Life and Times

Reading UK Newspapers on a Kindle 3

In my last post I mentioned that I'm currently half-way through a two-week free trial of the Kindle version of the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The latest edition is delivered wirelessly to my Kindle every day at 7AM and the previous version is archived. It's easy to navigate to the section that you want to read and the 5-way button is used to skip articles that aren't of interest. I think all newspapers share the same navigation technique as this is the same as used by The Times that I previously looked at. As with The Times, there are usually no pictures and sometimes the caption appears to have been left in the copy, which shows a lack of attention to detail in the editing of the Kindle edition. The lack of pictures does detract from the overall experience, but the Kindle edition is still a convenient way to consume the news. It's not as rich an experience as reading news on an iPad or similar device, but I think I'll be sticking with the subscription after the trial as £9.99 a month is quite good value.  Cheers for now, K

Kindle 3 - First Impressions

I'd been thinking about getting a Kindle for a while and was delighted to receive the 3G version for Christmas. Since then I've used it every days and now its part of my daily routine. It's true that after a while you forget that you are reading using a piece of technology and just get "into the book." The form factor really doesn't interfere with your reading. I find using the Kindle to be more convenient than a physical book as its generally lighter and smaller & you can turn the page with either hand. The screen is so easy to read, apart from when the light is poor when you need to use a lamp. I'm running a two-week free trial of The Telegraph newspaper at the moment, which is delivered wirelessly every day at 7AM. I'm looking forward to my trip to London on the train in Friday ..... More to follow. Cheers for now, KP

Time to Buy a Kindle?

I've been thinking about buying an ereader for some time now but been waiting to see how the market develops. I almost bought one of the new Sonys but my local Waterstones wouldn't do a deal. Now that Amazon's new Kindle is available in the UK at a much more attractive price and will have a UK based book store I think it may be time to invest.

Why not an iPad? Too expensive I'm afraid.

Follow the link below for more information.

Cheers for now,
K

Sync Your Files Between Multiple Computers/Devices

If you are like me, you have a laptop, netbook, iPhone and iPad (OK, so I don't have an iPad yet) you probably want to keep a few files or photos synchronised. 

For instance, very often I'll take my Acer netbook running Ubuntu to London on business as I don't want to lug my MacBook around with me. This means that I need to make sure that I have the latest customer information, price lists, etc loaded. Previously I used a memory stick to copy the files across, but now I just drag the files into my Dropbox folder and let it sync across all my devices that have the Dropbox application installed.

I always have my iPhone with me and the same files are available in Dropbox on the phone.

After making notes about my meeting on the train, Dropbox sync's the files and they are available on my MacBook when I get to the office the next day.

Dropbox is free for up to 2Gb of storage. Try it out here

Cheers for now,
K

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on my Acer Aspire One

I've just loaded Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on my Acer Aspire One and am pleased to say that it went on with no problems. 

Everything works as expected, including the wireless, sound, etc., & a software update doesn't break anything. The performance is great.

I used the netbook edition, available here.

Drop me a line if you have any questions.

Cheers for now,
Keith