Heaven in Hell's Kitchen

Seth Godin posted comments about the Kindle on his blog. He intends not to write directly for the Kindle until the device offers more than a linear reading experience.

It's precisely a strong linear experience from which the power of the book derives. A book gives an author a chance to refine his speculation, research, and inspiration. It presents elevated thought and experience. It doesn't need improvement. That's why the book has been around so long.

I understand Mr. Godin's point about a new device like the Kindle needing additional value over the book in order to establish its relevance. If it just does what books do, why don't you just get books?

However, consider the iPod, another linear content delivery device. It didn't enhance the linear listening experience. So what did it do that portable CD players couldn't? It improved on portability and accessibility. With an iPod you don't have to decide what you want to listen to in advance and then lug CDs around. This boon helped make iPods and other digital listening devices ubiquitous.

Even if the Kindle proves to be nothing more than an iPod for books, it will still be a boon. It also highlights an interesting pendulum swing in attitude. When hypertext came along we began losing our ability to focus. Now everyone seems to acknowledge, at least to some extent, that we're a little too distracted with all of our multi-tasking.

An antidote
The Kindle speaks to our growing sense that maybe we just don't need to bounce around so much. We've been getting behind in our reading; so far behind that we can't lug around all those books we want to read. Hey, let's take the benefits of portability and accessibility that iPods gave us and apply them to our must-read reading list. Maybe we've been a little hungry to get absorbed by one thing and pay attention.

Uh, I'll get back to you. Right now I'm reading. Don't bother me...

Posted by Jai at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I first started using AOL in the nineties, I discovered that they archived a bunch of magazines I was saving on my bookshelf. No longer did I need to keep issues of "Worth" in order to reread Peter Lynch's column. I emptied my filing cabinet of clippings from the "New York Times," "Money," etc.

It wasn't easy.

I had acquired all that information so assiduously. What if I wanted to look at one of those articles again? Two things were now evident. I could just go to Yahoo with my Netscape Navigator and find anything that I needed, and it was current, too. I had rarely actually looked at any of the material in my library of yellowing clippings. If I needed anything again, I would go to the web to get whatever was relevant now.

I adjusted.

Now I can't imagine keeping all that crud around.

I still have books in storage. Even paperbacks. Lately, I've been enjoying the New York Public Library more than ever. I can use their website to put items on hold and they'll transport them to my branch which is on the very block on which I live. I have a huge wishlist. What am I storing books for? A huge amount of what I want is already stored by the library. I don't need to rent space to store my own copies.

Perhaps very soon, keeping books on your shelf might be just as quaint as archiving newspaper clippings. We already have Google Books. I want to read Walden. It's in the public domain. I can download it in PDF. I don't need it on my bookshelf. The Kindle is coming. (I guess it is anyway. Have you ever seen one? I suspect Amazon never manufactured a one. Maybe it's still in development. Being "sold out" might be just one of the greatest marketing strategies ever imagined.) My entire bookshelf would fit in one gadget. I like physical books. I love them. Yet might I come to deal with them the same way I've dealt with my entire audio library? Practically the whole thing fits in one iPod that I can carry around with me. I haven't gotten a CD out in years except to import it into my computer.

Yes, I threw away books today.

Kurt Vonnegut, Frederik Pohl, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh. As much as I enjoyed them, will I open them again? Well, maybe, but if I want to I could just put in the request at the NYPL, or I could download them to my Kindle (if I'm not still on the waiting list in 2010). Paying for the whole thing all over again would be a lot cheaper than renting storage to stockpile paperbacks. Why bother? Clear up my personal space for more library books!

All those textbooks from Chubb. Do I still need database textbooks? I learned the material, I have the job. Any references I need, I have at work. The textbooks on COBOL and Visual Basic? It hurts simply to discard them. I spent $10,000 on that education. But hey, mission accomplished. I work in technology now. Why would I want to store that stuff? If it were important, I'd have it at work!

I threw out books today. God have mercy on my soul.

Posted by Jai at 08:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I manage my personal finances with Quicken 2005. Quicken Customer Care just notified me that Quicken will discontinue support of the 2005 version on April 30, 2008.

Get this. They don't just mean that they won't provide technical support for the old version anymore. They mean that my existing functionality will cease to operate. I will no longer be able to download data from my bank.

It never occurred to me that a third party would be able to stand in between my client application and my financial services vendors. If my bank decided no longer to supply a file format for my old version of Quicken, well that would be between me and my bank. And if a software provider decided no longer to support an old release of an application, well I would be on my own as far as existing bugs. I accept that.

However, I expect to be able to use the existing functionality of a program I bought without obstruction from a third party. The application is a client that connects with a data provider. I expect to be able to fetch that data as long as the data provider provides it.

Quicken calls this a "sunset" provision, and yes it's mentioned in the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA). Per the sunset provision, they support the current version and two previous ones. I know, by buying the program and installing it I had to accept the EULA. On the other hand, I won't do it again. Continuing to use existing functionality to connect from my client software to my bank requires no "support" from a third party. I will not accept the sunset provision by purchasing another product from Intuit, the makers of Quicken.

Ironically, I wanted to upgrade my version of Quicken because I really like the product. However, I don't accept being required to do it.

I was going to start developing my own personal finance application using Universal Data Models out of my Len Silverstein books. I figured I would start out with a simple check register and put it in Access or mySQL. It turns out I don't have to. You can download free accounting software licensed under the GNU GPL called GnuCash.

Posted by Jai at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)