Dear Jeff, As 2008 comes to a close I find I'm less of a Kindle advocate than I was earlier in the year. My new iPhone is partially to blame. After all, it's one of the reasons I wrote this critical post on my other blog yesterday. It's not just about the iPhone though. Amazon is uniquely positioned to run away with the e-reader market, but the Kindle appears to be hampered by a lack of strategy and vision. I'm not talking about the poor physical design; I'm way past the point of being critical there. No, what I'm talking about are...

Recently I discussed my power problems with using my iPhone as an e-book reader. Today I'll discuss a couple of add-on power sources that I use and have previously reviewed at other websites. Perhaps the most cost-effective, especially if used with rechargeable batteries, solution is the Turbo Charge, pictured above. The unit sells for $29.95 and is powered by 2 AA batteries. Just plug it into your iPhone/Touch/iPod and it will fully charge the batteries. It is not really convenient to use in real time with the iPhone, as it dangles in a rather inconvenient manner. ...

An iPod tablet with a seven- or nine-inch screen may show up in fall 2009, according to a Michael Arrington's report in Tech Crunch. In the past we've had our hearts broken by rumors that didn't pan out. But could it be that Apple has simply been delaying the device for commercial reasons---that such a gizmo has indeed been around in prototype for two or three years? Just a guess. But oh how in character it would be for the oft-secretive Steve Jobs, who, for all I know, has a pile of 'em stashed away in Hangar 18,...

Over at Twilight Times Books, publisher Lida Quillen recently came out with "advance promo" editions of The Solomon Scandals in both E and P. I can't tell you how much of a bother it's been to get Scandals properly into different formats, such as ePub, HTML and PDF. Imagine having to worry about corrections as they'll show up in half a dozen or so formats, each with its own rude surprises. Even now the job still isn't done. Tech complexities are no small reason why we call the existing files "advance promo copies." Today's e-publishing tools, including pricey ones selling for...

A couple of days ago, someone suggested David write a retrospective about the different e-reading devices he had used through the years. It seemed like a marvelous idea to me, and there certainly is room for more than one such article. So here is mine. 1. Palm IIIe I had long wanted a Palm Pilot, ever since reading articles in Salon Magazine and elsewhere about how cool it was to read books on them. Finally, with the 2-megabyte Palm IIIe being particularly cheap, I took the plunge and bought one in August, 1999. Also in...

Novelists, Inc. wants used bookstores to pay fees to publishers. The group frets that novelists are missing out on royalties. And now the shocker of the day! A study cited in Parade Magazine says a family of four can save up to $2,500 a year by borrowing just 10 items a month from the public library. That's 120 items a year, averaging $20.83 each. Significantly, public libraries are godsends to students and job-hunters. But Philadelphia and San Diego may shut down some branches, and library budgets are tight in many other cities. So what would Novelists, Inc....

If you want a Kindle but can't find a decent price on eBay, don't forget Craig's List---especially local listings for states where the cost of living is lower than in New York or California. A "brand-new sealed" Kindle was on sale on Dec. 21 in the Minneapolis area for "just" $299. That's still a high price for a gizmo that lists for $359 new, but much less than $500 or $600 or more that you might find on eBay. Of course, the real solution for the economy-minded is to wait for the Kindle 2, the existence of which will...

Many people don't realize that their cell phone is always transmitting. It is constantly sending out a signal to the surrounding towers saying "I am here". That's how a cell tower knows to send a phone call your way. Well, the strength of the signal the phone puts out will vary depending on the reception conditions. If you are close to a tower the phone can power down and send out a lower strength signal. If you are far away, or in poor reception conditions like inside a building, the phone has to boost its power...

Google Trends is one of my favorite analysis tools, and it's totally free. It can tell you how popular a search term is and it's particularly useful when comparing two or more related phrases. Every so often I like to compare the phrase "Amazon Kindle" with "Sony Reader" to see who's winning the search battle. You can see for yourself by either clicking the image to the left or clicking here to see the full results on Google Trends. No matter how you look at it, you'll notice two things. First, and it's old news, but the...

Last night I bought a GPS device for $99 at Radio Shack, and it just worked. I didn't have to spend much time on the complexities, at least not for simple navigational needs. No wonder GPS devices are catching on among the masses. I'll have more to say later in another post. Now contrast my happy GPS experiences to complexities and horrors of e-book DRM. Mike Cane has a hilarious post comparing Adobe DRM documentation to the hassles of puzzling out instructions for a zero-gravity toilet. Guess which is worse. Natch. "Really," Mike concludes, "it turns...

Coming: An example of why DRM is a sales toxin...plus the difficulty that eBabel creates for small publishers. I'll also tell you about my $99 GPS, with a 4-inch screen and the ability to read street names. Perhaps some e-book potential here?...

"The massive boost in App Store sales appears to be from a large influx of iPod Touch users. Amazon lists the 8GB and 16GB iPod Touch as the best selling MP3 players despite their relatively higher cost." - MacRumors.com item. The TeleRead take: Another obvious positive for e-books. The more iPod Touches out there, the more potential homes for copies of Stanza, eReader and the rest. Own a Touch? Are you as enthusiastic about the Touch as an e-reader as I am? What kinds of books are you reading on it? The Touch is hardly optimized for books...