Updates From the Consumer Electronics Show

which runs from Tuesday to Saturday this week

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HERE'S A GOOD video review of a new smartphone from HTC introduced yesterday.  Coming soon via AT&T, it's a 4G Windows phone that has an eye-popping 16 MP camera in it:

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The Associated Press tells us that the theme for this year seems to be "Thin is In"

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Nixie's report starts with Ultra Books, only a mention though, but it's worth waiting through the video to see the new Home Drone, a consumer-operated drone controlled by your smartphone that transmits live video images back to your receiver.  You can check the neighbor's picnic!

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Enter the Contest and Start Your eBook Reading Now

Only Three Days Left to Enter

TO HELP INTRODUCE YOU TO the world of eBooks,  Dave Diamantes, author of top-selling eBook Dead Pen Pals has created this simple exercise combined with a contest for your enjoyment and enlightenment.

One of the unique features of eBook purchasing is the ability to download the first chapter of the book for free so you can "browse" and decide if you want to buy it or not.  Our contest is based on this feature and you begin playing by first going to the book's webpage:  www.deadpenpals.com

After you enter the site, move your cursor to the upper left corner of the page and click on "DEAD PEN PALS Chapter One"

That will bring you a .pdf  file containing Chapter One (my download was 5 pages, but the file contracted the spaces between paragraphs.  Don't worry, the actual eBook is formatted properly).  Read Chapter One and then…..

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the name of Duncan Weller's company?
2. What is Beverly Hartley's claim to fame?
3. What is Neil Hartley's cyber-girlfriend's name?

Enter your answers in an email addressed to us:  geezerguys(at)yahoo(dot)com.  Put CONTEST in the Subject line and send it to us by midnight Saturday January 14.

We will draw three names from all the correct entries and those three winners will receive a free copy of Dead Pen Pals.  It will play on all the major brand e-readers, not just Kindle.  If you do not have an e-reader yet, then Dave will send you a paperback version of the book, so everybody has a chance to win!  If you don't want to wait that long for a copy, you can go ahead and order one off the website we linked above.

Ok..get started and Good Luck!

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Kindle Prices Begin at $79

CLICK HERE to compare all models and order.

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Tuesday Morning – What's New?

If you haven't logged on since yesterday morning, then you haven't yet seen the eBook contest we're running.  It's nothing extravagant nor complicated, but just a bit of fun to help you make the transference to the realm of eBooks and other digital publications coming available via instant download.  It's the posting immediately preceding this Lineup, so after you finish reading this, continue scrolling down to the next item.  (Or you can click HERE to go directly to the page.)  Go ahead and give it a try….

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As we mentioned earlier, the Consumer Electronics Show opens today in Las Vegas.  The CES is where all the new toys and fancy-dan gadgets are introduced to electronics afficianados and observers like me who enjoy watching the "next greatest thing" that may or may not amount to anything, show off its stuff.  Yesterday was Press Day where the manufacturers unveil their surprises and better-than-ever products for the journalists who then spread the word.  Apparently this year there is no Great New Product, but instead marked improvements over existing technologies for the most part.  Television monitors seem to be getting the loudest coverage so far.

Something that might interest a lot of Firegeezer readers is a new line of digital projectors that Optoma Industries is introducing.  F & R training divisions and regional fire academies that rely on portable devices to be taken to the firehouse for instruction will like these much smaller projectors.  The smallest of the group is a pocket-sized, battery powered unit that will project a 30-inch image.  Two more slightly larger models will give up to an 80-inch image and have WiFi receivers that can take your PowerPoint slide show without having to run a cable from your laptop.  Check out the write-up from Information Week HERE.

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This month may be your last chance to enjoy America's favorite lunch treat, Twinkies.  According to reports from business publications, Hostess Brands is likely to file for bankruptcy protection sometime this week.  The makers of Twinkies and their anchor product Wonder Bread have been stressed lately due to unusually high costs of flour and sugar putting a squeeze on their sales.  That's worrisome news for their 19,000 employees, not to mention dedicated firehouse snackers.

