Category: mobile

  • Amazon finally expanding and seeding Kindle ebook ecosystem

    Despite my unabashed enthusiasm for Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, I’ve had my fair share of gripes. I’ve been particularly disappointed by Amazon’s failure to do more and get creative around this new platform. Back in January, I posted a list of Kindle ecosystem shortcomings including poor file management and inflexible pricing. I wasn’t alone. Joe…

  • Verizon Mifi connects laptops, iPods, whatever to broadband

    After a couple of days wait, my new mobile hotspot, the Verizon Mifi 2200 made by Novatel, arrived today. Out of the box, the battery needed a charge but once the Mifi had sat plugged into the wall for a bit, it was ready to go. Simple as plugging into my Mac via the included…

  • Oh Verizon Mifi, why can you not delight like Apple?

    Ok, say you’re a big technology company and you have a hot new product. You put out a press release enumerating the many amazing features and announcing a release date several weeks hence. Even better, one of the most-read tech columnists on the planet, the New York Times‘ David Pogue, raves about your new product…

  • Instapaper’s instantly useful for sending articles to Kindles

    For a while now, I’ve found that the best way to read long-ish online articles and blog posts is to email them to my Kindle. This avoids the horrid eye strain from reading them on my computer and is more environmentally-friendly than printing them out on paper. Back in December, I even wrote a simple…

  • Insanely great Kindle on iPhone needs one big improvement

    (Updated 3/5) Wow – just wow. Pretty much ever since Amazon announced its nifty Kindle e-book reader in November 2007, people have been predicting that Apple would jump into the e-book game and blow Amazon away. Today, Amazon decided it wasn’t going to wait around and introduced an e-book reader program for the iPhone and…

  • Exciting e-book progress from Amazon and Google

    It’s been over two years now since I first starting writing about electronic books and e-book readers on my blog. At the 2006 introduction of Sony’s reader, I was concerned that the “long tail” of niche and out-of-print content was being ignored in favor of making the latest John Grisham best sellers available on an…

  • Amazon: Follow Apple’s lead and don’t blow Kindle opportunity

    I think it’s fair to say I’ve been of the earliest, strongest and most prolific fans of Amazon’s fabulous electronic book reader, the Kindle, since the day they unveiled it, just about 14 months ago. I’ve defended the Kindle against reviews from people who’d never actually had one, iPhone fans who like to read their…

  • Making the transition to a Blackberry Curve

    Well, the two-year handcuffs on my Verizon-locked Treo 700p smartphone finally came off and it was time to reevaluate. The biggest downside to the Treo was its miniscule battery life, though its bulky weight was another serious bummer. My company pays for the phone so my replacement choices were fairly limited. Since my wife appears…

  • Acrylic Software’s Wallet, great password manager for iPhone

    (Updated 12/3) To keep track of all the various web site passwords, log-ins accounts, serial numbers and other top secret secrets in my life, I’ve been using the OS X version of Acrylic Software’s Wallet program (Acrylic was formerly known as Waterfall Software). It’s one of the best looking and best performing password managers I’ve…

  • Netbooks look increasingly appealing but I’m not sold yet

    The category of mini low-cost laptops, known as netbooks, seems to be growing rapidly and not just with copy-cat “me too” offerings but with innovative new features continually cropping up as well. Today I’m intrigued by the latest Hewlett Packard netbook, the HP Mini 1000. It has one of the best physical designs I’ve read…