This is not first time I get discount from Amazon, I got one or two vouchers worth 5 EURO or so before, but this time it total rocked, a total discount on 25% on ALL books I order. This is just because I live in Switzerland and am ordering from Amazon in Germany. Thanks a lot.

I had a few books marked as “wishes” so I went ahead and fine tuned that a bit but damn, it was hard not to go total crazy.

So let’s see what I ended up with…

Bold Visions: A Digital Painting Bible by Gary Tonge

Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de

This book just HAD to be the first one to be mentioned. I have worked together with the author on some game projects in the past and he always impressed me with his talent. His illustrations of space are fantastic and I have several times been close to order some of them as posters. I strongly suggest that you visit his web site to view the art he creates –> Vision Afar Also visit his section on DeviantART to view more of his creations.

Time for some Poker books

I have recently started playing poker again and with this great option from Amazon I saw a good chance to extend my poker book collection.

Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen

Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de

The book by Gus Hansen is a pre-order, for some reason it is not out here yet; this is one I will be looking forward to sit with a coffee and read about the hands he played when he became the 2007 Aussie Millions Champion. I do wonder if the book will be as interesting as when you watch Gus Hansen play. This book is also been translated into German: Hand für Hand

Poker Wizards: Wizdom from the World’s Top No-Limit Hold’em Poker Players

Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de

So yet another poker book with parts written by some of the most known (and best) Poker players in the world, to mention a few: Daniel Negreanu, Dan Harrington, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Gus Hansen. I do have other books that have chapters written by some of these authors/players and I enjoyed them a lot. So one more to look forward to.

Sit ‘n Go Strategy by Collin Moshman

Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de

The sub-title of this book is Expert Advice for Beating One-Table Poker Tournaments. Since this is one of my favorite games I thought it might be a good read; get some more tips and tricks and fine tune my strategy, or at least get a strategy :-)

Time for some Game Development books

It has been years since I bought books that covered programming or game development but there have been a few books that I had on my wish list for some time. They will probably be helpful in connection with my work and I’m pretty sure I could have gotten them through work but I do want them for my own home library.

Game Programming Gems 6 and 7

Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de

Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de

Game Programming Gems 6 and 7 are the two latest books in this series but that does not mean I have them all; actually these are the first two for my collection. I have often looked at the earlier books in book stores or at game conferences but never got around to buy them. I’m sure that part 1 to 5 also will find a place here at some stage.

3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development

Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de

I never been a wizard when it comes to math but always wanted to learn more of it and be able to use it without having to look up every bit on the internet. This will also be very good for the current project I’m working on as it is very heavy on 3D. So time to get that sorted out.

Time to wait for the books

Some of the books ordered above will be arriving soon; some will take weeks which actually suits me fine. If I received all the books at the same time then I would probably just get confused about where to start. When getting them over a longer time they will keep me busy and keep me away from Amazon :-) No need to order more books for some time.

Share This

I wrote a while back about my experience with reading and then watching “The Golden Compass” (See my post about this) as mentioned there I was going to order the books and read them before the movies are out (Just don’t have time to wait). It turned out to be a bit of a challenge at the start…

As mentioned earlier; I wasn’t that happy about how the first book got turned into a movie. One big issue was how the ending of the movie which didn’t follow the book at all. This became an issue when I started reading the second book (The Subtle Knife) as I often was thinking about how bad the ending of the movie was fitting the start of the book.

This is of course not an issue if you just read all the books after each other without mixing in the movie; and probably also not an issue when you watch all the movies without knowing about the books. I don’t know how many times I thought about it, how the stories misalign and how they will get around it with the second movie.

After I got over this phase I was really able to enjoy the book; actually I got pretty caught up in it and continued to the third book right after the second. When starting the last book (The Amber Spyglass) I of course didn’t have any issue with how the second book ended and the third one started.

So in the end I ended up with long evenings (became night time) where I would be reading; same when I had lunch or dinner, always had one of the books with me. I could very well imagine that I will be reading them all 3 again at some stage, maybe some time after the last two movies.

Do not do the same mistake as when a good friend of mine recommended them to me, I didn’t read it until LONG after. His own comments to my first post about the book/movie:

Well I read the 3 books a long time ago and again you didn’t care listening to me when I told you those books where brilliant.

