Thursday, November 11th, 2010
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9:58 pm - Looking a gift ebook in the mouth?
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I like ebooks. Yet I think they may be the downfall of the publishing industry. Why? Well consider the time of the year, we are entering the holiday season. A time when people selflessly spend money on others (at least that is the idea) and give gifts that bring all those smiles (or why they heck did they get me this thoughts) on that special day.
Now in the past, people could buy someone a book, wrap it and stick it under the sweet smelling fire hazard in the living room. But how do you wrap an ebook? It doesn't really exist, it is a virtual collection of data that we have agree means whatever the book claims to mean. So no joy of seeing your loved one pick up the beautifully wrapped box, opening it and the smile (or confused look) on their face. Sure you can probably give some sort of gift card but it doesn't have the same feel of thought and care (or lack of) in picking a gift and doesn't look as nice under your fire hazard. (Update: As I was writing this, news of Apple iBook gift cards showing up was reported. Of course iBooks is my preferred reader, it is the WORST ebook store so far. Limited selection and god awful interface.)
So what do you do for the ebook lover on your gift list? You can't just buy the books, as due to the DRM, you have to use their account and the moment you buy it they can download it right then. And that still doesn't give you something under the tree to open. You could wait and buy the ebooks that night after they go to sleep but again, their account and no present. This won't work for "friends" due to the account thing. It was suggested to me to buy the book, download it to a flash drive and wrap that but again, you have to use their account so they could get it right then and there and skip the flash drive. Most of these issues are only issues due to DRM locking up the files.
So I suspect that many people will skip the books and get something else, thus publishers will slowly lose holiday sales over time as ebooks replace physical books. Sure you may still get an ebook or maybe gift card but I would often get stacks of books, I suspect I won't get as many in a digital world.
A side issue that I thought of as I was writing this is how do you handle a company library in an ebook world? In the past you could buy a book you needed for work, the company would pay you back and anyone at work could read it. No more thanks to DRM. Publishers will miss out on another outlet, though some may argue that everyone will have to buy the ebook now so they would sell more but since the company won't own the book they won't pay you back and I suspect many people will just do without then instead.
Now I have a solution in my case (related to the flash drive bit) but that only works for me as I am a "computer user of some skill" and won't for for most. So, I am interested in what others think, any other ideas that work for the general public? Are we doomed to a life of just giving gift cards in the new digital world? Or will sales drop with a shift to other gifts instead?
current mood:  thoughtful
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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Monday, May 3rd, 2010
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10:45 pm - United Continental
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I for one think the merger between United and Continental is probably the worst thing that has happen this year.
Thank you for screwing up one of the best airlines around and making air travel even worse. Maybe I should just start driving, at least they don't search my body when I get into a car... yet...
current mood:  aggravated
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
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10:20 am - Is this thing on?
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Yep, I'm still alive. Haven't posted in some time so just pinging at the moment.
current mood:  content
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
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10:51 am - RIP : Misty 1994 - 2009
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Friday, February 6th, 2009
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11:45 pm - Free space
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I have finished off the final episodes Stargate Atlantis, freeing up space on the DVR. One day I'll get around to finishing off Stargate SG-1, at least that is on DVD and not taking up space on the DVR.
current mood: accomplished
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
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1:59 pm - Change of power
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It is such an odd feeling, that after 8 years, as of noon EST, Bush is no longer President. I know it's true but it just feels strange, hasn't actually sunk in yet.
current mood: contemplative
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
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5:28 pm - I am geek, hear me type
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So one of my Christmas gifts which I got early was a new phone, the AT&T Fuze (aka HTC Touch Pro). I've been geeking over all the stuff I can do with it (love having it read me my text messages and email with a female voice through the headset) and just having fun. Since I travel a lot, one feature I was really interested in was tethering, using the phone as an internet connection for the laptop. Since most con hotels have a fee for the internet connections, I can save by just getting the plan. Which I did this past weekend so it has already paid for itself but that means I now get to be a real geek and sit here on my laptop making an LJ post, chatting with friends and all the while riding down the freeway from the airport at way higher speeds than I should let any cops know about. Ah the joys of being a geek.
