Colorado Member

N0NJY · 10-02-2009, 01:58 PM

Greetings all;

My real name is Rick (and I go by my real name on every other site). Since my normally used "alias" is already taken here, I'm going by "N0NJY" - which is my Amateur Radio call sign.

I'm retired from the USAF and work... in the IT/Security industry here in Colorado. I'm a sailor, reader, writer, and an ardent fan of Issac Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke. I collect coffee cups (ok that's just silly) am a "survivalist" in many ways. I write political "commentary" occasionally and help to run several web sites (and thus forums similar to this one). The web sites are concerned with either political data, intelligence or (or all strange things) "Anomalies". The Anomalies site used to be famous, but it's kind of dead these days (it concerns UFOs, Big Foot, the Face on Mars and numerous other oddities). I have perhaps a dozen other hobbies besides those listed but won't detail them here.

I'm an "outspoken conservative" when it comes to politics, and perhaps not for the reasons many of my opposites would like to believe. Rather than get involved in political discussions though - I am telling you this in the objective interest of "full disclosure". When I write it is with a certain conservative bent from my point of view having worked in and around the US Government for over 30 years; my politics and writings are certainly NOT with the intent of converting anyone, changing their position on a subject or even trying to convince anyone I might be right or they are wrong. So, in that vein I present those facts to those here with whom I might converse.

I live in Colorado and have been here twenty years now. I've lived in Michigan, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Virgina and Washington, DC. I have personally visited 45 countries. My plan is to leave Colorado in a couple of years and embark on a "world tour" of sorts on a cruising sail boat. My wife and I have become strongly committed to this new journey in our lives. We will be purchasing a much larger boat than the one we currently own (here in Colorado it's a 25 foot sail boat) to live aboard for the next few years.

That brings me to why I'm here. Kindle, Iliad, Sony, and so forth all have e-readers. We both have Kindles. She a Kindle 2, myself a DX. We've not had them for long. We bought them because we're both avid readers.

Unfortunately, our personal library simply can not travel with us when we ship out. We have somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 books in our home library (and no, I live not in a mansion nor am I wealthy, merely a small home with one room converted to a "library" and we've collected books from before the time we were married, which is over 32 years now).

So, the e-readers are our attempt to stop buying paper books, and to continue reading and learning. I'd dearly love to convert all of those books to something we could take with us, but I figure I've read them all so why bother? Perhaps a few I really enjoyed, but certainly not all of them.

The few that will continue to be a part of our family are those reference books we use often, cooking, technical manuals and information on sailing, electronics, diesel mechanics, first aid and medicine, identification books (plants, animals, whats good to eat and what will kill you) and of course, survival. Things to read, re-read and review often to keep us thinking about how-to-survive crossing oceans and visiting new places.

We're both "World Travelers" already having visited somewhere around 50-60 countries between ourselves (me more than her due to my work) but we've rarely had the chance to travel together and at our ages (50+) we're examining priorities and "Little House on the Prairie minus children" as a retirement option interests neither of us.

But, we want our books, want to be able to read books. We know that right now Kindle isn't going to be good in Europe or outside the US (yet, but soon apparently) and the Kindle is perhaps only the first of devices we will try or use.

Anyway, that's a bit about me and why I am here.

Lastly, I did a vast amount of research on the various e-readers (including lurking here for months, among other sites). My FAVORITE was the Iliad Digital reader. Too pricey and I wanted something soon.

My personal list of requirements included a device that could connect to a wifi connection easily (not necessarily 3G). It had to have an external memory card slot (like SD or something) and it needed to be able to be "hacked" to some degree.

I ended up choosing the Kindle 2 for my wife because it is perfect for what she does. Reads a book a day (I have not looked at the credit card bill yet for fear of having a heart attack... but at least the books are somewhat cheaper there, than the hard books).

I chose the Kindle DX for myself because the BeBook they have been saying is "coming out in 3rd quarter of 2009" didn't. It was promising a larger screen, 3G, Wifi, SD card slots and more. Vaporware. Sorry to say it, but it's not there.

The Iliad as I stated was too much - and I hesitated at one point with my finger on the ORDER button from Irex's site. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) they were OUT OF STOCK (for several weeks).

Sony was next in line. Screen is too small, but I wanted a reader (wife had her Kindle for several weeks and I couldn't even pry it out of her hands to examine it!) but it DID have external slots for memory cards. Still had to connect it to a computer. They were... guess what? OUT OF STOCK. Unless I wanted a silver one (I wanted a black one).

