The Overly Caffeinated Librarian

Spell Check in Microsoft Lync (2013)… Finally!

2013-11-12T14:40:00.001-06:00

I have been bemoaning the lack of spell check in Microsoft Lync since I first started using it (with the 2010 version). I was quickly disappointed when I discovered that, despite spell check’s omnipresence in all other things Microsoft, and most IM/Email/Communication tools, that it was missing from Lync. But no more!

You’ll need to have already gotten some prerequisite updates beforehand, then the Lync specific one, all of which you can find here: Description of the Lync 2013 update 15.0.4551.1005: November 7, 2013

Now Microsoft, how about offline message support (or at least an option to push the message right into email) next?

Finally Giving the Google Hangouts Chrome Extension a Try

2013-08-12T11:24:00.001-05:00

I’ve been a long time user of Trillian (even pre-Astra) for handling all my IM chatter since I’m on so many IM networks. However, lately I’ve found that Google Talk (or whatever they want to call the Googel IM service these days) no longer plays very nicely with non-Google chat clients. The problem I would encounter (which Google has confirmed is a bug, but hasn’t done anything to fix it, and it apparently even affects the old, no longer supported Google Talk desktop client as well) is that incoming IMs (especially for already open/ongoing chats) only get delivered to the device/client you were last IM-ing from. So if I chat a bit on my mobile device because I walked away from my desktop, but then return to my desk and don’t actually chat with my desktop client (Trillian Astra) again, new incoming IMs from other people continue to go to my mobile device (which I of course now have silenced, because I’m busy working at my desktop again). After reading through a ton of Google support threads where people have been complaining about this and asking for help for nearly three years, I bit the bullet and moved to the solution (although I’d call it a workaround) that Google Support suggests—ditch all non-Google clients and use the Hangouts extension for Chrome on your desktop devices (and the Mobile OS Google client for your mobile devices). This means that the cheese stands alone (in this case Google Chat), while all my other public IM accounts are still managed in Trillian Astra. Well, except for my work IM, Microsoft Lync (2013 client on Lync 2010 server, soon to be Lync 2013 server, yeah! ;) but I’m okay with that, since Lync gives me a ton more functionality than any of the public IM services and associated clients/web interfaces do.

So far, I’ve been impressed with the IM “2.0” features of Google Hangouts. The audio/video chat supported by Hangouts, including the neat extras (like the silly hats and backgrounds) are fun to play with, but the IM “1.0” (basic “just” text chat—I know, I’m a troglodyte) features are a bit lacking. Status indicators are really deprecated in it (to the point of being easily overlooked—a one pixel green line under a person’s profile pic is a bit too subtle to mean “online”—especially for the people I know that have green as part of the bottom edge of their profile pic). I find how sticky the hangouts chat windows are (attaching to any edge of your screen they get close to) and difficulty getting them to let go of said docked edges (especially on my Windows 8 tablet) also to be a bit unfriendly. Sometimes I just want to float the chat window in a general part of my second monitor Google—I don’t need you to tidy up my desktop layout for me, Mom. I’ll clean my room when I feel like it. Finally, not being able to just launch hangouts on system startup is a real drag. Because hangouts is a chrome extension (and because they didn’t think this bit through, in my opinion) you must launch the Chrome browser (set to auto sign-in with your Google account) in order for hangouts to start. Really Google? I mean Chrome is great and all (well, except on Windows 8—can we get pinch zoom support please?), but the first thing I do when I get to work isn’t open up a web browser of any type. It’s opening up my various communication tools and catching up on the 10-50 message I got overnight. When I have some more time, I’m going to see if I can pass in some arguments to somehow start chrome as a minimized or background app, instead of the kludge I’m using now (just put Chrome in the startup applications, and then manually close the window once it’s up and running), or even a script that will just close the foreground chrome app after ten seconds or so.

I’ll give a more complete review of Google Hangouts after I’ve lived with it for a few weeks. So far I give it a 6 out of 10. A bit better than average, but not much (for comparison, Trillian Astra get’s a 7 of 10, and Microsoft Lync gets an 8 of 10—if Lync ever gets spell check, they may be approaching 10 of 10 territory).

:( Sad-Face Update:

I wanted to install Google Hangouts on my iPod touch and was sternly and rudely told I couldn’t because “This App is Incompatible With This iPod Touch. This app requires a front facing camera.” Umm… Google, you do know that some (dare I say most) people use chat tools to text chat, not video chat? At least most people I know, anyway. I mean, sure, tell me “your old and busted Touch won’t work because it only supports up to IOS 5.1, and we require IOS 6” and I’d grumble but accept it—but here you deny me the ability to use an app because my device won’t support one very minor, unnecessary feature of said app. Shame on you, Google. Shame. Were is the shame-face emoji… oh, wait, I need Hangouts to use that, which you’ve denied me! ;p

When the machines achieve consciousness…

2013-08-10T07:10:00.001-05:00

Modest but still (to me at least) impressive improvements in the area of Artificial Intelligence over the years, coupled with some truly impressive results in the field of brain modeling (and ambitious undertakings) in the Blue Brain Project and Human Brain Project, among others, perhaps a tad too much science fiction on the topic (Peter Hamilton, who I only recently started reading, has some excellent storylines dealing with this topic—it’s fiction, but still thought-provoking) and, of course, far to much coffee early on a Saturday morning have left me wondering about how humanity will react when and if we are confronted with a consciousness completely of our own creation. I’d like to think we’d welcome it (them maybe) into the sentience club with open arms. Thus I am always very, very nice to my computers, just in case—it’s good practice for the day they become our overlords. But then I look around the world and see how far we are from people accepting even their fellow man as, individually and universally, sentient creatures that deserve their empathy and goodwill and my hope dims a bit. Okay, enough early a.m. maudlin. I can smell that the second round of coffee is up. And my computer tells me I have tasks to do, NAO!

Trying out Windows Live Writer 2012, really quickly

2013-08-05T16:37:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to kick the tires on Windows Live Writer 2012 since I just had a question from one of the many frustrated bloggers trying to use MS Word with Blogger on my ancient post about doing just that.

Spell Check works, so that’s a nice plus. I do wonder if it uses the same dictionary as Word does.

Let’s try a copy/paste of a print screen of a window…

Wow, that worked too. Nice. I actually did not expect that to work.

Formatting and positioning for the image is very similar to Word as well.

Automatic “smart quotes” work, as well as do—double dash to em dash.

Wow, Live Writer. You are really impressing me. Why isn’t this functionality just part of Word 2013?

Okay, saving and exiting without publishing, then coming back…

That worked perfectly as well. I may be a Live Writer convert. Let’s try a quick publish and see if that (most important) part works as well.

And it did. Wow. Color me impressed MS Live Writer 2012. You may be my favorite new bit of software. And I just noticed the Edit, Preview, and Source tabs on the bottom of the screen. Complete with inline CSS options. Live Writer, you had me at ‘Hello’ (although I do find your penchant for exploding out shorthand CSS for padding into four separate rules a bit odd, when you don’t for margins… but I can live with that).

Not so quick reply to veryannoyingname's comment on my previous post, "Chromecast isn’t Miracast/WiFi Direct/WiDi/Airplay… at least not yet"

2013-08-04T16:06:00.002-05:00

Sorry to have to post instead of reply, but I seem unable to keep my replies under the character limit. :)

