Malware affiliate bounty: Infect a Mac, earn 43 cents | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

PC’s are not the only systems being targeted. A new report from  ZDNet states that there are affiliate programs rewarding $.43 per infected Mac. Also, part of this same report from Sophos discussing Russian Cyber Gangs Mac’s are now being targeted for malware attacks. It is getting worse for all of us.

Malware affiliate bounty: Infect a Mac, earn 43 cents | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

Russian Cybergangs Make the Web a Dangerous Place - Business Center - PC World

The bad side of the Net is changing rapidly for the worst. I have reported in the past the how the attacks are becoming more socially engineered to trick you into downloading viruses, trojans and other malware.  This article discusses new affiliate  networks are being setup to try to direct you to sites promoting fake products like: “antivirus software, pharmaceuticals and counterfeit luxury products”.

Another trick is called black hat SEO (search engine optimization). It involves creating a Web site, then using a variety of tricks mostly forbidden by search engines to get those Web sites high in search rankings. Methods include incorporating the most recently used search terms, often listed by search engines such as Google's Trends, into a Web site.

This article is worth a quick read to help you stay aware of what to look out for. “Be Careful Out There”.

Russian Cybergangs Make the Web a Dangerous Place - Business Center - PC World

Oh Boy! You can now send Pictures using MMS on your iPhone…

This is not to say that I have been hardly waiting for this but is finally here. All you need do is run your iTunes update and sync your iPhone. The updated 3.1 software will install automatically for you. If you don’t initially see the updates in your camera you will need to reboot your camera like I needed to before I could use the updates.

Rebooting: Hold down both your HOME and POWER buttons until the screen blanks.Then hold down the power button until the Apple symbol appears. The restating takes a few minutes so sit back, pour yourself a cup of coffee and wait until your iPhone comes back on. It takes about 2 minutes but it seems like ages.

This update gives you the ability to insert pictures on your iPhone into MMS messages that you send to your peeps. You can do it from three different points in the system.

If you are in messaging you will see a little camera icon in the lower left corner of your iPhone that when pressed will allow you to take a Photo or Video to send, or to choose an existing Photo or Video to send. If you decide to take the Photo or Video on the fly you will be transferred to the Camera application and it works just as it normally does. You are given a choice to retake the process if you don’t like the initial results, and if you pick use it will insert what you have take into the Message for you.

The camera application has added an MMS option to its menu. this allows you to take a photo or video and then attach it to a message to send it out.

The third method of sending out your images is to open your photo application, select your photo or video and then pick the Share option at the  bottom left of screen. Notice how the image is checked and your share and copy buttons show the number of images you will be working with. Press the Share Option and you will be dropped into a choice of sending the images to through Email, MMS or if you have a MobileMe account to the MobileMe file area. Press the MMS Option and you will be taken to the Message Screen.

Which ever method you choose to use to send along you favorite pics & vids to your friends and colleagues, you will find the process simple and fast.   

Advanced Batch Converter - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

If you are worried about jpeg degradation from resaving jpeg images over and over again you may want to convert your images to a lossless format. I took a quick look at www.download.com and here is my result. Try it out and let me know how well it works for you.

Use this highly rated image conversion software to convert batches of images from one format to another. CNET Downloads Review of this product. CNET has rated this with a five star rating and it has over 200K downloads.

Advanced Batch Converter - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

Boswell Lumber – 100th Anniversary Celebration

This is  a company that is interesting enough to me that I am going to publish this on both of my blog sites. I was graciously invited to Boswell Lumber Company’s celebration of their 100th year anniversary. I am so happy that I took the time to visit with them during this special time.

The company began as a sawmill in 1909 and has today evolved into a full service planing mill located on the original mill site. They stock over 140 moulds in Oak and Poplar with half a million board feet of raw lumber in many different species, ready to be worked for you.

They can ship stock moulds, or produce custom moulds. They have the equipment to fill you needs. See an example of their products by clicking here.  Beside the clean and spacious environment for their 23 employees to work in, I was amazed at the racks of prepared product that they supply the surrounding lumber and home supply companies with. On show was a door that they carved using their equipment to show just what they are capable of doing for you and your specialized project.

You can contact their sales department by calling 814-629-5625 or by emailing them at sales@hortreeproducts.com.

