iPad – Page 2 – Auxiliary Memory

To Ebook or Not To Ebook

This week Barnes & Noble lowered their price for the Nook to $199, and came out with a Wi-Fi only model for $149, and on the same day Amazon lowered the price of the Kindle to $189. Unfortunately, the iPad remains $499. Once again I’m thinking about buying an ebook reader, but there are so many things to consider that I’m left undecided.

For instanced, I’ve been to three local bookstores trying to find a copy of Texasville by Larry McMurtry without coming home with a book to read. If I had an ebook reader, either Nook or Kindle, I could have started reading it immediately after realizing I wanted it.

Score 1 for ebooks. If the book is available ebook readers win on instant gratification.

Score 1 for paper. On the other hand, both Amazon and Barnes & Noble sell the ebook edition of Texasville for about the same price as the trade paperback edition, so I wouldn’t have saved any money towards paying back the investment of $149, $189 or $499. Why buy an ebook when the real book is the same price? I could read the real book and give it away or sell it, which I can’t with an ebook.

Score 1 for paper. I just ordered Texasville as a used hardback for 1 cent and $3.99 postage. You can get used books but not used ebooks.

Score 1 for ebooks. If I had bought the ebook edition of Texasville, Larry McMurtry would have been paid. Buying used cuts out the author. If all books sold were ebooks then writers will always get their cut.

Score 1 for paper. If everyone buys ebooks bookstores will go out of business, now that would suck, wouldn’t it?

Score 1 for ebooks. The price of The End of Biblical Studies is significantly cheaper for the ebook edition. It’s $21.77 for paper and $9.99 for the Kindle, but it’s not available for the Nook. Bummer, because I was thinking about getting the $149 Nook. But that’s $11.78 I could apply towards the iPad, since it does have Kindle and Nook reader software.

Score 1 for paper. I’m going down my Amazon Wish List to test things, and it’s score another point for paper, because The Year’s Best Science Fiction 2010 is not available for ebook readers. Actually, paper will score many points here because many books on my Wish List aren’t available in an ebook edition. That will change.

Score 1 for iPads. There are books that are available for the Kindle but not the Nook, and other books like Darwin’s Armada that’s available on the Nook, but not the Kindle. The iPad has software readers for most dedicated ebook readers. But $149 + $189 is still cheaper than $499.

Score 1 for ebooks because they offer large print and that makes reading easier for me.

Score 1 for ebooks because they are environmental friendly.

Score 1 for paper because I can share books, give them away or sell them.

Score 1 for ebooks because they are easier to hold.

Score 1 for paper to save money. By buying used, going to the library, getting books off the free table at work or borrowing books from friends I could significantly reduce my annual reading budget. It’s even possible to spend no money on reading if I stuck with paper.

Score 1 for ebooks because they stimulate the economy. Not only do you need to buy an ebook reader, but you have to pay for all your new books. This is bad for libraries and bookstores, but great for publishers, writers and the economy. The move to a Green Economy means creating as many environmental friendly jobs as possible.

Score 1 for iPads because they are good for magazine reading.

That’s 6 for paper and 9 for ebooks, with a leaning towards the iPad. I’m leery of spending $499 for the iPad. I spent $199 for the iPod touch and $399 for a Toshiba netbook and really don’t use either. I’d hate to spend another $499 for another gadget I’d end up not using too. But I’m wanting to read more but I can’t because small print strains my eyes. An ebook reader promises help for this handicap.

Finally, my stand on giving up paper means I don’t read magazines like I used to, and I miss that. I can read magazine articles online from my computer desk, but that’s not the most comfortable way to read for fun. The iPad “appears” to offer a better solution, but I won’t know until I bet my $499.

I look at my wall of books next to my computer desk and I wonder what life would be like if all those books were inside an ebook reader. Many of them are reference books with photos, drawings and diagrams – so I can only imagine those working on an iPad.

I had to move my wall of books when we put down new flooring and all of those books were very heavy and hard to move. It would be strange to hold all of them in one small device.

If I was born in a future age of ebooks, would my ebook reader at age 58 hold every book I had ever read? That’s a weird thought. Writing this is making me lean towards buying the iPad, and maybe even spending $599 to get the 32gb model, although I’m also tempted to hang onto paper for just a while longer until the iPad 2 comes out next year.