(Of course I did have a VERY important email to deal with at the time but that was just a side benefit right? The geeking is what is important, right?)
current mood: geeky
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(comment on this)
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Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
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4:01 pm - OMG COLD!
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What the???? It is currently snowing in Houston.
And we're suppose to get back up into the 70s and 80s by the weekend. CRAZY weather.
current mood:  cold
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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Saturday, December 6th, 2008
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4:42 pm - New phone you rock my world
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Ok, they made good and fixed it, not sure I like the fix but at least I can send/receive txt messages again. All in all it should be fine.
Now I'm irritated at the crowds out shopping, just wanted to have lunch, take care of my phone and get a new toothbrush. Others around me had other ideas which was okay but there are far too many people out shopping today.
current mood: irritated
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(comment on this)
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2:18 am - cingular you messed up
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posting from new phone. Internet works and email but not txt messages so don't send any for now. Will update when working again.
current mood: irritated
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
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12:59 pm - See me, feel me
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Right before I left town for the con (that's another post by itself), I noticed Microsoft changed up their Zune Pass system (yes I have a Zune, I like the bigger screen and find the interface much nicer than the iPod so tough). The Zune Pass is a subscription all you can eat in a month plan, as long as you pay the monthly fee you can download and play all the music you can fit on your computer. But if you stop then the music dies which meant I didn't feel there was enough value in it for me so never signed up.
Now they have changed the plan so that each month you also get to pick 10 songs that you can keep even if you cancel the plan at a later date. Now it interests me much more so I signed up the other day for the free two week trial and now I'm hooked. I've pulled over more music in the past 24 hours than I have in over a year. I'm also finding music I had either forgotten all about or never knew was out there. And the more I pull over, the more I remember that I've wanted. My 10 songs per month doesn't start until the free two weeks are up and I start paying the monthly fee but I already see so many ways this will be useful to me and for no more than the cost of a CD, which I was paying each month anyway. And the songs I get to keep are not locked to the Zune, they'll play anywhere with no DRM.
Maybe I'll finally use up that 52.57 gigs of free space on my player.
current mood: happy
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
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11:46 am - And the winner is...
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Well I have voted. More people there than usual but no long lines. One person commented that this was better than the two hour early voting lines. Took us maybe 30 mins and most of that was due to the fact that they claimed Christopher had already voted. They got on the phone and finally figured out what to do and let him vote. Seems there are three people with his same name there and the other two had voted early but appears that they marked the wrong ones.
While waiting for them to clear him and let him vote I heard someone else saying that one of the machines was open yet it wasn't ready for a new voter. Seems the last person to vote at that machine hadn't finished by pushing the "cast vote" button which finalizes your vote. They finally determined they had to cancel those votes and so whoever that person was, their vote didn't count. Hope they voted for the other guy. ^_^
current mood: accomplished
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(comment on this)
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Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
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11:40 pm - Rub my feet please?
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I just spent 73 mins on the treadmill to make up today's steps.
Ugh.
current mood:  tired
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
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6:41 pm - An update from Tina town
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I am back from Atlanta and alas, still have no power. It is depressing.
I have to give Centerpoint a F for failing to get even half the city back online after a week. Especially since they say there was less major line damage than they thought. I know it is a BIG job but the line behind us has been sitting there in the same half-fixed state since we left last Thursday. You would think they could have finished it off by now.
Word from them now is it will be Sunday before our area has power again.
I should just take off for Hawaii.
current mood: depressed
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
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6:17 pm - My name is NOT Tina
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Back at the gelato place for sweet gelato and internet. Things are improving, in fact, we saw them come by with a new power pole to replace the one that fell down and is said to be the reason we have no power at the moment. Fingers crossed. More places open, water still fine, gas lines getting shorter, cool weather, heck even if we get power back on I think we'll leave the AC off. I'm looking forward to a sweet low electric bill this month. ^_^
BTW, if you want to see the current power situation in Houston you can check this out...
