My daughter Tori (Victoria) is 16 and at a really interesting time of growth. I am using my need to get rid of books and videos as an opportunity to spark an entrepreneurial spirit in her. I showed her how to register as a seller on Amazon.com and list books. I have also been picking books, videos, and games out that I'd like to sell. The deal is that she lists the media for sale, receives the orders, takes them to the post office, and she keeps the money.
The first day she has listed 20 items and sold 5 and made $20 profit. Not a bad arrangement for either of us. Each day I spend a couple minutes picking out books I can part with. We are making good progress.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Power of Spoken Word
Not all audio books are the same. I am not speaking just about the literal content of the words, but also the richness of the delivery. I have listened to dozens of audio books and find a range in quality of presentation that is not yet documented in reviews.
Written text offer a few ways to emphasis content. Question and exclamation marks are most obvious; and bold, italic, and underline text convey certain emphasis. Spoken language offer a much greater range of expression. In linguistics, prosody if the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech.
When books are translated into audio, a narrator is chosen. When one of the authors is a great speaker and enthusiastic, the delivery of the content can be unlike any written text. At other times, another narrator is used and the delivery is still engaged and alive with inflection and energy.
Sometimes either the narrator is less skilled and the delivery is dry and monotone. Occasionally the narrator has a strong accent that can cause fatigue to the listen during the 4 to 12 hour reading.
I hope we will soon have a way to rank this aspect of audio books.
Written text offer a few ways to emphasis content. Question and exclamation marks are most obvious; and bold, italic, and underline text convey certain emphasis. Spoken language offer a much greater range of expression. In linguistics, prosody if the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech.
When books are translated into audio, a narrator is chosen. When one of the authors is a great speaker and enthusiastic, the delivery of the content can be unlike any written text. At other times, another narrator is used and the delivery is still engaged and alive with inflection and energy.
Sometimes either the narrator is less skilled and the delivery is dry and monotone. Occasionally the narrator has a strong accent that can cause fatigue to the listen during the 4 to 12 hour reading.
I hope we will soon have a way to rank this aspect of audio books.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Digital Books: Some great wins and a subtle loss
Amazon Kindle came out last year, almost 4 years after the Sony Reader. Kindle is a better experience because it offer instant gratification. If I am talking to a friend about a book I have read, I can load it and show them the book instantly. If a friend is telling me about a book, I can look it up and buy it instantly and start reading.
When reading late at night and my eyes are tired, I can increase the font size and easily continue reading for some time longer. I have also used the larger font sizes when reading in a car to make the slightly bouncy text easier to read. Font size adjustment can be a big advantage for people who are having difficulty seeing the small text. I recommend buying one for aging parents who may be loosing their passion for reading.
What is the subtle loss I fear as we move to digital books? The other day I was riding the elevator to a lunch meeting. In the elevator with me was a man holding a copy of "Made to Stick," one of my favorite reads of last year. "That is a great book," I said. His eyes lit up and said, "You've read it?" During our conversation, Eddie told me that he was starting a business and was greatly impressed by the insights he gained from the book. I suggested another book, "Meatball Sundae", that discuses the differences between the ways old school businesses produced products then mass marketed, verses new school companies find a market then develop products for it.
The suble loss is that as we move to digital books, we might loose the ability to know what people are reading. Without book covers being visible, we cannot tell at a glance who is reading what. An age old ice breaker could be lost. How can this be preserved?
I chuckled as I pondered this. Registering for a book online one could recieve a temporary tattoo, or a pin to wear. But that seems more like an endorsement of the book rather than a simple statement that one is reading the book. I thought perhaps that book covers could be made availible for printing. The printed cover could be slipped into the ebook protective cover. Then I realized that the e-book readers already have a high-contrast screen that requires no power to maintain an image. So, two simple changes would improve this situation. First, the e-book reader would display the book cover when in sleep mode. Second, the protective cover for the reader would have a transparent front cover.
While I am excited about having a Kindle, actually I have bought 3 so far one for my parents, my wife, and myself. I am far more excited about the competition in this space that Kindle has sparked. The next couple years will show a many options and new features.
Kindle On Amazon
Made to Stick
On Amazon On Kindle On Audible
Meatball Sundae
On Amazon On Kindle On Audible
When reading late at night and my eyes are tired, I can increase the font size and easily continue reading for some time longer. I have also used the larger font sizes when reading in a car to make the slightly bouncy text easier to read. Font size adjustment can be a big advantage for people who are having difficulty seeing the small text. I recommend buying one for aging parents who may be loosing their passion for reading.
