Articles by Zek

Should PayPal Be Allowed to Dictate eBookstore Content?

Now here’s a slightly unusual, and extra sticky, case of censorship. Smashwords sells all sorts of self-published works, from regular old fiction to instructional works, to erotica. It’s that last category that has Paypal’s metaphorical undies in a bunch, and in a really upsetting turn, they’re using their position as a payment processor to force Smashwords to pull titles. (Warning: Some of the links below are NSFW) According to The Digital Reader, Smashwords made this announcement over the weekend:

Editorials

Scientists Give “Fake Meat” a Whole New Spin

I was a vegetarian for 7 years, so I have eaten my fair share of veggie burgers and fake bacon (actually, fake bacon is why I stopped being a vegetarian, but that’s a whole other story). So the idea of “fake” meat doesn’t bother me most of the time, but this latest news is truly creepy-scientists are working on making “meat” using stem cells and Petri dishes. According to the BBC: Scientists in the Netherlands hoping to create a more efficient alternative to rearing animals have grown small pieces of beef muscle in a laboratory. These strips will be mixed…

eBooks

Amazon’s Ban Hammer Gets Itchy

Despite my spirited defense of Amazon a few days ago, I go back and forth about supporting them sometimes. It’s not that I feel guilty, it’s just that they tend to lean on the same tactics to get what they want, mainly their leverage based on market share. That’s what’s happened this week with Independent Publishers Group. Amazon and IPG had a contract dispute, and Amazon pulled their ebooks from the Kindle Store. There are two sides to every story, and Amazon is being typically tight-lipped, so all we have to go on is the IPG account (via Teleread and…

News

$199 NOOK Tablet Rumored

B&N has been selling the older NOOKcolor for $199 since the NOOKTablet burst onto the scene. Now it looks like B&N is aiming to retire the NOOKcolor and (hopefully) face off against the Kindle Fire with a NOOK Tablet for $199-the only catch is that it will only have 8GB of memory, and not 16GB like the original NT.

eBooks, Editorials

Is Amazon Evil, or Is It Just Business?

With all the upheaval in bookselling, there seems to be a growing distrust and backlash towards Amazon. Borders imploded, B&N is struggling with their physical stores, independent bookstores are disappearing, and Amazon is waiting with open arms for any lost consumers. The anti-Amazon discussions boil down to two main arguments; the idea that as convenient as Amazon is, buying “local” is worth the higher costs, and the idea that Amazon is just plain evil. I understand the “buy local” argument, but the “Amazon as an evil entity sent to suck the life from the competition” argument is, to put it…

eBooks, Gear Bits

Kno, Cengage, and Why Digital Textbooks Are Failing

Digital textbooks are a bit like alchemy. Everyone wants to find the magic formula, but the experiments just come out as useless lumps, rather than shiny bits of gold. Even iBooks 2 has many skeptics, despite Apple’s deep pockets and impressive publishing contacts. But the best illustration of how tangled and inefficient the eTextbook market is can be seen in the fight between Cengage (a publisher) and Kno (one of the 49,000 services trying to cash in on digital learning).

Gear Bits

$30 off Eyeglasses at Costco

Despite my reputation of being very clumsy, I have worn glasses for over 20 years without breaking them. Until last week’s vacation, when I left them on the bed and smashed them. Oops. To be fair, being at sea apparently exacerbates my natural klutziness, since I also went flying off a water tube, fell off a chair, and walked head first into a tree branch. So I guess I should be happy my glasses were the main victims. However, this did mean I needed new ones, and I apparently picked a good month for it! Costco has a coupon for $30 off…

Reviews

Where Can the Case-Mate Phantom Travel? Just About Anywhere!

I have just returned from a weeklong cruise along Costa Rica and Panama, and of course, my trusty iPhone came with me. It was safely swaddled in a Case-Mate Phantom Case, which I’ve had for a few weeks. My intention was to write-up the full review when I returned, but as the trip played out this review took on a bit of a different turn, so read on for more!

Reviews

Kingston Wi-Drive Review

There are some smartphone accessories that make you go “huh? Who would buy this?” And then sometimes there are ideas so smart you think, “Wow! Why didn’t anyone do this sooner?” Finally, there’s the “GREAT idea, poor execution” accessory. The Kingston Wi-Drive fits into one of these categories, but you will have to read to the end to find out which one!

Editorials

Does Barnes & Noble WANT to Kill the Bookstore?

Barnes and Noble is taking an extremely strong anti-Amazon stance this week. Engadget is reporting that They’ve declared all books published through Amazon or in an exclusive deal with Amazon will not be carried in their brick and mortar stores, just online at BN.com.

Editorials

Verizon Customer Service Rocks!

