Seinfeld Season 4 DVD Update
It looks like we have only a little interest in this contest. I would like to see more people subscribe to my blog so I think what I am going to do is give away 75 EC to every person that subscribes from today until the end of Feb.
The contest for the Seinfeld season 4 on dvd will end on Feb 29th. Every single person that signs up for updates from this blog, will also get 75 EC (entrecard credits). Please leave a comment here with your entrecard account email and I will make sure you get your credits.
Remember that if you are signed up already (after FEB 1st only) you are still in the contest. This addition is just to get more people interested. Thank you for your entries!
When the first Kindle was announced my Christmas list was immediately complete. It was populated with one request: Amazon Gift Certificates. My excitement was difficult to measure and probably difficult for people to tolerate. A device that carried 250 books? With an “onboard” dictionary? That’s all I needed to know. What surprised me, though, was that none of my family or friends knew what I was talking about. “What’s a Kindle?” they would ask, to which I would squint my eyes and reply, “Huh?”
How so many people could be unaware of what was to me a revolution – many of whom were avid readers – was puzzling. Even after receiving the Kindle (finally – after months of waiting) people who saw me with it would ask, “What is that?” When my answer, “It’s Amazon’s Kindle!” succeeded only in deepening the creases in their foreheads I was dumbfounded. This is the Kindle! Hello?
Apparently Amazon’s website, one of the most heavily trafficked web sites on the internet, wasn’t enough marketing. The Kindle wasn’t close to being a household name, even a year after its release. And people to whom I showed the Kindle often weren’t that impressed.
That has all changed with the release of the Kindle 2. Big change in the so-called impression department.
The Kindle 2 arrived about an hour before I left for a class and I took it with me intending to explore the Kindle 2 during the break. I arrived at class early and with the extra time started familiarizing myself with the new device.
I didn’t have it out for more than ten seconds before someone asked, “Is that the new Kindle?” Another, “Is that the one that talks?” All seven classmates were keenly interested in this second generation Kindle, and all had heard of it – the Kindle 2, that is, not just the Kindle. They all knew that a second had been unveiled, and at least one wasn’t aware of the first until they became aware of the second. Class started, and I had to put the new Kindle away.
When break time came, I thought I’d have a bit of time. Nope! People stayed in the room, demanding that I,”Make it talk!” or “Show me the dictionary!”
While I understand that there’s been a good deal of time for word-of-mouth to advertise the Kindle, there’s something else at work here. This device has caught people’s attention; it’s a head turner. The design is slick, attractive, thin and, I would say, sexy! That it doesn’t have the quirky, clunky, annoying buttons that filled ?of each side of its predecessor, buttons that caused dozens upon dozens of accidental page turns makes it that much sexier. I found that the Kindle 2 is immediately appealing to the eye and once described in the barest of terms people want one for themselves. And I mean everyone. Every single person that has seen my Kindle and heard my thirty-second advertisement of its features has expressed a desire to own one NOW. That wasn’t the reaction the first Kindle had, and my thirty-second advertisement was roughly the same.
Congratulations, Amazon. You’ve just invented the equivalent of the iPhone for e-books.
The biggest selling point for me is still the onboard dictionary. If you’re a true reader then you know the value of having a dictionary at hand and the frustration you experience if one isn’t. My vocabulary is better than average but I still run into unfamiliar words (too often for my comfort!) and I’m one of those people who want to know the meaning of every single word I read. But who wants to go to the doctor’s office with their favorite book AND a dictionary? Well, I did. I wanted to bring a dictionary along when I went places where I’d have to wait forever, but I rarely did. Now I don’t have to. Everywhere I go I’ll have the book I’m reading and a dictionary with which to lookup any words whose meaning I’ve either forgotten or never knew.
What I like most about the Kindle 2 is the placement of the buttons and their inversion. It’s very difficult to accidentally turn a page (a far too frequent occurrence with the first generation Kindle), yet simple and effortless to purposefully turn a page. Page turning is quicker and the text and pictures are crisper. The reading experience, already an excellent one, is greatly improved. I’ll miss the scroll wheel, even though it wasn’t exactly the height of design innovation and was vaguely Coleco-esque, and it’s replacement, the 5-way controller will take a bit of getting used to. It has the feel of the mouse button in the middle of a laptop keyboard and I never liked those. Manipulating that button reminded me of something I’d rather not think about when trying to get work done. (I’ll leave that to your imagination since this is a family show.)
Another huge plus for Amazon is that plugging the Kindle into your computer via the USB port no longer drains the Kindle; instead, it charges it. They were smart and designed a USB cable and wall adapter that work together so that you don’t have to keep track of two cables. It’s also easy to charge the Kindle in the car if you have a battery charger with a USB port (some Bluetooth speakers come equipped with those). Though I wouldn’t recommend using the Kindle while driving.
If you were hedging on the first Kindle and decided to wait, now is the time to pounce. This is the real deal. You’ll love it.
If you have the first Kindle and are deciding whether to upgrade, do it now while you can still get a good price for your old Kindle on Amazon’s Marketplace, craigslist, wherever. This I promise: if you don’t upgrade, you will regret it every time you accidentally hit one of the obscenely large buttons and advance or retreat one, two, three, or even four pages. And the longer you go, the less you’ll get for selling your old Kindle, and that, without question, will be frustrating. Another tip for selling: if you bought a cover to replace Amazon’s ridiculous original cover, sell it packaged with the Kindle. You’ll sell it quicker and for more money.
My only complaint is that the Amazon looked a bit too much to Apple when designing this. It’s like a large iPod with a keyboard, sans the 32gb storage. (They could only get 1gb of storage into that, and Apple gets 32gb into the much, much smaller iPod Touch? Then again, I’m not an engineer so this issue may be moot.) You can’t carry an extra battery – though with the extended battery life and extra charging options it’s almost a non-issue – and you can’t replace the battery because of the iPod-like fixed backing. They also took out the memory slot, and the SD card was a big selling point for people who liked to carry their entire library around with them. While I do understand that concern, 1500 titles is a LOT of titles.
I’m a book lover. The smell of old books is almost an aphrodisiac. The feel of a book – it’s difficult to describe. Even the word itself has some magic to it. I’m old school when it comes to books, and I love this device.
You will too.
History is a vast early warning system. – Norman Cousins