Sony is coming out with another one at Christmas... oh, I didn't want to wait THAT long - I'd already waited nearly a year.

So, I chose the Kindle DX finally. I love it. I've only used the 3G connect 3-4 times, and that was playing with the browser and to purchase ONE book.

I have about 200 items on the kindle now, I downloaded from my personal stock of ebooks I have been collecting. And I've read about 8 or 9 of them already.

Frankly, I love this device - what I do NOT like:

Non-Open source

Hacking? Gotta be careful not to break "Amazon's Rules"

Tied too tightly to Amazon. I can't download from Sony or someone else.

Had a lot of trouble trying to get some DRM stuff that will work on Kindle. (nope)

Kindle and Amazon pass information to Amazon (I don't like that, not their business what I read!)

I OWN the device, and yet they can:

1) Delete items they don't want me to have
2) Check to see what I have on my device
3) Turn OFF my account if I do something they don't like bricking my kindle

But, so far, I haven't broken any Kindle Laws or Amazon Rules and I guess I'm ok. I haven't bothered with any 'hacking' yet, since I'm truly more interested in using it to read (But, I still would love to have an Iliad to play with!!)

I've used it more connecting it to the computer than I thought I would.

I've read some old classics I'd read as a child and had forgotten.

Read some old classics I never heard of... (imagine that!)

Well.. I'm here. If you want to know anything about Ham Radio, PM me. If you're interested in Anomalies, Politics, and tracking what Russia, China and other countries are up to, PM me. If you want to know how to make bows and arrows, something about Astronomy or sailing... PM me.

Otherwise, I'll be around, lurking and reading.

Rick Donaldson
Colorado Springs, CO

pdurrant · 10-02-2009, 03:37 PM

Welcome to Mobileread, Rick!

Given your interests and background, I have to wonder whether you've come across Baen's Bar and webscription.net yet? It sounds like you'd enjoy Baen's books, and they'll all work on your Kindles (with none of that pesky DRM).

http://www.baen.com/bar
http://www.webscription.net/

Kindles can read an DRM-free Mobipocket format files. It's just a question of removing the DRM...

You can buy from the Kindle store when you're not in the US so long as you still have a US Amazon account and US credit card.

Quote:

Originally Posted by N0NJY

Well.. I'm here. If you want to know anything about Ham Radio, PM me. If you're interested in Anomalies, Politics, and tracking what Russia, China and other countries are up to, PM me. If you want to know how to make bows and arrows, something about Astronomy or sailing... PM me.

Otherwise, I'll be around, lurking and reading.

N0NJY · 10-02-2009, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Welcome to Mobileread, Rick!

Given your interests and background, I have to wonder whether you've come across Baen's Bar and webscription.net yet? It sounds like you'd enjoy Baen's books, and they'll all work on your Kindles (with none of that pesky DRM).

I have seen it, however, I haven't checked it out. I'm still digging around for information when I have time. I haven't seen webscription.net yet, but will certainly check it out.

Thanks!

Superlucky · 10-02-2009, 06:19 PM

Welcome to the forums, Rick. Your planned world tour reminds me of Jimmy Buffet's book A Pirate Looks at Fifty. I think you'd like that book.

N0NJY · 10-02-2009, 06:33 PM

I've read several of Jimmy's books. I'm a virtual parrot head anyway. (I've never been to a concert yet, probably never will and will hope to run into him someday in Miami or some beach someplace haha)

Matter of fact, I have music on my Kindle Dx and it's all Jimmy Buffet haha

I haven't read his book about the pig yet. haha. I read A Salty Piece of Land last year while sitting on the beach in Jamaica.

We decided last year that our retirement was not going to be "Sitting down and stopping". I will be around 55 when we are ready to "depart" and I'm in pretty good shape for "an old guy" now. I just don't want to wait until I can't hoist sails, bail out the bilge or hang with the kids in the Islands.... haha.

I still have a lot to learn - being a novice sailor, but here in Colorado we deal with gale force winds, the fast moving squall and severe thunderstorm all the time. More so, I am betting than most cruisers see their whole lives out on the sea (and judging from talking to some of them, I am not far off on my estimation).

N0NJY · 10-02-2009, 06:40 PM

Alas, his books are not available for Kindle! Can you BELIEVE that?

