Jeff Somogyi, media editor at Dealnews.com, has written a pretty scathing review of Amazon.com’s new, bigger eBook reader the Kindle DX.
Owning a Sony PRS-505, I took the time to review the original Amazon Kindle, and paid close attention to the release of the DX. Personally, I was dismayed by two features of the Kindle, and I was disheartened by the fact that the larger model didn’t move to correct these problems.
Perhaps the main theme of Mr. Somogyi’s critique was the price of the new Kindle DX (close to $500!). The Sony PRS-505 sells for under $270, which at the time was $100 less than the same sized Kindle original. This was a material amount, IMO, as the Kindle’s screen was identical in every way (same manufacturer) to the Sony. The Kindle original lacked native Adobe Acrobat PDF support as well, and after having collected literally thousands of documents and ebooks in PDF format, I went for the Sony.
I should point out that the Amazon Kindle business model literally hard-wires a revenue stream to the Amazon book business. The Kindle has a built in facility for buying books through Amazon. While, as a customer, I think Amazon is a good company, I often buy things at Amazon, I think there’s something fishy about making the Kindle a Amazon store buying tool, and then making you pay a premium for it.
Kworld Media Player - Shown here not much smaller than life sized
I just received my KWorld Media Player which I paid less than $55.00 including shipping and I’m going to have to give it FOUR out of FIVE STARS.
This is a fantastic value for a small device which supports both USB drives and SD Media cards. I’ve only used it with a thumbdrive so far, but it has played MPEG 2 and Xvid videos perfectly. The MPEG quality was DVD, so I don’t know what more you’d want. The Xvids played with less quality, but that’s what you’d expect.
I was pleased with the remote as it ranked well with other digital video players I’ve used. It doesn’t have the kitchen sink, but it’s responsive and allows for pausing, fast forwarding, etc.
Given the ability of playing videos using something with no moving parts makes this an great device for many display possibilities. Think continuous gallery, kiosk, in-store and in-office displays using an inexpensive LCD Monitor.
Easy Image Modifier by InspireSoft is a simple (and that’s the way I like it) image processing tool that enables you to resize images from an easy to use interface that supports drag and drop.
This little program lets you change the size of your images, easily making easy-to-email copies of those megapixel sized pictures you’ve been taking.
It offers many options. You can change the dimension of your pictures (by pixel or percentage), rename it and also choose to convert the format to JPG, PNG or BMP.
It includes several more features but doesn’t get complicated. These other features include optional removal of image metadata which is stored in your pictures, customizable JPG compression levels, and more.
I LOVE the fact that Easy Image Modifier is a standalone application and does not require “installation”.
IT’S FREE, not some limited trial version, but totally FREE!
TwinSeas Rating: 85/100
On Monday, a federal court judge rendered a verdict ordering Microsoft to pay $388 Million in damages for violating a patent held by Uniloc, a California maker of software that prevents people from illegally installing software on multiple computers. Uniloc claim was that Microsoft’s Windows XP and some Office programs infringe on a related patent they hold.
Consider how ironic this is.
Back in the days of Windows 2000, one needed just a simple serial number to install Windows and you were good to go. When XP was introduced, however, the serial number was still required, but it was also required to either register online in 30 days or get an authorization code on the phone or Windows would stop working.
This added precaution prevented people from having multiple computers, buying one copy of Windows and installing the same copy on all the PC. This new scheme was well known for its problems however. If one didn’t register, then found themselves outside the reach of a phone, their computer would become useless. Many people, who happened to use multiple computers by themselves (like me!), were forced to buy additional copies of Windows. I use and recommend Linux for PCs for many people which only need that free operating system Windows XP also required re-registration if one changed certain types of hardware, such a upgrading their CPU.
The very technology that Microsoft used to inconvenience millions of paying customers was STOLEN!
So far this is all a civil matter and not a criminal one. The law does provide for criminal penalties in addition to any civil judgement that this case may render.
After having gone through extensive evaluation and testing, we have chosen Wordpress as our new content management system! This is after having developed our own, from the ground up, and trying several others.
We have had a very good experience with using Wordpress for our last two websites. We look forward to the wealth of plug-ins and other things which the Wordpress community has to offer.
We still recommend and support Drupal for more advanced needs.
Welcome!