I'll have complete details later, but in short- I assure you I have set it up correctly (per manufacturer instructions). The connection to the S3 did work better out of the box (as your videos also show) with the Netgear PTV-3000 (I haven’t tried it with the Actiontec Screenbeam pro yet). The major issues I’ve had are not, in fact, with Wi-Fi Direct (Miracast certified) devices (like the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4) connecting to it, but with Intel WiDi connections (from laptops and tablets running Windows 7 and 8). I've tried it at ranges of less than three feet up to sixty for both making the initial connection and testing the “walk away” support and automatic connect/disconnect options. The problem isn't that it never works, the problem is how inconsistently it works depending on the display you are connecting it to and the device you are transmitting from, again for WiDi based connections (not Wi-Fi Direct/Miracast certified). I've tried about a dozen displays and a half dozen WiDi devices so far, and the same devices, with the same receivers, behave differently with different displays--particularly bad with monitors that have default resolutions other than 1920x1080, especially slightly plus sized not quite 16:9 aspect ratios running 1920x1200 as their default resolution. I tried both receivers out of the box, and neither worked with every device perfectly (transmitting or display). Many just wouldn’t connect, some would initially connect just fine but then would run into “connection lost” issues, even when the tablets/laptops in question where within a few feet and stationary. I had the most up to date drivers on all transmitting devices, as supplied by the manufacturer. I then tried another round of testing with the most up to date firmware (as of a few weeks ago) for the Netgear PTV-3000 and Actiontec ScreanBeam Pro. The Netgear performed even more dismally with my WiDi devices when it had the latest firmware, but the Screenbeam started working like a champ- every device, every display, perfect connections at a range of resolution (including 1920x1080, but even fro some truly ridiculously higher resolutions beyond that). I then tried the Intel recommended driver updates for my laptop (from their WiDi support pages) and it didn't improve the performance with the Netgear at all, though the Actiontec continued to work just fine. However, my laptop actually started having a host of display issues (not related to WiDi) caused by the Intel suggested updates (no control over screen brightness anymore, etc.) so I rolled back to the latest drivers as supplied by the device manufacturer. Based on my experience, I do not recommend people use Intel's automatic check/update suggestions tool for Windows 8 laptops to resolve WiDi issues expect as a last resort—and be prepared to roll back if things go awry. Instead, look to your device manufacturer for their latest recommended drivers. My brief Miracast test (more of a sad last resort after a frustrating day of trying to get WiDi connections to work) with the S3 didn't result in it not connecting, just some oddities in how it connected (default was portrait with extreme letterboxing instead of landscape, extremely long lags when—and if—it would decide to switch from portrait to landscape when I rotated the phone, image quality didn’t appear to be a pixel to pixel match, but a zoom/blurred version in several apps) but, in its defense, the S3 test was just a quick try with a colleague's phone (to see if it would work) so that bit won't be included in my final review. I will post the full review for WiDi devices (including a table listing transmitting devices on one axis and display on the other) for both the Netgear and Screenbeam soon, and once I get my own S4 in a few months I’ll post another update on how well it performed with both the Netgear and Actiontec receivers using a broad range of displays (I need to know how well it works not just with HD televisions, but computer monitors and projectors). Again, I’m not saying they don’t ever work, nor that they can’t be cajoled into working with enough effort for a user’s particular setup. What I’m attempting to evaluate is how universally (or not) these devices will work. Should they be deployed as connection options in smart classrooms and conference rooms? Should people traveling to make a presentation pop one in their laptop bags as an additional connectivity option (so they can wirelessly transmit to whatever projector/display they may find when they get to their destination)? This is a more than a “can I get it to work with my one display and couple of devices” review—I want to do a more rigorous, broad set of tests to help answer the questions: are these enterprise-ready/level devices? So far my experience leads me to think the answer to that is a ‘no’ on the Netgear PTV-3000 and a ‘cautious yes’ on the Actiontec ScreenBeam Pro (especially if you get the kit that includes the USB transmitter for more “universal” support- at least for Windows 7 and 8 devices). I suspect, though the technical details aren’t clear on this, that the USB transmitter that comes with the Actiontec ScreanBeam Pro is a Wi-Fi Direct transmitter (though I can’t find any Miracast certification on it or the materials it shipped with). This might explain why ever time I’ve installed the software and drivers for it and tried it on several windows 7 and 8 computers that failed (or acted buggy) when connecting over WiDi that they always managed to connect to the ScreenBeam Pro when using the USB transmitter instead (and I suspect possibly even the Netgear as well, more on that in a future post). Your own testing (as you show on your youtube videos) seems to back up my hunch that Miracast works better than WiDi does (as far as being more plug-and-play style) at this time, which is disappointing, since most people I know want to be able to connect their laptops and tablets to their display more than their phones (although connecting a phone is a nice fringe benefit). I didn’t see any videos from you that showcase connecting to your PTV-3000 using WiDi on a Windows 7/8 device… am I missing them? I’d be very interested to see some if you do have them (or would be willing to make them) to see if they match, or contradict, my own experiences.

Replies from Google Support about Chromecast supported resolutions and audio output

2013-08-04T12:52:00.001-05:00

The day the Chromecast was announced, I immediately knew I wanted to try one, but I wanted to make an informed purchase and not just rush out and grab one. Surprisingly, the Google product page about Chromecast was light on any technical details (and still is). I hopped on Google’s IM support and, although the representative I worked with was very eager to answer my questions, they simply didn’t have any information available beyond the limited amount Google had put up on the Chromecast page. They did, however, promote my questions up a tier into their (email based) Chromecast technical support queue. They got back to me surprisingly quickly (as I’m sure they must be getting crushed with an avalanche of information requests about the Chromecast), with a reply hitting my inbox on July 30. Sorry I didn’t have a chance to post their response until now. Here it is. By the way, the bit “[t]here is no delay for Optimized Playback. There is a slight (1-2 second) delay for Casting a tab,” was in reference to another part of the IM chat that had been forwarded to them, which had to do with the delay response time between taking an action when tabcasting (the HDMI over WiFi devices I’ve been testing generally have a delay ranging from 60-240ms, and I wanted to know where the Chromecast fell in that range). Despite this IM and email exchange confirming my suspicion that Chromecast is not a true HDMI over wireless device (screen mirroring or extension), I’m still intrigued and one is already on order for me (thanks to a relative that is at least as tech geek chic as me, and ordered one for me before I had a chance to get this reply even :)

from: googleplay-support@google.com
to: robertslater@gmail.com
date: Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 1:07 PM
subject: RE: [8-1745000001364] Note

Hello Robert,

Thank you for contacting Google Play Support! I understand your concern. Rest assured I'm here to help.

I see that you had some questions about Chromecast specifications, and your questions were sent to the specialist team, who has replied with the following information.

There is no delay for Optimized Playback. There is a slight (1-2 second) delay for Casting a tab. Optimized Playback supports 1080p60 and 5.1 surround. Casting a tab supports 720p and stereo sound.

If you need any additional help, please let me know.

If there is anything further we can assist you with, please feel free to reply directly to this email or visit our help center at:

http://support.google.com/googleplay/bin/request.py?contact_type=contact_policy&policy=hardware

…

The Google Play Support Team

Chromecast isn’t Miracast/WiFi Direct/WiDi/Airplay… at least not yet

2013-07-24T14:53:00.002-05:00

I got really excited when I caught wind of the new device Google rolled out earlier today, ChromeCast. I’ve been trying out a NetGear Push2TV PTV-3000 and an Actiontec ScreenBeam pro just the last few days, with a very frustrating and mixed bag of results (more on that in a detailed future post). I hoped that Chromecast might represent a big new player (Google) coming into the wireless HD market (so far, we’ve had very few players and only a handful of devices) that might herald in a new era of easy, platform agnostic connections between devices and screens. Such does not seem to be the case… yet. For now at least, Chromecast only allows you to stream what you can see in your Chrome browser to your TV, and even then possibly only a subset of the content that might be there (although it works on a ton of devices/platforms, so good on you, Google). As it stands now, Chromecast can’t show anything you can pull up on your laptop/mobile device, just what you can display in the chrome browser—that no Microsoft applications, no gaming, no running an app on your smartphone over the Chromecast, etc. But I hope that may be coming soon, especially since this approach requires no special chipset(s) to work (unlike Miracast/WiFi Direct/WiDi/Airplay), just a Wi-Fi enabled device.

I did manage to snag a chat session with a google rep who answered some of my questions, but they had to beg off when I ranged into too technical an area, shunting our chat over to a technical specialist for an email follow up. Once I get more details, I’ll cull from the chat and email and have a more detailed post (including things like frame rate, delay, audio formats supported). Oh, they were able to tell me it support “up to 1080p.” We’ll hopefully find out exactly what that ominous “up to” means later.

I currently have the “most read” article in the Journal of Web Librarianship… or do I?

2011-08-08T15:55:00.001-05:00

I was tracking down and confirming a link to one of my articles* to send a colleague when I noticed a new feature on the Taylor & Francis web site; a sidebar that shows the most read and most cited articles in a journal (see the Journal of Web Librarianship most read articles page for an example).

I couldn’t find any information on how T&F are calculating this metric. I’m guessing it’s based solely on access to one of the full text formats, and doesn’t include the landing page/abstract/first page preview. I wonder if they filter out the major web crawlers. Do they count really brief views of the full-text, of, let’s say, under a minute? I’d like to know, since such quick browses are more likely a dismissal of the content than an actual “read” of it.

As you can see, I’m trying not to be too excited, because this feature could still be getting the kinks worked out of it and I could suddenly drop to the bottom of the pile. The numbers may be fairly accurate, and I could be the author of the most read** article in JWL, only to find out that means a few dozen people accessed it, and I only nudged out the articles ranked three through ten by a few readers. It’s possible that in aggregate the top ten articles only had a few hundred accesses among them, but I certainly hope that’s not the case. I’ll be up for my tenure review soon enough and I’m hoping that some of these accesses will get upgraded to citations by then.

* “Why Aren't E-Books Gaining More Ground in Academic Libraries? E-Book Use and Perceptions: A Review of Published Literature and Research.” Journal of Web Librarianship, Volume 4, Issue 4, 2010.
** Or accessed, at least, since we all know how little people read of the articles/chapters they access, both online and in print.
*** See, I linked to the landing page, not the full-text. I don’t want my own blog post to result in my hit count getting artificially augmented. Besides, I’ve got a server side app running now to hit it a few thousand times a day already. :)

Did you miss the Center for Multimedia Excellence Launch?

2010-11-01T13:14:00.001-05:00

The Center for Multimedia Excellence had a kickoff meeting last week. I know several people around the library who wanted to attend, but couldn't fit it into their schedules. Luckily for all of us, they've recorded and posted the University of Illinois Center for Multimedia Excellence Launch.