I keep thinking of more things to consider. Will I take my expensive iPad into the bathroom to read? If there are four best of the year SF anthologies to consider and only two of them are sold in ebook editions, will that force my buying decision? Will I choose Dozois and Hartwell over Horton and Strahan because they don’t have ebook editions?

Once I buy an iPad will that make me prejudice against books that don’t have ebook editions? It’s like my friend who took a rotary phone to show his fifth grade class and one girl asked “How do you send text messages?” If I get used to an ebook reader and then pick up a book, will I think, “Where’s the button to change the font size?”

JWH – 6/27/10

Rhapsody 2.0 App for iPhone/iPad/touch

This video really says it all.

Now, the implications are something else. 9,000,000 songs on my iPod touch for $9.99 a month sort of competes with what Apple is selling at their iTunes Store. However, Rhapsody isn’t trying to sell songs to iPhone/iPod/touch users – in fact, if you click the buy button inside the Rhapsody 2.0 App, Rhapsody directs your request to iTunes. That’s very gracious of Rhapsody. Or was that the price for Rhapsody to get into Apple’s App Store? I don’t know, but it works for me. Why buy songs when you can rent them so cheaply?

I loaded the Rhapsody 2.0 App on my touch, logged in, picked my current favorite playlist, and started playing music. A breeze. All the existing playlists I’ve built on my regular Rhapsody account showed up. Right now you can search on albums and songs within the app, and add them to a playlist for playing, but as this video promises, soon we’ll be able to play songs and albums directly, without adding them to a list. Although, I’m thinking it might be easier to always use the playlist, but make one called “New Albums To Try” and then when Tuesday rolls around, put anything I want to listen to on it, and clean it out before next Tuesday.

And I tried the trick in the video of downloading my the songs in the playlist and then shutting off the Wi-Fi. The 55 songs on my Songs Rated 10 played instantly. Very cool. I have a first generation iPod touch and it drains the battery very fast when Wi-Fi is on, so this is a great feature for me.

It took me a bit of poking to find the random play and repeat play buttons – they are hidden away on the song time scale that only shows up if you touch the screen near the top of the album cover. When a song plays you get cover photo to look at, and behind it if you hit the info i button, you’ll get a short essay about the artist. Overall, the app does everything I want but I’m expecting some nice surprises in future versions.

Rhapsody is a subscription music service and most music fans don’t cotton to that marketing model. Those that do love it. It’s another reason why Apple allowed Rhapsody in their app store, because renting music is so unappealing to the masses. This latest version of Rhapsody (the service, not the app) is cheaper and has more features.

And it makes a lot of sense to stream music to a phone where people have limited storage space. I’d need a 128GB iPhone to store the songs I own. Streaming 9 million songs works just as easily with an 8gb phone as a 16gb or 32gb model. Because the Rhapsody 2.0 app lets you pick out albums using your mobile device, you don’t even have to mess with a desktop other than to sign up the first time.

Rhapsody is great for people who like to try a lot of new music. It doesn’t take much effort to try out 20-30 new albums a month, and of those, I might add 10 songs to a playlist. I won’t own those 10 songs, but I will have tried a lot of new albums. It’s pretty cool to read your favorite music review magazine and just play the album while you’re reading the review.

It’s also convenient to have all your favorite songs and albums tagged into playlists for quick and easy access. Think of an artist, group, album or song and type it in the search box. If Rhapsody has it you can play it. I’d say 90-95% of what you can think of is available. There are a few famous holdouts, like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. If I could convince Rhapsody to change anything, I’d ask them not to sell songs and albums from artists that don’t stream. I don’t like paying to promote their work.

Generally where Rhapsody and other subscription services are weak is for finding out of print albums. Of course, no one else is selling them either. This is why people should still buy CDs. Any time you find an album you really love, buy it on CD to save forever, because even in the digital world where keeping things in print would be a snap, albums disappear into obscurity.

JWH – 5/2/10

Your Life in the Cloud

Cloud computing is a hot topic in the computer world, but if you’re not a tech geek you may be wondering about the term. In the early days of networking, when system administrators drew diagrams of their local networks they’d have little symbols for their computers, printers, hubs, wiring, but when it came to picturing the connection to the outer world, they’d draw a cloud. Eventually, they’d draw a cloud and write Internet over it.