We had better be dedicated to equipment safety now and get ours checked out for the day.  I am going to give the Bunn-O-Matic a good run-through and make some more coffee.   See you back in the day room in a little while.

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Start Your eBook Reading Now

TO HELP INTRODUCE YOU TO the world of eBooks,  Dave Diamantes, author of top-selling eBook Dead Pen Pals has created this simple exercise combined with a contest for your enjoyment and enlightenment.

One of the unique features of eBook purchasing is the ability to download the first chapter of the book for free so you can "browse" and decide if you want to buy it or not.  Our contest is based on this feature and you begin playing by first going to the book's webpage:  www.deadpenpals.com

After you enter the site, move your cursor to the upper left corner of the page and click on "DEAD PEN PALS Chapter One"

That will bring you a .pdf  file containing Chapter One (my download was 5 pages, but the file contracted the spaces between paragraphs.  Don't worry, the actual eBook is formatted properly).  Read Chapter One and then…..

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the name of Duncan Weller's company?
2. What is Beverly Hartley's claim to fame?
3. What is Neil Hartley's cyber-girlfriend's name?

Enter your answers in an email addressed to us:  geezerguys(at)yahoo(dot)com.  Put CONTEST in the Subject line and send it to us by midnight Saturday January 14.

We will draw three names from all the correct entries and those three winners will receive a free copy of Dead Pen Pals.  It will play on all the major brand e-readers, not just Kindle.  If you do not have an e-reader yet, then Dave will send you a paperback version of the book, so everybody has a chance to win!  If you don't want to wait that long for a copy, you can go ahead and order one off the website we linked above.

Ok..get started and Good Luck!

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Kindle Prices Begin at $79

CLICK HERE to compare all models and order.

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Today we present Part Four of a four-part series on devices to download and read digital publications known as eBooks. An eccentric genius named Michael S. Hart invented the eBook (and gave it its name) in the mid-1960's. His first entry into the ether was a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Today there are tens of millions of eBooks and other publications available, and for the past nine months they have taken over from print media in terms of numbers sold.

Part One, which was posted Tuesday HERE reviewed the Kindle e-reader. Wednesday we reviewed the Kindle Fire tablet HERE and Thursday we looked at the Kindle app. for laptops HERE.  Today we conclude with a look at smartphone apps. for eBooks. Next week we will tell you about some eBooks written by firefighters and EMS people that are available and selling well already.

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The Kindle App. for Smartphones
A Review by Dave Diamantes

Amazon is the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the publishing industry. They started-off as an online bookseller in 1995 and released their Kindle e-reader in 2007; one year after Sony released its PRS-500. Bookeen, a French company, introduced its Cybook the same year. Other manufacturers followed suit. The early readers were priced well over three-hundred dollars, effectively putting them out of the range of most casual readers.

Within four years, bad business decisions by Sony and others tilted the table in Amazon’s favor. Sony gambled they could sell e-books for same price as print books. Bookeen and others felt consumers would drop over three-hundred dollars for a device that just displays print. Barnes and Noble got on the bandwagon with their affordable Nook e-reader. Amazon decided to drive down the price of its e-readers, get into the book publishing business, and go for broke. Amazon won.

With over a dozen e-book formats in use by e-reader manufacturers, Amazon followed Adobe’s lead and developed a Kindle reader application, for iPad and iPhone. It’s free and can be downloaded from Apple’s Mac App store or from Kindle HERE. Your iPad or iPhone automatically synchs Kindle content from your Amazon account, so books you buy on Amazon with your PC, are automatically synched with your iPhone or iPad. With the iPhone’s superior screen display, I find reading Kindle books on my iPhone enjoyable, even with my old eyes, although I don’t use it as my primary reader.

For you non-Apple folks, Kindle also has an app for phones with the Android platform. It's free too, and easily downloaded HERE. Like the iPhone, your books are all synched with your Kindle archives so that you can be reading on your smartphone, log off, and then log in later on your Kindle or your PC and it will open where you left off. And like the Kindle itself, you can adjust the type size and add bookmarks. If it works as well as my iPhone does, and I have no reason to think that it won't, then you will really like this app. You can access all your books without having to go through your Kindle which will come in handy while you are on public transit or at the airport.

