Thursday, May 26, 2011

The second article in the 'Kindle for PowerShellers' series

How to read blogs on a Kindle? The article describes the way Amazon provides.

Kindle for PowerShellers series

As a mission to advance the Kindle to areas where it's not common yet, a mission taken just because I love Kindle, I'm publishing a series of articles 'Kindle for PowerShellers'.
The series is intended to show IT people in which way they could use the Kindle to be on the edge of the technical progress. That does not matter PowerShell or another technical area is, the series aimed to highlight what is the Kindle does best on that way.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Noble competitor to announce the All-New Nook. Part 2

After I've finished my previous post, I've noticed more features I like
  • this new model supports extension cards, possibly SD/SDHC
  • it also can be connected by a wire (that is not new one feature at all, but why don't mention it?). This is probably a mini-USB or most likely a micro-USB jack. Each of them fits 'less than 1/2 inch thin device'
  • borrowing from libraries, what is not available on a Kindle yet
  • the user is allowed to set a screensaver from a number the vendor offers or even use own picture as a screensaver.

The Noble competitor to announce the All-New Nook

B&N recently announced the availability of the all-new Nook in June. Which type of a gadget the all-new Nook is?
First of all, the commonly believed total move to color screens are postponed. Nook to get a Pearl screen with traditional 50% plus increase of contrast.
Second, the screen is a touchscreen. Thus, this is almost a hybrid a Kindle and a Sony Reader, touchable as the latter and with network capabilities as the former.
Third, it's of six inches as the most of world's Pearl readers population. Won't be a lack of screens this year?
Fourth, its weight is under eight ounces and it's incredible thin, of unannounced size though.
Fifth and the most fascinating if true, it is intended to work up to two months on one battery charge.
Sixth, its price is equal to a regular Kindle 3 Wi-Fi, implying that for the same price you'll have one more month of uninterruptible work and the touchscreen as a bonus. With two million titles in the store, especially that in opposite to Amazon's there is a number in foreign languages, the rivalry gets tougher.

Which will be the answer of Amazon? An Android tablet? One more Pearl reader? Both of them? It's the question!

Lowering the Kindle price of showing the real price?

Amazon made a new step towards its customers, offering Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi, special edition, for only $164. The Kindle may be of two color schemata of our choice, graphite and white. All the special features are the same as embedded into Kindle Wi-Fi, special edition, whareas all the remaining features are from Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi.
Despite the excitement the news brought to us, the only question concerned is that which of two prices, 3G or 3G special, reflect the true price?

Friday, May 20, 2011

Kindle as a network management tool

Since yesterday, it's proven that your Kindle might have helped you not only read blogs or check e-mail on a vacation, but with it you also may run services and set permissions across your corporate network. Under the link is the story.
There's a bearable fly in the oinment that you need to buy a soft of the price of a marvellous Kindle 3G. On the other hand, this is a relatively small fee, moreover paid once, enabling you to rest on the beach (Pearl rocks!).

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Kindle 3 in dextrous hands

I doubt where this post is technical or not. Let's see.
No longer than yesterday I was asked about where a cover for Kindle 3 can be bought, in short time and on a budget. This is not an easy question for living outside the WTO world, out of its borders Amazon doesn't deliver Kindles, outside Moscow, where the rivalry suppressed prices and provides a choice, and far away of Siberia, the place to where delivering from China is fast and cheap.
Not a matter of yesterday's buddy's problem, there is in Saint-Petersburg the local custom service, even more slowdowning the delivery of goods.

So that there are two possibilities to obtain a cover: to find a local supplier or an individual willing to sell one, or to make it by hands. Make it by hands? Incredible thought! The utter nonsence many have heard. But, despite the chance to lose readers' veracity, I continue publishing craftworks of local people.

The topic on one of the biggest local forums on e-readers represents models for transporting as well as models for reading during a dinner or a bath.

The first model fo today's review is an armored sock:
With one tenth inch wooden protection, it took the time calculated in such a way:
  • 10 minutes for preparation of wooden list including sawing and polishing
  • 3 hours does it took to entice the Kindle owner's wife to join the craftwork
  • 1 hour is spent on calculations and layout projecting
  • 15 minutes was needed to weave the cover using the Silver Reed machine
  • and, finally, 30 minutes for piecing together all the previous results
Is it pretty thing, isn't it?

The same master went even farther and proposed one more thing to use
with Kindle. As many of us obviously read at the eating time, this old CD cover may help in some cases:
At last, applause to the last model of the today's show, the Book in the Book!
I promise to continue informing you about revealed cases of all-around-Kindle craftmanship further.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The future of LCD readers?

