I wish I had a browser that worked well for Windows Mobile – even though I’m able to make some accommodation by only visiting mobile-enabled sites. I’m experimenting with Skyfire to see if it is a better browser. So far I like the UI but it’s a bit of a memory hog. More later …
Category Archives: Technology
Neat Receipts
Now here’s a disappointment. I just purchased a Neat Receipts mobile scanner, thinking the size would be incredibly convenient for converting to a paperless office and just found out that the software doesn’t work with 64-bit Vista. I called them and apparently the software will be ready in January 2009, but their suggestion was to return the unit that I bought and wait. Bummer — it looked like a really cool product. Maybe I’ll purchase some other unit.
Attempting To Post By E-mail
Okay, I’m not thrilled with this, but at least I fixed some of the problems with the e-mail handling in WordPress. I find that from time to time I have something to say and I’d like to be able to say it from my mobile phone. So I’m going to give this e-mail posting thing a try. I’d prefer some administrative interface on my phone where I can type in a text box and post from there, but no such beast exists, short of www.p2wp.com, which I’m not really that thrilled with. I’d use something like that, but I want it hosted on my website so I don’t have to give away my password. So when I have time I’ll write such a beast myself, but for now this’ll have to do until I find something better …
A DRM Free World
From XKCD … my thoughts exactly. I have been goofing around with a Zune pass and, while I like the general idea of pulling in any sort of music that I want, it’s a little frustrating to know that it’ll disappear once the Zune pass expires. (There are other frustrations with the Zune pass, but that’s for another post.)
The interesting question here is one of collection — if everything is available online and you continue to pay a monthly fee to maintain it (assuming the media host doesn’t disappear), what is the value of a personal collection? Why not just maintain your bits online forever? That’s much of the thinking behind the Kindle — sure the format’s going to change, but as long as Amazon is around, I’m pretty sure that purchased Kindle content will always be available.
So what we really do is invest in a company with our subscription services, not in the content itself. My purchase of Kindle content is really an investment in Amazon. The problem is that there’s no recurring revenue for the Kindle or books for Amazon, thus if sales drop, interest in supporting the content will likely go away also. If they switched to some form of annuity where you got as many books as you liked for a subscription (like the Zune), that might better support the longevity of the content. Hmmm … interesting …
