Writing for Beans

Yes, I'm a major advocate of the Kindle, having been excited about the concept of eInk from the first day I heard about it a good half a decade ago now, long before any practical eReader based upon its technology was ready for the public sphere. I still think that as a concept, both environmentally, and ergonomically, having a dedicated device with an eInk screen for reading text is virtually as good as reading an actual paper book. However, I know that not everyone wants to shell out the big bucks (at this time) to get an eReader. And truth be told, I knew I was an early adopter going in. There'd be a risk that I was making a bad choice, and the devices would flop, and it would be another ten years before eReaders had another go. Something I know from personal experience is this: you only have to get burned once by a piece of technology to get bitter and resentful.

An example is the time we implemented a Lotus Domino feature called Shared Mail. The purpose was to save space on your systems, by storing only a single copy of any email that had multiple recipients, and then giving only pointers to the mail file of those users who were addressed in the message. Well, all the testing went well, and we were starting to roll it out big time, and then the main repository that had all those emails in it got corrupted, and we nearly lost a ton of emails all in one fell swoop. That was in the 90's. You bring up the words "Shared Mail" in my department, and you will still to this day hear major groans. And we're not alone by a long shot. In fact, whenever Lotus brings out a new feature that even remotely sounds like Shared Mail, admins around the world all collectively groan. Once bitten, twice thrice shy.

So this whole ebook technology is a big risk. People love it. They hate it. Some will probably treat it much like Shared Mail. Others will consider it the newest indispensible tech. But among the biggest reasons I hear people complain about these new readers are these two: what if company X or Y stops supporting that hardware. How will I continue to read the books I paid for--and--why should I buy a device in that price range, when I can get a netbook for about the same cash, and get all the features of a full fledged computer.

( More indepth review under the cut )

Lastly, I think these are fine, especially as addendums to the main product line of dedicated eReaders. And if you like the screen, and don't mind it, go for it. Download them yourself, and try them out. They're FREE afterall. Both are nice ways to dip your foot into the ebook market. But in my opinion, neither replace a nice, dedicated eInk device. I'm afraid if I'm on my PC, I'd be too tempted to check email and twitter, and LJ, and...you get the point.

And really, truly, lastly, if you do get this kind of software remember, you'll want to back up the books you download/purchase. Because you just never know, and after all, as today is Wednesday BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!