You might be a Transumer. You might have Netflix or Blockbuster for your online movie rental. You might even have Gamefly for your Game rental. But how about your online Book rental? Well that is the business model of BookSwim – an online Book rental system.

Simply choose your plan, choose from the large library they have and get the books in the mail. No late fees – return at any time through the pre-pay envelopes. The next book will arrive shortly.

Eric Ginsberg - Bookswim.com

In this Quickcast interview, we talk with Eric Ginsberg – a teacher, musician and librarian that brought over some great ideas of online book rental to life months after BookSwim was created by George Burke and Shamoon Siddiqui. We talk with Eric and discuss the reasons why someone would use BookSwim as opposed to an e-reader, buying or just going to the Library to get books for Transummers.

Plans start at $3.95. Gift cards are available for those you love, too.  If you are a Transumer – person who rents, consumes, then gives back – Bookswim will definitely fulfill the transummation of books.

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If you would like to be on the Quickcast interviews, simply contact at 608-205-4378 or geekazine@gmail.com

This month’s Quickcast, we talk about what is going on at Geekazine and what to look for in the month ahead.

It’s been a while since the Geekazine Quickcast has been a part of the site. However, it is not gone.

In this episode I talk about the week at CES, what is happening over at Geekazine and a little about what is happening with the Quickcast.

November is the month to ramp up the shows. I have been working on a new Podcast Madness contest – slated to start next week. If you are a podcaster, you should participate in this contest. I send you a code you can give to your audience. They put the code in and therefore a chance to win.

However, the National Podcast Post Month is simple: One podcast a day for 30 days. I normally do that with the Day in Tech History anyway, but I am going to ramp up some other stuff to try and surpass the 34 I would normally do. I suppose with the video, it’s more like 38 a month, so I figure 50-60 would be a good number to hit.

I do have a few video reviews from Blogworld New Media Expo that I have to put out. I will also try to get AppWild going this month. In all, this should be a great month for Podcasts!

But why put out the challenge if no one is listening. Therefore, I am encouraging all of you to LISTEN to a new podcast a day for 30 days. Find out all the great shows out there. Get involved and call in to those shows. Make people know you are listening.

To all participating, good luck with your challenge. I am rooting for ya. And adding the contest will help.

This is the newest segment in the Geekazine Quickcast called “App Wild”. It’s name says it all – We talk about applications that you can get for your iPhone, Andoid, Palm Pre, Blackberry or whatever device you use.

This weeks applications reviewed:

• Madden 10
• Rhapsody
• Sad Fact of the Commodore 64 application
• Pandora and Facebook for Android

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10 years ago, if you had a computer, it was most likely a desktop. Notebooks – then called Laptops – were pretty expensive, but were also beginning to show that they could start to replace a desktop model. Fast forward to today: Event the Notebooks have been threatened as of late by Netbooks and smartphones. It leaves you to the question: What should your next purchase be?

My first Laptop was a Zenith Data Systems 386 laptop. It wasn’t cheap – and I even got it used. It had a very small hard drive, a trackball on the side connecting to the serial port and a monochrome monitor. It ran Windows 3.0, which was really great. I was able to run the Word processor and Lotus 1-2-3. I was happy.

The machine was about twice the size of my current laptop and most likely twice the weight. The battery life was almost nothing – maybe 5 minutes. Still, I thought at the time “This is the future of computing.”

I was right – kinda.

Notebooks have been getting bigger and better since the term became mainstream. Functionality these days can match a notebook to a desktop. Desktops advantage was simply it was able to be customized, whereas notebooks could only get a new hard drive, memory, DVD-RW and possibly a graphics chip (depending on what brand you had). You could add items through a PC Card slot like Firewire or extra storage. If you wanted a second hard drive or an extra battery, you would have to forgo the CD drive. With a desktop, that’s not a problem.

Today’s notebook is a great item, but now it’s being encroached by the Netbook market since the announcement of the OLPC in 2007. Being able to access the internet and email doesn’t take a lot of process. Trying to use a Notebook on an airplane is impossible. The Netbook can slip into a coat pocket, turns on almost instantly and lets you have your content on the go anywhere, including music, movies and documents.