Netbooks with e-paper screens

2010-02-04T12:49:00.003-06:00

A few months ago, I was wondering when will the print book disappear?
One reason I didn't see that happening in the short term was that there was no ubiquitous device that served as a really good e-reader. Sure, there are e-books out there that are great for reading books, but that's all they can do. I bemoaned the lack of a ubiquitous mobile device that could serve as both an excellent e-reader (for static content like books, articles, etc.) and still be a fully functional computer. I have always loved e-paper- for reading static texts it beats any other electronic display I've seen. But e-paper is miserable at doing almost anything else you'd use an electronic display for- watching a movie, playing a game, or doing basically anything that uses moving elements. That's for two reasons; most e-paper displays are only gray scale (the rare, more expensive color ones aren't going to wow you either yet. It's more "Oh, look, color, finally!" than "Oh wow, that's beautiful. It's every bit as brilliant as my HDTV!"), and all e-paper has a limitation when it comes to the technology's refresh rate—how fast the display can update the image on the screen. For most people, it's too slow to even consider using it to type out even a short instant message. Think of that terrible frustration you feel when your computer gets bogged and the words are constantly about a half-sentence or more behind. Now imagine if that was the best your computer could ever do. And that limitation has, thus far, relegated e-paper to e-books, instead of netbooks, laptops, and other multi-purpose mobile devices. Well, I just saw two promising new products that solve exactly this problem—the enTourage eDGe e-book and a new screen LCD technology from 3qi.

The enTourage eDGe (enough with the case toggling guys—curse you iApple!) takes the brute force approach I suggested--just slap both an e-paper screen and an LCD display onto one netbook. Well, not quite a netbook… maybe next year enTourage? At its heart the Edge (I'm done toggling cases :P ) is more a beefed up cell phone than a pared down laptop/netbook. Quick rundown on some key specs: CPU: 1.2GHz Marvell ARMADA™ PXA168, 4 GB internal memory, LCD Display: 1024 x 600, E-paper Display: 1200 x 825 e-Ink, Operating System: Linux with Google Android. And all for less than $500 (which is about what I had expected—I predicted $450). I was on the cusp of overlooking the pokey processor and lack of an SSD to snap one of these up, but then I read about 3qi's new twist on some old school technology. If the interbuzz can be believed, these screens will soon be popping up on e-books, netbooks, and even full blown laptops soon.

3qi's new screen isn't actually an e-paper technology. It's a low
cost LCD that takes advantage of both transmissive (normal screen, like your laptop or HDTV) and reflective (like e-paper) light. This allows for both high-resolution, reflected grayscale images (at about 200 dpi) like e-paper, when in low power (.5 watts) backlight off mode, or full color, full motion content (just like your laptop) high power (2.5 watts peak) mode. The screen uses less power than traditional LCD (3qi expects it to consume about ½ to ¼ of the power of traditional LCDs under typical use), but it's not going to beat any actual e-paper. E-paper only needs to draw power when it is actually refreshing (redrawing) the screen. So once you pull up a page and start reading, your screen isn't drawing any power until you turn the page again. 3qi's screen will always being drawing some power, even when in backlight-off grayscale mode.

Me, I'm okay with sipping just a bit more power. After all, that means I only will be buying one device in the near future- a laptop with a 3qi screen (or similar tech from someone else :), rather than both a laptop and an e-book. I'm sure my overflowing book bag will appreciate that. If the 3qi screen is as impressive in hand as it looks on paper, then I'm sold.

Two One Day Courses, Jan 19 & 20: Designing Universally Accessible Web Resources & Designing Accessible Web Forms

2009-12-14T12:49:00.001-06:00

Jon Gunderson's (Illinois Center for Information Technology and Web Accessibility – iCITA) courses are always fun, engaging, and packed with good information. If you have the time (and the cash :) take a day to attend one of these workshops. If you are fairly new to accessibility (as it relates to web design), definitely attend the Designing Universally Accessible Web Resources course (Jan 19). If you feel pretty grounded in the basics of web accessibility, then you can skip to the Designing Accessible Web Forms session (Jan 20). Form design, in general, can be challenging. Making a well formatted, good looking and accessible web form is even more challenging, especially if you are trying to apply accessibility features to an existing form after the fact. Take this course and you'll never find yourself in that situation again. After one session with Jon, I guarantee you'll find yourself working the best practices of accessible design in from the ground up from now on, and loving the results. :)

Ameren power outage updates goes mobile

2009-12-09T14:41:00.001-06:00

Huge thanks to Sara Thompson (@librarienne) for telling me about this.

A (mobile device friendly) tool from Ameren for checking power outages.

Today's stumbled upon bit of tech goodness – Outlook 2007 and the hidden message headers

2009-11-11T10:49:00.002-06:00

I have an on again off again relationship with MS Outlook. I used it for a while (roughly 2002-2004) only to ditch it after it suffered one too many unrecoverable data file corruption problems (admittedly at least partially due to my attempt to use Outlook+Offline Folders to have a single data file accessed from either my desktop or laptop, kept in sync). I switched to Eudora for a while, until they had a major version upgrade that totally broke the ability to use Eudora with Offline Folders. So I decided to try Outlook (2007) again when I started my position here at UIUC a few years ago. One minor annoyance I ran across was that I just couldn't find an easy way to get to the full email message headers (with all the relay stops a message takes to get to my machine, etc). Well, I stumbled across it today (I hadn't been frustrated enough to actually go hunting for the headers). Here's what I found (just in time for it to be changed in Office 14... woot…)

One way to get to email message headers in Outlook 2007 it is to right-click the message (not in the preview pane, in the list of emails) and select Message Options. Yes, message options: not details, more info, or something sensible, but "Message Options." There, you'll find the "Internet Headers" section, which contains all that occasionally useful information (for checking to see if something is SPAM, for instance). Here's a sample of what you'll find there (basically the path to your machine, from the sender, plus any extra header info any servers/services add along the way):

Return-Path: <m…@illinois.edu>

Received: from relay02.cites.uiuc.edu (relay02.cites.uiuc.edu [128.174.196.4])

by expms6.cites.uiuc.edu (MOS 3.10.3-GA)

with ESMTP id BXU48109;

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:48:00 -0500 (CDT)

Received: from pps.reinject (csc05.cites.uiuc.edu [128.174.4.219])

by relay02.cites.uiuc.edu (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id n9TDm09e017714;

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:48:00 -0500 (CDT)

Received: from csc05.cites.uiuc.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1])

by pps.reinject (8.14.1/8.14.1) with SMTP id n9TDgVqO005351;

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:47:59 -0500

Received: from expredir4.cites.uiuc.edu (expredir4.cites.uiuc.edu [128.174.5.187])

by relay09.cites.uiuc.edu with ESMTP id n9TDlwtY021763;

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:47:59 -0500

Received: from [130.126.35.138] (libstfadm08.library.uiuc.edu [130.126.35.138])

by expredir4.cites.uiuc.edu (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id n9TDluiW021375;

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:47:56 -0500 (CDT)

Message-ID: <4AE99D0C.90708@illinois.edu>

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:47:56 -0500

From: K…y <m…@illinois.edu>

Reply-To: m…@illinois.edu

User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812)

MIME-Version: 1.0

To: E…s <e…2@illinois.edu>,…

j…@illinois.edu

CC: R…r <r…r@uiuc.edu>

Subject: ULSAC

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

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Some Kindle (and related) figures and quotes

2009-11-06T13:02:00.010-06:00

I've been working on tracking down data regarding print book sales, e-book sales, e-reader sales, and related figures and quotes for an article I am working on. I thought I would go ahead and share the highlights of this information, in the hopes that someone else won't need to spend several days tracking down, reading, analyzing, and collocating this information again. :)

Wholesale E-book sales in US, 2008/2009

2002: 5,794,180
2003: 7,343,885
2004: 9,619,503
2005: 10,828,970
2006: 20,000,000
2007: 31,800,000
2008: 53,500,000
2009 (Jan-August): 94,000,000

The IDPF notes "The data… represent only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discount… The data… represent only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers… The data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales… The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers."¹³

It's a bit hard to make comparisons between these sales numbers and overall sales, since collecting statistics on e-books is a relatively new practice that's still being worked out (not just for libraries, apparently :) Over the years, it's likely that e-book sales reporting will become more standardized and consistent. Still, even if some of the growth in numbers might be attributed to new data collection methods (and even sources) one can see a clear and growing trend in e-book sales. It's not a huge leap to at least partially attribute this new increase in sales (2008-2009) to the comparatively successful current wave of e-readers (in light of previous e-book reader "rounds"), most notably the Amazon Kindle. But just how "good" are these numbers? Take a look at the next section, but here's a quick preview to put things in comparison: The AAP estimates that August 2009 wholesale e-book sales in the US (the biggest single month for e-book sales ever) totaled $14.4 million, while print books, although only seeing a small month to month increase in sales, and still slightly lower than August of 2008, were at 1.55 billion (yes billion with a B). Even if we consider that there's as much as 50% underreporting on e-books in the industry right now (that's the AAPs own estimate) that means that in the US, August 2009 saw about $28.8 million in e-book sales, and 1.55 billion in print book sales. In August 2009, e-books only accounted for 1.88% ($28,800,000/$1,528,800,000) of the entire wholesale book market (e-book plus print book). Clearly, e-books have a long way to go to becoming ubiquitous- let alone becoming the dominant method of delivery - but what about a few years from now? Let's consider the significant growth in e-book sales from September to August, 189.1 percent, to be sustainable (which is questionable, an annual growth rate that nearly doubles sales will eventually start to taper off). Extrapolating that out (as an average annual growth rate of 189.1%), some time in 2013 annual e-book sales would be close to monthly print book sales (in the $1 billion+ range). Keep in mind that U.S. publishers had net sales of $25.0 billion in 2007, and a slightly less rosy 24.3 billion in 2008 (n.b. for the last six years, "the industry had a compound annual growth rate of 1.6%").^16,18Let's assume that print book sales remain flat, on average, for the foreseeable future (possible, since at some point increased sales of e-books, if they are on the way to becoming the dominant consumption format, will start to have a direct correlation with a decrease in print book sales). Given that, the earliest we are likely to hit the tipping point, where the default mode of consumption is electronic, will be sometime in late 2016 or early 2017. Of course, this very simple analysis doesn't account for a wide range of factors: is the growth in the e-book sales rate sustainable (if not, then it will take longer), is there a new development on the horizon that will place more digital consumption devices into the hand of more consumers (not just dedicated e-readers, but netbooks, smart phones, and any number of tiny devices, now that several new flexible/foldable screen technologies are popping up, removing the portable device size from being the limiting factor on screen size). Well, you get the picture. There are far too many "what ifs" and unknowns in the area of e-books to make any solid predictions. So, please keep that in mind as you read on; these numbers I am running are not predictions, merely extrapolations. I personally think 2016/2017 is a bit early for the start of e-books reign supreme.

