The download page on Amazon says that Kindle for PC is available for Windows 7, Vista and XP. I look forward to trying this out on a Mac when they release that version (hopefully soon.)

The initial Windows beta release does the basic stuff. After an initial sign-in screen, it associated the PC application with my Amazon account, found my previously purchasd Kindle edition books, and placed them under the Archive section, which is accessible by a button in the app window’s Home screen. Also on the Home screen is a clickable “Shop in Kindle Store” link, that opens a web browser window and takes you to the Amazon web site’s Kindle store to shop for more content.

Operation is intuitive, as I would expect from a Kindle-branded application. I went to the Archive section and moved the book I’m currently reading, William Gibson’s Spook Country, to the Home screen. This initiated a download via Amazon’s Whispersync technology – in my case, a hard-wired Ethernet connection – that took less than two seconds. I could then click on the book on the Home screen and pick up reading where I had left off.

Basic navigation is performed with the arrow keys or with mouse gestures. As with other Kindle readers, there is a Go To menu that allows you to jump to the cover, the table of contents, the beginning of the book, or an arbitrary location. (Amazon divides the contents of Kindle-edition books into numbered chunks called Locations). There is also a menu selection called “Sync to furthest page read” which I’ve not managed to figure out what it actually does – if you know, please tell me in the comments.

One can display annotations in the book but not make them in this initial beta version.

Options for changing the way the book contents are displayed are fairly limited, but this is a beta release. The app allows you to change the size of the display type. There is also a slider that allows you to change the number of words per line. It does this by changing the width of the page that is displayed on-screen. That’s it. Those are the only two ways you can change the display of a Kindle book, at least in this version of the app. I’d like to see more, in particular the ability to display the contents as white text on a black background. Even the iPhone app can do that. Hopefully we’ll see this in the next release.

I’d say this is a good start. Compared to the B&N reader application (full review coming soon), the Kindle for PC application doesn’t have as many display options – it doesn’t do the aforementioned inverse display mode, and it doesn’t display text on two facing pages. But it works reasonably well, and the experience of getting the content to the device and displayed is slick and hassle-free – better than B&N.

]]> http://www.proginoskes.com/onetake/?feed=rss2&p=79 0 http://www.proginoskes.com/onetake/?p=78 http://www.proginoskes.com/onetake/?p=78#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:39:48 +0000 onetake http://www.proginoskes.com/onetake/?p=78 Congratulations to Brendan, who won a copy of Rant by Chuck Palahniuk in the recent contest. (And a rather late happy West Viginia Day to you, Brendan.)

There will be more contests to come, so keep watching. I’m still suffering from Michael Jackson fatigue.

Now that people have started commenting on the blog, I thought I’d open things up a bit.

You’ve seen the beach reading list I put together. Or if you haven’t, go check it out.

I’m open to suggestions. I love comments. So here’s what we’re going to do.
Leave a comment on this post, recommending a book that isn’t already on the list. Tell me why you like it.

Next Saturday, 20 June, I’m going to randomly select one of the comments. That person will win their choice of one of the following :

Special Topics In Calamity Physics (book club edition softcover) by Marisha Pessl
Rant (book club edition softcover) by Chuck Palahniuk

I haven’t read the books – they were book club selections that wound up getting sent to me because I didn’t get back to the book club in time to tell them not to send them to me. I figured somebody should enjoy them.

Whichever book doesn’t get given away will probably be involved in a future contest, so keep reading

Contest closes at 11:59:59 PM Pacific Time on Friday, June 19, 2009

Good luck!

“Oh look,” I said.  “Another thousand-page book.”

She told me she thought I should lay off the thousand-pagers for a while, particularly since I just finished reading one, have just started on another one, and still have a third waiting for me after I finish that one.  “I think you should have a look at the beach reading section,” she added.  “Those are probably more your speed.”

I should probably mention here that I’m currently reading The Confusion, which is the second volume of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle.  I bought the first book, Quicksilver, back in 2003 when it came out in hardcover.  I finally finished reading it on Friday.

In my defense, I started reading Quicksilver about two weeks before I was accepted to business school.  I didn’t get very far before I shelved it in response to other demands on my time.  Classes and the recruiting process can do that.  Then the job search.  Then the job.

As I mentioned in my Kindle Reader first impressions post, I considered buying the Kindle editions of the three volumes, so I could read a page or three during the dribs and drabs of time I spend waiting in line for stuff.  But I’m still not convinced that I would remember what was going on the next time I found myself waiting for something.  So I ruled that out.

Five and a half years later… it’s been quite a slog, but worth it in my opinion.  Hence my going straight away to the second volume.  I recommend it if you’re a math/science/history geek like me.

