New Bang And Olufsen TV, at non-premium price.
Looks pretty nice, and I like that it does not dominate the room like most modern TVs. With many of them you feel like you've invited the Borg inside.
By the way, it's Olufsen with an E because it is from my ol' homeland Denmark. Olufson would be Swedish. (Both mean Son of Oluf.)
Friday, May 25, 2012
"No Name, No Slogan"
The trend of no names or numbers for Kindles or iPads is irritating if you want to search for it. How do you search for (accessories for) the small Kindle ($79)? Nobody knows what to call it. I think it’s arrogant of those companies, they just assume their product is so dominating that no differentiation is necessary.
For example I was looking on Amazon for a nice soft-leather cover for my small Kindle (the current cheap one). I had heard about Cole Haan as having some nice ones. And I found several variations of them, but they seemed to be all for Kindle 2 or 3. And I had no way to limit the search to the small Kindle, because it has no name beyond "Kindle".
For example I was looking on Amazon for a nice soft-leather cover for my small Kindle (the current cheap one). I had heard about Cole Haan as having some nice ones. And I found several variations of them, but they seemed to be all for Kindle 2 or 3. And I had no way to limit the search to the small Kindle, because it has no name beyond "Kindle".
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Get a tablet and then cover
Funny. Just hours ago I was looking (again) into Oberon leather covers. They are really quite unique. And I really like them. The problem is that there's not one of them which I really really like, as it were. I guess my favorite one is is the one with the classic drawing Roof Of Heaven, but that's as much about philosophy and some experiences I've had as it it is about the art.
Also, I don't know, it seems a bit artificial that their covers bend in a big curve. For some reason I feel I would prefer if some actual bends had been put into the leather, so you got something more like a book cover. Perhaps it's because the spine looks forced, not like it's meant to be there.
----
I'm not sure if this iPad Case is too effeminate for me, but it seems to be very nicely made. Whaddaya say, can a man use this and remain a man's man? (By which I don't mean, you know...) I think perhaps the navy one is better, you can't go wrong with dark blue. 
I also like this one, although I'd have preferred the the inside red color to be much darker.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Send to Kindle, formats and Emily Starr books LM Montgomery
I think the Send To Kindle app is very cool. But still... I have two ebooks which I only found on the Net by long and hard search, which were some obscure format which I had to convert myself with Calibre, first into HTML and then into ePub so I could read it on my iPad.
But I now decided I wanted to read them on my Kindle. So I fired up Send To Kindle.
What do you know, while it will send and convert Word documents, PDFs, txt and RTF, it can't do anything with either HTML or ePub! The first one is pretty much the format all e-text is based on, and the other one is the defacto standard in ebooks.
So I had to open the HTML file in Nisus Writer Pro and save it as RTF, then pull that file into Send To Kindle, which sent it to Amazon's server, which converted it to the proprietary Kindle format! OMFG. This overall lack of standards and compatibility is ridiculous. And with all these conversions, it's a miracle any semblance of the books remains, but it seems they are quite readable, correct paragraphs and no odd line breaks or such. Yea.
By the way, the e-books are "Emily Climbs" and "Emily's Quest", by Lucy Maud Montgomery (L. M. Montgomery). Probably others have had their troubles finding them also, so I've posted them now (they are out of copyright so far as I know). You can find them here in RTF format, here in HTML format, and here in ePub format (the last one include the first book, "Emily of New Moon"). Oh, and I'm not sure if this works, but this should be all three books in Kindle format.
"Emily of New Moon" is the first book, "Emily Climbs" is the second. If you are a fan of Montgomery's "Anne of Green Gables" books, you'll probably like these too.
[Note: I believe these books are out of copyright. If I'm mistaken, notify me and I'll take them down. My Gmail address is eolake.]
... Hmm, it seems that Amazon only syncs how far you have come in a book over various devices with books you've bought from them, not with books you've loaded yourself. Is that sound business sense or a little stingy?
But I now decided I wanted to read them on my Kindle. So I fired up Send To Kindle.
What do you know, while it will send and convert Word documents, PDFs, txt and RTF, it can't do anything with either HTML or ePub! The first one is pretty much the format all e-text is based on, and the other one is the defacto standard in ebooks.
