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The Richard Williams Animator’s Survival Kit iPad app that we announced a couple months ago is out today. It’s available for $34.99 on the Apple Store, a bargain when you consider the DVD version of the Survival Kit costs nearly a grand. If you’re on the fence about splurging, you can also download a free sample version.

Director and animator Lucas Zanotto proves with his creative new app Drawnimal that drawing with a pencil on paper and digital apps are not incompatible technologies. The iPad/iPhone app not only teaches the alphabet and animals to children, but cunningly encourages kids to draw around their devices to create a complete image of an animal that will then perform an animated action. For more info, go to Drawnimal.com or download it from the Apple store.

 My iPad and I are getting along effortlessly and now to make it even better our Texas library listserve has been touting the advantages of using Reflection to connect and use the iPad with a projector in our libraries. What? Did I need more reasons to love my iPad? We all know we can buy a VGA adapter (limited to a roving range of the length of cable) or use a product like Apple TV (wireless but expensive), but we want to be free and untethered and we want something inexpensive.  Reflection and AirServer seem to both hit the mark. They are still fine tuning some bugs, but I have high hopes for both of these products.

Let me begin by saying that I am a devoted fan of the old fashioned, hard-copy book made from the remains of dead trees. I love the feel of them. I love the whole tactile experience of holding them. And yes, I love the smell of them (both the musty old book smell and the first-opened new book smell). But I recently used an iPad for some reading. So, of course, here I am telling you about it.

I have not had any great desire to move into the digital realm for my reading pleasure. I do enough onscreen reading on my laptop for research. But…

Last Christmas we bought an iPad as a family present — mostly because my daughters have been wanting one ever since they played some games on one at a friend’s place. In the months since our acquisition of this device — this handy-dandy, compact marvel of technology — it has been mostly used for game-playing by my daughters and Pinteresting by my wife. Although I’ve occasionally used it to IMDB an actor while watching television, or even play the odd game of Chicken Invaders (Yes, there really is a game called Chicken Invaders… go look it up. It’s rather awesome!), I’ve done little else with the device.

And then, last month a friend sent me a PDF of his upcoming book, asking if I would consider reading it and providing a back cover quote (I’ll blog about this when the book has been released). I decided this was the time to finally make proper use of the iPad. I put the PDF onto the device and off I went… reading!

So… what was my first iPad reading experience like? It was okay.

On the positive side —

• I didn’t have to bother with print-outs.
• It remembered where I was up to each time I picked it up.
• I didn’t need to use my newly acquired reading glasses (yes folks… I’m getting old).

On the negative side —

• It was heavier and more cumbersome than a paperback (not wonderfully comfortable for reading in bed).
• The backlit screen was not as comfortable to read as print on paper.
• And, of course, it didn’t feel or smell like a proper book.

Even though I thoroughly enjoyed the book, the iPad reading experience felt more like work than pleasure. I realise that this is due to my own subconscious associations — that is:

Computer screen = work

Print book = pleasure

This is something that will, undoubtedly, change over time. Apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks… it just takes longer.

Overall, I was not emotionally scarred by the experience as I initially feared I might be. And, in fact, I went back for more. When my publisher sent me a PDF proof of my upcoming novel (Gamers’ Rebellion — out in June. Remember to buy a copy!), I immediately stuck it onto the iPad rather than printing it out. It turned out to be a good way of proof-reading it.

So, I guess there is hope for me in the world of digital reading. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll even buy an eReader.

Catch ya later,  George

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A recent Ipad sketch.

Following up on yesterday’s post—some good questions came up in the comments. I’ll tackle this one first: “How does the Send to Kindle app work?”

Send to Kindle

I mentioned how much I rely on Send to Kindle to read long-form posts and articles later, away from my computer. This is an official Amazon app but there are third-party equivalents, too. (See Send to Reader, below. Instapaper is another.)

How it works: I installed Send to Kindle in my browser. (There are Chrome and Firefox versions, PC and Mac desktop versions, and even an Android app.)

In Chrome, the Send to Kindle icon appears at the top right of my browser—see the orange K?

When I’m reading a post online and I want to send it to my Kindle, all I have to do is click the icon.

If I want, I can choose to send the article to the Kindle app on an iPhone, iPad, or Android device instead. Click the icon to access the settings button. This is handy if I want to send a particular article to Scott’s device instead of mine. (You may have up to six devices connected to your Kindle account at any one time.)

Send to Reader

As I said, Send to Reader works almost the same way. You create an account, install its bookmarklet in your toolbar, and enter your Kindle’s email address. IMPORTANT: Be sure to use the free.kindle.com version of your Kindle address, i.e. username@free.kindle.com, not username@kindle.com. This is the simplest way to avoid any download charges for the content you send. (You can also tweak your Kindle document settings to make sure you don’t accidentally download content via Whispernet, incurring data charges. Go to Amazon –> Manage Your Kindle –> Personal Document Settings and set a price limit of, say, one cent for download fees. That way, any download that would exceed that fee will be withheld until you’re connected via Wifi, where all downloads are free. Or just make a point of always using the free.kindle.com address instead!)

While you’re in your Kindle settings, be sure to enter kindle@sendtoreader.com as one of your approved email addresses for receiving content.

This fussy set-up stuff takes much more time to describe than to do. Once you’re set up, you don’t have to bother with this ever again. From then on, you can zap articles to your Kindle by simply clicking the bookmarklet.

I believe Send to Reader works with the Kindle app on your iPad or Android device, as well. If you don’t know your device’s Kindle email address, you can find it at Manage Your Kindle –> Personal Document Settings.

Sending posts directly from Google Reader

OK, so that’s how I send long-form web content to my e-reader for perusing later. Now let’s back up half a step: say I’m reading a blog post in Google Reader—how do I send that post to my Kindle? Two ways. Either I can click through to the actual post and follow the steps above, or I can send it directly from Reader via the “Send to” button.

See the “Send to” tab at the bottom of the post? When you click on it, up pop your options. You can send this post all over the place!

Here’s how to configure the options: In Google Reader, click the Settings gear icon. Select “Reader Settings.”

Click the “Send to” tab to get to the screen pictured below.

Choose whatever sites you like to send stuff to.

You’ll notice Diigo and Send to Reader are missing from this checklist, but do appear in my list of options in the previous photo. That’s because I added them manually (again, a one-time set-up process) following the instructions under “Don’t see your favorite site?”

Click “Create a custom link” to connect with the site of your choice. Again, I think this kind of thing is harder to explain than to do. Let me know if anything here doesn’t make sense!

I should add that I really only use Google Reader’s “send to” feature to send articles to my Kindle—I seldom share links to Facebook or Twitter this way. I prefer HootSuite for that. But that is fodder for another post.