In the Arms of Strangers

Ereading devices are not the right tool for consuming a weighty novel, we’ve established the negatives of reading on your phone/pda already. Electronic book reading devices do have positive attributes however, and it’s these positives which should guide the type of content you read.

Romance and Erotic fiction are popular ebooks (and audiobooks) partly because no one knows what you are reading. The embarrassment of publicly reading a Mills & Boon on the bus is removed because no one can tell. But there are other reasons for reading on an electronic device than camouflage.

Your mobile phone is almost always with you and it’s this ubiquity which renders it perfect for dipping into a book. From a five minute queue in the Post Office through to a half hour commute on the bus, short story collections, novelettes and poetry are ideal mobile reads. These formats were designed to be consumed in small chunks after all.

As usual, a dig around the intertubes unearths an enormous amount of low quality, self published dross to filter, but I have found a few sites with reasonable short-form content.

Little Electronic Reads

There is a wealth of low quality poetry out there (shock), one site I did find was Poemhunter.com which has a fair selection of free ‘classics’ in .pdf format. This highlights, of course, a valid argument against flexible ebook formats for poetry. When a poem relies on format to convey meaning or regulate meter, line length in particular is important. It’s this ‘hard formatting’ which would be lost if the were consumed on devices with narrow screens. As for other sources, both Ebook.com and Manybooks.net have dedicated poetry sections with reasonable, if not exactly modern, selections.

As for short reads; I stumbled across some Harlan Ellison short story collections on websubscriptions.net which fit around fifteen stories into a £3 download. Each story is about 50 pages of Mobipocket on the N95, a perfect length for mobile reading. Manybooks.net and Fictionwise have short story sections of their site (though most of Fictionwise appears to be erotic short stories).

There is a bunch of short-form content out there. It may not be modern, but short-stories and poetry ebooks are ideal content for ereading devices.

Clearleft have thrown their hat into the UX software ring with their new release Silverback. Usability software is pretty much owned by the behemoth that is Morae. A powerful–but bloated–PC only application that is pure misery to use. If you’re after quick-and-dirty UX testing on the Mac you were best to use a piece of screen recording software and that space currently occupied by Screenflow from Vara Software.

On the surface these two apps perform a very similar job; recording the screen, recording the user (via microphone and isight/webcam) and allowing simple video publishing to analyze and publish the result. Screenflow approach this from a screencasting perspective and Silverback from a UX testing perspective but they cover similar ground. In what may interest UX people, I’ve put them head to head:

Silverback is a ‘proper’ user testing application, recordings are set up as projects, each user can have notes added, and most importantly, every click is highlighted in the video with an orange blob. They’ve also come up with some neat innovations using the Apple remote to unobtrusively mark events or pause the recording. Lovely stuff.

What you end up with at the end of a session is a video file with a picture in picture display of the iSight recording (you can set the size and position, but it’s set for the duration of the recording). The video quality isn’t amazingly smooth, but you don’t need HD quality when you’re gathering usability feedback. You also don’t have any of the post-recording controls such as cropping, zooming, highlighting etc which Screenflow is oozing with.

Screenflow has all the whizz-bang of a very expensive video editing application (the motion blurs and reflections are ridiculous fun) and as a screencasting application I think it’s the market leader on the Mac. But it isn’t designed to record perhaps the most important part of a usabilty test; mouse clicks. Silverback doesn’t have the frills, but it’s the right tool for the job; a lightweight Morae. It has all the stuff you want, none of the bloat and at a fraction of the cost. I’d recommend it to anyone looking at user testing their websites and applications.

Ordered by novice tips first.

1. Keep your tyres hard. Hand held pumps are a waste of time and effort. You want your clinchers to be up around 100psi and that’s only really possible with a track pump. Soft tyres with suck your energy and increase the likelihood of punctures. Check them before every ride.

2. Get cycling shoes. Cycling shoes have a firm sole which means all the power you put hrough your legs is transferred into your pedal. Soft shoes flex, which results in a loss of power and strained ankles. Shoe brands are a personal preference based on the shape of your foot and your choice of fastener. I prefer Sidi’s and the snowboard style ratchets.

3. Get cleats. If you’re fixed to your pedal you can produce a far more efficient action, you’ll be faster on the flat and quicker up the hills. Take a look at the proper way to pedal and you’ll see it’s pretty much impossible without cleats.

Cleats again are a personal choice, but I’ve found Looks are easy to click in and they’re pretty easy to walk on. The drawback of Looks is that they are single sided so you have to flick them over when you start off. SPDs seem ok but I didn’t like the small base. Speedplays feel nice and light but they wear out really quickly so end up expensive.

If you think you’ll be walking a lot in your cycling shoes, consider mountain bike shoes and mountain bike cleats. These are recessed into the shoe and you end up with a rubber sole to walk on. They’re heavier than road shoes so that’s your compromise.