Yesterday's session in the local Ikea's restaurant, where I tried my new light-weight Android netbook for browsing, emailing and reading, showed that I can't understand the advantage of using LCD screens.
As I recently wrote, to read during spending time with family in the Ikea place is almost impossible thing. Technically, the child gladly can play with peers inside the shelves-barriers on the children's spot, but the surrounding noise disperses my attention (I do like drinking coffee or tee in time of reading, though.)
This time, instead of the Kindle, the notebook was taken with us. The first part of the lunch (the eating itself) has taken place under the glass roof and the pleasant sunlight made me irritated regarding the LCD screen (free, but Wi-Fi smoothed my mood:)). The second part of the lunch was in the shade (the child has moved to children's steam and motobyke) and, despite that the free Wi-Fi's gone, I relieved.
All this turned my ming in the way I need investigate how it is possible to read using LCD (TFT or any other) screens. As a starting point, today I approached my Kindle and removed the Amazon's screen protector from it. I used this for months, knowing that the labels on the keys are not worn-resisting and the screen protector is primarily the coffee protector. :)
After that I went to the patio and tested the Kindle under the sun shining. It's readable almost well excluding the positions where the reader's eyes are approximately positioned at a sixty degree angle relatively to the Kindle's surface. This and only this position is not only the worst, this impedes the reading process stop completely. With the exception for this placement, all other angles are almost equally well to read.
For what reason I started this post? Today I have occasionally read that Archos are going to release two tablets of the lowest price. It was about Arnova 8 and Arnove 10. In visiting the company's site, I found two readers, 7o and 7oc. Both of the LCD family, the later supports colors.
How it is possibly to read on such devices? What is good for night reading, can be apropriate for day's? I'll seek the possibility to use some of such things to test. Wife's Android phone is not something that can be readable under the bright light. What's about others? How do Nook and Galaxy the tablet behave under the sunlight?

Friday, May 6, 2011

Mashable's opinion on the upcoming Amazon's tablet

There is also a post at Mashable, where their analysts's predictions are composed to two points:
- 7 inches
- 200 dollars
and Android onboard.

KIndle competitors: a new B&N Nook loomed

Generations of readers occurs annually. Noticeable, that Sony's litter (for last years, of three) is thrown out in fall, Amazon's one or twins are of August's birth, and Barnes and Nobles's one or two are almost in the wintertime.
Yesterday's leak says that B&N will announce something this May. The current tablet is a very strong on the market due to its low cost and the ability to be hacked or upgraded to an Android tablet.
So, let's wait what says the B&N this month.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Klip.me is being buggy last days

After clicking the orange K, on the page preview, the bug appears as the text to Kindle is crowling down. There isn't a limit for this effect, it will move down so long so you allow to.
Hopefully, the bug gets fixed in the nearest future. Seen on several hosts with Chrome from 8 to 11.

Why Some of Us Get More Done at Coffee Shops, Some Don't

As does the LifeHacker say, cafe is a place of creative power. At least, the reading spot. Because of or not I visit such places with the family, it's not the truth to me.
I can't remember a day I coped with a couple of pages in a cafe. The only thing I managed to do there is to listen to easy audiobooks on a lowered loudness to hear people, or, and more effective, to listen to audio dicitonaries. Owing to a small or medium size of its entries, it is the content I acquire most in noisy and disturbing environment.

Above all, the picture is appealing:
Not having seen namely it before, and for sure having seen many similar, we've bought in a RajaMarket the day before yesterday ten pieces set of plastics to paint capuccino leafs, animals and so on. Or to share it with the child of us, he likes painting on paper. :)


Oops, was I asked where I do read? having changed the car to public transpost, the year since gave me the opportunity to read much more than ever before.

A free for all Duden is added to Kindle for PC

The latest German e-book readers market expansion not only gave us a topic to discuss prices, but it brought to us the update of Kindle for PC. Which nice features are comprised of this update?
First of all, there is a new dictionary, a Duden one of the level comparable to both well-known Kindle Oxford's. That means, no more no less, that you have one more free but genuine dictionary on your desktop. On every your desktop, wherever your desktop is (proxies are left for the further).
Second, the changes applied to the context menu:
The menu became more structured and you can change the dictionary on the fly. Unfortunately, no more dictionaries allowed, those you bought you may use only on a hardware Kindle.

Third, the German localization (I'm neutral to it especially comparing to a lot of applications having up to tens of locales out-of-the-box).

