Kindle Kindle Kindle Kindle Kindle

April 12th, 2009

This is the lovely Kindle 2 from Amazon

This is the lovely Kindle 2 from Amazon

Ok. I have to screech this from the highest tower as I’m sick of people complaining about it.

My wife is a reader. And by a reader I mean she devours books. As an example, for every Harry Potter book released on Friday she would go to the bookstore the following Saturday morning, buy the book and read it…all of it…immediately. I was told to go away and not bother her until she was done. The shorter books she would finish that same weekend but the longer books took her a few extra days. She’s read enough books that if we stacked them up and they fell on me I would be dead. So for her birthday last year I got her a Kindle.

It was expensive but I figured it would pay for itself over time and it had this cool wireless delivery system. For every e-book you buy from Amazon (most of them at a steep discount from their paper cousins) they’ll send it to your Kindle in under a minute for free. You can even send HTML, Word files and PDFs to a special email address you set up and they’ll convert it and send it to your Kindle wirelessly. Amazon says they charge 10 cents per document to do this but she’s sent several short stories this way and never been charged. They also offer a “free” conversion that allows you to download the converted file and sync it to your Kindle using USB but since they’re still not charging for the auto delivery she uses that method instead.

Since then I’ve also bought a Kindle (on the Oprah Winfrey discount last October) and I’ve started reading more. For some back history on me, I’m not a good reader. I’m slow and it frustrates me. I’m much more of an audio visual person. However I have probably read a book a month since I bought mine and that’s up from maybe one every few years. I really like Kindle and it’s brought me quite mornings of reading. No TV, no background noise, no computer, just reading peacefully.

Now for the rant…

I just read another article on a tech blog complaining about the price of the Kindle. They all say that it’s too expensive and it should be subsidized like cellphones. Ok, listen up ’cause I’m only gonna say this once.

Cellphones are cheap because they are subsidized by your wireless carrier roping you into a contract for service. The Kindle is expensive because it is subsidizing the cost of free wireless connectivity.

Have you go that or do I need to say it s-l-o-w for ‘ya?

Think about it. Inside every Kindle is a Sprint wireless data card (the Kindle works on the EVDO network) so every time you turn on the wireless you get an IP address and connectivity to that network. You can even do basic web surfing on the Kindle but it’s not very functional. And the reason it’s not very functional is…say it with me…it’s an e-book reader, not a web browser. Not to mention the fact that the more you surf the web on your Kindle the more Sprint has to carry your data and the more it costs Sprint. Remember the subsidized wireless connection? It was meant to deliver books to you, not look up the latest results of American Idol.

Oh, and while I’m at it. Stop with the “it’s not color” and “it’s not backlit” bullshit. Paper books aren’t backlit, are they? I have a booklight and it works perfectly. And as for color, when was the last time you read fiction, non-fiction, romance, sci-fi, whatever and cared about the details of the pictures. The Kindle isn’t meant as a textbook or a kid’s book.

In closing it’s important to restate, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Just remember you’ve already paid for wireless, because you bought a Kindle. Personally I would have paid $800 for my 16Gig iPhone 3G if the minutes+data+txts were free…wouldn’t you?

UPDATED: No oil. No credit. Really?

January 5th, 2009

I think Ed Wallace has it right when it comes to everything we’ve been told over and over in the media about gas, oil, credit and the economy. Here’s a taste from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

November car sales in Dallas Fort Worth hit a low not seen since the downturn of 1973 – 74; nationally new car showroom traffic was off nearly 70 percent. My question then became, “Are things really as bad as is being reported, or is it simply the reporting causing widespread panic that is making things worse?”

Then came December, and many dealers in Tarrant County were telling me that their sales had improved. At midmonth they expected to sell as many new vehicles as they had last December.

But the national bad news didn’t let up. New unemployment numbers were hitting levels not seen since the early eighties, while November home sales fell faster than expected. Tarrant County’s success notwithstanding, at midmonth new car sales nationwide were down — but by only 15 percent from a year ago. If things were really as bad as we’ve been told, those are unbelievably good figures.

What if — the same way we were duped about why oil cost so much, or led to believe that we had to invade Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction and were aligned with Al Qaeda — both the Federal Reserve and our Treasury Department have oversold this financial crisis?

Go read the full article. It makes more sense than I’m comfortable with.

UPDATE: He was right.

New Years Resolution

January 1st, 2009

I hate these, but I have to make some. I feel like if I don’t promise to make some changes in my life I’ll just stagnate and die. That won’t do any of us any good so for starters:

  1. Blog more.
  2. Read more. (Hello Kindle!)
  3. Clean out “office”. Shred what I don’t need anymore and organize what I do. Put the keepers in my file cabinet. (I have a file cabinet?)
  4. Clean up computer area. There’s a lot of old, out of date useless crap that I’ve just put in a pile. It needs to be organized and moved into the “office”.
  5. Start podcasting. Once I move all the computer gear I have the software and hardware to start podcasting. I’ll probably also try my hand at mashups. That should be fun.

It ain’t gonna be easy but until I get another job I have massive amounts of free time. What I meant to say is that it ain’t gonna be easy to get off my fat ass and do it. It’s a very big job and that can sometimes discourage me, but it’s got to get done. I owe that to my wife, and my sanity.

