Second, my MBP is my development computer. Development computers get the snot kicked out of them. They are constantly in flux. Install the new Ruby; install the new Xcode; install the new iPhone SDK beta and the new Drizzle and CouchDB and LLVM. Update the new MacPorts and Homebrew and OpenPKG. Upgrade my git, hg, and svn. Try Erlang, and Haskel, and Hadoop. Then uninstall and reinstall some or all as needed. Eventually, I cross the beams and it’s time for a fresh start¹.

On the one hand, I crave stability. On the other, I’m pushing constant change. On the one hand, I have simple requirements that can be met with a simple, 1.5 pound portable device. On the other, I’m a power user demanding the biggest, the fastest, the most of everything in a 17” form factor.

I’ve tried various schemes to manage the conflicting requirements of these two modes of interaction with my computer. On occasion, I’ve completely lost my mind and try outlandish solutions such as dual booting or running my personal computer as a VM inside my development computer (hey, at least it was easy to backup). These solutions never worked because I often wanted to jump between both worlds quickly and effortlessly.

Then the iPhone came along. It was nearly perfect, allowing me to separate my personal computing from my development — in a package that was eminently more portable than my 17” MBP. However, the iPhone has certain constraints that require me to maintain a personal computing presence on my laptop. I don’t like writing long emails on my iPhone. Certain web sites are so poorly designed they must be viewed on a full computer². I can’t create content (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams) on my iPhone. Ultimately, the iPhone is a satellite device.

The iPad promises to be my dedicated personal computer. It promises to email, chat, tweet, browse, write, edit, and watch — all while just working. (And, might I add, from anywhere.) That frees-up my laptop to be a dedicated development platform that I can use and abuse without consequence.

I want an iPad to keep my simple personal computing needs separate from my developer computing needs.

¹ I subscribe to the Ripley school of developer workstation maintenance: nuke the entire site from orbit — it’s the only way to be sure.

² I’m not even talking about Flash — I’m talking about sites that screw up HTML that badly.

• Learn one new language or development platform (Erlang, Lua, OpenCL, R are looking attractive)
• Learn how to profile applications in a new environment (I’m thinking: dtrace)
• Build and maintain a presence in the developer community (NSCoder, C4[4], and so on)
• Contribute to an open source project

The truth is that closed systems still win. Open systems, practically speaking, are basically good for making others lose. The art of business in the 21st century is figuring out how to open up your suppliers’ and competitors’ business while keeping yours tightly sealed. And in that endeavor Google has proven highly successful.

Summary

The Kindle DX is good, but not great. It’s everything I expected, but nothing more. It lacks the refinements I’ve come to expect from my electronic devices (*cough* from Apple *cough*). Amazon’s product description for the Kindle 2 states that their “top design objective was to make Kindle disappear”. They missed that mark with the DX — though just barely.

It does change the way I read books and documents. It does lighten my backpack substantially. It does render PDFs well. In this regard, it does everything I wanted it to do. And despite that, I don’t believe it is worth its $490 price tag — yet. That could change if Amazon updates the PDF software to improve interaction and if publishers create PDF content targeted specifically at the Kindle DX.

Oh — and above all: avoid the Amazon-brand cover for the Kindle DX.

Wherefore the DX?

As context for my review, you might want to know the following:

• The Kindle DX is my first ebook reader. I did not own an original Kindle or a Kindle 2 before buying the Kindle DX.
• My primary interest in purchasing the Kindle DX is to replace the 2-6 technical books I’m always carrying in my backpack.
• I have little interest in buying ebooks through Amazon — wirelessly or from my computer. The book publishers I prefer all provide DRM-free ebooks through their web sites.
• The Kindle DX is preferred over other ebook readers because of its screen size and PDF rendering. I want the large screen size so that technical diagrams and software code listings will be clear and legible.
• Since I’m replacing huge technology books, not paperback novels, the additional weight of the DX over the Kindle 2 is not a concern. The DX is still lighter than nearly every book it replaces.
• My interest in the Kindle DX’s PDF rendering extends beyond books: there is a lot of material that is only available online (for example, Solaris Dynamic Tracing Guide and iPhone Human Interface Guidelines) that I want to take with me for reading while offline.

With that background established, let’s get to the important stuff!

