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

Fancy Bullets!… Add-in for Live Writer

As I was working on setting up my newly reloaded I7 workstation at home I began decided to load up on some of the add-ins

The image below shows you the dialog box that comes up when you click on the Bullets!… menu option. You have three tabs across the top for bullets that are preinstalled, a section for adding new bullets and the last tab points to some links for added support for the program. I jumped to the link listed for more more bullets and the way you add new bullets is to right click on the bullet image you wish to add and choose “Copy Image Location”. This places the URL pointer to the image that you want to add to your bullet list. Next you click on the Add Bullets button shown in the dialog box below.

A new dialog box will pop up. Paste the URL you just captured into the first field. If you want to view what the bullet will look like, press the Preview Button, otherwise, press OK and you will have the new button in you list as above.

To use the add-in, click on the Bullets!… insert choose in you menu on the left hand side of you screen. Highlight the bullet you want to use, and choose the number of space between the bullet and your text, and the number of bullets you want to be displayed. I would suggest creating you list prior to using this add-in and then inserting the text into the appropriate locations. That way you know how many bullets you will need to create. It doesn’t create them on the fly.

Get this program by clicking on the Add a plug-in… menu choice.  or…

Update on Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 1:47PM by Bob Appleby

Thanks Lance. Let me know how it works for you.

How far has technology made inroads into your life?

I am laying here on our back porch, a little before 10:00 on a Friday evening, my feet up, cocktail at hand, in my hammock. All non-tech so far, but I have my earplugs in, listening to a computer generated playlist of songs, coming to me wirelessly over my home wireless network connection using my cell phone to access it, typing this column on a netbook, connected through the same network back to the internet. Now, is this just a little geeky or is it the place we are all heading.

I was thinking to myself, should  I go downstairs and work on a project, finish installing my I7, or watch some HULU, or catch up on some more podcasts. Or, I could jump in the pool and just take a late night swim and then do any of the above, later… Life can be so terrible, don’t you know.

I was thinking  about how I was able to interact during a meeting I was at this morning, passing along my responses to conversations that I was having with people, doing on the spot research to questions that came up and making sure the people that needed it had the exact information we were talking about. I was able to send them the information so that when they got back to their offices after the meeting, all the information that we spoke about was already there waiting for them to work with right away.

One of the negatives with all of this is that you always want to have that technology at your finger tips, no matter where you are and what you are  doing. You begin to feel lost when you don’t have a connection to the Internet. You begin to wonder what everyone else is doing, and how on earth they are doing it without your input. Just Kidding!

So, if I were to answer the question about how technology has become a big part of my life, well, I guess I have to be honest and say that yes, it is a big part. I love to interact with it. The ease of even, writing this, knowing that with a single mouse click it becomes available for anyone who wants to read it, to read it. The ease of correcting, changing and rearranging my thoughts. The wonderful backspace key that allows me to retract a thought, a misspelling or a completely air headed thought. 

The real fun though, is that I can let it sit until tomorrow morning and say, What were you thinking or I can just let it go and pay the consequences. Or, I can come back later and alter any portion of this as I please. Is technology a big part of life, please…. How about yours?

ETI Advisory Board Meeting

I spent my morning with members of the Education and Technology Institute (ETI) advisory board, for their annual meeting of the minds to discuss the past period’s new programs and internal milestone progress. I was very happy to see the progress in their support for their students and additional financial programs they are bringing to bear. They are working very hard getting the word out about their programs and daily/weekly updates through their blog and primary websites. They are discussing ways to bring some of the social networking sites into the mix as well. I hope that some of my suggestions will give them some more ideas to spur that forward. It is always great to see so many friendly and helpful community business people wanting to contribute to the betterment of our local workforce. Well done everyone!

You are in your car, driving along and then you hear: DING!

Resist… Don’t reach for your smart phone. Don’t take your life and those of you fellow travelers to risk.  DON”T TEXT WHILE DRIVING! Don’t read your email. Don’t become one of those accident statistics. Just say NO!

What is focusing my attention with this tirade is the recent release of a Web Video showing four deaths caused by a young driver who was texting while driving. A debate is raging what the best method of curbing distractions while driving in the U.S.

