Articles by Zek

Revisiting an Old Geek Love, or the Amazing Endurance of Deep Space Nine

(image courtesy DS9 encyclopedia) Sarah was away camping all weekend, so I was left to entertain myself. Normally I catch up on the DVR on these kinds of weekends, but there is slim pickings this summer. So I fired up Netflix, started flipping through my queue, and remembered that I had wanted to rewatch “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine“. I expected to spend a few hours catching up on the first season and reminiscing about my insanely geeky childhood. Instead, I have rediscovered a show that is surprisingly current, despite being almost 20 years old! The premise of DS9 is…


Streaming Video and the Deaf Communtity: The Good and the Bad

I am fascinated by the ways technology can open up the world and make it more accessible for people with disabilities. What is a convenience for you and me may be a life changer for someone else. Unfortunately, sometimes technology outpaces itself, and leaves the accessibility features playing catch-up. It is something of a mixed bag in many areas, especially for the deaf and hard of hearing community. According to Slate, closed captioning is not required on Netflix, Hulu, and other digital media options. While Netflix does offer some closed caption titles, not all of their library is set up…


Oscar Pistorius to Compete at the Olympics!

(image courtesy Oscarpistorius.com) Does the name Oscar Pistorius mean anything to you? If you don’t follow track and field or Olympics drama, probably not. He is a gifted sprinter who will be running for South Africa in this summer’s games. He is fast, though probably not fast enough to be a serious threat. Oh, and he’s a double amputee. Because of his “blades” that he uses when running for legs, track and field officials have argued back and forth for several years as to whether it is an unfair advantage for him to compete with able-bodied athletes. Supposedly his legs…


Bookstore(s) Live!

(for those who don’t get the image, here is the Wikipedia entry) The subject of the future of bookstores is one that always hovers at the edge of the ebook conversation. The demise of Borders bookstore may have cast a long, ominous shadow on physical retailers, but not all bookstores are struggling. While I have discussed the future- and challenges- of independent bookstores here on the site, Forbes has actually profiled a successful indie bookstore. Better still, it is right in the heart of Silicon Valley! From Forbes: You gotta believe. Leigh and two co-investors — husband Khader Abdel-Hafez and Jerry…


Writing, Self-Publishing, and Self-Editing

Self-publishing has been the great equalizer in writing. Suddenly authors who weren’t getting the time of day from traditional publishing could package their books and other collected works without a middleman, and sell right to the masses. However, as anyone who has shopped around for ebooks has noticed, self published titles are a mixed bag. Some are great, and some are…not so great. Forbes has noticed that too. They shared a pretty funny Twitter conversation with author Lou Morgan after he found an old manuscript of his from his teenage years. Morgan talks about how embarrassed he is by his…


North Carolina Legislator Accidentally Hits The Wrong Button, Fracking Ensues.

My day job is very time-sensitive. We have to be very careful if we are filling out forms online to be quick, but also make sure we select the right options. It isn’t hard, though mistakes do happen, and luckily for me, when they do we can fix it. However, if you are a legislator in North Carolina, don’t press the wrong button! One minute you think you’re voting against a bill, the next minute fracking is suddenly legal. Apparently, in North Carolina they use electronic voting for the legislature. If you hit the wrong option, you can explain you…


Relax, The Government Says Mermaids Are Not Real

(image courtesy fanpop) There are moments that make you stop and wonder exactly how crazy and/or stupid people can be. Just when you think you have all the conspiracy theories organized in your head, from the “Elvis lives!” crew to the Area 51 believers to the people who believe the moon landing was faked, there’s another crazy theory du jour. But I grew up spending every summer swimming in the ocean, and never once gave a thought to mermaids! See, the National Oceanic and Atmostpheric Administration had a very busy weekend. The mid-Atlantic region had nasty storms roll in, and…



Should eBooks and Privacy Be a Concern for Us?

Here’s another reason for eBook haters to complain about the digitization of the written word — your reading habits are no longer secret. While it is not surprising to assume Amazon, B&N and Kobo are watching what you read, the Wall Street Journal has a very detailed account of just how much is being watched. From the Journal: Publishing has lagged far behind the rest of the entertainment industry when it comes to measuring consumers’ tastes and habits. TV producers relentlessly test new shows through focus groups; movie studios run films through a battery of tests and retool them based…


Will The Nexus 7 Tablet Impact the Kindle Fire and NOOK Tablet?

When Google announced the Nexus tablet, I was surprised to see they didn’t seem to be aiming for the iPad. With a $199 starting price and a 7 inch form factor, Google is clearly taking aim at the devices that have defined the Android tablet market thus far; e-reading based tablets like the Kindle Fire and the NOOK Tablet both run off Android, but use their own proprietary app and content stores, and Google wants a piece of that pie! So I posed this question to the other Gear Diary editors:      Carly: How much will the Nexus tablet pull…


Geoff Morrison’s “Undersea” Only .99 On Kindle!

I am always on the hunt for a good book, especially during the summertime. Once on a week’s vacation to the beach I blew through 12 books! Needless to say, I try to bargain hunt for new titles. So Geoffrey Morrison’s book “Undersea”, for only .99 on Kindle, has caught my eye! Here’s the description: In a world flooded and irradiated by a nearly forgotten cataclysm generations passed, all that remains of civilization clings to life in two war-torn, city-sized submarines. For fifty years, the only peace between them has come from separation. Now, young councilwoman Ralla Gattley has uncovered…


Extra, Extra! Zinio To Sell Themselves Instead of Magazines!