The cloud was just a mysterious place at the edge of their map. Back in the old days, they’d describe two networks, the LAN (local area network) and the WAN (wide area network), but the WAN just meant all the branch offices. The Internet tied all the LANs and WANs into one big world wide network. Any computer equipment you don’t manage is part of the cloud.

The shift to cloud computing means trusting other people with your data, programs, and even CPU processing. Picture this. The old way was taking photos, processing them with Picasa, and keeping your snaps on your laptop. The new way is taking photos, uploading them to Picnik, crop and process them in your browser, and then creating a Show to send your friends to view online. Nothing really happens on your computer. You use your computer to manipulate photos at a distance. It doesn’t even matter what kind of computer you have, Mac, PC or Linux.

Now, there are pros and cons to cloud computing. If your computer is stolen, you don’t lose your photos. But if Picnik goes out of business, you do. But Picnik was just bought by Google, so hint, hint, see the direction of things? Google already has Picasa, so why would they want Picnik?

Well, a little story might explain that. In the fabled old days of writing computer programs, a programmer would develop and test a program, and then take it to each computer in the building and install it, and then wait for the users to find more bugs. If your business had PCs and Macs, you’d have to write two versions of the program. If the OSes were upgraded, you’d sometimes have to rewrite your programs. It was a pain. If the boss wanted a new feature, you’d rewrite the program, and then walk around and reinstall the program on all the machines again. A bigger pain. Then came web based programs. You write one program that runs on a web server that worked with PCs, Macs, and Linux machines. No more going around installing on individual computers.

Right now when Google updates Picasa everyone has to download and install the upgrade. If Google switches everyone to Picnik, all that goes away. They no longer have to worry about supporting millions of users, or maintaining PC and Mac versions of their programs. But it does mean they need to offer users a lot more disk space to upload their photos to. Instead of keeping your photos just on your computer, you can also put them on Google’s computers, in the cloud. If you are trusting, you could even delete the photos off your camera and computer. In other words, you are letting Google be your hard drive, at least for photos. And if you use Google Docs, you are letting them be your hard drive for word processing and spreadsheet documents.

Cloud computing has tremendous ramifications. Can you trust the cloud? Actually, can you trust the companies that maintain a cloud presence? Many people aren’t trusting by nature. I assume they might use the cloud, but keep copies of everything they own on their PC and backup drives. But what if there were more security features to the cloud? What if you could back up your stuff on Google to SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage? Or what if something like databanks emerged, that offered the same security for your data as they do for your money? What if there were governmental regulations and safeguards to data stored in the cloud?

Let me assure you of something, you will want the cloud to work and be safe because it will make your computing life infinitely easier. It would mean the end of viruses, and new computers that run slower and slower, and computers that start acting weird in ways you can’t understand. Computers could become solid-state devices with no moving parts, and the OS could be burned in ROM, so they can’t be changed, or infected, and your machine could become instant on, like a TV. And the OS wars will be over too, no more I’m a Mac, I’m a PC commercials, even though they were cute.

This is explained in “The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash” by Charlie Stross, the cutting edge science fiction writer, and over at TechCrunch in “Apple’s Secret Cloud Strategy and Why Lala is Critical” by Michael Robertson. It’s why the iPad and iPhone are more important now to Apple than the Mac. It’s why Intel is worried about its dominance of Intel Inside chips. It’s why Google is trying to take over the world with Android. It’s why Netflix can get almost any kind of device to stream videos directly to your TV. It’s why the iPad can run blazingly fast on a 1Ghz processor.

When everything is moved into the cloud, computers can become very simple. Steve Jobs knows that in the future no one will pay extra bucks to own a Mac. It’s why the iPad started out so cheap that HP and Microsoft cancelled their tablets. Computers will go through a paradigm change like when they morphed from mainframes/minis into microcomputers, that caused the personal computer revolution. For decades the network computer has been predicted, but it’s taking a while to emerge. Network computers can only succeed if everyone has fast broadband.

You are already living in the cloud if you use Netflix to stream movies. You are already living in the cloud if you do your banking online. Most people who did their taxes this year used cloud programs rather than installing TurboTax on their machine. Most people store their photos in the cloud. Soon you’ll store your music in the cloud. Eventually they will make video cameras that have WiFi and your video will be saved immediately to the cloud. If you watch Hulu, you are getting your TV from the cloud. When you put your medical records online, they will be filed in the cloud.