Do you have a different device that you would like to read eBooks with, such as Blackberry or Windows Phone 7?  Then CLICK HERE to see all the available Kindle apps for many other types of devices.

Reviewed by Dave Diamantes.
Dave is a retired fire captain and now operates a code training and consulting firm.  He is also a published author of several books and has now moved into the eBook realm.

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Today we present Part Two of a four-part series on devices to download and read digital publications known as eBooks. An eccentric genius named Michael S. Hart invented the eBook (and gave it its name) in the mid-1960's. His first entry into the ether was a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Today there are tens of millions of eBooks and other publications available, and for the past nine months they have taken over from print media in terms of numbers sold.

Part One, which was posted Tuesday HERE reviewed the Kindle e-reader.  Today we review the Kindle Fire tablet and Thursday we will look at the Kindle app. for laptops.  On Friday we conclude with a look at smartphone apps. for eBooks.  Next week we will tell you about some eBooks written by firefighters and EMS people that are available and selling well already.

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The Kindle Fire, a Review
by Greg Friese

The Kindle Fire is the 7” tablet from Amazon.com. Powered by the Android operating system the Kindle Fire delivers adequate to outstanding functionality as a web browser, streaming audio and video player, e-Book reader, gaming device, and buying machine.

I have had the Kindle Fire, my first tablet computer, since late November. Since then I have used it primarily to read many ebooks, read and delete lots of email, update my social network status, and watch the first season of Arrested Development.

Previous Kindle Experience

Before the Kindle Fire I had read several books on a gently used 1st generation Kindle that was given to me by a friend. I enjoyed the reading experience on the digital ink screen and the speed of downloading new books. I also added the Kindle android app to my smartphone. I quickly adapted to reading on the backlit phone display and tended to read on my phone since it was always with me. The 1st generation was quickly collecting dust as I read many books on my phone, including the 2nd and 3rd books of the Millennium trilogy. While the free Kindle reading app works great the primary limitation is constantly turning pages. Lots and lots of swiping.

What I Like

I selected the Kindle Fire because of the price, $199 which is several hundred dollars less than the cheapest iPad. I was also drawn to the intention of the Kindle Fire to create a whole new space for handheld tablets rather than the other Android powered tablets that are trying to compete with the iPad.

Initially the Kindle Fire had a little more heft than I expected but as I have become used to size I appreciate its weight and dimensions. It is easy to hold in front of me like a book, light enough to rest on my lap while I watch a video, and durable enough that I don’t hesitate to hand it to my kids for them to play games and read books.

Out of the box my Kindle Fire was already synced to my Amazon.com account and after connecting to my Wi-Fi network and completing a software update my previous Kindle purchases were immediately available on the Kindle Fire. From unboxing to operational only took a couple of minutes.

The Kindle Fire, unlike the other Kindle products, has a digital backlit display and a touch screen. I think the screen is vibrant and easy to read. Video aficionados might complain about the video quality, but for my needs and budget it is more than adequate. One of the touted benefits of the digital ink screen, available on other Kindle models, is the ability to read while in bright sunlight. This is relatively meaningless to me since I don’t sit in the direct sun to read. I will always pick a shady spot. So far I have yet to find lighting conditions, from my home to my office to the car to the airplane, that the ambient light made it difficult to read the screen.

The Kindle Fire is a high powered buying machine. It is seamlessly integrated with Amazon.com. I have used it to purchase everything from hardcover books to ebooks to Frank Lloyd Wright legos to a dozen jars of Jiff Natural Crunchy peanut butter. The Kindle Fire includes a free month of Amazon Prime (annual price of $79). Prime membership includes 2 day free shipping on tens of thousands of items and unlimited streaming of thousands of television shows and motion pictures. My month of membership corresponded perfectly with the Christmas shopping season and we purchased more from Amazon.com than ever before. Pretty clever play by Amazon. After the free trial ended I signed up for the annual Amazon Prime subscription.

