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Why I bought an iPhone 3GS

I’ve got my 3GS (no space any more in the name) now. It’s great.

I just got it, literally, a day ago. No I didn’t rush out to order one at WWDC after the keynote. I didn’t go wait in line at an Apple store, or any other variation on fan boy-dom. Oh and I could have, because I nver bought a 3G and bought my 2G on ebay, so I’ve been contract free for a while.

No longer.

I wasn’t sold on the 3GS. for one thing, it’s still aesthetically ugly IMO. It’s plastic, which I don’t like. I don’t like it because plastic feels crappy. I don’t like it because when the 2G came out, Apple made a big deal about plastic sucking and the aluminum body being so nice. I agree.

I’m bummed that Apple (in a move very unlike them) didn’t change the outward appearance at all. Typically apple makes new models look a big different (I suspect so that the fanboy, early adopters can feel special, and be visually better/apart from the masses), if you sat a 3G and 3GS next to each other, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference (it’s not impossible).

What sold me, wasn’t the compass, the voice dialing, event the stereo bluetooth. It was the speed.

I read that it was (roughly) 54% faster than the 3G. That’s pretty substantial. It’s also got more system RAM, and more graphics capabilities.

I might have been ok with sticking with 2G and EDGE (or buying a 3G on Ebay), but Apple has made it clear to developers, that supporting iPhone OS 2.2.1 isn’t in the picture, they need to build apps for 3.0, which means apps that will be expecting more system RAM, better graphics, and faster CPUs. Things I didn’t have, and wouldn’t have in the 3G.

Plus as Tom and I do an iPhone developer conference, we figured one of us should be keeping up with the Jone’s, in this case our developer community.

So I own a 3GS, and it’s about what I expected, wicked fast, making the iPhone that much more an actually useful device. I’m sure next summer Apple will roll something out, and I’ll have to skip it or pay through the nose since now I’m back in a 2 year contract, but oh well.

Tags: Apple, Conferences, iPhone, Technology

Why eContent should NEVER cost the same as printed

(I’ll preface this post with, A lot of publishers seem to get it, based on most prices found on Amazon’s Kindle store. This post is really derived from an interesting question i was asked over twitter.)

Beyond the ridiculously obvious “you get nothing physical” there’s a lot of reasons why an eBook shouldn’t cost as much as any printed version of the same book.

Let’s look at what goes into the price of a printed book vs. an eBook.

So given that several important factors in price (setting a price that when discounted due to depreciation is still profitable for example) don’t apply to eBooks, why should we as consumers be expected to pay a price similar to that of a hardback book, for an eBook?

While the cheap consumer part of me wants eBooks to be $.99 i acknowledge that it’s a bit unrealistic, since a great deal goes into writing a book, and while a single song is $.99 an entire book, shouldn’t be. Should a book be over $10 for the eBook version? No.

I feel a certain amount of pity for the publishing industry. While the music and movie industry got their heads kicked in, and alienated customers by the thousands, the book industry (rather than learn) watched from a far (i presume) assuming they were immune. Then Amazon came and fucked it all up for them.

Now they’re doing the same thing those other two industries did (killing speach to text on the Kindle, charging $15 for an eBook, etc), and not surprisingly the same type of backlash is being felt.

Publishing at least seems to have learned a little from their cousins in movies and music, but not enough I think.

Tags: Books, Business, eBooks, Kindle, Publishing, Technology, Writing

The Creator of the eBook is wrong

I’ll admit, I had no idea who Michael Hart is. But he’s wrong. Over on the Project Gutenberg blog he says the eBook reader will never take off, and lists some reasons why, in his mind he’s correct. (I’m sure there’s no bias as the founder of PG) I’m going to debunk them based on my own world view. (Be warned, his list is long and wordy, even before I add my two cents)

There are several reasons people will not buy a dedicated eBook reader, and some of them a very powerful reasons that cannot be argued with via any intelligent reasoning rationality.

