Moe Lane

The OGRE Book and the OGRE Scenario book and the new PDF version of the OGRE Miniature rules.  Looks pretty nifty; and I should note that iPads are really nice when it comes to reading PDF versions of something.  The slightly smaller screen is (in my opinion) more than made up for by the increased portability; I like laptops and netbooks, but they kind of need flat surfaces.

…Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of hours.  That, and wishing that it was May so I could get The Big Box Of OGRE.

It will be illegal, starting in two days.

The DMCA makes it legal to jailbreak an iPhone but not an iPad. The rule states that “telephone handsets” are allowed to make changes, but found that the definition of a ‘tablet’is “broad and ill-defined.” The Librarian ruled that because there’s no clear definition of what can be considered a tablet – according to the Librarian and manufacturers, an eReader, portable gaming device, or a laptop could conceivably be labeled a tablet – it did not provide an exemption for that class of device. One could easily point out that there is a considerable difference between an iPad, which is a tablet, and a MacBook, which is a laptop, but the Librarian found that there is enough gray area to warrant not offering an exemption that could then be widely applied to many form factors.

This pleases Apple, of course; they purely hate it when people stubbornly insist on actually using Apple products in non-Apple approved ways.  Which is probably why the administration made sure that the new rules were as inflexible as possible.

And that’s pretty much it. …What? I didn’t vote for the guy.

One of Ace’s open-bloggers has a post up on the e-book wars: specifically, reconciling the .epub vs. .azw format (NOOK vs. Kindle).  The way it works out for me is that I generally use my iPad* for reading both formats (as well as PDFs), and save the Kindle for when I want to read outside (because e-ink just simply works better, in a way that computer pixels can’t currently match). I think that this more or less covers all the bases.  Although I think that Amazon is missing a bet by not making their Kindles more accessible to competitors’ content: but I freely admit that this could very well be a distinctly ignorant opinion on my part…

Moe Lane

*Note that the link to the above is to the first generation iPad, which is being priced down to the point where one that’s used is going to be perfectly serviceable as an e-reader.  16 GB, 3G capacity, $260 and eligible for Amazon Prime.  Not top of the line, but if all you want is a ebook and pdf reader with a web browser attached, well…

PS: BTW, if it isn’t obvious or anything: I’m an Amazon Affiliate for Maryland.  Just disclosing that.

…are now no longer working.  I hope that this is an easily fixed problem, because (of course) the warranty’s expired and replacing it may… take some time.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t think that anything got spilled on it, but I have small kids.

What the heck: I’ll stick this on my Wish List.

No harm, no foul, right?

Enough that I may look into it when it becomes time to replace my iPad 2.  I am not planning to pick up an iPad 3; the advances aren’t enough to justify dropping that kind of cash, and neither is the swank factor.  But if the Surface is really this good at content creation… well, there’s a limit to how much fun I can glean from trying to make the iPad act like a computer.

It was being touted as a way to get Firefox and Flash on the iPad: but before I blow fifteen bucks on it, I wonder if the state of the art – or, more accurately, the state of working around Steve Jobs’ prejudices – has improved since 2010.

From his review of the iPad 2:

The front and rear video cameras on the iPad 2 (which appear to match those on the iPhone 4) are supported by FaceTime, Photo Booth, and the on-iPad port of iMovie. (Yes, it’s a lightweight 720p video shooting and editing platform — all in one.) There’s an HDMI-out dongle, so you can mirror the iPad’s screen on an HD television — potentially very useful for presentations and guerilla media production. You probably wouldn’t want to film and edit a serious video using the iPad’s built-in camera, but the SD-card reader should let you work with an HD camcorder. If iMovie on iPad is as good as iMovie on OSX, this is going to revolutionize video blogging.

Dammit, I’ve managed to go quite a long amount of time without really needing to join the Cult of Jobs.  But if I can shave off as much time between filming and publishing as this article implies… dag.  Guerrilla media production, indeed; this could be very handy for Miami next year…

This article by Megan McArdle on the escalating war between the Kindle and the iPad over who gets to replace my print library (and thus, give me my basement back) is very interesting; unfortunately – and this isn’t Megan’s fault – I still haven’t decided which one I prefer, and thus can recommend.  Clearly what needs to happen is that each company should send me one to, ah, ‘analyze.’  Obviously, if one sends me one and the other doesn’t, that will make the results pretty much a foregone conclusion, yes?  I’ve even updated the Wish List on the Filthy Lucre page accordingly for said company representatives (and company representatives only*).

Oh, yes: do the same thing for Little Miss Attila.  After all, she brought this issue to my attention.

Moe Lane

PS: Seriously, why Amazon didn’t hand out more Kindles to New Media folks…

*My current readers already got me a new audio rig for phone interviews.  Which hopefully they feel that they’re getting their money’s worth on; I’m trying to get at least a couple in every week.

Via @thebcast, there are a lot of horrified/angry/both comments here asking what was the point of this:

The answer, of course, is to “spawn a large number of horrified/angry/both comments in response.” You don’t think that there isn’t one person in the continental USA willing to spend five hundred bucks just to freak out Apple acolytes? – And, clearly, all you need is one.

Apple should send me one, so I could test it out and tell everyone what I think about the product.

Moe Lane

PS: Hey, somebody sent me a Wii, didn’t they? And then there was the new audio interview computer rig (I’m reaching out to various campaigns to try to do some phone interviews, and would like to hear from more).