What is the subtle loss I fear as we move to digital books? The other day I was riding the elevator to a lunch meeting. In the elevator with me was a man holding a copy of "Made to Stick," one of my favorite reads of last year. "That is a great book," I said. His eyes lit up and said, "You've read it?" During our conversation, Eddie told me that he was starting a business and was greatly impressed by the insights he gained from the book. I suggested another book, "Meatball Sundae", that discuses the differences between the ways old school businesses produced products then mass marketed, verses new school companies find a market then develop products for it.
The suble loss is that as we move to digital books, we might loose the ability to know what people are reading. Without book covers being visible, we cannot tell at a glance who is reading what. An age old ice breaker could be lost. How can this be preserved?
I chuckled as I pondered this. Registering for a book online one could recieve a temporary tattoo, or a pin to wear. But that seems more like an endorsement of the book rather than a simple statement that one is reading the book. I thought perhaps that book covers could be made availible for printing. The printed cover could be slipped into the ebook protective cover. Then I realized that the e-book readers already have a high-contrast screen that requires no power to maintain an image. So, two simple changes would improve this situation. First, the e-book reader would display the book cover when in sleep mode. Second, the protective cover for the reader would have a transparent front cover.
While I am excited about having a Kindle, actually I have bought 3 so far one for my parents, my wife, and myself. I am far more excited about the competition in this space that Kindle has sparked. The next couple years will show a many options and new features.
Kindle On Amazon
Made to Stick
On Amazon On Kindle On Audible
Meatball Sundae
On Amazon On Kindle On Audible
Friday, January 4, 2008
Is Medium OK?
One day I went to lunch with two coworkers. We got in line at a small sandwich place and Brian ordered his sandwich and a large soda. The server said, "Sorry, all we have is medium." motioning to the single soda cup taped to the top of the dispenser. "Will that be OK?" "Yes," Brian said.
Peter, who had been talking during the previous exchange, ordered his sandwich and a large soda. "We only have medium, is it OK?" "Yes, that is fine," said Peter.
Finally it was my turn to order. I had been wondering why, with no other sized cups taped to the soda dispenser, this particular cup was a medium. The same 12 ounce cup at other food places might easily be a small or a large. I ordered my sandwich, "And a soda." Keep it vague, I though, and leave cup be with its delusions of medium-ness. The server paused, "The only size we have is medium. Is medium OK?" I smiled, careful not to laugh, "Yes, medium will be fine."
There are times it seems like the world has a grand sense of humor if only we are lucky enough to notice and patient enough to listen.
Peter, who had been talking during the previous exchange, ordered his sandwich and a large soda. "We only have medium, is it OK?" "Yes, that is fine," said Peter.
Finally it was my turn to order. I had been wondering why, with no other sized cups taped to the soda dispenser, this particular cup was a medium. The same 12 ounce cup at other food places might easily be a small or a large. I ordered my sandwich, "And a soda." Keep it vague, I though, and leave cup be with its delusions of medium-ness. The server paused, "The only size we have is medium. Is medium OK?" I smiled, careful not to laugh, "Yes, medium will be fine."
There are times it seems like the world has a grand sense of humor if only we are lucky enough to notice and patient enough to listen.
Friday, December 28, 2007
My Life 3.0 - Scene 2
I have given much thought to how to be most able to travel and maintain access to information, photos, and products. Rhonda got an Amazon Kindle for Christmas, this is a promising bit of technology, the ability to buy and stores books online, and download and carry many books at once. Amazon Unbox Video allows us to buy a video and download and watch it at any time. And S3 allows us to securely store data files. Google Documents allows us to store text and spreadsheet documents from any web browser. I am a big fan of the ability to edit and view from anywhere without installing software.
Currently we own dozens of shelves of books. This does not lend itself well to either fitting into a smaller condo nor to traveling. I see two issues here, first knowing what books we had read, this is useful for reference and information retrieval. If I recall that I had read something, simply looking at an inventory list of book can aid in recall of the material. This challenge can be solved by LibraryThing.com. Using a CueCat barcode scanner I can capture the ISBN numbers of the books I currently own. This book inventory will also help me in deciding what books to part with. We are somewhat determined to purchase new books in either the Kindle or MobiPocket formats. No, we are not completely sold on digital books over the overall experience of paper. But, a digital book can be accessed from wherever we might be living.