Wholesale E-book Sales (in dollars), the "Rosy" extrapolation

2008 entry is actual data from the AAP, but 2009 on is all extrapolation based on an annual growth rate of 189.1%. Print book wholesale for the US in 2008 was $24,300,000,000.

2008: 53,500,000
2009: 101,168,500
2010: 191,309,633
2011: 336,132,814
2012: 684,100,484
2013: 1,293,634,014
2014: 2,446,261,921
2015: 4,625,881,293
2016: 8,747,541,525
2017: 16,541,601,023
2018: 31,280,167,536
2019: 59,150,796,811
2020: 111,854,156,769

Book (print) Sales

"Book sales tracked by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) for the month of August increased by 0.9 percent at $1.55 billion and were up by 2.0 percent for the year… Audio Book sales posted a decrease of 12.5 percent in August with sales totaling $12.9 million; sales to-date decreased by 25.1 percent. E-books sales reached $14.4 million, reflecting a 189.1 percent increase for August and a 177.3 percent increase year to-date… The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP's more than 300 members include most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies—small and large."²⁰

Book (in general, not e-books) Market Share, 2007

Barnes & Noble 17%
Borders Books and Music 13%
Amazon.com 10%
Other 60% ¹⁴

"In March, 2008, The Association of American Publishers (AAP) released its annual estimate of total book sales in the United States. The report, which uses data from the Bureau of the Census as well as sales data from eighty-one publishers inclusive of all major book publishing media market holders, estimates that U.S. publishers had net sales of $24.3 billion in 2008, down from $25.0 billion in 2007, representing a 2.8% decrease. In the last six years the industry had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.6%... The Higher Education category, which includes sales of college textbooks, fared better. Total sales reached $3.8 billion this year up 2.7% on 2007. This brought the CAGR for college textbooks to 3.8%." ¹⁸

US Reading Habits

"Forty-five percent of Americans over the age of 13 read a book last year," ¹⁷ so the majority of Americans over the age of 13, 55% didn't read even one book in 2008. T_T

Kindle by the numbers (or as close as we can get)

Kindle titles available from Amazon: 240,000¹

Kindle Cumulative Revenue Estimate by 2010 (Dollar value, all models - does not include revenue from e-book titles sales from amazon.com) : $1.2 Billion¹

Total number of Kindles sold since release (all models): 500,000 (as of Feb 2009)⁴

Kindle Quotes

"Amazon does not release sales figures for its Kindle or Kindle 2 reader."¹

"According to O'Reilly research, books were the fastest-growing category in Apple's App Store in the 12 weeks ending in March 1…. current leader… is Stanza… 7 million e-books downloads since launching in mid-2008… half of [the] 100,000 available titles are free… paid books account for about 25,000 to 40,000 downloads."¹

"Perhaps the Kindle is not the iPod of books, as it was once hailed…but… Amazon may now be settling for becoming 'the iTunes of Books… and it's hoping some customers will still buy a few kindles' even if they can read those books somewhere else"¹

"'We want you to read your Kindle books on laptops and smartphones, anything with an installed base,'" Mr. Bezos said. He said he was not 'in principle' against making the works available on rival devices like Sony's, but was focused on platforms with 'large installed bases'."²

^"Amazon charges $11.99 for most best-sellers, but textbooks and solid non-fiction titles can cost considerably more."³

"Yesterday, the world's largest Internet retailer unveiled its upgraded Kindle 2, hoping to expand its ownership base, which is believed to number more than 500,000 users (Amazon has refused to publicly divulge the number of Kindles it has sold)… Sales of digital books are rising, but slowly. E-books represent only about 1 per cent of sales for most publishers, many of which are scrambling to find new distribution models and pricing schemes that will attract readers… Wholesale revenue from digital book sales in the United States has shot up 183 per cent over the past two years, from $4.9-million (U.S.) in the third quarter of 2006 to $13.9-million in the third quarter of 2008, according to data from the International Digital Publishing Forum. Analysts, however, suggest the retail market for e-books could be worth as much as $100-million."⁴

"Although Bezos has declined to break out exact numbers, he suggested over the summer that Kindle-related sales have brought in 35 percent of his company's book-related revenue." ⁵

"According to the latest research from Bowker's PubTrack Consumer service, desktop and laptop computers were the preferred way for the public to read e-books through the first seven months of 2009, but their market share has been giving way to a host of new devices… Of e-book downloads through July, 40% were made to computers, down from 48% at the end of the first quarter. Quickly gaining in market share over the summer were downloads to the Kindle. This was especially true in July, when downloads to computers plunged, while downloads to the Kindle soared. As a result, in July, for the first time in PubTrack's monthly survey of consumers, Kindle downloads topped computers, accounting for 45% of all e-book downloads in the month."[So the Kindle is doing great as far as market share within the e-book sector, basically pushing everybody else out of that market, but does that translate into moving print book consumers over to electronic consumption as well? Only time will tell.]⁶

"Forrester Research recently raised its forecast for the electronic book sales and is now expecting 3 [million] e-readers to be sold in the US in 2009, up from a previous estimate of 2 [million], with 900,000 of the devices expected to be sold in November and December …Forrester said Kindle leads the category in the US with nearly 60 per cent of market share, followed by Sony with 35 per cent, and other devices accounting for about 5 per cent. It noted that US e-book sales were up 149 per cent for the year as of June, now accounting for $14 [million] in sales per month, according to the Association of American Publishers. Amazon has not made public sales figures for Kindle… Forrester is predicting that e-reader sales could increase to at least 6 [million] units in 2010, as increasing competition lowers prices"⁷

"It is an experiment that has made back-to-school a little easier on the back: Amazon.com gave more than 200 college students its Kindle e-reading device this fall, loaded with digital versions of their textbooks. But some students miss the decidedly low-tech conveniences of paper: highlighting, flagging pages with sticky notes, and scribbling in the margins… Becerra tried typing notes on the Kindle's small keyboard, but when she went back to reread them she found they were laden with typos and didn't make sense. After a month, she says, she takes far fewer notes and relies on the Kindle's highlighter tool instead… When the Associated Press hit five test campuses to ask students how they felt about the Kindle, the responses were lukewarm… Madeline Kraizel, a freshman at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, has amassed three Kindle pages of bookmarks for her chemistry textbook. That is getting unwieldy, and she is not sure whether there is a better way to organize them… Other students struggled when professors had them read documents in PDF format, which does not show well on the Kindle. Users cannot zoom in or make notes on them, and diagrams sometimes get separated from notes explaining them… it can't be backlit, disappointing one student who wants to read during dark early-morning bus commutes." ⁸

"Analysts are bullish over the industry's prospects. Three million e-readers will be sold in the US this year, with the Kindle taking a 60 per cent market share and the Sony Reader 35 per cent, according to Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester. 'We expect sales in 2010 to double, bringing cumulative sales of e-readers to 10 million by year end,' she said. Mr. Weiner said 2010 would be 'the year of the e-reader'" ⁹

"By all accounts, e-readers are set to have a breakout year. Slightly more than one million of them were sold globally in 2008, according to the market research firm iSuppli. The firm predicts that 5.2 million will be sold this year, more than half of them in North America, driven by the popularity and promotion of the Kindle, which is available only through Amazon's Web site... One challenge for the entire digital reading market is the price of these new devices. A recent report from Forrester Research suggests most consumers will buy a digital reading device only when they cost less than $100. One way this could ultimately happen is if wireless providers like Verizon subsidize the devices and sell them in their stores, as they do with the inexpensive laptops called netbooks. Verizon says it has no plans to do this, but analysts think that could conceivably change if e-readers like the iRex sell well. ''If this becomes a revenue stream for a company like Verizon, which actually gets paid for the bandwidth required to distribute content, then it is in Verizon's benefit to promote these devices and in many cases underwrite them,'' said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner."¹⁰

"E-book readers from Amazon and Sony have gotten lots of media attention, but a recent survey shows that consumers are not yet sold on the devices. More than 40% of the more than 2,000 U.S. adults surveyed by the NPD Group said they were "somewhat uninterested or "not interested at all" in buying an e-reader. Of those respondents, nearly 70% said they preferred the feel of an actual book… NPD's findings, released Thursday, were in line with comments from analysts recently interviewed by InformationWeek. Those industry observers said the biggest hurdle faced by e-reader makers was in moving mainstream consumers away from physical books. E-readers today appeal mostly to avid readers and people who travel regularly."¹¹

"The Kindle is expected to generate $310 million in revenue by the end of 2009. Barron's estimates that annual sales could reach $2 billion by 2012" ¹²

