“This is not the ‘GDrive,’” a Google (GOOG) spokesperson explained. “We’ve been continuing to expand on the types of files that can be uploaded to Docs. We started with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Later we enabled upload, view and share of PDFs. This launch builds on internal work that we’ve been doing for some time.”

And indeed it does. Until yesterday, Google Docs was limited to office-type documents. Today, those limits are gone and you can upload any file you like as long as it’s not over 250 megabytes. The service will provide up to one gigabyte of free storage, with additional space costing 25 cents per gigabyte per year.

How this is different from the following description of GDrive culled from a 2006 Google presentation for analysts escapes me.

With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc). We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today. For example: Firefox team is working on server side stored state but they want to store only URLs rather than complete web pages for storage reasons. This theme will help us make the client less important (thin client, thick server model) which suits our strength vis-a-vis Microsoft and is also of great value.

So what does that mean?

At this point, Plastic Logic, which has raised more than $200 million from investors, is well behind Amazon (AMZN), Sony (SNE) and even Barnes & Noble (BKS). So the company is trying to distinguish the Que by positioning it as a “business” device. Which also means expensive: Plastic Logic is asking consumers to pay up to $800 for the initial versions.

The big idea: Not only can you read your books and newspapers on the device, which features a touchscreen and e-ink display, but you can work on Microsoft (MSFT) Word, Excel, etc., documents. Plastic Logic also promises “interoperability” with Research In Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry, though it is a little vague about how this will work.

That is, the company is positioning the Que as something akin to a netbook that happens not to have a keyboard (this sounds familiar).

In CEO Richard Archuleta’s words: “The e-readers that you see today are great reading devices. They’re great for reading ebooks. They’re great for casual reading. But what about folks who need to read”–that is, grownups who need to get some work done?

The device is neither thinner nor lighter than competing e-readers, which for Plastic Logic was a conscious choice. It is, however, much more expensive: A four-gigabyte version will go for $649 and an 8GB version will cost $799.

Amazon’s Kindle goes for $259, as does Barnes & Noble’s Nook; Amazon’s larger DX device costs $489. Sony’s “Daily Edition” reader sells for $399.

As previously announced, the Que will connect to an electronic bookstore run by Barnes and Noble. The more expensive version will feature a wireless connection provided by AT&T (T). Plastic Logic says the devices will ship in mid-April.

Notably absent from a long list of publications that have agreed to provide versions for the reader: The New York Times (NYT). Also missing, at least right now: Condé Nast and Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc. News Corp.’s (NWS) Dow Jones unit is offering both Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones owns this Web site).

More on Plastic Logic here. Press release here and below:

Introducing the QUE™ proReader
More than an eReader, QUE is uniquely designed as an essential tool to lighten the workload of mobile professionals.

Sleek industrial design, intuitive user interface, powerful applications and QUE Store define a premium business reading experience. | 7 January 2010
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW, LAS VEGAS, NV – JANUARY 7, 2010 – Plastic Logic today unveiled QUE™ (pronounced “Q”), the world’s first proReader. More than an eReader, QUE is designed specifically to provide a premium reading experience and access to content anywhere anytime, while simplifying the multi-faceted lifestyle of business professionals–and to literally lighten their workload.

With its sleek 8.5 x 11 inch form factor, crisp large touchscreen display, intuitive user interface and powerful tools, QUE stands out in the crowd. QUE is currently on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (Central Hall of Las Vegas Convention Center at Booth 11840 anchoring the e-Book Techzone).

“Today we are introducing two major advancements: the birth of a new market category, the proReader, and a milestone in the evolution of plastic electronics,” said Richard Archuleta, CEO of Plastic Logic. “The QUE proReader was built from the ground up for people who need to read. Starting today, mobile professionals can look forward to a paperless briefcase, a lighter load, and a better way to work.”

Like paper, only better?: The inspiration for QUE was an age-old but perfect business tool: a simple sheet of paper. QUE was designed to have the benefits of paper, but without the weight and clutter. Just like paper, QUE is easy to hold and feels good in your hands. But it’s easier to search and find exactly what you’re looking for.

The size of a pad of paper, about 1/3 inch thick, and weighing less than many periodicals (about a pound), QUE features a 10.7-inch shatterproof plastic display–the largest display in the market.

Exclusive plastic display technology: ?The patented plastic display technology in QUE has been 10 years in development, since Plastic Logic’s founding by researchers from the renowned University of Cambridge (UK) Cavendish Labs. The unique plastic displays are produced in Plastic Logic’s world-first commercial scale plastic electronics manufacturing facility in Dresden, Germany. Combined with E Ink Vizplex® technology, they produce an outstanding reading experience that looks and reads just like paper even in direct sunlight.

