Amazon Kindle – First Impressions
I bought a Kindle on Monday (see Amazon, CNet). It arrived on Tuesday. Here are my impressions.
- At $400, it is more expensive than the Sony EReader, but the Kindle has wireless (free EVDO) access to the Amazon store so you can buy books while you are away from your computer and start reading them in a few minutes.
- You can send email to your kindle with attachments. In my experience, so far, the experimental PDF conversion (10 cents per document) works really well and even keeps links.
- As expected, the electronic ink is much more relaxing to gaze at than a computer screen.
- The delay caused by refreshing the screen when you turn pages is not too much of a disruption if you are reading every word. However, it makes skimming impossible. For this reason, I don’t think I’ll be able to read my RSS feeds on the Kindle, only articles, books, etc.
- It is oddly shaped, yes, but it’s light and comfortable to hold.
- I’ve only read a portion of a book so far, but I’ll report back here when I’ve completed it. So far, it’s great.
- I haven’t used the clipping, annotating and highlighting features, yet, but I’m glad they are there.
- You can download samples of any book in the Kindle store (90,000+). This is great for reading the first chapter of books you are interested in at your leisure (not at a book store). If you choose to purchase, you can do so while reading the sample and have the full book in a couple of minutes.
- I’ve already used the browser with Wikipedia several times. I think that’s going to be a hit with a lot of people.
- I do wish that more text could fit on the screen and that the screen itself had a frontlight for reading in the dark.
Seashore for OS X
I spent some time this morning trying various free and inexpensive OS X image editors. I tried the GIMP, but it lagged a lot and then crashed. I tried ImageWell (which seems great), but it didn’t have the kind of selection tool I wanted. I tried Live Quartz and enjoyed it, but it also did not have the selection tool I was looking for.
Finally, I tried Seashore. Seashore is a custom build of the GIMP with a Cocoa front end and a smaller set of functionality. It had the selection tool I was looking for and works great!
Using Seashore, I made a silhouette of Doctor Who’s TARDIS for my blog header.
Win a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet!
TabletBlog is running a contest: The best response to ThoughtFix’s video will win one of Nokia’s new N810 Internet Tablets. Entries are due by 11/16, so HURRY! Reggie, Jonathan, ThoughtFix and I will be judging.
The Latest
Work has been extremely busy, causing me to be extremely quiet on the blogging and email fronts. Here’s a quick catch-up:
Family
Charlie and Samantha are taking swimming classes and Samantha is playing Volleyball now! Beth and I took the family on two (short) trips this summer – the Grand Canyon+Sedona first and then a trip to Disneyland. Both a lot of fun! OH, and Kyria, my older sister, made me an excellent scarf (patterned after the one worn by Tom Baker in season 12 of Doctor Who) – it’s awesome!!
Homestead
We’re working on several cool projects at Homestead and we’ve recently brought a lot of great new talent on board. Our customers are happier than ever and they have a lot to look forward to later this year and next.
Games
I played and finished Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Portal. Very fun, fairly short games. Portal exceeded my expectations and delivered a unique experience that I’ll never forget. Bravo!
Gadgets
I’m jazzed to see the new Nokia n810. I’ve been a believer in the internet tablets (770, n800) for a while now, but recently I’ve been bugged that they don’t fit in your pocket. The n810 fixes all that by being just a little bigger than an iPhone. Imagine a Nintendo DS Lite MINUS the top screen/speaker assembly – that’s the size of the new n810. Wifi, 800×480, GPS, Slide-out-Keyboard, smooth youtube – IN YOUR POCKET. It’s unbelievable. Looks like Nokia really found the sweet spot with the new device. More from ThoughtFix and Atmasphere. Specs at Engadget.
Software
OS X Leopard looks GREAT, particularly the Time Machine versioned backup system. Nine more days! And the (better-late-than-never) iPhone SDK is coming in February. I’m really enjoying Apple’s products lately.
TV
Kitchen Nightmares is the only series I’m really attached to right now. Heroes has a lot to make up for after last season’s disappointing finale. Probably won’t be very excited about TV until the next seasons of Lost, Doctor Who, Life on Mars and Battlestar Galactica arrive.
John Tokash 