/chuckles

(Any idea how much a Jimmy Buffet Concert costs to go to? OMG.... I could buy 3-4 kindles I think) haha

Superlucky · 10-02-2009, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by N0NJY

(Any idea how much a Jimmy Buffet Concert costs to go to? OMG.... I could buy 3-4 kindles I think) haha

Yeah, I've seen him 4 times. It's worth it.

I can't believe Amazon would stick it to the Parrotheads like that. Sony and Booksonboard have Swine Not? and A Salty Piece of Land, so I'm guessing Amazon will have them soon enough.

ShortNCuddlyAm · 10-02-2009, 07:45 PM

Welcome to MR!

Make sure you have some kind of clear waterproof bags to put your Kindles in when you're sailing

kennyc · 10-02-2009, 09:30 PM

Welcome Rick. Honestly I've not read your intro yet, but I too am a ham and have been for some 40+ years. I'm WB0E

A fellow Coloradan as well. I've been a Science Fiction fan for longer than being a ham, but read mostly mainstream, classics and SFF now, but will try just about anything. I'm libertarian/independent politically.

I've been in the computer/electronic business almost as long as the above and have been watching the EBook world for about 20 years now. I only bought my first EBook reader about a month ago though - a Sony 505 (which I highly recomment -- I just bought a second one on clearance at Target) and also have a 5" Astak Pocket Pro. After looking at the readers (Kindle marketing/Amazon got me interested) but finding that Kindle was proprietary and unable to read the EPub format (which I see as the emerging standard and winner in the long run -- particularly since Sony is moving to it) I went with the EPub enabled readers.

See ya round the forum or the State.

N0NJY · 10-02-2009, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

Welcome to MR!

Make sure you have some kind of clear waterproof bags to put your Kindles in when you're sailing

I've HEARD that before! hehe.

We're not sure we'll have them in a couple years sailing, but my wife has been taking hers out with us when we sail. So far, so good.

N0NJY · 10-02-2009, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Welcome Rick. Honestly I've not read your intro yet, but I too am a ham and have been for some 40+ years. I'm WB0E

A fellow Coloradan as well. I've been a Science Fiction fan for longer than being a ham, but read mostly mainstream, classics and SFF now, but will try just about anything. I'm libertarian/independent politically.

I've been in the computer/electronic business almost as long as the above and have been watching the EBook world for about 20 years now. I only bought my first EBook reader about a month ago though - a Sony 505 (which I highly recomment -- I just bought a second one on clearance at Target) and also have a 5" Astak Pocket Pro. After looking at the readers (Kindle marketing/Amazon got me interested) but finding that Kindle was proprietary and unable to read the EPub format (which I see as the emerging standard and winner in the long run -- particularly since Sony is moving to it) I went with the EPub enabled readers.

See ya round the forum or the State.

I was using a Lifedrive PDA for awhile... but honestly, the reason I got the bigger kindle is my damned eyes... they are going bad on me. Well, ok, they have been bad a long time a 4" screen is completely insufficient.

Bifocals or not, I take my glasses off to read now. lol

kennyc · 10-02-2009, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by N0NJY

I was using a Lifedrive PDA for awhile... but honestly, the reason I got the bigger kindle is my damned eyes... they are going bad on me. Well, ok, they have been bad a long time a 4" screen is completely insufficient.

Bifocals or not, I take my glasses off to read now. lol

I know that too. but the 6 and even 5" screens work okay for me. I do think a bit bigger would be better.

kazbates · 10-04-2009, 04:04 PM

Welcome to MobileRead, Rick!

Wow! That's got to be the best Intro I've read since I started welcoming new members!

Happy Reading!

