Articles by Zek

UPDATED: Verizon FiOS — a Rant and a Rave

UPDATE: After this post went live, I received an email from Verizon. They were very concerned about the experience I had, and the frustration I expressed here. I talked with them about the plan we were on, and what bundles made more sense given what we were looking to accomplish (saving money since we didn’t need super-fancy-pants TV). To say they were helpful is an understatement. We picked a better bundle and worked out a much better set of features, and FiOS customer service was incredibly friendly. When I ranted about my experience, it was just to get it…

eBooks, Editorials

NOOKcolor and Dictionary.com: An Innovative Partnership

If you’re like me, you’ve probably turned to Dictionary.com thousands of times. Maybe you wanted to make sure you had your spelling right, or you weren’t sure how to pronounce something correctly. Or maybe you were worried you used the word “insouciant” incorrectly. No matter what, you’re heading to Dictionary.com. And despite the name, Dictionary.com offers more than just definitions. There’s pronunciation help, sample sentences to provide context, even word history, and famous quotes! It has moved beyond just “hey, what does this word mean?” and turned into a full-fledged resource for all things linguistic. I had the privilege to…

eBooks, News & Features

Like Mysteries? Check out MobileRead’s Newest Contest!

(Image courtesy Sherlock Holmes Museum) If you think of yourself as an amateur Sherlock, MobileRead has a great contest for you! They’re giving away an ebook reader of your choice (as long as your choice is a Nook, Kindle, Nook Color, Sony Touch or Pocket Edition)! And if you don’t win the ebook reader, there are 10 runner-up vouchers for $30 worth of ebooks! Sounds great, right? Well, to win, you’re going to need your wits around… From MobileRead: How it works You will have the chance to solve a new murder mystery that inexplicably takes place inside the secluded…

Editorials

Sunday (Actually Every Day), the Rabbi Used an iPad

(Dan in action at my wedding with his handy iPad) A few days before my wedding I received an instant message from Dan (who was our officiant). It’s never good when your rabbi tells you he has a “dilemma” regarding your ceremony…but I had to laugh when his central issue was whether to use an iPad or a Kindle for the service! Never one to choose, Dan had us reading off the iPad for part of it, though he did use the Kindle for the outdoor portion. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Dan use an iPad for rabbinical business, as he also used to walk us…

Editorials

NOOKcolor: Swing and a Miss or a Home Run?

As per internet rumor, Barnes and Noble unveiled their newest addition to the NOOK lineup: NOOKcolor. It’s sort-of an ebook reader, sort-of a tablet, and B&N seems pretty excited and confident it’s going to win them marketshare over the Kindle (and possibly the iPad). I’ve been debating with myself about whether this is going to be successful or blow up in their faces, and the only way to settle this is to lay out both sides. The optimist in me thinks this could be a big win for B&N, and the cynical side of me thinks this is an awful…

Editorials, Travel

The Five Stages of Smartphone Withdrawal

Regular readers of Gear Diary may remember I got married earlier this month. We just returned from our honeymoon, a fabulous week on beautiful San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. It’s absolutely gorgeous; white sandy beaches, sun, drinks, food…what more do you need? Well, in my case, the one thing missing from the island (and the one thing that had Sarah practically doing cartwheels of joy) was the distinct lack of internet service. Yes, I had to go an entire week without a smartphone. Just like the five stages of grief, I went through five stages of connectivity withdrawal. It’s…

eBooks, Editorials

NPR’s Libraries and eBooks Report Highlights eBook Ignorance

The good folks at NPR’s Marketplace did a story on the state of ebooks and libraries the other night. At first I was excited, since it’s great to hear any story about ebooks, especially library programs that tend to fly under the radar. But NPR’s reporting was so horribly, egregiously, painfully inaccurate that I really wonder if they did any research at all. Let’s start with the biggest head-scratcher: Kai Ryssdal: For all that die-hard bibliophiles say they will never ever give up their actual printed books, they may be fighting a losing battle. E-book sales are up 118 percent…

eBooks, News & Features

Yet Another Reason to Switch to eBooks: Airline Fees!