Reading

The overall experience of reading ebooks on the Kindle DX is pleasant. It doesn’t start that way, though. I had to ditch the Amazon brand cover (see Accessorizing) and spend ten days tweaking the DX’s settings, adjusting my expectations, and improving my interactions before the Kindle DX finally started to “disappear” as I read. Finally.

Screen blink

When I started reading on the Kindle DX, I thought the screen blink was going to drive me nuts because it completely disrupted my rhythm. Within an hour, though, I didn’t notice it at all and I haven’t noticed it since. A little self-observation leads me to believe that I’ve learned an optimal time to click Next Page button and I’ve adapted my eye movement so that the content will be ready when my eyes arrive in the top left of the page. The salient point is that the adaptation occurs quickly and naturally — I did not have to consciously train myself.

Contrast

A slightly stronger contrast would help the Kindle DX “disappear” better. The contrast is best described as (you guessed it): good, but not great. Something about the dark gray text on the light gray-brown background is distracting every time I pick up the Kindle, although I consistently stop noticing it after a paragraph or two.

Landscape mode

As others have reported, the rotation might be a little over sensitive — the Kindle DX seems a little too eager to switch into landscape mode. It has not posed a problem (or even an an annoyance) yet, but if a future software update made it a little harder to switch into landscape, it wouldn’t hurt the user experience.

I thought I’d use landscape mode a lot more than I do. There is little advantage to landscape mode for books from the Kindle Store or MOBI books¹ and I don’t switch into landscape for PDF documents as much as I expected. Lack of an easy-to-press Next Page button when holding the device in this orientation may be partially to blame. A firmware update that allows the spacebar to be used as a Next Page button could help.

Is it bigger than a breadbox?

The Kindle DX is a little smaller than I expected based on its pictures and reviews. It is certainly thinner than I expected. Both of these were pleasant surprises.

The device is actually surprisingly light, which creates a very positive first impression. It is lighter than the hardcover edition of the first Harry Potter book. It is of comparable weight to Pragmatic Version Control Using Git and Pragmatic Thinking and Learning, if either of those are in your library. It is definitely lighter than most (all?) of the programming books on my shelves.

If weight were the only factor, the Kindle DX could be used one-handed, but make no mistake about it: this is a two-handed device.

Holding the Kindle one-handed for a couple of minutes, it becomes evident that the balance of the weight is off, prohibiting regular use of the device in this manner. Due to the placement of the Next Page button and the joystick, the natural placement of the right hand is at the very bottom right of the device. Unfortunately, the Kindle DX is relatively evenly weighted from top to bottom and left to right, so when I hold it by the right-bottom edge the full diagonal of the device is acting as a lever against my grip. It makes the Kindle DX feel much heavier than its true weight and my fingers and wrist quickly tire when gripping the Kindle DX this way.

Trying other locations to place my hand along the right edge of the device, I find that the midpoint is best in terms of weight and balance. Unfortunately, this places the Next Page button under my thumb’s carpometacarpal joint (where the thumb joins the wrist), making the button impossible to use. The joystick is below that and also impossible to use when the Kindle is held this way. The only control that is easy to manipulate from this position is the Home button.

I can switch the Kindle DX to my left hand (again, gripping the midpoint of the device feels best) which leaves the buttons available for manipulation by my right hand. This works, but still isn’t comfortable due to the aforementioned lever effect — even when my elbow is braced on a table or the arms of a chair. Moreover, I find that my right hand naturally wants to say gripping the device after I’ve clicked the Next Page button.

When both hands are gripping the DX, the natural placement of the right hand is still at the very bottom of the right edge to easily manipulate the Next Page button and joystick. Correspondingly, the grip of left hand slides upward near the top of the left edge so that the top of my thumb lines up with the top of the screen. This two-handed, offset grip makes the Kindle feel like a feather in my hands, but isn’t comfortable because of the asymmetry of my arms. Thus, I inevitably place my right hand in its natural position at the bottom of the right edge and my left hand opposite it. This makes the device feel heavier than it should, but beats all of the alternatives.