10-02-2009, 01:58 PM	#1
N0NJY Time Traveler Posts: 24 Karma: 32 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Colorado Springs Device: Kindle DX	Colorado Member Greetings all; My real name is Rick (and I go by my real name on every other site). Since my normally used "alias" is already taken here, I'm going by "N0NJY" - which is my Amateur Radio call sign. I'm retired from the USAF and work... in the IT/Security industry here in Colorado. I'm a sailor, reader, writer, and an ardent fan of Issac Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke. I collect coffee cups (ok that's just silly) am a "survivalist" in many ways. I write political "commentary" occasionally and help to run several web sites (and thus forums similar to this one). The web sites are concerned with either political data, intelligence or (or all strange things) "Anomalies". The Anomalies site used to be famous, but it's kind of dead these days (it concerns UFOs, Big Foot, the Face on Mars and numerous other oddities). I have perhaps a dozen other hobbies besides those listed but won't detail them here. I'm an "outspoken conservative" when it comes to politics, and perhaps not for the reasons many of my opposites would like to believe. Rather than get involved in political discussions though - I am telling you this in the objective interest of "full disclosure". When I write it is with a certain conservative bent from my point of view having worked in and around the US Government for over 30 years; my politics and writings are certainly NOT with the intent of converting anyone, changing their position on a subject or even trying to convince anyone I might be right or they are wrong. So, in that vein I present those facts to those here with whom I might converse. I live in Colorado and have been here twenty years now. I've lived in Michigan, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Virgina and Washington, DC. I have personally visited 45 countries. My plan is to leave Colorado in a couple of years and embark on a "world tour" of sorts on a cruising sail boat. My wife and I have become strongly committed to this new journey in our lives. We will be purchasing a much larger boat than the one we currently own (here in Colorado it's a 25 foot sail boat) to live aboard for the next few years. That brings me to why I'm here. Kindle, Iliad, Sony, and so forth all have e-readers. We both have Kindles. She a Kindle 2, myself a DX. We've not had them for long. We bought them because we're both avid readers. Unfortunately, our personal library simply can not travel with us when we ship out. We have somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 books in our home library (and no, I live not in a mansion nor am I wealthy, merely a small home with one room converted to a "library" and we've collected books from before the time we were married, which is over 32 years now). So, the e-readers are our attempt to stop buying paper books, and to continue reading and learning. I'd dearly love to convert all of those books to something we could take with us, but I figure I've read them all so why bother? Perhaps a few I really enjoyed, but certainly not all of them. The few that will continue to be a part of our family are those reference books we use often, cooking, technical manuals and information on sailing, electronics, diesel mechanics, first aid and medicine, identification books (plants, animals, whats good to eat and what will kill you) and of course, survival. Things to read, re-read and review often to keep us thinking about how-to-survive crossing oceans and visiting new places. We're both "World Travelers" already having visited somewhere around 50-60 countries between ourselves (me more than her due to my work) but we've rarely had the chance to travel together and at our ages (50+) we're examining priorities and "Little House on the Prairie minus children" as a retirement option interests neither of us. But, we want our books, want to be able to read books. We know that right now Kindle isn't going to be good in Europe or outside the US (yet, but soon apparently) and the Kindle is perhaps only the first of devices we will try or use. Anyway, that's a bit about me and why I am here. Lastly, I did a vast amount of research on the various e-readers (including lurking here for months, among other sites). My FAVORITE was the Iliad Digital reader. Too pricey and I wanted something soon. My personal list of requirements included a device that could connect to a wifi connection easily (not necessarily 3G). It had to have an external memory card slot (like SD or something) and it needed to be able to be "hacked" to some degree. I ended up choosing the Kindle 2 for my wife because it is perfect for what she does. Reads a book a day (I have not looked at the credit card bill yet for fear of having a heart attack... but at least the books are somewhat cheaper there, than the hard books). I chose the Kindle DX for myself because the BeBook they have been saying is "coming out in 3rd quarter of 2009" didn't. It was promising a larger screen, 3G, Wifi, SD card slots and more. Vaporware. Sorry to say it, but it's not there. The Iliad as I stated was too much - and I hesitated at one point with my finger on the ORDER button from Irex's site. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) they were OUT OF STOCK (for several weeks). Sony was next in line. Screen is too small, but I wanted a reader (wife had her Kindle for several weeks and I couldn't even pry it out of her hands to examine it!) but it DID have external slots for memory cards. Still had to connect it to a computer. They were... guess what? OUT OF STOCK. Unless I wanted a silver one (I wanted a black one). Sony is coming out with another one at Christmas... oh, I didn't want to wait THAT long - I'd already waited nearly a year. So, I chose the Kindle DX finally. I love it. I've only used the 3G connect 3-4 times, and that was playing with the browser and to purchase ONE book. I have about 200 items on the kindle now, I downloaded from my personal stock of ebooks I have been collecting. And I've read about 8 or 9 of them already. Frankly, I love this device - what I do NOT like: Non-Open source Hacking? Gotta be careful not to break "Amazon's Rules" Tied too tightly to Amazon. I can't download from Sony or someone else. Had a lot of trouble trying to get some DRM stuff that will work on Kindle. (nope) Kindle and Amazon pass information to Amazon (I don't like that, not their business what I read!) I OWN the device, and yet they can: 1) Delete items they don't want me to have 2) Check to see what I have on my device 3) Turn OFF my account if I do something they don't like bricking my kindle But, so far, I haven't broken any Kindle Laws or Amazon Rules and I guess I'm ok. I haven't bothered with any 'hacking' yet, since I'm truly more interested in using it to read (But, I still would love to have an Iliad to play with!!) I've used it more connecting it to the computer than I thought I would. I've read some old classics I'd read as a child and had forgotten. Read some old classics I never heard of... (imagine that!) Well.. I'm here. If you want to know anything about Ham Radio, PM me. If you're interested in Anomalies, Politics, and tracking what Russia, China and other countries are up to, PM me. If you want to know how to make bows and arrows, something about Astronomy or sailing... PM me. Otherwise, I'll be around, lurking and reading. Rick Donaldson Colorado Springs, CO