Netbooks are small, easy to carry and able to work for hours at a time. With Windows XP or Linux installed, you can find many applications to work with it. Best part – some of those applications are free. You can post to your blog, facebook, twitter and many other websites anywhere you have a 3G, Edge or WiFi signals.

Then there is the smartphone:  Easy to use, easy to carry. Limited screen, keyboard and no mouse. No DVD drive, no USB connections, but access to your data and a lot of good programs to use. A great companion to your computer – whatever the computer is.

Netbooks, Smartphones and Notebooks also have the ability to use 3G with 7 MB service in some areas; but to use it on a Notebook, you have to buy a card. Todays’ Netbook can come with a 2 year contract from a wireless carrier, with the Netbook being received for a discounted price. Some smartphones have no choice – they must come with some sort of connection contract.

Netbooks and Smartphones have limited functionality. The ATOM, ARM or NVIDIA processors inside – along with the memory  – can do a lot. If you start loading items like photoshop, video or audio editing software, even games, you might find it’s not going to cut it. That is where a notebook or desktop will step in. Then again, the same could be said about the laptop of yesterday.

The Netbook market has been growing. It’s taken 22.2% of sales in the last year according to DisplaySearch’s latest “Quarterly PC Shipment and Forecast Report.” That jumped up 40% from last year. Once you get faster processors – even dual core processors like the newer ATOM duals, that are starting to come out , faster and higher capacity hard drives and powerful memory with a slightly larger screen, you might have people ditching their Notebooks for the compactness of the Netbook.

G-screen has put out a dual-screen Notebook. Open the cover and the screens butterfly out like the old IBM Thinkpad keyboards did. Imagine if you put that technology into a Netbook? 7” screen instantly becomes 14”. If you can have one slide up and one slide across, the desktop real estate will not be an issue.

As for Smartphones, imagine if someone made a Netbook or tablet in where you would insert the smartphone. The phone would be the main processor and the tablet would just be a large carrying case with ability to make the screen larger.  Added battery will put less drain on the device which can sit in the car at times to recharge while you use the smartphone. Think about how much more work you would get out of one device. Mount a connection appliance to the dash of your car, one to the side of your bed, another in your favorite work area. Slide in the smartphone and access all your content – Even with a 3G connection to the cloud, you data doesn’t even need to be on the phone.

In the next 5 years, the desktop will be item in the corner of the room that the kids get on to play old Sponge Bob games on CD. You might connect up the TV and watch movies and TV shows from it – possibly even games. It could even be a server that hosts and backs up your Notebooks, Netbooks and Smartphones data. Only real die-hards will have a machine to work on. Even the “Notebook” of today might become obsolete.

For now, I can get a more powerful Desktop than a Notebook, Netbook or Smartphone. The recent desktop purchase has made 3 other computers in my house obsolete, which is nice. I wonder what I’ll be using in 5 years? A Desktop, or a workstation with a Smartphone or Netbook dock?

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I Can Walk, talk and chew gum at the same time. I can pat my head and rub my belly. Heck, I could even do all five things at the same time and still listen to music. That is multitasking.

The question is: Is it changing the way a think and can I fix it?

A study from Stanford University came out this week that told us we might not be that great a multitasker. It is also suggested multitaskers are not focused. They polled 100 students in where they gave them one of three tests. In one test, they told them to focus on the red rectangle and tell them where it was. The “Heavy” Multitaskers – Those that do 5-6 things at once – did not do that well in the task. They did even worse on the other tests.

It got me to thinking; Are we really not good multitaskers?

I started picking apart this study. The one glaring issue is that the group polled 100 students. I am always amazed on how someone publishes a poll, then says it’s a small group in one demographic. So I beckon you to this question:  Could  100 – 30 plusers  be better at heavily multitasking than students? What about 50+?

Students usually mean under 30, and we have no idea how many males or females were in this study. Which ones were the “Light” and which were the “Heavy” multitaskers?  Further, I am guessing they were all Stamford students. How do we know that New York or Chicago students can’t multitask better?

Then again, maybe Multi-tasking is a learned method.

