Posts Tagged ‘Kindle Fire’

Resistance to Change: Baby Boomers Thrashing in the Digital Pool — Part II or II

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I know that many of you readers already know about e-books, because sometime between the early days, when the e-book landed on the digital landscape (Amazon released the Kindle in 2007, and Barnes and Noble followed with the Nook in 2009) and the present, you ran out and bought one; while we procrastinators held back. So this commentary is not for you pioneers. It is simply to enlighten my uninformed Johnny-and-Jill-come-lately cohorts, who have not yet submerged themselves in the digital pool.

In simple layperson’s terms, the Kindle Fire is an e-book reader, an electronic version of a printed book. Now, I will tell you why I am tickled pink — err, make that tan — about it.

As my son predicted, KF solved my book storage problem. But unfortunately, it did not cure my addiction, because now I buy and read more books, e-books that is, and at a faster pace than before. I recently saw a promo ad that said the KF will hold 6000 books. Hold up, wait a minute, I’d have to be a reading fool to download that many books, unless I have a joint bank account with Jeff Bezos. (Founder and CEO of Amazon.com.)

My Kindle Fire has many features that I enjoy. Aside from the nice crisp colors on the touchscreen, there is a nifty text-to-speech function. While the reader’s voice is not distractingly robotic it is not precisely Audible book quality either. There are some occasional, figurative hiccups, as when the elocution is interrupted by the inability of the automated reader to decipher certain words. Recently, I was listening to a book, while simultaneously reading along, and the reader read St. Louis as Street Louis. Resume — as in a job application — was pronounced resume, like let’s resume reading this story. And there were occasional inadvertent pauses and restarts, like the abbreviation for Doctor of Philosophy. PhD was read as ph — pause, as if the “h” ended the sentence. D was then read as if it were the first word of the following sentence. But such tiny glitches I could overlook.

The audio-text feature advances each page automatically; however, when the audio is muted – my preference – I must touch the screen to turn the page. An adjustable backlight makes reading easier, and it is an excellent feature when reading in a darkened room if you don’t want to disturb your spouse.

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Resistance to Change: Baby Boomers Thrashing in the Digital Pool — Part I of II

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”~Dr. Wayne Dyer

Lifebuoy-and-help-concept-44209912Just like me, a lot of my friends will dip a toe in the water, but stay out of the pool. In this case I am talking about the digital pool.

Computerized gadgets are flooding the landscape faster than a cashier can run a credit card through a swipe machine. Unlike the millennials and their offspring, who were born into a computer-dominated society with a digital age mentality, many baby boomers and our predecessors play an ongoing game of catch-up and keep-up. And we are hung-up in a constantly rotating cycle of technological changes.

I dislike change. I realize that change is an inevitable fact of life, but that doesn’t make change my friend. I don’t even like to change my mind. But – my aversion to change does not mean that I don’t enjoy a challenge, even when that challenge involves change. My most recent challenge involved a significant change of habit for me. Grab a cup of coffee and let me tell you about it.

During my lifetime — I have acquired enough hardcover and paperback books to start my own public library. Although I have given away hundreds of books over the years, the shelves of my floor-to-ceiling bookcases are still crammed to capacity. In addition, I have boxes of books in the closets, in plastic containers under the bed, and in the storage room. I considered joining Book Lovers Anonymous, but before I could look into a 12 step program my computer-geek son, as I affectionately call him, suggested a solution – for the 99th time . “Mom,” he said, “Why don’t you buy an e-book?”

While teetering on the brink of the 100th pitch to save my literary soul, I decided to woman-up and face my dilemma, and I asked myself do I continue to resist change or accept the challenge? 

Although I told you that I am open to challenge, what I failed to add is that I am not a gadget person. My son knows this.  So, when one of  his disguised challenges involves me learning to use a new device that requires more to operate than simply turning it on and off, the needle on my “angst-ometer” swings sharply from normally functional to highly dysfunctional. Nevertheless, I bit the bullet and under the guidance of my personal geek, I bought a Kindle Fire.

Was it a blooper, blunder, or wonder?  If you care to know what happened after my crossover to the e-book side continue reading Part II.

 

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