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Kindle 2nd Generation 3G = $89.99

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Mon, 05/23/2011 - 09:12

Kindle 2nd Generation 3G = $89.99 :

On Woot.com today, there’s a sale on the Amazon Kindle 2nd Gen eReader with 3G for the lowest price I’ve seen: $89.99. It is last-generation hardware (the screen is ever-so-slightly not as good as the newest Kindle) but for $89 and free 3G, this is a steal. 



Crowdsource, Please

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Mon, 05/16/2011 - 09:39

Crowdsource, Please:

Another excellent example of “piracy” as a positive force. Author asks people to scan and post his out-of-print works so that he can clean them up for distribution.



'Go the F--- to Sleep': The Case of the Viral PDF

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Mon, 05/16/2011 - 08:52

‘Go the F– to Sleep’: The Case of the Viral PDF:

Excellent example of “piracy” and the free sharing of electronic copies of a book ending in said book being #1 on Amazon.



Simpler file upload in Google Docs - Docs Blog

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Fri, 05/13/2011 - 21:38

Simpler file upload in Google Docs - Docs Blog:

Two great file upload features added to Google Docs.



Awesome 3D printing video

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Sat, 04/30/2011 - 08:34
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Hat tip to Librarian in Black for pointing me at this awesome video explaining the importance of 3D printing. I’ve been talking about 3D printing on and off for a long time (the first post on my blog about 3D printing was in October 2006). This gives a good overview of the reason that this is a Very Big Deal.

 



Google Docs app for Android

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 14:28
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The newly released Google Docs app for Android smartphones and tablets has more than just editing and viewing documents up its sleeve. It also allows you to snap a picture of a page of text with the camera on your device, and it will OCR and convert it to an editable document. 

Obviously, it can’t work its magic universally … handwriting, and complex fonts are beyond machine text recognition. But this takes us one step closer to being able to do Interlibrary Loan from a cellphone. 



Netflix now largest video subscription service in US

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Mon, 04/25/2011 - 22:59
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According to CNN, Netflix has now overtaken Comcast as the largest video subscription service in the United States, with over 23.6 million subscribers. This not only makes them larger than the largest cable company, it also pegs their penetration rate at over 7% of the U.S. population.

This is yet another piece in the access-not-ownership path that media consumption in the U.S.  seems to be heading down. These streaming services will continue to increase in popularity as our broadband infrastructure and 4G wireless connectivity are built out. 



eBook rank #1 in sales for Feb 2011

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Fri, 04/15/2011 - 20:44
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The Association of American Publishers released some numbers today that put eBooks at the #1 spot for sales in all publishing categories. From the release:

According to the February results, once again e-Books have enjoyed triple-digit percentage growth, 202.3%, vs February 2010. Downloaded Audiobooks, which have also seen consistent monthly gains, increased 36.7% vs last February.

For February 2011, e-Books ranked as the #1 format among all categories of Trade publishing (Adult Hardcover, Adult Paperback, Adult Mass Market, Children’s/Young Adult Hardcover, Children’s/Young Adult Paperback).

And my favorite bit:

For the year to date (January/February 2011 vs January/February 2010), which encompasses this heavy post-holiday buying period, e-Books grew 169.4% to $164.1M while the combined categories of print books fell 24.8% to $441.7M.*

eBooks are still not the majority of book sales…but with numbers like this, it certainly won't be long.



HTML5 made easy: Boilerplate

Submitted by Jason Griffey on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 11:13
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With the rise of HTML5/Css3, a number of web designers in libraries are trying to find the best way to either move their existing sites into a more modern framework, or sometimes just figure out what the big deal is about HTML5. Luckily, there are not only a ton of great resources for reference (like the great w3c Schools info), but my new favorite HTML5 template:

HTML5 Boilerplate

This thing is the swiss army knife of HTML5/CSS3 development. It even supports add-ons, like this really interesting mobile-first extension for Boilerplate,320 and up.

If you’re just looking around for somewhere to start learning HTML5, you could do much worse than looking through Boilerplate and playing with it in your designs.