Rick's Rants favicon.ico 2010-07-29T07:18:38.0984626-05:00 Rick Lobrecht Rick Lobrecht's musings. mostly on tech. http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/ DasBlog New Cheaper Kindles http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,72c590cf-20a1-4486-ac59-05010402f3ff.aspx 2010-07-29T07:18:38.0984626-05:00 2010-07-29T07:18:38.0984626-05:00 Rick Lobrecht

As you may remember, I'm a big fan of eBooks. My plan was to buy the nook, but ended up with an iPad instead. It's able to read books from all the major eBook companies (which finally includes eReader.)

My last few eBook purchases have actually been Kindle books, because they were titles Mary wanted as well. It was very cool being able to read on my iPhone and my iPad, and have my place come along with me.

The one downfall of the iPad as an eReader is sunlight. The screen is really washed out, even in the shade, and is absolutely unreadable in full sun. Of course, this is where the Kindle, and other eInk based devices really shine.

The new Kindle pricing makes me wonder when I should pull the trigger. $359 (what we paid for Mary's Kindle) is way too expensive to have as a secondary reading device (secondary to my ever present iPad.) But $139? Maybe. I think $99 will become a magic price for a lot of people. I don't know what it will take for Amazon to cut another 40% from the manufacturing costs, but I'm sure they're working on it. It's obvious to me that they are selling Kindle's as a means to selling books, not for the sake of the hardware.

My apologies http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,c791707d-5d9e-47b8-81cb-430d889bdb68.aspx 2010-06-29T05:46:45.4282101-05:00 2010-06-29T05:46:45.4282101-05:00 Rick Lobrecht
If you're subscribed to my feeds, I'm sorry about all the old postings.  I'm contemplating a move from dasBlog to something else, and I cranked up the number of entries in order to get my content out.

 Password Reset Required? http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,4ad7a74d-86f2-4646-8eab-923a917bb923.aspx 2010-06-23T18:40:06.463294-05:00 2010-06-23T18:40:06.463294-05:00 Rick Lobrecht
After upgrading my iPhone to iOS4, I did run into a problem with my voicemail.  Attempting to access the Voicemail tab would cause an endless series of Password prompts.  I tried several different passwords I thought it might be, but none of them worked.  In the end, I ended up calling my number, jumping into voicemail, setting a new password, and then entering it on my phone.

It looks like the same thing happened to people last year.  Carl had the same problem on both of their phones.

 iPad losing time http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,dc42db93-0ef8-488d-aaed-efd705ffdaf9.aspx 2010-06-23T07:47:15.4478392-05:00 2010-06-23T07:47:15.4478392-05:00 Rick Lobrecht
I noticed this morning that my iPad clock was 15 minutes slow.  I hadn't noticed that before.  I know I last synchronized with my Mac two days ago.  A quick Google search turned up this Apple support thread.

Despite buying the 3G iPad, I haven't yet needed to give AT&T my money, so 3G data was turned off.  I turned it on, and the time quickly reset to the correct time.  I turned data back off, and will keep an eye on it.  My guess is that "Set time automatically" means something different for WiFi only models and 3G models (i.e. the 3G models expect to get the time from the cell network.)  I wish it would pull the time from the GPS satellites.

 To update or not to update http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,072b18a4-02ef-411e-8aae-dbf9d53085fb.aspx 2010-06-21T21:14:44.303-05:00 2010-06-23T07:48:22.5750695-05:00 Rick Lobrecht
Of course I'm talking iOS4.  Yes, I'll update, but I'm giving it a day or two.  RunKeeper, which I use, posted that their iOS4 compatible update hasn't been approved yet.  Many other apps I do use have been updated in the past couple of days, especially Evernote.  The only critical app I'm not sure about is eWallet.  Their edition is ancient, and they are silent on their blog.  I tweeted a question to them, so we'll see what they say.

[UPDATE]
I upgraded.  As reported, RunKeeper Free crashes on startup.  I usually only run on the weekend, and I hope their update goes through by then.  No issues with anything else so far.

 Why Apple needs to control their message http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,2b866811-a548-4bb2-8e76-14e295e3bee4.aspx 2010-05-31T08:47:08.8244933-05:00 2010-05-31T08:47:08.8244933-05:00 Rick Lobrecht
While eating lunch one day in London, I pulled out the iPad to do a bit of surfing on the restaurants free WiFi.  When the waiter brought my food, he said everyone was "quite jealous" of my iPad.  I said something about only having to wait another week until they would be available in London (28th launch - another Friday).  He said he was waiting for the iPhone 4g, but was concerned that there might not be a UK phone provider ready with a 4g network.  I decided not to correct him.

