The case for paper

I don't want to be seen as one-sided, even though I am, so here's the case for paper.

"Send to Kindle" app

Amazon's Send To Kindle app is cool. It's for both PC and Mac. These are the main features from the Mac page:

• Send personal documents to your Kindle from your Mac.
• Drag and drop one or more documents on to the Send to Kindle icon in your Dock or launch the application and drag and drop one or more documents on to it.
• From any Mac application that can print, select the print menu and choose Send to Kindle.
• From Finder, simply control-click on one or more documents and choose Send to Kindle.
• Choose to archive documents in your Kindle library, where you can re-download them conveniently at any time.

That you can send from the Print command means that you get fully formatted PDF document for your Kindle app (best viewed on a color screen often), from any app with a Print command, it reads perfectly in the Kindle app, and it's like two clicks to send. So for example if somebody sends you a long Word document, and you'd like to read it on your iPad, on the sofa or the bus, it's five seconds' work to make that happen. 

Fortune 500 Companies Moving to iPad Hits 94%

Fortune 500 Companies Moving to iPad Hits 94%, post.

This is astounding. Not only could Apple never get a solid foothold in interprise with the Macintosh, but I would honestly have suspected that the story would repeat to some degree with tablets, because bureaucrats are still bureaucrats and geeks are still geeks, and the former still believe in uniformity and compatibility (no matter how weak), and the latter still believe in open platforms (no matter how divided), so one would think they would much rather have the multi-company platform Android than the walled garden of Apple's iPad. But no, it seems not!

Also, to be honest, so far as I know, the apps available for serious business use are still not a very strong offering on iPad. You know, networking, editing and collaborating on Office documents, etc. I'd love to hear if I'm wrong and I've missed something. (I don't mean to imply that Android is strong there, it's probably even weaker.)

How to Download EPUB, PDF, and Mobipocket to the Kindle Fire

How to Download EPUB, PDF, and Mobipocket to the Kindle Fire, article.
Getting Aldiko Book Reader onto your Kindle Fire takes some effort. In a protectionist move that puts even Apple to shame, Amazon prevents EPUB reading apps from being accessed from the Kindle Fire, even though the company allows EPUB reading apps to be in the Amazon Appstore for Android for other devices.

I couldn’t install Aldiko Reader on my KF from the Aldiko site (even the Install link did nothing). So in desperation I tried the Google Play store, and whaddayaknow, it worked! (For a moment it seemed like it hadn’t, but then I went down to Menu/downloads, and found the file and installed it.) Isn’t that something? Supposedly you can't use the Google Play store on the Kindle Fire. 

It’s *really* lame that Amazon is keeping ePub reading apps out of their store. I like their success and their stuff, but when the umpire isn’t looking, they really play dirty. 

And I don’t like when people/companies consider a monopoly as the only Win scenario. It’s actually akin to nazism, there must be no competing ideas. (Maybe that's a bit strong, excuse me, I have just watched Downfall.)