On Demand Online coming to Comcast

Comcast sent me a letter today inviting me to test their (Beta) of On Demand Online. I don’t know how exclusive this list is but it will be interesting to compare their online experience with some of the others that are available currently like Hulu and others. They have the technology for streaming and the ability to do on demand with their digital boxes so this shouldn’t be a big stretch. I’ll let you know what I think once I have tried it out for a few weeks

SurveyMonkey.com

If you are a service oriented company, you probably want to know how well you are performing your job from your client’s perspective. It is very important to know how well you are doing and to find out when you are not performing to your client’s expectations. You want to know where you are doing well, and mainly where you are not so that you can fix problems quickly before they start hurting your reputation.

SurveyMonkey.com provides an automated web service that allows you to create a survey questions in many different formats and styles. Then you can either email the link that they create to your survey or you can embed the code in your website that will allow people to fill out a form and submit it back to SurveyMonkey.com. You then have access to the results of the surveys and can determine how well your are doing or not!

You can choose between a free service that limits you to 100 responses per survey and only 10 questions per survey, Monthly Pro Account that costs $19.95 per month and allows you to have a total of 1000 responses per month with an overage charge of $.05/response over 1000 responses, and an Annual Pro account for $200/year with unlimited responses per month and no overage charge. For a more detailed look at the different Account Plans click here…

If you don’t know how you are going to use it, or how many people you are going to have respond to your survey's, you will want to start off with the free account. If you find this product useful you can then jump into the more advanced versions at any time.

Installing Windows 7 Using a USB Flash Drive – Part 1 – Prepping the Flash Drive

I decided to document the process that I need to go through to install Windows 7 onto a new Netbook that I am prepping for my father. I decided to try to do this without using an external USB DVD drive.I needed a 4GB drive which I didn’t have one free so I decided to use one of my SD Flash cards I use with my camera. I have previously reviewed the Mizco SD Reader that I use to read my SD Flash Memory Cards. It turns any SD Flash Memory Card into a USB Flash Drive.

So the first thing that you need to do is to set the memory card as a bootable USB Drive. I am doing this from my Windows 7 Desktop and the procedure is as follows:

Step #1: Format the Drive

The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. Be careful.]

1. Plug in your USB Flash Drive
2. Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
3. Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
   diskpart
   list disk
   The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step.  I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 2.
4. Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “2” with the number of your disk below.
   select disk 2
   clean
   create partition primary
   select partition
   active
   format fs=NTFS
   assign
   exit
   When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.

Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable 
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable. I am using an ISO file formatted file for my Win7 install disk and since I have the new version of WINZIP that can access an ISO file directly I am accessing the files in that manner. However, you will probably have a Win7 install CD and I will document accessing in that manner as well. I dropped the contents of my ISO file into a folder on my desktop and that’s how I gained access to the files the same way that you would to your CD.

(Turns out that WinZip was missing files when I performed the above procedure. I eventually burned a DVD and copied the files across as stated below. That worked like a charm. I have had great success running WinZip on ISO files and installing directly from there. That seems to work just fine.)

In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:

1. Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.
2. Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
   d:
   cd d:\boot
3. Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer:
   bootsect /nt60 G:
4. You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.

Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive.  After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option. On most Acer notebooks/Netbooks you will be pressing F2 to jump into the Bios setup when booting your system. Go to the Bios page that controls the boot device order and make your USB device the topmost choice in the boot sequence.

Note: As it turned out, I wasn’t able to complete the install of Windows 7 on this machine this past weekend because the controller couldn’t take being loaded from a USB Flash Drive. Whoops. So we stuck a USB DVD drive on the Netbook and installation went just fine. So much for trying to be inventive to work around not having a portable USB DVD drive.

Adesso Rollup Keypad

I acquired one of these a few years back and was completely taken with it. It takes awhile for you to get used to the feel but it has some really great characteristics that will make you take a look at it.

Adesso has four models in this keyboard group. Three in black: mini, compact and full size and white in full size. The keys have a wobbly feel that if you are not striking straight down you can miss a stroke because you haven’t made good contact on keystrokes. This is about the only negative that I see with the product.

