Boydo's Tech Talk

A few nights ago my wife turned on her Kindle only to find that the top half of the screen would remain stuck on what had been on the screensaver while the lower half would refresh (apart from some minor glitches).

Screen Saver on an Amazon Kindle with Screen Glitches

Password Unlock Screen on an Amazon Kindle with Screen Glitches

We both didn’t have a good feeling about it and numerous attempts to switch it on and off and even full reboots were unable to recover the screen back to its former state. I could only conclude that maybe the hardware that makes the screen work might have suffered a partial failure causing the garbled image.

There was a lament that this device had gone to heaven and a replacement device would have to be purchased. An anxious call to Amazon was placed to try and fix the problem but that didn’t work which seemingly left us the options of paying for a repair or buying a replacement device. As options were explored it became apparent that Amazon was happy to ship a replacement device at no extra charge so long as the sick/dying/dead device was sent back within thirty days.

Admittedly, the device still had a few days left on its warranty (as it was received on this day last year) so we probably didn’t have to be too worried but it seems like Amazon have been lenient even for devices outside of the warranty period. With Kindles becoming super cheap to buy it could perhaps be in their best interests to keep people happy with working hardware so that they can continue to read (and buy) new books.

The device took roughly two days to arrive and everything is back to normal (although we still need to return the old Kindle).

Anyway, this was pretty good support and fulfillment on the part of Amazon and perhaps something to bear in mind if you find that your Kindle has gone to heaven prematurely.

This is my second eBook pick courtesy of my Kindle DX and sheds some light on the internal operations of Google covering things from its genesis in a university right through to significant products such as Google Mail, Android and, of course, search.

“In The Plex” was written by Steven Levy who also wrote Hackers, another book I have read on my Kindle DX which gave a great background on the early enthusiastic adopters of computers who wanted to find other uses for these machines including music, practical jokes and games.

Anyway, “In The Plex” gives a great insight into Google which has traditionally played its cards very close to its chest from an outsider perspective. Reading about how Larry Page and Sergey Brin built up the company from scratch was fascinating and to learn about how they reacted in particular situations was also somewhat humourous. Also learning about how Eric Schmidt took on the tough role of CEO to attempt to keep the young co-founders under some control while trying to familiarise them with how to run a company as a CEO. The book even covers the recent transition of the company leadership from Eric Schmidt to Larry Page (however brief) making it quite a comprehensive corporate biography of sorts.

The book even covers tensions between Apple and Google which will no doubt be covered in the upcoming Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson (which is my next eBook). The tensions between the companies with the competing iPhone and Android products and the eventual resignation of Schmidt from the Apple board and the lead up to that event (including Schmidt leaving the board room when iPhone was being discussed) make a great read.

To put it simply, Google was and, to a degree still is, a master of keeping a lid on things unless absolutely necessary and the “don’t be evil” mantra is covered extensively throughout the whole book. The most interesting juxtaposition with this mantra includes the period in which Google maintained a presence in China whilst having to abide by the whims of the Chinese Government and “mysterious outages” while Baidu, the main player in search, seemed to coast along with minimal problems.

I think the book is a good read particularly for the geeks out there wanting to know more about what has happened behind that white page with the search box and the occasional interesting graphic in lieu of the Google logo. You can grab it at Amazon.

Yesterday, I wrote about the Samsung Music Hub which could be checked out at a popup shop in George Street in Sydney. Today, the general media have covered the fact that this popup shop was also offering ten Samasung Galaxy S II handsets per day until the end of the week for two dollars each. To boot, it’s pretty much next door to an Apple store with at least one person trying to convince people in the line for the iPhone 4S to stand in the Samsung line instead.

I guess one might wonder if such a move is a bit feisty or foolish given the relationship between Samsung and Apple at the present time.

Samsung is already under fire for its Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet with injunctions lodged by Apple preventing its sale in Australia and Germany while Apple is reportedly looking around for other suppliers for the CPUs and displays in its iOS devices.

Part of me thinks that Samsung really has nothing more to lose by waving another red flag at the bull and only customers to gain by being a bit bold and brash about its product. Certainly on paper the Samsung Galaxy S II is probably the pick of the crop of the current Android devices until the Nexus Prime arrives. However, the ecosystem has been the gaping hole plaguing the Android platform since its inception. Samsung now fills in the music side of things now with its Music Hub and Amazon with its seemingly comprehensive offering on its new tablet.

That said, perhaps component manufacturers might find the market more lucrative being a “complete device” manufacturer rather than a component manufacturer. Of course, the risk is then shifted towards successful sales of devices to realise a profit rather than selling components in bulk to other OEMs.

Is Samsung past the point of no return? Well, I don’t think the popup shop by itself would probably be the straw to break the camel’s back but I think we are seeing Samsung progressively come out of its shell in pursuit of a slice of the smartphone market. Their support could use a bit of attention (particularly their speed to release updates) though. That said, I like to see a bit of spirited competition in the market and this looks to be just what the doctor ordered in my opinion.

