Behind the house the lonely old oak tree stood like a sentinel in the night. Occasionally a raven or two would perch on a branch and squawk up a storm, but most nights the old tree quietly watched over a solitary slab gravestone. On rare clear nights Yasmine joined the oak in solemn thought. She’d sit there on the slab watching the moon rise. When there was a breeze, the oak would treat her with a fluttering chorus dropping a few red or yellow leaves onto her golden head.

One night, Yasmine arrived with a gift. The strongest branch gripped the end of the rope holding the hefty package full of nutrition. Yasmine opened the present and took her place reclining on the slab. The cool granite against her naked flesh pulled the heat of the day away. She enjoyed the quiet there in the field far from town. Most of all she loved moon-bathing. As the pale disc climbed into the sky, the oak parted branches letting moonlight through. The night air caressed her flesh and teased her hair.

Drops pattered the ground, and roots soaked everything up.

Yasmine imagined her late husband watching from the grave. His jealousy made her grin.

The old oak held onto the rope, but the load on the branch tested its resolve. Drinking in the nutrients, the tree grew stronger. The wind pushed, branches waved, and the rope twisted. Drops sprinkled the ground, the slab, and the soil again.

Hearing the oak moan, Yasmine opened her eyes and watched her lover swinging upside-down. Blood droplets splattered her chest and face filling her senses with delight, and the dangling body left a trail towards the trunk and back again. Her lover showered the soil. The oak had needed a good drink and already appeared a shade stronger.

She’d need to add another grave, a good start to her boneyard. It’s guardian, the oak, would soon be lonely no more.

Her name, Mary Jane, danced in my head. My first kiss felt like a warm breeze in evening twilight. Three days later, I stood beside her hospital bed. Influenza, the nurse said. Flu was bad that year, but I couldn’t help wondering if it was my kiss. Mary Jane slipped away that night.

Two years later, I met Sofie in the theater hall. My second kiss imprisoned me in bliss. She held my hand until the symphony melted into the night. On our second date, I attended Sofie’s funeral. Weak heart, her mother said. Nodding relatives agreed, but a question bled into me. Did my kiss invite the dead?

Nearing the end of our fourth date, Annabella held me tight. We danced on the sidewalk outside the diner. The cold night air turned threatening, but our embrace was armor. Annabella whispered a request. Trepidation stormed my head, and I nearly fell over. Her smile set me straight.

On my third kiss, I knew.

Traitors, a novella by Carrie Clevenger, is a Crooked Fang adventure available on Amazon Kindle and at Smashwords from Katarr Kanticles Press. If you haven’t tasted a Crooked Fang story before, this is a perfectly reasonable place to get acquainted with Xan and his world. Traitors picks up where the novel, Crooked Fang, left off if you’d rather start there. This novella is short enough to enjoy in one gulp with plenty of content to leave a lasting impression. Not for the young ones.

This story holds the same edge found in the blog serial and has grown with the author into a smooth ride like a restored muscle car with power when you need it. Xan introduces his world with a playful style touched by his dark-offbeat humor. I feel I’m right there with Xan at Pale Rider, a little drinking hole, and riding with him in his Camaro. It’s a fun ride, too. Xan keeps things lively even when picking music on the radio. The love that went into writing and editing Traitors bleeds through at every turn, a smooth ride winding through the Xan’s feelings for his friend, Nin, and rising over the peak into a blaze at the Traitors bar. Xan realizes there’s more to this mission, and the story leaves us with a taste of things to come.

I’ve enjoyed the other Crooked Fang stories by Carrie Clevenger, but Traitors has made me a fan. Thanks, Carrie, for sharing with us.

Dee Count updated to version 1.6 with new look for iOS 7 style and added support for scanning bar codes with the iPad camera. The layout is nearly the same, but flipping right and left sides of main workspace.

• Note: “Scan Bar Codes” button requires iOS 7 and appears when on-screen keyboard is visible; external keyboard device is ejected.
• updated manual on Scribd

Dee Count is an inventory counting program targeted at those wanting to count and compare counts quickly using an iPad. Inventory management is not the primary goal.

Scanning Bar Codes with Camera

Scanning bar codes using the built-in iPad camera requires iOS 7. The “Scan Bar Codes” button appears when the on-screen keyboard is visible; your external keyboard device is not active. If you have an external keyboard device connected, eject the device and tap the add box.

Tapping the “Scan Bar Codes” button opens the camera view. When a bar code is detected, a blue line appears over it along with the detected code. Tap the camera view to add the code as a count.

Note that scan success depends on the size and quality of the bar code. An external laser bar code scanner like Scanfob 2002 is recommended, but sometimes it’s nice to do a quick scan with the camera. A newer iPad with a camera having 1080p video support, newer than iPad 2, works best. The screen shots on this page were taken on an iPad 2, but notice the size of the bar codes. I had a much tougher time with smaller bar codes found on books or shoe boxes with the iPad 2. I’ve tested with the iPad Retina which works much better.

Dee Count camera bar code scanning supports UPC-A, EAN-13, code-128, and code-39. EAN-13 codes beginning with a zero will be automatically converted to UPC-A (leading zero ignored) much like many laser scanners to remain consistent.

Learn more about Dee Count on the software page, read the manual on Scribd, or look for Dee Count at the Apple App Store.

Social media allows you to improve your brand by engaging with others. Staying connected with clients or reaching out to a new audience may mean writing newsletters, articles, brief posts, or profile summaries on sites. Even if your team commits a passionate effort into the finding the right words, forgetting to proofread risks damaging your marketing efforts.

Bad grammar risks destroying credibility and reputation.

Spotting too many mistakes, especially breaking simple rules like capitalizing the wrong letters, becomes distracting. The reader may believe the persons working for the brand do not care enough to write well and conclude they don’t care about quality or their clients. Imagine a Facebook post claiming quality services containing basic grammar errors, and the post refers potential clients to an overview page on the web where grammar mistakes abound. Poor grammar risks losing sales.

In the post, “Writing for Social Media: When Bad Grammar Happens to Good People” at GrammarChic.com the author states, “bad grammar not only hinders your social media marketing efforts, it has the ability to crush any credibility or authority you may have in your respective field” and simply, “no one wants to look like an idiot.”

Brad Hoover in “Good Grammar Should be Everyone’s Business” on Harvard Business Review writes about an informal study by his company, Grammarly, of LinkedIn profiles finding a correlation between good grammar and success.

Also on Harvard Business Review in “I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why.” Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, asserts that “good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet.” People judge others by their writing. Wiens’s observation is that people who make fewer mistakes in writing also make fewer mistakes in other work. Supporting his hiring practice he states, “programmers who pay attention to how they construct written language also tend to pay a lot more attention to how they code.” Also notice in the post Wiens mentions the basics like mistaking “to” for “too” or incorrectly using “it’s.”

Your post doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to show that you care.

When it comes to informal writing, readers are forgiving. A mistake in a brief post will likely go unnoticed. Forgiveness diminishes when errors outnumber sentences, or the message becomes difficult to understand. Proofreading a short newsletter may only take a minute. You know writing basics and how to find help. Your clients know this, too.

You are passionate about your brand. Show your passion by proofreading.