Ok, 1 last thing about the Kindle. I know I mentioned in my first Kindle post about how you can email your text files to your Kindle but as I read more about it I find out more stuff.
It's not just text files. It's also pdf files so if you have a manual in pdf format then you will have it on your Kindle. Sometimes if you buy like a DVD player or a printer or whatever, I'm pulling at straws here, you can go to that manufacturers website and download the manual in pdf format. Well, who wants to sit and read the manual on the computer? Especially if the hardware you need to read about is in the other room. Say it's your tv's manual or your washer and dryer. You can just download that and send it to your Kindle and it converts it to Kindle format so you can read it.
I'm not sure if the Kindle puts your e-books, e-magazines and e-newspapers in categories or not, I think it would be a good idea though because if you get e-newspapers you will want them to be stores in there in folders. Like say you get the LA times and the NY times. Well, you don't want them to be in the same area as everything else like your books. If you get the newspaper and magazines on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis then the list will be too long so if you want to search for the book you are reading you have to scroll through the list of stuff.
Ok getting back to what I was talking about with sending text and pdf files to your kindle. You can also download free e-books and send them to your kindle. Oh and I read you can send pictures too. Now, I'm not too sure about pictures with black and white technology. I think I would much rather enjoy my pictures in color so that would certainly be something I would want to have but somewhere down the line when it has color. Right now I have all of my photo albums cropped to widescreen 3x5 for my PSP and the pictures are pretty small so when I go to show them off it's still a good size to look at but you know, it's still small. But at least I can carry all of my pictures. But you can't see them in the sunlight on my PSP.
Oh that reminds me. You can read your kindle out in the sunlight and it shows up just like a regular book thanks to e-ink. The screen isn't shiny either so there is no glare from the screen. If you are using a cell phone or pda or something as an e-book you have to cover it with your hands to be able to see it outside in the sunlight. Well, the Kindle with e-ink allows you to actually see what you are reading. And since it doesn't have a tv type of a screen you can't see it in the dark but the new Kindle 2 has lights around the page I think on both sides. Or maybe that was another e-book, I don't remember now, I'm getting them confused. I did see a Kindle light that clips to the kindle but it was made for the Kindle 1.
Ok, I can't make any promises that I won't obsess any more about this. I've pretty much touched on everything that I can think of but who knows, maybe tomorrow I might read about something that I didn't know and obsess about that. Maybe my obsession will have so much text that you will have to convert it all into pdf format and it will be so long that it will be your next e-book or e-novel. Maybe I'll shut up about it. Who knows.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Amazon Kindle 2
In my previous blog about e-books I talked about the pro's and con's of e-books. Well, most of the day I've been obsessively researching e-book technology and I have to say that I'm really excited about the future.
E-books use e-ink. They don't hardly use any power so the battery lasts a whole week. You turn it on, press the menu and find the book you are reading, and by the way it shows in that menu the page you were on so you don't have to find where you were at, it keeps it bookmarked from the last page you were reading. Then you click the book you want to read and start reading. Once that page is loaded it stops using any of the power from the battery. You can have it sitting there for an hour on that page and it won't use any power. Once you press the button to turn the page then it uses power to turn the page then you see the words change and then no more power usage. The battery will last basically a week before you have to charge it at all. And when you do charge it, it takes about 2 hours to charge.
If however you are flipping through the Amazon website and flipping through pages of a e-magazine then yeah, it's going to use a lot more of your battery and it will probably last 2 or 3 days before needing charged.
I love the idea of waking up every morning and the newspaper is already downloaded on your kindle.
It would also be good if the catalog companies would deliver their catalogs directly to your Kindle so that you don't have to 1, wait for them to come in the mail and clog up your mail box and 2, waste paper when you throw it out. This way you can flip through them then delete the file when you are finished reading it. That is if you decide you want to, you can keep it if you want.
