5 posts tagged “gadgets”
I wanted to upgrade from my Kindle 1 to the new Kindle DX, I really did. I've been looking forward to the announcement for days and finally got to see what it looked like today. Sadly, I won't be upgrading. There are several very cool things about it as well as several problems that did not get addressed in the DX. But I won't bore you with the details of any of those because there's basically ONE thing that will keep me from upgrading: it won't fit in most of my purses.
I know they're pushing out to a new market - the business and student market - and those users would have bigger bags. But this DX version is not ready for prime time on the academic market, believe me, I've done some research on my Kindle and the highlight/notes functions are quite primitive and they don't seem to have improved those. So to me, that means they still need to please their biggest current market which seems to be women. Women read more books than men. Women follow Oprah more than men. Hence, the Kindle should suck up to women. If only they had made it about an inch and a half shorter, it would fit in most of my purses and certainly all my favorite ones. To have your Kindle determine the look of your purse is a fashion no-no, in my opinion. We all have our own tastes and although mine is far from Vogue's, it's still my own style, not Amazon's.
Besides, it's too expensive. For $489, you can buy a real notebook/netbook now with an insane amount of memory.
I could have been talked into coughing up the bucks for my favorite gadget if only it would fit into my favorite purse...
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com
I finally got my W700 issue resolved (I hope). Lenovo took back the computer and sent me a new one (after about 6 weeks and a dozen calls or so) and UPS is supposedly paying for the computer that they left out on the porch in freezing weather for 6 days. I'm supposed to be grateful that I don't have to pay extra in addition to all the hassles -- gosh, thanks, Lenovo and UPS.
Moving on... So I'm finally setting it up. So far, so good. But I want to set the default display brightness to half of what it comes with for 2 reasons:
1) It's a waste of electricity unless I need the extra bright screen.
2) I work with two computers simultaneously - one for the graphics/footage and the other to look up the eternal question of "how the heck do I do X?" The W700 is about double the brightness of my other computers and it makes my other displays look really dim. It's hard on the eyes to go back and forth between them. (I got the bright screen because I want the option to use it as my on-site production computer in places where it will be quite bright.)
I called tech support and he told me to do the following to set the default display brightness:
- Restart computer
- press F1 (before Windows initiates)
- go into Bios
- go into Config
- go into LCD (or display) setting and choose your brightness setting
- press F10 (this will save the setting and you'll come out of Bios)
The tech guy said that I'll still have the option to ramp up the brightness when I need it, but that it'll default to what I set it to whenever the display turns on. I don't like messing with the Bios but I think it's worth it because even when I manually reduce the brightness, it defaults to 400NITS whenever the screen comes back on, which, since mine turns off after 10 minutes of non-use, is pretty annoying.
I would have been out-of-my-mind excited about this computer if I hadn't gone through 6 weeks of hassles with it. So I'm reserving judgment for now and will report back on the results.
Cheers,
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com
Went to the DMV yesterday. The line was out the door and zigzagged 4 times in the building. Time to whip out the Kindle. I now have the NY Times, LA Times "The Biz" section, BBC, WSJ and The SJ Mercury bookmarked so I can read the news anywhere I can get cell reception. I also have several manuscripts of my various works-in-progress in my Kindle so I can review and comment. Some people wonder why I would bother to do these things on a Kindle as opposed to a mini-computer. It's the screen. To me, it's the difference between reading on a computer and reading on paper. The Kindle is not quite good as paper but it's pretty close. I use it as a portable "printout." Also, once you buy the Kindle, there are no mobile connection fees. So for people who don't have mobile Internet access, it's really great to get news on the fly. Besides, I wouldn't expect the DMV to have wi-fi but I would expect it to have cell reception.
Unfortunately, the commenting process in the Kindle is awkward, putting into question whether it's worth editing on it in the same way you would mark up a printout of a manuscript. I'm not one of those thumb-entry people who can type a text message in no time flat. But I'm getting more comfortable with it. The trick with the Kindle for me is that if I see something I want to edit, I thumb-type a note and I also highlight the section. That way, I get all my notes and highlighted text on one screen so that when it's time to do the actual edit on a computer, I can refer to that page the same way I would refer to a printout of a summary of comments. On my computer, I can do a word search on the text to get me to where I need to be and then make my edits.
My process doesn't make much sense if you have no issues reading on a computer screen. But if you use the Kindle as a virtual printout, it's awesome. Still haven't read an ebook on it yet but I plan to. :-)
Here are some unofficial shortcuts that can be found on Reversing Everything:
Alt-1 show current location in Google maps
Alt-2 find gas station nearby
Alt-3 find restaurants nearby
Alt-4
Alt-5 find custom keyword nearby
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com/
I bought an Amazon Kindle a couple of days ago for my trip. OMG, that's the greatest thing ever! I bought it for ebooks but books are the least of the cool features. I have my entire novel manuscript on it. I converted my Word doc to .txt using "save as" then saved it to the Kindle via USB. Oh, it's so amazing to be able to read a "print out" without lugging around 500 pages. The text is really comfortable to read, unlike a computer screen. I'm supposed to be able to make notes on the text and highlight it but that's awkward, although I'll try it out for awhile. I may end up using the Kindle for reading my work and taking editing notes on a piece of paper or something. Every writer and editor ought to have one. It's not as good for screenplays because converting to .txt will kill the formatting but if you're just reading for content, it should be okay. The other super cool thing is that it gets Internet access, although it's slow and limited. I can get Google, Wikipedia, Maps, news and such while I'm on the move without an additional fee for the mobile connectivity. Love it love it love it.
Oh, and there are the books, magazines and newspapers but I haven't tried those yet. :-)
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com/
That's me, right? :-) Here are some extremely cool things I'm currently drooling over:
Letus35
Mini for HV20 - $1,100
Dell XPS M1730 laptop - $4,824
Ooh, pretty, shiny toys... what filmmaker wouldn't love these?