So, I said there were a lot of positive features and here they are:

The flat, comfortable design offers easy typing which eliminates negative-angle stress to your wrists. Its improved raised keys provide better tactile feedback than previous flexible designs.
We've put this keyboard through rigorous testing and could not destroy it. We've tried to rip, tear, pull and yank the keyboard but it held up. We even took it to an extreme and ran it over with automobiles and machinery and guess what, it still worked!!! So while we do not recommend that you try to destroy it, you can see that it should be able to handle any environment where you need a portable, waterproof, flexible keyboard.

Waterproof
With its water-proof silicone material, you don't have to worry about damaging the keyboard because you can't! You could spill a beverage on it and all you have to do is simply wipe or clean it off and continue to use it, good as new!

Washable
The keyboard is completely sealed preventing germs from entering anywhere inside the keyboard. Great for medical facilities since the keyboard surface can be washed and disinfected at any time to avoid the spread of infectious disease
Portable
The keyboard is lightweight, ultra-slim and very compact. It would be a perfect companion for travel, school, and many industrial or medical environments. It fits easily in your briefcase, backpack or notebook carrying case and you don't have to worry about any sharp edges.

Dirt & Dustproof
The keyboard can be used safely in highly dusty environments. Perfect for factories, industrial warehouses, retail facilities or anywhere where dust may be a present.

Who can benefit from this device? Dusty, greasy or wet environments. These keyboards are completely sealed so they can easily be cleaned with mild cleaners and liquid cleaners. Hospitals, Warehouses, Manufacturing facilities and Garages. If you are on the road and you want an easily transportable keyboard, voila!, this is a perfect choice for you.

These units can be found for around $29.95 each so they are really priced well for what they give you.

Laurel Mountain Post September-October Issue

I have a great article in the LMP this month discussing the upcoming release of Windows 7 and the differences between each of the versions. This issue is the LMP’s final FREE distribution. They are moving to a paid subscription model with the next issue. There is so much good local information in the magazine that I hope they will be able to sustain it with this new venue.

This is obviously the Halloween issue but I didn’t keep with that theme. Next issue I will again approach with gadget gift buying for the upcoming Holiday Season. It’s September and I am thinking of Christmas already!

Hope you all enjoy the article and find it useful in making your decision to move into Windows 7 or not and which version would be best for you. If you are still confused don’t hesitate stopping buy and talking to us about it.

When upgrading and PC, It pays to do a little prep work to make it a smooth transition…

I have gone through seven system reloads in the past four months and with the last one it was made clear to me that you can never be too prepared for your transition from the old to the new. There are a few things that you need to think about, find and have ready at hand before you start the procedure.

1. Make sure you have your data backed up. The old adage, measure twice cut once is never more true than when you are about to transition to a new operating system. If you hold to the best way to clean up a system is to wipe it clean and start fresh, then whatever you had on the machine will no longer be there when you complete the new operating system installation. There is no going back to get the data so if you forget something, and you don’t have it backed up, well, it is gone in to the wind. It is important to remember how applications work. Recently I lost a year’s worth of notes because I was too cavalier about how well I had things backed up. I had thought I had everything already moved off of a workstation and moved onto the network storage (as it should have been) and it all went up in smoke. I have readjusted the way the application data is handled now, but it is too late for all of that historical data. Take it to heart that even the ones that preach backup can be bit when they are not careful enough. At the office we backup a system to a new drive before we even start a transition. As long as someone doesn’t get in the way and state that they have taken care of the info, if you look at what you are using and where you have it, you can take the steps to protect you precious information.
2. Take inventory of all the applications that you use. This will insure that your system will be up and running with all the tools you use as quickly as possible. Gather all the disks for you applications and their keys so that you can work right down the line to get the machine up and running the way you want. Here is my list of applications that I made when I prepped to install the new Windows 7 RTM on my home systems. The first thing I did was to reload Office when I finished installing the operating system so that I had access to my checklist. If you are well prepped with all your programs and unlock codes you will be able to breeze through the installation and keep your frustration level to a minimum.
3. Make sure you have available the current versions of your programs and that they are compatible with the new operating system. If you are installing into a office situation this is much more critical then in a home environment. Realize that this is the time to trim the fat. My systems tend to get bloated with all of the software installs that I perform on weekly basis to try out new things. Curiosity of the cat and all. This is one of the prime reasons that I reinstall a system as often as I do. It is easier to just start fresh sometimes then to try to make a system come back to peak performance with tweaking. This is suggestion is another attempt at limiting your frustration with the process.
4. Make sure that you have blocked out the time to do your upgrade. You don’t want to be losing your place or forgetting some key programs because you have split your attention between different projects.