I know that all the tech sites have reverted to an iPod naming scheme without a better name for the supposed 4th generation iPhone, but I do have to wonder if this misconception is widespread.

If is is what people really think, Apple has a bigger problem with the leak than I previously thought.

 Give Thanks http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,9070157e-e3f5-4aad-be30-c4b90e1534fd.aspx 2010-05-31T07:44:05.2380727-05:00 2010-05-31T07:44:05.2380727-05:00 Rick Lobrecht

In the US, today is Memorial Day, a day to give thanks to those men and women who have sacrificed themselves for our way of life.  In the midst of all your grilling, beer drinking, and fun, take a few minutes to remember what we are celebrating today.

 Time Zone settings on iPhone http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,15b52957-135f-4c79-8859-633e0bbd51f5.aspx 2010-05-30T10:29:01.7030534-05:00 2010-05-30T10:29:01.7030534-05:00 Rick Lobrecht
I just got back from a two week business trip in Europe, London and Moscow.  On this trip, I've found the iPhone to be a bit odd in terms of time zone support.

I synchronize my iPhone with an Exchange account.  All of my calendar entries come from this account.

When I arrived in London, my phone changed to local time, but none of my calendar entries moved.  At first I thought it had only changed times, not time zones, but after some searching, that turned out to be incorrect.  You see, Apple has an odd way of describing its calendar settings.

This is the setting that was specified in my phone.  This explained why my calendar entries didn't switch.  It turns out I had to switch it to Off to get the calendar entries to honor time zones in the entries.


The second problem arrived when I got to Moscow.  My phone didn't automatically change time.  It was set to Set Automatically.

I set the timezone to Moscow, and everthing worked ok.

The only bad thing was the last night.  I plugged my phone in to charge, and it set the timezone back to Houston (which my computer was still set on.)  I use my phone as my alarm clock, which didn't work so well when it was set to Houston time.  Luckily my departure was late that morning, so I didn't miss anything.

 iBooks effect on Kindle http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,f494ffa2-da98-46cd-be2e-e3684b829e00.aspx 2010-05-30T09:20:54.4995819-05:00 2010-05-30T09:20:54.4995819-05:00 Rick Lobrecht
My wife owns a Kindle.  I've been buying Peanut Press (eReader, now Barnes & Noble) books for a decade.  I thought I would buy a nook, but the iPad changed all that.  Now I have all the platforms in one device.  No, it's not e-ink, but it runs Evernote, so its all good.
But that's not what this is all about.  Mary loves(d) her Kindle.  The size is great.  The books are usually priced competitively.  And Amazon had a great selection.  Enter Apple and their agency model.  First the price on Kindle books went up, plus they had sales tax.  Now, Mary is finding that series where she has multiple books in Kindle format are no longer coming out for the Kindle.  I haven't spent a bunch of time looking at which books aren't available, but I have to assume that Apple is at the core of this issue.  I guess I should really check to see if the books she can't get on Kindle are available in iBooks.  Actually, I probably shouldn't.  If they were, she might just take my iPad (something she's already threatened to do.)
I don't know what the solution is.  Realistically, I understand the publishers need to control prices.  If I believed the authors were making most of that money, I'd be even more behind it, but I don't think they do.  I'll be interested to see if authors can ditch the publishing companies.  Nine Inch Nails has done it on the music side.  Cory Doctorow has been releasing free ebooks of all his books for quite a while.  Both Amazon and Apple have self-publishing modes (assuming you buy an ISBN.)
I'm looking to the future of ebooks, but I'm frustrated that my wife can't get the books she wants.

 iPad shipped http://blog.lobrecht.com/rick/PermaLink,guid,5d1af7c7-b41a-41d9-a9f8-179d63891076.aspx 2010-04-29T07:32:34.4170373-05:00 2010-04-29T07:32:34.4170373-05:00 Rick Lobrecht
I received a shipping notice from Apple this morning for my iPad 3G.  It's shipping FedEx overnight.  Unfortunately, it's only a shipping record at this point, and FedEx can't tell me anything.  I was guessing yesterday that Apple already had these things in a warehouse in California, and would overnight them.