Electric Ink Books

Here we have the new trend in books. Electronic books that actually are more fun than a paper and ink book. This is the new cool for book reading like the iPod is to music. Of course when I got started the new cool was the Sony Walkman portable cassette player. (No picking on the old guy or you might get hit with the cane. LOL)

Lets take a look at the Sony® Reader. These readers can hold over a hundred books. The Reader has memory expansion and the electronics history of a great company for electronics. The interface is easy to master it uses the owners computer to acquire and transfer books or the memory slot.

What do these readers have in common. Both of them are great full strength outside in the sun reading devices. Most devices like this have been hard to use outside in the sun and these are great outdoor readers. Of course if you are the pool side reader they do not promise to be water proof so be careful in that area. The average cost of books can range from say 2 dollars for classics to twenty five dollars or so. Basically Amazon declares the average cost of a book to be around 9 or 10 dollars. I would say you experience may vary but it should be a clear savings vs the price of printed books. Considering the cost of the unit this is a good thing. Initially the price was someting that made me not interested but seeing the price and features in the iPod it has made me reconsider.

Now lets take a look at the Amazon Kindle. While it will cost you 50 more dollars than the Reader it has a nice set of special features worth considering. These include
Whispernet™ (service like cell phones without any signup or subscriptions that works where cell phones work), spinning navigation buttons, download RSS feeds, Magazines and News Papers. That set of extra features sounds like it is worth the extra ticket. I also heard last week one of the technical publishing companies is working on getting all of their books to the Kindle. I would love to have all of my technical books on a divice like this! It would be so nice to walk into a client site and have my entire library on this device for me to look up information. Getting my RSS feeds on a device like this... just makes my mind spin.

With all that said we have not set a final decision as which device we think we will get. Yes there is a stong front runner but until we know we will do a bit more research. Of course either company could send us a demo for review! We hope this is of value to you also as you look at what is coming in the world of technology. No, neither of these devices can work as a replacement for you iPod. There is no cover flow yet on either of them. They do both have incredible battery life. It will be interesting to watch this technology continue to evolve. Say... Adobe? What do you have out there? Is there something coming up in the PDF realm for such readers?

Social Tolerance in OS

Here is a question that seems good for me to ask (and yes I know my blog doesn't support comments at this time... comments welcome but I don't have time to manage spam).

What is the right way to handle tolerance in open source libraries. With the current fame of the Rock Star design of the jQuery web site it has become apparent that this is a issue of question. There are a number of considerations.

• Should the open source library seek the community at large or a targeted audience?
• Should the expressions of a library express a disire to be 'fun' above a respect for what is considered strongly 'offensive' to others in the same community?

Apparently the social stir inspired a removal of the Rock Star on jQuery... but did it inspire them to express to those offended that they cared or that they just didn't want to deal with the objections? Did the jQuery leadership choose to express they were still sovereign of the ability to preserve fun? (aka, the easter egg snippet)

No one is being asked to share my conservative tastes or views. Yet, it seems time for me to consider that my association with the community can be a friendly one but certainly not a direct association. My relationship with the jQuery community is something I wish to publically define so my values are not a confusing matter. (P.S. If none of this matters to you... just ignore me on this, we all have views others don't share.) Yet, for me it is best to be an outsider looking in with this persistant need to what is in my mind use the jQuery platform to make a social statement.

At CFUnited they offer BOF sessions. Ray did a session this year on Sci-Fi. I am not against Sci-Fi but they seemed to have the understanding of segmentation. I was not even upset that he might have pulled some people from my BOF, LOL. My suggestion is if you are willing to make public social connections they come with a package. I don't do pictures of certain prophets out of respect and or tolerance. I don't have to agree to respect those who feel that way as people. The same way it seems respect for people's views on Rock music doesn't keep someone from listening to it or enjoying it. It does seem odd the 'need' to identify jQuery with Rock.

It's not my job to figure out so best regards to all the leaders. May you continue advancing the great library and we will continue to use it. You are doing a great job with the technical side and perhaps this social flaw is the equalizing side of what makes all things balanced, eh?

VOIP Caller ID

Is it just me or are you tired of not having your caller ID listed? Well, this is my attempt to get listed even though I am using a VOIP solution. I went to List Yourself and listed my phone number and name in the system. There are a number of ways to validate the number. After doing what they said they told me my listing would be showing within 72 hours. This blog post will be delayed more than that and we will see how it goes. If someone else wants to try it just click on the URL in this post and give it a try. (My guess is that I am not the only one out there using VOIP with a meaningless caller ID.)

P.S.
Apparently now I have to wait for the individual carriers to pick up the number. So it's in the system but they may or may not pick it up. (If and when as they say.)