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Book Review: The Poetic Prisoner (Breaking Free Vol. 1) by Taym Doraj

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments

Full Disclosure: I edited this book and contributed creatively to the cover design.

Here is how The Poetic Prisoner’s back cover describes the book:

Talented Poet, Taym Doraj takes you on an emotional adventure in The Poetic Prisoner (Breaking Free Vol. 1).

Taym shares poems about his time in prison, his battle with addictions, crime, mental health, broken and dysfunctional family ties during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this book you’ll find poems about dark times, the desire to change, love, connection, hope and being inspired to transform his life. From life going all wrong, to a positive vibes mindset developed from God, yoga and meditation.

One of the reasons I love this book is because everyone of the poems are brilliant. Taym has a really engaging writer’s voice and tackles tough subjects well. He uses the imagery of dark and light throughout this book and shares how he transformed his life from negative to positive.

Taym hopes to use his life experiences and this book to inspire people to be healthier and happier. It’s a fantastic book that deserves your attention and is thoroughly enjoyable to read. Like most poetry books it is short at just 47 pages. But Taym is clever and doesn’t waste a single word.

The Poetic Prisoner (Breaking Free Vol. 1) by Taym Doraj is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony

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Tech Reviews: Upgrading My External Hard Drives to SSD

By Amazon, Reviews, Shopping, TechnologyNo Comments

I tend to keep my files (documents, photos, music & video) on WD external hard drives. I don’t use cloud storage, as I dislike subscription services and their ever increasing prices. Plus, I have a lot of files, so it gets expensive and relies too much on the internet. One of the pluses of external hard drives are that they are portable, so I can physically share larger files with family/friend easily.

But there are minuses with my current system. First transfers for larger files can be slow, second that there’s always a chance of hard drive failure – particularly with external hard drives that have moving parts, like the ones I’m currently using. So I decided that it was time to upgrade to SSD (solid state drives), which boast faster transfer speeds and no moving parts. Think of them as large capacity pen drives.

I opted for two different branded 4TB models, one a Samsung T7 Shield (4TB) and the other SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (4TB). The reason I opted for the Samsung drive is trust in the brand. The reason I opted for SanDisk was because of the colour.

It may sound odd, but different colours enable me to identify my drives more easily. I did try to get a Samsung T7 Shield in blue (in desperation I even considered beige) but both blue and beige 4TB models were out of stock everywhere.

Here’s my first impression of each model:

Samsung T7 Shield (4TB) first impressions:

  • It’s tiny. It literally fits in the palm of my hand, see image above.
  • It has this soft, ridged feel which makes it really nice to hold.
  • It feels like a quality product.
  • It comes with x2 USB cables. One is USB C to C and the other is USB C to B.
  • It gets warm, but nowhere near as hot as the Scan Disk.
  • It was easy to set up and use. It’s literally plug and play.
  • Its copy speed really varied. I can’t be sure if this is the new drive or due to my old one.
  • Had a cool blue blinking light to indicate that the drive is in use.
  • Good for multitasking.
  • I have complete confidence in the Samsung brand.
  • There are a range of cases you can purchase to keep it in.

SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (4TB) first impressions:

  • It’s tiny. It literally fits in the palm of my hand, see image above.
  • Its firmware was up-to-date. This was a nightmare to check, SanDisk’s website is easy enough to find to check. But seeing the tiny serial number on the back of the device I found difficult.
  • It feels nice in the hand and has a hole for attaching to backpacks, not that I’ll ever use this feature.
  • It was easy to set up.
  • It gets very hot during use.
  • It is much faster than my previous hard drive.
  • I am concerned about failure or data loss as I found this video online when looking for reviews of the product, after I bought the product and was waiting delivery. I probably wouldn’t have bought this product had I have known this information prior to purchase:

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  • I decided based on this video to use this drive up as a back up one, rather than a main drive as originally intended.
  • It is USB C but comes with a USB B adapter for those that might require it.
  • Practically silent operation.
  • Very good when multitasking.
  • There are a range of cases you purchase to keep the device in.

Blog soon,

Antony

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The Issue All Authors Have

By Amazon, Books & AuthorsNo Comments

The issue all authors have is reaching their audience. I believe every book has an audience and it is the authors job to find the audience for their book(s). There’s a lot written about using social media to help an author find their book’s audience, but I have come to feel that this is really only good for family and friends.

My latest two books haven’t done well sales wise, despite being great books, each in the own way.

So I have decided to run an advertising campaign on Amazon for 1 month for my health-related books: Ways The Human Body Can Go Wrong, The Alcohol Therapy Workbook and Mental Health Wisdom.

I’m also looking into another project with My Royal Navy Friend, but I can’t share details about this right now.

My Best Wishes,

Antony

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