The International Kindle has a restricted range of books. Due to publishing rights differing between the US and UK, a lot of books in the US Store can't be purchased for UK use unless you have a US credit card (or, as Fraser Speirs notes http://speirs.org/blog/2009/10/25/first-impressions-of-the-international-kind... a US gift certificate).

The Kindle also uses a proprietary format, rather than the more general ePub type of books. While ultimately this may not matter and I wouldn't generally bet against Amazon it does make me nervous (although Amazon is now promising a Mac and PC reader).

Once the Kindle 2 becomes properly available in the UK, and UK publishers make their books available, it will be more attractive. Having said that, it faces new competition with the new Barnes & Noble "Nook" (which is US only, but also supports the ePub format).

In the end I decided to buy a Sony Pocket Reader, which combines a neat 5 inch screen size with support for the ePub format (and an ability to cope with PDFs). I've been very impressed with it - the metal casing feels very sturdy and the screen has a good level of contrast. You can't read it in low light (although there is a case available with a small light attached), but otherwise the hardware is very nice indeed. Of course, you do have the cost of the reader to find, but you have instant access to the books you want and can free up all the space taken up by storing paper books.

The only thing that (to me) stops the eBook market taking off is the fact that so many books are still not available on the format. While things are improving, there are still many strange gaps in the books available. While US residents can buy electronic versions of Frank Herbert and Philip K Dick books, here in the UK they seem to be impossible to purchase. There are also many recent books that are not available electronically - which again seems strange given that the eBook versions are often more expensive than the paper ones (where they are popular enough to be discounted by booksellers). I wish more publishers would follow the examples of O'Reilly who offer support for multiple formats and also help you upgrade from paper versions of their books to electronic ones at a modest cost. And why do many eBooks lack a graphic cover? Until the software side improves, it is hard to see the eBook market breaking into the mainstream. I think that eBooks are the future, but the fragmentation of the market into competing formats and the various other niggles may make this a slow process.

I've decided to (once again) attempt to learn Objective C and Cocoa. Although I work in IT, I soon realised that analysis was much better suited to my skills than programming. Despite this, I've long maintained an interest in programming - from Basic XL on the Atari 800, through FastBasic on the Atari ST, some Basic and scripting languages on the Amiga followed by Visual Basic on the PC and then REALbasic and Revolution on the Mac.

Much as I enjoy using Revolution, it can be a struggle getting programs to look like native Mac OS X code. The situation is improving, but I often hanker after trying to learn Cocoa - particularly when the iPhone uses a lot of the same frameworks. I'd rather develop something that looked native on the Mac than a cross-platform program (which is where Revolution really shines).

Fortunately there are a lot of good texts available, and I'm currently working my way through a few of the Pragmatic Bookshelf and O'Reilly ebooks. I've been looking at Core Data (with the Marcus Zarra book). It is a prime example of the power of the Mac OS X frameworks - you can create an impressive front-end with next to no code. Of course, there are a few hurdles to overcome - and I've found that Interface Builder can trip you up if you don't get the bindings exactly right. I'm determined to prove that you can teach an old dog new tricks (and I always think of a particular Far Side cartoon at this point).

The other tricky thing (ignoring pointers and memory management) is starting with simple tasks at first. When I've picked up a language, it has been through starting with a simple concept and then gradually developing it into something more complex. There is a constant temptation when starting again to jump straight to a complex goal - but that way lies madness. So I'm trying to keep to "baby steps" right now.

As someone working in a bank, I've experienced some of the fallout of the current economic crisis at first-hand. We are waiting to see who will be made redundant from the current round of cuts. Many others have already been made unemployed without even being involved in the financial sector - even more innocent victims. In all of this, I've noticed that often employees are not people any more - they tend to be "resources", just like paperclips or carbon paper. And "right-sizing" which happens to result in a reduction in your need for resources, sounds much less odious than making real people redundant.
 
