Blue Scream of Jeff: August 2012

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Tips on buying an e-reader

I was recently asked by a friend looking to buy an e-reader which one was the best.

Not having had the opportunity to review all of the devices currently on the market designed to let you read books published in electronic format, it was hard for me to give her a definitive answer. However, I was able to offer her some guidelines to help her choose the best model for her.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

The first thing I recommend BEFORE anyone goes out and buys one of these devices is to figure out what exactly you want to do with your e-reader.

You might think the answer is rather obvious – read.

But it’s not.

Many of these devices are capable of playing music or audiobooks, sending e-mail, basic web browsing and some can even store and display your photos as well as play movies. So if all you really want to do is read a book, then buying a reader with a color screen and stereo speakers would be overkill. Likewise if you want to subscribe and read your favorite magazine on your new e-reader, you probably will need a device with a color screen.

Another thing to consider is how you will get your books. Many of these devices come in two “flavors” WiFi-only and WiFi/3G or 4G. Both these options let you download books to your device over the air. But with the WiFi-only versions, you must be connected to someone’s computer network, whether that be your own home network, a network at a hotel, airport or even the one at your favorite coffee shop. Three and 4G models can download books anywhere you can get a cell phone signal, so if you get a hankering to download the latest best-seller in the middle of a bus or train ride, you can.

LEARN THE ABCs OF E-READER FORMATS

Now that you know exactly how you want to use your new e-reader, the next thing to do is check out the selection of books for sale at the two major online book sellers: Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. These days, most publishers release their books in both formats, but it doesn’t hurt to check. You don’t want to buy a device for Amazon.com e-books only to find out that your favorite author is only available in Nook format. Unfortunately, e-readers don’t support both formats, so Amazon Kindle e-readers can NOT download books from Barnes & Noble and Barnes & Noble Nook devices can NOT download books from Amazon.com. Other e-readers, such as the ones made by Sony, BeBook and Kobo also support only one format or the other, so once you’ve made your decision which format to go with, you are stuck with it for the life of your e-reader.

In addition to Amazon.com and Nook formats, many e-readers also support other types of e-books, such as those published in .PDF (Adobe Acrobat), .TXT (plain text file), .DOC (Microsoft Word), .HTML (Web Page), .MOBI, .PRC and BBeB Book formats.

What does all this alphabet soup mean?

More places to get reading material from. There are many sites out on the Internet that offer free or low cost e-books in these formats. But their selections are limited and you will probably buy most of your e-books from either Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, so it is important you choose which format you want to go with carefully.

SET YOUR BUDGET AND BEGIN SHOPPING

With these things decided, you can now narrow your search down to the e-readers that do only the things you want them to do and support the book formats you’ve chosen. This will also give you an idea of the price range you are looking at and let you know if the device you want is within your budget.

Now start shopping.

I always prefer to go out to a brick and mortar store so I can play around with the devices myself instead of relying only on what others have said about them, and I recommend you do this also. Things like screen size and clarity, weight of the device and the feel of the controls are subjective things. A small screen that looks good to me may not look as good to you as a larger screen on another model.

Don’t just look at the screen. Test the controls. Do you prefer buttons to turn pages or like to use the swiping motions you use on touchscreens like your smart phone? If you are choosing a model that has web or e-mail capability, do you want a built-in keyboard, or can you type on a touchscreen keyboard? If a built in keyboard, test it. How does it feel? Is it easy to use?
All these things are subjective and just because some tech guru or any other reviewer likes something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s perfect for you. After all, if the screen size is too small or controls are difficult for YOU to use, you are not going to wind up using your new e-reader for long.

Once you’ve decided on the make and model you like best, then you can go online and check to see who has the best prices. And while you are online, make sure you search for coupon codes for your preferred device or store. This can often save you a few bucks or at least get you free shipping if you are buying online.

OTHER OPTIONS

If you do not want to be locked into either the Kindle or Nook formats, then another, albeit more expensive option, is to go with a full-fledged tablet computer like the iPad or an Android tablet such as the Samsung Galaxy. Both of these devices offer free apps that let you download and read books from either store. If you already have a smartphone, you can skip the expense of buying a tablet or e-reader altogether and just download the Kindle or Nook apps to your phone.

Yes your cell phone screen may be small, but if you don’t read a lot of e-books yet or are still unsure which format to go with, you can try them out for free before you lay down your hard-earned cash for one of these devices.

If, after all this, you are still unsure of which e-reader to get, here are some more resources for you:

http://ebook-reader-review.toptenreviews.com/

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-ebook-readers/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20009738-1/kindle-vs-nook-vs-ipad-which-e-book-reader-should-you-buy/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400310,00.asp

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/e-book-readers.htm

Good luck with your search and let us know which e-reader you have and what you like about it.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Confessions of a Tech addict

Photo by: Bill Fraser

I've been a tech junky for most of my adult life. It's time I came clean about my addiction...

Hello.

THE ATARI 2600: It all started with a case of "Asteroids"

My name is Jeff.

And I am a tech addict.

It all started innocently enough.

Back when I was about 13.

One of my friends got an Atari 2600 and I used to go to his house and my friends and I would spend our entire afternoon there playing “Pong” or “Asteroids.”

