I want an eBook reader. It was my plan to buy one for myself for Christmas. All this reading on my laptop that I’ve done for the last year is starting to wear on me. There are essentially three viable options. The Amazon Kindle, The Sony eReader Touch, and The Barnes and Noble Nook.
| |
Amazon Kindle |
Sony eReader |
Barnes and Noble Nook |
| Look / Style |
Ugly, large bezel around the screen, hardware keyboard. |
Better than the Kindle |
Best looking by far |
| Interface |
Single screen means easier to use, but no touch screen. |
Simple, intuitive touch screen. The way Steve Jobs intended it. |
OK after some use, two screens means it’s not immediately intuitive. Odd pauses when first opening a book. |
| Book Store |
The best by far. Great selection of purchasable books. Able to load Mobi for pirated books, and able to buy classics for free. |
Kind of a cluster fuck, selection is probably the worst, free google books are scans that don’t read well. ePub support good for pirated books. |
OK book store, more expensive overall, same google books problem as the eReader. Pirated book support. |
| Contrast |
Probably the best or at least as good as the nook |
Noticeably less contrasty than the other options. Text almost seems washed out. |
Good Contrast, about the same as the kindle. |
| Expansion |
None, Can hold
1,500 books |
SD Card means endless expansion. |
MicroSD means a great deal of expansion, still less than Sony. |
| Content delivery |
Over the air 3G |
Load from computer |
Over the air via WiFi or 3G |
| Price |
$259 |
$299 |
$259 |
So I guess my hope is that Amazon will come out with a new Kindle in February that will have a touch screen and no keyboard. I would go with a Nook if I didn’t hate Barnes and Noble’s business practices so much and I would buy a Sony eReader if it had better contrast and was less pricey. Amazon’s big name means it can push around publishers to get good deals on books and it already sells classics for free. The only other possibility is that Apple comes out with something, but they won’t. They will come out with a tablet in the future but it won’t be e-ink, which means it will be LCD based and will cause eye strain if you intend to use it for anything related to reading books.
It’s clear that Google spends a lot of time on the web. A LOT. During the announcement of Chrome OS I had to keep telling myself, “It’s only for netbooks.” Without that statement, Chrome OS seems rather preposterous… kind of. I’m a huge fan of using web technologies as replacements for heavier programming languages.
I guess the big concern I have is what this means for Android. I think Google has too many independent arms all moving in opposite directions. A little over 2 years ago Google announced a mobile platform built on Linux with APIs leveraging Java. Now, they are developing an entirely new OS for netbooks based on linux and HTML. Wha? Java or HTML? Make up your mind.
As a potential developer for Android this strikes me as unsettling for the shear fact of not knowing what it means for future Android development. Is Google going to continue supporting Java on Android devices? Are they going to migrate towards HTML like the Pre. Why the hell did they bother with Android in the first place if they were just going to reverse course?
I’d love to develop in CSS/JS/HTML5 for Android devices, and the fact that it’s not really available as an option right now blows me away, especially after what Palm has done and what Google is doing with Chrome OS. Unify Google, and stop getting all Microsoft on us.
The announcement of Chrome OS makes me want to develop for Android less. The opposite should be the case.
What doesn’t take up an entire coffee shop table, is stylish, runs linux (with decent power management) and costs $349?
The Dell Mini 9… a 9″ wide netbook that weighs less than 2.5 pounds. I could significantly lighten my load with this… ever since I got rid of my 12″ powerbook I’ve hated how big my 13″ Macbook is. The Mini 9 may be a good interim solution until Apple pulls it’s head out and realizes people care more about width than they do about thinness. No one cares how thin a laptop is when it still takes up the majority of a small table.
So, I tend to have a lot of spare computers laying around. I’ve been able to donate most of them away for various reasons. Gave one to Jen’s Brother, gave one to my friend Trevor, and finally I just gave one of my last to this girl named Jessica today.
I haven’t used this PC for about 5 years and it’s just been sitting around at work in about 30 pieces. Given the fact that I don’t have a legit copy of Windows and the fact that I like to make things more complicated than they need to be, I decided to put linux on it.
For those that don’t know, Linux is known for being a “programmer” and “free” OS because it has traditionally been difficult to use and configure, but doesn’t cost a penny. Luckily, it’s gotten better over time and seems to be ready for common people if it’s been configured for that kind of use.
With Vista being horrible, and XP being out-dated, Linux seemed like a good choice. After all, does this look hard to use?
In my quest to un-boredify my computing experience I’ve taken to using linux on a day-to-day basis. One of the motivators is how antiquated Windows XP is. Being that I have to use Windows to an extent for work, I decided Linux + Virtualization would be my best bet. Ultimately I settled on 2 machines (one XP, one Ubuntu 7.10) running synergy, and then continuing to use my MacBook for all my design stuff.
gTwitter is one of the essential apps I use on a daily basis. It’s prettier than the Windows counterpart, and almost as functional. You can find out more info here.
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