I don’t know if you’ve seen this news yet, but the online GMail service has been losing emails from some users’ inbox this weekend. Actually, it would be more accurate to say everything has disappeared from some GMail accounts. <-If that doesn’t scare you, it should. Google are working on a fix, but I wouldn’t [...]
Entries from February 28th, 2011
An Interesting footnote on the death of Borders
February 27th, 2011 · 7 Comments · borders
Did you know that Borders’ former VP of E-Business used to run Tower Records? Mike Cane left a comment yesterday on my post about how Borders screwed up e-readers. He wondered what happened to Kevin Ertell, who at the time was VP of E-Business at Borders. About 3 years ago Kevin had left a comment [...]
Tags:borders·death·footnote·interesting
The Publisher of Tolkien Has Taken a Business Lesson from Sauron
February 27th, 2011 · No Comments · opinion
If there is a crime here, it is that HarperCollins is guilty of attempted infanticide by their move to strangle ebook library lending in its cradle. Granted, it is the only publisher to ask for such restrictions but I’m certain the other ones are watching the outcome to this controversy very closely. Otherwise, this whole [...]
On fighting piracy
February 27th, 2011 · 2 Comments · opinion
I was reading an article on the Business Week website yesterday, and it talked about the anti piracy efforts of the various sports leagues. Take the UFC, a mixed martial arts competition, for example. The UFC have contracted with several anti-piracy firms, as well as having a couple staff also working on it. While a [...]
E-readers – one of Borders’ many misteps
February 26th, 2011 · 7 Comments · borders, hardware news
I finally had a chance to go to the nearest closing Borders today. It’s down in Stafford VA, which is too far for me to drive most of the time. I expected to see the usual chaos of a closing store: long lines, books dumped wherever, shelved books in disarray. But what I didn’t expect [...]
Inside the Asus eeeNote
February 26th, 2011 · 1 Comment · hardware news
Mike Cane tipped me to this photo. One of the early buyers of the Asus eeeNote has partially disassembled his e-reader and posted some pictures on Flickr. He hasn’t posted a complete shot of the circuit board yet, just this partial one. Note that it has an internal microSD card slot. There’s a bigger version [...]
Suicidal books
February 26th, 2011 · 1 Comment · books as art
Does anyone know who made this? I’d like to credit the source. Thanks.
My RSS feed is borked today
February 26th, 2011 · No Comments · blog maintenance
I was trying something new with the RSS feed and somehow some wires got crossed. Don’t worry, it will fix itself soon. (Hopefully before you read this post.) image via Flickr
HarperCollins takes first step to kill off ebook libraries
February 25th, 2011 · 5 Comments · opinion
The big 6 publisher HarperCollins (owned by Rupert Murdoch, curiously enough) has recently announced a new policy for ebooks lent from libraries. Libraries will now only be allowed to lend an ebook 26 times before they are forced to buy another copy. Apparently HarperCollins believes that’s when the electrons that make up an ebook are [...]
Tags:ebook·harpercollins·kill·libraries·step
Devils and dust
February 25th, 2011 · 8 Comments · opinion
Several months ago, I read a number of comments made about piracy by then-incoming Authors Guild president Scott Turow. Book piracy is one of my labors of love, and I found his perspective under-informed. I responded by writing a lengthy and (to date) unrequited “open letter to Scott Turow”. In the letter, I asked Mr. [...]
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