I use Safari Books Online, and so I read computer books from the cloud. Kindles and Nooks could just as easily display pages of books from the cloud instead of downloading whole books. I read my newspaper on the cloud. I’m starting to read magazines on the cloud.

Now I’m sure some of you are wondering why invent a new word for the Internet. Or we could simplify everything by just calling it the net. Everything will be on the net. The distinction is that your old computer and hard drive are on the net now. They are a node on the Internet. Using the term cloud implies the that node is different. It should eventually do away with hard drives, and seldom mentioned, but also do away with printers. If you combined tablet computers with cloud computing you can do away with paper.

One of my tasks at work is to monitor the helpdesk tickets for my college, so I know what kind of problems pester users every day. Cloud computing will make most of the problems I see now disappear. Sadly, it will put a lot of tech support guys out of work. If one geek guru can support a hundred users now, he or she will be able to support five hundred in the future. But this won’t happen overnight.

Most businesses will not let their workers put business documents in the cloud any time soon, but I expect most students to start saving their work to the cloud now. Why spend big bucks for Microsoft Office when you can use Google Docs or Windows Live for free? Poor OpenOffice should just fade away. All the free cloud computing services will convince home users and students to switch pretty quick. Business will install SitePoint and create their own private cloud services for awhile, but when security and privacy get better, I bet they will move to paid cloud services.

Using the cloud will cost money. We see a lot of free services now, but it will be tiered, so if you want more or better functions, you will pay. Picnik is a good example. I’m expecting iTunes 10 to incorporate Lala technology in a way that puts personally owned songs into the cloud. Whether Apple sells us the space or gives it to us is another issue. I’m thinking as long as you’re a loyal iTunes shopper, Apple might give their customers lifetime space, but we’ll see.

I’m anxious to see what Steve Jobs announces in June. Apple has leaped into the forefront of the cloud computing revolution with the iPad and iPhone. By fiercely controlling its App Store, it controls the quality of its cloud experience. That was a brilliant move on Apple’s part. I would expect further control in the future. It’s great to say you have over a 100,000 apps, but it’s another thing to say you have 10,000 A+ quality apps. I see the iPad as the model of future computers. Personal computing wild west days are over.

Right now computer users can muck up their machines by installing anything they want, or carelessly allow hackers to install dangerous programs on their machines. If all applications came from a tightly control app store, then things will be different. I expect the replacement for Windows to be an OS tied to an app store, so Microsoft can control the entire experience. I’m not sure what the Open Source crowd will think.

Right now the iPad represents a hybrid of cloud computing. It still downloads apps. A true network computer won’t. HTML 5 will go a long way towards making everything a web application. Most iPhone/iPad apps are really just hybrid web apps. This is a murky area for my crystal ball. A totally streamlined OS for a net computer will be little more than a HTML 5 browser. It should also mean the end of the app store. If you play a game, the game will run at the game server, not on your device. Your scores and saved games should be saved on the server. Anyone who is really into thinking about cloud computing will see this as a conundrum for the phasing out of dedicated computers. Games require the most local hardware, so they will be phased out last.

Other people will say that’s what the Xbox and PS3 have been doing for years, phasing out PC gaming. Will cloud computing ever have the power to compete with gaming consoles?

JWH – 5/2/10

The iPad and Screen Evolution

I got to play with an iPad today for the first time. It was beautiful. I’m going to have a hard time keeping my resolution to not buy one before the second generation comes out. I’ve been trying to find a carry around the house computer for years. I tried a Kindle, iPod touch and a Toshiba netbook. I sold my Kindle to a bookworm friend, and my other two devices just sit around losing battery charge. I use each occasionally, but they have the wrong size screens.

I liked the Kindle for reading fiction, but I wanted something to read electronic magazines, RSS feeds and the Internet while reclined in my La-Z-Boy. The iPod touch lets me read stuff the Kindle didn’t plus my Kindle fiction, but the screen is too small. I installed several ebook reader programs on my netbook, but 10.1” landscape screen is all wrong. Seeing the 9.7” inch portrait screen of the iPad today convinced me it was near perfect for electronic magazines, RSS feeds and Internet reading, and probably for fiction too. It was heavier than I expected, and that might be a drawback. But it was damn close to what I want.