I remember in the 90’s, Kevin Trudeau put out this program called “Mega Memory”. Now let’s Put aside Kevin Trudeaus’ felony history and dealings with the FTC over his business ventures – In this case, not being able to fulfill the guarantee that you would have “Picture perfect” memory. With that aside, this program still had some validity.

Basically, he was teaching you to turn your brain into a filing cabinet. Organize the thoughts in your head by doing some “mental exercises”. In one exercise, he told you to picture a bedroom. Choose five items and repeat the names. Every morning, you mentally see these five items. These will be items you put mental notes on or in – therefore, you have created an organization to your thoughts. I started thinking:

If you can organize your brain to remember stuff? Can you organize to multi – task?

Multi-tasking for a computer is easy – but it does have limitation. We have circumvented some of those limitations by making faster processors and multi-core technologies so you don’t constantly max the same area of the processor for long periods of time. That is how newer processors can put out less heat and lower power.

Apply that to multi-tasking. Here are a few “Suggestions” to maybe work on how to multi-task. Before we do that, I would like you to take 3 deep breaths. Breathe in.. hold it…. Slowly Exhale. Again – And one more time.

1. Set time to focus on one thing and one thing only.

I set some time aside to do this. This is not sleep time and it’s not “Think about everything in the world” time. I have a task at hand and I do it – like writing this article. This task sometimes may be listening to other podcasts, writing a journal or blog, you can do a crossword puzzle or Sudoku, you can calculate pi – as long as it’s one task. By the way – I discourage the use of music in the background of that task. If you need noise, turn on a fan, mp3 of running water or waves. Nothing that can disturb your focus.

2. Schedule work – rest times

I remember a study years ago where they suggested teachers should organize the hour that they teach the subject. It was suggested that the teacher talk for about 25 minutes. They then stop and give you 5 minutes to decompress. No notes, no nothing – just mental catch-up.

Now let’s apply that to any item of work. 25 minutes, with a 5 minute decompress. Stand up, walk around, get a cup of coffee or soda. Sit back down, take 3 deep breaths and start up again.

3. Breathing

By the way, taking 3 deep breaths is important. There are known connections with breathing and stress. Further, you get more oxygen to your brain – Think of it like your heat sink to your processor.

4. Can eating / drinking right help?

I don’t want to become your family doctor, or even play that roll on TV. But studies say eating right and at least drinking lots of water can help you out.  Don’t worry, it’s something I have to work on, too. I just had a frozen pizza and Mountain Dew for lunch.

5. If you feel out of control, you probably are.

Multi – tasking is not a race. Therefore, if you are feeling stressed, even after the 3 deep breaths, then you should probably ease off on one of the tasks. Maybe come back to it in 5 minutes. Get a stride going where you can pick it back up.

6. Mental Imagery

I suggest you apply the method I talked about earlier in a different way. Think of 5 things that don’t change in your life – Your car, your house, your garage – whatever it is, mentally visualize those 5 things. Once a day – preferably in the morning – close your eyes, take 3 deep breaths and visualize those items. Take a few seconds to mentally move around the item you are picturing. For instance, if your car is one, notice the tires. Are the doors locked? What’s in the back seat? If you visualize the kitchen, where is the silverware drawer? Where is the fridge? What’s in the fridge?

Bottom line is that we have come into an age where multi-tasking is a norm, but we never really take a class on how to do it well. Some people are natural at it. Others may need a little direction. That’s ok though – I really believe that multi-tasking is a learned thing. Just like riding a bike.

By the way, the mega memory did help – I can do a decent job in remembering a persons’ name and I applied some of the techniques of his “Human Calculator” that he touted back in the 90’s to actually be able to solve mathematical problems in my head. I guess it’s all about learning how to do it.

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Just a reminder – this will be the last “Week in Tech History” produced. Please add “Day in Tech History” to your RSS or iTunes. A new segment will fill this spot shortly.

After Apple ’s release of iPhone 3G, people were noticing connectiviy issues. This was due to the Infineon chip within (the chip that governs the 3G). It would ultimately cause the cutout. Apple quietly tried to resolve the matter, but eventually they had to just simply let people know what is going on. Steve Jobs sent out a letter saying “I’m sorry” and announcing how they are going to fix the problem.

This is one of many different articles within the Geekazine Quickcast.’

