August 13, 2008

Kindle is here

I now have had the Kindle for about a week. It is a wondrous toy.

I am able to read the paper on the train to the newsroom for the first time. Spreading out the Wall Street Journal before this has been a little cumbersome.

I am able to carry what amounts to about 25 books with me currently, although I am only reading about two.

I am also able to see previews of a number of books that are on my Wishlist at Amazon, especially some that i haven't been able to see at a real store.

Now if only I can get all of the books that I want to read onto the Kindle. I have been clicking on the new Amazon links that tell the publisher to put their book in Kindle format.

Bring on more books.

Three more weeks until my vacation. I fully expect to see my usage of the device go through the roof.

Posted by bmiraski at 7:04 PM | Comments (0)

August 5, 2008

It's coming

After months and months of debate and a number of almost clicks, I finally broke down last night and bought a Kindle.

I got to play with one a few weeks ago and that sealed the decision-making process. It is probably surprising that it took me another week and a half before actually doing it.

I will be very excited to get out from under the mounds and mounds of newspapers and book and into the technological reading world, along with the rumored 240,000 other people who have bought the device.

Go me.

More updates as they happen.

Posted by bmiraski at 9:22 AM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2008

More Twitter Bashing

I have tried it now, that pesky little Twitter, but I continue to believe that I don't get much more from it that the ability to annoy anyone that has my updates set to be sent to their phone.

Of the people I "follow", most just post links to their blogs, which I am already reading through RSS feeds, so no need for those posts.

I think I may have participated in one conversation there.

And of course, there are the outages, the downtimes, the missing functionality, which some people believe will get better with the inflow of cash that the tech company recently received. I am still not sure that it will fix what seems like it might be a good idea just implemented wrong.

I am starting to prefer FriendFeed quite a bit where there is a lot more open conversation on a variety of topics and it lends itself to allow for longer posts. The issue is pulling the masses from Twitter, which admittedly has a stronger user base, and getting them into the FriendFeed.

While the problems remain, and my skepticism, it seems that BusinessWeek isn't ready to give up on its push of the service that began with its beyond blogs article a few weeks back.

So, I guess I will keep watching, or following as the case may be.

(And of course, as I write this and try to add links, Twitter won't let me log in as it is over-capacity.)

Posted by bmiraski at 7:52 AM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2008

Blank

If you want to teach someone to type without looking at the keys all the time, I think the best method might be to get one of these.

It is Das Keyboard, a totally blank keyboard which recently got a review on the CrunchGear website.

The keyboard also features a much improved response to normal keyboard action which is the main reason it costs $100. However, that $100 price is for a limited time only.

It seems cool, and I would totally want one, but I know there would be that time when I am trying to remember what key something was on and it would take me more than 5 minutes of random button pressing to get it correct.

Still, I totally could go for one of these for my desktop. (and yes, they also offer a printed version but the blank one is so much cooler.)

Posted by bmiraski at 2:25 PM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2008

TechCrunch boycotting AP

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch is boycotting the AP based on the AP's recent actions with regards to links and quotes of its stories.

The short of it is that the AP is trying to restrict bloggers from linking and posting short snippets of its articles claiming that it does not fall under the "fair use" clause of the copyright laws.

According to TechCrunch's post:

A.P. vice president Jim Kennedy says they will issue guidelines telling bloggers what is acceptable and what isn’t, over and above what the law says is acceptable. They will “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”

Add in that apparently AP employees are going around and posting the contents of a letter from Kennedy in full on any blog that seems to reference the incidents that have occurred.

So TechCrunch has a new policy:

So here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them. They’re banned until they abandon this new strategy, and I encourage others to do the same until they back down from these ridiculous attempts to stop the spread of information around the Internet.

At the risk of upsetting a future employer, I will join in this crusade until the policy is changed.

The linking policy was something that was encouraged for all of AP's clients by blogger David Cohn aka "DigiDave" back in May as something that would help save them money and make their news organizations more innovative because as he saw it, the AP was not looking out for its clients anymore. The result?

As I see it: This would allow newspapers to run more original local content, save money and build serious brand loyalty. The AP does none of these.

At a time when newspapers are trying to innovate to keep their consumers around, and trying things like radical front page redesign instead of forward thinking, maybe they might want to start paying attention.

(Link to DigiDave found through Brian Boyer's Sixth W)

Posted by bmiraski at 9:03 AM | Comments (0)