First: the new generations are used to screens the size of Nintendo GameBoys, grew up on them.

Not sure what generation he’s talking about. Sure my neice and nephew are both Nintendo DS freaks, but they have a real computer at home. My mom asked me if she should get an iPhone and stop having a computer, my answer was no. There’s no way I would sit for hours playing aroudn on the internet on an iPhone, I know my mom couldn’t. She’d be blind before the next iPhone was released. I don’t own a netbook, and I sold my Nokia N800. my iPod Touch and iPhone are both great, and both run the Kindle app, and I use neither.

Second: the new generations also think screens on cell phones are just fine, and most of those are now even larger.

I’d argue that “just fine” is more along the lines of don’t know any better. I’d also argue that when a kids gets in front of a netbook or laptop with a more usable display, with WAY better resolution, they’d feel the same way I do. iPhones rock for quick look up, waiting room internet goofing around, etc. but I’m not going to sit o my couch, with my iPhone up to my face to work through emails or tweets even.

Third: the new generations have always got the paperback editions as much as the hardbacks, so they don’t have the same nostalgia for Look And Feel of those as do people who stared reading a while before paperbacks became very acceptable.

Fourth, Fifth, etc. the alternatives. . . .

This is completely bunk. I’m one of those paperback generation types. I don’tbuy hardcovers unless I either a. can’t wait for the paperback or b. want to show off a nice hardbound book on my bookshelve and get a few +1 book geek cred points.

I love the feel and smell of books, even paperbacks. I’m sure scribes loved the feel and smell of parchment, and olden day mathameticians loved the feedl of abacas beads, and slide rules. Times change. To bring a more relevant example up. CDs, and DVDs. Many folks love to have them lined up nicely in huge shelves, they like to read the jackets, look at the cover art, absorb every iota of director commentary. Yet iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, et al. are still doing pretty darn good. Times change, and whether we all want to or not, we change with them, it’s kinda silly to think in 20 years books will be common place. They’ll be antiques.

Fourth: most people don’t realize it, but many cell phones also come with WiFi built in so the unit is basically a small Kindle to start with! You don’t even have to have the phone activated to use the WiFi functions, which usually have a pretty normal browser, text reader, and such in them to start with, and also accept any numbers of third party programs most eBook readers have already heard of, no need for me to pitch them.

Clearly Mr. Hart has never tried to exist on WiFi alone. It’s far from ubiquitous. Heck broadband penetration in the US is near the lowest in the world if I recall, what makes anyone think Wifi will be different. Sure Indie coffee shops offer free wifi, sometimes it’s craptastic or doesn’t even work, but ya it’s free. Other times you can prey on people who don’t know any better than to lock their AP down.

I actually started out thinking the same thing Mr. Hart does. I bought an iPod Touch, had no music on it, and it was my ‘baby tablet’ or as I called it my iNewton. I carried it everywhere for about a month, then I gave up as most places I went had no wifi.

Fifth: many PDAs are also available that do an awful lot of the same things described above at a much lower cost than a Kindle, Sony, etc.

Sure, very true, and a lot of people will use those devices, prefering the jack of all trades master of none device. If you’re willing to make compromises, a PDA screen (usually no more than 3×2ish) will work, you can read a ‘page’ of text every 4-5 changes of the screen, with anywhere near useful fonts, and come talk to me after a marathon rainy saturday book reading exercise, or a long wait at a doctor’s office.

By that logic, we’d all own motorola razors, because they too have basic internet browsing, messaging, and actually have video and MMS messaging, unlike the iPhone, which contrary to that thought, is doing quite well in the market.

Sixth: if the largest cell phone screens would not do, even the iPhone, Curve, etc., there are all the new netbooks coming out that should get the job done in any number of ways as far as an eBook presentation goes, from reading out loud, dozens of programs to choose from to read or to listen via text to speech, etc.

