books

On Friday night, I was over at Santana Row in San Jose, just across the street from the Apple Store at the Westfield Valley Fair mall.

I could have gone over there and bought a copy of Leopard, Apple's new Mac OS X version 10.5, but I didn't, for two reasons. First, I didn't need to-- I'm a member of the Apple Developer Connection (ADC), so I'll get a copy anyway, eventually. Second, I don't intend to install Leopard right away.

This isn't like my decision not to buy an iPhone. I … Read more

The publisher Hachette Book Group USA, a member of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), has decided to go with the digital publishing organization's recommended standard for distributing books in digital format.

Starting with its December 2007 launch titles, HBG plans to release its bestsellers in the .epub eBook format, the company announced Friday.

The .epub is an XML file format for reflowable digital books that includes Open Publication Structure (OPS), Open Packaging Format (OPF) and Open Container Format (OCF).

Hachette claims to be the first book publisher in the U.S. to adopt the .epub format. It also … Read more

Kristina Nielsen has a growing collection of recipes, culled from friends, family members, magazines, books, Web sites and the occasional food package label. She keeps some of them in a binder and some loosely shoved in a drawer; some are neatly printed, some hastily scribbled on notes. Others live online in her recipe boxes on various sites. Together they represent the culmination of the 10 years she's spent learning how to cook new dishes. Now, a company called TasteBook wants to take Kristina's recipe collection--and those of amateur chefs like her--into the 21st century.

TasteBook, which plans to … Read more

Intuit is making the 2008 version of its entry-level small-business accounting product, QuickBooks Simple Start Edition, free. Previous full versions of the program sold for $99.95, and "more than 300,000 businesses" use the product. So why give it away?

Intuit's pitch is that it wants to encourage entrepreneurs to take the plunge and launch their dream businesses, and removing the $100 barrier to basic accounting software is its way of proving it. Alongside the launch of the 2008 version, there's a new "Just Start" marketing campaign and contest, in which one person … Read more

Investors put in $16 million more into E-Ink in the latest effort to get the e-book ball rolling.

That brings the total that the small company has raised to $150 million, according to VentureWire. The market, however, has yet to take flight. Everyone loves the idea. E-books don't consume trees and you can carry several books at once. Some believe that college textbooks will go this way.

Still, no one seems to be buying them yet. The most prominent product to use the company's technology is the Sony Reader, an electronic book from the Japanese giant. Sony has … Read more

The latest news from the Mac rumor sites says that closely following the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple will also announce an update to the MacBook product line. Sources speculate that the update won't include major changes to the MacBook but will probably mean a small increase to processor speed. Early reports indicate this upgrade may not happen until November.

While a little extra processing power is never a bad thing, the reason we shouldn't expect a major speed boost is because Apple doesn't want the MacBook line to bite into MacBook Pro … Read more

Nothing gets tongues wagging more than new products (or updates of existing products) from Apple. With the new Leopard operating system set to hit store shelves on October 26, the online rumor mill claims Apple is planning a series of small tweaks to its popular MacBooklaptop series.

According to ThinkSecret: "Sources believe the MacBook update will not be too substantial, instead mirroring a similar speed bump the systems received last November ahead of the holiday buying season." That likely means a bump from the current CPU speed choices of 2.0/2.16GHz to 2.16/2.33GHz. … Read more

MacBook Pro owners are apparently having trouble supplying power to their computers both from the battery and from the wall.

AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is getting ready to introduce new 85-watt MagSafe adapters for MacBook Pros following a litany of complaints about fraying cables on the adapters. When they were first introduced, most customers liked the idea of flexible cables that would detach from the computer if subjected to excessive stress, preventing your nice laptop from flying across the floor of the coffee shop when somebody trips over the cord.

However, the flexibility of the power cable has caused … Read more

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned an outfit called Computer Choppers that will adorn your MacBook in 24k gold and, for an additional fee, a diamond-studded Apple logo. The company's site had only a few teaser shots at the time, but now they've done a full fashion shoot with a final product.

As gawdy as the whole idea may sound, you've got to view the finished work--inside and out--to make a final judgment. As we thought with the 18k gold Shuffle and the 24k iPod, there's something visually stunning about Midas-touched Apple products, … Read more