It would have been much nicer if most of the weight was at the bottom of the device so that it could be gripped with the both hands across from each other without tiring out my hands and wrists. I hazard to guess that a Kindle case that added dead weight to the bottom of the device might significantly improve overall experience in spite of increasing the overall weight of the system. It’s things like this lack of attention to the balance of weight in the device that gives me the overall impression that the Kindle DX engineering team was happy to get it working and make it look good, but never actually tried using from it for extended periods².

When taken together, the weight and balance of the Kindle DX are good, but not great.

PDFs

Everyone I know who is interested in the DX has one thing in mind: PDFs. There are three things to you need to understand about PDFs on the Kindle DX:

1. PDF files are rendered accurately and beautifully
2. Despite that, the overall experience of reading PDFs is lacking
3. When I have a document in both PDF and MOBI formats, I always read the MOBI version

PDFs are really stunning on the DX. You should have no concerns about PDFs rendering properly. Every PDF I have tried worked beautifully³. That said, the experience of reading PDFs varies greatly from file to file based on three factors: the PDF’s page size, use of serif typefaces, and use of text in colors other than black. Finally, important Kindle capabilities aren’t available while reading PDFs.

Page size

Before I had the DX in hand, I feared that shrinking PDFs to the DX’s portrait screen size would render them illegible. I imagined that rotating the Kindle DX to landscape would resolve the problem nicely. The good news is that it turns out that portrait mode is better than I imagined, so the need for landscape mode is minimized. Which is good, because the bad news is that landscape mode is not the panacea I imagined.

Text (except the fine print legalese) is always legible in portrait mode — small, but quite readable. I wouldn’t want to read lots of text that way, but it works. Rotating to landscape mode allows the page to be viewed in its original size⁴, but requires a lot of page flipping — enough to be a little annoying. This might be improved if the Kindle DX had a Next Page button within reach of a thumb when held in landscape, but it doesn’t. To move to the next screen, I have to carefully hold the entire device one-handed and move my other hand under it to click Next Page. Repeating this 3-4 times per minute feels like a disaster waiting to happen. This makes landscape essentially unusable for more than a couple of pages.

I hold out hope that a future firmware update will allow the spacebar to be used as a Next Page button when the device is oriented for landscape. It would improve the utility of the landscape feature immensely.

Wispy serif typefaces

Serif typefaces with significant line contrast appear wispy and give the impression of being rendered one or two shades of gray lighter than their true darkness. The smaller the text, the more pronounced the effect. I imagine this is related to the anti-aliasing engine in use. It is noticeable in both portrait and landscape orientations and is not related to page scaling. (PDFs created with a page size matching the Kindle DX screen size show the same behavior as PDFs rendered for traditional page sizes.) Since larger text is less affected than smaller text, rotating to landscape can be used to improve the legibility of any particularly bad passages.

Transitional serifs (Baskerville, Times New Roman) and modern serifs (Bodoni, Didot) are the most severely impacted. This is unfortunately because it seems that most PDF content relies heavily on them; e.g., the PDFs from Sun and Apple make extensive use of these typefaces. Old style serifs (Garamond, Palatino) tend to fair well; slab serifs (Bitstream Vera, Rockwell) are actually very attractive on the DX.

Every sans-serif typeface I’ve seen so far in a PDF has looked good. As an example, the 2009 IRS W-4 form makes an exceptional demonstration of the Kindle DX’s PDF capabilities.

A Kindle software update that tweaked the antialiasing of fonts would resolve this.

Text in colors other than black

Text that is not rendered in black — such as the red, hyperlinked Table of Contents entries in PDFs from the Pragmatic Programmers — renders as a very light shade of gray. Such text is exceptionally hard to read. Fortunately, colored text is not often used in the PDFs I’ve viewed on the Kindle.

It would help if the Kindle DX had a high contrast or pure black & white rendering option for PDFs. Accurate shading has its place, but it’s not paramount in all situations. A software update in the future could address this.

Interaction

The Kindle DX’s rendering of PDFs is really impressive, but everything else about its handling of PDFs is, put generously, incomplete.

The most glaring problem with PDF books is that the Kindle does not use the PDF’s table of contents. Do you want to jump to chapter 8? Congratulations, you’re our next contestant on the Guess the Page Number game. Enterprising readers might take note of page containing the printed table of contents and jump to there to lookup the correct page number. Hopefully, Amazon will address this with a software update in the near future.

