Disqus - Latest Comments for kwn2196

Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading - Issue 32: Space - Nautilus

kwn2196 — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 23:46:11 -0000

It's worth pointing out that not all digital reading is the same. I read this article on a laptop with an LCD screen. While I'm reading, my email program, open in another tab in the browser, will beep if I get an email. Facebook, in yet another tab, will show me how many comments people have made on posts I have read/liked/commented on. At the other end of the digital spectrum, I read novels on my Kindle Voyage with an e-ink screen (NOT back lit, like LCD is), which has no more distractions than a print book, unless you count being able to get a definition of a word by pressing it for a second. Plus, I can increase the font size as needed.

Re: The Real Cost of Self-Publishing

kwn2196 — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:31:39 -0000

For ebook distribution, the two essentials are Amazon's KDP program (to get in the Kindle stores) and Smashwords (to get on Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Sony, and several others), Note that if you are not a tech-y person, you can hire a conversion house to make sure the ebook is formatted properly, with chapters identified as chapters. The disadvantage of not converting it yourself is cost (probably $200 to $300 per book, depending on length) and the fact that you cannot then easily correct any mistakes. the advantage is, it's easier, and the ebook looks much better.

Self-publishing is risky in one regard; there are so many people doing it that even traditional publishers are offering their services. The risk is that they plan to make money off of the author, not off of the books.

Re: According to Math, the Worst Color Shirt to Wear on Star Trek Is Actually Yellow

kwn2196 — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:29:31 -0000

I once attended a session at the Smithsonian that included the costume designer for the original STAR TREK. He said the "gold" color shirt Kirk wore was actually closer to avocado, but it photographed gold.

Re: How To Convert a Closet into a Book Nook

kwn2196 — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:34:23 -0000

When I was 12 or 13, I converted my closet into a reading nook at no cost in just 4 easy steps:
1. Move old kitchen chair into closet
2. Turn on light (pull string)
3. Take book into closet and sit
4. Close door and read

It worked great until my sister wanted to borrow a sweater. She was very surprised to open the door and find me reading.

Re: B&N results are disappointing, and one wonders if prior success with NOOK might deserve part of the blame

kwn2196 — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 20:55:23 -0000

It seems to me one reason print bookstores are struggling is because the model is inherently incompatible with cost efficiency. The number of book titles approaches infinity (it seems) and yet shelf space is finite. Amazon and other online retailers solve this problem with huge warehouses. Has B&N ever installed an Espresso machine (print on demand, not the coffee!) or otherwise looked into a POD approach?

Re: Librarian Picked as One of the ‘Least Stressful Jobs for 2013′

kwn2196 — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 20:30:56 -0000

Anyone who thinks a public library is peaceful has not been there when the librarian has had to explain to an irate patron that no, she cannot stop the man using the public access computer from looking at porn (unless it's child porn and then she will call the cops). All she can do is offer him a privacy screen and limit his time on the PC if others are waiting. When the economy tanks, library budgets are often the first to be cut. And guess where people go when they are out of work and need help finding a job?

Re: How Digital Is Changing Our Reading Habits

kwn2196 — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 12:15:06 -0000

Actually, I find that the convenience of always having my ereader handy in my purse means that I read a lot more.books than I have in decades. My rule would be 20 pages rather than five, but I do feel that life is too short to spend it reading books that don't work for me. I'm sure there are plenty of books that pick up after page 20, but too bad. Notice I didn't say "bad books," I said "books that don't work for me. There is nothing that everyone likes; I even know people who don't like chocolate.

Is this a typo? "Newsweek, the weekly news magazine is not going to be fully digital." Did you mean "now" going to be digital? Because it is.

Re: ‘Murder & Mischief in The Hamptons’ Is Free eBook Today

kwn2196 — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:40:16 -0000

Do you have a way to submit free ebooks for possible inclusion?

Re: Simon & Schuster Opens Self-Publishing Service

kwn2196 — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:54:27 -0000

Wow, they are not exactly altruistic, are they? Are they assuming people who want to self publish won't do any research?

Re: An Honest Commercial for IE 9 (Humor)

kwn2196 — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 22:30:21 -0000

This is freakin' hilarious! Thanks for posting it! I also like the slogan (don't recall where i heard it) "IE: the number 1 browser.... for downloading a better browser."

Re: Literary Agent Allegedly Attacked by Writer

kwn2196 — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:58:41 -0000

I have heard stories of authors attacked by fans for killing off characters, but this guy seems more like a generic nut case who happened to be a writer-- something of a time bomb waiting to go off. He could as easily have attacked his landlord for taking too long to fix a leaky pipe or a cop who stopped him for a broken tail light. I do think this incident illustrates the folly of the whole "check in online" thing. Why tell the world where you are? I can't think of any real benefits and this is a good example of the drawbacks.

Re: Hats off to Amazon

kwn2196 — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:41:58 -0000

Frankly, I don't understand the publishers' consternation over the text-to-speech implementation, which many Kindles have (but not the newest Paperwhite model). The robot voice is no threat to audiobooks; no one would listen to it as an alternative to reading unless reading was difficult or impossible. But it does offer a benefit to those for whom reading IS difficult or impossible-- the visually impaired and those with learning disabilities. I am sad that Amazon killed it in the Paperwhite, but actually the Keyboard model is more useful if you need to use the read-aloud feature. I have heard some folks say the Paperwhite not having TTS is an effort to push Audible, but I think it's more from the fact that the competition never bothered with it.

