Tag: Amazon.com

get me a Kindle!

Friday, 30 May, 2008 at 12:36 am

I am avoiding reading the paper my teacher wrote and assigned us to read in lieu of class and lab this week—it’s on estimating and “job costing,” whatever that is. 39 lovely pages on guessing how much it’ll cost to print something!

Instead my mind keeps wandering to Amazon’s Kindle. (I’m reading 39 pages in PDF format on an LCD laptop screen, is that such a surprise?)

*insert vinyl record scratching sound here*

Okay so this draft has been sitting here since April 27. Figured I should either do something with it or trash it, since it’s not going to improve with age or anything. April 27th … that was one hot weekend, very uncomfortable (85° in the shade, anyone?), otherwise I probably would have finished this. Or not started it at all. Oh well.

When I first heard of this Kindle thing (from Neil Gaiman’s blog) I was not interested at all. I’m not into reading books on screen. (Lately I’m having trouble reading lots of things on screen, and it’s not just poorly styled text on sites … I’m getting old. Or I need new glasses. Going way off topic here.)

My teacher mentioned in class (talking while we were working — common thing — I love random knowledge my teachers add) that the Kindle wasn’t a backlit screen, that it acted more like paper does, reflecting light. That piqued my interest, so I looked more into this Kindle thing. Watched Neil’s interview thing on Amazon. Recall isn’t that great, and I’m too lazy to rewatch it, so the only comment I have now is that I really love reading books, those bound things of paper and ink.

I love holding the books (or laying them out in my lap/on the table/on the bed if they’re big enough), I love turning the pages, I love using my pinky to hold the next page so I can quickly turn the page and not break into the action too much.

I pay entirely too much attention to where I am on a screen, how far from the top or bottom the line I’m reading is, how much farther until I scroll down. That’s a part of my personality though, I think. A bit too Monk-ish. (From the tv show…) I know fairly accurately how far the screen will scroll down if I hit the page down button, if I use the down arrow button, or if I click the scrollbar down a page. I know where the line I’m currently reading will end up (hidden or right at the top of the screen). I’m aware of where the paragraph breaks are, how to manipulate the two buttons and the scrollbar to make the paragraph break end up at the very bottom of the page.

I’m aware of where my arrow cursor is in relation to the paragraphs and the breaks. I will scroll up or down so that the arrow is at the same level as a paragraph. (Draw horizontal lines out from the top and bottom of paragraphs, and my arrow will fit within them.)

So I think Neil is wrong there. I will always be aware that I’m reading a book on a screen. (Yes, all that weirdness had a point. I didn’t just go off into gonzo space.) I don’t know if I could be comfortable holding the Kindle for long periods of time.

Despite all that, I’d like a Kindle to play with. Just because it’s new technology and I want to try it out. :3 I’m such a brat.

But then later I heard of another e-reader thing, made by iRex Technologies. This one has 16 levels of grey (versus Kindle’s 4), Wacom technology, and can read PDFs (although Neil surmises that the Kindle was having problems dealing with PDF during testing and they took the capability out until it could be fixed…). Ooh, I want, I want!

But Amazon’s wireless ebook store is tempting … I’m not quite sure how other e-readers get the books. Go dumbing down of technology!

dah, design funk

Friday, 20 February, 2004 at 7:32 pm

I’m trying to make this layout for jeidaijournal. And I don’t know what to do with the pictures. :( I don’t want to do a techno-ish, pixelly layout. I don’t want to do that simplified layout I’ve been doing lately (eg jeidaijournal, AALCC fanlisting, my links page …). I don’t really want to do grunge. Firstly because I’m not that good at it. ^^;; Secondly because I’m tiring of it.

I just want to do these fantabulously amazing layouts. Like Sephiroticum.net (which isn’t up anymore). I just want to fill the whole page, I want everything to be going on, but instead of looking like a mess, it looks effin’ fantastic. I want the final product to look completely different from the original image(s) I used. Kinda like … (you’d have to visit my layout archives site to understand this ^^;;) IAT v33, or SMC v5, or L.S v3. But more.

I know, I usually say, “Open something up and just mess around.” Which is what the owner of Sephiroticum.net said. :b But whenever I do that I just use filters and stuff and usually it ends up looking like a jumbled, disgusting mess, and it’s not even really my mess, it’s someone else’s formula to change the image around that way.