I can understand why notes don’t work with PDFs⁵. What I don’t understand is why bookmarking isn’t available. Searching works, though, and is another way to jump to different parts of the document; i.e., search for “Chapter 8”.

Cross-links within the PDF cannot be used. When you read a sentence like “We will talk a lot more about the classes that Core Data provides to make this job easier in Section 10.5” where “10.5” is a link to that section, it would be really nice to have the option of jumping to that section. Or when you’re browsing through the printed table of contents, it would be nice to click on an entry and jump to that chapter. (This is doubly true since, as mentioned, the PDF metadata about the document’s outline is ignored.) Finally, when reading research papers it is inexcusable that the linked endnotes cannot be reviewed by clicking the link (which would allow the Back button to return the reader to the original page).

Finally, very large PDFs (such as Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails, 3rd ed, 20MB) cause the Kindle to grind to a halt. They are simply unusable.

PDF versus MOBI

Most of the books I have on my Kindle DX today are from the Pragmatic Programmers. Purchasing an ebook from the PragProg site gives you access to a PDF, a MOBI, and an EPUB. The Kindle DX can read PDF and MOBI files, so I’ve put all of my PragProg titles on the DX in both formats. Initially, I expected to read the books as PDFs, but I quickly found that experience unsatisfying. This is partially due to the behaviors and limitations discussed above, but it is partially due to the fact the Pragmatic Programmer’s PDFs are just horrible for reading on the Kindle DX.

For standard PragProg books, the block of text on the page is slightly smaller than 5×8 inches (or 5.4×8 inches if you include the section numbers offset to the left). That would be perfect for the Kindle DX’s screen, which is a fraction smaller than 5.5×8 inches. The problem is that the PragProg books put banners on the top and bottom of each page so that the Kindle DX cannot crop off the margins and focus on the text. (The Kindle DX is smart enough to crop out the empty margins surrounding the document’s content.) So instead of reading the text, code, and diagrams in their original size, nicely laid out with PragProg’s distinctive typesetting (ahem), I’m squinting and developing a headache when I read for more than a few pages. Hence my switch to the MOBI format.

Closing thoughts on PDF

There is nothing wrong with PDFs on the Kindle DX that cannot be fixed by an update to the Kindle’s software (firmware?). When Amazon addresses these problems, I will have no hesitation in recommending the device — even at its current, staggering price point. However, now that a member of the Kindle family supports PDFs, publishers have an opportunity to maintain their branding (typography, layout) within their ebooks by publishing PDFs optimized for the Kindle DX (page size, contrast) and I have high hopes that savvy publishers will take advantage of this. Even without the software updates I’d like to see from Amazon, if PragProg and O’Reilly provided Kindle DX-optimized PDFs I would be able to recommend the DX to others whose interests in the DX match mine.

Accessorizing

Here is everything you need to know about covers for the Kindle DX: avoid the Amazon-brand leather carrying case at all costs!

I did not start to like my Kindle DX until I ditched the Amazon cover. Let me emphasize that because it is so important: I did not start to even like my Kindle DX until I stopped using Amazon’s cover for it.

The Amazon cover pushes the overall weight of the Kindle DX above some critical threshold where it’s simply not enjoyable to pick up, much less hold for extended periods. The cover doesn’t fold back well, increasing the discomfort of holding the device even more. It has two strong magnets on the center of the right edge — to hold the case close, I guess — but I’m not happy with strong magnets going in my backpack next to my laptop. Additionally, the magnets cause the cover to snap closed, which occasionally clicks the Back Page button. The materials and craftsmanship of the cover are an embarrassment for Amazon and certainly nowhere near worth $50. While the cover is strong and I would reasonably expect it to protect the Kindle DX’s screen if a cat walked on it, it affords no protection against drops. And did I mention that it’s unbearably heavy?

I have to imagine that anyone else’s Kindle DX cover will be a better value. I chose the Kindle DX Slip Case from WaterField and I’m very pleased with it. It is nicely padded for drop protection, provides a stiff surface to protect the screen, and — this was a pleasant surprise — it is so light and thin that I don’t bother putting is aside when reading; I usually just hold it behind the DX and it’s still immensely more pleasurable than the Amazon cover. It was such a pleasure to do business with Gary at WaterField and I’m so impressed with the quality and value of their product that I’ve already started spec’ing one of their cases for my MacBook Air (to be purchased at some distant point in the future).