Otherwise, may I suggest you check out my beach reading list.  There are some good reads on there.

Have you read any of the books on the list?  Leave a comment and let me know what you thought of them.

What do you think of this change? Do you think there will be more technology stocks added to the Dow in the near future?

Yesterday, I saw the new Pixar movie, Up, in 3-D. The production’s design and story lend themselves to the Real-D technology and work with it to good effect. The 3-D-ness of it enhances the storytelling, without resorting to the gimmickry of sending objects hurtling at the audience. I really appreciated that, after seeing trailers for other movies that do precisely that in order to hit the viewer over the head with the fact that “hey, kids! This movie is 3-D! Aren’t we cool?”

Not necessarily.

Over five years ago, I wrote the following on another, now defunct, blog:

April 30, 2004

2d non-cg animated features (it’s the story, stupid)

I was thinking about the recent news that Disney has no upcoming projects involving traditional (i.e. non-computer-generated/three-dimensional) animation. They cited the poor showing of the last several projects they worked on in that genre — Atlantis, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, etc… — and changing trends in audience preferences, since supposedly there hasn’t been a true flop among 3-D computer animation features yet.

The key word in that last sentence is “yet”. It’s the new “in” thing, the animation equivalent of “reality TV” — the 3-D bubble. I think the bigger issue isn’t so much the animation techniques used as the story. The last non-CG Disney animated feature that I really enjoyed was Hunchback of Notre Dame. Their releases since haven’t come close, IMHO — they’ve seemed either dumbed-down to target younger audiences or just plain flat. The success of recent non-CG animated features such as Spirited Away and The Triplets Of Belleville ought to demonstrate that there is a market for such films, and it persists in spite of Disney’s shift away from it. Disney needs to return to its roots, to realize that the reason that the Pixar films they seek to emulate with their CG initiative are successful is not the animation itself but the story.

It’s now looking like 3-D is the new CG. I think that there’ll be a period of inanity followed by one of real innovation as the filmmakers explore the potential of storytelling in the third dimension. It’s too bad we can’t bypass the novelty phase. Didn’t they do this already in the 1950s with the anaglyphic red-blue glasses?

I really liked Up, by the way. C. heard that one of the story leads at Pixar, Ronnie Del Carmen, was going to be at a local gallery for a signing today, so we went. Ronnie did a great presentation that gave the audience a look behind the scenes, and he was very clear: everything they do is in service of the story. From this I conclude that, just as with previous features, Pete Docter’s team on Up did it right and put the story first. And the results are fantastic. It’s a very emotionally charged movie, though, so I think I’ll wait a bit before I go see it again.

What do you think of the new 3-D? And if you’ve seen it, what do you think of Up?

Currently reading: The Art of Up

Om Malik wrote about why Hulu hates Boxee, why the service from Fox and NBC (and, I guess, now Disney as well) went and blocked the popular media center software that was built around the open-source XBMC sytem. I don’t always agree with Om, but this time I have to agree : saying “we don’t want software like this anywhere near a set-top box because of revenue-generating agreements with the cable operators” is one thing, but laying the smackdown on Boxee prior to releasing desktop software like this has an air of anticompetitiveness about it.

That’s my take. What’s yours?

Yesterday, David Meerman Scott tweeted the question “What is the ROI of measuring the ROI of something?”

I would argue that the ROI of measuring ROI is … ROI. But I’m not just being a smartass here. The ROI number thus measured is not an end to itself, but a means to an end.  What you get when you do this correctly is an ROI figure or set of such figures that you can use to convince decision makers to do things a certain way.

We all make decisions based on ROI. We may not think of it in those terms because we may make the incorrect assumption that ROI is measured strictly in terms of money.  But when I decide to volunteer my time and effort towards a cause, or help a friend with a project, it’s not directly about money.  And yet there is a return on my time and effort.  It could be the progress toward a worthwhile goal, or the satisfaction derived from helping others, or the enjoyment of spending time with a friend while working on a fun task, or  the benefit of maintaining or strengthening the relationship.  It’s all ROI.  The more important question is what you do with it.

What do you think?

Currently reading: World Wide Rave

Since last year’s Blogworld + New Media Expo, I’ve been thinking about what to do for the next blog, and how to go about doing that.  While investigating my options for how to get the thing hosted, I realized that I had a web hosting account that really wasn’t doing anything. I checked and remembered that a new company had taken over the hosting for this account and that they now support Wordpress, so voilà!

I know I’ve not been a very regular blogger of late, and I aim to rectify that. In the meantime, mea culpa mea culpa et cetera…