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I love my iPhone. The 3GS has finally got the touch screen right. I can use it without feeling like I am fumbling or fat fingering keys. While the advances are nice, I still have to wonder how Apple can get away with some of the things they do to make me use their stuff. Rejecting competing applications and not giving users a choice to remove apps, all seems to be a recipe for non-competitiveness. Will they continue to get away with it, or will the FTC and EU finally step in? Well if they do, these should be 5 questions they should ask.

Skype. iBoobs. MyShoe. Obama Trampoline. Google Voice. What do these apps have in common? They were banned by the Apple application store. Some of them need to be, but others have no reason.

Ninjawords was an application that had a very hard time to get into the store. The reason why : the dictionary does contain questionable words – Including swear words. It finally was resolved and the application was approved, but who knew the dictionary could cause such a controversy.

Some have had it with the iPhone. Proprietary system in a walled garden makes those who like to play feel imprisoned. Co-founder Steven Frank of the website Panic was one of them. He put out this statement:

I’ve reached a point where I can no longer just sit back and watch this. The iPhone ecosystem is toxic, and I can’t participate any more until it is fixed. As people have told me so many times: It’s Apple’s ballgame, and Apple gets to make the rules, and if I don’t like it, I can leave. So, I don’t like it, and I’m leaving.

The Google Voice application seemed to be the boiling point in the controversy. The biggest reason was because there was a possibility that AT&T wanted the app rejected. Whether that was true or not may never be discovered. If it was really true, then someone like the European Union or FTC should step in.

Now the FCC stepped in on the Google Voice issue. However, the FCC is about protecting rights on a communications level. The FTC protects consumer’s rights, or as the FTC puts it on their website:

-          seeks out and challenges anticompetitive conduct in the marketplace, including monopolization and agreements between competitors;

There are many ways that Apple is wading into murky water. If someone posed the right questions, you would have to inquire if they are making it tougher to compete on their platform – no differently than when Microsoft was accused back in the late 90’s. Therefore, we pose these questions – to think about – for Apple on the iPhone:

1. Why Safari and not another browser?

This is a quote from Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, who created and is CEO of Opera, an alternative web browser:

“Mr. von Tetzchner said that Opera’s engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won’t let the company release it because it competes with Apple’s own Safari browser.”

If that is the case, then why do we have more than one version of the following applications? Cyclops, pic2shop and redlaser are some barcode scanning apps. Tweetdeck can run your Twitter account. Twitter Pro, Tweetie and TwiterFon are some other applications. Shazam and MusicID both identify music and artists.

Personally, I would rather see and use Firefox on the iPhone than Safari. I know that some Google fanatics would rather use Chrome. Won’t mention IE – Does anyone use that browser? Oh well, those that do would use IE6 anyway….

You might be fidgeting in your seat about using another browser – you like Safari and that is well and good. But look at it this way – Safari comes out with an update that causes a Carpet Bomb or similar issue. The only option you have is to wait for the patch to come out. In the smartphone market, iPhone has 84% of all sales in the last quarter.  With banking applications now being written, that is a lot of data you don’t want to have exposed to the public.

The EU should really look into this point. After all, they made Microsoft give people an option to uninstall IE on their Windows OS. How is this any different for Apple?

1. Why iPhone Mail and not another?

iPhone mail is not as great as I would like it to be. Sure, it can connect to Outlook and Exchange, as well as webmail clients like Google and Yahoo.  Still, it would be great to have the mail, calendar, notes and contacts merged together.  One button to rule them all.

Yet we have to suffer through the iPhone mail. Good thing it’s just a “snapshot” of your actual mail client.  I can still keep it on my servers to deal with at a later time.

1. How come the device can only sync to one computer?

I have a Desktop and a Laptop. I cannot natively set up iTunes to Sync with more than one device. If I do, the phone will delete items I have on it to put what is on the other machine.

There is a “hack” that can be done to fix this. Basically, you fool one iTunes to think it’s on the other computer. It works OK, however, if I set one to not sync music, the setting will move over to the other. There may be another “hack” to fix that – It’s still a hack though.