"However, some analysts also feel that the e-reader industry will need to make fairly substantial changes if it wants to collectively make its devices as ubiquitous as possible. In a September research note, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps suggested that Amazon.com will need to ultimately lower its price point… The cost of the display component is high and sales volumes are still modest, yet consumers demand and expect ever-lower prices," Epps wrote. "The bottom line: E-reader product strategists will have to educate consumers and innovate to bring prices down. Even if they are entirely successful at both these feats, e-readers will never be mass-market devices like MP3 players."¹⁵

"At the start of the semester in August, the 18 students in his Human Experience course each got a Kindle DX, Amazon's newest e-reader, loaded with the syllabus, textbook and assigned readings. They'll return them when the semester ends…. 'There seems to be just a groundswell of support for these readers,' Herring said. 'It became clear this was indeed a way in which things were headed. We decided, "Why don't we get several of these and look at them?"' Winthrop spent $14,000, mostly from student fees, on the year-long test run, which put the school in the company of several universities around the country also experimenting with Kindles. About a month into the semester at Winthrop, the device has yet to garner many fans. 'There's got to be someone in here who doesn't hate it,' Herring said one morning. 'Where?' a student said. The class laughed…. In an article titled 'Kindles yet to woo University users,' the student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, quoted several students who 'found the Kindles disappointing and difficult to use.'"¹⁹

MacMilan. "Amazon's Apple Deal: Kindle Cannibal?" Business Week (Online), March 5, 2009
"Amazon's Kindle wireless reader to be available worldwide." The Irish Times, October 8, 2009
Frith. "Eyestrain could singe Kindle early adopters" The Australian, October 13, 2009 Tuesday
Hartley. "A new chapter for digital books; Amazon is hoping to light a fire under the e-book market with its Kindle 2 - a device that has no shortage of competition" The Globe and Mail, February 10, 2009
"Amazon Slashes Prices for Kindle" eweek.com October 7, 2009
Milliot. "Kindle Market Share on the Rise" Publishers Weekly. Aug 31, 2009. 256(35) p. 4
Birchall& Bradshaw. "E-reader sales set to rise as Amazon cuts Kindle price." Financial Times. Oct 8, 2009 p. 16
Mintz. "Students unready to trade texts for Kindle" The Boston Globe, Business p. 8, October 14, 2009
Clark. "Amazon takes the Kindle global as e-readers soar; Device goes on sale in UK for first time but downloads to cost more than in US" The Independent (London) Business p. 42 October 8, 2009
Stone. "Growing U.S. e-reader market gets a new player; New iRex and Best Buy join forces to challenge Kindle and Sony Reader" The International Herald Tribune, Finance p. 17, September 24, 2009.
E-Book Readers Lack Appeal; Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader have gotten lots of media attention, but a survey shows that consumers are not yet sold on the devices." InformationWeek August 6, 2009
Wired magazine, page 114 Sept. 2009
http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/industrystats.htm
"Leading Book Retailers, 2007." Market Share Reporter. Ed. Robert S. Lazich and Virgil L. Burton, III. 2009 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2009
"Amazon Settles Kindle Suit But Will Other Issues Follow" eWeek.com, October 3, 2009
"AAP Reports Book Sales Rose to $ 25 Billion in 2007" Association of American Publishers, March 31, 2008.
"Nearly One in Two Americans Read a Book Last Year, According to Bowker's 2008 PubTrack Consumer Survey" Bowker, May 29, 2009.
"AAP Reports Book Sales Reached $24.3 Billion in 2008" Association of American Publishers
Cetrone. "Winthrop professor uses Kindle to spark new age of learning: But response to e-reader lukewarm" McClatchy - Tribune Business News. Oct 5, 2009.
Book Publishing Sales Post Small Gains in August, The Association of American Publishers, October 21, 2009

When will the print book disappear?

2009-11-06T12:49:00.014-06:00

Normally, I am one of the first guys in line (well, virtually, since I tend to shop online :) to buy the cool new electronic gadget de jour, and there's no denying the Kindle (especially the DX) fits that bill. This is especially true since I've been itching to try out an e-paper device since I first read about e-paper/e-ink in 2001.

Lately, I've heard a lot of talk about the Kindle being the harbinger of the end for print books, and wanted to toss in my two cents. I like the idea of e-paper in particular, the main selling point of the Kindle and similar third (or fourth depending on who you ask) generation e-readers over other portable devices like netbooks. However, the idea of a dedicated device for reading books just doesn't do it for me (other than a good old fashioned print book, of course – since that's a single use device too… :).

I think we're still years (possibly dozens of years) away from the tipping point of e-books versus print books (as far as market share of sales goes). I feel that there are many problems holding back the ascendancy of the e-book (especially in academic libraries/markets, for more on that keep an eye out for my upcoming article, "Why aren't E-Books Gaining More Ground in Academic Libraries"), but that the biggest problem holding back the move from print to electronic books among the general population right now is the lack of a ubiquitous device for reading electronic materials that people are generally happy with. But wait, that's just what the Kindle is, isn't it? Well, the Kindle works reasonably well for reading books (well, books that were designed for it, or at least in a format easily converted to the preferred Amazon format, PDFs are still a challenge), but what about checking email, or browsing the web, blogging, face-booking or IMing? I do all those things already, plus read e-texts, on both my laptop and netbook. Would I enjoy extended reading of static text from e-paper more (or one of the many other promising new display technologies)? Almost certainly! I often find myself tiring of craning my neck and jockeying for a good position to use my laptop or netbook to read on a plane. I envy the guy next to me who's enjoying reading a book or article on his Kindle. Reading in bed would also benefit from the use of a Kindle- I sprained my wrist trying to read the Mists of Avalon in bed in print format. An e-reader would have been great for that. However, I really don't want to lug yet another electronic device around everywhere I go. My laptop bag is already amusingly overcrowded with my laptop, its various peripherals and power supply, my PSP (and its stuff), my Ipod (and its stuff), my cell phone (ad nauseam)… I'm sure you get it by now. I like gadgets, I have a ton of them, and I have finally reached the point that I am saying "No More!" I also don't want to commit to yet another 2-3 year repurchasing cycle for a $300-$400 for a device that will really only work for reading books, when print books already suit that purpose well enough, and my other mobile devices can stand in for a dedicated e-reader in a pinch. After all, I am a librarian, and any of the books I really want to read are a short trip to my library or wait on the ILL list away, no $300-$400 membership fee required.

What we lack (we being the players in the book industry, from publishers to distributors, including libraries) is that truly magical multi-purpose ubiquitous device that will finally launch the e-book to the place of prominence we all know it will eventually achieve. I don't think that device will be a (mostly) single purpose device like a Kindle or any other dedicated e-reader. Not to say there isn't a place for dedicated e-readers. I think some insight can be gained by considering the mp3 player market. Even though the Big Boys in the industry have been seriously pushing feature creep into their MP3 devices, making them, arguably, now mini-computers (at least that's what Apple wants us to believe), there's clearly still a place for dedicated mp3 players (even Apple maintains production of the Shuffle, which is the ultimate single purpose mp3 player). What the e-book market needs is a device that comfortably meets multiple information and entertainment needs of users, at a price they are willing to pay. The major limiting factor right now on mobile devices in general is the display technology. E-paper is great for static text (and low power consumption), but (right now) terrible for general purpose use as a laptop/cell phone screen (grayscale only right now, with a ridiculously limited number of shades of grey, and absolutely atrocious screen refresh rates, compared to other display technologies). Once there's a way to do both – display static text in a way that's pleasant for extended reading (and consumes very little power) as well as to display full color dynamic content (possibly even including two display types on a single device) at a reasonable price point, I think we'll see the sudden and massive shift to e-consumption that we've all been waiting for. But even then, I think there'll be a fairly long, slow dwindling of print books, with them still representing a fairly significant chunk of publications/sales for several decades to come (at least as significant as the current <2% of sales that e-books make up of the entire book market).

FYI, here's a device I'd love to see (are you listening Amazon, Sony, Lenovo- anyone really!). My ideal netbook/e-reader is pretty simple. Take a modest netbook (at the $300 price point), make some minor hardware adjustments internally (maybe another $50/netbook) and slap a piece of e-paper on the top of the netbook lid (so when it's closed, the lid shows e-paper, but when it's open, you see a standard netbook LCD screen), maybe another $100. And then, bam, you have the netbook/e-reader hybrid I've been dreaming of for about $450. It can still do everything my netbook could, but when I just want to engage in extended reading (and not note taking or some other form of content creation, rather than consumption) I simply pull up my item (maybe even in a special app, but I'd prefer the transition to be seamless) close my lid, and the netbook switches from LCD display to e-paper. At the same time, the netbook goes in to low-power/e-reader mode. Now I get _all_ the benefits that the Kindle (or any other e-reader) currently offers, but suffer from none of the multi-tasking anemic drawbacks of a dedicated e-reader.

Testing google wave > blogger using madoqua (blog-bot@appspot.com)

2009-11-05T17:02:00.009-06:00

Just a really quick test. I've only used wave for, oh, a total of maybe 60 minutes so far, but this was the killer feature (for me) of the product demo.
Hmm, looks like you may need to be singed in to a google account, at least, to see this wave (below). More likely,m you'd need to be a participant in the wave. Can anyone (besides those in the wave) signed in with a googel account read this? I am also going to go mark the wave as public, which is the most likely missing bit (but I hope that also means I can mark portions of a wave, or wave participants, as private)...

