The Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6 is a spiffy device. It has a great look, a great interface and fulfills a great function. I’ve wanted to get one of them for the last year or so but there have been a number of events that have prevented me from jumping on board.

Here are 3 reazon for not to buy Amazon kindle books

1. Text to speech. When the Kindle 2.0 was released, it had a fantastic text-to-speech application included. If I had a kindle, I probably wouldn’t use it much, but I could see myself using it from time to time (like if I were driving or falling asleep to a book). The writer’s guild was worried that this would kill their books-on-tape sales, so they told Amazon.com to kill the functionality. Amazon.com complied. In fact, they didn’t just pull the functionality from Kindles they had in their warehouse, they killed the functionality on all of the Kindles they had sold.

People who had purchased the device, maybe even because it had text-to-speech, woke up one morning and found out that Amazon killed it from afar.

Lesson 1: Amazon.com can sell a Kindle claiming it does something, and then decide to remove that feature.

2. If you lose your Amazon.com account, your Kindle becomes a brick. Users who have lost their Amazon.com account have turned on their Kindles to find they they can no longer read the books associated with their account and can no longer download any new content to their device. I don’t plan on losing my Amazon.com account, but this is enough to keep me away.

Lesson 2: If you have a fallout with Amazon.com, your device is a brick. You do not own the device, even though you paid for it.

3. Takesie-backsies. If you buy a book and that publisher decides to stop publishing that book, it typically has no effect on you. I have a number of out-of-print books on my bookshelf and I’m entirely confident that they will remain there until I disturb them. This is not the case with the Amazon Kindle. If a publisher decides to stop offering a book, Amazon.com removes it from your device on behalf of the publisher. Its as if they decided not to offer a book anymore so they came into your house and took it off of your bookshelf.

Lesson 3: You don’t own what you pay for. All of your content and the associated rights are still owned by Amazon and the Publisher. If they decide to alter the agreement or remove the rights they’ve bestowed upon you, they can do it at any time and with zero notice.

If  you still want to buy it,than you can check here:
Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6

Video source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/garrettmurray/2632209648/

I owned a launch 60gb system which I loved dearly – until it gave me the “Yellow Light Of Death” error, necessitating a costly repair through Sony’s customer service.  Sony’s service returned me a refurbished 60gb unit, which I have now sold in favor of a “Slim.” I simply don’t trust the launch units. I baby all of my electronics, in a kid-free, smoke-free household. I am frankly convinced that an unacceptable number of 60bg units will suffer overheating failures in an unacceptable time frame.

SO…

The PlayStation 3 120 GB system had an obvious appeal to me. It uses a 45nm microchip process (as opposed to the 90nm process of the original), which means smaller, cooler transistors, and lower power consumption. Accounts on the Internet point to a reduction of fully half of the power consumption between the 60 and 120gb units (check the internet for details). Read the rest of this entry »

Therefore, all discussions on alternative fuels Engery, whether ethanol, biodiesel, electricity, etc., etc. The first is that there is a failure, always the gas test. I do not know why.

I ask my share of  gas!!.

1. There are cars of the future, you can call today Honda Civic and Accord gas. The following table is the Civic GX, the name of the NAT gas and civic gets 33mpg.

2. Natuaral gas is approximately equivalent to $ 2.15 a gallon. For very large domestic supplies of natural gas NAT is not dependent on foreign oil.

4. Many service stations in California and New York. You can also use a charger for about $ 2000-and-drop. House with fewer Nat Gas stations are easy in one or two years covered by fuel savings.

5. All the good green energy. Natural gas is a real clean car with zero emissions. Drive in the carpool lane, saving energy will save Envrionment, etc., etc.

Why should hear more? With one million CNG (Compressed Natural Gas  official ) for vehicles in South America, there is no right answer. If more people rally behind him in good health, more jobs and greater publicity. Your comments please.

Joe Dado: Penn State, Joseph Dado Dado C Dead Joe / Joseph Dado, has discovered a rookie from Penn State found dead in a stairwell between Steidle and Deike, who had two buildings on the campus of Pennsylvania State University in several earlier today.Joe Dado visibly intoxicated Sunday after a party at Phi Gamma Delta, which gave him his balance and fell 15 meters from his death to lose almost a mechanical room Hosler outside the building.

Latest news about Joe Dado:
Update 10:00 pm: A small vigil by candlelight will be held before Pollock Road sealed off the area. Auxiliary Police always stationed around the perimeter of the police, while the band was observed with high intensity lights on the other side of the wall, where the investigation.

