THE back-and bankbreaking prospect of a semester's books may be changing significantly if Amazon has its way.
One of the universal college experiences shared by all who attend post-secondary school is the sticker shock and frustration of buying and acquiring your textbooks.
Each September, university bookstores across the country become battle fields, where minute-by-minute skirmishes are fought.
First you line up to get in, sometimes for hours, then wade through towering columns of textbooks, trying to find staff to help you, staff who in my experience are hired for their exceedingly snarly attitude.
Then - if you are lucky enough to find your books - another lineup, sometimes as long as the first to pay, and pay and pay through the nose for these books.
It may all have changed in the blink of an eye. Amazon has unveiled an online textbook rental program.
Students can rent books, for terms anywhere between 30 and 360 days. They only pay for the time they actually need the book; savings can be as great as 80 per cent, but that is the best case.
The books are in Kindle format, so students can read them on Kindle, or on any device with a Kindle app, such as an iPad, Adroid tablet, iPhone, Blackberry or even a PC or notebook.
The only real limitation is you can't read the books on other eReaders such as the Kobo or Nook.
All I can say is it is about time and Huzzah!
On a completely unrelated topic: What is it about Apple?
After all these years, I still sometimes find myself being a fan-boy.
I began my computing career selling Macs. It was 1986, and the Mac was a new, exciting world-changer.
The Mac gave myself and countless others a chance to make a career in parallel with its own technical march. Even now, 25 years later, I still occasionally find myself wondering at the magic.
I would like to see myself now as a grizzled veteran. I have seen the Mac in not-so-great days, in the late '90s.
Were it not for a passionate core of zealots, Apple may have gone the way of the Amiga, the Commodore 64 and other platforms. But the Mac did not go away, and now they have released a newly refreshed operating system to go along with recent announcement of new models of the core hardware players.
The new version of OSX, dubbed Lion, worried me when I heard the philosophy behind the upgrade. Apple wanted to take the OS closer to iOS, Apple's very successful mobile OS, which runs its pack (pride?) leading iPhone and iPad.
I was fearful that Apple might lose its way in trying to push a desktop and notebook user into an interface that while cool, was not necessarily ideal for the task. Apple does occasionally believe a little too strongly in its own marketing.
I need not have worried, having spent a bit of time now in the company of Lion I am something of a believer, yet again, in Apple knowing the best way to do things.
While there are many interface features others may find compelling, it is in the move to iOS gesture recognition that I am most impressed.
When you pair the new OS with Apples Magic TrackPad, you get an entirely new experience in user interface.
Using gestures to navigate the screen is a terrific leap forward. The mouse has seen its day, I believe. It is not ideal for navigating the huge-screen real estate we are seeing with our newer computers, and darn it, we have used one for 25 years.
Time for a change.
The TackPad has won me over, learning a few gestures has given me a new level of control over my computer.
Yep! Apple does it again, and mark me down as still a fanboy.
Steve Dotto is host of Dotto Tech, Wednesdays at 6 p.m. on AM 650. Visit him online at www.dottotech.com or at www.facebook. com/dottotech.