We told you a few weeks ago about Scottevest’s ad rejection by Delta. Of course, Delta is far from the only airline with restrictive baggage fees. It seems like every company has extra charges for heavier bags, less room for carry-ons, etc. So what do you do if you’re a voracious reader? John Naughton of the Guardian UK stumbled on this particular issue. He was looking to bring books on vacation but realized his reading list would have eaten up a big chunk of the weight restrictions on his Ryanair flight. So he broke down and bought a Kindle, despite…

eBooks, News & Features

Random House Loves eBooks, but Not iBooks

(image courtesy psdgraphics) Random House was the only major publisher last year to hold out and refuse to work with Apple on an “agency pricing” system. They basically said setting prices was not their job, but that of the retailer, and if Apple wanted to sell books they could set the prices too. Apple refused, and Random House has famously been absent from iBooks. As it turns out, it doesn’t seem to be hurting Random House much in the ebook department. Markus Dohle, their CEO, recently stated ebooks are currently 8% of their revenue stream, and it looks like it…

eBooks, Reviews

Kobo Reader Review

In the ebook world, the Kindle and nook are the 100 lbs. gorillas. Everyone uses them as the yardstick; does an eReader offer the same features, does it have a store affiliation, is the screen as sharp, etc. At the same time, there’s still something to be said for simple ebook readers. No bells and whistles, just a thin device and your books. The Kobo Reader aims to fill that gap, with sleek looks, a low price, and basic features. Does it fit the bill, or should you pass in favor of its flashier competitors? Read on for my full…

News & Features

Be Safe When Running with Headphones On!

Do you run with headphones on? Personally, I don’t, and I haven’t since I lived in a town that believed sidewalks were optional, and that SUVs have the right of way over the entire road, especially the shoulder where I was running. But I know many friends who do, and I hope they’re careful out there, especially after some recent tragic news out of Dallas, Texas. Over on the Runner’s World forums, someone shared the news about a young woman out running on a multi-use path, who was wearing headphones and turned left abruptly and went directly into the path…

eBooks, News & Features

Amazon’s New Pirated Book Policy

(image courtesy Houston News) Just last year. there was a pretty serious controversy over how Amazon handled pirated books in the Kindle store. Since anyone can upload a book to Amazon, a version of 1984 was uploaded and sold without the copyright holder’s permission. Amazon took an unfortunate stance of removing all copies without warning, only to find a huge internet uproar emerge from the “big brother” behavior. Luckily, Amazon has learned from those mistakes. Their Australian store mistakenly sold a book under Jamie Oliver’s name that was not actually written by or affiliated with the chef. Rather than yank…

eBooks, Reviews

Blio eBook Reader Review

The Blio ebook reader program debuted today. Since Blio has a special deal with Toshiba, I downloaded the Toshiba-branded “Book Place” version for my NB205 netbook. Since Blio is a very unique program, with 3D page turns and other eye candy, I took the above video to demo the features. Here’s the summary/commentary to the video: Blio is dreadful. It’s incredibly slow, it feels horribly cramped on a netbook screen, many of the page view features are more gimmicky than useful and did I mention it’s slow? The page turn options were annoying, though the 3D and two-page layouts were…

eBooks, Reviews

Book Review: The Man Who Lied to His Laptop

Talking with Clifford Nass is a real treat. He clearly loves what he does, and his passion for his work comes through in his stories and anecdotes. Not everyone gets to talk to Cliff Nass about his studies, but luckily he’s written a fabulous book, “The Man Who Lied To His Laptop”, that shares some of his best work and theories. The basic idea behind many of the studies Nass and his team do is that people respond to perceived emotions and intentions, even if it’s presented by a (supposedly) neutral party like a computer or television. From there, Nass…

