Kindle

It looks like I nailed a gig with Integrum, a cool Rails shop here in Phoenix. I haven't done a ton of web work, although I feel very understanding about the web tools and the concepts they revolve around. I just need the memorization of said tools. Rote memorization isn't a bad thing, and I wouldn't describe that as what is needed to learn these tools. I'm pretty comfortable on a conceptual level, it's just the specifics that I'm lacking.

To get those specifics, I set out to find some quick reference pocket books for things like CSS, Javascript, jQuery, and possibly even Rails. That way I'd have something to thumb through while doing pairing at Integrum so I wouldn't have to arrest the keyboard and mouse to search for something on Google.

While on my search for such books (I haven't turned up a lot yet), I found Amazon's Kindle. Kindle is like one of those pads they ran around with all the time in the later Star Trek series. It's a super electronic book. It uses cellular networks to download books and you don't pay for a cell phone fee. The skeptic in me went looking for problems with Kindle right away. After all, my PDA is a pen and paper. I'm a software developer, not a Luddite. Tech toys can be cool, but often are just short on practicality.

An endless army of $1 notepads serves as my PDA.

My first flaw I looked for was the LCD screen. You can't see LCD screens in normal daylight. LCD screens might work in places where it's constantly cloudy like Oregon, but the constantly sunny skies of Phoenix are a different beast. When checking Amazon's site, they claim to have solved the dreaded dim LCD screen problem.

My next thought was battery life. Batteries don't tend to last long in portable devices, which means you need to constantly feed it electricity as you would water to a plant. However, the batter life lasts for days. Batteries do go bad after a while. My Macbook Pro (which I think is over three years old now) only has about 30 minutes of life, even if I rig it to run longer. But a battery that starts off with days of a lifespan will take some time before it gets worn down to an inpractical level.

This is sad. I know I'm looking for flaws in a device I haven't used. This isn't because I hate progress, and want the texture of paper running across my fingers as I turn pages. This is a form of monetary self-preservation. These toys are cool, and I have to talk myself out of getting them.

I did actually find some problems that are important. Price: The new Kindle runs $360. That's an expensive 'book'. The next is DRM (Digital Rights Management) - Copy protection that's as seamless and fun as airport security. If you can't trust me to be a good boy with my products, then I probably can't trust you, plain and simple. Penny Arcade describes the problem of DRM pretty accurately. It's my data. Let me put it on my fiancé's machine, or my machine, or my other portable devices. Similarly, this is why I won't get a cell phone 'plan'. First, your limit me minutes (or overcharge me) during hours of the day I'd actually want to use the damn thing, and then I have to sign up on a two year contract with big penalties for leaving? Sit and twist buddy. A company that shows active distrust to me is a company that doesn't get my money, plain and simple. DRM is distrust. I won't steal your stupid content, but now I won't buy it either.