Another thing I want to obsess er um I mean discuss is the hard drive. The previous Kindle 1 from last year only has a 256mb hard drive allowing you to store 200 e-books but the new Kindle 2 has a 2GB allowing you to have a hell of a lot more. I don't know exactly how many but it's a lot. Can you just imagine maybe in another year or 2 when they come out with the Kindle 3 it might have 2TB. Then you will have a crap load of books and magazines and newspapers. You won't ever have to delete anything because you will have tons of room.
As I said in my last post, I'm waiting for it to be cheaper, in color and have touch screen. Well, I watched a video today of the guy who invented Amazon talking to Martha Stewart and she kept mentioning color e-ink and he said it was in the labs. Not their labs but in labs period. Well, I've been seeing e-books with color e-ink so I know it is possible and I'm sure in Kindle 3 it will have color e-ink.
My other issue is about the touch screen. I think is is a lot better than buttons. I saw an e-book from Dvice.com that was touch screen, all you do is press and drag the page and it turns the page, or you just press the right side of the pager to flip it. And also when you are on the website trying to buy a book you touch the screen for the keyboard and it comes up so you can type the name of the author or book title. I think the Kindle keyboard is just too much. Although it does have more of a use than just buying books, you can make notes in your books. You can also highlight sentences.
E-books use e-ink. They don't hardly use any power so the battery lasts a whole week. You turn it on, press the menu and find the book you are reading, and by the way it shows in that menu the page you were on so you don't have to find where you were at, it keeps it bookmarked from the last page you were reading. Then you click the book you want to read and start reading. Once that page is loaded it stops using any of the power from the battery. You can have it sitting there for an hour on that page and it won't use any power. Once you press the button to turn the page then it uses power to turn the page then you see the words change and then no more power usage. The battery will last basically a week before you have to charge it at all. And when you do charge it, it takes about 2 hours to charge.
If however you are flipping through the Amazon website and flipping through pages of a e-magazine then yeah, it's going to use a lot more of your battery and it will probably last 2 or 3 days before needing charged.
I love the idea of waking up every morning and the newspaper is already downloaded on your kindle.
It would also be good if the catalog companies would deliver their catalogs directly to your Kindle so that you don't have to 1, wait for them to come in the mail and clog up your mail box and 2, waste paper when you throw it out. This way you can flip through them then delete the file when you are finished reading it. That is if you decide you want to, you can keep it if you want.
Another thing I want to obsess er um I mean discuss is the hard drive. The previous Kindle 1 from last year only has a 256mb hard drive allowing you to store 200 e-books but the new Kindle 2 has a 2GB allowing you to have a hell of a lot more. I don't know exactly how many but it's a lot. Can you just imagine maybe in another year or 2 when they come out with the Kindle 3 it might have 2TB. Then you will have a crap load of books and magazines and newspapers. You won't ever have to delete anything because you will have tons of room.
As I said in my last post, I'm waiting for it to be cheaper, in color and have touch screen. Well, I watched a video today of the guy who invented Amazon talking to Martha Stewart and she kept mentioning color e-ink and he said it was in the labs. Not their labs but in labs period. Well, I've been seeing e-books with color e-ink so I know it is possible and I'm sure in Kindle 3 it will have color e-ink.
My other issue is about the touch screen. I think is is a lot better than buttons. I saw an e-book from Dvice.com that was touch screen, all you do is press and drag the page and it turns the page, or you just press the right side of the pager to flip it. And also when you are on the website trying to buy a book you touch the screen for the keyboard and it comes up so you can type the name of the author or book title. I think the Kindle keyboard is just too much. Although it does have more of a use than just buying books, you can make notes in your books. You can also highlight sentences.
Digital books, Newspapers and Magazines
Have you seen the new e-books that are coming out? If you go to www.dvice.com you can see the new Kindle 2 along with 5 other e-books. This is the future of reading people.