Most books are available for the Kindle and prices range from free to $15 or more with most titles available for $9.99 or less. As an added benefit Kindle owners can receive a free book each month from the Kindle lending library. Not all titles are available but I was able to read the first two books of the Hunger Games trilogy in my first two months of ownership. I couldn’t wait another month for the third book so I bought it.

Every day more and more ebooks are available through my local public library. The interface to find and check-out books is not very intuitive, but after some false starts I have figured out. In a simple, but multiple step process I can find a book available through the library, place a hold on the book, receive email notification that the book is available, check out the book through the library, link to Amazon, and download the book for a 7 or 14 day lending period. It only takes a couple of minutes and the lending period is more than enough for me to rip through most books.

The Kindle Fire powers up quickly like a smartphone and smoothly launches applications. I use it a lot for the times when I want to simply browse the web or play a podcast rather than booting up my laptop or desktop.

The Kindle Fire only installs apps from the Amazon Android app store. I am not sure how Amazon selects apps, but the store does not have all the choices of the Android Market. Everyday the Amazon Android app store gives away a free app. The apps I have downloaded for free normally costs from $0.99 to $7.99. Some are advertisment free versions of apps I already use, like TripIt, others are games, and others are interactive ebooks. My two favorite downloads were the interactive ebooks for Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Charlie Brown Christmas that were given away just before Christmas. My kids love those stories and enjoy the interactive features built into the books.

Needs Improvement

The Kindle Fire is not perfect and iPad owners would be frustrated by the limitations of the Amazon app store, responsiveness of the touch screen, and the speed of the web browser. But if I wanted all those things I would have spent an extra $200-300. The Kindle Fire only connects to WiFi and does not connect to a 3G/4G network. Again if I wanted to spend another $30 per month on a data plan I would have bought an iPad. For the times I don’t have a WiFi signal I can use my phone to connect to the internet on a 3G network.

In my opinion the biggest limitation of the Kindle Fire is the Google apps, like gmail, Google Voice, and Google Reader, are not available in the Amazon Android app store. I can access these Google products through the web store but as phone app users know the browser is less efficient than the actual apps. I have not heard if or when the Google apps will come to the Kindle Fire, but I am hopeful.

The touchscreen on the Kindle Fire is OK. I think the screen on my Motorola Milestone phone might be more sensitive and precise to touch than the Fire. A recent software update seems to improved the Fire, but the thing that is really missing is a Swype keyboard. The auto-complete keyboard on the Fire is good and must have some sort of memory of my frequently used words, but my words per minute is much less than my swype keyboard.

The other thing that is really missing from the Kindle Fire is a microphone. I didn’t realize how often I was using voice search on my smartphone until I started talking to my Kindle with no results. A microphone would allow voice search, speech to text writing, and making calls with Skype or Google Voice.

The Kindle Fire is for You

If you spend lots of time away from your desktop computer and want to have a tablet for reading, web browsing, and watching videos the Kindle Fire is a great device. The price is low enough that loss or damage would not be crippling financially, especially when compared to losing an iPad or laptop computer. Also if you regularly have WiFi access – in your home, station, or ambulance – the Kindle Fire can get you online quickly to browse, shop, or read your favorite blogs like Fire Geezer or Everyday EMS Tips.

Read More about the Kindle Fire
3 Kindle Fire Feature Requests
3 Ways to Get the Most out of your Kindle Fire
3 Lists of Trilogy Books
Books for the Everyday EMS Reader

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Greg Friese, MS, NREMT-P is the Director of Education for CentreLean Solutions, LLC. He writes the Everyday EMS Tips blog and co-hosts the EMSEduCast Podcast. Greg is a paramedic, educator, author, speaker, and marathon runner. Connect with him @gfriese or Facebook.com/gfriese.

Tomorrow:  Part Three, Kindle Apps for Laptops.