Happy New Year

January 1st, 2009

May your 2009 be a damn sight better than 2008. Oh, and may I find a fucking job. :)

Merry Christmas

December 25th, 2008

And there were in the same country, Shepherds
abiding in the field keeping watch over their flock by night
and lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them
and the glory of the Lord shown round about them
and they were so afraid and the angel said unto them “Fear not,
for behold I bring you tidings of great joy which will be to all people
for unto you was born this day in the city of David
a savior, ’tis Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you.
You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was with the angel
a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.”

That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.

Videos to make you “Smile”

November 27th, 2008

Through another blog I read I found a YouTube video called “Validation”. It got my attention because it stars T.J. Thyne from Bones. I started watch Bones after the wife and I finished all 5 seasons of Angel with David Boreanaz, which we got into after finishing all 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Anyway, I digress…

After watching “Validation” I watched another video by hughnewman1024 on YouTube called “Rent-A-Person”. Watch these in order.

Rent-A-Person

Validation

I’m following hughnewman1024 now. These are awesome videos.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, in the United States anyway.

Just (almost) pissed myself off…royally

November 9th, 2008

I just tried to automatically upgrade wordpress and destroyed my installation. I tried to restore the backup files and that didn’t work. I grit my teeth and did a manual upgrade thinking that the database was ok. It appears to have worked. I will be doing NO MORE automatic upgrading anymore.

Phew!

Desert sand

November 1st, 2008

I haven’t written anything in a long-ass time. Could be the work I was doing or the not working I’m currently doing or the job searching and whatnot. I really should either just close this blog down or start writing. I’m just more of a “behind the curtain” kind of guy, not a performer.

I also told myself that I could start a podcast, even if it’s for myself, but that won’t happen until I clean out the office and move my computer and audio equipment in there. That ain’t happenin’ too fast either.

C’mon Paul…put up or shut down dummy.

Star Trek Fans Unite

June 24th, 2008

All ST:TNG fans must see this.

Careful, NSFW…you have been warned.

Seven dirty words…silenced

June 23rd, 2008

George Carlin has died.

Well, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits…
Oh, and fart, turd and twat.

We’ll miss you George.

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Scary)

May 31st, 2008

Read this.

If it doesn’t scare or concern you, then you must be a large scale pirating entity. You’ve never worried about any of this, have you?

Vista + Netflix = FAIL

May 30th, 2008

I’m a Netflix customer and I must say I’m very happy with the service overall. I get my movies in a timely fashion and rarely have problems with bad disks. When they introduced their new “Watch Instantly” service I thought, “That’s nice, but I’ll never pay for it.” Then they made it free for existing customers…nice. I’ve since watched some movies on my big screen and in spite of the stream size, the picture is fairly good. I last used Netflix’s Watch Instantly function a few months ago. It worked perfectly…but…

Today I tried to watch a movie on the service. I proceeded through the screens and when I got to the part where it tests your broadband connection speed for quality, Internet Explorer locks up. The only thing I can do is open Task Manager and kill the Internet Explorer process. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Netflix player but that didn’t work. It still works on both my XP Pro SP3 laptop and my wife’s XP Home SP2 laptop. All computers are fully patched, all running WMP11 (required for the Netflix player to work…DRM ‘ya know). After doing some research on “the Google” I’ve found other people that are having problems similar to mine. Netflix is aware of it and in their infinite wisdom they have come to the staggering conclusion that I should uninstall Service Pack 1 to make it work.

Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? What the fuck did you say? You’ve gotta be kidding me. What the hell?

Somethin’ somethin’ about SP1 damages WMP11 files…damages? I’m ready to call bullshit…but against my better judgement because I really want to see Doctor Who I uninstalled SP1, which was a damn obstacle course in itself. I really hate how they renamed and moved EVERYTHING in Vista and don’t even get me started on UAC. After an hour of “Updating/Uninstalling/Configuring” crap I’m back up and running…and it still doesn’t work. I don’t have any idea what I could have done, if anything, to break this and why doesn’t Netflix fix this?

Bring out your tin foil hats…

I figure that if there is a problem with the Watch Instantly feature on computers it’ll bolster sales of the stupid little set top boxes they’re trying to sell now. Sorry, that’s why I bought a whole damn computer to hook up to my TV set. I’m not spending $100 for a shitty little box that can only stream movies from ONE service.

Am I alone in this? Am I so cutting edge that what I’m doing is just kwazy talk? Why won’t this shit just work? Would the power company say “you’re lights went out because you plugged in this 3rd party lamp.”

Damn you, Microsoft!

Twitter

May 2nd, 2008

Follow me on twitter. [if it's up. :) ]
http://twitter.com/FWGMills

Childhood favorites

March 30th, 2008

I’ve discovered a way to rip DVDs and create a media library on my Vista Media Center PC. Since then I’ve been adding my purchased DVDs to that library for on demand access. Last night I added a movie from 1982 called The Last Unicorn. It was something I saw on cable when I was little and for some reason I’ve always liked it. Now I’m 37 and it still brings a tear to my eye…although I don’t know why.

I also have a VHS copy of Animalympics. It isn’t available on DVD although I wish someone would clean up the master and release it. I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Instead I’m feeding my video capture from the last VCR in the house so I can watch it on the big screen.

I know that neither of these animated movies can hold a candle to some of the work Pixar and DreamWorks has put out lately, but like Road Runner and Coyote from the 50s for old farts like me the flawed animation is just…better.

Quote of the day

March 16th, 2008

“Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place?”

-George Carlin