See above. Sure you can squeeze all kinds of other uses into devices. A netbook also makes an excellent door stop when opened halfway, but why not use a door stop? A newton 2100 can run a basic webserver, costs way less than a rack mount Dell, why not use those to serve websites all over the world? Sure those are extreme examples intended to be silly, but they’re not far off you have to admit.

Seventh: in all the history of electronics the dedicated products, those that do only one good thing, rather than the integrated products, are never known to sell very well.

To quote fake Steve Jobs, “Dude, I invented the friggin iPhone. Have you heard of it?” But way before the iPhone was the iPod, it played music. It didn’t have an FM radio built in, it didn’t record audio notes, it was a music player, and mostly still in, unless you’re one of ‘those’ people who watch movies and TV on a tiny mostly square screen. Sure the multi taskerdevices are nice and 90% of our world is made up of those devices, but the other 10% are uni taskers, that do their single task REALLY well. Oh yeah there’s Zunes, and Rios and whatever else, that have tried the multi tasker route, how’s that worked out for them?

It’s like buying a HiFi that has one box for FM and one for AM, another as a pre-amplifier, and another as an amplifier, another bass or treble controls box, etc., versus one box for all.

Not to be mean, but the examples alone point out to me, that Mr. Hart is simply dated. Funny that some one so attached to ‘old ways of live’ would have invented something so game changing as eBooks, but hey, we all have our moments. I mean really? A HiFi?

Why would someone spend the same amount of cash on a Kindle/Sony as on a netbook or a laptop?

Speaking strictly for myself, here’s why

• I wouldn’t take a netbook/laptop to the gym, my Kindle is on the eliptical with me each day.
• I can’t read my laptop/netbook while taking off and landing. Some say I’m probably not supposed to with a Kindle, but no one has said anything, and since the power output is only in changing the page, and tiny to boot, I’d argue airlines rules have to change (separate post).
• I never carried a book in my laptop bag, except when traveling. Now I cary a few dozen or less all the time.
• I can’t compute on myMacbook in direct sunlight, reading would be out, but I’ve enjoyed my Kindle on my deck more than once.
• I can toss my Kindle around, drop it (just did this morning) and pick it up and never worry it’s harmed, I can’t say the same for my laptop/netbook
• I can read (and have) for hours on my Kindle. My eyes get sore/tired when I read long blog posts on my disply. And it’s a nice display.
  

The Kindle isn’t portable enough to be the more take along kind of item than a netbook/laptop.

I can’t imagine anything more portable. It weighs almost nothing, is the size of a Moleskine.

It would appear that ONLY the person who has an awful time reading would want a Kindle, simply, and truly, just because of the variable fonts & and the new X2 being about to read out loud, or the kind of person who just wants to have a lot of the latest toys and doesn’t care about price to benefits ratios and the like.

I’d say the converse is true, the only person who doesn’t want a Kindle/Sony is the person who doesn’t read much now, so the cost makes no sense, or the person who wants to crack open a hardback, recline in their lay-z boy and put a 45 on the turn table and enjoy ‘their’ reading experience, enjoying their anacronistic lifestyle.

Eighth: there are simply not enough Kindles to really change the eBook environment.

There weren’t enough iPods for the recording industry to care about when they launched either.

Just think about how many eBooks there are now, millions of eBooks given away in average months just from gutenberg.org.

Nothing against PG, but really? some of us like more modern reads.I mean PG is great, and I’ve got some classics on my Kindle just so I can have them when I want, but really,some of us are reading books published this milennia.

iTunes had its first million selling tune about a year ago, really only ~1 year after getting a shakedown cruise over with.

If every person who has a Kindle or a Sony buys the same book, only by adding their combination of sales will they manage a million seller, and that is not likely to happen anytime soon.

This I can’t argue with, but I think Mr. hart overlooks the underlying truth. Reading isn’t a big deal any more. Literacy is frighteningly low. People are “too busy” to read I’ve had people tell me to my face they wish they had the time to read. To which I typically say if it’s important you make time, same as anything else. Is surfing Digg, more important? It’s not a reflection on the Kindle that there isn’t yet a 1 millionth book sold, it’s a reflection on American literacy.

