Ron Mertens' blog http://www.ronmertens.com/blog Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:34:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 ronmertens/bloghttp://feedburner.google.com The OLED Handbook – 2012 edition http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/3Z_Tyeusk0I/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/04/19/the-oled-handbook-2012-edition/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:34:33 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=443 A couple of days ago I released the 2012 edition of The OLED Handbook… it was a lot of work as I rewritten many sections, added some new ones and of course updated it. It’s amazing how much have changed in just one year. Anyway – it feels great to finally release the new edition after months of work :-)

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/04/19/the-oled-handbook-2012-edition/feed/ 0 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/04/19/the-oled-handbook-2012-edition/ The OLED Handbook – the top selling reference book on Lulu.com last month http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/r5PBajv25yw/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/03/04/the-oled-hadnbook-the-top-selling-reference-book-on-lulu-com-last-month/#comments Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:10:14 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=429 Lulu.com, my print-on-demand publisher is publishing top-selling lists, and The OLED Handbook was the #1 selling Reference book in February 2012:

OLED Handbook - best selling reference book on lulu.com

Cool, eh? It’s also #644 in the all-time best selling books list. The Lulu sales rank takes into account the sales revenue and not just the number of books sold (i.e. the price of the book times number of sales). The OLED Handbook costs $149.99 for the printed edition (and $97 for the digital edition).

By the way – check that image above. Note that Lulu.com places a red arrow next to the #1 spot: signaling that The OLED Handbook dropped in position compared to last month. Which is rather odd as it’s in the first place… Update: I just word from Lulu.com saying that the red arrow means that sales dropped compared to the month before, not compared to my previous position in the list. Strange, but it’s their site, they can do what they want.

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/03/04/the-oled-hadnbook-the-top-selling-reference-book-on-lulu-com-last-month/feed/ 1 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/03/04/the-oled-hadnbook-the-top-selling-reference-book-on-lulu-com-last-month/ The OLED Handbook is in the top 1,000 Lulu.com titles http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/VVkJlmgotLo/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/01/04/the-oled-handbook-is-in-the-top-1000-lulu-com-titles/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:45:11 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=424 This is nice – I just found out that The OLED Handbook is #980 best selling Lulu.com book. Lulu is one of the most popular print-on-demand book publishers today. I’m very pleased with the sales of the Handbook, so this is not really surprising – but still nice ;-)

The Lulu sales rank takes into account the sales revenue and not just the number of books sold (i.e. the price of the book times number of sales). The OLED Handbook costs $149.99 for the printed edition. The digital (PDF) edition, costs $97, and is much more popular (about 4 times more popular, actually).

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/01/04/the-oled-handbook-is-in-the-top-1000-lulu-com-titles/feed/ 1 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2012/01/04/the-oled-handbook-is-in-the-top-1000-lulu-com-titles/ OLED lighting – is it starting to happen? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/neiifYcvUSI/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/11/28/oled-lighting-is-it-starting-to-happen/#comments Mon, 28 Nov 2011 07:10:45 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=422 If you know me, you know I’ve been following OLEDs for years now. One of the most exciting applications of this new technology is lighting. OLEDs enable efficient, beautiful, thin area-lighting panels, which may also be color tunable, flexible and/or transparent. In the past few weeks, three companies sent me new OLED panels and lamps for review. If you want to see what the lighting of the future looks like, check out these reviews – the Philips Lumiblade panels, Lumiotec’s Hanger and Vanity lamps and Blackbody’s V-LUX lamp. And here’s a short video showing all OLED panels I’ve got:

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/11/28/oled-lighting-is-it-starting-to-happen/feed/ 0 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/11/28/oled-lighting-is-it-starting-to-happen/ That’s it, I’m no longer offering Windows software http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/bSdyVfnlO7c/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/09/19/thats-it-im-no-longer-offering-windows-software/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:31:58 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=416 Today I finally done it – I’m no longer offering Windows software. This was not an easy thing to do. I remember my first windows software from back in 1998 (it was called Bullsy, and I developed it together with my friend Alon Keinan when we were in the second year in University). It was a freeware mastermind game. I “established” Metalgrass and started offering Square-Off back in 2000 just before leaving to my after-the-army trip to NZ and Samoa.