Kindles are very good for packing a stack of documents into a lightweight device but not everything comes in PDF format. Sure, you could send an e-mail to your personalised e-mail address for your Kindle and have your document (of a supported format) converted and transferred to your Kindle over 3G for a fee but it’s so easy to do it yourself for no cost at all.

Perhaps the most labourious part is converting your documents to PDF. The easiest approach for almost any document is to use CutePDF Writer previously covered here. Of course, Office 2007 and 2010 include the ability to save PDF natively which might save you having to use a third party tool. After that, all you have to do is transfer the file to your Kindle by plugging it in, browsing to the “documents” folder on the device and copying in the PDFs. Next time you start up your Kindle, it should recognise your documents.

I use this to take all of my university documentation with me so I can read up on the go.

Just a heads up for those of you using iPads and iPhones for eBook reading through apps such as the Kindle, Kobo and Nook apps.

If you remember, Apple drew the ire from the user community for wanting to claim 30% of the revenue for in app purchases for media publications including newspaper subscriptions and magazine subscriptions. However, the eBook apps had worked around this by sending customers to their own websites to conduct the purchase with zero revenue going to Apple in this situation.

Well, Apple has made a “compromise” for these apps, specifically:

• eBook reader apps can no longer allow direct purchasing from within the app,
• purchases must be made from the corresponding website outside the app,
• the app must not offer any links to their own website or external eBook stores.

I could only guess that Apple has done this to make competing eBook reader apps less convenient compared to its own iBooks app which allows in app purchases. If this line of argument holds water, I sure hope that we see an anti-competitive suit very soon as this is really quite an abuse of Apple’s position of platform owner and publisher of sorts. For me, this is incentive to fragment my media consumption across other devices, including:

• converged devices like Android and Windows Phone devices,
• dedicated devices like the Amazon Kindle.

As with many things, we’ll see how this pans out but its not the first time that Apple has attempted to wield its control over the platform for questionable reasons.

Just a quick one for tonight .

I am heading back for another semester at uni for my eleventh course out of twelve for my Masters of Science in Information Technology. The course I have selected this semester is “Internetworking” which looks at how routing works specifically on the Internet. I think I will really enjoy this course as it is a break from the slab writing courses I have done more recently and returns me to my technical roots.

The prescribed text though is causing me a bit of a challenge to track down, with a choice between:

• CCNP1: Advanced Routing companion guide, CISCO press, 2ed. ISBN 1-58713-135-8, 

• CCNP Self Study, CISCO press. ISBN 1-58705-145-X.

Furthermore, I need the CD-ROM included with the book as it contains a copy of the Packet Tracer application that simulates a Cisco router for the various lab assignments.

I do have a CCNP study guide book I bought many years ago but it’s not the book that I am after as this book focuses more on the exam for CCNP certification and does not include the Packet Tracer application that I require. Meanwhile, I am hitting up eBay, Amazon and The Book Depository to see if I can find somewhere that the book with the disc.

Anyway, if I come across anything that might be interesting to share on a basic level from the course I’ll be sure to pop it on the blog

Fun times!

In my wanderings through the Kindle DX manual I came across a feature that I found quite intriguing in the form of being able to link your Kindle to social networking sites (at this stage Twitter and Facebook). I thought was a great little feature as I could share interesting or, more likely, humourous passages from the books I would be reading on my Kindle DX.

As per the instructions, linking your Kindle to your social networking accounts is supposed to be straightforward. All you should need to do is:

1. Go to your home screen (press the “Home” button if you aren’t already there),
2. Press the “Menu” button,
3. Scroll down and select “Settings”,
4. Scroll down and select “manage” next to “Social Networks”.

At this point, you should be able to select which social network you want to link to your Kindle and then authenticate to complete the process. Unfortunately, I ran into a problem which resulted in the following error:

You need to set your default 1-Click payment method and address. You can set it through the Manage Your Kindle page (https://www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle) or by calling Kindle Customer Service at 1-866-321-8851 (inside the United States) or 1-206-266-0927 (outside the United States).

To me, it seemed a bit odd that Amazon need you to enable 1-Click ordering in order to use social networking. The link between the two didn’t (and still doesn’t) seem apparent to me so I hope that Amazon looks into this and correct this issue in the short term.

Anyway, to get around it I went into my Amazon account on my computer and into the 1-Click Settings. I made sure that my default 1-Click address had a payment method added and that 1-Click ordering was activated. After that, I could link my social network accounts without a problem. What I did do afterwards was to turn off 1-Click ordering which didn’t affect my linked accounts.

When you want to share a passage from the book you are reading, simply move your cursor using the 5-way button to the beginning of the desired text, click the 5-way button and then scroll to the end of the desired text and click once more.

It’s a great way to share those little snippets of enlightenment, humour or interest with your friends and family but it’s also an interesting hook for Amazon to entice others to buy eBooks.

