My Summer 2008 "See How Paperless I Can Become" Project Update

Back in May I wrote a post titled My Summer 2008 "See How Paperless I Can Become" Project. The Amazon Kindle was the device that I felt had the most potential in reducing my "paper addiction". I saved a lot of gas and donut money subscribing to the electronic version of the Boston Globe when I was out on Cape Cod. Over the summer I wrote more posts about my experiences with the Kindle - I've got all of those posts linked here.

So.... how did I do? A picture probably explains it best - here's a shot of the paper currently in my bag along with my Kindle that has replaced most of the paper.

Two file folders, a copy of Business Week, a composition book I use to write notes and my Kindle - that's it...... less than a pound of paper. Shifting gears from paper to the Kindle took some getting used to and the conversions are not perfect.


Here's a few things that I believe still need some work:

The Kindle uses locations instead of page numbers which can be confusing. Here's an example, In May I attended an OP-TEC NSF National Visiting Committee meeting at Indian River State College in Florida. Prior to the meeting a 200 plus page Word document had been distributed to attendees. Instead of printing out the 200 pages I converted the word document to a Kindle friendly azw file and loaded the document on the Kindle. Now - the Kindle screen is not an 8.5 x 11 inch screen so it does not display a full Word document page at a time. What is displayed is smaller than a page. The amount of text displayed also varies based on the font size the Kindle is set to. So..... page numbers don't make much sense to the Kindle - for this reason the Kindle uses location numbers that do not map to page numbers.
Back to the meeting in Florida - everyone else had hard copy and I had electronic copy - as we were flipping through pages I found it difficult to keep track of page numbers others were referring to. In the end I cheated and started using a hard copy I had been given when I got to the meeting.

I've also had rare problems with PDF file conversions - I heard Jeff Bezos say once somewhere (I cannot remember where) that PDF conversions work perfectly around 80% of the time. Bezos calls the conversion "re-flowing". I would put it at 95+% based on my experience. I find myself pdf'ing anything that can't be directly converted to an azw file. That includes PowerPoint presentations, flight itineraries, web pages, google maps, etc. I write the PDF in my desktop application to disk and then send the PDF document to Amazon for azw conversion. It works great!

The Kindle is great for reading finished documents but not very functional when tracking changes in draft documents being passed back and forth. In these cases I find myself converting the Word document to azw format and placing it on my Kindle. I then read the document on the Kindle and use my notebook computer to make the edits.

I can't organize a folder structure on my Kindle. All documents I convert to azw display on the main screen and sometimes I have to scroll through lots of documents to find the one I want. I can organize the files in folders on the SD card in the Kindle - I just can't bundle them together in one folder on the main screen.

With regards to textbooks - it is getting close. Things like charts, graphs and color pictures are tricky - the Kindle only has 4 shades of gray. I believe textbook support would be much better if all figures, tables, graphs and pictures were designed to work with the Kindle. I'm confident Amazon and publishers are working on these issues and we will see Kindle ready classroom versions soon.

In summary - am I paperless? I would say pretty darn close.

Could Colleges Sell Courses the Way Amazon Sells Kindle Books?

[I continue to be impressed with the Amazon Kindle and will be writing more this week about my Going Paperless Experiment. Today I wanted to walk through the way Kindle users purchase books using an example. And.... I've been asking myself.... could we start selling courses this way? Perhaps some colleges already are? See what you think.]

I'll admit I'm caught up in the hype and have been wanting to take a look at Scott McClellan's What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. We live in the woods and buying anything (unless it is delivered) involves jumping in the car and driving. Last night I did not feel like driving so I figured - what the heck - I'll go to Amazon, pull down a free sample of the preface and first chapter of McClellan's book on my Kindle and go from there. Here's what I did:

Step 1: On my PC I went to the Amazon.com Kindle section and found that the book was available. Here's a partial screen shot of the website:

Over on the right you can see I could either buy the book with one click or I could sample the beginning of the book for free. I decided to request the no cost sample. With a single click of the "Send Sample now" button the beginning of the book was ready for me - waiting in a queue for my Kindle to download the next time I turned it on and connected wirelessly.