6:22 pm actor in a Miniseries / MOVIE: Brendan Gleeson (Into The Storm). The Irish actor wins second award the project to play Winston Churchill. He thanked the producer for his mother to cut early to see, just before his death. The drama of World War II with 14 nominations overall.

SUPPORTING ACTOR, MINISERIES OR A MOVIE:
Len Cariou, Into the Storm
Tom Courtenay, Little Dorrit
Ken Howard, Grey Gardens
Bob Newhart, The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice
Andy Serkis, Little Dorrit

_ Directing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special: “Little Dorrit: Part 1,” Dearbhla Walsh, PBS.

_ Variety, Music, or Comedy Series: “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Comedy Central.

_ Reality-Competition Program: “The Amazing Race,” CBS.

_ Writing for a Comedy Series: “30 Rock: Reunion,” Matt Hubbard, NBC.

_ Writing for a Drama Series: “Mad Men: Meditations in an Emergency,” Kater Gordon and Matthew Weiner, AMC.

_ Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Series: “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Comedy Central.

_ Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special: “Little Dorrit,” Andrew Davies, PBS.

BBC news:

Tina Fey wins best actress on 30 Rock , but is honored to imitate Sarah Palin.
Little of the BBC Dorrit won numerous awards, including best miniseries.
In addition, winning for art direction, costumes and cinematography.
We are pleased that Little Dorrit was reduced so that side of the Atlantic,  said Anne Pivcevic executive producer.
The Irish actor Brendan Gleeson won an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or movie for her role as Winston Churchill in Into the Storm.

HOLLYWOOD — Jessica Lange, who won two Oscars and lives in New York, recently visited Los Angeles, the HBO film Gray Gardens, to discuss a candidate Award Emmy.

Brendan Gleeson as HBO is  Into the Storm  won as best actress in a movie or miniseries, while Jessica Lange, gardens Gray HBO is  off the Emmy for best actress in the film and the type min.

6:32 pm Jessica Lange winning for best actress in a miniseries / movie for Gray Gardens. It proposes to co-star Drew Barrymore. He thanked, among many, daughter duo Albert Maysles, co-director of the documentary shows that HBO inspited and themes from his mother Beales.

The Emmy for actress in a miniseries or movie went to Jessica Lange to play eccentric cousin of former First Lady Kennedy Fireplace in  Gray Gardens . She seemed genuinely surprised by the victory.

As I was always a fan of any kind of good music, I listened to not only the prevalent music of my peers, but to the music of the classics and the music of my parents (WNEW-AM). While listening to that station, I was enthralled by a sound. The sound of a guitar which had been layered upon itself a multitude of times. The intensity and the clarity of the sound was a revelation to my young ears. This was the art of Les Paul.

When I was 13, my parents moved everything, including us kids, to Mahwah, NJ, where we lived on the banks of the Ramapo River on Ramapo Valley Road (Route 202). Imagine my excitement when I found out through speaking with neighbors (who were very few and far between, like maybe a half-mile), that the man who made this incredible sound lived within a bicycle ride of my house! And not only did he live there, that was the place that he made this incredible music! Having just taken up the guitar a couple of years earlier, I was fascinated by what he could get out of MY instrument.

Well, with the brashness of youth, I took off on my bicycle and rode the slightly overgrown path along the Ramapo River Valley to the road that would lead to his door. Standing there and shaking, I knocked. From within I heard a muffled, “Yeah, OK, just a minute”.

When the door opened, there stood a man who was older than my father who looked at me and said, “What can I do for you?”

“Mr. Paul?” I said, my voice cracking slightly, “My name is Scott and I live down the road. I like your music and I was wondering if there is anything I can do for you to help out or something.” I never really expected anyone to answer the door. I think.

A small smile moved across his face and he said, “Well, kid, if you can handle a broom, my studio can use a sweeping out.”

Of course I accepted! Just the chance to see where the magic took place!

So for a few years, once in a while I would show up at his door and say, “Hi, Mr. Paul, it’s me, Scott. You need your studio swept out or anything?”

In that time, I learned what tape recording was, how multi-track worked, what a mixer is and other things of which no one else I knew had knowledge.

At one point, Les was playing something on his guitar and he said to me, “Hey, kid. You know how to play a 12 bar blues?”

I replied that I did and he asked me to pick up a guitar that was sitting there and play it in A. Nervously, I did what I asked. As I was young, I had the feeling that I couldn’t disappoint this man. If I disappointed my father, I would have felt his wrath and I didn’t know if Les was the same.

After playing for a couple of minutes, he said, “OK, you take one”.

Nervously, I played the best blues improv that I could. During it, Les said, “Hold it. What did you just do there?”

