Look at you, with your crazy schooling mad sskilz!

Will that allow me to effectively drag the right edge of the image along the canvas?

in the Skype app, there should be a check box in the pref's. I can't guide ya to it, as my iMac is getting a hard drive replaced.

snail mail: [link]

Oh! Another tech question (maybe two).

I finally got a reasonably-priced DVI/HDMI cable and tested it on my Powerbook. She quickly realised it was a dual screen situation and set the TV up as the second screen. I fired up VLC and opened up an AVI. Just gorgeous. But when I did did they key combo to full screen it, it full-screened on the laptop, not on the TV. I could get it to 2x size and manually place it on the TV screen, but the best I could do in full-screening to the TV was to set the monitor situation up to mirror and full-screening on both. Is there a better way?

Also...the afore mentioned RAM upgrade. I have the tiny wee screwdriver to get the panel off the base of the unit, looking like the very screwdriver from the example, but I can only get one out. The other three are very recalcitrant.

Is that the best screwdriver to use? I feel leverage-free.

Someone's messing around on Wikipedia. It says Colin Baker played the sixth Doctor. For like, two minutes. Wow those guys are good.

I've been thinking about the Kindle. If I thought it was the right e-reader for me I'd be tied up in knots because I don't want to give Amazon $400 of my money. But I don't. Some of my reasons are shallow, like the look of the thing.

I'm looking at the Kindle page on Amazon, and wondering what I'd do to make it perfect, other than fixing the looks of thing (and now I'm wondering how shallow that is--I will be looking at it while I use it, after all. It's not like an MP3 player which is just listened to (and we know people factor looks into those purchases)).

As much as I love Wikipedia (didn't Colin play #6?), I don't think free access to it is a selling point. It is merely neat.

I think that PDF should be right up there with (actually ahead of) their touted Word compatibility.

Now, you pay a one-off amount for the player and for the content, but you are maintaining an ongoing relationship with Amazon. I noticed this:

Your rights under this Agreement will automatically terminate without notice from Amazon if you fail to comply with any term of this Agreement. In case of such termination, you must cease all use of the Software and Amazon may immediately revoke your access to the Service or to Digital Content without notice to you and without refund of any fees.

They can take the books back? I remember reading that Bezos intends the low cost of the books to offset the fact that you can't really lend an individual book out, or sell it secondhand. But the publishers don't like it.

I wonder how Sony deals with that.

The other thing I don't like is having to go through a third party to encode my own materials. PDF support would go a long way to ameliorate that.

And frankly, the low cost of the books is bullshit - aren't most of them $9 or $10? Which is more than your standard mass-market paperback? Which I can lend out and donate to the library when I'm done with it?

other than fixing the looks of thing

Have you seen one in person? I actually think it looks pretty cool when it's in your hand. Which shocked me, as the pictures are indeed ugly as sin.

I think that PDF should be right up there with (actually ahead of) their touted Word compatibility.

The main problem with PDF support is technical. PDF as a format is designed to be read on pages of a certain size. Many, many of the PDFs out there do not support text reflow very well or at all. That makes it incredibly unsuitable for something like the Kindle: you'd have to zoom it way out, do weird scrolling, or some other such thing. If you read some reports of PDF support on the Sony, you'll find that in almost all cases it's basically unusable: tiny, unreadable text or other problems.

The Mobipocket Reader (and the "Experimental" Kindle e-mail conversion process) can convert those PDFs that DO support text reflow just fine. The ones that choke it just don't work for the format.

I wonder how Sony deals with that.

They don't.

And frankly, the low cost of the books is bullshit - aren't most of them $9 or $10?

Most of the books are between $5 and $10. The ones that are $10 are generally new releases and hardcovers (which do make up a large portion of the selection at the moment, though the back catalog is growing rapidly). I'd say that 99% of books are significantly cheaper than the most common print version, though not cheaper than ordering it used from Amazon.

Which is more than your standard mass-market paperback?

I'd say the prices are about equal for most books that are available in mass-market. Maybe a little less on the Kindle.

Which I can lend out and donate to the library when I'm done with it?

True dat.

But then, yesterday I ordered two books from the Amazon store ($9.99 each but they're only available in hardcover for $18.99 list right now) while lying sick in bed on a freezing cold day. Then I read one of them. They used no paper, and therefore had a low carbon footprint. The other book (along with several interesting free sample chapters, plus Middlemarch, which I really do intend to read soon and got for free from manybooks.net) will be with me on the drive upstate I'm sitting for this afternoon, not to mention the Sunday Times.

Pluses and Minuses.