I think I like this [www.hiddencache.com/blackdreams/] ^_^ *stares in wonder*

Okay I have to stop saying that. ^.^;;;;

You know my V-Day layout? (Which was supposed to link to vday.org, but I got lazy and forgot.) This person [butterfly-edge.org] did something similar. But her layout looks a lot better than mine. :P More organized and preeettier.

So anyway … I forgot what else I wanted to say … I made a new Amy Lee icon for lj. What else is new? Well, I’m actually really very satisfied with this one. But I don’t think it counts because it’s black and white with touches of pink and it’s pretty easy to be satisfied with those colors. I think I should be happier about another one, which is pretty much all brown, and I don’t really use brown. But I like the other one more. *shrugs*

I also found out that they aren’t making any more “My Immortal Pt.2 (enhanced)” singles, and that’s why Amazon isn’t shipping our order until “Feb 17–Mar 9.” And the order was placed January 19. O_o

I tried looking on ebay for it, and there’s one, but there are seven bids on it already, and I feel guilty outbidding someone, and it’s already up to $15.something already anyway, so I don’t want to try for it. Then I was looking at this [old ebay auction] and this [another ebay auction], but then I remembered that I don’t have any money. ^^;; And I reeeeally want that poster. :( Oh well.

book shopping

Sunday, 23 June, 2002 at 10:20 pm

Yaaaaay! I finally got to go to Barnes & Noble!! yayay! And um, if anyone was paying attention, no Mommy did not take me when she said she would, ’cause I didn’t have any money and she didn’t feel like lending me any. ’Tis okay, this way I got the books I’ve been waiting for for suuuch a long time: What Janie Found by Caroline B. Cooney, Dreamland by Sarah Dessen, and Lirael by Garth Nix. bweeeee! such fun, such fun!

They didn’t have For All Time though. :( I’ll just have to buy it off Amazon. :b Daddy told me Amazon lowered their minimum free shipping order to $49.99. From there I want Episode Zero, Chobits, X/1999, and Star Wars Ep II visual dictionary. Oh, and For All Time, of course. ^_^

unconfuzzlingness: site stuff

Tuesday, 22 January, 2002 at 12:02 pm

Heehee, Amazon.com is getting somewhere! And they’re giving free shipping on $99 or more orders, so I’m going to ask Mommy and Daddy if we can order from there now.

I’m confuzzled lately. Well, not exactly, but I keep thinking one thing, then going to another, coming back to the same one and finding another thought, etc. etc.

  1. AT&T is changing the peoplemediaone address. Okay. So far, I don’t have anything more than that, no definite address (my username might get changed), no definite moving time. I’m waiting for the beginning of February for more info. I have to change e-mail addies for some places … EZBoard is the only one I can think of right now. Oyeah, Emazing mailing lists also. I canceled the trivia one. I still have to go throug all my old quotes mails and put the ones I like in BiM. Another thing, I have to change all the urls in the cliques I joined, and move my page as soon as possible so people can find out the new address sooner … not that I think people care. I also have to change all of my stuff in EZBoard, the images, the links, blah blah blah. Hmm, I wonder if I have anyone else’s stuff stored on mariruriru. Tadash’s. Yes.
  2. Batcave is down again. Which leads me to ask myself, Why didn’t I move all of my MR files to my compi?! Hmph. O.O I just realized … I DELETED THE LAYOUT FOR MFF OFF MY COMPI! If Batcave really lost my site, then I don’t have that anymore. ¬_¬
  3. I put a lot of not-so-important-but-I-still-want-them files on my geocities sites, and I keep worrying I’ll lose the sites and thus lose the files. Ugh. I’m not normal.
  4. I signed up for a site at fateback.com, still not sure if they put ads on or not. I also put the wrong e-mail address when I signed up, so I don’t have the site. ;_; I have to get another one. But I wanted to use that username! I wanted to see if I could stand it being my url, or if I’d get annoyed by/sick of/embarrassed by/tired of it.
  5. Yes, I am still thinking about getting my own domain. I probably won’t get it, even if I were to think up the best way of selling the idea to Daddy and Mommy. But it’s interesting to think about. I do kind of want it, but there are things that make me not want it.
    • a. I think I’d be taken a bit more seriously,
    • b. I just like the thought of having my own url with all (except my moonlight) sites on there,
    • c. I don’t know I’m just very very very human and wanting.

I look directly at the compi screen and it’s fine, except for the very fine lines going down the screen (the tiny TV does something to the monitor, we don’t know what) but then I look up at the TV and I notice at the bottom of my eyes the screen flickers, just like when a compi screen is shown on the news. Why why why? I wanna know. But I don’t want to be bored.