As seemed, but I can't confirm that remember it right, some more items were added to the main menu.

Regrettably, they didn't help people suffering the corporate proxy: as earlier, it can't go through so you are deprived of most wishing things like having dictionaries or access to your paid content. Regarding 3rd party books, there is no impedement to read them, isn't it strange or not to you?

Not surprising rumors about a new Amazon's tablet

Believe or not, I wasn't shocked by the news saying about Amazon's future Android tablet. Didn't you see this note?
Well, why don't imagine which kind of thing it can be? As DigiTimes reports, "The device is expected to receive support from Taiwan-based electrophoretic display (EPD) maker E Ink Holdings (EIH) for supplying touch panel as well as providing its Fringe Field Switching (FFS) technology. However, EIH declined to comment on the news when asked, saying it does not discuss clients with the media.
EIH has also recently been in contact with a Taiwan-based small- to medium-size panel maker, aiming to obtain capacity to support Quanta, the sources said. Volume production of Amazon's tablet PCs is expected to allow EIH to gain more profit from the patents of its FFS technology."
As seemed, this will again one of e-Ink readers that is a must have for serious reading, touch capabilities will be added too. Like a Sony Reader plus access to Android Market? It's very likely.

If Kindle 4 to support Android apps, there is a promise that people will be able to set up the reading application of their choice, CoolReader or FBReader, for instance. Here many read in Russian and support of fb2 format is vital for them since a Kindle allows them to download fb2 books directly from *** sites. I don't prefer reading in Russian, of course (Does your brain work all the time you are reading in your mother's tongue, doesn't it? Don't you waste your time with merely swallowing and digesting the text instead of adding such activities as acquiring new to you words and phrases, extending grammar rules known to you along with getting the same information?), but out-of-the-box reading application is what I want to have no longer.
There's only one dictionary per language that can be touched from the text (if you set, for example, an English dictionary as the primary and begin reading some text in German, the German dictionary can be accessed. But not two English dicts at the same time). Two or more dictionaries are what I interested in, in most cases. As an example, everybody may take FBReader on an Android. It opens up so many dictionaries in its context menu activated by a touch of the word chosen as you opted in the Settings. No restrictions on languages used are there, online dictionaries are possibly to use if needed.
Second, the need to bake a hand-made dictionary as a mobi file. There are lots of dictionaries in the Internet, many are gratis, of many formats. On the other hand, to buy a Swedish/Norwegian/Holland/other small people's to English dictionary with right word formations recognition is an impossible task. German and Spanish dictionaries are on sale, but not in a great number too.
Second-B, baking the dictionary is not only an arduous task, it's problematic due to Amazon's bugs. People must their best to avoid these bugs (squares and other litter in transcription shown in the context menu is a the first example came to my head), but new versions of Kindle software shipped with new formatting bugs.
Third, the context menu is too narrow (only onf two row making a sense and one appeared every time, useless for translation or reading the definition), people want at least three or four rows to be allowed to see.

Do you see, for what reasons we are awaiting for an Adnroid-supporting device?

One more thing to add to this topic is that Amazon provides magazins in color, will or won't their new reader support colors?

Prices of Kindles in Russia go down steadily

With or without the influence of the recent Amazon's German market penetration, price of Kindle 3 is going down these days.
Retail prices fell down (despite the official absence of Kindle retail stores, many e-Reader cornershops and apartmentshops persist, especially in Mocsow) and now we see Kindle 3 Wi-Fi for less than six thousand roubles (some $219) and its sibling 3G+Wi-Fi offered for seven thousand six hundred roubles (approx. $277). Although we feel that retailer have a place to make even better appeal, this fact is already exciting.
Peer-to-peer sales (I mean those who ordered two, three or five reading devices by mail and services like shipito, and sell the surplus to lower their own expenses) went even further, not plummeting, but giving a hope of the such a pleasant continuation. I saw offers, though done mostly in Moscow region whereas Saint-Petersburg is additionally barried by custom-to-custom very slow goods movement and wholly less valuable and more indolent officials' and post services, where people asked fun $200 for a Wi-Fi device. Notice, that the German retail price isabout $208 at the Amazon's.
Also, the advertised Wi-Fi Kindles are shown up here: by-post sellers, who are also in abundance on the e-readers forums and one part of them is the US residents and the other are our local sellers, want the same $208 the Amazon's Kindle Store wants for an usual Wi-Fi box in Germany.
Which in size will prices be set when individuals get their first parties of $114th? $180? $165? We are awaiting.

All currency calculations are based on today's cbr.ru's listing.