4. Buy gas canisters. When you’re on the road the easiest (and quickest) way to recover from a puncture is to use a Co2 gas canister. Small and lighter than a standard pump you simply press the canister to the valve and twist to inflate a tyre in just a few seconds. I’d recommend the 9mm threaded variety combined with a nano microflate.

5. Clean and oil your chain often. Sounds stupid but a dirty (or rusty) chain will sap a lot of energy. I neglected my bike when I first started riding and I didn’t realise how much it would effect the ride quality. I use a self cleaning oil called White Lightning.

6. Rule of thirds. If you’re buying a new bike, split your budget into three; spend a third on the frame, third on the wheels and a third on everything else. Frame and wheels make the biggest difference to speed, weight and ride quality, you’ll never notice the difference between the mid and top range of components.

7. Buy cycling clothes. Wearing lycra might make you a little self conscious, but cycling clothing is designed to improve comfort, reduce drag and wick sweat. Start with some decent shorts with a good quality chamois (Assos bib shorts are expensive, but best) then go for jerseys and gloves. If you ride in the UK invest in a good fitting rain jacket and some overshoes. Riding wet is no fun.

8. Drink. If you’re riding for 30 minutes or more you’ll need fluids. Get a bottle and fill it with either squash or weak energy drink. Energy drinks are an acquired taste (and not really important until you start riding longer milages) so experiment to determine what you like. My personal favourite is PSP22.

9. Don’t forget to eat. If you’re riding longer than 2 hours you’ll need to eat. I never feel hungry when I ride but if I don’t eat I’ll hit the wall without any warning. Get a few energy bars (such as Cliff bars) or cakes and put them in your back pockets. Gels are for a more intense burst of energy which you only need to care about on super-long rides or races.

10. Get a computer with cadence. A cycling computer (speedometer) is obligatory, but rather than invest in a heart rate monitor I’d recommend a cadence equipped computer (I ride a Cateye v2 wireless). Recording your cadence will enable to you monitor the speed of your pedaling to keep a smooth, consistent rhythm. I find this a far more accurate measure of my performance than just the speed.

Geeks on Bikes returned with their first ‘proper’ release, a jaunt from Pub on the Park in London Fields to Richmond Park.

Six of us road out (Lindsey, Brad, Amanda, Marques, Ben and myself) this morning and although I managed to mess up the route a little (a lot) we all made it to Richmond park for beer, burgers and mild geekery.

We’ll try and arange more frequent Geeks on Bikes over the Summer to make the most of weather and to get as much cycling in before I move to the USA. If you’re interested in joining the next one, just get in touch or look out for it on Upcoming.

Two items ticked off the “things to ride” list completed this weekend, I rode the London to Paris and took on some of the cobbles along the Paris-Roubaix.

L2P was a fantastic event, 363 miles from Hampton Court to the Eiffel Tower completed in three ten hour in the saddle days. Considering there were riders ranging from Stephen Roche at one end to weekend enthusiasts at the other, the organisiation required to coordinate over 250 riders, numerous motorbike outriders and crew to arrive at the right feed, ferry and hotel stops was an impressive feat. I cannot fault the organisation of the event.

Tragically a rider was injured, and sadly died, during the event and our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Last weekend I mounted my trusty bicycle and took on the 2008 edition of The Dragon Ride. Starting in Penacoed it winds through 120 (or 180 for the full distance) kilometers of beautiful Welsh countryside. The route takes in two category 1 climbs as used in the past on the Tour of Britain and the Milk Race as well as a cheeky little one near the end (Llangeinor) that pushed my tired calves towards cramp.

Although not the ‘killer’ it’s talked up to be, The Dragon Ride is a little difficult if you aren’t used to riding hills so take care if you’re a fair weather cyclist. The climbs are long and drawn out rather than the short, sharp climbs of Southern England. Everyone riding seemed reasonably accomplished (if a little tight in their lyrca, like myself) but the event is definitely a sportif and if taken as such–rather than as a race–it’s a good five or six hour ride.

The route was clearly signed and well-stocked feed stops (with free bananas, cakes and hi-five drink) came at pretty much the right times (which I understand was an issue in previous years). Can’t knock it to be honest.

We stayed at Court Colman Manor the previous evening to avoid a crazy o’clock start, and I’d recommend their curry restaurant if you’re in the area. Add The Dragon Ride to your ‘must ride in 2009′ list.

I’m six months into a experiment/pledge to not buy (or even read) a printed book for a whole year. The idea is to consume all my previously printed material in an electronic format. This went really badly when I went to Italy and forgot an electronic travel guide. Imagine telling your girlfriend that you ‘can’t’ read the guidebook…

Progress has been slow, so far I’ve completed 21 titles (two audio books and nineteen ebooks) in a variety of formats (pdfs, Mobipocket and HTML) and the overwhelming experience has been frustration. Not frustration from the devices, Sony Reader is great for traditional reading, Mobipocket reader on the Nokia N95 is excellent for convience and mobility and ipods can’t be beaten for audio books. The frustration has come with access to content.

