Urbin Technology

A Good etext reader for the iPhone

Posted on August 17, 2008 by Mark Urbin

It’s called Bookshelf, and yes, it costs money. I found it worth the $10

It supports a wide range of formats including ASCII text, HTML, AportisDoc, unencrypted Mobipocket, rft & Word Docs (not docx).

I can access my Baen webscription account from it and download books directly as well as tapping their free etext library.

There is also a Java app that you can load on your computer in order to load books you already have from other sources.

So far, I’m really pleased. A good move by Baen to support this, since Mobipocket has been very quiet about exactly when they were going to produce an iPhone app.

Filed under: Apple, cell phone tech, Etext Reader, Smart Phone | Tagged: Baen, ebook, etext, Etext Reader, iPhone | 4 Comments »

Posting without power

Posted on August 16, 2008 by Mark Urbin

Power is out, but I’m still online with my iPhone.

It’s good to be a geek.

Filed under: Internet, Smart Phone | 2 Comments »

Previous thought on etext

Posted on August 16, 2008 by Mark Urbin

From a post on another blog originally made November 27, 2007.

Here is my geek punditry for the day. The Amazon Kindle etext reader is going to sell well. It will succeed for the same reason the iPod did. The iPod did not dominate the mp3 player market by creating a better mp3 player, they did it by greatly expanding the market through its iTunes service. People who had no idea of what an mp3 was or how to create/find them now had a way to purchase digital music easily and for less money than they paid for to get the music on CD.

The Kindle has Amazon shopping built in and thus a way to purchase etext at a reasonable cost. Amazon is attempting to follow the highly successful model Apple used, and it will probably work.

I’ve been doing the etext thing for years on my Palm based PDAs. There is an amazing amount of material available, including Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Beam Piper, and a good chunk of the Baen Books catalog. I am, however, a lot more geeky than the general public. I was not part of the Apple model because I knew about mp3s and the problems with overly restrictive copy protection.

Apple’s “Kindle format” is an encrypted version of the Mobipocket format common on PDAs such a Palm OS based devices. It does support non-encrypted Mobipocket, as well as text files and a few other open formats.

The Kindle’s biggest competitor will be the iPhone, once decent reader format is available (and either iTunes supports loading it or there is some third party software you could use without having Apple brick your phone), but I think the Kindle will hold its own, for the reasons stated.

Filed under: etext, Gadget, PDA | Tagged: Amazon, Baen, ebook, Kindle, Mobipocket, Palm | 6 Comments »

Android rumors

Posted on August 14, 2008 by Mark Urbin

Perhaps the Google Android team is getting a bit nervous, with actual working LINUX based smart phones on the horizon. Or it could be that iPhones are still selling like they were coated with crack and that Best Buy is going to start selling them as well.

Whatever the reason, the rumors of Android not being available to consumers until 2009 are getting competition from rumors that Android based phones may be availiable sooner. The word is T-Mobile will have the device.

Update: T-Mobile uses a GSM network.

HT to Morgan Webb.

Filed under: Gadget, Smart Phone | Tagged: Android, cell phone, Google | 4 Comments »

Interesting article

Posted on August 14, 2008 by Mark Urbin

Robin Bloor writes about Educating the CEO in the ways of IT. Great idea.

She then points out a major problem with implementing that concept:

An executive of an organisation I know that specialises in educating CEOs in a variety of areas, including IT, told us that he had once suggested organising IT brainstorming sessions where the CEOs could bring their CIOs along with them. However, every CEO to whom he suggested this rejected the idea immediately. None of them wished to expose their IT ignorance to their own CIO, especially not among a group of other CEOs and CIOs.

That’s not so bad, at least they are aware of their failings. First step in correcting them and all that.

When they don’t understand IT and don’t know that they don’t…that is where you run into serious problems.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: CEO, CIO, Education | 5 Comments »

GSM vs. CDMA

Posted on August 13, 2008 by Mark Urbin

Comment wise, one of the most popular posts here is about Cell Phone technology. The comments have drifted in to cell phone protocols.

There are two main protocols, CDMA and GSM. CDMA is a legacy protocol only used here in the US. The rest of the world uses GSM. This is an issue for hardware manufacturers, since the phone has to be built to support one or the other.

At least two of the major US carriers, Sprint and Verizon, still use CDMA. So there still is a fairly large market for phones designed to use CDMA.

AT&T bit the bullet years back and coverted their network to GSM. This probably gives them a slight advantage in pricing when buying phone in bulk from manufactures. It also allows them to compete in the International market, since their phones will operate outside the CONUS.

Another advantage to GSM is the SIM card. The part of the phone that identifies it to the network is designed to be an enduser replaceable device. This makes the actual phone independent of the network (something that gives Verizon execs and Steve Jobs nightmares).

My iPhone, and my previous phone are both GSM devices, so I was able to take then SIM from my iPhone (Apple bricked it for about 12 hours) and put in my RAZR phone. You can’t do that with a CDMA device.

Just from a technical, networking engineer viewpoint, my vote goes for GSM.

Filed under: cell phone tech | Tagged: CDMA, cell phone, GSM, networking, protocols | 7 Comments »

Linux Phone

Posted on August 11, 2008 by Mark Urbin

Here is the Neo Freerunner, running openmoko.

Update: It’s a GSM device.

Filed under: Gadget, LINUX, Smart Phone | Tagged: cell phone | 3 Comments »

More on search engines

Posted on August 11, 2008 by Mark Urbin

Giovanni recommend his site, viewsi as a search engine.

My first impression, “Ugh.” It is visually unapealing.

I entered a search and got a bunch of blurry small screens along the bottom of my screen. No indication of what they are or what they are for. When I selected the first fuzzy screen, I had to wait for it it to tell me there were no results to my search.

Not a good first impression.

I dig a little more and find there is more information avaliable, but poorly organized, not indentified clearly, and a great deal of completely irrelavant to my search.

I don’t see meself going back there anytime soon.

Filed under: Internet | Tagged: Search Engine | Leave a comment »

Hackers target Apple products

Posted on August 10, 2008 by Mark Urbin

One of the costs of success is being a target.

Apple users are used to making fun of the security holes in Windows products. The Apple OS has its own security holes, but it was such a small section of the market, they were not worth hacking.

That is changing as Apple’s market share grows. This includes the iPhone, which has the security lite browser Safari loaded by default (I’m not holding my breath for Firefox on the iPhone).

The word from DefCon is that Apple devices are now being targeted more and more hackers.

Welcome to the real word Apple users.

Filed under: Apple, Internet | Tagged: security | Leave a comment »

Search Engines

Posted on August 10, 2008 by Mark Urbin

There have been two new search engines that have caught my eye recently. One good, the other not so good.

First, the good. Searchme.com. They did a slick job in finding a new way to present pages in an eye catching way. The results it returns are useful and relevant as well.

On the not so good side, the over hyped cuil. To start with, I’m not really thrilled with the search results.

Then then there was the “coding slip” that flooded its search results with porn.

Third strike, the buzz is that “ego searches” for key VC investors and tech pundits produced the “best” results. Hand coded? Perhaps, it is an interesting exception to their otherwise lack luster search results.

Searchme.com is the clear winner here.