What's funny is how myopic many /.ers are: if a software developer comes on and talks about getting screwed over by a client (the recent article on someone wanting support forever) or by a distributor (the recent article on someone getting screwed over by Amazon's app store), there's sympathy, solid advice (including legal advice), and links to resources. If a musician comes on and talks about getting screwed over by Google (Google publishes DMCA takedown notices that list offending URLs; YouTube doesn't, AFAIK, pay royalties), Apple (Apple acts as a middle man, only, and does next to nothing to produce works or discover new artists), or by Torrent sites, he "doesn't get it" or is told to find "new ways to monetize your work". I.e., the lamest and most non-specific comments (not even advice) possible.

What makes me shake my head is how lacking in empathy most of these posters are towards people who work in non-geek fields. The same suite of laws that protect software licenses like BSD and the GPL also protects artists. While it's OK for a software developer to put strings on software and how it gets distributed, it's bad for a musician to put similar strings on his work?

At the end of the day, Lowery's argument boils down to, "I did the work of making music. I assumed the risk (financial liability) of producing this piece of music, I paid for the engineer, I paid the factory to manufacture the CD. Why shouldn't I get paid for work I did? Why can't I control how it gets disseminated? How is it that there are cases where download sites make money from making my work available, without my permission?" And have a look at the last /. article mentioning Lowery -- he was an early adopter of using the Internet to connect to fans AND give away music he chose to give away.

Why is it OK to tell a software developer to lawyer up if he's getting screwed, but not OK to give the musician the same piece of advice? Again, it really is all about people getting paid for work they did AND having control over distribution.

It is, IME, fair game to argue over the details (like how long copyright should be), but it should be a non-starter to argue that someone should have no control over, and chance to benefit from, their own work once it's in the wild.

FWIW, I think software developers are AWFULLY lucky that they have the choice to squirrel away their source code and only distribute binaries. That puts an absolute limit on how widely and easily bits of code can be moved.

This is what I've found:

I love reading novels on my kindle. I love the sharpness of the next. I love the ability to resize text. I love having a library in my hands. I love that my wife and I don't have to buy new bookshelves or drop off a bunch of books at Goodwill every six months.

I feel cheated when I come across an e-book that obviously hasn't been reviewed by a human familiar with English -- even mainstream(ish) books like Pratchett's latest, Snuff, had to be revised shortly after release due to some appallingly bad errors. I've been an avid reader for decades; I've seen typos and spelin' mistakes aplenty, but I've never had to slog through entire pages of gobbledygook with dead tree editions of works.

Reference books on my Kindle can be downright painful -- tables are usually inserted as lo-fi images that are often all-but-unreadable. Worse, if the corresponding page in the dead tree edition includes images and tables, on the same page, all hell breaks loose. Things get ... ugly.

But the real killer for me is indexes. I love them. The indexes on my reference books are usually rather dog-eared. I find them indispensable. But only once have I found an e-book, Bloodlands, that included a functional index (i.e., you select a term, you're taking to the correct "page"). Every other reference book I've purchased has an index that is simply a list of words. I freaking HATE that. That is bad design in that a feature you expect to be functional does NOTHING. We're talking Web 1.0 functionality here, people.

But ... you know what? For me this isn't an arts v. science thing many of the people here are making it out to be. The best interfaces are those that involve graphic designers (seriously, Susan Kare's a genius) and nerds. You need design AND implementation to pull things off. The gobbledygook I've seen in e-books? That's obviously some kind of script that fugged up its conversion -- that's a fault of implementation. Tables and pictures that are supposed to show up in proximity to each other, but don't in e-books? That's a fault of design. The data's there, but it needs better presentation.

We all just have to, you know, get along.

Here's what I like about MS's AV software: it catches, more or less what other AV software does; it does so without being obtrusive; it's not a resource pig; it doesn't pester me for more $$$ to renew my subscription; it doesn't come up with BS pitches about my PC possibly being infected -- please buy some more software from us.

Norton? Yowza! It's tougher to get rid of than some rootkits, requiring (last time I did it) multiple reboots, multiple programs to uninstall, some hand-deleting, AND a third-party registry cleaner (which still missed a few entries). And the nagging and scare tactics? Pass.

But maybe, just maybe, third party vendors (*cough*Norton*cough*McAfee*) will pick up their game and stop expecting people to shell out $100 / year for bloated crapware.

But, seriously.

You want the premium features (keyboard, touch) on the cheapest models? Just cough up the extra $60 for the features you want and get over it. There's a reason Amazon has a range of products, from low end to high.

As for me? I'm getting my kids the cheap Kindles for Christmas. Cheap enough that I won't be crushed if they get stolen at school. And the lack of a keyboard? Just fine with me.

