As a reward for finishing my taxes (and as a consolation for having a cold), I finally paid for something. Namely a Kindle book: The Girl Who Started A Fire, by Stieg Larssen.
I was very apprehensive that the small screen would be satisfying as a reading experience and I did try some free content first. But my friend, Peter does a lot of reading using Kindle on his iPod and convinced me to really dive in.
I have to say that I am really, really enjoying this on my iPod. To be fair, it helps to be reading something that I really enjoy. In addition, there is an Kindle application for my Mac and Whispersync allows me to "bookmark" where I am reading at the moment and then pick up there the next time, including on the other device.
There is no Kindle reader for my DROID. There are various ebook apps but it appears that Kindle books are significantly less expensive to purchase and download, at least for the titles I was looking for.
There are a few things about the Kindle experience that are not optimal, particularly on the small screen. For example, in this book Larssen introduces a number of characters and tends refer to them by their last names. I need to scroll back - sometimes quite a distance - to recall whom he is referring to. This is a total pain on the iPod, rather easier on the Mac, and much easier using a real book.
And I think I'd miss the ability to share books with my friends. Amazon allows you to have multiple kindles for your account (up to 7 or so) but you can only share with those. There are ways to finesse this. You can deregister your Kindle or Kindle app, then register it in a friend's Kindle / Amazon account (or have them do it for you), download the content, then de-register from there and re-register again. I'm not entirely sure that this is legal, btw.
The next time I fly across the country, I will definitely plan to load up a couple of books, free or otherwise.
WebEx is a bit more practical. I work for Cisco as a consultant. Cisco now owns WebEx and we use WebEx extensively. There is a WebEx app for the iPhone and I have downloaded it to the iPod, but haven't tried it yet because I haven't wrapped my mind around the phone aspect yet.
I could have WebEx call a number and that number could be another phone (but that would be besides the point) or perhaps I could have it call my Skype Out Pro number or maybe a Google Voice number if I ever get around to setting that up properly.
But I would prefer to just have it on the DROID.
Upcoming: Finally some of the things I really love: all things maps and GPS-related, Eyes Free (Voice Integration)
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