to the 21st Century

Given all this hoopla about Google amputating Reader from their line of products, it is probably time to ask the question: Is Real Simple Syndication (RSS) dead? An article from Business Insider seems to suggest that it is.

My library coursework has promoted RSS as a futuristic technology that delivers information right to the end-user. I have built CMS pages and blogs and burned the feeds so that people can receive my articles as soon as I publish them. But are we wrong? 

Business Insider seems to suggest that Social Media services (Twitter) is killing off RSS as a viable end-user product. RSS may still find a home in the back end, but it is no longer a product that users, ahem, use. Note that most of the products purporting to be alternatives to Google Reader integrate your social media timelines into the application!

I have always felt that the RSS technology was antiquated in light of Social Media and other on-demand services. I think librarians should be aware of potential change on the horizon and flexible enough to jump on the wave of innovation.

Opinion wanted: do you think RSS is dead? Maybe it's just a little dead? Maybe it's just dead to the end-user? Well, go on and tell me in a comment. I wanna know!