A Book is Just a Book

Chris Roth animated this little video spot for a new children’s book coming out in August. It’s message is all about books being books and they don’t have anything more to them than the story they’re telling. I love a good e-reader perfectly well, but I still want a real book more than my e-reader. Every good book should have a cover. It’s as simple as that.

Reading On a Kindle Is a Pleasure

After two years of reading reviews, watching products come out and compete, listening to people gripe about DRM and ebook pricing, I jumped directly into the fray and opted for the Kindle from Amazon. I am completely and utterly smitten with the thing.  It feels like a magic book.  No – more like a printing press.  It’s got ink inside and the computer arranges the ink on the screen and it feels a little bit like you’re printing each page as you look at it.  It’s wonderful.  I don’t think I’ve ever read so much in a two-day stretch before.  I’ve subscribed to the New York Times and Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine.  I’ve purchased a single Amazon ebook for $9.99 and I’ve downloaded some free books from Project Gutenberg.  It all works beautifully and makes for the single best addition to my library since I acquired a two-hundred-year-old copy of Don Quixote.

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Barnes & Noble Nook is a Dreadful Failure

I’ve been so waiting with my bated breath and all for this magical Nook machine from Barnes & Noble.  I was in a right dither tonight about an hour and a half ago as I shoved my reading glasses into my pocket, put my regular glasses on my face and piled into my car for the short ride to my nearest Barnes & Noble bookseller.  But I stopped first at the Lenscrafters to run in and have them adjust my frames because my glasses are so new and have been drifting over lopsided all week.  So the woman there fixed them up nicely and shined them good.  Then I drove on toward my Nook encounter.

The store had a lone unit attached to an anti-theft device that scared the hell out of me because I tend to demonstrate new devices to myself until nearby customers think I’m a lunatic and I certainly didn’t want to raise any alarms.  The Nook said, ‘Press the Power Button to Wake Up.’  I spun the device around several times until I located said button embedded in the upper edge of the Nook.  I pressed it.

I waited.

Then I pressed it perhaps fourteen or fifteen times to try and make something wake up.  Then the screen went through a series of blinks, flashes and some rather frightening symbols appeared and then disappeared.  And then the machine said, ‘Press the Power Button to Wake Up.’

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I Take it Back: Apple Tablet is Dopey

So after all the hoopla the Apple company has decided that it’s a good idea to sell an iPod Touch that you can’t carry.

The just-announced iPad is big, with a fullscreen display instead of widescreen, has no camera, and cannot multi-task.  So only one application at a time will run.  The fullscreen thing may make sense when you consider that people will need to be typing on a virtual keyboard, but I’m not sure that it will fly.  I see it as going out to buy a fullscreen monitor somehow.

I think I’m finally ready to go get myself a Kindle from Amazon!

I’ve been yawning all morning and I’m still yawning.

Apple About to Announce Extraordinary New Tablet Device

Apple really could be preparing to announce something pretty extraordinary for content publishing, creation and consumption today.  Its widely rumored tablet device will very likely put most other ebook reader devices out of business simply because the Apple product will be a real computer, useful for reading and for creating.  It will most likely build a seamless content-creation universe that ties directly to online sales platforms.  It will be a ‘publishing’ tablet really.  Not just an e-book device.

Wired is covering the Apple press conference event all day with blog entries.

I have not purchased any kind of an e-reader device, in spite of the hysteria surrounding them, specifically because of Apple’s plans.  There is no way under the sun that anyone else is going to compare favorably to what Apple is about to drop on us today.

Problem With Nook eBook Reader?

nookfrontI’m looking at this new e-reader from Barnes & Noble called the nook and I’m a little worried.  It’s that split screen.  The top is an e-Ink display for reading your books.  But the bottom is a color LCD.  Look at that picture.  I don’t know about most readers, but I certainly don’t want that row of book covers staring me in the face as I read.  Can one totally black that screen out while reading?  What else shows up in there?  Ads?  Does anything move around to distract the reader?

I don’t know about this nook thing.  I’ve got doubts.