I've a great interest in social history of all kinds. The book that I've just finished reading covered the history of a railway line in Scotland that (like many) closed in the 1960s. It showed two pictures, separated by a few years. The first showed a very proud station master in front of a quiet station. The station and its buildings were immaculately kept, with a bush on the platform trimmed like a piece of topiary from the most elegant of gardens. This station master was a man with a great pride in his work, who had quite possibly worked for the same company for many years. The second picture showed the station as the wrecking crews tore up the line. The now closed station lay derelict and the bush had reverted back to something shapeless and wild. The station master was nowhere to be seen. And this was done by a nationalised company run by our government. What chance for those who work in the private sector where employers have even less accountability? Perhaps such changes will always be a necessary part of the changes in our society wrought by economic and technological "progress". But isn't it sad that the people responsible for contributing so much of their own lives to their employer get discarded at the first opportunity? Strangely, employers often appear to wonder why their remaining staff show less loyalty to the company. Loyalty is a two way street.
 
I'm certainly not advocating a move away from capitalism. I've seen little to convince me that the alternatives work. But can't capitalism have a social conscience? Can't it show a little more compassion and care for the people it needs? Does it always need to grind the "little people" into the dust so that the fat cats can enjoy their large bonuses, big houses and fast cars? As Fred Goodwin and Peter Cummings enjoy their enforced early retirements on obscene pensions, those same employers get ready to sack large numbers of people who did nothing to cause the current crisis. Many of those remaining in employment will see their employers strip them of their much more modest pension entitlements through the culling of the final salary pension scheme. Once again, greed is good (acknowledgements to Gordon Gecko). But, of course our employers still say, people are our most important resources. Their actions show that only a very few are important. The vast majority still seem to come in below paperclips and carbon paper in terms of perceived value.

 Kreuger's story seemed somewhat similar to Madoff, though it seems as if Ivar had slightly more altruistic motives than Madoff. He offered loans to governments in return for a monopoly on the sale of matches in their countries. I guess the match market was a bit bigger in the 1920's than it would be now! In the end the crash of 1929 brought his empire tumbling down - at which point it was found that he was operating a Ponzi scheme - and funding dividends out of the money coming in from new investors. Sadly, he took his own life. Most surprising of all, his Swedish Match company still exists.

 As often happens, before long I was at Wikipedia, reading up on Charles Ponzi - and ordering Frank Partnoy's book on Kreuger from Amazon.

 The only downside that I can see right now is the lack of Blu-ray disc support. Well, that and the fact that the pricing has increased in the UK to reflect the weakness of the pound and, as a bank employee, I won't be seeing any bonus this year...

 Perhaps all of this is because I'm just not a good programmer. After all, at work I soon moved into analysis and left programming behind (but not without some regrets).

Now, with the Mac I've tried REALbasic and Revolution. I even wrote a Stock Portfolio program using Revolution. But then I decided that I should learn Cocoa. I tried, I really did. But they say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And it became apparent that this was a new trick too far (I already knew about the old dog bit). Now I've come to terms with this and renewed my Revolution licence. The strangest thing of all is that I've now got a renewed interest in programming again. Instead of struggling with the language, I'm actually puzzling out how to add the features that I want. Of course, it may well be apparent that it isn't a native Cocoa program - but the fact that I'm having fun again means that it just doesn't matter!

A great post by Scott McNulty at Macworld - http://bit.ly/eI5ZF - who obviously suffers the same sort of pangs as I do when I go shopping.
 
I start out with the best of intentions - after all, the base model is good enough. But then I tell myself, won't I just regret not going for the faster processor model? And so with my Mac Pro, I ended up with a top of the range model (albeit some time ago now). And I just had to have the two optical drives, because well, there were two slots (I hate blank spaces on car dashboards too - they always shout cheapskate at me!). When I bought a MacBook Air I ended up with the SSD model because, well, it must be better having no moving parts in the drive. I guess that they see me coming!