How long before Amazon or Sony comes out with a new model that won’t read all the previous book entries on the old models?

You mean like when VHS replaced BetaMAX? Sure Amazon/Sony could release a new device that can’t read their old formats, but that’d be kinda retarded. Anything is possible, but I hope they’ve been watching Apple. My Kindle 2 in 5 years may not get any firmware update love, but neither does my 1st Gen iPod color. But it still plays music like a champ.

How long before the first Kindle and first Sony are antique collector items rather than a real, live and well-used eBook reader?

Time will tell, but they’re electronics, so it won’t be long. Same as netbooks of today, will be cute children’s toys in the not too far future. I mean really, does Mr. Hart think that the netbooks and mobile phones he thinks we’ll be using will be around forever, not to be relegated to the antique pile? Where’d I put my Handspring Visor anyway?

This is NOT going to happen with eBooks from an assortment of other sources that have been here for much longer than Kindles or Sonys; the very first Project Gutenberg entry is still readable on any modern machine, the only thing is that a file from that era had only capitals if made on the normally available equipment of 1971 but it still works, and looks just the same now as the files downloaded on the first full day of eBook pioneering, July 5, 1971.

Is anyone even going to pretend that Kindle and Sony will even read their own proprietary files 38 years from 2009?

This is the crux of the issue. To Mr. Hart it’s clear eBook is text file. Sure 100 years from now .txt will likely still be a valid format, much like sheet music is. But who can play an 8 track? Mr. Hart is comparing the eBook as a ‘thing’ to ebook readers. Which is like comparing music to iPods. Sure the Kindle may be gone in a few decades, so will the iPod, but the medium won’t. Books and music will still be here.

And just the same as we can still play wavs, mp3, etc, we’ll be able to read eBooks, because the creative/intelligent companies will offer backwards compatibility or like iTunes, “convert your x format to the new Y format” Sure formats die, happens all the time, and I frankly hope Amazons DRM dies like the iPod’s. But it took time, I’m patient (not really, but can be when I have to be)

Sorry this was so long, but it really irks me when people get traction for their thoughts, by writing such meaningless biased crap. It’s as if chicken little had a blog.

There’s more to Mr.Hart’s ramblings if you’re so inclined, I literally could have put his whole post into mine, and picked each thing apart, but frankly ithink it would have been moot, after debunking his list.

Tags: eBooks, iPhone, iTunes, Kindle, Steve Jobs, Technology, Writing

The Kindle needs an iTunes app

Amazon quietly roled out kindle.amazon.com the other day. It’s a pretty cool but only slightly useful idea.

It’s a cool idea, you login with your amazon account and can see your Kindle content, mostly.

I’ve been thinking on this for a while and I think (I hope) that kindle.amazon.com is Amazon’s first step in ‘killing it’ as the kids say.

A lot of people have said, myself included, that the iPod alone wasn’t the winning solution, iTunes was a huge part the success. library management that works flawlessly with the device. The Kindle needs this, like yesterday.

The Kindle UI is craptastic, and there’s no way to manage content. iTunes is the secret sauce for the iPod/iPhone. you don’t need to keep all your stuff on the device, or manage it from the device. There’s an easy to use, clean interface on the desktop to manage all your media, then you sync what you want. It’s all contained and orderly and easy to manage.

The Kindle has nothing like that. You manage your media on the Kindle itself with basic “Remove from device” functionality, which puts (purchased) content into the archive, which Amazon stores in the cloud. You can pull archived content back into the Kindle, but that’s it. It’s on or off the device.

What about stuff you put on the Kindle yourself? You’re SOL. User created content can’t be archived, it can only be deleted. Sure you can keep it on the computer in a folder somewhere and when you plug the Kindle in you can copy it over again, but that’s janky to say the least.

kindle.amazon.com comes close, allowing you to manage your Kindle library (except you can only see it, not control/change anything) and see your annotations… on purchased content only. Content you’ve put on the device is notably missing. Meaning annotations you’ve placed on ebooks you loaded yourself are still tricky to retrieve/make use of and only available on the Kindle itself.

