Monthly Archives: May 2009

If it’s Saturday, I’m installing calibre

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calibre 0.5.11 now runs strong and tall on my Linux laptop. I wonder how much I’ll really need to reformat personal content after the Kindle DX is on-board. I think the DX is going to handle my PDF manuals just fine.

I think, though, I’ll keep up with calibre. Who knows? I may hit some creative streak, wherein I’ll publish treatises of original thought and insight, and use the Kindle for something other than a high tech flat rate manual. Maybe. Stranger things have happened. Also, I’m getting closer to getting calibre whipped into an RPM, which will make the upgrade process much simpler. And, yes, if I get a suitable RPM built, I’ll share. That’s also part of the FOSS “payment” process.

-k-

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Please, Amazon!

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I saw this FriendFeed post from Dave earlier, and his post about The Band. I always liked The Band; even though the $1.99 Amazon special on the greatest hits album that Dave references appears to have expired, I thought this may be a good day to stock up on some good tunage.

I’ve downloaded MP3s from Amazon in the past, one MP3 at a time. Even for MP3 albums. A bit of a PITA. So today I tried to install the Amazon MP3 Downloader for Fedora 9. The download, followed by yum install amazonmp3.rpm, was greeted with:

Error: Missing Dependency: libboost_thread-mt.so.3 is needed by package 1:amazonmp3-1.0.3-1.i386 (amazonmp3.rpm)
Error: Missing Dependency: libboost_signals.so.3 is needed by package 1:amazonmp3-1.0.3-1.i386 (amazonmp3.rpm)
Error: Missing Dependency: libssl.so.6 is needed by package 1:amazonmp3-1.0.3-1.i386 (amazonmp3.rpm)
Error: Missing Dependency: libcrypto.so.6 is needed by package 1:amazonmp3-1.0.3-1.i386 (amazonmp3.rpm)
Error: Missing Dependency: libboost_date_time.so.3 is needed by package 1:amazonmp3-1.0.3-1.i386 (amazonmp3.rpm)
Error: Missing Dependency: libboost_iostreams.so.3 is needed by package 1:amazonmp3-1.0.3-1.i386 (amazonmp3.rpm)

I have newer versions of all these libraries; I suppose I could have created symlinks from the new versions to the required versions, crossed my fingers and hoped it would work.

Instead, I contacted Amazon, and asked if source code to the downloader is available. I’d compile the thing myself. I’d even package it up, and give it back to them. While I await their reply via mail-o-gram, it occurred to me that Amazon should just open source the downloader; I’m sure that some pacakge maintainer could take the downloader, and see that it was made available for Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora distributions. That would be the ticket, and show the world that Amazon is committed to the widest possible audience for their service. Just speaking for myself, I’d easily have spent $30 today on MP3s, if I didn’t have to snag them one at a time.

So, please, Amazon. Let us Linux folk play, too. Thanks!

-k-

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Refurbed

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Last weekend, in a fit of tbbs WorldHQ tidying, defenestration, and spontaneous combustion abatement, I became distressed at the state of our remote controls for our various home entertainment devices.

I’ll say first that MLB and I don’t have a huge array of devices to control; our home entertainment stack consists of a Sharp Aquos TV, a DirecTV tuner/DVR combo, a slimline Sony DVD player, and a JVC Sirius satellite radio tuner. Each of these has a remote control device. We also have a Sony big-button “universal remote” that isn’t, well, universal. Perhaps Sony defines universal in a more restrictive manner than I do.

Anyhow, with this array of remotes, we’ve observed the following:

  1. The TV remote can operate the TV and most of the DirecTV tuner. It can not, however, pause live TV.
  2. The Sony universal remote can operate the TV and some of the satellite tuner. It can’t pause live TV either.
  3. The remote for the DirecTV tuner is nearly 9 years old, some of its buttons stick; the only one which has consistently functioned is the pause live TV button.
  4. The DVD and Sirius remotes do a credible job on their specific devices.

You can see where I’m going with this, right? We need the DirecTV remote for the pause functionality, and at least one of the TV/”Universal” ones handy to run everything else. One of them has invariably fallen under the table between our chairs, and it falls to me to curse while I retrieve the wayward device.

Last weekend’s cleaning extravaganza was powered by Shiner, so I was in a relaxed and receptive mood when I visited Amazon in search of Daily Deals. To my surprise, the Logitech Harmony 890 was available; a refurbished model could be had for $125 or so. I’d never bought a refurbished anything, so I went off in search of new. Oh, they were available all right, from $250-$325, depending on vendor. Logitech has an exhaustive database of devices the 890 can control out of the box; all our stuff was there, and I clicked “Buy Now” for the refurbished model.

The remote and its charging cradle arrived mid-week; a day of charging up, followed by the installation and upgrade of the 890′s programming software on the Mac laptop, connecting the the 890 to the Mac via USB, knuckling in the device names and model numbers was followed by the 890′s display menu showing Watch TV and Play DVD. And, what a treat. Pressing Watch TV turned on the TV, satellite tuner; beautiful. All the buttons on the 890 did the expected thing. Still no pause live TV; crap. The buttons on the 890 are somewhat smallish for an old guy like me. I adjusted my bifocals, and tried the one labelled pause. Duh. Live TV stopped in its tracks. What a device!

Today, I got the Sirius tuner added to the devices on the remote, and I’m pleased with the results. And there’s now ample room for my netbook on my table, with the 5 other remotes now stored out of the way. MLB even likes it, in spite of her aversion to gadgets.

-k-

Rekindled

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I’m on order. The potential of the Kindle DX was just too great to leave unexplored. Having manuals, usually in PDF, handy on one easy to use device will be a good thing. Nearly all vendors distribute their documentation in PDF; even when you get a CD with the documents, they’re PDFs. Firing up Acrobat and wading through docs on a new product has always been hard for me; I can’t easily highlight and bookmark pages of interest, and I’m stuck reading on a computer screen.

I’ve even resorted to sending important documents to Kinko’s, and having them printed and bound. Not only is that pricey(one manual costs around $30, depending on length), but the spiral binding wears out over time. Then there’s the problem of finding storage space for these volumes. Oh, and when V 2.0 of product X hits the streets, the manuals are now obsolete. On the Kindle, delete and archive the old, load up the new.

MLB has expressed an interest in the Kindle 2, and she will be taking that over after the DX arrives later this summer. She’s already pointed out that the DX is my “Happy Father’s Day, Happy Anniversary, Happy Birthday, and Merry Christmas” present for the year. I’m OK with that.

-k-

Kindle Jumbotron

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I never have been behind the curve so fast; I’m still digging my Amazon Kindle 2, and now there’s this new thing called the Kindle DX.

I have no quarrel with the screen size, quality, and ease of use of the Kindle 2. The DX has entered the mix in an effort to better render newspapers, a feature which fails to excite me. However, part of the DX allure is a native PDF reader, which should deliver my personal long-sought holy grail of having one device capable of holding any vendor-supplied manual that I might need or want. Add the additional storage capacity of the DX, and I’m salivating. At $489, though, the DX has entered netbook, if not low-end laptop territory in the price category.

I have no burning desire to have the newest Big Shiny Thing; were I Kindleless, I’d seriously entertain a DX, even at that price point. Had I been prescient enough to bet $10 on the Kentucky Derby winner on the nose, I’d be a DX’er for sure.

I wait, and watch.

-k-