So I had to open the HTML file in Nisus Writer Pro and save it as RTF, then pull that file into Send To Kindle, which sent it to Amazon's server, which converted it to the proprietary Kindle format! OMFG. This overall lack of standards and compatibility is ridiculous. And with all these conversions, it's a miracle any semblance of the books remains, but it seems they are quite readable, correct paragraphs and no odd line breaks or such. Yea.
By the way, the e-books are "Emily Climbs" and "Emily's Quest", by Lucy Maud Montgomery (L. M. Montgomery). Probably others have had their troubles finding them also, so I've posted them now (they are out of copyright so far as I know). You can find them here in RTF format, here in HTML format, and here in ePub format (the last one include the first book, "Emily of New Moon"). Oh, and I'm not sure if this works, but this should be all three books in Kindle format.
"Emily of New Moon" is the first book, "Emily Climbs" is the second. If you are a fan of Montgomery's "Anne of Green Gables" books, you'll probably like these too.
[Note: I believe these books are out of copyright. If I'm mistaken, notify me and I'll take them down. My Gmail address is eolake.]
... Hmm, it seems that Amazon only syncs how far you have come in a book over various devices with books you've bought from them, not with books you've loaded yourself. Is that sound business sense or a little stingy?
Saturday, May 19, 2012
"Prize fight" reviews
Entertaining, but also informative in a short format. Good quick overview of some of the most popular devices.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Rumors of next Kindles
Here's speculation about a front-lit e-ink Kindle, and a slightly bigger Kindle Fire (9 inches).
Both interesting if they are true. I particularly wonder if a front lit e-ink reader could overcome my aversion to the grey background, which otherwise is a deal-breaker for me, sadly. Or maybe it's too late, having been reading on the iPad 3, with the super awesome razor-sharp Retina display. I'm not sure.
Both interesting if they are true. I particularly wonder if a front lit e-ink reader could overcome my aversion to the grey background, which otherwise is a deal-breaker for me, sadly. Or maybe it's too late, having been reading on the iPad 3, with the super awesome razor-sharp Retina display. I'm not sure.
iPad and common formats
I'm a huge iPad fan, that's well know. But there are a few issues.
One is: if Apple is going to prance around bragging about how they are inventing the platform which will replace most of the desktop and laptop computers in the world, it is amazingly lame that:
1: Pages on iPad does not use the same file format as Pages on the Mac.
2: The iPad does not support .RTF, one of the most common text formats in the world, and the one used by default by the Mac Apple text processor, TextEdit.
In fact, overall, document exchange between iPad and the existing power platforms is a nightmare, and very limited. If the iPad was being sold as a reader and entertainment center, that would be understandable, but right from the very introduction, Apple made and makes a big deal about the "post-PC world". And for the iPad to build this Brave New Production world without any contact with desktops or laptops and the mountain of existing work is just a crazy idea.
One is: if Apple is going to prance around bragging about how they are inventing the platform which will replace most of the desktop and laptop computers in the world, it is amazingly lame that:
1: Pages on iPad does not use the same file format as Pages on the Mac.
2: The iPad does not support .RTF, one of the most common text formats in the world, and the one used by default by the Mac Apple text processor, TextEdit.
In fact, overall, document exchange between iPad and the existing power platforms is a nightmare, and very limited. If the iPad was being sold as a reader and entertainment center, that would be understandable, but right from the very introduction, Apple made and makes a big deal about the "post-PC world". And for the iPad to build this Brave New Production world without any contact with desktops or laptops and the mountain of existing work is just a crazy idea.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Rooting e-ink Nook
Did you know you can root a Nook (e-ink) ereader so it becomes an Android Tablet? I sure didn’t. I guess most games won't run well on it, but there's bound to be some interesting options which open up, like first of all several different e-reading applications one can use. And Instapaper (or Readability) -compatible apps, making it easy to send web articles to the Nook to be read in clear formatting.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Ereader use study
Tablets use study, article.
A quarter of women are happy to give up sex (25%) to keep their tablet.
Woa. The existence of this blog is an indication of how very important I think readers/tablets (same thing to my mind) are, but still...
A quarter of women are happy to give up sex (25%) to keep their tablet.
Woa. The existence of this blog is an indication of how very important I think readers/tablets (same thing to my mind) are, but still...