As you might know, I picked up an Amazon Kindle DX not too long ago and thought that to properly review the device I should buy a book for it to evaluate the check out process and see how books appear on the device. I’ve already tested out a PDF using a sample provided by someone I know but this wouldn’t allow me to see how changing the text size works amongst other things. Anyway, I never intended on reviewing books as part of this blog mainly because I didn’t usually read much apart from computer magazines and technical literature. However, I must say that having a Kindle has inspired me to start reading again (albeit still technologically related stuff).

Anyway, I had heard about Steve Wozniak’s autobiography several times on the TWiT podcast that I listen to every week in the Audible ads run during the show. One of the occasional guests, Gina Smith, co-authored the book with Steve Wozniak (who has appeared on TWiT a couple of times as well). For those who don’t know, Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs and built the Apple I and Apple II computers that made Apple so successful back in the 1970s and 1980s. I still remember using the Apple IIe computers back at my school when we learnt to type in Grade 3, mucking around with Logo (a friend and myself got the little turtle to draw a boombox and coded in the choice of three songs to play through the speaker – one of which was “Tequila”) as well as playing games like “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego”.

Ah, the memories.

Anyway, the book covers Steve Wozniak’s life as you would expect starting in his childhood and fleshing out how he was instilled with his passion for logic and electronics. There are many humourous events in there as he was (and still is) a bit of a prankster. It’s amazing to think that kids were able to solder things together back in those days and build a piece of hardware and a robust one at that. I couldn’t imagine a sixth grader being allowed to touch a soldering iron let alone work with molten metal to create logic gates.

The book also details Wozniak’s time at university and his career at HP, starting up Apple and a number of other ventures in which he became involved over the course of his life.

What I loved most about the book was that his language was very much left intact. I could imagine him saying the things that were written in the book and that’s a testament to the editor and co-author. The book also sets straight some of the errors that have been spruiked as history about his involvement with Apple and the circumstances in which he left and the capacity in which he remains at the company. It’s also refreshing to read something about Apple without the spin and “magic” being thrown at us.

Before Steve Jobs gets his own autobiography out this is well worth a read if you are into technology. If you have an Amazon account, you can download the first chapter for free for Kindle (or your Kindle app on your favourite device) or you can grab the audiobook version on Audible.

This might have flown under the radar for a lot of people but Google has released its cloud music service (potentially in response to Amazon which released its fully functioning service recently). As you might know, Amazon caused a bit of an upset upon launching its service and delivering songs bought through its online store directly to its cloud storage platform. This not only caught the competition off guard but ruffled the feathers of the record companies.

So what does Google Music have to offer? More specifically, what doesn’t if offer?

Well, for starters, Google Music has no deals with the record companies which means you will have a limited selection of music but I guess it depends upon your definition of “limited”. If you happen to like everything in Google Music then you might not be as limited as someone else who has musical taste that is barely covered by the service.

Google Music is also only available for use in the USA (officially). Whilst you can get around the invitation request process by using a proxy attempting to download the Google Music app through official means is region locked. Manually installing the APK file on your Android device also has varying mileage across devices (not surprisingly it works on the Nexus S but it doesn’t work on my rooted Samsung Galaxy S running Gingerbread).

Google, the world is larger than the USA, damn it.

Also, in true Google form, the service is in beta. As to how long the beta period will carry on is anybody’s guess. Gmail took five years to shed its beta designation. Is this really a beta or something to cover Google should everything go pear-shaped with the music industry? Furthermore, it appears that Google will charge for this service at some point but I can hardly see this as a valuable proposition in its current form.

The bottom line is that Google has released a lame duck into the wild because it has failed to successfully negotiate with the music industry. Granted, that’s no minor feat but if there were industry backing we’d be seeing wider spread availability of the service and a wider range of music available.

Google may have just snatched defeat from the jaws of victory to bring a meaningful content ecosystem to its own Android platform but it looks like Amazon will do that job for them and reap the rewards. Unless Google gets a move on this could be another Google Wave that will be put out of its misery.

A few days ago I got some feedback from someone who wanted to see what a PDF document looks like on the E Ink display.  E Ink is renowned for its readability and high contrast without the use for a backlit like traditional LCD or LED based displays which can cause eye discomfort after prolonged usage. However, only the latest E Ink Triton displays are capable of colour reproduction (up to 4096 colours) whilst the original E Ink and E Ink Peral displays are limited to greyscale reproduction.

Anyway, I have taken some photos of the E Ink Pearl display on the Kindle DX, Please note that blurring is as a result of using a digital SLR so the centre of the photo will be most in focus.

Amazon Kindle DX - Power Off Screen

Amazon Kindle DX - Sample PDF

Amazon Kindle DX - Sample PDF

Amazon Kindle DX - Sample PDF

Amazon Kindle DX - Sample PDF

Amazon Kindle DX - Sample PDF

Amazon Kindle DX - Closer Look

Granted, I’m not the best photographer in the world but hopefully you can see how similar the display is to traditional paper. What I would recommend you do though is get out to a store such as Borders (as long as they don’t completely go under) and have a look at the eBook readers there. Of course, you won’t find a Kindle in there (unless they are desperate) but you’ll get an idea of what one looks like hands on.