So I can highly recommend the books; even if you already saw the first movie. So I suggest that you head over to one of the Amazons and get the book right away. Enjoy (I’m sure you will).

Northern Light / The Golden Compass. Author: Philip Pullman.

Amazon.com	Amazon.co.uk	Amazon.de

The Subtle Knife. Author: Philip Pullman.

Amazon.com	Amazon.co.uk	Amazon.de

The Amber Spyglass. Author: Philip Pullman.

Amazon.com	Amazon.co.uk	Amazon.de

Share This

This is not a review nor does it contain any spoilers.

The Golden Compass (IMDb) (Trailers)

Amazon.com	Amazon.co.uk	Amazon.de

I wanted to see The Golden Compass ever since I saw the very first trailer and I finally got around to watch it yesterday. I had already read the book in December 2007 and have now realized that that was a bad idea. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is good, some might even say great but the book is just so much beyond the movie.

One thing to keep in mind is that the book was rewritten/changed so it fits better to the big screen. This is also reflected in the name change from “Northern Lights” to “The Golden Compass” so maybe it is unfair to expect the movie to follow the book 100%.

This happens to most books that make it to the cinema; even Lord of The Rings had changes but none that I found disturbing. In Golden Compass it sometimes feels a bit like that things just happens without any explanation which is way better described in the book. It even ended earlier than in the book but maybe this makes sense when considering the next 2 movies.

The movie lasts 113 minutes so this would also be a reason that parts weren’t included. Maybe there will be a special Directors Cut on DVD. About getting the movie on DVD, I will consider it, also so the kids can get a chance to watch it but they are too young to understand it now.

So in case you are considering to watching movie then I recommend you do so; BUT do it before you read the book.

Time for me to order the other books and get them read before the movie continues. Oh, yeah, I’m doing the same mistake again but waiting for the movie is just out of the question for me.

Share This

So let me give you my impression of the Kindle. I will also explain why it is impossible for me to get :-(

If any of you have had some experience with the Kindle then please leave a few comments about what you think about it and if it is worth getting.

Interesting product for readers

I have to admit that Kindle have lots of great features that I really like. Such as been able to buy and get a book delivered instant. Imaging you are stuck at a train station for hours, going on a flight, staying at a hotel or just feeling like reading a book. Then start the Kindle, access the online store, find the book, buy it, receive it and just read. Delivery is happening instantly to your reading device. At the same time this would be for a lower price than most places here in Switzerland.

Also been able to read blogs at any time is a great feature, again, reading them in the train on the way to work, in the living room, down at the lawn. No need to boot up the PC to see what is happening in the blog world.

It is possible to receive news papers to the Kindle but this feature is less important for me, as I don’t really read newspapers (Why read them when I got blogs and the internet!!!).

It is also possible to subscribe to magazines and get them delivered directly to the Kindle. Right now they only list 8 magazines; I hope this will go up over time. I would not mind getting Dr Dobbs.

Audiobooks from Amazon are also supported by the Kindle; I will not comment on this feature as I never bought any audio books so I don’t know how useful it would be. These are NOT delivered by the wireless system but have to be converted to the Kindle by USB.

Transfer a Word documents to the Kindle is pretty awesome if you ask me; I would love to be able to take work related material with me any where I go. Same with technical documents; no more printing, just tell Amazon to update the Kindle with a Word doc. Then go to bed and read it. Files can also be converted manually, see below.

Pricing for services

Amazon Kindle uses EVDO for the wireless transfer which means it operates as a cell phone (mobile phone for us here in Europe). Often people would expect that they need to sign up for some data contract and then get monthly bills, but this is not the case, Amazon handles those charges. This is a bit of a surprise to me but a good one.

Sure they will charge for some usage. Here are some examples:

• Blogs are priced from $0.99 pr month: TechCrunchat $1.99, ProBloggerat $0.99 and Slashdotat $1.99.
• News papers are priced monthly: The New York Timesis priced at $13.99, Le Mondeat $14.99
• Magazines are also priced monthly: Timeat $1.99
• Word documents are priced at $0.10 only; Seems there are no size limitation so getting 200 page document would cost the same as a 1 page document.(HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, BMP and a few other formats are also supported).