http://www.centerpointenergy.com/staticfiles/CNP/Common/SiteAssets/doc/Ike%20outage%20map_9.16_10AM.pdf
And please TV news people, give us updates as we need them and tell us what's going on but PLEASE, show some news from the rest of the world and country.
current mood: cheerful
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Monday, September 15th, 2008
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5:26 pm - Not my first hurricane
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Well I'm back online but only for a moment. Found a gelato place nearby that is open and serving and has free wi-fi so grabbed the laptops and got online. The group here is safe, we lost power before the storm even got to our area and are still without power. The nights were hot and hard to sleep through but a cool front came through yesterday and things are MUCH better now. Got gas for the car today and more ice. Back fence was knocked over but we have it braced up for now. Little cosmetic damage but nothing serious other than the power. Water has been fine but man I hate cold showers. ^_^ We spend our days reading and our nights playing DS or chatting. Most of the places around us are open now and we've found some fantastic store owners, like the guy at Egg & I (which we will go back to) who opened Saturday right after the storm and didn't have food but gave out free coffee. Man it was good and I don't drink coffee. Looks like we'll still make the flight to AWA as the airports are starting to open up today.
The only bad news I have to report is sometime during the night Saturday night, my step-father passed away. Mom called me in the morning to come over. Not sure yet what happened but he was pretty ill to begin with. The past few days have been hard but today has been like a breath of fresh air. Things are starting to look up and as soon as Center Point will release a new pole, our electric people can get power back up. No word on when that may happen. Report today was that crime levels were at new lows so I guess there is some good in people. ^_^
Thank you for all the messages of support, you are some wonderful people. More when I have power and network back.
current mood: cheerful
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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Friday, September 12th, 2008
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5:21 pm - Only happy when it rains...
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Then I should be real happy soon. Think we're about as ready as we can be. Every battery item in the house has been fully charged, extra water and charcoal so we can cook without power if needed, cars gased up, things that need dealing with online have been dealt with, stack of reading material to spend the time without power gathered and all the people who have asked - "Aren't you running?" have been told that they are insane. Outer rainbands are starting to show up south of Houston now so all we do now is wait. Will be offline I'm sure for a while so take care everyone. Been through much worse storms than Ike so not worried. Have to see if I bother to sleep this time or not, depends on if we lose power. Never did in the last hurricane so was up all night watching it but each is different so we'll see. Catch everyone when the storm is over and power is back on.
current mood: excited
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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Saturday, August 30th, 2008
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11:42 pm - The World is Not Enough
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Can you guess what DVD I got tonight? The guy ringing it up stopped and looked at it for a moment and said, "I didn't know they had a DVD."
Neither did I which is why I bought it.
Now Duckie and I can fight over it.
current mood: annoyed
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(8 comments | comment on this)
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Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
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11:35 pm - And just like that
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It would appear that we have lost another pet tonight. Lady G's hamster Blackie made some wheezing noises and when we went to check on her, she just laid there, no movement or anything. She will be missed but it seems that she had a long (for a hamster) and hopefully happy life. She certainly had plenty of love.
RIP Blackie.
current mood: sad
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Sunday, August 24th, 2008
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4:34 pm - Lovely Angel is back again
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I am back online!
See I found a copy of Sid Meier's Railroads new at Gamestop for $5 and figured I could deal with a price like that. Brought it home, installed it and started it running... *crash*.
Checked online and they had a patch to fix the problem so download, install and run... *crash*. >.<
Try new video drivers, download, install... wait, they won't install, install program only partially installs, the rest crashes.
Now my computer is in some messed up unknown partly working state.
Well I had been wanting to redo my whole system from scratch... walk into Fry's (heaven on earth for me but hell for my wallet) for some video cables for the TV and suddenly see that they have a new 750 gig HDD on sale for $100. That settles it, grab disc, take home, swap for old system drive, reinstall windows, install all patches, install all drivers, etc, etc, etc until I am now all back up and running a clean install. Oh and now I seem to have about 2 TB of disk space between the internal and external drives.
Still haven't installed the game and tried it yet... *crosses fingers*
Most expensive and time consuming $5 game ever.
current mood: geeky
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(comment on this)
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