Ack, currently, it turns out, you must have a google wave account in order to see the madoqua output. This is by design it seems, "Even if you make the wave itself public and put it on a web page, it isstill inaccessible to people who do not have a Wave ID—that is, didn'tget into the Wave preview." The Complete Guide to Google Wave - Wave Bots

And Bloggy, my favorite and star of the hour+ google wave video, can't help just yet.Bloggy - blog-wave@appspot.com - Will make the wave public when Bloggy is added to a wave, and embed the wave at http://blog-wave.appspot.com/[username] ONLY WORKS IN DEVELOPER SANDOX

[Wave] Barry Bailey is my hero

2009-11-04T11:04:00.002-06:00

I'm getting my first chance to test Google Wave this week, thanks to Barry Bailey's invite. Barry, I owe you one super huge favor, any time, so don't hesitate to ask. :)

I'm pretty swamped this week, but I'll take some times to really kick the tires this weekend. I just began a playback on a LITA wave discussing the possible uses of wave for libraries. [BTW, this next bit is a copy of something I just posted to the LITA Google Wave Group, for those not yet lucky enough to be in on the wave.] A great deal of the conversation on the wave (not just on the LITA wave, out in the blogosphere in general) seems to be focused on comparing wave to synchronous communication tools like IM and social networking sites. But my hope for wave is that, although it might be leveraged for that, the real power stems from the ability to foster richer a asynchronous communication, where discussion about a topic in a wave can be easily crafted- using branches of the wave, and special markup which I've only seen on the demo, but will try soon- to produce publically viewable living document derivatives of a wave automatically. Think about all those long, all-too-frequent meetings we all attend where we spend hours discussing a new policy (or policy change) and then task someone, at the end of the multiple meetings and discussions, to take all the discussion and craft a policy from it. At yet another meeting, the proposed policy is reviewed, amendments are suggested, more work is done, etc. Finally, usually weeks after the major decisions have been made, the policy gets posted somewhere. Now, think about an online, asynchronous approach to the same policy making conversation. The discussion, and the exact language from that discussion, could be automatically updating a publically viewable branch of the wave (posted to a public blog, wiki, web site or other document management system/space). Add to that that the feedback that's received on the public wave branch (like on a blog or wiki comment) feeds back into into the wave discussion (automatically), where the policy makers can immediately discuss the comment, come to consensus, and almost immediately amend the policy/document. I see Google Wave as a way to make all my group work get addressed more quickly and responsively, while also reducing the amount of time it takes to produce public information from what are now (mostly) private, largely undocumented conversations.

I jumped out to search for how to link to a Google Wave (so those of you with wave accounts can join in on some of the waves I plan to start soon) and found a good article by Daniel Tenner, "What problems does Google Wave solve- A matter of perspective" that echoes my own feelings about wave- that people don't quite know what they should use it for yet.

USA Today now includes e-books on its Best Sellers listings

2009-10-19T17:55:00.001-05:00

See: USA Today Best Selling Book Database

They are getting data directly from Amazon regarding sales of e-books- shocking, since Amazon has been so tight lipped about Kindle& eBooks sales in general. A quick look today showed no E-books in the list of the top 150 books… hmm. So, how are things really going Amazon? :P

I'm not the only one suspicious of Amazon (an e-book proponents in general) playing a bit of a shell game here. See Motoko Rich's blog post 'Lost Symbol' Also a Big Hit on Kindle, But How Big? In particular, this bit is very telling "But it seems that the breathless reception of Amazon's news is a little overblown. Although Knopf Doubleday, which printed 5 million hardcover copies of "The Lost Symbol," has declined to say what proportion of the more 1 one million copies of hardcover and e-book editions it sold on the first day of the book's release were actually in digital form, a person familiar with the sales figures said far less than 5 percent were electronic book editions."

Amazon admits it was wrong to delete e-books, pays out (a tiny bit)

2009-10-19T17:13:00.001-05:00

While doing some research today on the Kindle, I came across this tidbit. I was all wrapped up in the Kindle 1984 deletion debacle, and then it fell off my radar (as do many things as they fall into the litigation phase). Apparently, Amazon agreed to pay out $150,000 for the class action lawsuit brought against them ("Amazon settles with student," Los Angeles Times October 2, 2009). Seems like they got off way to easy to me…

A quick update…

And even though they pay out on this suit, they plan to keep doing this in the future (but they'll just be more clear about it). Well that just sucks…

"As part of the settlement, Amazon.com stated that it would retain the right to remotely delete works from its users' libraries under specific circumstances" ("Amazon Slashes Prices for Kindle" eweek.com October 7, 2009)

"As noted by the court, Amazon.com agreed to either restore copies of Orwell's magnum opus to those whose copies were deleted in July, or alternatively offer a $30 check or Amazon.com gift card. 'Those who elect to receive the previously purchased Subject Work will have any and all annotations or notes made prior to removal of the Subject Work restored automatically,' court documents read--a salient point, considering that the deletion of accompanying notes was one of the motivations for the plaintiffs pressing their lawsuit in the first place." ("Amazon Settles Kindle Suit But Will Other Issues Follow" eWeek.com October 3, 2009)

First thoughts on: Morris, Issues in Vendor/Library Relations – Buying Ebooks: Does Workflow Work? Part I & II

2009-10-19T16:42:00.001-05:00

Against the Grain 20.4 & 20.6 (2008): p30-34 & p. 76-77. doi: (N/A, try the publisher web site part I , publisher web site part II) (University of Illinois Access, part I, University of Illinois Access, part II)

Why should you read this:

They're both very brief and contain some useful tidbits.

In brief:

Part I largely catalogues the various people with a stake in selecting eBook vendors, and perceived (or actual) pitfalls associated with acquiring e-books.

Interesting quotes and my thoughts:

Part I

"A good relationship with a distributor who is facilitating but not hosting eBooks will not protect the library from issues arising at the eBook source. Furthermore, since distribution arrangements can fall apart over time, basing the decision to limit the playing field to eBook aggregators available within the library's print vendor database may also prove to be misguided and result in regrets down the line." Part I, p. 87

"Fortunately, technology has progressed to a point that with a little bit of effort, print and eBook purchasing can be coordinate even when there are multiple suppliers involved" Part 1, p. 87

Part II

"Smart libraries will choose to work with companies that are making smart business decisions now." part II, p. 77.

"The more platforms, the more likely a researcher will miss useful Ebooks." Part II, p. 77.

"Piracy does happen, and anyone hosting eBooks that does not take that seriously will have trouble attracting and keeping publishers." Part II, p.77

Let's hope this is slowly becoming less true. Certainly work by Springer and Morgan & Claypool (who use no software at all to restrict use) seems to indicate that you can host a vibrant collections of e-books with DMR based "controls" for piracy, etc. and still attract quality content, and make a profit (in Springer's case, more profit, not less, when they made the move to DRM free content)." Part II, p.77

"Libraries will also want to choose an eBook vendor that regularly improves the functionality of its platform to keep up with patron expectations." Part II, p.77

"Ease of selection and acquisition is an important factor for anything a library buys, or course- but only once the library has first made the right decisions about what it is that's being selected and acquired." Part II, p.7

First thoughts on: Lorbeer & Mitchell, eBooks in Academic Health Science Libraries

2009-10-19T16:01:00.001-05:00

Against the Grain 20.5 (2008): p30-34. doi: (N/A, try the publisher web site) (University of Illinois Access)

Why should you read this:

A really quick read. Although it isn't research based- more of a "what we're doing here" piece - there are a few key quotes that are worth a look.

In brief:

Information about the University of Alabama School Of Medicine's move into/towards e-books is provided.

Interesting quotes and my thoughts:

"We found that there was a large portion of the… reading list that the Library was unable to purchase as eBooks. In many cases, publishers either have not digitized the content or the pricing model was just too rigid. Though librarians identified comparable titles that were offered as eBooks, course instructors were not willing to replace these titles. A majority of the core medical and nursing textbooks are still trapped inside bundled eBook platforms or copyright constraints" p. 32

Are you listening academic publishers and aggregators? I hear about, and read about, this problem all the time. We librarians want to give you our money. We want your content. We want (well, many of us :P ) the e-book revolution to (finally) happen. But you need to be reasonable and not expect to be able to enforce a purchasing model that doesn't allow for or punishes a la carte purchases. Bundling, sure, that's fine in general, but you must offer every title as an individual purchase!

"Investing in vendor supplied MARC records, a federated search engine, and Web 2.0 social applications like LibraryThing and Shelfari are just some of the ways in which the library can point users towards content." p. 32

"Despite efforts to educate faculty and students, there is still confusion regarding the concurrent seat model that almost every eBook publisher uses… most users' expectations about how platforms should operate are generally based on their experience with electronic journals and comprehensive literature databases. Explaining to faculty and students why publishers offer unlimited access to journal articles but only limited access to books and book chapters is futile" p. 32

Amen to that! And there shouldn't be _any_ confusion because the distinction between publication type and consumption restrictions doesn't exist for our users. Online stuff is online stuff, with the possible caveat that "stuff from the library" can generally be expected to be of a higher quality. If they find a link to something they want, only to get a (usually byzantine, to them) error message about "concurrent seating" they just assume that the resource is
broken, like a specialized version of a 404 error. Get with it publishers/vendors. Jump on the Springer/Morgan & Claypool bandwagon. Unlimited concurrent access to all materials, be they articles or chapters!

