Today, after hearing all the Kindle announcements, I thought to call Amazon and see if I was still on warranty. I called them at 12:59pm and by 1:02pm I was off the phone with a tracking number, my replacement Kindle on the way.

With that kind of customer service, I’m reminded of friends who’ve tried to replace their iPhone screen with Apple (same service with iPad). Nothing but complaints.

Now that people weigh Kindle Fire against the Apple iPad, customer service will increasingly become part of the war. And right now, Amazon is definitely winning that battle.

I thought it would be slick to do it with Prezi (our favorite presentation software at Orabrush), but the videos didn’t seem to embed with Prezi (probably because Prezi.com doesn’t encode the video during the file creation process, just includes whatever video you give it).

Then I tried adding the mp4 videos via iTunes. Nope. They wouldn’t transfer because they wouldn’t play on the iPad.

I almost had to buy Wondershare’s convertor for $40, but the video team told me that Final Cut files would work. I tried to use the mp4’s from Final Cut rather than from YouTube downloads. Nope.

Our editor showed me how to use Final Cut to create an mp4 with iPad settings. I did that (took hours to encode 5 videos) and then installed the videos onto the iPad.

I downloaded Keynote and created my presentation. When I tried to add the videos to the Keynote, it would only allow me to select from the photo album. So, I went back to the Mac and discovered that I would need to add the videos to iPhoto (that’s intuitive) and sync the iPad again.

Then the videos were available, but as I added them to my presentation, Keynote had to encode them again! More time waiting.

Finally, I had to deploy them to 4 iPads, a couple iPad 2’s and a couple iPad 1’s. Because the file was huge, I had to track down the computer that each iPad syncs to and use a thumbdrive to sync the file. One guy had never synced with iTunes and so his iPad software and iTunes were out of date.

Two days later, I have the slickest presentation that will be at NACDS

Would have taken me two hours to do with a regular computer and Prezi.

iTunes is a bloated mess and the shackles of syncing for file deployment make me want to pull my hair out. There has got to be a better way to do this Apple!

I love programmers. To my joy, OfficeDrop has a solution. They’ve integrated shared folders so that you can choose where the documents are filed as you’re scanning. You can also rename them. Apparently, they OCR them and make them into searchable pdfs, but Google Docs doesn’t yet add that information to the Google Docs index.

Unfortunately, it’s not scanning my lettersized page properly on our Canon MF5750. I’ve submitted a support request and I’m hopeful that between this post and my support request, I’ll come to a solution quickly.

Although I was correct in assuming that HP would continue to piggyback off Apple’s marketing (they released a video before and blog post just after Apple’s iPad launch), it appears that my prediction for a Pixel Qi slate computer was too hopeful. The specs on the HP Slate are released via Engadget along with a promotional video on the coat tails of Apple’s hype.

Due to this unfortunate revelation, I will not be purchasing the HP slate and I’m still waiting for a computer that meets my display needs.

I love the Marisol screen technology that I read about a month ago but rediscovered in the CES news this week.

Apparently, it reflects much better than the Pixel Qi screen.

The only problem with this demo is how bad it makes me want one of these screens.

I found a competitor,  to the Pixel Qi screen before Mary Lou Jepsen was able to get a product out the door. It’s called Liquavista.

I have yet to see a product that is launching soon with any of these technologies, but I’m considering the Entourage Edge as a useful alternative. It provides an eink display and a color display in a book form factor.

1. Plastic Logic Que
2. Microsoft Currier (this one currently sounds like it most fits my life, but I’m worried it has back-light screen)
3. Notion Ink Tablet
4. Apple Tablet

My requirements are:

1. Non-emitting light screen (I like Pixel Qi because it supports video and text editing so I could do all my work on it)
2. Web browser
3. Wi-Fi
4. Text-editing/file system
5. Kindle reader program (this may be optional depending on the availability of a digital library on the device)
6. Full-text search of both books and my personal notes
7. Pen or written input

We’ll see how the different systems stack up.  I would appreciate any insights into new options to fulfill my requirements.

Yet, in the long run, if I like the Pixel Qi screen and Microsoft or Apple launch a tablet I can use for reading and for my email, I’ll probably head that route over a dedicated reader.

In the meanwhile, the wait and staring into the flashlight of my flat screen are both killing me.