If Amazon really wants to nail the eBook reader market, they need to realize what Apple did, a device alone, while awesome, isn’t the solution. The desktop client that makes it easy to manage your library is a must. It might be too much to ask, but it’d be nice if the me@free.kindle.com functionality was built into the desktop app so I could convert my PDFs etc on my own and sync over USB.

I think the first company to launch a nice and easy to use eBook reader (the Kindle MOSTLY fits the bill) AND desktop library management application will be the winner. Until then, the race isn’t won and I hope Amazon doesn’t drop the ball at this important point in the eBook race.

Tags: Books, Business, iPhone, iTunes, Kindle, Technology

A big screen Kindle? Not interested or interesting

So this morning is the big “Kindle Announcement”

The leading theory is a larger screened ‘Kindle DX’ (wonder what DX is for? In Honda’s the DX is the base model)

For newspapers and college texts. What I don’t get is why does it need to have a larger screen? Newspapers are larger physically than books, yes that’s true. College Text books range from paperbacks, to heavy ass bug squishers, yes that’s true too. But we’re going digital, so why should the form factor mimic the old analog model?

Newspapers are arrayed in columns, which fits the Kindle form factor nicely. Select a column to read, scroll through it, go back the TOC and select a new column. Why would I need a larger screen for that? To display two or three columns? What’s the net benefit of that?

Text books are just books, they read from page to page and usually have lots of pictures and graphs. I can say, a diagram would be easier to appreciate on a larger screen, since the Kindle 2 shrinks the graphic to fit it’s screen. Larger complex graphics may not work well for that. Since the new “Kindle DX” isn’t color, I can’t really see it being better for images, than the current model.

All that said, AND a larger device is 1. more breakable and 2. larger and more combursome. So where’s the benefit to a college kid? or my mom (the likely target of the newspaper angle)?

So what I really hope tomorrow is all about is new features for the Kindle 2. Features that will make newspaper reading better, and make the Kindle 2 even more College friendly.

Such as?

1. shared annotation. College kids swap notes, share info, even sometimes share text books. Being able to collaborate on reading will be a huge boon. If I could be at my mom’s house doing my laundry, catching up on my Econ reading, and could make a note that my room mate would see later when he goes to do his reading, that would be priceless.
2. Better highlighting and bookmarking. I’d want to be able to quickly ‘open’ a text book and have a list of my ‘dog ears’ or highlights, for that book only.
3. Folder or some sort of tagging structure. Figure each college course will have several books, textbooks, required reading, etc. Having X pages to flip through looking for the right book, is whack. It’s one case when they’re books you intentionally put on your Kindle wanting to read. You likely know the names. But college textbooks with names that mean nothing to you, are long, and usually very wordy, good luck. Being able to separate econ books from romantic lit, and poli sci, would be a huge time/effort saver.
4. Better TOC support for newspapers. Ideally some HTML/CSS approach that everyone can use. Something to make it easy to hop around the paper
5. Support for “my newspaper” type subscriptions. I’d subscribe to several newspapers if I could exclude sports, real estate, movies, etc. All the shit I toss from my regular Sunday paper. If I could customize my newspaper to be the business section from the NYT, and WSJ, the tech and calendar from the San Jose Mercury News, and the Arts section from some other paper, I’d be in like Flynn. I mean it’s a digital paper, why not take advantage of the things digital has to offer?

I suspect nothing from my list will be revealed today :( but my fingers are crossed.

Tags: Business, Kindle, Technology

Guess we’re lucky we have cars and electricity

In perusing my kindlefeeder report this morning I came across two very interesting blog posts, about the same topic. Apparently the New York Times (not dead yet?) had an article about the Kindle and essentially literary snobbery. Here’s Joe’s thoughts, and CJ’s.

