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I want to thank Joe and Amy over at Nine Lives Media (The Var Guy & MSPMentor)  and NimSoft for hosting the webinar where I won this great device.  You see I have been looking at Ebook readers for quite a while and I could never get my head around how they could really be worth the money.  But that is before I touched one and now that I have I can say; "Yes they are" and it isn't just because I got mine for free.  I read a lot, at any one time I have 4 or 5 books around my house that I am reading.  When I travel I have to decide which ones I am willing to take based on their size and weight.  Also I get most of my books online so when I order then I have to wait for them to get to me.  This Kindle fixes all of those things.  The first thing I noticed when I took it out of the box was the screen, I never really understood how an Eink screen worked, the text was crisp and the grayscale images were sharp on this thing.  The setup process was easy and you can load documents you already have either over the air (for a small fee) or via the USB cable (for free).  The process for buying books can be handled on the computer or from the Kindle directly.  Making the Kindle much like the IPod in the way that it makes buying music and movies easy and more of an impulse purchase.  Items that are purchased from Amazon get delivered very quickly.  I have now been using it several weeks and I have read several books, a few converted PDFs and a few BLOGs (again thanks for Nine Lives Media for the free subscriptions) and I haven't experianced any eye strain from using it and think the layout works well.  I love being able to have one "book" that I can carry where ever I go.  The device is pretty much always on since the off mode is more of a hibernation.  The navigation is a little "old school" with the thumb control but it works.  This device does exactly what it is supposed to do and overall does it well. If you get a chance to check any of the Ebook readers out close up I suggest you do, that is the only way you can truely understand why you really want one of these things.  You may find the Nook or Sony's Ebook reader more to your liking, but any way you go this is the next evolution in reading.

So what was the last book you read?  As always I welcome your comments and feedback.

So a while back when the Blackberry Storm first came out on the Verizon network I rushed out and got it and as you can see in my previous post I wasn't exactly thrilled with way it performed.  But I have continued to suffer along with it because I have a rule about using what I buy.  I was just about to give in and move on to something new (The Droid was set to come out) when I saw that the Storm 2 was coming out.  I guess RIM decided that the first one was such a mess that they had to come out with version 2.0 less than 12 months after the first one.  I shared this comment with another Storm 1.0 users who informed me that not only was the Storm 2 coming out but an upgrade for the first Storm was out and it really improved it.  I scoffed at him, because RIM had been putting out new code for the Storm since almost the day it came out trying to make the thing actually work the way it should.  But being a glutton for punishment I downloaded the upgrade and gave it a role.  To my amazement my Storm started acting the way I would have wanted it to out of the box.  The applications launched quickly, the keyboard responded, the screen rotation actually rotated with my movement of the unit.  Now I am not going to tell you that the Storm 1.5 is the best thing out there, but I will tell you it has made me hesitate with regard to moving on to another unknown phone like the Droid.  At least for a few more days.  I will let some other sucker be the first one to try it and let me know what they think this time.  So someone hurry up and try the Droid out and tell me if I can ditch the Storm for something more perfect.

Those of you that know me know that I am a tech addict.  I live on the bleeding edge and have the scars to prove it. So when my carrier Verizon Wireless announced a touchscreen Blackberry called the Storm I was there the first day get it.  I won't bore you with the pain that I went through to get the thing.  Now after several months of using it I can truly say that I can't wait for the next big thing so that I can move on to something new.  
I have had a Apple IPhone for quite and a while and had hope that I would finally get an all in one devices that had the best of everything (music, video, mail, contacts, calendar and corporate control) and was on a carrier that worked the way I wanted.  Don't get me wrong the Storm is a great device to look at and at first seems really like it might have it all.  But quickly I realized that no one will ever be able to out do Apple when it comes to ITunes for music, movies, and now applications getting from my PC (It is actually a MAC, but that is for another post) or over the air to my device.  Nor will a touch screen with or without a tactile screen be as easy to type on as a Blackberry with real buttons.  Beyond that the Storm is a little quirky when it comes to the way it handles both the screen orientation and the touch screen.  I find that when I am changing orientation there are times that the picture and I have both changed orientation, but the background logic hasn't made it there yet.  This is extremely irritating when the phone rings in landscape mode and I pick it up and the screen moves to portrait mode but I can’t press the onscreen answer button as the system doesn’t realize where I am pressing is where the button should be yet.   I have learned to just use the hard buttons to answer the phone.  But other times when you change from one menu to another you find that an icon you push is no longer in that location and you are pressing a blank space, which causes the menu to change yet again.
But that is not the biggest issue, from time to time I have my Storm reboot mid email or phone call for no reason.  And when I say reboot, I mean go have a sandwich and wait a while kind of reboot.  I have done the firmware updates as they come up in hopes of getting better use of the device as I really like the way it looks even if it won’t take the place of my IPhone.  But it just hasn’t happened yet and I keep reading Blogs from other bleeding edgers that they have gone as far as getting their units replaced to no avail.  
So is it a perfect Storm, no but it might be cool to go out and splash around in the rain if you want a good looking device that works mostly like a Blackberry and don’t expect too much out of the extras in your device.  I hear there may be a Storm 2 coming out later this year and RIM has unveiled an application store to try and compete with ITunes.  I hope that RIM has taken a lot of notes and learned from those of us that have bled with this first generation and end up being able to put a device out that can at the least live up to what we expect from a Blackberry.  Either way I am counting down the days until I can justify going back to my Blackberry Pearl, what I consider the ultimate Blackberry to date.
    Thoughts?