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Today we begin a four-part series on devices to download and read digital publications known as eBooks.  An eccentric genius named Michael S. Hart invented the eBook (and gave it its name) in the mid-1960's.  His first entry into the ether was a copy of the Declaration of Independence.  Today there are tens of millions of eBooks and other publications available, and for the past nine months they have taken over from print media in terms of numbers sold.

With that in mind we want to get you acquainted with the various tools to receive, store and read eBooks because in an eyeblink they will become a necessary part of your everyday routines and entertainment.  Part One is about the small device generically known as an e-reader.  There are about four leading brands currently sold but we are using Amazon's Kindle for an example.  They all generally work the same way, so this review will be applicable to whatever model you choose to purchase for yourself.  Tomorrow, Part Two will cover the Kindle Fire tablet and Thursday we will review the Kindle app. for laptops.  On Friday we will finish with a review of smartphone apps for e-Books.  Next week we will tell you about some eBooks written by firefighters and EMS people that are available and selling well already.

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The Kindle e-reader, a Review
by Bill Schumm

Reading a Book On a Kindle

Amazon's Kindle has a 6-inch screen mounted in a frame containing all its electronics that is approximately the size of a paperback book but much thinner and lighter.  They are approximately 1/3-inch thick and weight between 7 and 9 ounces.  There are three different models that come in five differing configurations but they all operate the same way.  The screen displays in what is called e-ink, a digital product that is not backlit like a regular computer screen, but has all the appearance of print on paper.  This permits you to read the book in any type of light including "at-the-beach" daylight.  Its a very fascinating and effective technique and is found in some other brands of e-readers too.

The device is easy to hold and certainly not fatiguing, but the super thinness makes it a little difficult to grasp over a period of time.  However this is remedied when you put it in a protective case that you will definitely want to have.  Not only does the case make it easier to handle, but most of them do a good job of providing safe handling and transporting of your reader.  I will talk more about cases later in this series, but trust me, you will want one.

The Kindle is powered by an integral rechargeable battery that never needs replacing and will easily last 6 to 8 weeks between recharges.  The charging cord is included with your purchase.

Getting a Book to Read

 There are three ways to acquire a digital publication and only one of them involves a computer.  Most of the time you will download the eBook directly from the seller's website by connecting to their digital store either via a WiFi connection or a wireless cellphone-type connection.  The third method is used by some smaller purveyors who download their product over the internet onto your computer, then you use a USB cable to transfer the file from your hard drive to the e-reader.  Kindle and Nook both make large use of the wireless method because Amazon and Barnes & Noble (the Nook people) have hundreds of thousands of titles already available for this transfer.  With the Kindle it is fast and simple to get a book.  First you activate the wireless connection that Amazon calls their Whispernet.  For all intents and purposes, this is simply a cell phone that can only dial one number and connects you with the Amazon inventory and ordering process.  After bringing up the title you want and simply clicking on it, your order is instantly processed, charging your account and downloading the book directly onto your Kindle, all in less than a minute.  No shipping charges and never out of stock.

Amazon's wireless server is AT&T, so you can log on from almost anywhere.  If you are out of their service area, then you can utilize the built-in WiFi program and log on via the internet.  Kindle has the WiFi installed on every model of their e-readers and give you the option of having the 3G wireless added for about $20 more.  I strongly recommend getting one with the wireless feature in it.  It is more than worth the price difference and there are never any charges for the wireless connections, nor any monthly fees.  Your only expense is the purchase price of the Kindle and whatever book you order.

With Amazon, technically your purchase goes into your "private archives," a digital storage space on their computers where a copy is then downloaded to your Kindle.  After reading your book you can send it back up to your archives for storage until you want to look at it again.  If you have two or more Kindles on the same account, any or all of them can download the book so that more than one member of your family can read it.

Finding a book to purchase is simple.  You do it the same way you do now by going onto booksellers' websites and ordering.  Shopping for an eBook carries an additional benefit in that many, if not most, books will let you download the first couple of chapters for free so that you can read them before deciding whether or not to buy it.  I have used this benefit and it is definitely a big plus in shopping.  Aother benefit that comes with digital publications is that more and more of the books, especially the fiction titles, come with an audio file that provides your choice of a male or female voice reading the book to you.  All Kindles (and Nooks, I believe) have speakers built in for this option.