Reviews

GreenSmart Puku Messenger Bag Review

I like supporting “green” products and companies. It makes me feel a little less like “ooh, shiny new toy” and more “ooh, shiny new toy AND I did something sort-of good for the world”. Of course, any product, recycled/green or otherwise, needs to be well-built and functional. So when I had the chance to review a GreenSmart Puku messenger bag, I was excited to give it a spin. Let’s start with the bag itself, and then we’ll get into the things that make it unique and earth-friendly. The Puku came in a very earthy green color, with brown accents and…

News & Features

Sprint SERO Plans Adding Support for Newer Phones

Before the advent of “Simply Everything” there was an even cheaper way to get Sprint service. All you needed was the email address of a Sprint employee, and you’d qualify for a special plan called “Sprint Employee Referral Offer” or SERO. Basically, it was deeply discounted service, and the people lucky enough to sign up have enjoyed ridiculously cheap wireless for the last few years. In an attempt to drive people off SERO and onto the more lucrative “Simply Everything” plans, Sprint stopped allowing SERO customers to upgrade to new phones. Basically, name a hot phone on Sprint, and SERO…

eBooks, Editorials

State of the eBook: The Return!

Hello and welcome back to State of the eBook! The series had a bit of a summer vacation, but the news is slowly picking back up! So pull yourself away from your new Kindle/nook app/iBooks and check out what’s been going on in the ebook world! Fuzzy Math A few bits of creative and flexible number reporting first. The Bookseller claims iBooks is “more popular than Facebook and Twitter”. Yes, they phrased it exactly like that. As one commenter on their post pointed out, iBooks is the default PDF reader on the iPad and iPhone, so that explains a big…

News & Features

Android on a Palm Tungsten C!

(image courtesy Dmitry Grinberg) Yes, Android has been ported to iPhones, but what about older devices? If you’ve got a Tungsten C, you can (theoretically) run Android 2.1 on it! Yes, a Tungsten C can run a higher version of Android than some official Android phones! This upgrade (if you can call it that) was done by Dmitri Grinberg, possibly the last major hacker/developer of the Palm OS platform. He’s claimed for some time to be working on “DGOS”, a pseudo-upgrade to Palm OS. Either to not endanger his DGOS project or because the Android port is so unstable, it…

News & Features

A Smartphone User’s Worst Nightmare…

(image courtesy Foxnomad) Warning: The image in this post may be very disturbing for iPhone owners everywhere. It’s a nightmare for any smartphone user, really. The devices are so powerful, yet so, so fragile… This is my coworker’s iPhone. I don’t know all the details, except that he dropped it while it was out of its bumper case. While neither of us are physicists, we theorized that had it had the bumper on it, the damage might have been less severe (or nonexistent). Luckily for him, the camera still works so he won’t need to run out and replace the…

Reviews

USB Fever Compact Keyboard Review

If you spend time on the go, you’ve gotten used to laptop size keyboards and small trackpads. Personally, I’ve actually found that having the trackpad nearby as I’m typing to be more convenient than using a separate keyboard and mouse. So when I had the opportunity to review the USB Fever Compact Keyboard with Trackpad, I jumped at the chance. The keyboard is very light and solidly constructed. There are no creaking or awkward seams. I’ve used some wireless keyboards that are flimsy, which makes for poor typing on a lap or on the go, and so I’m extra picky…

eBooks, News & Features

Amazon Kindle Plays Rough

Looks like Amazon isn’t taking the iPad/Kindle rivalry lightly. In fact, they are actively playing it up in their latest commercial! Let’s look at where Amazon really came out swinging: •Showcasing how nice the Kindle is in daylight versus the iPad. •Having the kindle user be a hot girl, while the iPad user was a fairly average guy. •Implying the Kindle user was smarter and better with money-she knew her device worked well in the sun and was cheaper, while the iPad guy seemed clueless. This is a far cry from those earlier surreal fantasy style Kindle ads, and I…

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