Kindle ... Cool ... 800 Miles ... Crazy Love

Well, I'm at 765 miles this year on the bicycle and should hit 800 easily during this week. But the big news is that I started using my Kindle electronic reader yesterday afternoon (and finished a book today). This device is sold by Amazon.com and it has it all over sliced bread (hehe). I don't like the "plastic" feel of it or the cheap feeling Kindle holder that comes with it, but Amazon really has got the logistics of getting new books into it down right. EVDO wireless is used and a computer is unnecessary to get a new book. Although the wireless will not work in Europe (which uses GSM technology for wireless) it's still all I need for the U.S. and GSM compatibility may be something that they'll update in the next release (which may be 6-12 months from now).

Problems with Kindle? Not too much ... but in the first complete book I read, there were 11 actual typographical errors. This is extremely unusual to me in a published book. Typically, with the printed books I have, it's rare to find even one such error. So I'm thinking they still need to work on the conversion process that takes a published book from print to the Kindle (proprietary) format. Additionally, there were numerous missing hyphens and spaces (many more than the number of typos, I gave up counting these). Well, it's neat to have this compact form factor as well as the simplicity and ease of getting new books to read. And, by the way, the non-backlit text is very easy on the eyes ... I have to say it's really no different than reading paper. So that's something no one needs to worry about. I'd say that Amazon needs to put in a few ergonomic refinements and lower the cost of the initial hardware investment, along with book prices ... but that will all come with time and more widespread adoption of the Kindle.

Oh, and there is no additional charge for the wireless download connection, so the user pays only the price of the book being downloaded.

And my new theme song is Crazy Love by Poco.

Later ...