Articles by Zek

Who Needs an eBook Editor?

(I want to live here.) Welcome to yet another State of the eBook! First of all, the results of last week’s poll are in. Apparently, most of you are bigger ebook fans, with the vast majority voting for “eBooks first!/What’s a paper book?” Guess it isn’t TOO surprising, considering the subject of this column… This week, the big ebook news was that Barnes and Noble debuted “PubIt!”, their self-publishing arm. This brings them into direct competition with Amazon, as well as smaller companies Smashwords and Feedbooks, plus the vanity paper book publishers looking to break into the ebook markets. Basically,…

eBooks, News & Features

More Kindle for Android Details!

The lucky guys at Android Central got their hands on a demo of Kindle for Android, and it looks amazing. If you watch the video, there’s a brief force close (oops!), and a demo of some of the settings. Highlights for me were the ability to change the background colors and a brightness slider; when you’re dealing with a bright, high-resolution screen, being able to adjust how you view an ebook is a must. After watching the video, this makes me want Kindle for Android now! Summer can’t come soon enough…note to Amazon: I’ll be traveling in June and July,…

News & Features

Skyfire Introduces Skyfire Rocket

Skyfire already turned smartphones on their sides when they created a browser that played flash video. Even on a tiny screen, being able to watch full episodes of tv shows and other flash based video is a big convenience when you are on the go. But if you don’t want to use Skyfire’s browser, or your device doesn’t support Skyfire, you’re stuck. Not for long, though, if Skyfire has anything to say about it. They are working on a product that will let manufacturers use the best parts of Skyfire, like the video capabilities, but overlayed on a device’s native…

News & Features

Dear Gear Diary: Windows Marketplace Issues

I received this email from a Gear Diary reader, and unfortunately, I don’t currently have a Windows Mobile phone. If anyone can help him out, please offer suggestions in the comments! Hi Carly, I always check out your posts on Gear Diary and find your perspective refreshing and honest. Since you are so involved with researching different techie toys and have a lot more background information than I, I was wondering if with your post on Mobile 6.0-6.1 Marketplace, if you found or encountered stories of this not loading and allowing one to buy apps. I have a T-Mobile Wing…

News & Features

Fashion Blogging for All Ages!

The internet is truly a place where anyone can have a voice…even if that voice is 14! Admittedly, I don’t follow the fashion world, but if you do, you may have heard of Tavi Gevinson, a 14-year-old fashion blogger. She’s so successful she was seated in a more prestigious seat than Anna Wintour (the inspiration for “The Devil Wears Prada”) at a fashion show! What’s extra crazy is that she started blogging about fashion at 11. And now she’s showered with free clothes and speaks at conferences, and the fashion industry cares deeply what she thinks. From the Economist profile…

News & Features

ClintonFitch.com Reviews MLB At Bat 2010

Are you a baseball fan? Been looking at MLB At Bat 2010, but find that you’re just a little hesitant to pull the trigger on a $15 app that’s only good for one year? Well, you’re in luck. Our friend Clinton Fitch over at ClintonFitch.com has posted a thorough review of MLB At Bat 2010 for the iPhone. Clinton’s review covers the incredible amount of information to which the software allows the user access, including an abundance of statistics, live action scores, video highlights, and schedules. He also touches on the optional MLB.tv service, which offers streaming video for almost…

eBooks, Editorials

MyPadMedia Strikes Back

I bet you thought my skeptical post about MyPadMedia would be the end of it. You’d be wrong. First, a bit of background. I did email MyPadMedia asking for information on how their service worked, and I received back a pitch to receive commissions if I became an affiliate. Still no explanation of exactly what your $49.99 will buy. Apparently, though, MyPadMedia did not like my post. Specifically, they requested the following to Judie: Geardiary.com, My name is Jonathan Crawford and I am the owner of myPadMedia.com I demand that you remove you article entitled “Buyer beware-MyPadMedia” immediately. Not only…

News & Features

SureFit Debuts “Auto Friends” Line of Products

I have a very large dog who loves car rides. He also enjoys rolling around in mud, swimming and refusing to sit still to be dried off, and of course, shedding the equivalent of 4 dogs worth of fur in an afternoon. So my backseat is constantly in a state of slight messiness. Then, of course, there was the time he ate a bag of mint Hershey’s kisses and decided they didn’t agree with his stomach as we were en route to the emergency vet. Trust me, the conversation you never, ever want to have with your partner is “Does…

Reviews

C25K: Week 1

Larry: In case you missed my post from last week, I’ve started the Couch to 5K running plan. Or as a few of us at Gear Diary have turned to calling it, the “Blogger’s Chair to 5K” running plan. This running program helps you get from doing little or no exercise to running a full 3.1 miles in 9 weeks. Each week I’ll be updating the site with a post about the program, how the week went, some of the gear I used and more. Surprise #1: After I posted my initial article I got messages from both Dan and…

Editorials

Kigo Footwear Takes Customer Service to Web 2.0

Every job I’ve had has been sales or customer oriented in some capacity, so I always geek out a bit at innovative ways to improve customer service. Today I came across a company that used Twitter very effectively to reach out and interact with me as a customer, and I wanted to share that story. I found out about Kigo Footwear on the Runner’s World forums and thought their “Kigo Shel” shoes sounded really cool. So I poked around their website and learned the company is as interesting as their shoes. They use recycled materials, and their whole business model is…

News & Features

American Foundation for the Blind Looks at Smartphone Accessibility

Smartphones have become nearly indispensable productivity tools. Businesses issue them to employees, and people use them constantly to keep up with their personal lives. But what do you if you are blind or visually impaired? Tiny keyboards and 3-4 inch screens aren’t always great if your eyesight is wonderful, let alone if you have vision issues. Luckily, the American Foundation for the Blind puts out an online magazine called AccessWorld, and several articles this month covered smartphones and visual impairment. For the corporate-types, they looked at an app called Oratio for Blackberries. This is what’s called a “screen reader”, or…

News & Features

Google and Verizon to Bring out the Ultimate Android Tablet?