Many states are considering or have passed laws that ban texting while driving, using your phone at all while driving or even touching your phone while driving. Some experts think that dramatic videos like the 4 minute video produced by local police in Gwent, Wales, in the UK can have an impact in educational settings, especially with young drivers.

17 States and District of Columbia have already banned texting while driving. There are some  initiatives in play  towards educating users on the dangers of the different types of distractions that could cause accidents. A good article in Computerworld today talks about general overview of the problems and what is being done to prevent this real problem. Take a quick look.

The parting statement from the Chief Inspector of the Gwent Police site is very compelling:

Chief Inspector John Pavett from Gwent Police Roads Policing Unit hopes the serious message in this film will hit home to viewers:

“Making and receiving calls and texting whilst driving is still happening on roads not just in Gwent but all over the country.  Seeing a scenario, like the one Cassie goes through, played out right before your eyes makes you realise how extremely dangerous it can be and what devastating consequences it can have.

“I hope that after watching this film motorists will think twice before picking up their mobile phone when behind the wheel and realise that a quick reply to a text message or answering a phone call is never worth putting theirs and other people’s lives at risk.”

Camtasia for the Mac has been released.

If you read this blog you know that I am not an Apple guy but this is good news for all of our Mac friends that want to create online training content for their organizations. I love Camtasia in the PC environment and I’m sure that you will just as thrilled with this program in the Mac environment as well.

It is being released at a special price of just $99 for a limited time offer.

Here is an the copy from TechSmith’s News Release.

News: Camtasia...with an Apple flavor

Camtasia for Mac is here, and it's already got people talking.
For one thing, they're noticing the many ways it differs from Camtasia Studio. It acts and feels like a native Mac application...because it is one!

Camtasia for Mac delivers the core set of features that emerged from countless conversations, surveys, research projects, and testing with Mac users over the past few years. We can't wait to hear your reactions and suggestions as you put it through its paces.
It's a whole new product with a lot to explore, so let's get right to the links...
A great place to start is with the See It in Action video (which was itself created with Camtasia for Mac).
Don't miss the special tips for Camtasia Studio veterans, which should help you transition smoothly to Camtasia for Mac.
And, of course, if your Mac is handy you can just download the free trial and start playing around with it on your own! Or buy it now at the introductory price of $99—that's 33% off list!

Explore Camtasia for Mac »

New AVG Solution Page Postings…

I have posted two new pages to our solutions products list today. AVG Anti-Virus Software has been a great product for us and our customers for quite awhile now. If you haven’t been using it now may be the time to take a look at this product. If you are interested in a solution for your Home PC’s Click Here, otherwise, Click Here to go to an overview of the Business Products Page.

Be sure to call one of our security specialists to help you decide on the right product and product licensing path for your business.

New Solution Posting – Malwarebytes

We haven’t been talking much about anti-malware applications but this is one that really works well. Our Tech Staff all swear by it and it is an essential part of their toolkit. You can download this product for use for free or unlock the rest of its features by purchasing for your home machine for $24.95. If you are purchasing it for your household it is a onetime fee but if your are a corporate end-user you will need to purchase an annual subscription fee. You can see more information on this product by clicking on the icon to the right.

Using Jing to capture video and then post to YouTube.

Some simple problems using this program to post Jing Screen/Video Captures. There seems to be a little synchronization issue with the video and sound when taking a picture using the built-in webcam. However, this shouldn’t be a problem when you are just doing screen capture to do a video. I don’t know if this is a function of the processing speed of the Atom processor or that the process itself is flawed. I will have to work on this and see which it is.

I am going to show in the series of videos the process to acquire a screen image and process it up to your site. First thing that you need to do is to configure Jing to point to your YouTube account for it to be able to post the video. You will need to know your account name and password to set this up. Take a look at the video below:

Once your button is setup, you are ready to rock’n roll. This next video shows you how to capture you video an publish it using the button that we have just programmed.

