It's not for me, but for my sister, who is looking for recommendations on e-readers, and is particularly interested in which might be suitable for reading scientific papers. She says "The main thing is that I can transfer PDFs from my laptop and then read them on the reader."

Does anyone have any ideas?

Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
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Sad to read in today's death announcements that Brian Oakley died on Friday. I formed an odd sort of attachment to Brian Oakley in the 1980s, when I was a sub-editor on Computer Weekly; I never quite met him, though I once heard him speak at the British Computer Society, and afterwards stood a few metres away while my reporter colleagues swarmed ( Read more... )

I am really fifty now, as I had my first mammogram this morning!

( Details behind cut, to protect the squeamish - though if you're squeamish but curious, the gist of it is that I'd take it over a smear test any day )

I've hardly seen any cricket this summer - I made it out to Aigburth once, and had a day at Lord's. But Championship cricket's return to Old Trafford (after the rotation of the square from east-west to north-south) has been slow; I was there for the first day back in May but had to wait until last week for a second game. My plan was to go on ( Read more... )

Every now and then my employers send me an email about something you might actually want to know (that Patroclus/Achilles novel that just won the Orange Prize? You heard it here first!)

Anyway, this week they announced an iPad thingy of Shakespeare's sonnets - the full set of 154 poems, including the Arden text, notes and introduction (this is ( Read more... )

Following my discovery that I could still comment in my own LiveJournal if I used Rory (my netbook), I assumed the issue must be something to do with Windows Vista (which is what I have on the main computer) as opposed to Windows 7 (used by Rory ( Read more... )

Susan Watts has drawn my attention to a petition on the 10 Downing Street site asking the Prime Minister to apologise for the prosecution of Alan Turing which led to his untimely death. It sounds like the sort of thing prime ministers are usually quite happy to apologise about, and they've even found some relatives who'd be happy to receive the ( Read more... )

I have a new phone and have transferred my number. So I'll write to the local Carphone Warehouse with clear instructions for their salesmen.

[PS - Phones 4 U did indeed have an intelligent and helpful salesman, so thanks to those of you who suggested them.]

I've always had a general impression that young men working as sales assistants in phone shops were a bit clueless - possibly unfair, as it's based largely on that shop in Market Street where I've bought a couple of phones in the last decade - but on the whole they've shown a vague interest in trying to persuade me to part with some money... until ( Read more... )

The low-energy bulb hanging a few feet above this computer went out yesterday, which was fair enough, as it's done a few years' service. But as I was replacing it I noticed yet again on the box a sign depicting a bin with a cross through it, which I take to mean "do not dispose of bulbs via the normal rubbish bin". I have never seen a special ( Read more... )