I see some pro's and con's to this whole concept. The pro's that I see are a more green way of reading. You don't have to worry about the fact that they are cutting down trees for your reading pleasure. All your newspaper and magazine subscriptions come straight to your e-book automatically on the date they are normally delivered to your doorstep or mailbox.
But the con's are that if you want to buy a magazine that you see at the grocery store at the checkout counter, you can't because they are all gone. That's the beauty of buying those rag magazines is that you normally wouldn't buy a subscription, you just get 1 magazine. And the newspaper is sorta similar, some people don't want it every day, they just want 1 paper. And you won't be able to clip out an article and paste it in a album showing that you were in the newspaper. Instead now you have to go to the newspapers website and search for that article and print it out. Or you can just take a picture of the article up on the screen on your e-book.
But on the other hand, if you are able to take a screen shot of the article then said article will never turn yellow over time.
**HUGE EDIT** I took out how I talked about a huge flaw in the discount and the edit about how there is a discount but some books don't. I guess if you buy a book with a huge $20 discount you can't complain when a book costs more than the actul paperback. In those cases, just buy the paperback.
Me personally, I look forward to the digital conversion. The Amazon Kindle 2 connects to their website so you can search for books and you don't have to pay for the connection to the internet. And I SO look forward to the newspaper being digital because maybe if there is urgent news you might get an evening edition. Who knows.
The only issue I have with this whole idea is that they are so freakin' expensive right now. $359 for the Amazon Kindle 1 and 2. Ok, why is the Kindle 1 still $359? The Kindle 2 has a bigger hard drive and 25% more battery life, it's also thinner and lighter. The kindle 1 has 256mb hard drive, the kindle 2 has 2 GB. Yet they are both the same price? That makes no sense. I think they should bring the price down on the Kindle 1 as an incentive to buy it as a starter e-book for people who can't afford it. Then later when they want to upgrade then they can buy the Kindle 2.
What I am waiting for are 3 things. The price to drop, color and touch screen. I watched a video on the Amazon Kindle site where the guy who created Amazon was on Martha Stewart and she kept asking about color and he said that it's in the labs so it is going to be in a future e-book. Let's hope there will be touch screen soon too for the Kindle. I went to Sony's e-book site to check prices and they are way more than Amazon. I'd much rather have the Kindle in that regard.
Add: I forgot to mention that one of the pro's of the Kindle is that you don't even need a computer to buy and download books, magazines and newspapers. And if you want a document to be on your kindle you just email it to your kindle account and it converts the file to the kindle file so you can keep it there. So you aren't just limited to Kindle books, if you buy a book somewhere else (or if someone gives you a copy of an e-book) you just email it and it converts it.
I see some pro's and con's to this whole concept. The pro's that I see are a more green way of reading. You don't have to worry about the fact that they are cutting down trees for your reading pleasure. All your newspaper and magazine subscriptions come straight to your e-book automatically on the date they are normally delivered to your doorstep or mailbox.
But the con's are that if you want to buy a magazine that you see at the grocery store at the checkout counter, you can't because they are all gone. That's the beauty of buying those rag magazines is that you normally wouldn't buy a subscription, you just get 1 magazine. And the newspaper is sorta similar, some people don't want it every day, they just want 1 paper. And you won't be able to clip out an article and paste it in a album showing that you were in the newspaper. Instead now you have to go to the newspapers website and search for that article and print it out. Or you can just take a picture of the article up on the screen on your e-book.
But on the other hand, if you are able to take a screen shot of the article then said article will never turn yellow over time.
**HUGE EDIT** I took out how I talked about a huge flaw in the discount and the edit about how there is a discount but some books don't. I guess if you buy a book with a huge $20 discount you can't complain when a book costs more than the actul paperback. In those cases, just buy the paperback.
Me personally, I look forward to the digital conversion. The Amazon Kindle 2 connects to their website so you can search for books and you don't have to pay for the connection to the internet. And I SO look forward to the newspaper being digital because maybe if there is urgent news you might get an evening edition. Who knows.
