Kindle Unboxing Video

I was going to make an unboxing video of my Kindle 2 arriving but I found this one made by a PetSmart employee and I don't see how I could top it.

So I got my Kindle today and in fact there is a picture of dude sitting next to a tree cloud and I don't like my gadgets shiny either.

Some of the other nominees were:

Best Kindle 2 Unbox Video Shot While Hand Holding the Camera (Bruckheimer style)

Best Kindle 2 Unbox Video of a Kindle Purchased Off Of eBay While Drinking Beer

More on the KIndle 2 as I discover it.

Palm Pre Points to Future Tech

The new Palm Pre is a super wow phone. It has one key breakthrough concept which is constancy of contact even as you switch mediums or platforms. You can watch a brief video of it here and you find a compendium of information at Engadget.

The important thing about the Pre is it's WebOS. The Palm Pre uses Javascript and CSS for it's mobile programming language. That's all you need to know to develop applications for the WebOS platform. If you watch the demos you will notice there isn't much in terms of day-to-day tasks you can't do. I don't think anybody would want to write Photoshop in Javascript (except maybe Adobe) but for the daily use glue apps that we all use everyday email, tv listings, calendar, picking out music, jotting down a note, etc. Javascript and CSS can probably handle it just fine. In fact, the Pre looks great.

The Pre points to the future. Clearly, Javascript and CSS has come into it's own as an application development technology. So much so that it seems that it might be all you need for average business application development.

The Pre also leverages an old concept into a new package. Back in the day, one of the great for the rest of us programming applications was HyperCard. In Hypercard you built "stacks" of "cards" with events attached to elements on the card. It had a spiffy english like programming language called HyperTalk. The new Palm Pre brings back the idea of cards but now they are shuffled into a deck. It's still a compelling metaphor. The cards also represent a significant of amount of connectivity power with some of the apps being pretty wild mashups.

Check out the Pre, it's pretty exciting renovaton and even a little innovative.

The Microsoft That Can Say No

I try to like Microsoft. I’ve tried a lot, for a long time. I have moments where I believe but they always managed to take it away. Microsoft wants to be on everyone’s desktop and they practically are. The problem is they want to be there by crushing the competition and having proprietary software that pulls you into their licensing universe not by being the best software you could choose (which ironically often they are). They seek to leverage their monopoly rather than just continually improve it. One place that it really shows is updates. I use and like Windows Live stuff. I write this blog on Windows Live Writer – it’s a great piece of software. I also use Messenger just because it came on the operating system and my friends use it. I have the 2008 version on my Acer Aspire One, and the newest version on my Mac Mini (yes I run Vista on an Apple machine). Today I got that wonderful message that I love to get from Micromafiasoft.

A newer version has already been downloaded (gee thanks) and I MUST install it to continue. Now the only reason this is mildly annoying is there is this wonderful feature in Live 2008 called file sharing where you can set up a share with contact. That’s gone in the new version. So newer version doesn’t necessarily mean bug fixes and MORE features – it can actually mean you are giving something up. Thank goodness there’s a “What’s New” button.

Click.

Umm awesome but this is just the regular download screen. Where is the information on what I’m getting compared to what I already have.

The short version of this is you cannot build a business on software that will change, download itself, and MAKE you install it. You just can’t. You will wake up one morning to screaming emails asking what happened to the files you were sharing.

Microsoft really needs to adopt a stronger internal policy of “opt-in” and inform the user. It will help them maintain and improve their station in the tech world.

UPDATE: At the end of the complete reinstall of all the Windows Live Applications I got this message:

So I still don’t know what change but Microsoft wants to be my search provider and set my home page, as well as collect information about my searches.

I do have the option to opt out – but why bother. I’m an avid FireFox user.

I have to say this sort of stuff really is what alienates techies and makes them hardcore about building and creating unencumbered alternatives to Microsoft stuff. They should think about it.

New York Post Cartoon Not Just Racist, Offensive and Tasteless…..

It’s pathetically STUPID. It’s not funny. At all.

Exhibit A. The original highly offensive insensitive and racist – yet totally dumb too cartoon.

Where is the humor in a woman having her hands and face ripped off by a crazed chimpanzee? What is the implication that Obama’s stimulus bill was written by a chimpanzee? How are the two things, except possibly in the misty stupor of a heroin overdose, even remotely related? They aren’t. The only way this could have been dumber is if the had put the name tag “Mohammed” on the dead monkey. To top it off they stood their ground. I would have claimed a break-in to the press room by person or persons unknown myself. I can hear me now on the phone..”It says what! My God! Who could be that STUPID!!!!! Johnson get in her NOW!”

Look I don’t think Obama should be shielded from ridicule. No president should. I’m pretty confident that Obama knows how to handle those folks…

But this cartoon is obscene on so many levels not too mention trying to a)profit from and b) make light of a serious tragedy.

So I think they should not only apologize, preferably on the cover but they should run my cartoon, offered as a fix to this horrible faux pas of bad judgment.

More on the Amazon Kindle and Screens.....

In my customary opine first, bother to get the facts later style - I did do due diligence on the Kindle last night after I predicted that it will win the browser wars. After much research I stand by that conclusion with all the certainty of a United States government that will actually do something for not to the American people.

No really - I still believe it and here's why. I found a quote from Jeff Bezos who was answering critics who say you can read books on your iPhone, etc. He said essentially that no one who spends a great deal of time doing an activity will mind buying a device designed for the job. I.E. the form factor and screen are a better read than your phone. I have to go with him on this. First, I don't want to miss a call from a client because I read "The Fountainhead". My cell battery is a precious commodity. Second, my eyes can't take it. I bought two physical paper books (yes 2) earlier this week so I could have them with me and read at leisure. If I had had the Kindle, I could have probably saved a significant amount off the price of the paper, saved a few trees, had a smaller carbon footprint (YES I believe electronic delivery in total uses less power than creating and delivering a paper copy), and had a lighter more convenient way to read the book.

