Last month I got the Kindle, and if you like to read this is the device for you.  I admittedly it’s partly because a tree hugger that I wanted this.  Then there is the techno geek side of me that loves the idea of having every piece of media such as books at my finger tips.

In regards to the device, there are always going to be gripes about first generation technology, and the same goes with second generation tech.   It’s not in color, but the screen technology while black and white is something that should be considered as its low energy and is readable in direct sunlight.  My recommendation is to focus on this device as a reading device.  Which is what it is, yes it can be used to listen to mp3’s, but that’s not what I bought it for,  I have other devices such as mp3 players, Sony PSP, and the most dreaded device called a cell phone (though the blue tooth head phones are nice).  It cal also be used as a web browser.  I imagine that the next kindle will be a huge leap in technology from the kindle 2, as was the kindle 2 from kindle 1. Keep I mind I was not expecting drastic leaps in technology from Kindle 2, so I was not open to disappointment.

The flaws, all of which could be fixed with a software update

1. Hitting the menu button while reading a book and can lead to you having going to the contents of the book and having to find your place again.  This is very annoying.
2. It does not show you page numbers.  Instead it has something called location; I have yet to figure out how that works as it like 77-5555.
3. I am not a big fan of the lay out of the online store when accessed through the kindle.
4. Needs more categories or subcategories.  Say for example alternative life styles. 

The good

1. The first of which I noticed when turning it on then off was that there is always something displayed regardless if the kindle is off or on.
2. I bought the complete works of William Shakespeare, and was able to download with one bar out of five bars in a minute. Yes I am a nerd.
3. The power cord doubles as USB cord.  It only took me 2 weeks to realize this, perhaps because I seldom ever read the manual.
4. You can buy a new book practically any where in the country.
5. You can charge the device by pc or directly from the wall.

 
The funny:  It says Jig-a, when trying to pronounce giga.  This is part of a neat feature that I do not think I will get much use out of, but would be great for most of those that like audio books.  I tend to like reading myself.  Though I might consider this feature for reading news papers as I often like to listen to news while I am working.

At the same time this device can carry up to 1500 books (I have the 6’ global unit, the dx is supposed to hold up to 3000 books).

Currently I am trying to read the 4^th book in the Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, which admittedly is no where as entertaining as the first three books.  After which I plan to finish off WarCraft War of the Ancients
, a book I never got to finish because my mobile device died while I was in the middle of reading it, and Dell stopped offering service to it.  As per a previous entry there was an island in the book with undead unrelated to the Scourge that Rohnin and Krasus encountered on the way to Kalimdor.  We may see this in the next expansion.

In search of something else to do while I watch monitors to see if there is a issue that needs to be addressed work wise.

I found Demigod for $39.99, though I wish had got the gold addition of Age of Empires 3. The premise was interesting basically you’re trying to become a god and you use demigods to fight for you. It was some what similar to Warcraft 3, as far as the hero system goes. Not too mention you could upgrade your demigod as he/she levels. You get gold for kills as well as slow amount that trickles in from the gold mines you obtain. As with Warcraft 3 you can obtain gear/items, though far more of it. Plus you have three slots for consumables.  Also you got favor points that count to wards items that you can use uniiversaly between all charcters.  There are 8 demigods which fall under 2 classes assassins (I am not sure I would call them this), and generals. Assassins are solo unit capable of a massive amount of damage, one of which I found interesting was a an actually keep that took humanoid form and could heal itself by taking resources from existing structures such as your enemies defensive structures. Plus as you upgraded you could add towers mounted to the demigod that would fire independently. The generals have the ability to call upon three types of troops, if I remember correctly (I really did not play any of the general classes) Minotaurs, Priests, and archers. Each of which had 4 ranks and you had to buy tokens for each rank. Of coarse you can skip and buy the highest level tokens skipping the lower level three.

The graphics were great, and not to mention there was in-depth detail about each of the 8 demigods. But the problem is there are only a handful of battle areas. Not to mention not much in regards to objectives. There are no campaigns or storyline. I would have to say after 2 hours of play I am pretty much bored of the game as its pretty much kill x amount of enemy demigods, destroy x amount of fortresses, or destroy the enemies citadel. Its almost seems like they were trying to combine the idea of Warcraft 3 with the multi-player concept of unreal. I don’t think the game is worth $39.99 let alone $19.99 without any campaigns / storyline to follow gamers such as myself that do not care for pvp games are going to lose interest quickly. But if you enjoy pvp with a Warcraft 3 appeal, without having to invest a lot of time in getting troops set up this is the game for you.

My rating for the game is 2 out of 5 stars. The concept is excellent, but it falls short when comes to having any replay value. Plus lacking campaigns / storyline.

Also a few bugs, perhaps due to having a multi-monitor set up and/or my wide screen monitor I can not scroll right with my mouse. I have to use the right keyboard button. Also the game has suddenly shut off for no reason. Once it caused my whole screen to go black and I had to pull the plug to get back to normal.  I am aso unable to register my copy because it says the serial number is invalid.