Re: http://techland.time.com/2012/09/07/my-first-21-questions-about-amazons-new-kindle-devices/

kwn2196 — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:18:48 -0000

There is (or was) a post-purchase opt-out for ads on regular e-ink Kindles (you just paid the difference in price), but since there is NO version of the new Fires without ads, I would not assume there was a post-buy opt out. I would expect if there were enough complaints and returned Kindle Fires, Amazon might offer one, but that's just a guess.

Re: Chrome Passes IE as Most Used Web Browser

kwn2196 — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:55:00 -0000

I like Chrome a lot, and I am only a pseudo-geek. I do wish there were more extensions for it. It has autos-spell check for example, but I can't find anything comparable to GMail's "Check spelling" function.

Re: E-Reading: A Midterm Progress Report

kwn2196 — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:22:21 -0000

I find the Kindle Touch easier to annotate with than the Kindle Keyboard, at least now that you can highlight beyond the "page break." It takes some practice to figure out exactly how long to press the screen before you move your finger.

The only print books I ever highlighted or annotated in any way were textbooks. With a print book, annotations seem like "ruining" the book because the next reader of it would not see clean text.

Re: The Dark Side of Google Glass

kwn2196 — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 14:48:42 -0000

That is just plain creepy!

Re: Why Do People Pirate eBooks?

kwn2196 — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:36:55 -0000

I agree that #2 is the most easily defended, as the author would not benefit even you scoured used book stores to buy the book. #3 sounds specious to me, in light of the availability of libraries and the fact that the person is able to afford the means to pirate. #7 ignores that fact that free samples of part of the book are almost universally available on major ebook platforms.

But regardless of the defensiblity (I think I just made up a word) of these reasons, publishers should pay attention to the list.

Re: How to choose an ebook reader

kwn2196 — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:11:37 -0000

Actually, it's not a matter of a different refresh rate; e-ink readers have a static display. They only refresh when you turn the page. You are correct that the most important point in deciding which reader to buy is where and how you will obtain books to read. As for hardware, it's always good to try it out, if you can. One reason there are so many readers is not everyone likes the same things.

Re: Library & Information Science Ranked Worst Master’s Degree for Jobs

kwn2196 — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 13:05:03 -0000

There are a lot of jobs you can do with an MLS besides being an actual librarian. My company is a legal and regulatory publisher, and most of our indexers and many of our researchers have MLS degrees. I will say that any job that is numercially domainted by women (as in 8o+ percent of people holding that job are women) tends to be not as well paid as jobs dominated by men.

Re: State buys 2,500 Kindles in $16.5 million no-bid contract with Amazon - Mobile - Nextgov.com

kwn2196 — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:58:14 -0000

Math aside, that's a photo of the original Kindle from 2008. Is that the best they could do?

Re: Katy Guest: I've read the future, and it doesn't work (or smell nice)

kwn2196 — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 11:21:34 -0000

Actually, she's right. SHE should stick to print books.
She probably shouldn't use a cell phone (excuse me, a mobile) either, because she'll lose that or its charging cord, too. If you can deal with portable electronic devices like MP3 players and phones, you can handle an ereader.

Re: Amazon Publishing Hysteria: Fact or Fiction?

kwn2196 — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:00:56 -0000

The comments on that essay are almost as interesting as the essay itself.

Re: The Amazon Effect

kwn2196 — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:53:31 -0000

You're welcome!

Re: The Amazon Effect

kwn2196 — Thu, 31 May 2012 20:16:37 -0000

This would be a better article if the author would ask questions of the people he is quoting. For example he quotes Andy Ross as saying, "...
Amazon until recently controlled about 90 percent of the market, a monopoly by almost anyone’s definition. Most people bought their e-books in the proprietary Kindle file format that could only be purchased from Amazon and only read on the Kindle reader that was manufactured by Amazon. Other makers of e-book readers designed them to accept the open-source e-pub format that allowed customers to have a wider choice of retailers to supply them with e-books. Since then, Amazon’s market share has been declining, but 60 percent of all e-books in America continue to be sold by Amazon in the Kindle file format."

Format is something of a red herring where openness of ebooks is concerned. First off, there are vendors other than Amazon (O'Reilly, Fictionwise, Smashwords, Baen) who sell ebooks in the MOBI/Kindle format. So long as they don't put DRM (digital rights management) software on the book, it can be loaded onto a Kindle with no problem. In addition, the open-source epub format is no more open than the Kindle format if the vendor puts DRM on epub books, which many of them do. In fact by making a Kindle app that runs on almost every kind of hardware, Amazon makes their ebooks accessible to people who also have Nook apps and iBooks apps (just as Barnes & Noble does with the Nook app). There is conversion software that can easily convert from one format to another but it doesn't work if the ebook has DRM. And when it comes to a hardware walled garden, no one beats Apple. Just try putting iBooks onto hardware that Apple didn't make.

On one last point, as a genre reader and writer, I resent the implication that we are all alike and we don't care about good writing. Some genre readers are very attached to print books and some are not. And even with ebooks, covers do matter.

Some good details here, but not always solid facts.

Re: Type Set Drawer $25 – sold

kwn2196 — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:34:14 -0000

I think that's actually called a printer's job case.