FWIW, I have a Kindle 3g -- I use the keyboard ... once a month. Maybe.

I tried to love my Kindle for reference books, but ... it's not there.

First: tables are wonky -- they tend to be images that render poorly on e-ink (FWIW, they also render poorly on a PC and iPhone, so I believe it's at least in part a problem with using heavily compressed images).

Second: the indexes in many reference books are non-functional -- the items are not clickable and, worse, don't have location or page number references.

Third: it's tough to flip back and forth in different sections (colour-coded tape flags are still miles better than Kindle's marks).

Fourth: annotating text sucks on a Kindle compared to paper and pen.

What is my Kindle good for? Novels (I actually prefer reading e-ink over dead tree). Connecting to 3g networks (for free) in foreign countries so I can check my e-mail before I buy a SIM for my phone. I can search references throughout my entire library at once. In a pinch, I /can/ have a complete reference library for brewing in my hand. The first four books of A Game of Thrones is only $10 on Kindle; $20 and 4.4 pounds in paperback.

But for reference materials?

Pass

Except that all of Canada's cellphone providers suck.

Either their coverage sucks or their prices suck.

I was spoiled on a recent trip to Europe. With an unlocked iPhone: 5 pounds for a micro-sim in England. I loaded it with 40 pounds' worth of time for a 2ish week stay in Europe (UK + France) ... and still had 20 pounds' worth of time left. And I wasn't exactly stingy with e-mail + file attachments.

Bonus: Vodaphone (UK provider) sent a text when I started to use data in France, informed me of the price, and sent a further text when I approached my data limit for the day (IME, a reasonably fair 2 pounds / 25 megs).

It was completely civilized.

In Canada?

Ugh. Not cvilized at all.

I drive a diesel, you insensitive clods.

But, seriously, diesels work on compression alone and don't need spark plugs.

You know what?

I love books. I love book stores. I love the sight of neat rows of books; it's a happy thing.

But my wife and I have Kindles because the cost to store the books became insane (we both read 50 or 60 books a year, we've been together nearly 20 years ... and, well, that's a lot of books). Plus our kids wanted their bedrooms for their own things, not their parent's library. So ... we gave most of our books away and now get most of our books via Kindle.

Amazon's former e-book model was "Amazon sets the retail price, publisher sets the price to sell to Amazon." Apple forced Amazon's hand last year with the agency model -- the publisher sets the price, Amazon takes a cut. Prices have /already/ been raised in most cases. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/04/e-book-prices-to-rise-as-amazon-sony-adopt-agency-model.ars

So, right now, on my iPhone app, Apple gets nothing when I purchase a book through Safari on my iPhone. Amazon gets the fee (30%) from the publisher for handling the transaction. Apples wants that transaction fee, or at least a portion of it, for itself. Further, Apple probably wants publishers to release more titles to its own book store ... and is holding other book stores' apps hostage in order to increase its own catalogue -- potentially surpassing Amazon's catalogue.

What will be interesting to see is what happens to Amazon's web site -- currently, if you purchase a Kindle book, you can choose where you want it sent (an actual Kindle, or any other device, including an iPhone, that's registered to your account). If you choose your iPhone, the book will automatically be downloaded the next time you open the Kindle app (honestly, it's pretty slick).

Apple is embarking down a sleazy path that makes MS at its worst look downright tame. MS just wanted to destroy other software companies. Apple has its sights set on: retailers; hardware manufacturers; OS developers (especially on small devices); it wants a cut of ALL media and software sold for its devices; it possibly even has cable TV in its sights. And it's getting there by creating an "ecosystem" that ties its different hardware, software, and sales platforms together. And then it's using its muscle to force even its competitors to adopt models that favour Apple.

Ouch.

Is your boss going to put in 12 hour days? Unlikely -- most people in middle management hate giving up their time away from work when they can sucker an inexperienced staff to do it for them. FWIW, it sounds like your workplace environment is about to become toxic -- it's NOT a good sign if your boss is asking you to work longer hours for the same of pay and no additional perks. That has the whiff of desperation, and desperate companies often start treating their staff like garbage. In your position, I'd start sending out resumes. Immediately.

Just under 1300 cables have been published; all 250,000 have most definitely NOT been published. They're being released in dribs and drabs. Source: http://213.251.145.96/cablegate.html

The free MS option is the best I've used -- it catches as much crap as Norton, is free, doesn't nag you to upgrade or re-up, doesn't hog resources, and doesn't leave bits and pieces of itself and other Symantec software scattered throughout your registry and HD. Honestly? I'm smelling desperation out of Symatec -- it looks like they're trying to milk their users for every possible cent before people wise up that Norton AV both sucks and blows, and that MS has a superior free product available. And, I mean, your software must TOTALLY suck ass if MS has a product that is both "free" and "superior".