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10-02-2009, 06:19 PM	#4
Superlucky Fanatic Posts: 581 Karma: 5952 Join Date: Aug 2009 Device: PRS-505, PRS-350	Welcome to the forums, Rick. Your planned world tour reminds me of Jimmy Buffet's book A Pirate Looks at Fifty. I think you'd like that book.

10-02-2009, 06:33 PM	#5
N0NJY Time Traveler Posts: 24 Karma: 32 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Colorado Springs Device: Kindle DX	I've read several of Jimmy's books. I'm a virtual parrot head anyway. (I've never been to a concert yet, probably never will and will hope to run into him someday in Miami or some beach someplace haha) Matter of fact, I have music on my Kindle Dx and it's all Jimmy Buffet haha I haven't read his book about the pig yet. haha. I read A Salty Piece of Land last year while sitting on the beach in Jamaica. We decided last year that our retirement was not going to be "Sitting down and stopping". I will be around 55 when we are ready to "depart" and I'm in pretty good shape for "an old guy" now. I just don't want to wait until I can't hoist sails, bail out the bilge or hang with the kids in the Islands.... haha. I still have a lot to learn - being a novice sailor, but here in Colorado we deal with gale force winds, the fast moving squall and severe thunderstorm all the time. More so, I am betting than most cruisers see their whole lives out on the sea (and judging from talking to some of them, I am not far off on my estimation).

10-02-2009, 06:40 PM	#6
N0NJY Time Traveler Posts: 24 Karma: 32 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Colorado Springs Device: Kindle DX	Alas, his books are not available for Kindle! Can you BELIEVE that? /chuckles (Any idea how much a Jimmy Buffet Concert costs to go to? OMG.... I could buy 3-4 kindles I think) haha

10-02-2009, 07:45 PM	#8
ShortNCuddlyAm WWHALD Posts: 7,879 Karma: 337114 Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Mitcham, Surrey, UK Device: iPad. Selling my silver 505 here	Welcome to MR! Make sure you have some kind of clear waterproof bags to put your Kindles in when you're sailing

10-02-2009, 09:30 PM	#9
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,872 Karma: 118716293 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	Welcome Rick. Honestly I've not read your intro yet, but I too am a ham and have been for some 40+ years. I'm WB0E A fellow Coloradan as well. I've been a Science Fiction fan for longer than being a ham, but read mostly mainstream, classics and SFF now, but will try just about anything. I'm libertarian/independent politically. I've been in the computer/electronic business almost as long as the above and have been watching the EBook world for about 20 years now. I only bought my first EBook reader about a month ago though - a Sony 505 (which I highly recomment -- I just bought a second one on clearance at Target) and also have a 5" Astak Pocket Pro. After looking at the readers (Kindle marketing/Amazon got me interested) but finding that Kindle was proprietary and unable to read the EPub format (which I see as the emerging standard and winner in the long run -- particularly since Sony is moving to it) I went with the EPub enabled readers. See ya round the forum or the State.

10-04-2009, 04:04 PM	#13
kazbates Wizard Posts: 2,627 Karma: 406616 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Northern Virginia Device: SurfacePro, SurfaceBook 2	Welcome to MobileRead, Rick! Wow! That's got to be the best Intro I've read since I started welcoming new members! Happy Reading!

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