Endnotes

¹ Readers who prefer the two largest text sizes on the device may have a better reading experience in landscape mode since it allows more words to be displayed per line.

² If you’ve owned a recent Ford sedan, you’ll recognize the feeling.

³ Blog Kindle has a good article on the Kindle DX’s PDF rendering, including TeX equations (work flawlessly) and features from later PDF versions such as 3D modeling (no joy, but who expected that?).

⁴ Or nearly so, depending on the page’s margins.

⁵ Text selection is so difficult in PDFs that Apple makes a big deal about Mac OS X 10.6 being able to determine column layout in PDFs and only select the appropriate text.

We are very fortunate, but we know that our story didn’t have to turn out so well. For many newborns, premature birth is just the beginning of a long struggle for survival, where every breath is a small victory. For many families, a premature birth is an incredible and lasting emotional and financial hardship.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The March of Dimes is working to ensure that one day all babies will be born healthy. After successfully supporting the development of two vaccines against polio in the 1950s, the March of Dimes refocused its charitable infrastructure to serve mothers and babies with a new mission: to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. The organization accomplishes this with programs of research, community services, education, and advocacy, along with the annual March for Babies.

My daughter’s first birthday was made possible by research funded by the March of Dimes. Help me in supporting the March of Dimes during this year’s March for Babies so that more children can see their first birthdays. Donate any amount by visiting http://www.marchforbabies.org/dlkinney0603 or clicking on the March for Babies badge to the right (if you are viewing this on my web site).

Best regards,
David

In my mind, the database has gone from being the most important thing to being just a method of persistence for the data in the domain model.

I believe that this revelation, which more and more developers are having, will be very healthy for application design.

It will probably also be very bad for RDBMS companies. But RDBMS vendors can take comfort in the fact there will always be a place for relational databases in projects that have strongly-typed and well-structured data for which consistency is more important than availability.¹ MySQL might prove me wrong, though — they seem to be doing some lateral thinking. I have to applaud any RDBMS vendor that is willing to promote a session entitled SQL is dead at its conference.²

¹ No, I can’t think of any examples, either.

² Again with the sensational titles. Of course, SQL is not really dead — Amazon’s addition of a SQL-like syntax to SimpleDB shows that there is a significant demand for a familiar (if not quite standard) query language.

• screen -ls (list screens)
• screen -r (reattach)
• Ctl-A c (new screen)
• Ctl-A A (rename screen)
• Ctl-A <num> (switch to screen)
• Ctl-A d (detach)
• Ctl-A M (monitor for activity)
• Ctl-A _ (monitor for silence)

After getting those commands under my belt, I was very impressed and I use screen all the time now. However, a lot of Screen’s power comes from the customization of Screen through its startup files. Good information about startup files is scattered across the web, so I’ll share what I’ve put together.

Below is my ~/.screenrc file, compiled from the information at softpanorama, from Matt Cutts, from the Screen FAQ, and from the Screen manual’s command list. I’m using this on Ubuntu 8.10 servers over at Slicehost and on my MacOSX 10.5 laptop.

UPDATE: Added more comments around the termcapinfo setting that enables scrollbars to work as expected.

# For a complete list of available commands, see http://bit.ly/jLtj

# Message to display in the status line when activity is detected in a
# monitored window.
activity              "activity in %n (%t) [%w:%s]~"

# Detach session on hangup instead of terminating screen completely.
autodetach            on              # default: on

# When a bell character is sent to a background window, screen displays a
# notification in the message line. The notification message can be re-defined
# by this command.
bell_msg              "bell     in %n (%t) [%w:%s]~"

# This command controls the display of the window captions. Normally a caption
# is only used if more than one window is shown on the display.
caption               always          "%{= kw}%?%-Lw%?%{+b kw}%n*%t%f %?(%u)%?%{= kw}%?%+Lw%?"

