New York Times review: K2

David Pogue reviews the Kindle 2 here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/te...ref=technology

[RickyMaveety]

Not too bad. Only one blatant misstatement .... you only lose your library if Amazon goes under, or stops supporting the Kindle AND you were stupid enough not to back up your library to your PC.

[krisk]

Ok, now I have a question about that... how many books can a PC hold? a memory stick hold?

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by krisk

Ok, now I have a question about that... how many books can a PC hold? a memory stick hold?

Depends on the size of the HD or the stick. A normal 500 gb hd could about hold all the e-books currently available and then some. ~1.000.000 average sized books.

[spec2]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Not too bad. Only one blatant misstatement .... you only lose your library if Amazon goes under, or stops supporting the Kindle AND you were stupid enough not to back up your library to your PC.

How is that a blatant misstatement? Legally it's 100% accurate. Most, if not all, Kindle books are DRM'd. For most people going to the dark side and running complex decrypting program is a non-starter. Your average consumer would indeed lose their books if Amazon killed the kindle. Hopefully the day will come when Amazon will sell "invisible DRM'd" books the same way they do with their music downloads. Until then it is indeed a flaw of the Kindle and every other DRM'd eBook format.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by spec2

How is that a blatant misstatement? Legally it's 100% accurate.

You can back up the encrypted books.

BOb

[krisk]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

Depends on the size of the HD or the stick. A normal 500 gb hd could about hold all the e-books currently available and then some. ~1.000.000 average sized books.

Oh wow! Ok excellent!

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by spec2

How is that a blatant misstatement? Legally it's 100% accurate. Most, if not all, Kindle books are DRM'd. For most people going to the dark side and running complex decrypting program is a non-starter. Your average consumer would indeed lose their books if Amazon killed the kindle. Hopefully the day will come when Amazon will sell "invisible DRM'd" books the same way they do with their music downloads. Until then it is indeed a flaw of the Kindle and every other DRM'd eBook format.

Legally, you are entitled to make backup copies (complete with DRM) for each of your Kindles. If Amazon killed the Kindle, and you have your (quite legally) backed up books on your PC, you can simply copy them back to your Kindle.

That's why it's a blatant misstatement. Because backups are legal and allowed. There is no need to mess with the DRM in order to make a backup.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

Depends on the size of the HD or the stick. A normal 500 gb hd could about hold all the e-books currently available and then some. ~1.000.000 average sized books.

As I recall, the entire Library of Congress could be held on 4 TB of disk space.

I've got about 8 TB of disk space on my network at home (most of which is unused), and it's not all that expensive anymore.

[StanDaMan]

Originally Posted by krisk

Oh wow! Ok excellent!

Yea, shouldn't be a problem at all, to back them up on your hd!

[spec2]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Legally, you are entitled to make backup copies (complete with DRM) for each of your Kindles. If Amazon killed the Kindle, and you have your (quite legally) backed up books on your PC, you can simply copy them back to your Kindle.

That's why it's a blatant misstatement. Because backups are legal and allowed. There is no need to mess with the DRM in order to make a backup.

Yes, but I think Pogue's point was if the Kindle is abandoned then sooner or later you are either going to want to replace it, either by necessity or desire. Your backed up Kindle books won't do you much good in the new non-Kindle reader. If you wanted to read those books again you'd have to rebuy them or break the DRM.

[krisk]

Originally Posted by StanDaMan

Yea, shouldn't be a problem at all, to back them up on your hd!

When I crash computers it tends to be fairly epic. It's memory stick land for me if I need to plan an alternate to Amazon.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by krisk

When I crash computers it tends to be fairly epic. It's memory stick land for me if I need to plan an alternate to Amazon.

Krisk, just sign up for a free Carbonite account. You can back up all of your Kindle purchases there quite easily. In fact, you can create a separate folder for each Kindle (that's what I do for my three) and never have to worry about them again.

[JSWolf]

The following is a load of rubbish. As long as Amazon keeps the Kindle eBooks just for the Kindle, Amazon is not going to mainstream eBooks at all.

If the Kindle’s popularity keeps growing, then it may be remembered as the spark that finally ignites mainstream e-books. Someday, other gadgets may even be described as “Kindleizing” their fields. In that case, “Kindle” will be the first product name that ever went from verb to noun — and back to verb again.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by krisk

When I crash computers it tends to be fairly epic. It's memory stick land for me if I need to plan an alternate to Amazon.

I think it's advisable for any kind of data backup to have both a physical copy in your possession as well as an off site copy. These days "cloud" storage (storing things on remote servers) is becoming more popular and affordable. However, if something happens with your account or the company hosting it, you may lose access to your data so it shouldn't be your only backup. However, that storage server, memory stick or external hard drive that is in the same house as your computer won't do you much good if you have a fire. A combination is best.