It is totally amazing how a simple little electronic device can become such a central part or your life…

Three weeks ago we, meaning Computer Connections, finally bit the bullet and moved everyone over to AT&T (yeah I know) and finally got us into the smart phone race. Some of us got Samsung units running MS Mobile OS and a couple of us got the Apple iPhone 3GS’s. Being one of the lucky ones I began taking a look at what this Apple device could do for me.

First, I don’t know how I lived without the connectivity to all of my mail accounts. I guess I just ignored them and every so often visited to clean up the outdated things that were sitting there. Well they have never been so clean as they are now. One of the benefits (or if my wife is talking to you, one of the problems), of having access to so much is that you can keep up with and react sooner to the things that come across your table, so to speak. I have five fairly active accounts that I use for different purposes and now they are really doing what I set them up for. It sure makes managing the data a lot more easy than it ever was before.

The unexpected difference is that I now actually use the phone. The big joke in the company was how little I used the phone function of the my old Nextel. I used it more as a walky-talky then any of its phone functions. Now, I tend to use it more to even talk to customers because the phone list from my Outlook contacts is right there on the phone. It makes it so easy to call, email and text to whomever I need to.

It didn’t take long to get used to the keyboard, and even though my old arthritic thumbs can’t do the job, like my young counterparts do typing away, my one finger peck is getting pretty fast and furious. All I can say is thank goodness for spell check.

Another feature I just can’t do without is the iTunes podcast functions. Almost everyone is publishing to iTunes so it's easy to pick up on someone you are interested in. This feature became so important early on that I switched the radio in my car to a Sony that supports Bluetooth so I can broadcast both audio and my phone through the radio connection. While my Garmin’s microphone had better noise cancellation then the Sony mike does, it still does pretty good when the top is up on the convertible.

The last feature that I want to talk about is something I am using as I sit hear on the back porch hammering this article out. The Apps that are available for free and at small prices gives so much more value from your phone. I am listening to one of my Pandora channels right now and am totally enjoying this extra thing that the iPhone brings to the total experience.

If you have been reading my articles lately you may have seen some of the reviews of products that I have been testing and begun using in my daily life. I am amazed at how integral this little pocket size electronic wonder has become in my life. Having the world that I work always at my finger tips gives me a little more edge in the things that I try to keep on track with. Hopefully I won’t become like the much laughed crackberry users with this, but I’m sure that I will be working may way there all too quickly.

Canon gets smart: Lowers megapixels in the new PowerShot G11 | Digital Cameras & Camcorders | ZDNet.com

I have become an avid Canon fan boy and this new product offering could be another of their great products that I will recommend. Not coming out until October, this is a great all around choice for a camera in the mid-market  price range. I have had great luck with my 10 mp camera and getting the images that I want, Canon’s  decision to drop back to this range to get better light sensitivity  will give you a camera that could fit into more situations that you will find yourself taking pictures in. This will give you less noise in the picture and in the end give you that fabulous print quality that we are all after.  We will have to wait and see if holds up to expectations.

Canon gets smart: Lowers megapixels in the new PowerShot G11 | Digital Cameras & Camcorders | ZDNet.com

The nine new rules of media - SmartPlanet

An interesting article to ear mark and keep in the back of your mind. As a member of the horde of online bloggers that are out there it is important to keep in mind that the number one thing that will bring people back to your site is quality content that helps them in their world, whether that is a business world or just a personal one. That has always been one of my goals in producing the content that I do on this blog site. We all go through periods when our content is not as interesting as it could be, but if you write about what interests you or compels you to discuss on a topic then some of that excitement can’t help but show up on what your post.

Anyway, I post some items because I just want to come back to them as a reference point in the future as well. And if I want them, well, maybe they might be interesting enough to you as well.

The nine new rules of media - SmartPlanet

Where to host your videos online | Digital Cameras & Camcorders | ZDNet.com

I have looked at all of the selections in the past and I have one more suggestion as well. I like having all my imaging located in one place and I don’t mind too much that it costs me to do so. At $59 per year the pro version of SmugMug gives me the ability to store both static images and videos up to 512MB’s in size. That’s about a typical 10 minute video in standard TV resolution, and  in most cases this is great. If you are looking to put up just short clips this will do the job.

