One of the "perks" of running a moderately popular blog is that sometimes people send you stuff. I've been sent wine, phones, apps, and all sorts to review - usually by PR people who realise that engagement with bloggers is a little different that their regular way of doing business. Yesterday, I received this delightful email from the publishers Simon and Schuster. NEW book by the "Prophet of Silicon Valley", Jaron Lanier, available for your review! Dear Mr. Vogels, I'm writing today to…
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I haven't been to an unconference in ages - so it was nice to get back into the swing of things with LibraryCamp. It was a delight to spend time with a collection of committed professionals doing amazing things with books. As requested, I recorded all the sessions I could. Here are my notes, and the audio from each session I attended. I've based some of the information from the excellent LibraryCampLondon Wiki, including the session proposal page. Hidden Collections Katie Birkwood lead a…
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The Internet is "the world's most efficient copying machine" -- Cory Doctorow. This is a long and rambling blog post which asks two questions: Given that we can only read one book at a time - can we set up a "Kindle Stock Exchange" for our unused media? If so, what effect would this have on content producers and sellers who rely on artificial scarcity? This has been mulling over in my head for some time. Image from FreeFoto.com Transactional Friction One of the great advantages…
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Amazon claims that it makes no money from the sale of Kindle eReader hardware. Looking at the prices of eink devices at wholesalers, this looks broadly accurate. They do seem to be selling at around wholesale cost - customers also get Amazon's fabulous support, free software updates, and high quality manufacturing. Yet there is a curious anomaly. Why aren't Amazon selling ePub books? Terminology A quick diversion into the terminology used in this article. eReader - the physical…
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This is a quick tutorial to show you how to rip DVDs on a headless server. That is; one which only has command line access. The documentation for MakeMKV is available. It's a bit sparse. It also doesn't have many of the features of the GUI. For example, the GUI allows you to select which video, audio, and subtitles, you want to copy. So if you only want the original German director's commentary, with the Swedish subtitles from the main feature, you can do that. The command line is an "all…
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As I've mentioned before, Jasper Fforde is one of my favourite authors. His latest book "One of Our Thursdays is Missing" is a brilliant work of fiction - but contains a rather worrying flaw. Well, I say a "worrying flaw" - I mean an error. All books contain errata - I think that's a given - but outside of academia, Jasper Fforde is the only author I know who offers upgrades to his books. Here's a sample from the original Thursday Next "patch" 5: Using a fine black pen make the following…
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I was pleasantly surprised to see this poster at my local train station. Looks like Surrey Library is moving to the digital age. eBooks and eAudiobooks from Surrey Library (click to embiggen) "Bet the site doesn't work on my phone," I thought. http://ebooks.surreycc.gov.uk/ I was wrong! Overall, this is a brilliant new service. A great initiative to get people reading more books and improving library services. Take a look at http://ebooks.surreycc.gov.uk There's just one problem... …
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So, the Kindle finally launches in the UK. This blog has become something of a Mecca for users of the Elonex 511EB. The comments on my reviews run in to the hundreds, I get thousands of page views a month on them, I regularly answer private emails about the device. So, why am I abandoning Elonex? Simply put - Elonex abandoned me. Their staff and website promised updates which never came. We're not just talking about additional features - there are some serious bugs in the device. They…
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As Shakespeare said... "[Blog posts are] a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Today Ofcom published the responses it had for its consultation on plans for the BBC to encrypt its HD broadcasts. The blogosphere went nuts! DRM? Not on our watch. Boing Boing mobilised its army of commentators, the BBC published two blog posts which quickly filled up with comments, Facebook statuses were updated and all these links were retweeted until our fingers were worn to …
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Dear Sir, This is my response to your consultation "Consultation on Legislation to Address Illicit P2P File-Sharing". I believe that the paper "GOVERNMENT STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED P2P FILE-SHARING LEGISLATION" is dangerously flawed. In this response, I shall outline four general areas of concern. Practical, Philosophical, Technical and Cultural. I also will provide a series of solutions which I believe will have a positive impact for the creative industries of the UK. Practical There…
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Some thoughts on MusicStation - in response to Ewan at SMS Text News (I do work for Vodafone, but these are my own opions....) MusicStation by Omnifone is a service offered by Vodafone. For £2 per week, you can download as much music as your phone can store and listen to it any time, anywhere. It is, in essence, iTunes for your mobile. All of the songs are delivered over the air, so you don't need to sync your phone with your computer. I use MusicStation on a Nokia N95 8GB. Where …
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