Geek Squeak

Or Whozits and Whazits galore. Games, Gadgets, Apps--you name it, It'll probably end up here...


Other things of an equally geeky nature will slowly manifest here as well....
Click for the original Squeaks!


1 comments :

Shrilaraune said...

Okay so, I am one of those few people that was in the market for an awesome e reader before the "isanitarytowlette" (Read: Ipad) made its' raucous entrance. At first I was dead set on the Kindle. But closed tech of any kind (even just a format) drives me up the wall with the whole angry thing. Note the dual boot Windows and Mandriva thing. So I waited, biding my time.

And then the Nook appeared. I really loved everything about the Nook. Problem is that it had a lot of problems. Firmware updates fixed that in time and as I planned to take the plunge, something occurred to me: If I was going to spend hundreds of dollars on an e reader it might as well support textbooks and be useful for that sort of thing, a tall order I know. The Kindle was the only device that could boast as much at the time. Problem is that reading a textbook as a student on an e ink machine is kind of difficult--more like inconvenient. Incredibly so. Having an e reader that would be convenient for school could save me hundreds of dollars in the long run (suffering artist/broke college student that I am). So when the Ipad announced itself, I begrudgingly looked forward to it's release.

It had apps for the Barnes and Noble e books store as well as an Amazon app. It gave me the best of both worlds: novels and textbooks. But it was...Apple! Ugh, the moral dilemma was crushing. Do I drop everything I stand for? For a shiny Apple ware mind-control device? I decided to wait--good thing too. First off it does not support flash which is fine I guess with HTML5, but no camera, more expensive apps, paying for 3G, and a low battery life. On top of that there are no SD slots--you can't expand the harddrive--and their "ports," replacements for USBs, allow Apple to collect on their monopoly with specialized (expensive) extras. You've already spent five hundred dollars at least on this device, what's a few hundred more? These are only some of the complaints I have about the Ipad.

Now knowing with all this I was still presented with dilemma. I am a traveler, and I can't carry all the books that I need with me in my carry on. With airlines tightening their grip on baggage allowances I need all the space I can get. And so I was at an impasse. Until Notion Ink's Adam came into the picture. I don't know where to start with this thing. It is beautiful, thinner than the Ipad, with a rotating camera, flash support, crazy long battery life and "A full color :LCD transmissive mode; a low-power, sunlight-readable, reflective e-paper mode; and a transflective mode, which makes the LCD display visible in sunlight, all in One!" So the whole appeal of the e reader, with it's just like a book-ness, is there as well as the pretty colors the Ipad offers. Yeah. Wow. The only thing in this gadget's way is support and content. It's from a pretty unknown Indian company for one and so it isn't as well known. It also needs to get big time company's to believe that Adam is worth their while. AT&T, Amazon, Barnes and Noble--you know. Them. So after much research I am anxiously awaiting the Adam.

http://www.notionink.in/

I think I'll put up another post about my thoughts on each of the devices listed here later.

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More often than not, I read blogs that serve as daily diaries of a sort or review trollops (not that I don't enjoy my review strumpets). Astrum Umbrarum (or "of star shadows" as the Latin is translated), lies somewhere in between, as I have discovered over the years. Life Reviews. As I live, and travel, create and explore, I will discover beautiful things. This space is where I hope to share those things with all the snark they deserve.