All in Books
A Mixed Review for Amazon’s New 7” Kindle Fire
I’ve had a new 7 inch Kindle Fire for a couple of weeks now and have formed an opinion about the device.
A Progress Report on Reading Electronic Books, Especially Kindle
I remember being a bit surprised at how easy it had been to “weed” the collection of harcover and paperback book we had built up over the years. Now I’m reading a book — a “real book” printed on paper — in amongst the books and various documents I’m also reading via my Kindle devices and software. Reading this physical book is a pleasure so I thought I would put some of my thoughts about the experience in writing.
Over the weekend I “weeded” our home book collection. We’re remodeling both our living room and dining room in anticipation of our daughter coming home later this year from the Peace Corps. We’re reducing the number of linear shelf feet devoted to books, CD’s, and DVD’s as we change things around a bit and as we adjust to the increasing importance of digital media.
It will be interesting to see if Amazon can succeed with the expensive ($489) new Kindle DX without negotiating exclusive licensing and distribution deals that lock in and control distribution of different ebooks in selected vertical markets.
Why Books Will Survive
These days there is no shortage of ways to express ideas in a variety of media, ranging from less-than-140-character Twitter messages to self-produced Flip camera snippets complete with sound.
I Bought a Magazine Today!
I know, I’ve criticized magazines before as vestiges of an old fashioned past, but I confess: I bought one today.
My 5-year-old neighbor uncupped his hands to reveal the contents and asked, “Can you tell me what this is?”
What the Heck is "Social DRM"?
When I first heard the term “social DRM” in the context of e-book anti-piracy efforts — the link is to the RSS feed of my del.icio.us bookmarks tagged “socialDRM” — I thought it referred somehow to group peer pressure not to copy files without permission.
According to Lindsay Lorenz of “The Good 5 Cent Cigar,” the student newspaper at the University of Rhode Island, university students are relying more on electronic research than ever before. One quoted statistic, based on data reported at the University of Rhode Island, is that students twenty years ago borrowed more than twice as many books as they did in 2007.