Unless you have a penchant for romance, self-help or fan fiction, there simply aren’t enough electronic format titles available in the UK. Peter Collingridge recently undertook a survey of the top 10 best sellers in the UK and found that none of them were available as ebooks. Not a sausage. If you live in the US however, 60% were available on Mobipocket.

So what is available in ebook format? I took a look at six ebook sites and perused their virtual shelves to determine how many titles they offer and the distribution of subject matter.

I looked at Mobipocket, ebooks.com, Amazon’s Kindle store, Manybooks.net, Free Ebooks.net and elibrary.net. The top 6 results when searching for ebooks. The combined sites contain 155,543 fiction and 332,597 non-fiction titles, blimey, that’s more than I expected.

Fiction

What a shocker, 15% of all the titles available are romance, if you include the 4% erotica in there too, the lion’s share of ebooks are ‘adult’ content. Too embarrassed to have them on your shelves? Historical fiction and classics come out pretty high, as does sci-fi. The gaping hole, as identified by Peter, is best sellers or ‘new fiction’. publisher simply don’t (or won’t) supply ebook versions of the titles until well past the printed version has gone stale. Perhaps because they don’t know what’s involved, or that they don’t realise how simple the process really is. The vast majority of titles are either pulp romance, out of copyright classics, or sci-fi.

Non-Fiction

There was a far wider spread of non-fiction titles than I expected, but it isn’t a big surprise to see business, science and religion filling the top categories. Just as romance seems to be on the front of every fiction section, it’s religion and old business books that fill the non-fiction. Write yourself a self-help guide for Christians in business and you’ll top the ebook best sellers!

Amazon has a great spread of titles with coverage from law (2,345 titles) to archaeology (444 titles) roll on the kindle launch in the UK. Oh, hang on, these titles are only available in the Kindle format so it won’t do you much good unless you buy a Kindle.

Seriously, what’s the point…

This little survey hopefully will help to show what is available in ebook formats. If you’re after the latest best seller, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. If you want a classic, a romance, or a guide to Buddhism, you’re in luck.

Click the pie-charts for bigger versions, if you want the all the gory detail in the Excel spreadsheet, let me know.

Peter Cervieri from Scribemedia.org hosts a really interesting panel discussion on video consumption habits online.

Notes of interest

1. Kids watching Youtube with others is an interesting social experience
2. They watch almost three quaters of all their video on the web
3. No one watches on mobile devices. The ipod owners would download music videos, but only watch them on long trips. Commuting is an audio experience
4. For longform content, video quality is important. Shortform (30 secs to a minute) the quality isn’t a factor, but for full shows the panelists were playing it out through TVs.
5. Strong use of NBCs online service (among others) rather than getting longform content from torrents/pirate sites. They would, however, use Acquisition/Limewire to download music. One kid even knew someone who’d been ‘caught’ downloading pirate movies and was therefore cautious
6. Some kids message/chat during broadcast content when they know their friends are watching the same show (but rarely). But mainly they still use phones to talk one on one after the show has finished
7. Panelists were more attached to their computers than TV. They’d “drop it in a second” if they were on a budget, TV “isn’t a necessity” whereas the internet is
8. Every kid had (or wanted) a mac
9. Plug-ins are bad. Windows Media/Real Player downloads mentioned as too much of a barrier to consume content
10. iFilm mentioned as too ad heavy. Buffering the advert video is delaying access to the content. Pre-rolls mentioned as especially bad. Non obtrusive ads (banners) weren’t seen as a problem. TV ads much more memorable and if online campaigns matched the broadcast, then they are more clickable

In order to extract the maxiumum $2300 donation from your election campaign supporters, the traditional method was to court community leaders and followers with extensive social reach. These key fundraisers would gather their rich friends together at barbecues and cocktail parites and illicit the maximum fee from each member. Clinton has raised around $6m of campaign funds using this tried and tested model.

Obama however employs a different tactic. Rather then approach the rich few, his team contacts all those who attend an event via email (you can’t attend without suppling an email) and encourage them to donate however much they can afford online.

Last month’s $31m haul – almost all of it accrued online – is all the more impressive when you discover that 94% of it came in sums of $200 or less. A million little donors became the model

An interesting case study in the power of crowds. Read the full article at the Times online

The first “Geeks on Bikes” event is complete. Five of us rode out from Hackney, up into Epping forest for tea and a bacon sandwich before looping through Chigwell and returning over the beast which is Buckhurst Hill. Back in the bosom of London we talked geekery, wine and books at the Pub on the Park before going our separate ways.

This will undoubtably be the first of many “Geeks on Bikes” events (many thanks to Brad, Amanda, James and Lindsey for being in the beta group), if you want to be involved in future rides, just get in touch.