There are some very important abbreviations in the print publishing industry that I have learned in the past few years. These are OS, OSI, and OP. The terms are related, with OS often leading to OSI, and OSI often a harbinger of OP. In booksellers parlance, these abbreviations stand for “out of stock,” “out of…
Tag Archive for usability
Running the Kindle on Windmill Power in Ghana
by Will DeLamater
Got a great note from Zev Lowe, one of the intrepid Kindle folks who are taking the Kindle to places unimaginable in order to help kids learn to read. Currently, Zev’s organization, WorldReader.org, is running a Kindle trial in a village in Ghana. When the WorldReader team discovered that the Kindles’ batteries were almost dead,…
eReadUps Launched: Build Your Own Kindle Book
by Will DeLamater
For all the users of Kindlepedia over the past year, I am delighted to announce that, in partnership with Joshua Tallent and the “talented” folks at eBook Architects, we are launching a new Kindle content tool called eReadUps. Like Kindlepedia, eReadUps builds Kindle-formatted books based on articles from the largest open source provider of information…
Three Kindle Improvements for Educators
by Will DeLamater
In a surprise update (a surprise to me, anyway), Amazon announced improvements to the firmware of the Kindle 2 yesterday. Thanks to Teleread, Len Edgerly, and the KnuckleHeadNetwork, I learned about the improvements in great detail. For an educator, this upgrade is a win. First, the K2 will now support PDF files directly, without conversion.…
Kindle for PC – What’s in it for Educators?
by Will DeLamater
Amazon released in beta this week its Kindle for PC application, and educators will welcome this development. Even though you have heard me rant a bit about the anti-education direction the company has taken in the development of the Kindle ereader (loss of SD card slot, loss of replaceable battery, loss of external Whispernet on-off…
Something I Can’t Do With My Kindle
by Will DeLamater
I recently purchased a Sony Pocket Edition Reader to see how the rest of the ereader world looks compared to my Kindle. The view from here is surprisingly good. The Pocket Edition is small, tight, handsome, and, it actually does some thing that my Kindle can’t do. Like check a book out from the library.…
Sony versus Kindle: First Impressions
by Will DeLamater
I’ve had my Sony Pocket Edition for a couple or weeks now and I have to say that I like it. It is a handsome unit, very tight and solid. It fits in the palm of your hand and, yes, in the pocket of your pants. I was drawn to this ereader because of the…
Unboxing the Sony Pocket Edition eReader
by Will DeLamater
I know that we are all about the Kindle here at EduKindle, but as others in this space step up their games to compete with Amazon, I plan to look at all comers and compare what they offer to the Kindle value proposition. The real emphasis here is on the “edu” part of EduKindle, so…
Maybe the Kindle Community Can Help Justin Get His Homework Back
by Will DeLamater
You might have heard the story. In the midst of the big “kerfluffle” over Amazon’s pulling back of the illegally distributed copies of 1984, student Justin Gawronski awoke one day to discover that all the notes he had taken on the book as he read it on his Kindle were rendered useless. Not gone, just…
The Kindle Discrimination Lawsuit at ASU
by Will DeLamater
When I saw the news about the lawsuit filed at Arizona State University concerning Kindle accessibility issues, I think I had a quick negative reaction to the upshot of the suit, that providing Kindles to sighted students creates a disadvantage for blind students. A journalism major at ASU, a plaintiff in the suit, sums up…