The Kindle

I've had my Kindle for about 3 hours now. First impression: It pretty much lives up to the hype. It seems to be exactly what I need for reading. It's legible, light, and can download books from Amazon in 1-2 minutes via wireless (no extra charge for the wireless connection). I bought the entire Sherlock Holmes collection for something like $3.50. You can get all of Shakespeare's works for around $4.50. Same for all of Mark Twain's works. New best-seller hardcover can be purchased and downloaded for $9.99, about a third of the hardcover price from a bookstore.

This thing holds 200 books (with an option for increasing memory with an SD card). And all of them are searchable. And bookmarkable. And it has a built-in dictionary. And web browser. And it can display Google maps of your location (not tried yet).

What's not to like? Well, it's $360, but I calculate the payback is around 2 years for me. And I don't have to worry about paper dust from old books making me sneeze.

I downloaded around 90 books from Project Gutenberg and the like, all in Kindle format. I think it's a winner. It may not make sense for many, but I think it does for me.

UPS strikes again

I ordered a Kindle from Amazon yesterday. Within a few minutes of pickup from the ship point, UPS and Amazon were both insisting that the device had been delivered 18 months ago to a city 150 miles away. Turns out the UPS tracking numbers are re-used, although it's not clear if it's UPS or the shipper that is at the root of the problem.

I called UPS and got someone who wasn't surprised (and not concerned, either) and checked and said the package was on schedule. If they could tell this, why couldn't their web service?

Very strange.

More later.