The iPad should do a lot to eliminate paper, which is one of my environmental goals. The iPad also well illustrates the role and purpose of the computer screen. The small screen on the iPhone/iPod touch is perfect for carrying around all the time. The interface is tuned to it’s 3.5” screen. iPhone apps that aren’t rewritten for the 9.7” iPad screen will miss their mark. Putting Windows 7 on a 10.1” netbook screen just isn’t right either. Tiny desktop applications don’t cut it, they need to be redesigned to the screen real estate.

For example, Windows Media Center works great on my 52” television screen. It’s an application designed to work on a TV screen with viewers across the room. It doesn’t need a keyboard. Using regular Windows apps on my big TV is clunky. I can make browsing OK with IE 8 by using the Zoom magnification, so I can play music and read Engadget or Slashdot from the couch, but some pages like Pandora just doesn’t resize or work well on the big screen.

It would be damn cool if Pandora, Rhapsody and Lala all were rewritten to run inside of Windows Media Center. In fact, it would be extremely neat if there was a version of IE for Windows Media Player so I could browse the web with just a clicker. It would need a virtual keyboard like the iPad/iPhone, but that’s doable.

Back in the 1990s pundits started talking about digital convergence. They expected TVs and computers to merge, and that’s rapidly happening, but I don’t think they planned for giant screen TVs. Nor did they expect the convergence with telephones, GPSes and books, or even game machines. Now it’s all a matter of fitting the task to the screen size:

Screen Size	Device	Best Use
1-2”	MP3	Music Audiobooks Voice Recording
2-4”	Phone Camera Video Cam Portable Game	Smartphone GPS Photography Videography Games
5-6”	Ebook	Fiction
9-11”	Tablet	Nonfiction Magazines RSS feeds Photos Games
10-16”	Netbook Notebook	Work on the go
18-24”	Desktop	Work at the desk
26-60”	Television	TV Movies Music Home video Internet TV
> 60”	Projector	Lectures Education

You can watch video on all these screen sizes, and even use all of them with computer applications or games. Telephone features like video conferencing, Skype and web cams have moved to the various screen sizes. I think the iPad has been in development since before the advent of netbooks, and I bet Steve Jobs was sick to see them succeed because that 9-11” screen size was territory ripe for exploitation. I tend to think tablets will win out in that form factor and 12-13” will become the ultimate netbook size for extreme road warriors who want to type on the go, while 16” will be the common size for notebooks. I expect 24” to become the ultimate size for desktop machines, although I’ve discovered I like having two monitors at work, one in portrait and the other in landscape.

Now, is there room for a new form factor and unique applications? I don’t know. Will the future just be ones of refining these screen territories? And will there be some repositioning of functions? Do you need a smartphone if you carry around an iPad? Would a dumb phone be good enough? Some people like everything on one device, like an iPhone, but I prefer the right tool for the job. The iPod Nano is perfect for audio books. They are harder to use on the iPhone. Time will tell how everything shakes out, but I think screen size will be the factor that will determine the ultimate use of each device.

JWH – 4/8/10

Books versus Ebooks

I love science fiction and futuristic ideas. I love computers and neat gadgets. I love reading. So, you’d think I’d love ebook readers. I’ve owned several, including a Kindle, but I’ve sold or given them away. I’m still anxious to have another ebook reader, but I’m not so much waiting for the ultimate ebook reader as I’m waiting for the revolution in publishing that will create super-books that have to be read on an ebook reader. Right now ebook readers have a few conveniences that might appeal to some bookworms, like being able to change the font size, carry many books around at once, going green and saving trees, but for the most part, reading an ebook isn’t different from reading an old fashion book.

What I want is an ebook like the magical books we see in Harry Potter movies, where the pages have moving photos and words and letters dance with animation. I love reading about science and history and I believe that adding multimedia to the words I read would create a quantum leap in learning fun. Actually, web pages are heading more in this direction than ebook pages. Take for instance my blog here. I can add videos, photos, maps, music to my page to spice it up. I can link to other pages all over the web. These additions are still clunky, so the page isn’t seamlessly animated like a book in a Harry Potter story, but I’m sure WordPress.com is working on that.