I showed him what I had played and he said, “What a great idea. I never thought of that.” Then he repeated what I played on his guitar and showed me what I could do to enhance it.

I was on a high for several weeks after.

Years have passed since then. I’ve played in countless bands; roadied for several others (including one that had Les’ son, Russ, in it); made a mark as one of the founders of a world-wide performers’ association; been one of the stars of a syndicated television program; formed my own corporation (an audio consulting and recording firm) and worked in a dozen or so “day jobs”.

In that time, I’ve run into Les’ son, Russ, and stopped into the clubs to see Les play (graciously, always at the VIP table). At one of those performances, I heard a well-known performer who was also at the same table tell his story of Les saying to him, “What a great idea. I never thought of that.” I smiled. I realized that was Les’ way of encouraging a young guitarist. I said nothing at the table.

So, you may hear stories of how opinionated and gruff Les Paul could be, or what a perfectionist he was or some other such thing over the next few weeks. Don’t disbelieve them, he was all of that.

But remember, Les Paul was also a kind, gentle and, in his own way, nurturing mentor for, at least, one overweight kid from Mahwah, NJ in the early 1960s.

Rest well, my friend. Rest well.

I am getting ready to do a job that requires a separate mixer on the stage for the monitors. I’ve read different opinions regarding tying a source to the monitor board and FOH board at the same time. I see a common method using XLR splitters. Now to my actual question… if I go with the splitter method, what happens when a mic needs a phantom power source? Typically I would use condenser mics for overheads and hi hats that wouldn’t even go to the monitor board however if had to mic an acoustic guitar with a sm81 or some other type of acoustic instrument that the band wants to hear in the monitors, the two boards are essentially tied together. Which board should be used to supply the phantom power and/or can that hurt the other board channel that is sharing that same mic. The monitor mixer is a Mackie 1604VLZ and once the phantom supply is turned on it’s that way for all channels. The FOH board is a Mackie 32.8 console. It powers 8 channels at a time.
Any thoughts?

The “Festival of Thought” conference in DIT Kevin street this year (thanks to the great work of Ted, Jim, and Tomás) saw many different presentations from assistive technologies, to exploring the brain’s neuroelectrical mystery, to teddy bears in space! I myself wanted to share some of the simple desktop applications I use to make life a little easier for me – to speed up the operations I commonly use.

For one I demonstrated “StrokeIt!”, an open source application that converts symbols drawn by the mouse into whatever commands you want such as running a program/web browser, sending keystrokes to a program, or other utilities like having a particular window “always on top” so nothing blocks it.

Instead of boring you with textual-detail I put together a small video and just uploaded it tonight, demonstrating all the major things you can do with it – or at least that I have used with it. Its 24minutes long and is in no way a polished demonstration :0).

In Summary the software can:

Interpret predefined symbols you draw on the screen such as the letter “S”, and run a set of predetermined commands that you have previously specified, such as to open the “save as” dialog in a particular application or open up a program. You can:

1) Run a program (MS Word, Adobe reader, Open Office….)
2) Send keystrokes to a particular application or even to the desktop (e.g. I set up the pressing of the button as holding down right_click on the mouse, followed by left_click. This saves time in traveling back to the keyboard and increases working speed.
3) Open your web browser
4) Draw symbols big or small such as a large R or a small R on the screen to give the same outcome. This has applications perhaps for assistive technologies whereby the user is not restricted to make a rigid symbol and allows a degree of freedom or error. However, this at the minute is only from my own experience and not as any product of research.
4) Send Hotkeys to an application (same as 2 above really)
5) Far more than I have explored… it claims to have the ability to act as command for all applications since I suppose full scripts could be used in the SendKeystrokes aspect of the application.

If you would like to know more let me know. The video should tell most of the story, but let me know eitherway. Thanks for reading…

Chris

Blockbuster shares fell 13 cents, or 16 percent to 72 cents in afternoon trading after the Dallas company is worse than expected loss of $ 39.7 million for the second quarter.

The film studio Warner Bros., meanwhile, so late Thursday in conjunction with Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox, a delay in the delivery of new versions of RedBox, Coinstar Inc. asubsidiary studies hope to preserve lucrative retail sales with new titles available at 1 – $ per night RedBox kiosks.

Coinstar hand dove $ 3.79, or 11 percent to $ 31.50.

Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc, which is also a new wrinkle to the battle, he will face a new form of letters and the landlord, ask a sharingagreement income.

Who’s in Los Gatos, California, on the basis of Netflix shares $ 1.67, or 3.6 percent, to $ 44.61.