Category: Books

How cheap e-readers can go?

The Wall Street Journal asks the question – “How low will e-readers prices go?”

The $99 e-reader announcement comes after Amazon’s announcement of a $139 Kindle, and after Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Sony all lowered prices on their gadgets in the wake of Apple’s iPad release. As Amazon prepares to release a $139 Kindle e-reader next month, could even cheaper e-readers be close behind?

I think they are.  They should eventually get much cheaper.   One thing that makes e-readers different from the rest of the computer technology is that they are often produced and sold not by hardware companies, but by book selling companies.  While it’s nice to get some extra cash from the hardware, the main goal of the book selling business is to sell books.  The more books they sell, the better they are.  E-reader is the device that helps them sell more books.   So if that is going to drive their business up, book selling companies can cover the big chunk of e-reader costs by extra profits.

Also, unlike the rest of the computing world, I think e-readers will remain rather simplistic.  They are domain-specific devices, with very specific needs – readable display, long lasting battery and simplicity. The more bells and whistles you put in, the complicated it becomes and the more battery it drains.  Plus, I think by now everyone already has either a laptop or a mobile device that has all the bells and whistles.  E-reader is good for disconnecting, even if shortly, from the rest of the world.

Looking back, we’ve seen a number of simple domain-specific electronics.  Such as calculators and electronic translators.  While they are mostly replaced by modern mobile phones, you can still buy them.  And the prices are very low, not anywhere near to how they used to be. Electronic translators come as cheap as $16 and calculators are from $4, via a quick Google search.  I’m sure if you look deeper, you’ll find them cheaper.

If e-readers will get any more complicated or expensive, one of the things that might happen with them is subscription business.  Similar to how it is now with mobile phones and telecom companies.  You pay subscription fees or membership or something, and you get a device with your contract.  And then you pay for some books (new editions or bestsellers) like for international calls and you get some free (public domain works, blogs, news via RSS, etc).

That’s all, of course, assuming reading books won’t just die over.  Like so many other beautiful things.

Whiteboard wins

The other day we ordered a large whiteboard for our office.  The board arrived some time later, complete with a bunch of whiteboard markers and whiteboard eraser.  Gladly we put it up and started writing our plan for the world domination.

A few moments later, when we tried to do some corrections, we realized that we can’t really eraze much from the whiteboard. Hmmm.

Marker theory check.  Are all of them marked as “whiteboard markers”?  Yes.

Marker practice check.  We tried to write something with each one of them and then tried to delete it.  Only greek could have been erased easily.  Turned out that four markers (black, blue, red, and green) were from a total of three different brands.  Red and blue were from the same maker.

Because we were rather pressed on time, we covered the whole whiteboard with green text and diagrams.  Then we called the bookshop and asked to bring us more markers of the same brand with green.  People in the bookshop were rather puzzled by the request, but confirmed that we will receive more markers the next day.

The guy that brought the markers tested them on the board and saw that they could have been easily erased.  Then he tried the other ones and saw that it was almost impossible to eraze them.  Then he asked for a knife.

It was our turn to feel puzzled and confused, but we found a knife for him.

… five seconds later, it was our turn to feel really stupid.  Apparently, the whiteboard was covered with transparent plastic film to protect its surface.  It was absolutely invisible and looked and felt exactly like the whiteboard surface itself.  Once the film was peeled off, the new shiny surface of the whiteboard was revealed.   And, of course, all whiteboard markers – old and new – could be used normally.  We tested them all and we could eraze everything easily.  The magic moment!

I would like to take this opportunity and thank the guy from the bookshop, who solved a big problem of ours, and … didn’t laugh in our face, like many would do in a similar situation (tech support stories anyone?).  As a matter of fact, he didn’t even smile.  I bet he had a blast once he left our offices, but that doesn’t matter, because it was, indeed, funny.

How to become a programmer

In the last couple of days I repeated this more than four times, so let me post it here for any future references.

Two points for those who want to become a programmer.  First, there is no lack of information these days. There are numerous tutorials online and books in print.  There are magazines, classes, mailing lists, search engines, and everything and anything you need.  But all that information won’t make you into a programmer.  In order to become one, you have to program.  There is no way around it.  You have to design your programs, write the code, debug it, test it, document it, and maintain it.  And you should also read good code that other people wrote.  There is no lack of open source projects these days – take the most popular ones and you’ll learn a lot.

Secondly, among all those available resources, I can suggest two books and two books only.  If you read and study both of them, you won’t need to read another book about programming your life time.  The first book is “The C programming language” by Kernighan and Ritchie.  This is an all time classic.  The second book is “Programming Perl” by Larry Wall.  This is a piece of modern literature.

Blogging as it used to be

When she brought the tray and put it on the bed table I thanked her and ate a little of the supper. Afterward it was dark outside and I could see the beams of the search-lights moving in the sky. I watched for a while and then went to sleep. I slept heavily except once I woke sweating and scared and then went back to sleep trying to stay outside of my dream. I woke for good long before it was light and heard roosters crowing and stayed on awake until it began to light. I was tired and once it was really light I went back to sleep again.

Can you guess the author?  Here is hint : these lines were written in 1929.  Yes, you got it right.  It’s Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms“, last paragraph of Chapter 13.

While reading the book, I caught myself a few times thinking that it feels a lot like a blog – first person story telling, simple sentences, a few “what I ate for breakfast” paragraphs.  But then again, somehow it feels better than a blog – connectivity, metaphors, a tiny hint of old times.

They say that one can improve his own writing by reading great writers.  Having this book in mind, I do agree with that.  And, it seems, I’m not the only one thinking of what and how to learn from Hemingway for my blogging – Copyblogger published Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well some time ago.

WordPress for Dummies

Matt links to the announcement about “WordPress for Dummies” book coming out.  It’s been a while since I read any “for Dummies” books myself – they are usually written for beginners, a stage which I don’t stay at for long enough to buy and read a book.  But I feel like “WordPress for Dummies” book could use some publicity.  There are a lot of people without technical background using WordPress and trying to figure things out.  I think that a book like that could save them a lot of time and effort, as well as show a few things they might not have thought about.

It’s not the only book about WordPress out there, but it’s not in the crowd by any means.  Here are the Amazon search results for “wordpress”.