After a bit of general
whinging on my part, it came to light that there was a Sony PRS-600
ebook reader sitting about doing nothing. I've got the thing on
approval, and am giving it a test run to see how I get on with it. If
I like it I have the option to snap it up at a reduced rate.
Do I like it? Well, yes.
It's OK. In many ways it's very little different to the Kindle. As an
e-reader, it'll do. But.... (and there's unfortunately a big
"but")
I've managed to get all
of the books that were on the Kindle out, and I've put them through
the converter to make them back into .epub format so the Sony device
can read them. However anything that I downloaded directly from the
Amazon store is unconvertible. Which is a pain. I've spent out quite
a bit of dosh on ebooks that are now useless to me unless I get a
replacement Kindle. Which won't be cheap.
Also the availability of
free ebooks on the Internet isn't what it once was. The site from
which I blagged every James Bond book known to science now has less
than six of them available; and the mobile phone site which once was
good for forty ebooks a day has been replaced by a legal notice
saying that they got sued for breach of copyright for giving away all
the books for free.
I have mixed feelings
about this. As a writer I'm glad that my work is now being protected.
As a reader on a budget I can't help but feel a tad miffed.
I watched a video: I had
a phone call from a chap who'd been sent my C.V. by one of the
agencies, and he thought i might be just the person he wanted. After
he'd been talking for half an hour without actually saying anything
he sent me a link to a video to see if I would be interested in his
company. Basically he wanted me to shell out several hundred pounds
to then sell Aloe Vera based products on his behalf. I'm already
embroiled in one such scheme that (it has to be said) hasn't really
lived up to the hype. I'm not going to start another.
And spare a thought for
comedian Jimmy Carr today. He's all over the news, and ha admitted to
having made "a terrible error of judgement". It
would seem that rather than having his tax deducted when he is paid
(like most of us mere mortals), he gets to pay his tax in a lump sum.
And, like everyone, he doesn't want to pay more than he has to. So he
took advice, and participated in the "K2 tax scheme".
I have no idea of the details; suffice to say that it is all legally
fine. But the Government didn't like it (presumably because it
reduces the amount of money they have available to waste), the
Prime Minister has declared it "morally wrong" (!)
and poor Jimmy Carr is now running scared. If the Government don't
like current tax laws, then they are ideally positioned to do
something about them. If the Government want to change the law, then
that is their prerogative. But to pick on an individual and make him
the scapegoat for the failings of their own laws is surely morally
wrong itself?
Perhaps Jimmy might
squander some of his riches on a ticket
to the moon? Those with (a lot more) money than sense have
the option to buy tickets on a four-month trip to the moon and
(hopefully) back again. The trip is being organised by some bunch
who've got their mitts on some left-over Russian kit and are planning
to set off in the next three years, but won't actually feature any
trained astronauts because (apparently) it's not the sort of
thing which might appeal to them. I would have thought that going to
the moon would have been right up their street, but what do I know?
One of the reasons I steered clear of the kindle was Amazon's proprietary format for their ebooks and the question over what happens when the reader dies. However you can get kindle reader apps for other platforms and there are depending on your views ways and means of removing the DRM and converting kindle files not that I would condone it being done.
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