Sarah and I are planning a trip abroad soon, and on my to-do list was to call Verizon and add international roaming to my iPhone. When I called the customer service line, I was incredibly impressed with how helpful they were, above and beyond what I had expected! As soon as I explained the purpose of my call was to add international roaming, the customer service representative emailed me the Verizon rates for calls, texts, and data. She then waited until I confirmed I had it to review my options and move forwards adding a roaming plan, because she wanted…

Gear Bits

Tiny Tower: My Shameful Obsession

Have you heard of Tiny Tower? Chances are you have, at least if you use an iOS device. It was named Apple’s 2011 Game of the Year, which is how I stumbled upon it while browsing the App Store. But now that I’ve discovered it, it has become my go-to game throughout the day. Worst of all, I’ve now gotten Sarah hooked on the Android version, despite the fact that neither of us can really point to what’s so exciting about the game! If you’re not super familiar with Tiny Tower, here’s the App Store description: Tiny Tower lets you…

Editorials

Life on iOS, 4 Months Later

(yes, I am very obsessive about keeping all my apps neatly in folders.) Recently Thomas commented that he had re-read my “Farewell, Android” post, and he wanted to know if I felt the same way since buying my 4s back in October. At the risk of ruining the surprise, the short answer is “Heck yea!” But that would make this a rather short follow-up, so read on for how life on iOS has treated me and whether I miss anything from my robot-loving days! The impetus for my initial decision to move to iOS was frustration with Android’s fragmentation and…

Gear Bits

Old Cables to the Rescue!

I wrote yesterday about my first impressions of the Case-Mate Phantom for the iPhone 4s, and I pointed out that it was new and therefore in the “new accessory honeymoon phase”. Last night I discovered a potential issue, but luckily for me, the legacy of the original iPhone came to the rescue! See, the original iPhone had a very recessed headphone jack. It fit normal 3.5in headphones, but only if they had a very slim plug design. Anything not supermodel-skinny didn’t fit. Of course accessory manufacturers stepped right up, and when I had my original iPhone I used a $10…

News

Case-Mate Phantom First Impressions

I am hard on my phones. Really, really hard. Honestly, it is a miracle my iPhone is unscathed; by 4 months into owning my Droid it had gone down the stairs twice and out of my pocket multiple times. So far the iPhone has been lucky, but every time I slip it in my SPIbelt for a run or fiddle with it while walking the dog, I feel like I am tempting the smartphone destruction gods. So, as soon as Case-Mate’s Phantom arrived, fresh from Judie and Dan at CES, I slapped it on my phone. (Literally — I received it…

Gear Bits

Starbucks Asks: Venti, Grande, Tall, or Cabernet Sauvignon?

Sure, you hit your local Starbucks for coffee, morning after bleary-eyed morning. And maybe on weekends, you sit with the paper and a nice latte, people watching and catching up on the news. Pretty soon you’ll be able to add happy hour to the list! Starbucks is adding alcohol to several stores as a test run, which in theory sounds like an intriguing idea. After dinner drinks like “Irish coffee” would be a great fit for a cafe. But according to Bloomberg, Starbucks is apparently aiming for the after-work drinkers: Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — Starbucks Corp., the world’s largest coffee-shop…

News

One Good Earbud, One Brilliant Idea?

I have said many times that running with headphones in is not a good idea. It’s dangerous for multiple reasons; you can’t hear cars, animals, or people coming up behind you. Even with the music turned down you lose a sense of what’s around you. The common suggestion is usually to leave one earbud out, but then you’re stuck with a mono listening experience. That’s why One Good Earbud from Far End Gear is such a smart idea. From their website: One Good EarbudTM is the ideal way to safely listen to music, podcasts, audio books, and mobile calls while running,…

eBooks, Editorials

Has iBooks 2 Cracked the Textbook Puzzle?

After Apple’s big iBooks 2 announcement, I went hunting for more info on prior digital textbooks; it occurred to me that most of the pilot programs and digital textbook stuff are aimed at college level students and up, with the most famous/infamous being Amazon’s Kindle DX experiment with several universities. This makes sense since college kids foot their own bill for hardware. So why is Apple targeting high schools? Did no one point out that schools are so poor they are firing teachers left and right? A class of 500 freshmen starting high school would cost a district $250,000 before…

eBooks, Editorials

If an eBookstore Falls in the Internet and No One Hears It…

eBooknewser reported today that Amazon quietly shut down Mobipocket, an ebook store that those of us with PDA roots probably remember fondly. Amazon purchased Mobipocket and still uses their format as the basis for Kindle books. After reading the post, I headed over to Mobipocket and found what appears to be the internet equivalent of a broken, abandoned storefront. There’s no announcement that Mobipocket is gone, but the files appear to have all disappeared. Bestsellers, fiction, non-fiction, everything is just gone, with the exception of a handful of classics that appear on the main page. Meanwhile, things aren’t exactly hopping…

News

The Importance of Documenting Family History [NSFW – for Disturbing Images]

A few years ago, Sarah and I had lunch with my grandma, and she started pulling out photo albums to show us family pictures. Among her pictures were photos from her life before she came to America, everything from photos of her and her brothers to her life in the displaced persons camp where she met my grandfather after the war. We realized she was sitting on an incredible amount of history, and while it has taken a long time to get around to coordinating it, we finally got together with my aunt and started documenting her photos today. What…

eBooks, Editorials

Does Anyone Buy eBook Readers for the Hardware Anymore?

There’s an interesting (and honestly, inevitable) trend in the book world lately: no one’s talking hardware anymore. Yes, there’s new devices, and sales are touted when they’re impressive. But the big announcements that come up again and again are “ebook sales are increasing by these triple digits/these authors are making this much money through ebooks/we have this many free ebooks, etc”. Plus, all those lovely ebooks are available on tablets, computers, smartphones and dedicated ebook readers…so does it pay for a company to offer the hardware without the ebooks anymore? In my view, the answer is no, and I think…

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