I hereby put not only the NYT, which is fighting against time for it’s own life, but the author (JOANNE KAUFMAN) of yet another (basically) ‘progress is ruining it!’ article on blast. GET OVER YOURSELVES.

I’m the first to admit, I have very strong elitist tendencies, and my mac snobbery knows few bounds. That said though, I don’t care who sees me with what book, and I carry my Mac as proudly (though with only one arm, not two) as I did my Dell.

The Kindle is, as I’ce said before, a game changer for publishing. The wall of books, to impress your friends, will be gone in another 20 years or less. Just like the enormous display of CDs and (largely) DVDs on display near your TV and home entertainment center is already gone. That’s just how it works. There’s also not a stable in my back yard, not a store room of candles, or a cellar with huge blocks of ice.

Tom mentioned this when we got our Kindle’s and you can see it on this snapshot, The Kindle it letting people read crap they’d probably be too embarrassed to read otherwise.

Sara Nelson is clearly to entrenched in her own world to really appreciate what consumers want, this quote clearly illustrates that.

“It’s really expensive,” she said of the Kindle 2, which Amazon sells for $359. “If you’re going to pay that, you’re giving a statement to the world that you like to read — and you’re probably not using it to read a mass market paperback.”

So let’s think about this from two perspectives; 1. the best selling list from Amazon. While not yet Mass Market Paperbacks the teen vampire series is clearly (no offense) not Tolkien or Dostoevsky or even King, and while I’m sure the NeoCons are loving their manifesto, it’s certainly not going to be a classic. 2. let’s look at my my Kindle. Two mass Market Paperbacks, a business book, KindleFeeder report, and the collected works of Poe, oh and the Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (cuz you know, I’m a kid at heart, and my girl Beatrix rocked). So while I’m sure Ms. Nelson only has the classics from the most famous writers on her Kindle, the rest of us are either putting what we’d normally carry, or putting what we’d be embarrassed to carry on ours.

Oh and don’t worry Anne Fadiman, your book won’t be requested on the Kindle, good luck with the sales and making your royalty back.

TO some book lovers and editors, there are myriad reasons to deplore the Kindle. Publishers will no longer get the bump that comes when travelers see someone reading, say, the latest James Patterson and say to themselves: “I’ve been meaning to get that. I think I’ll buy a copy at Hudson News before I hop on the train.”

Joe poked fun at this line and I’m going to too. It’s retarded! Who does that? Who is so simple minded and forgetful, that while waiting for a train (something they do every day) they see a book in someone’s hand and it flips a switch in their brain that today is the day they need to buy that book?

How’s this scenario, which is enabled by the kindle. You’re at that same train station and realize you finished your book last night on the way home. You either a, have other books ready to be read, already on your Kindle, or b, you fire up the Kindle store (conveniently on the Kindle) and browse and purchase a new book, that is on your device in a minute or two.

There have have been plenty of times I’ve been at an airport (coming or going) and realized that the book I brought I was almost finished with, or I finish it my first night in the hotel. Books are awesome but heavy so packing spares and back ups is not something I enjoy doing, in the off chance I’ll finish the one I’m reading. Schlepping dead tree around sucks.

In reading the article it reinforces for me the (as with the music industry) fucked up nature of publishing. Publishers and Authors alike, can’t stop being reactionary and freaking out for one minute, to realize that (just like the iPod) the Kindle is going to reinvigorate people to read, and boost sales.

And services like KindleFeeder and (to pimp my own stuff) 360Whisperings, will be the wave of the future, offering just what you want in a portable format that doesn’t waste paper!

Tags: Books, Kindle, Technology

Kindle !=Book, just like iPod !=Tape Deck

saw this post and got to thinking, what a bunch of reactionary malarky. Perhaps the write is just trying to get some link love, and that’s fine.

The author makes some basic assertions, that not only don’t really apply or stand up, but seem to be based on strangely romantic, almost anti technology notions.

