He Sees Blank Hardware Too

Tablets are still a fad

So, fads that they are, why pick the 2014 date as the time when I think they’ll be relevant? Because that’s the year that I expect all of the needed pieces to be available for some really good, really cheap dumb-terminal style tablets. Sub $100 color reading devices that can be viewed in sunlight, and tossed across a table with as much carelessness as we see from Captain Picard with a table full of PADDs.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Previously here:

Steve Jobs’ Ultimate Goal: Blank Hardware And Apple Dial Tone
Blank Is The New Black

HP TouchPad Vs. iPad 2 In PDF Smackdown Test

Thanks to Jonathan Ezor (aka webOSquire), I have screensnaps of my standard Google Books PDF — Success: A Novel — displayed on the HP TouchPad using Adobe Reader.

Prior posts in this series for comparisons:

Google Books PDF Smackdown: NookColor Vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab Vs. iPad
Google Books PDF On HTC Flyer
eInk Nook Reading Google Books PDF
More PDF Action On Rooted NookColor
Google Books PDF On Rooted NookColor

And if you want to play along at home:

Success: A Novel at Google Books

Success: A Novel at my Google Docs (for people outside of the U.S..)

Switch To A Nook, Get US$315 In Free eBooks

Barnes & Noble Invites Customers to See for Themselves Why Critics Call NOOK Devices the Best Reading Devices on the Market

Barnes & Noble, Inc., the world’s largest bookseller, is inviting customers to experience what the critics and millions of customers are raving about: the company’s award-winning, bestselling line of NOOK reading devices. Beginning July 1, bring any eReader into a Barnes & Noble bookstore to compare and upgrade to a NOOK device and receive an instant NOOK Book collection — 30 free digital titles valued at $315. The limited-time NOOK upgrade program is offered with purchase of any popular NOOK device including the All-New NOOK and NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet.

Beginning Friday, while supplies last, customers will receive a free, 2GB microSD card loaded with 30 NOOK Books – from cooking and lifestyle to classics and reference –when they show a bookseller their old device and purchase the NOOK reader that best suits them.

Ex-Amazon Affiliates: Just STFU!

Really, no one wants to read your pathetic mewlings now that Amazon is cutting you off in state after state due to new tax laws.

You all claim to believe in free exchange.

Until your free exchange gets cut off.

Then you’re all on about how Amazon is a tax-sucking beast. Well, what the fuck were they when you aided and abetted them? Where does you being an accomplice to that fit in? Anywhere?

Even if I had a self-hosted blog, I would have never put in any affiliate links. I see them as graft, period.

You’re either in blogging to inform people or you’re in it to try to suck cash out of them.

You can’t do both and not look like a base hypocrite.

So just STFU. Your gravy train is over.

Good.

HP TouchPad Gets Savaged In Reviews

Holy shit. HP has not done itself any good here!

Gizmodo: HP TouchPad Review: Unbreak My Heart

There’s no nice way to say this: Shit just plain doesn’t work, far more often than it should. And there’s no more guaranteed way to make something feel like a train wreck in slow motion than to make it run like it’s a train wreck in slow motion. Apps can take foreeeeever to launch, even with just one or two cards open. (I once waited 20 seconds for screen settings to launch.) The gap between your touch and the TouchPad’s response is occasionally so wide you could fit all of Transformers 3 in between it. (God help you if you try to tap multiple things while the TouchPad’s deliberating its responses.)

Dear god! They make it sound like it’s another Cruz Tablet!

Another Reminder: My FTC Disclosure

Are Amazon Reviews Corrupt?

It’s a known fact that PR agencies and corporations have been burrowing into the community of online, “public” reviewers and obscure bloggers and easily corrupting them with trinkets. It’s like a lost tribe being bribed with a pretty necklace of cheap polished rocks. Now there is some proof that there is a problem.

This is why I have my FTC Disclosure. Go read it!

This is also why I hate writers sending me their books for free. That’s not helping. It makes it seem like a favor.

If you’re asking people for money for your shit, expect me to treat it as any other commercial product.

So even if I have happened to exchange tweets or emails with you, I will still cut you a new asshole if I didn’t like your book.

And having a ninety-nine cents price is no excuse for shit like bad formatting, typos, or no editing.

Deal with it.

Nook Touch Items For June 30th 2011

If you’re looking for rooting instructions, start here.

Another Russian YouTube video has popped up. This guy is putting Americans to shame! Step up, American Nook Touch owners!

Tick Tock Apple eBook Deadline Day

http://twitter.com/#!/drs1969/statuses/86369455722078208

Everyone is waiting to see what happens.

As of about 7AM EDST, no movement from anyone; not from Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo.

Previously here:

Tomorrow Is The Apple Deadline For eBooks
Next Week: Amazon And Sony
Apple App Store eBook Armageddon Is Cancelled

Tomorrow Is The Apple Deadline For eBooks

http://twitter.com/#!/McShauno/statuses/85930155821903872

I see I’m not the only one who remembers!

At post time, no word on changes by Amazon to its Kindle app, Barnes & Noble to its Nook app, or Kobo to its app.

Why are they all making their customers sweat like this?

Previously here:

Next Week: Amazon And Sony
Apple App Store eBook Armageddon Is Cancelled

Ken Bruen’s Advice To Writers

http://twitter.com/#!/JasonStarrBooks/statuses/85743981207621632