AmishGeek.com

I recently grew a love for ebook readers.  I use my iPhone with the Stanza app, which allows me to read ebooks, purchase and download ebooks wirelessly via my phones internet connection, and access the full project Gutenberg library (my personal favorite).  I enjoy it immensely, as it lets me bring my books with me wherever I go, since I bring my iPhone with me wherever I go.

Over the holidays, I had the chance to play around and use my brother’s Kindle from Amazon, and I was impressed!  I liked that the Kindle had a bigger screen, and the e-ink was very nice to read, compared to reading the backlit ebooks on my iPhone.  However, I did not like the fact that the display was not touch-sensitive, and I had to use the physical buttons to turn the page.  The Kindle interface wasn’t very intuitive and it took me a while to get used to it and be able to quickly navigate the menus.

Also over the holidays, I was able to check out my Uncle’s Nook from Barnes and Noble. Feature wise, the Nook and Kindle are pretty evenly matched, but due to the fact that the Nook has a 2nd screen, and has built in Wi-Fi, I would probably buy the Nook over the Kindle, if I had to get one or the other.

BUT! (there is always a but)  I just read about the new enTourage eDGe which combines 2 displays, and the google android OS to make a hybrid ebook reader that functions also as a tablet pc/netbook.  Now this is more along the lines of something that I would buy.  I’ve been contemplating getting a netbook, and if I make the plunge into netbook ownership, I’m going to take a hard look at the eDGe.  I’m not that familiar with the droid OS, and if there was a version that would let me run the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, then it would be just right.

Now that the holidays are over, I have a bag of mini 3 Musketeers bars on my desk to snack on while at work.  It’s a typical bag, full of the little yummy bite-sized snacks, but it is an EVIL bag, for within it, each of the bite-sized snacks is individually wrapped!  I wish they would sell bags of bite-sized candy bars that are not individually wrapped.  Just like you can get a big bag of Peanut M&M’s and snack on them by the handful, I’d like to be able to just reach into the bag, grab 2-3 mini 3 Musketeers Bars (or Snickers, or any other mini/bite-sized candybar) to snack on, without having to spend  the time unwrapping each piece.

It would make me a happy camper, and it would be better for the environment to not have all those extra wrappers filling up my waste basket.

http://twitter.com/newlywedsontjob

This is a hilarious use of twitter, this guy is his friends Best Man in the wedding, and swears not to prank them until AFTER the wedding.  So while they’re on honeymoon, he installs a pressure sensitive pad in his friends bed which automatically tweets when it detects action on the bed.  It reports back the weight/duration/intensity of the action when they’re “on the job”.

Brilliant!

I’ve always had a bit of entrepreneurial ADD, and I’m always thinking of the next project or idea.  Lately, I’ve been toying with the idea of building a network of websites, and to get somewhat serious about blogging, (well, as serious as I can be, doing it in my free time between work and family).

One of my hobbies and habits is to pick up domain names that match some “big idea” that I’ve had, and I’ll throw up a simple site or something, or just hold onto the domain for one of those “rainy day” projects.

I recently picked up a copy of WP Robot, which is an auto-blogging plugin which will automatically post and update a blog with content from ebay, amazon, articlebase, and other sources.  I think this will help me keep some of my sites updated, and hopefully be able to generate some affiliate commissions as well.  It is SLICK!  I showed it to a couple of my co-workers and they were impressed with how it worked, and how it simply automated a blog.

Now, I understand that SE’s and readers alike prefer to have genuine hand-written content, and so for my blogs, I’ll still post articles that I write myself.  As well as comment on happenings and other things.  But by having an automation tool, I can also have some filler things within my blog.
Who knows! perhaps in a year, I’ll have a nice little blog empire that will pay for a vacation to somewhere tropical.

A friend sent me a link to a blog post over at backblaze about how to build cheap storage.  I was just amazed!  45 drives crammed into a 4U chassis to provide a total of 67 terabytes of usable storage space.  Stack 20 or so of those pods together and you have a petabyte of storage!

One of these days when I have $7k lying around burning a hole in my pocket, I’m going to build myself one of these things.  It looks like a really cool way to get some cheap storage.

I do wonder though, why they use 1.5TB drives instead of 2TB drives… and with the drives crammed in that tight, do those fans supply adequate airflow for cooling?