# Select line break behavior for copying.
crlf                  off             # default: off

# Select default utmp logging behavior.
#deflogin              off             # default: on

# Set default lines of scrollback.
defscrollback         3000            # default: 100

# If set to 'on', screen will append to the 'hardcopy.n' files created by the
# command hardcopy; otherwise, these files are overwritten each time.
hardcopy_append       on              # default: off

# This command configures the use and emulation of the terminal's hardstatus
# line. The type 'lastline' will reserve the last line of the display for the
# hardstatus. Prepending the word 'always' will force screen to use the type
# even if the terminal supports a hardstatus line.
hardstatus            alwayslastline  "%{+b kr}[ %H ] %{ky} Load: %l %-=%{kb} %c  %Y.%m.%d"
msgwait               15

# Set message displayed on pow_detach (when HUP is sent to screen's parent
# process).
pow_detach_msg        "BYE"

# Set the default program for new windows.
shell                 bash

# Default timeout to trigger an inactivity notify.
silencewait           30              # default: 30

# Change text highlighting. See http://bit.ly/11RDGZ
sorendition           gK

# Do NOT display copyright notice on startup.
startup_message       off             # default: on

# Set $TERM for new windows. I have more luck with 'linux' than Terminal's
# default 'xterm-color' (^H problems). Comment out to use the default.
term                  linux

# Tweak termcap, terminfo, and termcapinfo  entries for best performance.
termcap               linux           'AF=\E[3%dm:AB=\E[4%dm'
termcap               xterm-color     'AF=\E[3%dm:AB=\E[4%dm'
terminfo              linux           'AF=\E[3%p1%dm:AB=\E[4%p1%dm'
terminfo              xterm-color     'AF=\E[3%p1%dm:AB=\E[4%p1%dm'

# Allow xterm / Terminal scrollbars to access the scrollback buffer. This
# enables the behavior you'd expect, instead of losing the content that scrolls
# out of the window.
termcapinfo           linux           ti@:te@
termcapinfo           xterm-color     ti@:te@

# Use visual bell instead of audio bell.
vbell                 on              # default: ???

# Message to be displayed when the visual bell is triggered.
vbell_msg             " *beep* "

• CouchDB on MacOSX Leopard
• Flex 3 addChild() and initialize()
• iPhone OpenGL ES [UPDATED]
• Tivo Series2 First Setup Without Phone Line
• TypePad and SquareSpace

What strikes me about this list is that the subjects are very diverse, but thematically they are all help guides: I have learned something and I share it in hopes that it will be useful to other people. Look for more entries like that in the coming months.

Finish reading Pragmatic Thinking and Learning I haven’t picked up the book yet this year.
On target? No

Learn Erlang and develop at least one non-trivial application with it I have read a few more chapters about Erlang, but I couldn’t read or write a serious Erlang application.
On target? No

Learn git and use it exclusive on at least one project I have read the PragProg book and I now have a personal project for which I’m using git exclusively and hosting as a private project on GitHub.
On target? Complete!

Learn Mercurial (hg) and use it exclusively on at least one project I haven’t looked at hg at all
On target? No

Learn OpenSolaris and adopt it as a part-time development platform I have “two”: books and VM instance of it, but I don’t think that I will make serious progress learning OpenSolaris until I install it as the primary OS on a workstation
On target? No

Learn dtrace and other application performance analysis tools, and use them to improve the performance of at least one solution I develop I have read about a third of Sun’s DTrace guide, but I haven’t been using the knowledge on anything so it’s slipping away from me.
On target? Yes

Learn enough about Nagios for basic system monitoring I haven’t started on this yet, but it has shuffled up a little on my priority list now that I have a VPS
On target? Yes

Play with CouchDB Haven’t touched it. Haven’t even read the book going up online.
On target? No

Spend serious time learning EC2, running instances, monitoring them, respawning them, and so on — get comfortable in the cloud I have already spent a lot more time spinning up and working in EC2 instances than I did in all of 2008, but only for experimenting and profiling — basically using EC2 to avoid buying another computer for my home. However, I have started using Slicehost for VPS. It’s not utility computing and it’s not really cloud computing, but it’s moving in that direction.
On target? No

Significantly contribute to at least one open source project I haven’t even picked an open source project to which I want to contribute. I had considered Adobe Alchemy, but it’s not OSS.
On target? No

Write 80 or more articles for this blog over the course of 2009 This is only my fourth post this year.
On target? No

So there I am. How are you doing on your new year’s resolutions?