Okay before you start to think Amazon is paying me, let me give you a few of the downside points.

The screen is 600x800 and the format of the book is a limited HTML coding. You can't control how much is on a page because the user can change the font size. Their is a learning curve to making a Kindle book. The system memory is not expandable and the battery is straight out of Jobs school of no user replaceable battery (which after using an iPhone for a year with zero problems I'm not so freaked about). I say always do this with gadget. Calculate your daily costs for 1 year. If $0.98 a day seems high to own one. Don't buy it.

Making your own content for the Kindle is really easy. Really. You do have to reformat your existing work probably.

I foresee a day when the Kindle 6 is the modern equivalent of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and we all have one that we use to figure out how to set the clock on our HD DVRs.

Why Amazon Kindle Will Win The Browser Wars

Let's face it, the browser wars are basically contained. You can Google just about any whoopsie and fix it. But at what price? Still I would have never thought that in 2009 we would still be struggling with inconsistencies between browsers. Without question the worst thing that has happened to us is the continued agendized computing we still experience. While Microsoft, Adobe, Apple (to a lesser degree), Sun Microsystems, and Google struggle to be the "one," we see countless hours that could otherwise be productive evaporate in corrective action. The browser wars that were bloody and violent when Microsoft set it's sights on destroying Netscape, are less fever pitched but we now have more browsers than ever to choose from with Apple and Google jumping on board. You can also roll your own basic browser in a few lines of code with Microsoft .Net and I imagine Java has a browser component. Adobe is working hard to bypass your browser altogether by moving you to their “purchased not created” Flash product (in the interest of fairness Macromedia didn’t create Flash either).

Okay enough history, why will the Amazon Kindle win the browser war? Why will the follow alongs be doomed? People have tried before and failed at marketing an electric book. Sony has revived one and has it in stores now. Good luck Sony but you should probably focus on something that you know and love like video. That's what Amazon did. I can't imagine any entity in 2009 claiming to know and love books better than Amazon. I'm sure I'm ignoring some huge publishing company etc. but let's face it Amazon has forever made it's mark.

Okay, okay, okay - how will Kindle win the browser war? I mean Kindle is NOT even a BROWSER for crying out loud. By following the sage advice dispensed by W.O.P.R. in the classic computer movie "WarGames". "The only way to win - is NOT to play." In fact, Amazon probably doesn’t even think Kindle is IN the browser wars. So just like the butterfly that defeated the tiger, the Kindle may mozy along and not even seem a threat until it’s too late.

The Kindle was most definitely a WTF product in version one. You looked at it and said – huh? Who would want that? Answer? Lots and lots of people. You have to wait to get your Kindle. This means I believe that sales are better than Amazon anticipated. I won’t rehash what it does watch these videos and see for yourself. It’s so freaking simple it boggles the mind.

Let’s compare 3 devices that are hotspots for browser wars….

Category	Kindle	iPhone	Netbook
Life	4 Days	2 Days	5-8 Hours
Screen Size	Page	Business Card	Little Widescreen TV
Connectivity	Most anywhere Sprint is	Most anywhere AT&T is	Wifi or 3G provided
Conn. Cost	0	$80 - $100 a month	$80 - $100 a month
Form Factor	Star Trek PADD	Very Little	Chunky & Sideways
Input	Keyboard	Fingertips mostly	Keyboard
Pages designed for it	Every single one that lands on it	Lots and lots (very close to ubiquity) but still many pages no workee well and no flash.	Can display all pages but weighs….
Weight	10+ oz.	20 oz.?	3 lbs.
Secure	Sure	Has been hacked	Windows XP? - OMG

Yeah, yeah but how will Kindle NOT a browser win a war it isn’t in?

Content IS king.

The fatal flaw of agendized computing like Windows XP, and most “free” websites is they want you to do what THEY want you to do NOT what you want to do. Now for the lower half of the bell curve that’s fine but in the upper half of the bell curve (where the money is), you’ll need to actually give them something for their time. So Kindles model of mostly content and pay as you go will make it a preferred carry along device. As it evolves, I PROMISE you they will add messaging. It will probably be some simple form of lightweight IM but it will make Kindle a serious contender.

Let’s face it. In a Microsoft controlled world you would need TONS of software and coding to do the simplest tasks behind the scenes. Compare .NET/IIS/SQL Server to Apache/PHP/Javascript/MySQL sometime. It boggles the mind. You have to license all that, and in the case of a personal browser tote it. That netbook battery burns a pretty good bit of power just getting you to the browser window. Lots and lots of things going on “behind the curtain.” In reality how much data transfer does it take to send “Switch TV#123214143241123 to channel 23” to the your TV. Yeah, just that much. So while some folks have been making things more complicated for profit, others happily have been making books you can read anywhere.

The Kindle is NOT going to replace your computer. Not by a long shot. I didn’t say the Kindle was going to be last man standing in the world of tech. Far from it. The Kindle (or its next generation version) IS going to be the device you use to “browse” for information and eventually communicate with your network AND set your TV to watch “Bones” with. You will hold it happily in your lap and be glad you are not burning out your eye sockets with that tiny Phone or Netbook screen.

The other thing that is going to happen to the Kindle is a selfpublishing explosion. Amazon will hook CreateSpace to the Kindle. So now that question of how you as author get paid will vanish and you will be in the fray. The marketplace will decide the value of your work.

Okay so today, count the number of KIndles you’ve seen. Probably zero. Now mark your calendar for 6 months from today. I bet that number is dramatically different.

Oh if you buy one from the link below, I make money.