"…several inconsistencies with the way publishers digitize and sell eBook content… remain in the way… DRM technologies prevent students from downloading and printing the entire chapter of an eBook." p.34

First thoughts on: Carlock & Perry, Exploring faculty experiences with e-books: a focus group

2009-10-19T15:00:00.001-05:00

Library Hi Tech 26.2 (2008): p244-254. doi: 10.1108/07378830810880342 (University of Illinois Access)

Why should you read this: It's hard for me not to recommend this one, because the final concluding point of the article is one that resonates so completely with me. This article is very well written, easy to read, and can be knocked out in 10-20 minutes. However, there isn't much new data contained here (although, as the author's note, their approach to getting the data is different from previous research). The information they've culled from the focus group does largely validate the findings of a great deal of the research on e-book use to date (generally survey based). If you're trying to put together a foundational set of materials to get up to speed on e-books, this probably isn't one of the items you should include. But if you have a few minutes, then go for it!

In brief

"In the spring of 2007, Arizona State University Libraries [Carnegie Foundation Research I institution, 65,000 students] held a [90 minute p. 249] focus group of [6] selected faculty [represent[ing] the following fields: political science, history, graphic design, industrial design, marketing, and bioengineering… including assistant, associate and full professors p. 249] to discover their perceptions and use of electronic books (e-books) in their research and teaching… Major themes explored were: use of e-books as textbooks; use of e-books for personal research; comparison between e-books and print; disciplinary differences in perceptions of e-books; and motivators for future use... Overall, the focus group revealed that faculty had generally unsatisfactory experiences in using e-books in their research and teaching owing to the unreliability of access, lack of manipulability, and the steep learning curve of the various interfaces. However, most faculty agreed that e-books would be a very viable and useful alternative if these issues were resolved." p.244 " ASU Libraries have been aggressively collecting electronic books (e-books) since 2000 from several vendors, including NetLibrary, MyiLibrary, Ebrary, Safari, Knovel, and STAT!Ref, as well as from other providers that include e-books in their electronic collections. As of December 2006, the libraries provided access to over 30,000 electronic books." p.245 [My note, ASU looks to have a print collection of about 4.2 million volumes, so e-books represent about 0.7% of the entire print+electronic book collection]

Interesting quotes and my thoughts:

From the lit review section of the article:

"Faculty have identified several disadvantages, weaknesses and uncertainties about e-books. Cox (2004) finds that faculty are least sure about downloading, printing, bookmarking, and emailing content, and the faculty at the Indian Institute of Science state that the most common reason (22 percent) they do not use e-books is that they are hard to read and browse (Anuradha and Usha, 2006). Other disadvantages include eye strain due to reading online and the difficulty of navigating an online book (Levine-Clark, 2006). Responding to the question of what would make e-book usage more suitable, faculty reported that having a larger collection of e-books (55.8 percent), the ability to download (52.4 percent), the ability to print and copy with fewer restrictions (49.9 percent), would make e-books more attractive (Ebrary, 2007)." p. 247

" A focus group of undergraduate midwifery students conducted after instruction on how to access e-books found that students saw more disadvantages than advantages with e-books. The primary disadvantages cited were accessibility issues (one user at a time per book), navigation and limited number of titles (Appleton, 2004)." p.248

From their focus group research:

"contracting a third party to conduct the focus group would ensure a more neutral session and prevent library staff from influencing the course of the focus group or trying to teach or inform during the session. To this end, ASU Libraries enlisted the Institute for Social Sciences Research (ISSR), an ASU-based organization, to recruit participants and moderate the focus group at their facility." p.248

The questions asked:

How familiar, if at all, are you with e-books?
What do you know about them?
Have you used them in your classes? If so . . . What did you think of them?
How often do you use them?
What was student input about them?
How likely are you to use them in the fall semester? If not, why not?
Do you use e-books as textbooks? If not, why not? If not, have you ever considered using them? If not, why not?
Have you personally used e-books in your research? If so, how often? Describe your experience with them. If not, why not?
How would you find out if a book is available as an e-book?
Let us say you are using a textbook in class. The textbook is available in print and as an e-book. Which would you assign? Would you give students the option to choose? Why or why not?
Would the subject matter of the book affect your decision? If so, why?
Would you have any concerns about choosing an e-book? If so, what are your concerns?
What about a book that is not a textbook? Do you think students prefer print or e-books?
Do you see any advantages to using print rather than e-books? If so, what are the advantages? What about disadvantages?
Do you see any advantages to using e-books rather than print books?
Would you use e-books any differently than you use print books? In what ways? Why?
What kind of information would you want about e-books before you decided to use them or use them more frequently?
If you have not tried them before, what could the library do to encourage you to try them?

"Our first question was a general inquiry into the participants' familiarity with e-books. The participants expressed mostly negative responses… 'I think it's the technical difficulties of trying to deal with it that put me off of trying to use that type of materials in class'. Another mentioned that using e-books was 'very tedious, and it wasn't worth the time'" p. 249

"one of the primary concerns with using e-books as textbooks was the question of reliability… you could never be certain whether the students could get into the e-book… The industrial design professor tried to avoid this concern by teaching the students how to access the e-book at the start of class, but still received complaints from the students about the difficulties of using e-books. She said that the limitations imposed on viewing e-books are particularly frustrating: 'It will only let you look at a certain percentage of pages at a time and then your time is up and you have to login [after] another 24 hours… That, to me, is mind-boggling, because it's being deliberately built into the system and that it's the fallacy of the previous system" [referring to print books]." p. 250

"'With a live book . . . you can photocopy the pages that you need . . . and you don't have the ability to do that with an e-book.'" p. 251

" Some professors use e-books to help generate interest in print books amongst their students, 'I've often seen students . . . they look at it online . . . a couple weeks later you see they've gone out and bought it to add to their personal collection.'" p. 251

"Several of the professors indicated an interest in saving their students some money, and would be more likely to use e-books if offered as a less expensive alternative to textbooks." p. 252

"When asked what would make them more interested in using e-books, most faculty talked about looking past the print equivalent: "A lot of e-books are directly scanned from the actual book itself so they aren't taking advantage of the fact that it's online and can be hyper-linked . . . it should be interlinked and hyper-linked and referenced to other materials that are out there." Additionally, professors wanted… the same freedoms allowed by print books: the ability to write notes, link to related items or citations, highlight passages, and copy and paste from the text." p. 252

"Most professors agreed that the primary factor that would increase their interest and use in e-books would be the ability to trust that the e-book would be reliable and accessible to themselves and their students, whenever they needed it. Their current experiences have not given them cause to believe that this is currently the case." p. 252

"… when speaking about the limitations of e-books, such as having to "check-out" an e-book in NetLibrary or downloading specific software for Ebrary's proprietary reader. Faculty were surprised to learn from the moderator that the e-book vendors rather than the library set these limitations." p. 253

"while faculty are open to the concept of using e-books, their experiences have not been positive. The limitations of e-book accessibility and practical use cannot be overlooked at this time. Faculty are especially cautious about using them as textbooks or for course readings… believing that the technology is too unreliable, which has been proven by their own experiences… Were these issues resolved, particularly with respect to accessibility and interactivity, most faculty would be willing to use them." p. 253

"academic librarians have a responsibility to advocate the needs of their users to e-book vendors to consider when planning future product development. Without the input of libraries, e-book vendors' primary clientele, there is no guarantee that the necessary improvements in usability, accessibility, and interactivity would ever be made." p. 253

Here, here! I think perhaps I have found a few new founding members to help craft my Academic Library E-book Manifesto. :)

First thoughts on: Jamali, Nocholas & Rowlands, Scholarly e-books, the views of 16,000 academics

2009-10-19T12:55:00.001-05:00

Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives 61.1 (2009): p33-27. doi: 10.1108/00012530910932276 (University of Illinois Access)

Why should you read this:

The folks working on this study (multiple publications spanning several years) really are on the ball, both in terms of the background reading/lit cited, as well as the focus of their research. If you are at all interested in the scholarly use of e-books, you must read this article. And, just FYI, I don't just say that about every article from these authors or this particular study. :)

In brief:

This study is part of the "JISC National E-Books Observatory project… a… project in which over 120 UK universities receive two years free access to course reading materials in e-book form… publishers were paid £600,000 for 36 textbooks for a period of two years. The books were supplied on two platforms: Wolters Kluwer Health and MyiLibrary." p. 34 This study "aims to find out about the perspective of students and academics… on e-books. The paper provides an analysis of two open-ended questions about e-books… 'In your opinion, what were the biggest advantages that e-books offered compared with a printed book?' and 'Is there anything that you want to add regarding course texts, print or electronic, or about your university library?'…conducted between 18 January and 1 March 2008… response from more than 20,000 academic staff and students; 16,000 free-text responses. The study discloses… online access along with searchability was the biggest advantage of e-books… however, e-books have yet to become more student-friendly by improving features such as printing and screenreading." p.33 & p36

Interesting quotes and my thoughts:

"E-book publishing has been growing rapidly and the International Digital Publishing Forum (Industry eBook Sales Statistics, 2005) reports a 23 per cent increase in e-book revenues in 2005 compared to 2004 and a 20 per cent increase in e-book titles published year-on-year." p. 33

Ahh, IDPF, how you love to toss around some numbers to show that "the e-book era is right around the corner, no, this time for real!" :P Yes, e-book sales have been growing at a fairly rapid pace when compared only to previous e-book sales. But when set amidst total book sale revenue (e-book and print combined or contrasted) to date we have yet to see e-books account for even a double digit % of the share or revenue for book sales (that's tight, even with the Kindle out there, last years overall revenue for book sales turned up e-books at <2% of the revenue share). But when you only account for about 1% of the industry (about what estimates peg e-books sales at right now, plus or minus a few tenths of a percent), even with annual average growth of 25% (good numbers for growth for any industry), that it would take 17-18 years for e-books to hit the tipping point, gaining more than 50% market share and making printed books use the minority delivery mechanism for books. Now, that's not to say I don't see the writing on the wall, and that change is coming, but I think some key elements are missing from (1) the hardware end of things (device ubiquity and appropriateness for reading books) as well as vendor/distribution/functionality issues (see my forthcoming article about e-books and upcoming blog post on the Kindle for more details).