Ebooks: a new publishing solution to an old business problem?
Ebooks: a new publishing solution to an old business problem?, article.
The rise in popularity of e-readers such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad presents a new market for magazine and newspaper publishers to explore
This idea hadn't occurred to me, but I think it's a great one.
For many years, micropayment were seen by many, like Jakob Nielsen, Guy Kawasaki, Scott McCloud, and well, me, as being the great solution to content sales on the web. Make a system where people could pay 10 or 25 cents per picture or article, that should work.
A decade ago I was invited to join a micropayment system/company, BitPay I think it was called, which Guy Kawasaki had a stake it. And I have reasons to believe that I was one of the biggest sellers for them. But in the end, they closed. And my own experience showed that when people had the option to buy content in large packages, these sold much better than selling it piecemeal, even though there was not any bulk pricing involved!
I suspect it is the sheer mental weight of making 200 "small" decisions rather than make one bigger one. Because contrary to what one might think, a "small" decision is not all that much less stressing than a larger one. Many people will be familiar with this scenario: having a hard time deciding whether to spend ten cents on a shopping bag, while deciding to buy a stereo system on the spur of the moment. It's the same mechanics at work, so fewer decisions is much less stressing.
The rise in popularity of e-readers such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad presents a new market for magazine and newspaper publishers to explore
This idea hadn't occurred to me, but I think it's a great one.
For many years, micropayment were seen by many, like Jakob Nielsen, Guy Kawasaki, Scott McCloud, and well, me, as being the great solution to content sales on the web. Make a system where people could pay 10 or 25 cents per picture or article, that should work.
A decade ago I was invited to join a micropayment system/company, BitPay I think it was called, which Guy Kawasaki had a stake it. And I have reasons to believe that I was one of the biggest sellers for them. But in the end, they closed. And my own experience showed that when people had the option to buy content in large packages, these sold much better than selling it piecemeal, even though there was not any bulk pricing involved!
I suspect it is the sheer mental weight of making 200 "small" decisions rather than make one bigger one. Because contrary to what one might think, a "small" decision is not all that much less stressing than a larger one. Many people will be familiar with this scenario: having a hard time deciding whether to spend ten cents on a shopping bag, while deciding to buy a stereo system on the spur of the moment. It's the same mechanics at work, so fewer decisions is much less stressing.
"iPhone Plus"
A mock-up of the next iPhone. (Not likely they can make it that slim though.)
I am amazed at what people can make with their 3D packages. As an artist I'm rather envious. I could learn it, you say. Sorry, I don't have the patience (and maybe not the brains). I can barely do basic photoshopping.
(I love that he made a faux Apple page for it.)
I am amazed at what people can make with their 3D packages. As an artist I'm rather envious. I could learn it, you say. Sorry, I don't have the patience (and maybe not the brains). I can barely do basic photoshopping.
(I love that he made a faux Apple page for it.)
Form and content
Writer Maurice Sendak said about ebooks: “I hate them. It’s like making believe there’s another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.”
To be blunt, what bollocks. I am astonished by how otherwise intelligent and educated people can so completely mix up Form and Content. A book is coherent (hopefully) collection of text (or pictures). It is not a stitched stack of paper. It's not a roll of animal skin. It's not a slate of glass and aluminium, or a string of bits. A book is a specialized collection of thoughts presented in a package.
To say that a book is not a book if it's not printed on paper is like saying that a film is not a film unless it's projected off a roll of celluloid.
BTW, this was Sendak. I am not surprised he looked like that. Why are old writers always such bitter old cusses? Maybe being a professional writer is really not good for you?
To be blunt, what bollocks. I am astonished by how otherwise intelligent and educated people can so completely mix up Form and Content. A book is coherent (hopefully) collection of text (or pictures). It is not a stitched stack of paper. It's not a roll of animal skin. It's not a slate of glass and aluminium, or a string of bits. A book is a specialized collection of thoughts presented in a package.
To say that a book is not a book if it's not printed on paper is like saying that a film is not a film unless it's projected off a roll of celluloid.
BTW, this was Sendak. I am not surprised he looked like that. Why are old writers always such bitter old cusses? Maybe being a professional writer is really not good for you?
Thursday, May 10, 2012
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