The only issue I have with this whole idea is that they are so freakin' expensive right now. $359 for the Amazon Kindle 1 and 2. Ok, why is the Kindle 1 still $359? The Kindle 2 has a bigger hard drive and 25% more battery life, it's also thinner and lighter. The kindle 1 has 256mb hard drive, the kindle 2 has 2 GB. Yet they are both the same price? That makes no sense. I think they should bring the price down on the Kindle 1 as an incentive to buy it as a starter e-book for people who can't afford it. Then later when they want to upgrade then they can buy the Kindle 2.
What I am waiting for are 3 things. The price to drop, color and touch screen. I watched a video on the Amazon Kindle site where the guy who created Amazon was on Martha Stewart and she kept asking about color and he said that it's in the labs so it is going to be in a future e-book. Let's hope there will be touch screen soon too for the Kindle. I went to Sony's e-book site to check prices and they are way more than Amazon. I'd much rather have the Kindle in that regard.
Add: I forgot to mention that one of the pro's of the Kindle is that you don't even need a computer to buy and download books, magazines and newspapers. And if you want a document to be on your kindle you just email it to your kindle account and it converts the file to the kindle file so you can keep it there. So you aren't just limited to Kindle books, if you buy a book somewhere else (or if someone gives you a copy of an e-book) you just email it and it converts it.
DTV Transition
OK, I've been seeing these DTV commercials since last year when they first started them. It's not only commercials but a ticker at the top of the screen all freakin' day long. Thank goodness I don't have to see that while watching my shows at night.
If you don't have a TV then you don't know what I'm talking about but basically it says that if you use an antenna to watch TV you have to buy a digital converter box and you can get a coupon from the government who is forcing this upon everyone for a free box. The cable companies are even offering a very basic cable for $10 a month which is unusual. I was paying $55 a month for basic cable which was 2-77 so I'm sure that $10 cable is 2-13 and all the UHF stations like PBS and the Spanish channels.
They were saying that you have until February 19th or somewhere around there to get this box or you will get static on the tv. Well, now they've decided to postpone it until June 12th. Well, that's good for all the procrastinators out there but it's not good for those of us who are well prepared because we gotta hear about it for another 5 months. Can we please just stop these commercials and tickers? Or if not stop them just limit them to 1000 times a day lol. I mean come on, I am so sick of hearing about it. I get it. Put billboards up and quit interrupting my shows with your tickers.
A lot of the commercials are from Bright House cable telling me that I am taken care of because I have Bright House Cable but that I need to tell all my Antenna friends to upgrade. Please stop these commercials lol. I don't want to keep hearing about it. Oh and after June 12th they are going to continue the commercials for another year telling me to tell all the people who don't get a signal anymore to get cable lol.
If you don't have a TV then you don't know what I'm talking about but basically it says that if you use an antenna to watch TV you have to buy a digital converter box and you can get a coupon from the government who is forcing this upon everyone for a free box. The cable companies are even offering a very basic cable for $10 a month which is unusual. I was paying $55 a month for basic cable which was 2-77 so I'm sure that $10 cable is 2-13 and all the UHF stations like PBS and the Spanish channels.
They were saying that you have until February 19th or somewhere around there to get this box or you will get static on the tv. Well, now they've decided to postpone it until June 12th. Well, that's good for all the procrastinators out there but it's not good for those of us who are well prepared because we gotta hear about it for another 5 months. Can we please just stop these commercials and tickers? Or if not stop them just limit them to 1000 times a day lol. I mean come on, I am so sick of hearing about it. I get it. Put billboards up and quit interrupting my shows with your tickers.
A lot of the commercials are from Bright House cable telling me that I am taken care of because I have Bright House Cable but that I need to tell all my Antenna friends to upgrade. Please stop these commercials lol. I don't want to keep hearing about it. Oh and after June 12th they are going to continue the commercials for another year telling me to tell all the people who don't get a signal anymore to get cable lol.
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