My Travels with the iPhone and the Kindle Combination

Last Friday I had a meeting with Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) Video Arts and Technology Program students, faculty and administrators. BMCC has an NSF project grant titled "Creating Career Pathways for Women and Minorities in Digital Video Technology" – an exciting project with lots of excellent results!.

As usual, I drove early in the morning to New Haven, CT and took the train from New Haven to Grand Central Station . In the past I've lugged a notebook computer with me for work on the train and have brought lots of "hard copy" with me including reports to review, periodicals to read, etc. This trip I decided to ditch the notebook and piles of heavy paper and travel light - carrying just the iPhone and the Kindle.

Prior to leaving I converted a number of documents I needed to review to Amazon Kindle (.azw) format. Amazon provides a free conversion service for registered Kindle users for Microsoft Word (.doc), Web page (.html and .htm) and Adobe Acrobat PDF (.pdf) file formats using a unique email address. Amazon replies by email with a link to each of the the converted azw files and the user pulls the files off and transfers them to their Kindle using a USB cable. Here's a diagram outlining the free conversion service procedure:

I had a relaxing two hour train ride from New Haven to Grand Central, getting lots of work related reading done using the Kindle. I was especially happy to have a 208 (!) page document I needed to read converted and on the Kindle. Not only did I save lugging 208 pages of paper - I probably saved a small tree!

My meeting in New York went great - the group I met with had several relevant documents that I asked them to email me as attachments so I could read on the train ride back. They ended up sending me the 4 large Word documents as attachments that I received on my iPhone. I then forwarded the documents to a pay conversion service Amazon provides that delivered converted azw files wirelessly to the Kindle for 10 cents each. Here's a diagram outlining the paid conversion service procedure:

[FYI: Don't think you can spam my Kindle now that you know my free and not-free Kindle conversion email addresses - I have to authorize all conversion receiving email addresses!]

Overall an excellent experience - it was neat to move files around from one device to another while traveling 50-60 miles per hour on the train and then read them on a high resolution E Ink Kindle screen. I ended up getting just as much work done without the laptop with the added bonus of no eye strain.

Book Bags and the Sony Reader

I've been meaning to weigh my daughters book bags for a while now. I've got a 16 year old in 11th grade and a 12 year old in 7th grade and each lug a stuffed bag back and forth every day to school. Here's the weigh-in results:

11th grader

Book Bag Weight = 28 lbs
Her Weight = 105 lbs
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Book Bag to Weight Ratio (BBWR) = (28 lbs)/(105 lbs) = .267

7th Grader

Book Bag Weight = 24 lbs
Her Weight = 75 lbs
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Book Bag to Weight Ratio (BBWR) = (24 lbs)/(75 lbs) = .32

So my oldest is lugging a little over one-quarter of her weight around in her book bag and my youngest is lugging almost one-third of her weight!
In addition they are each commonly carrying one or two other books that won't fit in their bags, adding another 5-10 pounds along with a 5-6 pound violin..... imagine if they each played the tuba........

I'm not sure how you feel about this but to me it is unacceptable. We've tried talking each into roller bags but they are not very popular these days in the middle and high schools..... So - what can we do? Get our kids memberships to a local gym in the summer so they can build up their muscles for the school year? Perhaps chiropractor gift certificates for the holidays?

Sony has a better solution that I'm hoping catches on in the academic community. The Sony Reader is one-half inch thick e-book reader that weighs around 8 ounces. It holds about 80 books worth of content and has a rechargeable battery that lasts approximately 7,500 page turns. It has 64MB of internal memory and an additional memory card slot. The screen is very pleasant on the eyes, using a technology called e Ink® from E Ink Corporation. E Ink uses micro-capsules instead of the glowing LCD cells on computer screens that appear as black or white depending on the charge associated with page content. According to Sony:

"The result is a reading experience that’s similar to paper - high contrast, high resolution, viewable in direct sunlight and at a nearly 180-degree angle, and requiring no power to maintain the image."

It also displays Microsoft Word and PDF documents, blogs, newsfeeds, and JPEGs (just black and white) and plays unsecured MP3 and AAC audio files (like Mike Q and my podcasts !) through an external audio jack.

Here's an interesting video from NY1 News on the Sony Reader.


I've spent some time in the Sony Style Store playing with one and an impressed with the contrast - it has a nice text-on-paper feel that I don't get with other readers that use standard computer screens. It's small when compared to academic textbooks at 6.9” by 4.9” with a 6" screen and would probably not work well for textbooks with lots of illustrations - think biology or physics.

In it's current form factor, I think it would have limited use in the classroom but I'd love to give it a try. Sony appears to be directing marketing towards travelers at this time - I've seen a few ads in airports and airline magazines recently. Right now the cost is $279.99 and comes with 100 book's Classics titles.

In addition to Sony, there have been rumors Amazon has their own e-book reader in the works, the result of the purchase of mobipocket.com a couple of years ago.

I'd love to see these kinds of products directed towards the academic market so my kids could both lower their BBWR!

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Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled Micro-blogging linked here.
Podcasts also free on iTunes.
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