As far as sources for books goes, almost all public libraries are now offering eBooks for card-holders who just log on to the library's website and "borrow" the book which is downloaded to your computer.  After your 2- or 3-week loan period is up, you either renew it or it gets electronically retrieved.  No more late fees and no more waiting for somebody to turn in the book you are waiting for. Review our previous discussion about library usage HERE.

Comfort Settings

Some more nice features about the Kindle that you don't get in printed books are the ability to change the font size of the print to one larger or smaller that is more comfortable for you along with the option of increasing or decreasing the spacing between the lines.  Making these changes is very quick and simple.  You also have the option of displaying your book pages in either the page or landscape configurations.

Adding to your workability with the Kindle is the easy ability to highlight words or complete passages and to "bookmark" a page for later reference.  And don't worry about losing your place because when you shut the Kindle off, it will return to your place when you turn it back on, even if you stopped to look at another book in the meantime.

Something that takes a bit of getting used to is the lack of page numbers.  Naturally when everybody has their own font size settings, you will have various number of pages for any one book.  Instead, there is a little number on the lower left corner of the page that tells you the percentage of the book that you have read, so you know about where you are and how much is left until you reach the conclusion.  I look at it as every book has 100 pages, and compensate accordingly.

So far, the Kindle's e-ink displays only in black & white, so color illustrations come through in gray scale.  The Nook has the selling feature of being able to display color images, as does the Kindle Fire which will be reviewed tomorrow.

You will also find that you read a book faster than you used to.  This is partly because turning a "page" is done by a simple finger movement without taking your hand off the device.  Reading through the book is a lot more efficient than when you read through printed books for that reason.

Will the printed book become extinct?  Not in the near future.  Reference books such as technical manuals and compilations like the World Almanac will always be more convenient in paper bindings.  But at least 90% of what you are reading now on paper will migrate over to digital in a very short time.  It has already started and as I mentioned at the beginning, book sales are already more than 50% eBooks now.

I really do like my Kindle and I strongly recommend that you purchase a Touch model and definitely one with the wireless connection option.  Prices dropped just before the end of the year and competition is lowering them constantly.  You would do well to go ahead and get one soon and start getting acquainted with them.

CLICK HERE to view the options available and the different models that Amazon is selling.  Scroll down the page a ways and you will see a comparison chart for all models plus scads more information on the gadgets.  And if you wish, you can order one from that page, too.

Tomorrow:  Noted blogger Greg Friese will review the new Kindle Fire tablet.

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Wednesday Morning – Remember Your Password?

This past Monday, Forbes e-zine columnist David Coursey posted a valuable reminder for everybody who goes online.  Coursey writes about password security and carelessness with a brief ARTICLE HERE that is titled "25 'Worst Passwords' of 2011 Revealed."

The meat of the article is how to avoid using easily-hacked passwords for your various online accounts and entry permissions.  How many times have you seen or known of an acquaintance who always uses "123456" for all their passwords because it is sooooo easy to remember?  It is also very easy for an online thief to get into your accounts with it because hundreds of thousands of other people use the same obvious password.  To quote part of Coursey's essay:

Last year, Imperva provided a list of password best practices, created by NASA to help its users protect their rocket science, they include:

 *  It should contain at least eight characters

*  It should contain a mix of four different types of characters – upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters such as !@#$%^&*,;" If there is only one letter or special character, it should not be either the first or last character in the password.

*  It should not be a name, a slang word, or any word in the dictionary. It should not include any part of your name or your e-mail address.

Following that advice, of course, means you’ll create a password that will be impossible, unless you try a trick credited to security guru Bruce Schneier: Turn a sentence into a password.

For example, "Now I lay me down to sleep" might become nilmDOWN2s, a 10-character password that won’t be found in any dictionary.