I have no idea how the prices for news papers and magazines compare to the normal price in the US but I find them pretty fair.

Convert your own documents for free

It took a bit time before I found out what the USB can be used for. It is actually possible to get Word documents (and the other file formats that are supported) converted for free. This is done by just emailing the document to a special email address and shortly after the converted document is received by normal email. I consider this a GREAT feature; you can convert the documents yourself if you want to avoid the $0.10 fee but at the same time you can ask people to email you a Word document directly to the Kindle, so even if you are not in the office you will still be able to receive the latest documentation.

Some issues

Of course it is not all without problems.

Currently the PDF file format is not fully supported; it is in an experimental state right now. So some PDF files might work but there might be issues with some formatting. I really hope they get this sorted so they can provide full PDF support. Lot’s of documentation are in PDF files these days so not supporting PDF would be an issue (at least for me).

No support for doing notes. I would have loved a small simple application for taking notes; the device already have QWERTY keyboard so why not let people use it for making notes.

Blog support: Been able to support blogs for a very small fee of just $0.99 pr month (some at $1.99) is GREAT but not all blogs are supported; such as this blog is not supported. Amazon are currently supporting 310 blogs which should cover most areas but it would be great if this could be extended without having to wait for Amazon to include the blogs (I wonder if the blog owners receives any % of the monthly subscription).

DRM (Digital Rights Management): It is not surprised that all books/material from Amazon is using a DRM system but this might be an issue for some people; will you be able to read the books in 20 years when the Kindle is broken down and Amazon might stop the support. To be honest; I got no issue with DRM and the Kindle; just as I don’t have a problem with DRM and iTunes/iPod.

Summary and the BIG Issue

I would seriously consider getting a Kindle ASAP as I do like the idea behind the product and find it a very flexible system for reading books, blogs and documentation. Sure I mentioned some issues above but none of them are so important that they would stop me from getting one.

Costs would be an issue; the Kindle is priced at $399 at the moment. It might drop in price later but for now it is a bit expensive. I would have an issue with deciding what blogs to subscribe to; but I doubt it would set me back more than $5-$10 pr month.

THE biggest issue of them all; which are also the reason why I will not be getting a Kindle is very simple: It is only for the US market. This might come as a surprise for some but wasn’t a bit surprise for me. The network they use for the data (EDVO) is US only at the moment and just imagine that Amazon wanted to release this product world wide; how many network operators (Carries for the US people) would they have to arrange deals with!!!

What I would hope for in the near future is a Kindle WiFi which would require some local hotspot (such as Starbucks or the WiFi at work or at home), maybe even an offline only Kindle would be possible. This would require all data to be synced over the USB but it would still work for me.

So until Amazon releases a product for us here in Europe we can just sit back and dream and read all the reviews from the US.

Share This

Of course this is not for real, but I just received the 9th poker book to my collection and do check the title of it Earn $30,000 per Month Playing Online Poker: A Step-By-Step Guide to Single Table Tournaments.That sure does sound promising, right?

The title almost sounds like an online scam and due to my skepticism I’m very skeptic :-)

I had a quick read through the book when I had lunch (only 120 pages) and it actually does look alright. The book assumes that the reader knows about Poker (fair enough), only 2 pages about poker odds. It is most of all a strategic system that can be used for single table tournaments. They also write about various hand/player tracking software, so that’s something that can’t be used offline.

The plan is not to use their system 100% (yet) but I will read through the book a few times and then evaluate if I should give it a try. Just need to get some other online poker sorted first (for some bonus) before I might have time for it.

I will report back if the system in the book really works.

Share This

• The Wiz Biz and Wiz Biz II by Rick Cook
• Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
• The Swarm by Frank Schätzing
• The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan
• Age of the Five Trilogy by Trudi Canavan

To read the mini reviews just go over to my Hub.

People might wonder why I suddenly blog on HubPages and not directly here. I will do a post later today about HubPages and how I plan to use them. Feel free to check out my profile page on HubPages, just click here

Share This

Share This