But it was okay, because it was his Atari and it was at his house.

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS TI99: Oh the hours we spent
writing our own programs and playing "Wizardry."

Then came the TI99, a computer and game system all rolled into one. I remember spending hours at another friend’s house as we wrote our own programs in the clunky TI Basic language and saved them to a cassette tape. After that we’d play “Parsec” a space battle game that came with it and later on “Wizardry” one of the first computer fantasy roll playing games (Anyone out there remember Tiltowait?).

But again, that was OK, because the TI99 didn’t belong to me either.

Then in the summer of my senior year in high school things began to get really serious. Intellivision arrived on the gaming scene and my friends and I would stay out until the wee hours of the morning running from and gunning down invisible black robots in “Night Stalker” or trying to destroy Recognizers in “Tron Deadly Discs.”

My parents were worried that I wasn’t coming home until nearly sunrise, but I assured them everything was fine. We were just playing video games I told them. I could stop anytime. After all, it’s not like I played them all the time at home. We didn’t have any.

IBM-PC: More than just my first word processor.

In college things got even worse. Thanks to my Uncle Jack, I was able to buy my first real computer, an IBM PC with the 8086 processor, two floppy drives and AMBER monochrome monitor (no stinkin’ green monitor for me!). Ostensibly it was for word processing, as I was a journalism major, and while I did really use it for that, I began using it more and more for other geeky reasons.

Once out of college the trend only accelerated. I quickly replaced the IBM-PC with an i386DX based machine. It had a blazingly fast 33 mhz processor and while I had it I remember tricking it out with a math co-processor and various add-in cards. When I had run out of things to upgrade, I remember calling my friend Tim over and together we performed “brain surgery” on it replacing the motherboard and processor, upgrading the machine to an i486-class computer. Next came a Pentium I machine I bought from Dell and after that came a Pentium 4 class computer with a 2.4 ghz processor and 512 mb of RAM. I still have that computer and although I’ve swapped out the hard drive on it a number of times it still serves me as my “writing” PC. Somewhere in here came my first laptop then a series of laptops for my wife and finally my latest computer, a quad-core machine with 4 gb of RAM I built about four years ago.

I now have something like two desktop PCs and at least four laptops (several of which I Frankensteined together from a series of broken laptops work was getting rid of) all of which I can’t seem to get rid of because they are still somehow useful to me.

And all that is on top of my latest can’t-live-without gadget, my work-provided smartphone.
I used to sneer at people who flocked to the stores to buy them when they first came out. “I don’t need one,” I used to tell people. “I’m not that self-important that I think people need to reach me 24/7. Besides there are some times and places I don’t want to be reached.”

MOTOROLA STARTAC:
Resistance was futile

Then Motorola came out with the StarTac, a clamshell flip phone and the 10 year-old inside me said “Look! It’s a ‘Star Trek’ communicator!” and I became intrigued. But still I held off. Then work issued me a beeper when I became the “Systems Editor” for my our newspaper, and finding a payphone became increasingly hard. Finally I gave in and bought a small silver “communicator” of my own.

“I won’t become addicted to this like I am to computers,” I told myself, and for I while I wasn’t. I carried the phone solely for business purposes (after all they were paying half the bill) and didn’t really use it that much. Then came the PDA revolution. Again, I told myself I wouldn’t get hooked on that gadget, and I was right. Our advertising director though she broke her Palm VII and I managed to fix it, but she’d already replaced it with a better model. So I used her old one for a few months until the novelty wore off. Keeping it synced with my corporate Outlook account was a pain, as was having to look up a person’s phone number on one device and calling them using another.

Then I got my first company issued smartphone and I was hooked.

My all important To Do lists and appointments automatically sync with my Outlook account and I can lookup someone’s contact info and either call, e-mail or text them all from one device. Plus I even have the entire world’s collective knowledge at my fingertips. I no longer have to remember all the assorted facts and figures I need for job, nor the arcane trivia that made me a font of useless geeky information.

Can’t remember the name of the actor who used to be in “Stargate: Universe” and is now in ABC’s “Once Upon a Time?”

No problem.

Just whip out the smart phone and a few seconds later, I have the answer: Robert Carlyle.

Things have gotten so bad with my tech addiction that I now find I can’t just watch TV without either idly surfing the web on one of my many aforementioned laptops or playing Solitaire on my cellphone. In fact last year, when we went on vacation to Europe and I was forced to leave all my tech gear at home (my cell phone doesn’t work overseas and I didn’t have a power converter that I felt comfortable wouldn’t fry my laptop) I literally got the shakes halfway to the airport. Thank the Lord my wife’s old dumb phone did work overseas and she was kind enough to let me hold onto it during the trip.

We’re due to travel back to Europe again this year, but rather than accept my problem, and try to overcome my addiction, I went out and bought a step-down power converter that will keep my laptop, iPod and other tech gear humming along on the higher European voltage.

My wife jokingly told me that I should enroll in a 12-step program to help me break my tech addiction. That’s why I’m writing this. Admitting you have a problem is the first step. The next one is believing that there is “a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity.”

So now I’m turning to the highest powers I know, the three mighty Steves (Jobs, Wozniak and Ballmer) and Bill Gates, hoping they can come up with a cure for my tech addiction.