“Argument one: The Kindle destroys the trace of the author. After the death of the individual author, books continue to live…”

If for no other reason than it’s wasteful, Any book I purchase on the Kindle isn’t likely to go away. Most of my paper books are on my shelves, books are meaningful.  I can’t argue that there’s something special about the feel and heft of a book, but it’s 2009, we don’t play music on magnetic tape, and we don’t need to kill trees to read about over sexed vampire teenagers. So yeah the Kindle isn’t the same, but that’s not a detractor, any more than a tractor not being a vespa doesn’t make one better than the other.

“Argument two: the Kindle destroys the community of readers which books engender. The Kindle has been devised by a society that wants to make profit each time a text is read rather than each time a book is purchased. In the old system, once I bought a book I owned it as an object. I could read it as many times as I liked and give it to friends who may give it to their friends…”

Long before the Kindle arrived, I hadn’t set foot in a Library in years. The only time I went into a book store was the random time I needed a book faster than amazon could deliver it, or was traveling. While I might be alone in this, I almost never loan out books. I’ve purchased a new book and gifted it, several times. Books that meant something special to me, were purchased for people, never gifted. I can count on one hand the books I’ve loaned out. People don’t value other people’s things, they lose them, mistreat them, etc.

The Kindle changes the field, most definitely. Sadly we’re at a stage in technology where long standing industries don’t grasp technology so they try to lock it down. But if you look at the iPod, you’ll see the future of eBooks, unlocked, open to owner to use fairly. Being able to one day trade notes on a shared book, is what I’m hoping the Kindle offers.

“Argument three: the Kindle denies the call to deep, meditative reflection. Books have a magic power in that they can draw us into the world of the author and make time pass quickly while we are immersed in the text. The book is the ideal format for presenting complicated, philosophical arguments that require the reader to pause between paragraphs and reflect. The Kindle is the opposite — it is merely a television for reading text, a computer that will distract us…”

This pretty much clears it up that the author hasn’t ever used a Kindle beyond possibly picking one up off a friends desk and shaking his head and sitting it down. I’m currently reading “Metal Storm: Book 5 (I think) in the Saga of the Seven Suns” and having read the first 4 in paperback, I can say the experience of reading this book on the Kindle compared to the other 4, no different. Not even tin the slightest. I ‘flip’ to the next page and can pause to reflect. The metaphors associated with books, really translate well across the paper to bit divide.

I’d be willing to bet the author hasn’t been in a library any more recently than I have. I don’t know anyone who goes to libraries, I live very near the Denver Metro Library. The few people I know who use libraries do so to rent movies, go figure.

Libraries were great! So were drive-ins, and malt shops. The Kindle destroys libraries and books, the same way the iPod destroys music and recording, that is to say, IT DOESN’T.

I seriously hope that Micah (The author) doesn’t own an iPod, a TiVo, or a DVD or Blue Ray player, as those devices all evolved their respective mediums, not destroyed them.

As much as I hate giving link traffic to places I think don’t deserve it, you’ll have to read the entire article if you want all of Micah’s alarmist, fear mongering style arguments.

Tags: Books, Kindle, Technology

Hacking your Kindle!

I stumbled across this while plugging feeds into my Kindlefeeder account (A Must for Kindle owners!!).

It’s funny too, since I had been wondering if I could add or remove the images it uses as sleep images. They’re ok and all, some are really cool, but they’re getting old.

Was thinking it’d be cool to use my own, greyscale or no.

Low and behold here we are!

The process is crazy easy, and reversible!

I’ve found some images just don’t work, I actually went and took each image I wanted to use, and saved it as 600×800 PNG, but still every once in a while a sleep image is just a blank screen.

Give it a shot! I wish Amazon would open the Kindle up a bit more, I mean really? custom screen images, not very hard Amazon, and definitely makes the device feel more like “me”

Tags: Kindle, Technology

Our Country’s new CTO, un qualified for the job

Saw this on Techcrunch and had to voice my disgust.