(Image courtesy Laptop Mag) Looks like Verizon’s love affair with Android isn’t ending so fast. Boy Genius Report says that Google is teaming up with Verizon to bring out an Android tablet. Personally, I think this is awesome news, and Google needs this tablet out ASAP. There are a few reasons why this has the potential to be a huge win for Google. For starters, it helps slow the dilution of the Android tablet market. If you think the phones are fractured, just look at the tablets. There’s a veritable army of current and rumored tablets, from Archos to MSI…

Reviews

I Have A Confession: I’m Addicted to Sporcle

I first heard about Sporcle on the Howard Stern show. Howard was joking that his crew spends most of their time, time when they should all be working, playing on the site. What’s Sporcle? Sporcle is a trivia based web site and not only is it super addicting, it’s super fun. Well of course it is right? I mean what’s addicting that’s not fun … at least in the beginning? The site features a ton of short user and site created “quizzes” where you have to name as many of the correct answers as you can in the given time…

Reviews

Review: Sound Mac-hine for iPhone

Sure, using an iPhone or Blackberry for work is great, but you need to have some fun too. And, let’s face it, deep down we’re all little kids who love laughing over a good sound effect or fart joke. Enter an app like Sound Mac-Hine. It’s essentially an app full of sound effects, ranging from various Howard Stern show regulars to oldies but goodies like “Beetlejuice” and “The Three Stooges”. Personally, my favorite was “The Three Stooges”, though I think my fiancée and dog were less impressed when I played the same effect 15 times. Of course, there’s more to…

eBooks, Editorials

The Two Audiences for eBooks

It occurred to me after reading this editorial at Teleread that there are really two audiences for ebooks. There are the people who just want to read a book. They’re happy picking up their reader or iPad, opening a book, and just reading. Maybe they want some minor options like font sizes, but talk to them about specific fonts, background colors, backlight adjustments, dictionary lookups, etc., and they’re going to glaze over. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a measure of what the audience wants or is taking advantage of in their device or software. Then there’s the type…

eBooks, News & Features

Take Wikipedia with You Offline

My mother is a high school history teacher, and if you breathe the word Wikipedia to her she will give you an earful about students and plagiarizing. And about how peer-edited history articles are rife with errors. So if she got an eyeful of this service I think her head would explode. Yes, now you can save yourself the trouble of cutting and pasting into word, printing out your paper, and finding a nice plastic sheet for a report you’ve lifted from Wikipedia. Instead, for the starting price of $8.90, AND they’ll ship within two days! Tongue in cheek jokes…

How to Do It Yourself!

The Advantage of Being a Pack Rat

I tend to hang onto odds and ends from gadgets. My justification is always “you never know when you might need a cable/case/obscure memory card format/box”. And 9 times out of 10, I forget about all that stuff until it’s time for spring cleaning. But sometimes it really comes in handy. I never threw out my Kindle 1 case even after I replaced it with a M-Edge one, since I figured it might be useful someday. Last week I was reading a few books on my Camangi Webstation, and it just highlighted how much I hated the simple slipcover that…

eBooks, Editorials

Buyer Beware – MyPadMedia

It sounds great…”Unlimited books and comics for your iPad!” But what is MyPadMedia? Well, it is a site that promises the holy grail to readers: pay them $50 ONCE, and the floodgates open for unlimited books. What books? Well, you need to pay to play, my friends. There’s a testimonial that claims to have read “the whole twilight series”, but if you want more you need to pony up some serious dough, sight unseen. From all appearances, it is a huge scam. Red flag #1: no searchable listings. Pay up, but they won’t tell you what you’re paying for! Red…

Reviews

Twitter for Android Review and Comparison

Twitter released their “official” Android app on Friday afternoon, and I’ve been using it for a few days. Is it enough to unseat my current favorite (Touiteur), or even match up Twidroid and Seesmic? Read on to find out. Let’s start with the basics. Twitter offers the usual complement of “check for new tweets at x intervals”, and notifications appear in the status bar. You can set for an LED flash as well as an audible alert. All that works great, although the LED flash seems to be a bit buggy. The big downside is that when you are notified…

eBooks, Editorials

Numbers Take on the eBook Fiction Section

(image courtesy Readymade) It’s time for another “State of the eBook”! This time there’s some quickie news, and then an examination of numbers. What’s for real, and what’s a smokescreen? More on that in a bit. Kindle: -The Kindle app for PC has been updated! Apparently, it adds a few interface improvements. Hopefully, the next step is going to be releasing some new Kindle apps (cough, Android, cough). -In addition, it looks like Amazon will be offering commissions to affiliates for Kindle books. B&N nook: -The nook may/may not have outsold the Kindle in the first quarter. The actual results…

eBooks, Editorials

Don’t Mess with Amazon

Lately, book pricing is a better drama than daytime soap operas. While the publishers have thrown their undying love and affection towards Apple, Amazon has been quietly maintaining their dominant position. Time and again, the publishers complain bitterly about ebook and book pricing, but the reality is they need Amazon far, far, more than they need Apple. And Amazon knows it. Reason one why you shouldn’t cross Amazon: Penguin has been a holdout on the agency pricing for ebooks, so they’ve been MIA in the Kindle store. Amazon has clearly learned from the disastrous showdown with Macmillan, and they found…

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