michael said:
> Simple answer Mr. Bowerbird
those _are_ the best kind. :+)
> I didn't HAVE a Kindle until just recently,
> any only got it registered a week ago. . .
> as I said when asking about passwords. . . .
ok, well, like i said, i'm glad you are awake now.
was that a coma you were in, or just a deep sleep?
because, just to update you with what has been
happening out here in the real world of e-books,
kindle has had apps for all the major platforms
for some time now, so you don't need an actual
_kindle_machine_ itself to get kindle experience.
many of the users buying kindle books these days
-- or downloading them from the various sites --
do _not_ own a kindle machine. amazon would sell
a whole lot fewer k-books if it could only sell them
to people who owned a hardware kindle, for sure...
heck, even people who _do_ own a hardware kindle
report that they use other machines to read k-books.
the average usage is that 3 devices are typically used,
presumably the phone (when the person didn't bring
their kindle along) and their home computer as well.
(although an ipad is another possibility, and tablets
will increasingly become an extremely popular tool.)
that's why the huge number of iphones/ipods/ipads
in comparison to kindles is no threat to mr. bezos,
because he can still sell books to those customers...
indeed, this is why amazon built its "sync" function,
which puts your e-book on any number of devices,
which "saves your place" in the book automatically
and opens up to that spot when you switch devices.
your annotations are also saved in the amazon cloud,
so you have access to them regardless of device used.
if you don't _know_ all of this -- heck, if you are not
_deeply_and_intimately_experienced_ with its import,
you are _seriously_ lagging in your e-book knowledge.
even (especially!) if you're the man who invented them.
and -- just to fill you in on another curious matter --
amazon has proven that a vendor does not need to
buckle under to the pressure for a "standard format"
_if_ that vendor is willing to support its own format
across the wide variety of various machinery out there.
indeed, more k-books are now sold than .epub books
precisely because people know the kindle-books _will_
work uniformly across the different hardware stages,
whereas .epub display is maddeningly _inconsistent_...
_that_ is why p.g. is getting all the .mobi downloads...
it was supposed to be the main benefit of "a standard"
that .epub books would work across different platforms,
but amazon has stolen that thunder. and -- with the
addition of all of its sync functionality -- it has even
gone on to offer benefits that .epub will never match,
given all of those disparate voices in its parent, i.d.p.f.
and you could (and should) have learned all this, michael,
without ever having laid your hands on a hardware kindle.
but why bemoan the past? i'm glad you're finally awake.
***
michael said:
> Am I still to expect your old iPhone?
you bet. as soon as i get my photos and songs and apps
offloaded to all these new toys, i'll send you the old one.
(but, as i told you, the screen has a strange blemish on it;
i have been thinking that apple might be curious about it,
and even trade me a refurb so they can send it to their lab,
and if they do trade, i'll happily send you the refurb, friend.)
> Then perhaps I can learn more about that. . . .
that would be a good thing too... :+)
> ***
>
> michael said;
> > I'd like to hear more about Stanza!
>
> yet another history lesson for the recently reawakened!
>
> this one is quite short... stanza was a new company which
> was on its way to greatness, so to avoid competing against
> the upstart, amazon bought it and more-or-less shelved it.
> the end.
>
> i made the first post on the stanza forum, in june of 2008:
> > http://www.lexcycle.com/forums/stanza/welcome
>
> six months later, i first noticed some emerging problems:
> > http://www.lexcycle.com/node/591
>
> and by six months after that, they had sold out to amazon:
> > http://www.lexcycle.com/node/1356
>
> last i checked, stanza still didn't work on my laptop mac.
> and its converter routines -- which were a big reason why
> it was hyped in its early days -- were smoke-and-mirrors
> that didn't work well (or sometimes, at all) if you checked.
>
> stanza has fans, because it works well on some machines,
> and it has always had an ambitious outlook (meaning that
> it gives users control over a large number of preferences),
> so if it works _for_you_, be happy. it doesn't work for me.
> i need a viewer-app that works _across_ all of my machines.
>
> i still pull out stanza on occasion, whenever i get frustrated
> by the dreadful quality of the other viewer-apps out there,
> because stanza at least _hints_ at the greatness that could be.
> it's just too bad that stanza never actually _attains_ greatness.
> so it, too, ends up being unsatisfying, at times even more so.
>
> again, though, if it works for you, be happy! :+)
>
> ***
>
> but michael, don't feel bad about your coma...
>
> because hey, at least now you _are_ awake again!
>
> many of the other people on this list are demonstrating
> that they haven't learned _one_thing_ in the last 5 years,
> as they were in a coma in the hospital bed next to yours.
>
> they're still having the exact same kind of unproductive
> exchange which characterized this place back in 2005...
>
> indeed, i am vaguely suspicious that some of them are
> re-submitting posts they sent in february of _that_ year,
> as some kind of silly trick to see if anybody will notice...
>
> -bowerbird
>
