Book vs. Droid

I have been reading Sherlock Holmes in a book and on a borrowed iPad. I’ve never read a book on an electronic device before and I have to say that overall I liked the iPad experience of reading, though the resolution of the iPad did bother me a bit as the anti-aliasing on the type is clearly visible. Out of curiosity I downloaded the Aldiko eBook app for my Droid to see what reading looks like on a small screen.

I was shocked – it actually works really well. I tweaked the font size so that it’s about the same size as the type in the book (17pt on the Droid), and with the higher resolution of the Droid screen the type is crystal clear. The Aldiko app allows you to flick the page to turn it (like the iPad), and also lets you use the volume rocker (conveniently under my right thumb when reading) to turn pages forward and back.

I was skeptical of the small number of words that would fit on a page, but the flow felt very natural and easy.

Overall, I have to admit I enjoyed the experience. And I don’t have to carry any more devices than I already do. Wow, what a surprise!

Pura Vida!

Today I received my Blurb book that I put together from our Costa Rica trip. It looks great.

It’s 50 pages long with enough text and captions to explain the trip and images, but it’s mostly a photo book.

Even though I had most of the text already written (from the blog) and the pictures were all ready to go (from prepping them for my flickr set), it still took me a full day to layout the book.

You can check it out here at Blurb.

My buddy Tom lent me this book over the summer. It’s a wonderful read – you get to know Wayne Henderson, one of the world’s premiere guitar builders, as you follow the process of him building a guitar for Clapton.

Wayne only builds a handful of guitars a year, and if you happen to get on his waiting list you might get yours in five or ten years – IF he decides yours is a priority.

The story is much more about Wayne and his circle of friends that it is about how the guitar is built. But through the process you discover the link between the craft and the art, and how it is that some people have that buried in their nature. The fact that it’s Clapton’s guitar is incidental, and in fact somewhat disappointing – you really want #326 to end up with someone who sat with Wayne through the process.