Step 2 (30 seconds later): I power up my Kindle and turned wireless on. It took maybe 20 seconds for the content to download. Once downloaded to my Kindle it appears on my Home screen as a "sample". Here's a screen shot of my Kindle home screen showing the sample:

The book sample listed at the top - notice I've got a couple other samples I'm checking out!

Step 3: I took the time last night to read the sample preface and first chapter. I was not standing in the isle of a bookstore skimming the beginning of the book - I was sitting comfortably at home - relaxed and able to focus. I decided I'd sleep on whether I wanted to pay the $9.99 for the book. Here's a screen shot of the last page of the sample with the purchase option:

I had the option of doing nothing, buying or seeing details.

Step 4: I woke up early this morning and gave the sample another read (this time much quicker) and decided I wanted a little more detail before making a decision. On the last page of the sample I selected "See details for this book in the Kindle Store". Here's a screen shot:

I looked at the reviews, was hooked and decided to buy.

Step 5: I selected "Buy" and got the following message:

I was given the option to cancel the order if the purchase was buy accident. I also received an email (withing about 15 seconds) with my order summary from Amazon.

Step 6: The entire book took less that a minute to download wirelessly to my Kindle. Here's a screen shot of my Home screen showing both the entire book and the sample at the top.

Notice the entire book is tagged "new".

That's it - easy, simple, fast and efficient. It's not just Kindle selling this way - Apple has always sold music on iTunes by providing a free sample of the first 20 seconds of a song.

So.... could a college sell courses this way? Could the first week of a 15 week course be offered as a no-cost sample? I'm not talking about a pay up front, money back if not satisfied arrangement - I'm talking no money down, no credit card required first week free. Most will probably say no - it's impossible with billing, enrollment, scheduling, etc issues - right? But.... people are getting used to buying this way - especially young people. Someone somewhere at some college is going to figure out how to make this work - maybe somebody already has.

[I am in no way affiliated with Amazon and receive no compensation from Amazon. I purchased my Kindle and all content using personal funds.]

My Summer 2008 "See How Paperless I Can Become" Project

I'm not sure about you but the bag I lug around seems to get heavier and heavier - I have a tendency to blame my notebook computer for much of the weight so today I took a look at what was in my bag. It is loaded with folders full of paper. Here's a shot of what I pulled out this morning - I don't have a scale handy but I'm guessing there is at least ten pounds of paper here.

A quick scan of what's in the picture indicates I could lighten up about 90 percent of the pile - around 9 pounds - if I moved the stuff I've printed out to various electronic forms to read, annotate and file.

If I make an effort could I go without paper? Maybe. I currently carry an iPhone, an Amazon Kindle and a 13 inch MacBook. I think I've got a nice combination that I can conscientiously work with to lighten my paper load.

Here's specs on the three along with how I think I can use each:

iPhone

• 4.8 ounces.
• Goes in my shirt pocket, not my bag.
• Use for email and web browsing when not near a PC.
• Also on the fly viewing of email attached Word documents, spreadsheets, PDF's, etc.

MacBook

• 5.1 pounds.
• the power adapter weighs .71 pounds.
• I also carry an optical mouse that weighs 5.2 ounces.
• Use for email, web browsing, document editing, podcasting etc when convenient.

Amazon Kindle

• 10.3 ounces
• Use primarily for for document reading, limited web browsing and I can even check my email using the Kindle in a pinch
• Also use to read my daily subscription to the Boston Globe

Power adapters and cables for the iPhone and Kindle add another 6 or so ounces - adding the major electronic devices up I come up with about 7 pounds in my bag. I also carry a composition book for taking handwritten notes and a bunch of pens and pencils, a laser pointer/slide clicker, 3 or 4 thumb drives, etc adding maybe another pound. Some things I cannot get electronically (at least not yet), including many of the magazines/journals I read - they add another half a pound or so. Summing it all up I'm looking at about 9 pounds without any extra paper documents and....... I could stop blaming my notebook computer - not bad!

I'll write about my project progress every once in a while over the summer and will be sure to include a picture or two.

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.