Kindle Revisited

My less than positive views about Kindle's chance of success have been somewhat tempered after reading Guy Kawasaki's blog. What's interesting is that the $400 price tag gives you free lifetime connectivity via a cel-based EVDO network. This isn't direct access to the Internet but instead to a private network controlled by Amazon. However, within their domain you get unlimited free access to Wikipedia and perhaps some blogs and other material too. On top of that you can purchase books, newspapers, etc. Apparently you can also send Amazon your Word and Excel files and "for a small charge" get them converted for viewing on the device; I think the hassle & cost of doing this will make it a non-starter.

You can watch a promo video about Kindle and a tutorial video as well.

It'll be interesting to see in the coming months if some hackers find a way to modify the inner workings of the device to do something totally unexpected by Amazon!

One Of Those Tech Unfriendly Days

Last night the hard drive on my computer started making a strange clicking/clunking sound. Never did that before. After it happened, the computer seemed to go to sleep for about 5 seconds. When I woke up and turned it on, the sound started happening more frequently. I tried a few things to fix the drive but it only got worse. Eventually the computer didn't even recognize the drive altogether!

Thankfully I had copied all my critical data off the computer. So when it died, I was safe. However, I still needed a new one to get back to work. So I walked down to my local NCIX to see what they had in stock. My old one was only 30GB. I was hoping for something in the 60 - 80GB range. No suck luck with what they had on hand. So I settled for a 160GB model; much larger than I required but time was of the essence.

After running a few more errands I got back home and immediately set out to restore Windows XP onto my computer. It's pretty much been an all day affair ever since. Much of the time there's nothing to do but you still have to sit near and watch for prompts. Thankfully I had a second computer to work on.

The next time you ask a friend or family member to fix your computer - for whatever reason - keep in mind that it may take them 10+ hours to do so. The going rate for such work is usually $75 per hour. Just something to think about!

Why I Could Never Offer Computer Support Professionally

My "dear" mother just called me up to scream at ME that her computer wasn't working. More specifically, she couldn't get into her Gmail with her Firefox browser. I couldn't sort that out so I told her to use Internet Explorer instead. 20 minutes later (okay, 3 minutes later) when she figured out how to click on the Internet Explorer icon, she changed the address to "gmail.com". Then she entered her username and her password. Except that she entered her username incorrectly because she didn't bother to check her typing. She then claimed that she could no longer enter her username correctly, as it kept on changing it to an incorrect one. So I got her to close down that copy of Internet Explorer and open another one instead. When I told her to enter "gmail.com" again she said she didn't know how ... even though she had just done so 7 minutes before.

The phone line then went dead as I threw my phone through the window. I've since looked in the mirror and all of my hair is now white.

If you need my technical help over the weekend, please call me at the Friendly Acres rest home, as I'll be down there preparing for my soon to be certain demise when my brain explodes!

A Little FYI on Consumer LaserJets

I recently started looking into replacing my HP 932C inkjet printer with a colour laserjet instead. Two models at a local Staples caught my attention so I asked a local printer expert for his opinion. Here's what he had to say:

The HP 2600N is a good price but is an entry level machine which means they've scrimped a bit on some parts of the printer. It uses 4 toner cartridges (black @$89 and prints up to 2500 pages) (Colors run $97 each and produce up to 2000 pages) The machine prints well but if you don't use the colors much users are surprised to find out the machine will force you to have to install new color carts or stops printing unless you do and this is because the image drum on the machine rotates, wipes and cleans the color cartridges on every print run whether toner is used
or not and so the color carts become "worn out" even though still containing toner. Not a good printer option if not printing "color" as much as black.

The Samsung 300 is okay if you didn't get one of the "Monday lemons" which many people have and getting satisfaction thru Samsung Canada warranty is turning out to be "legend" for user dissatisfaction. I helped a client try to get warranty on a cartridge which took nearly 2 months of correspondance and in the end we left a code letter off the end of the printer models name and were rejected on claim even though every Samsung printer uses that code letter. They are that picky even though every other number, letter, description and RMA information were included all in original packaging. Doh! Also the Samsung cartridges are expensive compared to the HP's. (Samsung Black is $64 but prints half as many pages as the HP black) and the colors are $54 but also only print half as many pages.

Consumer color lasers are very poor performers per page cost. Once you go up a few hundred dollars the performance and cost per page is quite a bit better but expect to pay $450 plus the cartridges are proportionately more money (but print more).

Saving My Back

I've heard that in Finland the most important part of any home is the sauna. In fact, a sauna is often built before the home itself! Building software for many years now, one of the most important things is a good desk chair. Without it my back and my shoulders soon ache, hunched over the computer for so many hours a day.

Where I'm staying is absolutely fabulous but one thing he doesn't own is a desk chair. So I searched Craigslist yesterday and found a few desk chairs for sale. I ended up buying one of them from a young lady in nearby Miami Beach. What's coincidental, is that she's also Canadian and has only been down here since November! She's from New Brunswick on the other side of my large nation, but it was still really cool to meet a fellow Canuck.

I'm now sitting on said chair as I type this and my back is most grateful!