To help and enlighten you, Coursey posts two lists of the most-oft-used passwords that have been found by hackers who absconded with millions of stolen account data.  As you might expect, our sample 123456 tops one of the lists and is number 2 on the other (behind #1, "password").

Make certain to take a couple of minutes to CLICK HERE to read the article and see if your easy-to-remember password shows up there.  And take a lesson from the experts on how to update your passwords to a higher safety level.

We don't need a password to get this equipment checked out, though.  So let's get started on that while I go fire up the Bunn-O-Matic.  See you back in the day room in a little while.

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"Only you can prevent first responder"

Comptroller Issues Embarrassing Report

NEW YORK CITY HAS JUST SPENT more than $7 millon equipping some of its firetrucks with GPS systems that are supposed to direct the drivers to more efficient routes of travel, as well as maintain a dynamic display of the vehicle's location for the dispatcher.  But they don't work so well.

The display screens are showing units back in quarters when they are really on a call and in many cases were showing units which were really in their stations as being in the middle of the harbor and in some instances, at the bottom of Long Island Sound.

The project was supposed to be completed three years ago, but is unfinished and waiting for another infusion of $4.3 million to wrap it up.  They are spending approx. $11,000 per unit to install the gadgets.

The city comptroller John C. Liu is lambasting Mayor Bloomberg for the lack of oversight and cost overruns.   Mr. Liu is also forming up a campaign to run for mayor in the next election.

Read the full story in the New York Times HERE.

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From Notebooks to Netbooks

Allow me to linger just a little longer on the subject of digital books.  At Tuesday's Lineup (HERE) we were talking about public libraries going digital and allowing patrons to check-out books digitally from home on their e-readers.  That naturally leads to the topic of digital textbooks and why aren't they being used in schools and colleges?

Kno

They have been around for a while, but slow to be adopted by the institutions of learning.  For the last few years this has been a focus of college students who are faced with having to purchase their texts, after a lifetime of using the school's books and returning them at the end of each semester.  But the key word there is "purchase" because in the American university industry, textbooks are a high-profit money maker, especially for the professors who write their own textbooks.  When you see that a required text costs as much as $135 for an ordinary printed volume, you can smell something.

Not only is the college bookstore making a tidy profit, but the professor is padding his pockets by requiring you to buy his dull book, even though you have already paid a hefty fee for the class tuition.  In previous years you could sell your used textbook back to the store for 50% of the cover price after the conclusion of the semester, then the store would sell the "used" textbooks for 25% off to the incoming class – a nice 50% markup on their investment. The professors got irritated with this because they weren't getting a cut of the used-book action.  So they would go back to their manuscript and change a few words in a paragraph in each chapter and re-publish the book as a Revised Edition and require the new class to use the Revised copy even though the hapless student couldn't tell the difference.  The Textbook Racket.

But in the public school level, e-books are rolling in and probably here to stay.  When it's the schools doing the purchasing and not the individuals, there is a lot more clout behind the checkbook and if a public school system wants to go digital, then they will.  And, they are.  But they are not being issued as downloads like your personal e-book library is.  This is understandable because not only do you have to protect the publisher's rights, but you have to make sure that the students are "on the same page" (ugh! … ed.) and using the same authorized copy.  So the books are being pre-loaded onto small netbook computers that are probably purchased in bulk for about $30 apiece and these are handed out in class.  Not only does the netbook have the required texts for the particular class loaded on them, but they also have additional aids for the course including links to websites and videos that are related to the subject.

Zuma

The school systems are still feeling their way around with the concept, but you learn by doing and they are properly easing into the digital textbook world.  For a good description of how this is taking place and being used in a school system now, read THIS ARTICLE from the Washington Post published on September 21 where the writer goes to a high school and sees how it's working.

And I am always wondering how soon will it be when e-tablets will be used for the daily equipment check in the fire and EMS stations?  Until then, we have to keep on doing it the same way it was done 100 years ago, like so many other FD operations, so let's get started.  I'm going to make some good, old-fashioned coffee now.  See you back in the day room.

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