"The fact that 89.1 per cent of our respondents managed to get to the end of a quite long and complex questionnaire is a clear indication of the level of interest within the academy in e-books. We received responses from 123 universities before the questionnaire was switched off." p. 35-36

"The results of the quantitative part of the survey were analyzed and published elsewhere (Nicholas et al., 2008); presented here are the findings of two open-ended questions, which were included in the survey… While the questionnaire was open to both staff and students the respondents to these two questions were almost wholly students." p. 36

"Clearly the main attraction is that e-books are more accessible than print books, meaning that users can get at them wherever they are and at whatever time they like. This reason accounts for more than 52 per cent of the advantages mentioned… Of the online access comments, 1,000 specifically cited the fact that e-books can be accessed from a distance and that the user does not have to travel to the library in order to use them… About 500 comments were related to availability – 24/7 access to e-books " p. 36

One of the comments the authors choose to include for this section (out of 3 examples) was particularly interesting to me, "It's always available – if you have a web connection." p. 37

"The greater retrieval opportunities provided by e-books were the second most mentioned characteristic (13.2 per cent). This rises to 15.4 per cent if we include navigation." p.37

"Cost was the only other advantage to reach double figures (10.8 per cent). All comments related to… e-books being free and cheaper. Clearly there is confusion here in the minds of students of what constitutes free. Some illustrative comments follow: A lot of the e-books are free of charge. Cheaper than buying the book. Didn't have to buy it." p. 37

This is very interesting, since the books they are "comparing" these too are library print book collections, both of which are "free" at the point of use to them. If you discount this category (because there' a lot of confusion on this aspect among respondents) then there are really only two far-reaching reasons that are widely felt to be the strengths of e-books- availability and searchability. This needs to be considered in light of the next finding…

"Portability… Portable is not a word you would associate with e-books but quite a few (5.3 per cent) mentioned this quality. They were said to be "lighter" than printed books and they did not have to be carried around. Here some students clearly have downloadable e-books in the form of PDF in mind while none of the e-textbooks provided through the project were downloadable. Some illustrative comments follow: Easier to carry around – on ipod. No weight. Portability - I can take a lot of books on a single computer, memory card, external hard drive. Portable, we do not have to carry big books from one place to another, useful for international students." p. 38

So either the respondents were thinking about other e-books/e-documents they do this with (download/ save to a device), found ways to circumvent the platform based restrictions on downloading these books (I know I've done that, with NetLibrary materials in particular), or assumed they would be able to do that, but hadn't tried before they took the survey. My money is on the last category. I feel that most web users assume there is some mechanism whereby they can save web content for later offline viewing (and it really sticks in my craw that more e-book vendors still refuse to facilitate this type of use).

"The biggest disadvantage by far was thought to be the difficulties of reading from the screen. About 366 (7.6 per cent) respondents complained about the difficulty of screenreading." p. 41

"There are many users who would prefer hard copies to e-books. About six per cent of the respondents stated that they preferred hard copy books in normal situations." p. 41

"According to the responses there seems to be a lack of activities for promoting e-books on the librarians' side. About 195 (4.05 per cent) comments indicated the need for better promotion of e-books among students and lecturers. 'Better communication between course leaders and library staff, better flagging of e-resources, both on library sites and in course handouts needed in order that their use is maximized… I don't really know anything about electronic sources, so it would be better if the librarians were more forthcoming in telling the students about them.'" p. 42

"There was also a lack of knowledge about how to access and use e-books and e-resources and this highlights the need for instructions and the improvement of information literacy programmes at universities: 'I could do with a course on how to access these things as I am not very technically minded I don't know how to access the e-books… I don't think that there is enough emphasis on lecturers and tutors explaining to students HOW to use all the various applications in the library. I had to teach myself about these, a seminar for all those interested might be of help.'" p. 41

Ah, here we are again. Getting access to e-books, and then once you have it, navigating them, still remains a challenge to some. And why is that? Many of my colleagues blame themselves ("we're not doing enough to teach people about e-books and how to use them") but I personally blame terrible, atrocious user-interface design from the vendors themselves. When was the last time you had to teach a university student the basics of how to use a web browsers and search engine (basics here, not best practices :P )? I know I can only dimly remember that time. And why is it that students can figure out the web, including library access to e-journals, but not w-books? I propose that it is because the access mechanisms to e-books are horrid. Okay, the library catalog/major access mechanism to library materials shares a little of the blame here, but I point my finger mostly at the actual platforms e-books are being provided on. Usually for "good" reasons (DRM , copyright, keep your dirty pirate student mitts off our content reasons) the interfaces themselves attempt to stop users from accessing and manipulating content in ways they are familiar with. Vendors and publisher, this message is rfor you: stop it! Okay, a quick side not to Springer and Morgan & Claypool- disregard my last comment, you are already doing things right (well, at least far better than the rest of the industry).

"Printing problems… Students wanted to be able to print part of the e-books they read, whether to read them at their convenience or highlight and annotate them. About 60 (1.3 per cent) respondents complained (a relatively small number it has to be said) about problems with printing, either they did not allow this or there were restrictions. Also about 18 (0.37 per cent) respondents expressed that they wanted to be able to print sections of e-books easily." this quote in particular is representative, in my experience, of one of the biggest gripes about e-books "E-books are useful. My main gripe with them is the way in which you print them off. I have tried to print out whole chapters and cannot do this, I do not know why. Instead I have had to print out groups of pages and then put them together to form the chapter. This is annoying and makes accessing e books more tedious and time consuming that it otherwise might be. However, on the whole I think they are a useful addition to hard copy books" p.43

I wonder if more students would have reported problems with this if they had had more e-books to use. I rarely found myself needing to quote from a core course text-book. Given that these limited (36) books were core text-books, I doubt many users tried to copy/paste or print much of the book. I know when I was an undergrad student I was particularly likely to skim/speed-read the core texts for a course- they were too often just poorly written, dry, and ponderous. On the other hand, when I was reading my own supplementary materials (that I selected to address a topic I was working on for a course project) that was when I engaged in extensive close/deep reading, note-taking, highlighting, copying, etc. I would love to see a follow-up to this study, if the data is available, on how often users actually engaged the features (or triggered the limitations) on copy/paste and printing for these 36 books/two platforms. My guess is not many, given how many students (inaccurately) reported that one great feature of these books was the ability to store them on their portable devices (something not enabled/allowed by either platform).

"A supplement not a substitute… About 67 (1.4 per cent) comments were in some way related to the fact that e-books and printed books should co-exist. Users found different and supplementary applications for e-books and hard copy and wanted to benefit from both. Students do not want to see an exclusivity of formats. There was also concern that some university libraries considered e-books a good alternative or substitute and therefore replaced printed books with e-books. Some were concerned that the move towards the provision of more e-books means cutting the number of hard copy books in libraries." p.44

Reading a new (to me) textbook on Qualitative Data: Interpreting Qualitative Data by Silverman

2009-10-16T14:27:00.001-05:00

Big thanks to the tireless efforts of David Vess (who reads, by my estimate, about 3 multiplujillion pages a day) who suggested this book to me (well, Camilla, who I poached it from :). The ISBN is 9781412922456. I'll be diving in this weekend.

Looking for a good desktop replacement laptop…

2009-10-14T10:49:00.001-05:00

I am in the market for a good "desktop replacement" laptop. It needs to handle capturing live video (from a Canon GL2) and do real time conversion to multiple formats for streaming (I haven't picked the software for that yet). I'm considering this Lenovo W700 configuration right now... any suggestions for something better (within reason of course- this one already is close to breaking the bank) or reasons to avoid this one? Reviews of the W700 model look good...

1:20 PM Update: Several friends have suggested I consider the Macbook Pro, so I am. Here are the issues I am dealing with on the Mac end right now:

There are some hardware elements you can't get in a MBP right now (like a quad core processor) and might not be able to get for another 6-8 months. I also can't find an option to configure a MBP with a primary/OS/application SSD hard drive as an SSD, and a secondary disk based "big" storage drive. I don't have as many options for upgrading the memory as I'd like. I'd like some options for a single DIMM at 4 gigs. I can only seem to choose from two 2-DIMM options, 4 or 8 gigs, with 8 adding a whopping $1,000 to the price. And finally, but probably most importantly, I want to run Morae on this laptop. Right now that's not particularly straightforward or convenient on a Mac. Due diligence, though… I did dial up the most comparable MBP to the Lenovo I could, and this is my final bone: for less impressive hardware, they want >$1000 more. The Lenovo clocks in at 3247 with a protection plan, the MBP at 4348 for the comporable (but not quite) build. I posted a comparable MacBook Pro configuration.