QUE Design: A celebration of black and white print. ?Designed through a unique collaboration between Plastic Logic and IDEO, the QUE design was inspired by black and white print—a communications standard that is both classic and timeless. In addition to being the easiest to read, black and white is often the most visually striking combination.

“We wanted to highlight the optical qualities of plastic,” said IDEO’s Caroline Fagiello, who serves as Plastic Logic’s acting creative director. “Think of pools of black ink captured in a glass ink well against a crisp sheet of white linen paper.”

Plastic Logic created QUE to feel as natural in your hand as a pad of paper, while conveying the level of premium quality craftsmanship of a fine pen. Its proprietary user interface is as intuitive and easy as paper and ink.

The simple, but powerful QUE user interface is uniquely designed for functionality in the day-to-day world of the business professional. Its signature home view provides your appointments for the day and all of the information you need, including a customized view of your content–your daily newspaper, magazines, and other essential materials–as well as immediate access to the QUE Store to get what you need whenever you need it.

All your content, all the time?Designed for more than good looks, QUE provides instant access to the content busy professionals need at their fingertips all day long–all their content anywhere any time: Read a newspaper over morning coffee. Review your appointments imported from Outlook. Have every document you need when you need it. And at the end of the day, relax with a good book.

In addition to highly valued business and professional newspapers, periodicals and eBooks, QUE supports reading and annotating document formats business users need (including PDF, Microsoft Office, ePub documents and more). With the QUE software, it’s easy to quickly convert and transfer content from your PC, Mac™ computer, or BlackBerry® smartphone to your QUE.

The standard 4GB QUE model can hold up to 35,000 documents or the equivalent of up to 35 filing cabinets worth of documents. If your paper-laden briefcase and file cabinets are bulging at the seams, the 8GB model holds up to 75,000 documents or the equivalent of the contents of up to 75 filing cabinets¹.

Powerful tools for interacting with your content?. Storage means nothing if you can’t easily access your documents. Thanks to its proprietary touchscreen interface, QUE makes it simple to find reports, spreadsheets and presentations with just a few taps of a finger. And QUE is always on when you need it: its battery can last days, instead of hours.

QUE has integrated reviewing tools and features that maximize efficiency. Add a note and use the virtual keyboard to include your comments, highlight text, scribble free form, and even add a stamp to emphasize a point. No stylus needed. And if that massive spreadsheet with the tiny font is too small, just zoom in for a close-up view. With QUE, it’s easy to instantly go back and forth between documents.

Wireless access to leading publications, professional content on the QUE Store?The QUE Store offers a rich collection of reading material especially geared to the business professional. QUE users will be able to connect to fresh content on-the-go, on the QUE Store: to search, purchase and download wirelessly via Wi-Fi and AT&T’s 3G network².

Powered by Barnes & Noble, the QUE Store offers instant access to the world’s largest eBookstore, in addition to many business and professional newspapers, books, and periodicals. Additionally, Plastic Logic is partnering with Olive Software and premier publishers to give QUE users a richer content and reading experience that is optimized for QUE.

Today, Plastic Logic is announcing new partnerships with some of the leading business publishers and publications, including the Down Jones company and the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and All Things Digital, as well as Forbes and Fast Company. Rounding out new partnerships are the Sporting News and major regional newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald, and San Jose Mercury News.

These publications join previously announced strategic partnerships with Financial Times, USA Today, the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, MIT Technology Review, Popular Science, and IDG publication titles including CIO, Network World, and Computerworld. A full list of content partners can be found at PlasticLogic.com.

Publications on the QUE Store are available ranging from one-time use to ongoing subscriptions.

EXCLUSIVE: QUE truVue–Setting the standard for eNewspapers?The QUE proReader enables newspapers, magazines, and other types of content to have a richer reading experience that is symbolic of their print editions, complete with photos and formatting. The QUE truVue standard, enabled by the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, provides the familiar look and feel of print publications, and makes eReading easier and more enjoyable.

“Since our inception 27 years ago, USA TODAY has offered a reading experience that millions of people rely on and enjoy, so it’s really exciting that there is an eReader platform that delivers our content the way it’s supposed to look and feel,” said Dave Hunke, president and publisher of USA TODAY.

“Forbes has always been at the forefront of embracing and adopting new media and new platforms; eReaders represent that next generation platform to deliver our content,” said Nina La France, Vice President Consumer Marketing for Forbes. “The QUE proReader caters to our audience: people who are busy, active, mobile, time-starved, and consume content at a great clip. The proReader gives them the full content experience and new capabilities to stay ahead.”