What is more disturbing? iTunes can easily delete your files – mainly music – but Apple should not have any control to the content on your phone. It’s no different than when Amazon retracted 1984 and Animal Farm from peoples’ Kindles. Even purchased music can get removed from the phone. At least you can get it back by syncing with the other machine I suppose.

There are other 3^rd party applications I can use for sync. Nonetheless, why should I have to use something that is not supported to function properly? When I had the Windows Mobile Phone, the ActiveSync feature would let me set up profiles on different machines. Then I could connect to more than one machine without fear of data loss.

1. Tonight there’s gonna be a Jailbreak.

I am not a fan of any phone that has to be tied to a certain network. At least the worry of “Bricking” the phone is not as much an issue as it was back in the v.1 days. Still – Apple could easily turn a phone into a useless device if they so choose to by a simple update.

In all fairness, the jailbreak issue needs to be addressed on all phones. If I buy a phone for $200-400, then don’t like the service – I cannot return the phone after 30 days. I want the phone on another plan – but can’t get that phone from that other service. That, in turn, keeps me stuck with a phone and waste of money.

So I HAVE to buy into a certain plan. I cannot choose to not have the data plan, for example. I  only have 2 options from AT&T – 450 or 900 minutes. It would have been nice to get a 700 minute plan and keep at the prices I was at with the old phone. Instead I will most likely have a ton of “Rollover” minutes. Minutes that expire if I change plans or “Default” on a payment. Nonetheless, I guess it’s just a good thing I don’t have to select a business plan – they have to pay more.  And yes, the minutes are more of an AT&T issue than Apple, but is the Data plan that way, too?

1. How is it that iTunes can multi-task and another application cannot?

This is the biggest issue I believe. 3^rd party iPhone applications can’t run in the background, yet programs like iTunes can.  And when it comes to smartphones, you just assume they can multi-task. Once again, my WinMo phone could.

I use Stitcher, a push application. While it will continue to play when the phone locks, it will not let me do something simple like check email or SMS.  I then have to restart the app to continue functionality.

I will play devils’ advocate for a second – with a 3^rd party app, a malware program could then easily run in the background without you knowing it. With this way the problem can keep a program from accessing your phone data. Yet, Apple should give some “trusted” applications the ability to become multi-task. They could even create a certification program to justify who gets to make apps that run in the background. Yet I still have to close Stitcher to check my mail, then open it back up.

There are other issues as well, but I think that these 5 are what needs to be addressed. I would expect that if Apples’ rumored “Social Media App” comes to fruition, there may be question as to the other social networks and the Apps that run. Especially if Apple’s social media application doesn’t give a warning about possible adult content.

I am not ready to give up my phone just yet – after all, I JUST got it. However, I am seeing and hearing other people talk about trying out the new Palm Pre, the Android and other smartphones that are not Apple. Even others work feverishly on jailbreaking the iPhone so you can get your desired functionality. But that comes with a price – no warranty support after a jailbreak. So I guess I’ll live in the walled garden – for now.

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For the last year and a half, the Quickcast has been running a podcast every Monday reviewing the past history of Technology. The show has been a fun one, but for the last couple months I felt it needs it’s own space. Therefore, WITH will be spinning off into the Day in Tech History – a Daily look at the Historical events in Technology.

WITH will continue on. For the first couple weeks, we will continue with the same format. Afterwards, WITH will take a new shape, highlighting one historical event and how it plays on events today. It should be a new, powerfully informative look in the IT industry.

Information for this weeks’ WITH:

• Smithsonian is established
• Netscape Lawyers send a letter about Microsoft anticompetitive nature
• Twitter’s “2000″ ceiling
• Apple Fire at Building #6
• Atari Files Lawsuit against Amiga
• Netflix 3 day outtage

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It was something that people talked about for months, but on August 6, 2008, CEO Jeff Bewkes confirms the rumor. AOL will be split off into it’s own company by the next year (which came to fruition on May 28th, 2009)

Other Items in Tech History, the Trash-80 is announced, SQL Server 2008 is released. Ebay and Craigslist experience outages while the first Olympic events are streamed through NBC. We also saw Bill Gates and Steve Jobs together on a 5 year deal which gave Microsoft 1oo,000 non-voting shares of Apple.