For audiobooks, I purchase from Audible.com. Audible requires the installation of a download manager to load books to a computer. It also offers the permanent storage of purchased books.
For digital music in the past we has used iTunes for music purchases. Moving forward we will be using Amazon MP3 since it is higher quality and not copy protected. This means less hassles getting content onto current and future devices.
Photograph storage is still a bit of a problem. After years of travel and skydiving with a camera, I have amassed boxes of printed photographs. I have the negatives stored in a single fireproof safe. Someday, I'd like to have these scanned and stored digitally. The sum storage of all this film stored digitally would be minimal when compared to the storage of photos taken digitally. Currently these total 150GB. If I store these onto Amazon S3 at a cost of $0.15 per GB per month, these will cost $22.50 monthly. Hopefully by the time we are ready to travel there will be cheaper options. Of course as pixel counts continue to increase this storage challenge.
We currently have 2 common digital picture frames. These are nice as they display many images in the space of a single frame. It seems the most promising option is to gather the best pictures taken, and storing copies into another folder. These collections are ones we will use for upload to photo sharing sites or pictures frames.
Currently we own dozens of shelves of books. This does not lend itself well to either fitting into a smaller condo nor to traveling. I see two issues here, first knowing what books we had read, this is useful for reference and information retrieval. If I recall that I had read something, simply looking at an inventory list of book can aid in recall of the material. This challenge can be solved by LibraryThing.com. Using a CueCat barcode scanner I can capture the ISBN numbers of the books I currently own. This book inventory will also help me in deciding what books to part with. We are somewhat determined to purchase new books in either the Kindle or MobiPocket formats. No, we are not completely sold on digital books over the overall experience of paper. But, a digital book can be accessed from wherever we might be living.
For audiobooks, I purchase from Audible.com. Audible requires the installation of a download manager to load books to a computer. It also offers the permanent storage of purchased books.
For digital music in the past we has used iTunes for music purchases. Moving forward we will be using Amazon MP3 since it is higher quality and not copy protected. This means less hassles getting content onto current and future devices.
Photograph storage is still a bit of a problem. After years of travel and skydiving with a camera, I have amassed boxes of printed photographs. I have the negatives stored in a single fireproof safe. Someday, I'd like to have these scanned and stored digitally. The sum storage of all this film stored digitally would be minimal when compared to the storage of photos taken digitally. Currently these total 150GB. If I store these onto Amazon S3 at a cost of $0.15 per GB per month, these will cost $22.50 monthly. Hopefully by the time we are ready to travel there will be cheaper options. Of course as pixel counts continue to increase this storage challenge.
We currently have 2 common digital picture frames. These are nice as they display many images in the space of a single frame. It seems the most promising option is to gather the best pictures taken, and storing copies into another folder. These collections are ones we will use for upload to photo sharing sites or pictures frames.
My Life 3.0 - Scene 1
There seem to be points in my life where years of effort to achieve some goal(s) pay off and new of goals are called for. My wife, Rhonda, and I have shared amazing work and home lives together to 17 years. We are both software engineers and have had the opportunity to work on the same projects/companies 4 times. We have raised an amazing young woman who is bright, confident, and wise. Though that task is not yet complete, we can see our lives changing already.
Our daughter, Tori, is now driving, and not longer dependent on us to get her to activities. Suddenly, we have a new bit of flexibility and freedom in our schedule. In a couple years, she will be off to college, explore, and a life of her own particular design. The very thought of this causes us to question every habit and possession and what they will mean to us in our upcoming lives.
When we are home, we'd like to be close to schools and universities and would like easy access to multiple bus lines. So moving to downtown Seattle seems a logical choice. A collection of hobbies over the years has let us with quite a large collection of tools and supplies. We have already begun parting with these. Either through Craigslist or Freecycle we have been eliminating box after box of things we no longer need(want).
Our daughter, Tori, is now driving, and not longer dependent on us to get her to activities. Suddenly, we have a new bit of flexibility and freedom in our schedule. In a couple years, she will be off to college, explore, and a life of her own particular design. The very thought of this causes us to question every habit and possession and what they will mean to us in our upcoming lives.
When we are home, we'd like to be close to schools and universities and would like easy access to multiple bus lines. So moving to downtown Seattle seems a logical choice. A collection of hobbies over the years has let us with quite a large collection of tools and supplies. We have already begun parting with these. Either through Craigslist or Freecycle we have been eliminating box after box of things we no longer need(want).
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