As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had my Kobo for a few months now and I love it.

I promised a list of pros and cons for the Kobo, and so without further ado, here’s my list (in no particular order):

Pros:

• It’s lightweight and small enough to fit in my purse (“So light! Like a croissant!”)
• It’s fast and simple to add books to my Kobo library
• It reads ePubs, which is what the Toronto Public Library offers (though I’m sure you can find a program to convert ebook formats for any reader)
• It comes with 100 classics pre-loaded, which is great when you’re looking for something to read on the go.
• Unlike reading on my iPhone or computer, the screen does not strain my eyes. The e-ink makes it feel like I’m just reading a piece of paper behind glass. It’s fantastic.
• You can change fonts and font sizes, and if you’re reading a PDF, you can switch to landscape view. This actually came in handy a few times.
• There is no delay when turning pages (unlike the previous Kobo edition)
• Battery life! I haven’t actually made note of how long it lasts, but it feels like about a month goes by before I have to re-charge.

Cons:

• There’s only one button to push to navigate through menus and turn pages. I was really worried about getting an RSI as I read pretty quickly and turn pages frequently. But this actually hasn’t been a problem so far and I’ve gotten used to it.
• It takes some time to power on and the store takes some time to load and navigate.
• It has also frozen a few times and I’ve had to re-start. As well, in recent weeks my settings have randomly changed back to the factory settings a few times. I should probably look into updating my software though.
• It doesn’t have some of the other nice-to-have features that the Kindle has: free (!) wifi, multiple navigation buttons, a full keyboard to make notes on pages, etc.

A few friends have asked for my input on e-readers and my final comment is always this:

The Kobo meets my needs right now. It’s lightweight and can read free books. It would be nice to surf the Internet and all those other fun things the Kindle does, but all I wanted was something to read books on. This does it. For everything else I have my iPhone.

Do any of you have a Kindle? I’m curious to know what you think of it. Please share in the comments.

Image Source: jivedanson.

Most people know that I have a weakness for stationary and I love collecting printed books. I love holding them, turning the pages, and even love the smell of them.  I’m also a really big reader – I read often and I read everywhere.  I read daily during my commute to and from work, but have a hard time when the book is heavy. I already take a lot to work and carrying a heavy book in my purse wasn’t doing my shoulders any favours.

That’s when I started thinking about getting a light-weight e-reader that I could use while commuting and on-the-go. It would ideally fit in my purse and could carry as many books on it as I want.

I knew I needed an ereader that was both affordable and could read library books. I’ve been trying to spend less money on books this year and my personal rule is to borrow from the library first. Then, if I love a book enough, I can put it on the list to purchase.  I wanted to stick to this rule with my ereader (even more so as I’d rather buy printed books than digital ones) and soon found out that the library offers ebooks in epub format.

The solution ended up being the Kobo. As much as I really like the Kindle and the features it offers, it doesn’t handle epubs and that was most important to me. I would have loved an iPad but it’s above my price range and is too big for what I needed.

So I waited until the new wirelesss version of the Kobo was out and happily picked one up. Now I can read library books on my Kobo and if I love a book enough, I can still put it on the list of printed books to purchase.

I’ve had it for a few weeks now and it’s been great! There wasn’t much of an adjustment period and I’m still zooming through books like I was before. I’ll share my thoughts on reading on a Kobo in my next post.

Do you have an ereader? Why or why not?

During our very first meeting, I suggested that we set up a wiki.

All of my group members had heard of wikis before but maybe only one or two of us had ever used them. So I quickly set up a private wiki on pbwiki and invited them to use it.

I had only briefly gone over why we should be using a wiki and so I think I will go into a bit more detail here.

What are the advantages of using a wiki?

• For the most part, using a wiki doesn’t really require any special technical skills. Even if you need the brief how-to session, it’s pretty simple to use.
• It allows you to collaborate with a group of people (regardless of how many people) without having to e-mail documents and files back and forth, and without having to worry about losing an important e-mail in your crowded inbox
• It’s a great way to keep all information related to a project in one central place
• Everyone can add and edit information and it’s easy to track changes
• You can always revert to previous versions of a page
• You can record and access current information from anywhere, whether or not you have the files and regardless of what system you are using
• You can receive notification when a page or information has changed
• You can lock the wiki so that only a select few can view and/or edit the pages

What are the disadvantages?

• For some people, there is still a learning curve (even if it is much smaller for wikis than other options)
• If you are using a public wiki service, it may not be as secure as you would like it to be
• If you are meeting your group in person and you won’t have access to a computer, you will still need to print off the important pages

Right now, it seems as if most of my group members are doing ok with the wiki.  I understand that there is a little bit of frustration because a wiki doesn’t function the exact same way as a word processing program, but I think that will pass over time.

I’m sure that once we split up our duties, the wiki will be really useful for recording our findings and activities for each other to see.

Are there any other advantages or disadvantages for using a wiki? How do you use wikis?

Photo Credit: teemow – Creative Commons License (BY-NC-SA)

They have webcams in various locations where you can actually see what the weather is now. Much like the traffic cameras you see online and on television. It’s actually pretty interesting because there are so many feeds to watch. Take a look at all the snow out in Western Canada for example.

Anyway, after clicking on a few links, I somehow ended up on MontrealCam and for two minutes watched people skating at the Old Port.

See but in one flick, the webcam showed three people on the ice: a couple and one single person skating. Then it flicked and refreshed again and that lone person was lying on the ice.

This means that many hundreds of kilometers away I basically saw someone wipe-out on the ice.

It’s a good thing I didn’t laugh. That would be even worse than physically being there and laughing, no? It’s like private amusement at someone else’s misfortune and that’s evil. Right?