Transitioning can be as painless or as painful as you allow it to be, the best way to get through the process is pre-planning the event.

Product Research has just gotten easier…

We have committed ourselves with a company that is helping us to provide information on a large number of products that we are able to provide our customers. We draw upon over 25 different distributors and many manufacturers directly to provide you, our customer, with just the right product to fit your needs.

With this research tool you can easily compare different products and request pricing from our support staff in a quick and easy manner. This system also allows us to provide you with feature products that we think might be useful to you. We also will be providing you with bi-weekly newsletters to keep you informed of different things happening in the technology industry that might be of interest to you. And don’t forget our technical blogs for more useful information that we are providing you on a daily basis. Remember Computer Connections for all of your technology needs.

Evernote, a great tool to give you access to your information anywhere you have an internet connection…

I have been a big fan of Microsoft’s OneNote application and it is still a central part of my daily data collection and storage for all of the research that I do. But the one thing that I miss with it is the ability to access it from wherever I am when I have Internet access.

This online software package has clients for Windows, MAC OS X, iPhone, IPOD Touch, Blackberry, Palm Pre, Sony Ericsson X1 and Windows Mobile. Just about anyway that you would touch the Internet, from your desktop or phone you  can create and view information that you want to store and share with this application.

If you hare aware what OneNote does, your will be able to understand the concept of Evernote which has been modeled after it. This software program is available as a free application and if you find yourself bumping the limitations of the free version you can upgrade to the premium version for only $5/month or $45/year for a yearly subscription. Evernote Premium gives you bigger upload capacity, supports more file types, and offers enhanced security. Plus, you get PDF searching, faster image recognition, and no ads. The following chart shows you a few of the benefits of the upgrade:

I am finding this an extremely useful application that provides me with the link that I’ve been missing to bring data to my iPhone as well as any desktop that I am currently using. Try out the free version to see if it has a place in your software arsenal. I think that it just might.

What has NASA been doing for the 10 Years?

My friend Tom sent me this link from USA Today showing the evolution of the International Space Station over the last 9 years. This is an interesting flash video to watch even if you are only a little interested in Space, the next frontier!

The list on the right is active and gives you more information about each of the stages/units in the make-up of the International Space Station. I don’t know too many people who aren’t interested in what NASA is doing and what their next steps are. I think that it is amazing that they  have been able to coordinate with so many countries to develop what they have so far. It is going to be interesting to see what is going to happen in the next 9-10 years.

Think Microsoft Home Server…

Ken was trying to tell me that many of the features that I was describing in the Cisco Network Magic article are also in the Microsoft Home Server. I will have to install one of these at the house and see what my limitations are. We have been quite successful using removable media and the Home Server software to create a great backup solution. We even have it being used as the key part of our off-site storage as well. I’ll be getting into more detail on this in the next couple of weeks.

Cisco’s Network Magic

Cisco makes some inexpensive tools to help you manage your home and small business networks. Sometimes I just want to be able to bookmark product so that it is easy to come back and grab it again when needed. So… here they are. Both can be used in a trial basis for free and if you need to have a permanent copy for yourself. For what you get, the price is very reasonable.

$49.95

Network Magic Pro 5.5 Ideal for the small business owner or someone who needs advanced networking capabilities With Network Magic Pro 5.5, you can skip the tech support phone calls, online forums and expensive on-site consultants. Network Magic Pro provides do-it-yourself tools to help you set up, manage and secure your network like an IT professional. With point-and-click ease, you can: Connect your devices together in minutes Share Internet connections, printers and files Protect your network with enhanced WPA security capabilities and status alerts Repair your network and Internet connections to stay online and productive Control access to the Internet and track online activity with remote desktop screenshots

$29.95

Network Magic Essentials Perfect networking tool for beginners who need to do the basics Does the thought of setting up a network stress you out? Relax. Network Magic Essentials helps you easily share an Internet connection, printers and files with point-and-click ease. No technical experience is needed–just do-it-yourself: Print from any computer Share music, photos, and files between all the computers on your network Protect your network from intruders Repair connections and optimize your network's performance

If you have purchased a Linksys router recently you probably have an entry level version of these programs. It is a lovely program that provides detailed information about the devices on your network through auto-discovery. The program that comes with the Linksys router is called LELA (Linksys Easy-Link Advisor) and it has the same characteristics of the programs above.