If you are a regular reader of Gear Diary, you probably know about Zinio, the digital magazine people. If you do, you might be surprised to hear they are for sale; and if you haven’t, you probably buy digital magazines from B&N or Amazon, if you buy any at all. CNN has the scoop on the sale: FORTUNE — Zinio, a digital magazine reading platform that competes with Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle app and Apple’s (AAPL) Newsstand, is seeking a buyer, Fortune has learned. The San Francisco-based company has hired investment bank Montgomery & Co. to manage the process, with one…


Microsoft Surface: The Trojan Tablet For Digital Textbooks?

Just about two months ago, Barnes and Noble and Microsoft announced that B&N would spin off their NOOK and college bookstore businesses into “Newco”, to be jointly owned by both companies. Obviously this has been good news for B&N’s finances, but aside from the press release both sides have been very quiet. There were rumors that B&N would be part of Microsoft’s Surface tablet event, but that was proved wrong. However, I think Surface tablets are a big part of why Newco was formed. When the joint venture was announced, I pointed out this benefit on the Microsoft end: As…


Us+U Swivel Portfolio for Kindle Fire Review

Sarah has had a Kindle Fire since Christmas, and she loves it. She uses it for reading, watching movies, and playing games. For a while her primary case was one she found at Brookstone that was clearly a repurposed Blackberry Playbook case. So Sarah was very excited when we had the chance to check out the US+U Swivel Portfolio! US+U is not just a typical case maker though. They give 3% of the net revenue from each case to various charities, meaning purchasing this case does more than outfit your Fire, it does something good for the world at the…


The Worst Solution Ever for “Show Rooming”

If you listen to traditional retailers, online websites like Amazon are hurting them through what’s called “showrooming”, where the retail store becomes a place for consumers to check out items, but buy them online instead. There’s a lot of debate over the solutions (Target pulled all their Kindles, for example) but Rich Adin at The Digital Reader has the worst suggestion I have ever seen: Of course, there is no practical way to prevent such comparison shopping by consumers. A b&m retailer can fight back by no longer carrying any Amazon-branded merchandise, which is the approach Target took, but that…


Metal Medal Hangers with a Shelf, Kickstart This!

If you participate in any organized sporting events, there’s a good shot you will end up with a medal. Running races generally give out medals for half-marathon and marathon distances, and championships in team sports often also reward players with hardware. Yes, there’s an easy joke here about how these days “everyone gets a medal” but they make great souvenirs to remember athletic experiences. However, once you take one home, how you do you display it? One or two can be hung on a hook, but above that you want a better way to show them off. Enter the Kickstarter…


2012 Kia Rio Review

For the last several days, I have had the opportunity to tool around in a 2012 Kia Rio. It’s a cute, sporty, very compact car, and it has been quite a difference from my usual car, a Toyota Prius, and Sarah’s car, a Volkswagen Jetta. It has a lot of impressive features, and a few things I found to be annoying. Read on to learn more! So, let’s start with the basics. This is what Kia calls an “entry-level” car, and it retails for around $18,000, making it very affordable. Now, to get the price that low, there are certain…


The Secrets to Beauty in One Simple Video!

It is not a secret that Photoshop enables magazines to make people look like idealized versions of themselves. In the world of photographic manipulation, no one has wrinkles, or pimples, or unsightly beads of sweat on hot days. Everyone is skinny and muscular, and clothes fit perfectly. In addition to being wildly unrealistic, it’s always ripe for parody, and Forbes shared a video that perfectly nails the absurdity of it: Fotoshop by Adobé is hysterical, and I love how it takes on not only Photoshop but the entire beauty industry. We are bombarded daily by commercials for chemicals that hide…


Using YouTube to Relive My Favorite Childhood Show

When I was a kid, I loved educational television. Sure, 3-2-1 Contact was fun, but my favorite show of all time was Square One! What was Square One? Only the greatest show of all time…about math! From Wikipedia: Square One Television (sometimes referred to as Square One) is an American children‘stelevision program produced by the Children’s Television Workshop to teach mathematics and abstract mathematical concepts to young viewers. Created and broadcast by PBS in the United States from 1987 to 1994, the show was intended to address the so-called “math crisis” among American schoolchildren. The show was revived for the 1995–1996…


The Singularity Is Coming, and It Says You Run too Slowly!

Runners have all sorts of ways to make themselves run faster. Personally, I like using my Garmin Forerunner, since nothing makes me feel slower than watching my snail’s pace tick off on my wrist. Then I convince myself the Garmin is judging me for being slow, and it makes me push harder. Others use landmarks, like trying to run harder to the nearest tree and then slowing down, etc. Now there’s a way to train harder that ups the geek ante to near-infinite levels. According to Runners World, engineers in Australia have invented “joggobot”, a flying drone that floats ahead…


Search and Replace Meets the Kindle, the NOOK, and Tolstoy

Public domain titles are a tricky area for ebooks. On the one hand, a bit of digging can get you a free copy of a title easily. But paying a nominal amount sometimes means a better quality copy, with typos and other issues properly corrected. Unless, of course, you bought “War and Peace” for your NOOK. According to Poynter, a company named “Superior Formatting Publishing” put out a copy of “War and Peace” for the Kindle. Then they made one for the NOOK. In a mind-boggling bit of sloppiness, they did an automatic search and replace every time “Kindle” appeared,…