Square-Off was an AdWare at first (I was working at Cydoor at the time, after all) but later I converted it to shareware. It was then followed by Karteset, SAM and finally AdSenseLog. I was selling those titles for over 8 years or so – but never managed to make it successful. In fact, in just two months I sold more Nonogram Kindle titles than all four Windows titles in all those years (although of course revenue from AdSenseLog was still a lot more as the price was $69.99 and the Kindle Nonogram costs just $2.99).

So now I’m focusing mostly on my technology blogs (mainly OLED-Info) and Kindle software. Maybe one day I’ll go back to desktop software, who knows?

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/09/19/thats-it-im-no-longer-offering-windows-software/feed/ 1 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/09/19/thats-it-im-no-longer-offering-windows-software/ OLED-Info getting more popular http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/5Ksz07KLHg0/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/09/02/oled-info-getting-more-popular/#comments Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:35:26 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=410 Back in March 2010 I posted that OLED-Info is one of the world’s most popular blogs – the 928th, at least according to Technorati. Anyway, these ranking change wildly, but today I checked again and now OLED-Info is at number 844. It’s also the 52nd most popular gadget blog, the 90 on the Technology list, and the 2117 on the green list (okay, that’s not so impressive). Technorati ranks blogs according to their Authority, which measures a site’s standing & influence in the blogosphere. These ranking, like I said, change all the time, and doesn’t really mean anything, but I just wanted to brag a bit. I’m allowed to, ain’t I?

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/09/02/oled-info-getting-more-popular/feed/ 1 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/09/02/oled-info-getting-more-popular/ The telling http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/6F1l9a_pxEU/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/08/29/the-telling/#comments Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:30:50 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=406 I just finished reading a great book, The Telling by Ursula Le Guin. Ursula is one of my favorite authors (and her “The Dispossessed” book is one of my favorite books) – and this is one of her finest books. It’s amazing how she’s able to create a convincing world with an interesting philosophy/religion in a small paperback. One of the best books I’ve read lately!

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/08/29/the-telling/feed/ 0 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/08/29/the-telling/ Nokia are starting to get annoying… http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/IdzK4CbiJxc/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/08/09/nokia-are-starting-to-get-annoying/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:30:39 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=403 About three or four weeks ago I got a call from Nokia India. They said that Metalgrass software is registered in Nokia’s developer site and want to know whether I’m developing mobile applications. I politely said that I’m not developing any mobile applications (apart for my Kindle game) and I thought that was that.

After two or three days I got another call from someone else in Nokia saying the same thing. And then again, and again. Today I got the sixth or seventh call, and it’s starting to get annoying. I had to hung up on that girl – she just wouldn’t get off the line when I tried to end the call politely. Is Nokia that desperate? They sure are starting to annoy…

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/08/09/nokia-are-starting-to-get-annoying/feed/ 0 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/08/09/nokia-are-starting-to-get-annoying/ My first Kindle software released http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/DvIJzYEveFc/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/07/22/my-first-kindle-software-released/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:10:12 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=400 A while back I said I was working on three projects and the final one (the first ones being the OLED Handbook and the OLED-Info redesign) is now released too – my first Kindle game called Nonograms. Yes, this is a Square-Off port to the Kindle. It costs $2.99 and can be bought from the device itself or via Amazon.com (if you live in the US, that is). This is actually my first non-Windows software title (except for web applications of course) and it’s pretty exciting!

Kindle development is done in Java and it’s rather challenging as the Kindle E Ink display poses some serious restrictions. It was quite fun to develop and it took me quite a while to make it good enough for Amazon to publish. I started coding about six months ago, and now it’s live on Amazon’s store…

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/07/22/my-first-kindle-software-released/feed/ 0 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/07/22/my-first-kindle-software-released/ My very own OPV flashlight http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ronmertens/blog/~3/tUN01MBoCGQ/ http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/07/19/my-very-own-opv-flashlight/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2011 09:19:54 +0000 Ron Mertens http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/?p=397 The OEA sent me their latest organic-electronics brochure, and with it a very cool demonstrator flashlight – that has an organic solar cell (OPV), a flexible battery, a printed electronics circuitry and a white LED. This whole thing looks like a bit of cardboard – but it actually works and is pretty cool…

You can read my short hands-on review here

]]> http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/07/19/my-very-own-opv-flashlight/feed/ 0 http://www.ronmertens.com/blog/2011/07/19/my-very-own-opv-flashlight/