Technology Revisited
So it's time for a little check on how technology is impacting our trip, for good or ill, at the halfway point. So far, since the meltdown early in the trip, we've had relatively few problems. Well, relatively few problems with products that are not produced by Microsoft.
The HP Pavilion laptop I got to replace the Dell did have a burp a couple of days ago but the issue was Vista again and not the laptop itself. During download of some Microsoft updates, the computer decided to go into a loop that I couldn't get out of, even with multiple reboots. We finally had to do a system restore. A couple of weeks of articles were lost but that's partially my fault for not backing up: something I've gotten out of the habit of doing but Vista is encouraging me to relearn. If I buy any computers over the next couple of years I'm going to be sure and get them installed with XP as Vista is frankly a steaming pile of offal. Or maybe I'll even buy a Mac.
In any case, I like the laptop when I'm not having problems with the operating system and am pleased with it. Mary is also pleased with her old Blackberry replacing the newer phone. It works consistently and what more can you ask for?
One item that I got kind of on the spur of the moment was a Cruzer thumb drive from Scandisk. This was a replacement for a thumb drive that took a little submersible trip through the washing machine, from which it emerged a little the worse for wear. The drive has been a real lifesaver for transferring files from the Dell to the HP laptop and transferring photo files to Mary's notebook.
And to top if off, the thumb drive came with a copy of Skype preinstalled, which we've put to quite a bit of use. We've spent a total of about 6 hours on the phone to people back in the States and this has cost us a grand total of $8 US. Skype isn't a replacement for a cell phone, since you can't receive incoming calls easily, but in times and places where we're settled in and have access to the Internet, we can use the program and our laptops to call pretty much anyone for around 2 cents a minute, versus an average of $2 per minute for international cell phone calls. Mary estimates that this has saved us over $700 in cell phone bills.
Our biggest happy has been with our Sony Reader digital books. These have worked out better than we hoped. Basically, the Reader is a display device that can store around 160 or so books in a digital format on the Reader itself and then as many more as one would care for on a computer. The software operates much like iTunes, in that you access the Sony site or others and download digital books onto the computer and then sync with the Reader. Overall the Reader has been pretty easy to use; there are two different sets of buttons for turning the pages, depending on how you like to hold the Reader. There's also a menu button, buttons 0-9 for entering page numbers and moving through chapters, and a button to zoom the text size up or down. The display is very similar to that of an actual book; since there is no backlighting, one needs good light to read. The Reader is around the size of a trade paperback, though considerably thinner.
The really nice thing is that on a long trip like the one on which we are currently involved, we'd usually read something like 20-30 books each. Yes, we read a lot. We'd have needed another suitcase just to carry the books. And frankly, my back would never manage the abuse (I am getting on in years, as I like to tell Mary now and then, or three to four times a day). Now, it all fits in the palm of our hands. We can recharge the Readers in an amazingly short time by just connecting them up to a laptop using a USB cable. On a full charge it seems like the Reader will go maybe 10-12 hours of solid use.
Not long after we got the Reader, the Kindle from Amazon came out. We took a bit of a look at it but decided against it. The one big advantage the Kindle has over the Reader is a keyboard, which can be used to take notes or for a rudimentary web surfing capability. But when it comes right down to it I can't remember the last time I took notes in the margin of a book - not since college at least. The web surfing is something I have my laptop for and it shows color and graphics, so the Kindle isn't really something I'm going to need for that. And the ability to download books on the fly using cell phone networks was a non-starter with us since we were going mostly places where American cell phone networks don't exist - like the rest of the world in fact. All in all, the Kindle seems like a pretty decent product but we like the fact that the Reader really only does one thing. I'd even be happy if they took out the ability to play music, since I don't intend on using that, though Mary says she might use hers for audio books.
So as you can see, we like our Readers. I think Mary sleeps with hers under the pillow. She's certainly given hers a more endearing nickname than she gave me. Mary has filled hers up with the collected works of Jane Austen and such while I've gone with the collected space operas of various authors of the 30's and 40's. To each their own.
On one last issue - cost. I have to say that the Reader is not going to save anyone a bunch of cash. First of all, the Reader costs around $300 a pop. The digital format of the books costs less than the paper version, but not a whole lot less. If you buy a steady diet of mysteries, say, then it is possible to save money over the long run, but it will take two to three hundred books. On the other hand, the Reader can be used with files in several formats - not just the proprietary one from Sony - and so one can download books from sites like Project Gutenberg for free.
One advantage the Kindle does have out of the blocks is that Amazon offers around 80,000 or so books for download, while Sony is much lower at 25,000. It would be nice if Amazon started stocking digital books in a variety of formats, but I'm not sure what their business model is - do they intend on making money on the Kindle itself or primarily on the books they sell?