The installation is very simple. Put your router in place in your network. Connect the WAN port to your broadband modem and your other devices to any of the other 4 ports on the switch. Place your installation disk in your computer and run the installation. That is pretty much it. It does request Net Framework 3.0, and will error if you don’t have that version installed. I’m running Win7 which is running 3.5 so it barked at me but seemed to work just the same. You will initially lose internet connectivity but it will bounce back right away…

The display looks like this: 

This is a picture of my network setup showing all the devices that are connected to my network, and how they are connected to each other. You can see the detail of each device and when you click on the drop down arrow you will see specific network data about the device.

I blurred the addressing for security reasons. The program allows you to change the security information, add computers and other devices, setup your wireless connections, show you summaries about the health and setup of the network, and get an easy to read network map showing all of the devices connected to the network and to your workstations. Cisco’s Network Manager gives just a little more control.

The setup is simple and the choices you make can be changed very easily after you have completed the installation.

Notice some of the extra benefits of Network Magic Essentials allow you more in depth control of your network. The program looks at the health and wellness of your systems on the network. One of the added benefits is that it tracks current antivirus and Microsoft update conditions and provides alerts to state of all of the machines on your network. If you look at the image below you will see by looking at the network map you can instantly see any alerts that appear for any systems on your network.

In the screen view above you will see that the PC labeled E8400W7U-MC has an alert while all the rest of the devices appear up to date. In this case there are three problems with this machine, the antivirus is out of date and not turned on, and there are critical Microsoft Updates that need to be installed. You can run the updates from this screen and get everything up to date.

Besides the map, you have a series of utilities for setting you machine up on the network including the wireless connection, drive-file sharing, control internet access, look at another system’s desktop and capture and image to see what that machine is being used for, and general reports on computer usage. Though these features are not extremely granular they will give you a simple method for managing you home network. You can put password control on the key management options to keep prying fingers off of the main control features.

The network history report shows you the network access for each of you listed devices to give you some ideas of how you are accessing the network.

If you have a dual screen monitor you can capture both screens even when they are of different sizes. Notice on the right side that you get a list of all the programs that are running on that machine as well. It will also list all of the previous screen shots that you have captured as well and allow you to click on them and review them from this screen.

You are limited to allowing internet access, not allowing access ever or at scheduled times. You don’t have web filtering control but you can deny a system from accessing the Internet. Team this up with a home set up of Astaro and you can have it all.

AVG Anti-virus Product Promotion

You have heard of the term BOGO, well AVG is offering a third year upgrade to your purchase of a new Business Class Business Product, either new or a renewal to your contract. You will qualify for a third year free if you purchase two years of any of AVG’s Business Internet Security Products. When you buy the second year you get 50% off of the 1 year price for the second year now the discount is even better!

This promotion is lasting until the end of the year, 2009.

Have you encountered issues with your clients becoming infected due to missing Windows Updates or social engineering tricks that infect their workstations?  AVG Internet Security products have several unique innovative features that prevent this from happening.  They protect not only against virus attack but also poisoned web pages and threats not included in the definitions via behavioral analysis.  So they not only block users from downloading threats they also scan web links in Search Engines for the poisoned content.

Two key features that differentiate AVG Internet Security Network products from other products:

• Linkscanner Technology:  Protects you against poisoned web pages before you visit them
• Identity Theft Protection: Intelligent real-time protection that looks for new threats based on unusual patterns of behavior, complementing the signature - based protection afforded by the AV/AS engine.

Other features include:

Webshield technology:  Looks for threats while you browse in real-time.

• FREE upgrades to the latest major version releases of AVG during the license period, including version 9.0 due this year.
• Unlimited domestic technical support
• Easy install and deployment – Install it stand-alone or managed, your choice.
• Anti-spam component at no cost in the Email Server Editions and SBS products

To order, be sure to contact Computer Connections by dialing 800-640-7506 or by emailing us at: sales@paconnect.com.