Where to host your videos online | Digital Cameras & Camcorders | ZDNet.com

Facebook disables rogue data-stealing, spamming apps | Tech News on ZDNet

A note from the “Your Never Safe Department”. 

Security firm Trend Micro warned on Wednesday that a handful of rogue Facebook apps are stealing login credentials and spamming victims' friends.

It is so irritating that nothing is indefinitely safe and secure. But be aware and be careful. Here is a good reason to stay away from those silly application tests to pigeon hole you into some category. Remember, we are all individuals and we the category has to be pretty broad unless you have such a narrow focus of interest. Be careful and be safe. 

Facebook disables rogue data-stealing, spamming apps | Tech News on ZDNet

FCC to take a Broad Look at the wireless industry next week!

I promise that this is my last mention today about the cell phone industry. But I thought this was a good finish to what I have pointed to in the last two blog entries. The general consensus of WHAT TOOK SO LONG is a great question. The FCC is in place to help regulate utilities… so why haven’t they been looking at the cell phone industry up to now? Hmmm. I would have thought this would have been an ongoing activity, not one that they would need to start up a special review process on. Come on guys, let’s get to work! It will be interesting what they come up with. If they are just starting now then we probably won’t know anything during this President’s term.

10 Things We Hate About Wireless Carriers - PC World

A very interesting perspective on the state of the Cell Phone Industry and the way that they take advantage of us with their pricing and other restrictions. A must read to fully understand just how powerful the phone service companies are, what they are doing and a call to action for us as well.

10 Things We Hate About Wireless Carriers - PC World

Now You See It, Now You Don’t… We Didn’t Make It disappear!

Both Apple and AT&T are denying that they took down Google’s Google Voice Application to the FCC. A recent article in PCWorld discusses the hearing and the results, none that the FCC commented on. Read more:

Apple Denies Rejecting Google Voice for iPhone - PC World

It amazes me how so many companies can get away with some of the things that they do and in Apple’s case not get the smear of it. However, I think that we are beginning to see some of this “Apple never does anything wrong” attitude wearing thin.

I have been reading and listening to many different comments from people who are of the same opinion that Apple has become more Monopolistic than Microsoft ever was/is. They have been able to duck under scrutiny because their market share has been so minor but in some of their products now, iPod/iPhone, they are the clear winner and have the majority of market share. If they are controlling what can be put on their products by consumers who own those products isn’t that a  little over handed?

Back to the article. AT&T denies that it has any role in Apple’s App Store products, but does concur that their “contractual agreement forbids Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications from reaching the App Store unless AT&T agrees.” "From time to time, AT&T has expressed concerns regarding network efficiency and potential network congestion associated with certain applications, and Apple takes such concerns into consideration," Apple said.

The bigger issue I believe is the program’s SMS capabilities that bypass AT&T’s billing mechanism which is  a huge money maker for them. PCMag repots:

AT&T seemed most concerned about revenue and network traffic issues in its reply to the FCC today. "Both parties required assurances that the revenues from the AT&T voice plans available to iPhone customers would not be reduced by enabling VoIP calling functionality on the iPhone," admitted the carrier. "AT&T's wireless service agreement prohibits subscribers from engaging in uses that cause extreme network capacity issues or interference with the network."

All of this makes more sense to me. From a business stand point I see their concerns. From a consumer, I would like my choice. We are paying for services on our phone connection, voice and data, shouldn’t I be allowed to use the data side the way that I want, as long as I am using it for legal purposes? It shouldn’t matter what the data content is, as long as it is not of illegal nature. We pay for a certain amount of bandwidth not function. And while we are on this subject, how about tethering? This is just another form of data/bandwidth usage. We shouldn’t be band from this either, should we? Sorry AT&T if you haven’t built up your infrastructure to allow function, but if you can’t provide the service then maybe you shouldn’t be selling it as a service.

I love TechCrunch’s comment:

Whatever the reasons, it sucks, and as Jason Kincaid says, what's really troubling about this rejection is that it appears that "Apple is now actively stifling innovation." And the whole black box app approval process doesn't exactly alleviate that sinking feeling either. After all, if Google doesn't stand a chance, how does anybody else?