I went to total wine today, a wine and beer emporium in my area. I noticed it was packed. I get a good chuckle from this because all I can think is why all these people are here. I’m sure it’s the same reason I was there. To get get enough alcohol to endure the in-laws/relatives.

Amazon releases a new ebook reader name Kindle hoping this time will be different than every other company that has ever tried. If anyone can deliver, it would be the internet book retailer heavy weight. Or so you would think.

Amazon apparently thinks it has the right solution with it’s wireless delivery solution. The product has the same “E-paper” screen that the Sony Reader uses. Very easy on the eyes and great for text, not pictures. Still not as good as paper, but close enough for text content. You have the convenience of downloading a book, magazine, or newspaper whenever you want. Instant gratification.

Kindle’s form factor. Kinda` ugly, isn’t it? Sony’s E-book reader is much better looking and does not look like a playschool toy with a horrible keyboard much like a windows “smart” phone.

I try to think why I would rather have a format that is not as good as paper. Probably a price point, but it doesn’t deliver. $399 for this thing! Books are $10 themselves. Not a huge discount. So this thing better be a helluva lot more convenient. It’s more convenient to carry a few books with Kindle than a few traditional books. Really though, who does that? Not many people read through more than a couple of books before they can hit a library or bookstore again.

Newspaper subscriptions might be a little more convenient until you think about how the newspaper is used. When I get done with a section, someone else likes to use it. You can’t do that with an E-book. I often forget my newspaper/magazine wherever I’ve been reading it. An expensive mistake with a $400 E-book reader.

Try sharing your E-book with someone without an E-book reader. That doesn’t make sense, does it? Well it’s exactly how we share traditional books today. No extra devices needed. Just some light, and the ability to read.

Amazon has done all they can to make it rugged, but take electronics to the beach and find out how much sand, salt, and high humidity eat up that $400 toy. Really my complaint is the price point. I don’t feel it’s that much more convenient than Sony’s Reader that is much slicker looking and less expensive (though not by much). It’s definitely more expensive than traditional books. How many books do you have to purchase to break even? Just to have a gadget that needs power, is almost as good as paper (for text), and can download a book on the fly.

How many books can I buy for $400 bucks? From Amazon? Then if that’s not enough I can save even more by buying used books. I can even re-sell my books when I’m done to offset the cost. Can I do this with E-books? I’m willing to bet DRM will be there to stop that. I can see some convenience value in this product, but not enough to offset the initial $400 bones.

Update :

It also include a subscription to popular blogs. By includes I mean it has the ability to read for a price. I hate to base everything on price, but blogs can be read on most cell phones. Even more so now that smart phones are making the move to be the default phone.

HellaPhone 

I currently use hellanzb for all of my usenet downloads. It’s much simpler than anything I have used before and is a simple install. Very simple if you are on a Debian (Ubuntu), or Darwin System (Mac OS X).I developed this interface for my own personal use and nothing more. That being said, there is very little error checking if any, and even less error reporting in the interface. I planned on releasing this when it is more complete, but I have not had the time to spend on it due to other projects that put food on my table. The app does work pretty well for a quick newzbin search and download to your existing hellanzb install. It just doesn’t monitor the downloads or report an error if the download doesn’t initiate. I planned on rectifying that at some future date.The requirements are:

•  php5
• cakephp 1.2.x
• allow_url_open - (maybe, I may have changed it to curl, can’t remember, don’t care)
• hellanzb install with allowed network access
• newzbin account

If enough people show interest I may make time to work on it some more. Please, if you are interested in upgrading or continuing work on this project, Leave it in the comments. And of course donations are always welcome. Download from the HellaPhone page  Some screenshots   

I installed a new theme after a couple of years of neglecting the site. I only changed the default cursor for links. For some retarded reason, Bob decided to use a crosshair. I thought I accidentally enabled screenshot selection until I realized his theme changed the css cursor styling to something that is totally non-intuitive. Good job on the rest of the theme though. I probably won’t bastardize too much more of it. Except for maybe this baby blue border around the container.

I installed iwphone plugin and theme for iphone and iPod touch users. Now when you view the site on your mobile safari browser, you’ll get an optimized interface.

This brought to you from my iphone.

I updated my word press install today after neglecting it for so long. I also installed the wphone plugin for the iPhone admin interface. This mean that I might not neglect this blog as much as I have. Btw, I’m writing this from the iPhone.