I have always been a tech nut, yet for some reason I never got around to building a media machine.  After all I have over 2000 CD albums ripped and playing on one computer or another.   I am hoping someday to get a large enough hard drive to rip all of my DVD’s to the system.  What lead me to building media machine was a low end pc that I purchased from Dell that I was going to use as a work machine.  This was a rather poor choice considering how many windows I can have open at any time, running PhotoShop and Dreamweaver did not help matters either.  In December I choose to replace this machine with a more powerful machine.  The first thing that came to mind was taking the tv card out of my play machine.  Generally while playing wow, performance was ok but not great.  But if I choose to play a dvd both the game and dvd would be rather choppy.  From everything I had read, Media computers do not have to be powerful machines.  I forget the stats on this machine but it has:

Intel Pentium 4 2.80 GHz
Main Drive 80 gigs
Secondary Drive 320 gigs (though I wish I had gotten a bigger drive)
2 gigs ram
256 meg video card

I am storing all video and music on the secondary drive.  Considering how fast the secondary drive fills up with recorded tv I wish I had gone for 700 gig drive.  1 trig are still a bit on the expensive side, and I feel there will be a big price drop in the near future.   Another  motivator for setting up a media machine was to stop paying DIRECTV per receiver.   Its my intention to eventually to get every TV in the house networked.  My first device which Dell wrongly informed me was not an extender.  Which was the DSM-510 High-Definition Wireless G Media Player.  Even thought it was hooked up to a wired connection it was extremely slow.  It took 2 minutes to cycle through 3 Doors down to Avril Lavigne; which is 30 albums.  It would take for ever to get something in the middle of my list like Future Sound of London or Information Society.  Even if you want just a media server I recommend avoiding this device at all costs.  It may be cheap, but you pay in the end with its rather slow performance.

This month I finale got what will be the first of my media extenders.  I got Linksys Media Center Extender off Amazon.com, with free shipping.  I am a sucker for the free shipping.  Though I am not a big fan of waiting, but it seems everything from Amazon ships rather fast and I get everything within a week.  I believe its because Phoenix is a mail hub.   So far I am happy with this extender even though it means another network cord running across the floor.  But I am able to stream TV into my bedroom from my office and control the single.  Not to mention have TiVo like capabilities without paying for TiVo. The funny thing is even though I never used a vcr to record shows (partly because most of the ones I had were impossible to figure out or did not work worth a crap).   But with this new machine I am practically recording everyday.  Honestly the only thing Vista seems to be good for is running a media machine.  Running it on my work machine has only lead to a lot of dread and despair.  I refuse to install it on my play machine.

My first dealings with Linksys was back in 1999 with their network cards and router for a dsl connection.  Back then networks were anything but user friendly to set-up.  So much so that I paid $219 to get my first network set-up.  The most frustrating part was spending a few sleepless nights to get it working, and then the guy who was paid to set my network connection up did it in less then 5 minutes.  Granted network connections are still not an easy thing but they are far easier then they were.  After this I hate a long hate relationship with Linksys because of this frustrating set up, it would be along time before I wanted to buy anything from Linksys.   However with the Linksys Media Center Extender I found the set-up rather easy.  The moment I hooked into the network every machine that runs Windows Vista detected it.  The only problem I had was minor, and the extender gave me information what I needed to do. Which was download a small patch.  After that everything worked flawlessly.  It seems the extender scrolls through my music collection faster then my media machine.  Perhaps later I will experiment with hooking up with multiple machines.  It would be nice to have another media machine to record regular programming and another to record not so regular programming signal streams rather flawlessly to the extender.  Even while changing channels the extender functions almost instantly, there is a small delay but barely noticeable.  This may be in part due to it being wired into my network. 

Nothing like waking up to a bunch of shows that came on while I was asleep.  One of the shows I have been recording is Thundar the Barbarian.  It’s a childhood favorite that never lasted long enough.  I think it got one season as there are 22 episodes.  I hope one day some other animator will take it up, and hopefully give the series a longer life.  I am using a program to remove the commercials off after I record.  However I wish they would release it to DVD as I would rather have a cleaned up version with out the boomerang commercial logo on it.  But the question I have is what happened to ABC, NBC, and CBS Saturday morning line-up.  I know it to have happen sometime in the mid 90’s.  Perhaps Saturday morning cartoons went the way of the dinosaur with the growth of Nickelodeon, Disney, and Cartoon Network. 

The Fox Network has always been one to mess with a good line up.   As very few quality shows seem to last very long.   It seems the trashier the show the longer it lasts.  Nothing like having some asshole tell you in front of millions you’re a no talent hack or perhaps that rich billionaire is really some guy who has less money then you.  But what can you expect from the same corporation that wanted to buy O.J.’s how I ‘would have’ killed tell all book.  Never mind the Fox News channel is telling us how such things are wrong and terrible.  I often think that King of the Hill has lasted this long as it may be viewed as drama and not humor.  But for my Sunday I tune in to the Simpsons and that’s pretty much the end of my fox viewing.