Month: November 2007

Re-Kindled

It took another phone call and an elapsed time of around 9 hours, but Amazon finally unregistered the incorrect serial number from my account, and I was able to register the correct one.

Quite soon after that some queued elements were downloaded without any intervention and the unit was automatically linked to my Amazon account.

Tried a PDF conversion on a sample e-book I had – not bad. The Amazon service doesn’t appear to be doing an “intelligent” conversion of mapping the table of contents and so forth, but it’s readable.

After a little use, the screen is as good as I expected, and very easy to read.

There’s some (hidden?) shortcuts, too – prefix a search with “@web” or “@wiki” to search the web or Wikipedia. Web searches use Google.

IP traffic appears sourced through Amazon.

More time needed to evaluate form-factor and the user interface..

Kindling

I’ve been considering an E-book reader for a while – something to use for the PDF references I have; often times I don’t want to share screen real estate on my MacBook Pro with a PDF manual.

Looked at the Sony readers, but wasn’t impressed – liked the E-Ink screen, but the PDF rendering was horrific.

Amazon’s Kindle sounded intriguing; PDF support, while experimental, is supposedly usable, and the “WhisperNet” concept of using EVDO to access material (and the web) without monthly fees is intriguing.

So I ordered one, and it appeared today, far ahead of the expected December 10 delivery date my order claimed. Cool.

Until I tried to use it.

Your Kindle is unable to connect at this time, please try again later.

Uh, oh.

Good cellular signal – impressive, since I’m in a windowless dungeon – but no go. Reset, no luck. Re-enter login info. Nope. Punt and call Amazon. Quickly put through to support – US-based – and explain the issue. I never have easy problems. I realized the ESN/serial number on the Kindle are different than what the Amazon web site has.

Well, that explains it. Amazon Support generated a ticket to update it. They said this problem is considered “top-priority” and should be fixed soon.. We’ll see..

Getting Things Done and the GTD RoadMap

Attended David Allen’s GTD | The RoadMap seminar this past Friday.

I’ve been intrigued by the GTD concept for quite a while, but hadn’t really launched the effort (it was on my list of things to do). I thought attending a seminar where the concepts are not only presented – after all, they’re in his book – but additionally examples are demonstrated and the appropriate context is explained would be helpful.

David Allen is an excellent presenter; amongst other things, his comment about the “charger drawer” hit home (“8.6V? Might need this someday.” Call it what it is – the “Junk” drawer). The seminar was extremely well-attended, with quite a few people I met were repeat attendees. David had an interesting comment – echoed by almost everyone I spoke to – that it takes several tries to “get it” regarding GTD.

Another memorable quote: “Crap self generates but it doesn’t self-destruct.”

I’d already taken a step in the right direction by managing to reach “Inbox Zero” on my office email. Not surprisingly, it feels like quite an accomplishment. Next up is the same for my home email.

I’ve also adopted OmniFocus to manage my deliverables, and am experimenting with Mind Mapping using Mindjet’s MindManager software for work on a new project.

The worth of all of this will be to see how successful I am in implementing them. The first steps certainly seem promising.

Quote of the Day

(a day late)

Fake Steve on the Google-led Open Handset Alliance:

Companies don’t form alliances and consortia when they’re winning. Also, whenever you see companies start talking about being “open,” it means they’re getting their ass kicked. You think Google will be forming an OpenSearch alliance any time soon, to help also-rans in search get a share of the spoils? Me neither.