Last year I was at a book giveaway where I picked up several modern high school textbooks. They were stunning productions, taking the potential of the printed page further than I’ve ever seen before. No current ebook reader can come close to duplicating what they can. If the iPad had a 15” screen it could, and if the layout was adapted, its 9.7” screen, it could theoretically compete well. The iPad represents a new generation of ebook readers, and it has the potential for being a fantastic device. Will it become the fabled Dynabook, we’ll have to wait and see. Tablet computers have been around for awhile, but no one has really programmed the content to showcase the design. The iPhone is a huge success because programmers maximized the design of their networked programs for the 3.5” screen.

Whether writers and publishers jump on the tablet ebook potential is a whole other story. I was thinking about buying a Kindle 2 or a Sony ebook reader, but after seeing the iPad I doubt I will. The iPad’s larger full color screen, able to show high definition video, play sound, and computer animation makes me think I could have a Harry Potter magical book. But remember, the iPad is worthless without the content. I’m surprised Steve Jobs didn’t commission a writer to produce an ebook that showcased the iPad’s real potential. If I was just going to read novels, I’d get a Kindle.

I recently reviewed The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong. It has 34 pages of footnote citations. I own this book in hardback and unabridged audio. I’d like to have an iPad edition that has both the text and audio narration built in, and hyperlinks to the full pertinent portion of the texts to all the footnote references. Armstrong summarizes the work of hundreds of individuals over thousands of years. I’d like links to their original work (it should all be in the public domain). Also, if her research for the book included documentaries and interviews, I’d like the videos and sound recordings added.

But most of all I’d want two extras that I haven’t seen before, even on the web. First, since the book is about The Bible, I’d like her annotation of The Bible presented and for each verse I tap with my finger I’d want Armstrong’s text related to that passage, and a listing of links to all the people who offered commentary on that verse that Armstrong reviewed. Second, I want a time-line. Armstrong is summarizing thousands of years, so I’d like a year by year listing of when various portions of The Bible was written, related history happened, or commentary took place. That way I could read the text of Armstrong’s book in three orders: As it was published in print, in time order, and in Bible passage order.

I’m sure other people can think of other features to add to this super-book version. For example, having a fun trivia type game to test me on content would be an another extra feature. Hell, another cool idea just popped into my mind. Since The Bible has spawned endless denominations of Judaism and Christianity, I’d like a family tree of denominations showing how each sect got started and by whom. All the philosophers and theologians Armstrong mentions created a spider web of interconnected ideas, with many branches forming new churches.

Essentially what I’m asking for is what’s already in the book that Armstrong wrote and her notes, annotated with what she read and studied to write the book. I’m just asking to see the same information from a variety of angles, and to follow different paths through the information. For example, Armstrong gives us a taste for many Christian thinkers, like Origen, but because her book is short, she flies by these philosophers rather fast. Including the Wikipedia entry for each person mentioned would also be helpful. This is the second book I finished this month that mentions the Christian theologian and heretic Origen, the other being The Rise and Fall of Alexandria by Justin Pollard and Howard Reid. Neither paint him as well as his Wikipedia entry.

This would not be practical as a printed book. I’m not even sure if EPUB formatting can handle it. But when publishers start selling books like this, then people will see the obvious value of an ebook reader like the iPad. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the iPad is special. I think HP, Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Samsung, MSI and other computer makers will quickly take over the market and create iPad like devices that are better and cheaper. They might all be called iPads, like all copiers are called Xerox machines.

Ebooks should revolutionize the textbook and non-fiction book industry. Each book should have multiple ways to read through the content, and reading might take place with the eyes or ears or both. Can you imagine a fully multimedia math book? Or what about textbooks for studying French and Spanish? What about a detailed history of astronomy?

So far I’ve been talking about super-books. But what if a publisher took the 10 best books on a subject, like The Bible, and blended them together to for a super-super-book? Certain books would have fantastic synergy is woven together. This would be perfect for college courses too. Also, use the same techniques to annotate fiction. Imagine what could be done with On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

The reason why ebook readers haven’t been convincing buys to many bookworms yet, is because they haven’t presented the potential of Reading 2.0. Or is it Reading 14.0 by now?

JWH – 1/31/10