To see more information about AVG for Business Users visit: http://bobstechtalk.squarespace.com/solutions/2009/8/25/avg-for-business-users.html

SoftPerfect Free Download Utilities

SoftPerfect makes quite a few utility programs for working with your PC’s and Network Devices. They have several free utilities that are interesting that they hope will wet your appetite to purchase their more advanced paid versions of their software. Here are a couple of their free ones:

	SoftPerfect ® NetWorx FREE A simple, yet powerful utility for measuring your bandwidth usage and the speed of all kinds of wired and wireless network connections (Dial-up, Ethernet, ISDN, DSL, 802.11b etc.). The program provides the ability to measure your network throughput, graphic and numeric representation of incoming and outgoing traffic, highly customizable alerts, statistics about dialup connection duration, weekly, daily and monthly Internet usage reports, etc.
	SoftPerfect ® LAN Search Pro FREE A powerful utility for fast file searching across your LAN. You can search for specific file names or for specific file types (e.g. all MP3 files). It comes with a built-in password manager to store your network logins for resources with restricted access. LAN Search Pro provides a lightning fast search engine that lets you search hidden network resources, restricted access resources, IP subnets, LAN FTP servers and much more.
	SoftPerfect ® Network Scanner FREE A multi-threaded IP, SNMP and NetBIOS scanner with a modern interface and several advanced features. It is intended for both system administrators and general users who are interested in computer security. The program pings computers, scans for listening TCP ports and displays which types of resources are shared on the network (including system and hidden). In addition, it allows you to mount shared resources as network drives, browse them using Windows Explorer, filter the results list and more.
	SoftPerfect ® Personal Firewall FREE A free network firewall designed to protect your PC against attacks from the Internet or via a local area network. SoftPerfect Personal Firewall offers customizable security using user-defined rules for packet filtering. It supports multiple network adapter configurations. The program is easy to use, comes with a set of predefined rules and it is completely free. Additional features include password protection, logging and more
	SoftPerfect ® File Recovery FREE A free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from hard and floppy disks, USB flash drives, CF and SD cards and other storage media. It supports the popular file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 with compression and encryption.

Goodbye SoapBox

I know that I am a little late in reporting this, but if you have been following my blogs since the beginning of this odyssey, you may remember that some of my early reasons for using Microsoft’s Live Spaces for blogging were because of the integration of all the different applications and the ability to easily share this data between those applications. Well, SOAPBOX has succumbed to the almighty Google and YouTube. Of course, now the ease of interacting with YouTube with the applications I use on a daily basis makes this a no brainer to have already made the move but it is still sad to see a system bite the dust even if it wasn't used much. So here is a raise of my glass to a program that worked just fine but didn’t have the recognition that it could’ve had.

Your Kindle can't do this, local library ebooks now available on the Sony Reader | The Mobile Gadgeteer | ZDNet.com

I love reading but I do so either with an electronic book or I listen to them from my downloads from Audible. Here is a listing of libraries that have registered themselves with Sony Library Finder that carry both audio and electronic books.

I wonder if we are truly headed towards the ability to get all our literature from our local libraries or is this just a part of my very long wish list. The big news this week was Google’s announcement of their making available over 1 million books in the ePub format. EPUB is an open-source format that is readable on a slew of devices, including Sony and Plastic Logic readers, the iPhone, and Google Android. Prior to this news release they were only available in PDF format. Take a look at Google books.

Many people still like the touch and feel of a real book and that is their favorite method of reading a book. But there is something to being able to pick up you SmartPhone, or Ebook Reader and begin reading a book where you left off. This is definitely something to think about. I have been playing with Stanza on my iPhone and the interface is very nice and with the flick of finger I am turning pages with a graphic response that is enjoyable to watch.

So my question that I pose is whether this a way for our local Libraries to maintain patronage, along with their brick and mortar and books in paper formats or is this something that is going to go to centralized storage repositories that can maintain the traffic for downloading requests that might someday be required?

I do love my local libraries, the helpfulness of the library personnel, and the beauty of the physical books on the shelves. I would hate to see this disappear into the ether(net) totally.

Your Kindle can't do this, local library ebooks now available on the Sony Reader | The Mobile Gadgeteer | ZDNet.com