Is it Time?
Beside my favorite reading chair in our home office I placed a book on the floor when I finished reading it a few months ago. The next book went on top of the first, and then the next. That stack of books has grown to a rather impressive height as my reading has accelerated with the girls away. I would say the stack is approaching three feet, and it maintains its balance only because I varied the position of each book as it went on top of the stack.
This got me thinking about whether it is time to start using the Kindle. But that raises the issue of whether to go with the Kindle or the Kindle DX. I could carry my pdf documents from the office on the Kindle rather than printing them and carrying around the hard copies. An argument can be made that the Kindle, even the DX, will pay for itself by saving paper and toner, not to mention the trees. Not only that, but there is a cost savings for each book that would add up fairly quickly. And the battery will last up to two weeks, the specs say.
Maybe by the time Cici hits college they will have most textbooks available for the Kindle, though I understand that they also need to make it more user friendly for textbooks so you can easily move from chapter to chapter and not just page to page. But at this point, for me, I wonder if I should just go with the smaller version. I don't get into the debate over competing technology such as the iPad because I have a MacBook. Which reminds me. I received an email yesterday about a free download of Kindle for Macs. That would work fine for pdf files, but not for reading books. Maybe that resolves the question about Kindle or Kindle DX for my use.
The girls flew up to Zibo City in Shandong Province two days ago so they haven't been on line with me. They are just there for a few days and then they will be back on line. I have the phone number for Ping's cousin's house where the girls are staying so I think I will call them tomorrow. In the meantime I can smell the pot of beans that I started in the crock pot when I got home yesterday. I put it on the ten hour slow cook setting so it would cook all night. At the same time I started a pot of brown rice in the rice cooker.
The girls just came on line so I will talk with them.
This got me thinking about whether it is time to start using the Kindle. But that raises the issue of whether to go with the Kindle or the Kindle DX. I could carry my pdf documents from the office on the Kindle rather than printing them and carrying around the hard copies. An argument can be made that the Kindle, even the DX, will pay for itself by saving paper and toner, not to mention the trees. Not only that, but there is a cost savings for each book that would add up fairly quickly. And the battery will last up to two weeks, the specs say.
Maybe by the time Cici hits college they will have most textbooks available for the Kindle, though I understand that they also need to make it more user friendly for textbooks so you can easily move from chapter to chapter and not just page to page. But at this point, for me, I wonder if I should just go with the smaller version. I don't get into the debate over competing technology such as the iPad because I have a MacBook. Which reminds me. I received an email yesterday about a free download of Kindle for Macs. That would work fine for pdf files, but not for reading books. Maybe that resolves the question about Kindle or Kindle DX for my use.
The girls flew up to Zibo City in Shandong Province two days ago so they haven't been on line with me. They are just there for a few days and then they will be back on line. I have the phone number for Ping's cousin's house where the girls are staying so I think I will call them tomorrow. In the meantime I can smell the pot of beans that I started in the crock pot when I got home yesterday. I put it on the ten hour slow cook setting so it would cook all night. At the same time I started a pot of brown rice in the rice cooker.
The girls just came on line so I will talk with them.
Ah, technology, my area of expertise. My boss bought an iPad so we could evaluate one because we expect a lot of students to have them. Like you, he also has a MacBook. He finds the color and other capabilities of the iPad has him using it for a lot of meetings he used to take the MacBook to. And of course, since there is a free Kindle for the iPad, he has used that as well (some say it works better than an actual Kindle and has some nice features). There are a number of drawbacks of the Kindle for students, a number being limitations (e.g, you can only highlight a small amount of text before it starts removing the oldest highlights in favor of the newest).
However, if you plan to use it for nothing but reading standard books (pretty much all text), it should fit the bill. If you are looking at something Cici may be able to use, you might want to look at some of the results from institutions that tested the Kindle for their students and others that are testing iPads.
It might be worth your time to drop by an Apple store and test an iPad, you might be surprised.
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Good info, Craig. Thanks.
I have read the reviews and debates about which of these creatures is best from Business Week to PC World and anywhere else I can find what appears to be a credible, unbiased review. Sometimes the smallest thing sways a consumer, and I am no different. The long battery life and free 3G access around the world make the Kindle quite appealing to me. Not that I have been around the world lately - I can't even get away to join the girls in China.
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