Barnes and Noble announced their new Nook eInk reader recently, seen here, and after some time waiting with them saying “May 2012″ release date, they then came out and said the 7th. I eagerly went to the local B&N, and put my name down on the list to get one on launch day… which rolled around, and I got no call. I called the store, and was told they didn’t get any. After waiting a few more days checking stock online, I found that the B&N website had also sold out, with an expected availability date of May 22, 2012… which, interestingly, was the initial release date they had announced before pushing it up two weeks.

Some basic looking online found this, which basically says they are having stock issues. Fine, I think, and wait patiently.

Today, I got a call from the local store saying they got them in, and one is waiting for me… a week after release (which is certainly better than 2 weeks). While picking it up, I chat with the guy at the counter, and he’s actually a bit annoyed by the whole thing, because the stores in Portland (a primary market) all got enough on launch day to meet pre-orders, plus about 10 extra. The Eugene store (a secondary market, I’d guess), got 20. They had 80 pre-orders. So B&N basically ignored their numbers, or decided people in Eugene could wait. I’m not sure which, but it smacks a bit of Nintendo’s launch of the Wii. Big markets got priority over small (which is fine, sort of), but isn’t a purchase a purchase? We have a national currency, Eugene’s money isn’t worth less than Portland’s.

Apple isn’t flawless, nor is Microsoft by any means, but when they launch a product, they attempt to have enough ready for launch day to meet demand that’s built up to that point. What happens after launch day for Apple usually results in sell-outs. B&N should have just sat on the product another few days to have enough stock to actually meet demand. I’m just glad I didn’t plan on one of these being a Mother’s Day gift.

Ever since Apple’s iOS devices started allowing apps, my dream has been some app to allow remote scanning from my phone into Delicious Library (DL2 from here-on). I THOUGHT this would be the case when the Delicious Library app was released, but alas, that just allowed a copy of your library to be synced/stored on your iOS device. =/ So when I found iCody I about jumped out of my skin. I quickly bought it, and only after found an article that said it didn’t work with DL2 (which, as it turned out, was incorrect). Anyway, after conversing with both the developers of DL2, and iCody, and then them speaking to each other, I have found a solution that works, and works well¹. And since I haven’t seen the info anywhere else, I figured I’d post here in the hopes someone will find it useful.

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1. As well as Appthology pulling the page saying it didn’t work. [↩]

I work for a Journalism school, doing computer work. Our student body is largely out of high school, into college, and I would guess by and large, they’re all Bachelors of Arts majors. Which means they’ve opted to take language courses rather than math/science. Which is fine, but it tells you that these students largely aren’t math people.

For years, some of the faculty here at the school have complained about the lack of basic math skills possessed by the students, but no one really had a firm grip on those skills, or knew what to do about it. Finally, last Spring term (2011), an Electronic Media instructor decided to address this, and gave her 16 students a math test each week, with the requirement that they get all the answers right, and then would be allowed to skip all subsequent tests. Doing so was required for the class, so failure to pass any of them would result in failure to pass the class. What were these “terrible” math problems? Largely, they were percentages. One of them based on the graphic for this post. Something like: “The devil makes it through 500 of the 666 slides. What percentage of the total is that?”

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