While I think a great many Silicon Valley CEOs are douchebag tards too busy telling each other how great they are, I think a great many (and many non CA CEOs) are highly intelligent, savvy guys (and gals). All very much people I’d be happy to see serve their country as our CTO.

Instead, President Obama has selected Aneesh Paul Chopra.

So who is Aneesh Paul Chopra? Good question, one I’m sure echoed around the country a lot when it was announced. Lots of “Who?”

Chopra currently serves as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, and has previous acted as the Managing Director for the Advisory Board Company, where he advised executives on health care operations.

So he’s experienced in our frakked up healthcare system, great.

According to Virginia’s state website, Chopra was recently recognized by Government Technology Magazine’s for excellent ‘use of technology to improve government’, and he was awarded Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s 2007 State Leadership Advocacy Award.

So a group government bureaucrats think he’s a great guy, and has ‘improved government’ through technology. Let’s see, healthcare is still expensive and inefficient, hospitals are slow and disorganized, electronic records are non existent. Wonder what he’s been up to? Wonder what makes him even remotely qualified to be our CTO?

I’m sad that President Obama, has chosen a bureaucrat as our CTO. He had an awesome chance to really take us forward technologically.

According to this article published in the Washington Post in 2005, Chopra was not a career technologist before he became Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, but he has extensive experience in policy making.

Great, a clearly non-innovative, non technological person.

When I worked out Ameriquest, one of the worst parts, was the CIO. Like Chopra she wasn’t a coder or technologist. Rather she saw the ‘benefit’ in management over actual experience or expertise. Chopra’s “primary understanding is from customer need, not bits and bytes”. Which == crap. I know because our CIO spouted the same crap when asked what her experience.

The CIO was terrible, her skill was kissing ass, and managing up, coming up with grand schemes that wasted time, wasted effort, wasted money, and in the end got her ousted by a ‘better’ (and equally as technologically inept) ass kisser.

Sadly I doubt President Obama will fire Chopra and replace him, so our first CTO, for the next 4 or 8 years, is a bureaucrat, with little to no TECHNOLOGY experience. I’m not sure what the ‘T’ in Obama’s CTO is, but guessing it’s not Technology.

I know Obama is a politician, but so far he’s two for two as far as I’m concerned, working to squash the illegal wire tapping program Bush started, and now this clear political ass grab.

Tags: Obama, politics, Technology

Close the patent office right now!

This AppleInsider post is further proof, that the patent system is 100% flawed.

MONEC Holding Ltd, can rot in hell. I’ve never heard of them, and based on their website I’m guessing they’re nothing more than a patent troll.

Basically, they’re suing Apple (Not Amazon) for hyping the iPod/iPhone as a touch screen eBook reader. Something they patented in 2002. What’s wrong with that? Well in 7 years they’ve got nothing to show, clearly and their patent is clearly as vague as possible.

“dimensions such that [...] approximately one page of a book can be illustrated at normal size, this display being integrated in a flat, frame-like housing.”

“Electronic device, preferably an electronic book.”

Emphasis mine, but really? That’s a patent? “I’ll build something that’s sorta like a book, but maybe a touch screen in some kind of frame, and it’ll display ebooks probably.”

WTF?!

Not only should they not have been awarded a patent in the first place, but I strongly maintain that any patent awarded on vaporware should have a life of no more than 5 years. If you can’t execute your idea in 5 years (Less actually, but 5 is easy to use) move aside and let someone else with the means to innovate take a stab at it.

Our patent process is such an innovation killer! Apple certainly does their fair share of patent craziness, but they actualy, eventually execute on a lot of them. Some they don’t and those should also go back into the pool in 5 years.

Patents are rediculous, I challange anyone to show me a patent that’s done good. That hasn’t stifled innovation, that hasn’t locked out competition, for completely stupid reasons, or isn’t just plain stupid (patenting a click, or a molecule, color, shape, etc)

Tags: Apple, patents suck, Technology