The QUE starts here?Beginning today, preorders for the QUE proReader may be placed at the QUE Store. Beginning in mid-April 2010, QUE will be available for shipping. Later in 2010, QUE will be available through the Barnes & Noble stores nationwide and online at Barnes & Noble.com QUE.com.

The price for QUE will range from $649.00 for the 4GB QUE model with WiFi that holds up to 35,000 documents, to $799.00 for the 8GB QUE model with WiFi and 3G that holds up to 75,000 documents.

To complement its iconic look and profile, Plastic Logic has also designed an entire line of QUE premium accessories, including three carrying cases to match any busy lifestyle. In addition to their classic elegance, the cases protect your QUE from dust, scratches and everyday wear and tear. QUE accessories are available on the QUE store at QUE.com.

Additional information, including high resolution images, are available at PlasticLogic.com.

I haven’t tested campusbackup.org, whose Student Backup service copies an unlimited quantity of word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation and PDF files, once nightly, to a remote server for $50 a year. But there are other, more versatile options I have tested that, unlike Student Backup, copy photos and music and other types of files. These include MozyHome ($4.95 a month for unlimited storage, at mozy.com) and Carbonite ($55 a year for unlimited storage at carbonite.com). All three work with either Windows or Mac computers.

I read that importing the newly remastered Beatles CDs into iTunes and listening to them on a computer or portable player is like buying a masterpiece and staring at a photocopy of it. Any truth to this? Does importing really lose that much quality?

It depends on how sensitive an ear you have. In most cases, when you import a CD into iTunes or any other software jukebox program, you are converting the songs into a compressed file, such as an MP3 or AAC file. This saves a ton of space on your hard disk, but at least subtly diminishes quality. To an audiophile, that can make a big, negative difference, especially when you add the insult of listening to the music through iPod headphones or small computer speakers. To most of the rest of us, though—especially with rock, pop, urban or country music—it’s no big deal.

However, there is a compromise. If you don’t care about the songs taking up lots more space on your hard disk, iTunes will allow you to import them in a much less compressed format called Apple Lossless or an uncompressed format called WAV. You can choose which format to use in the iTunes Preferences settings. In the latest version of iTunes, called iTunes 9, this particular option is found under the General tab in Preferences, by clicking on the button called “Import Settings.”

Previously I had a Dell and Windows and used Family Tree Maker for genealogy records. Now that I’m an Apple owner, I find that Family Tree Maker does not work on an Apple, only Windows. What can I do about this?

It seems to me that you have three obvious options. If you still have your old Dell, you could crank it up again just for the purpose of running Family Tree Maker. Or, you could buy a boxed copy of Windows and install it on your Mac, which is fully capable of running Windows and Windows programs (assuming it’s an Intel-based Mac). Finally, you could switch to one of the native Mac-based genealogy programs and import your data from Family Tree Maker via the standard GEDCOM file format used in genealogy. One such program, called Reunion, includes specific instructions on importing data from Family Tree Maker on its “Top 10 Questions” page, at leisterpro.com.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

This week I tested Postbox 1.0, a program designed to handle your email in a smart, helpful manner. Starting Wednesday, this program is available at www.Postbox-Inc.com. Postbox sorts through your email and detects its contents so you can see Web links, photos, contacts and other items themselves with one button click—whether Microsoft Word (MSFT) documents, PDFs or spreadsheets—without digging through messages. Since its inbox is constantly being indexed, all search queries return near-instant results.

Postbox uses an Inspector Pane on the right side of each email to extract and display elements like images, attachments and contact information.

Postbox’s founders come from Mozilla Corp., maker of the popular Firefox browser, so Postbox is based on Mozilla technology and its security standards. Email is indexed locally on your computer, so none of it is sent back across the Web to Postbox. It uses Content Tabs (tabs are another feature borrowed from Firefox) to help visually organize folders, messages and content extracted from those messages. It displays the most important elements of each message in a right-side panel. Received emails can even be edited so they aren’t sitting in your inbox with subject lines like, “Fw: Re: Re: Sept.” Instead, you can rewrite the subject to something like “Flight times.”

But this program isn’t free like Gmail, Hotmail or other Web-based email programs, nor does it come preloaded on a computer the way Apple Mail (AAPL) is on every Mac. Users can try Postbox for a free 30-day trial period after which each license costs $40, allowing one person to use their license on multiple computers (i.e. at work, at home, on a laptop). For another $20, a Family Pack option will give up to five family members use of Postbox. An additional $25 buys a Lifetime Upgrades plan that entitles you to receive free of charge any major version of Postbox that’s released; other nonmajor releases are free upgrades.

I used Postbox on a Mac and a Windows Vista computer, filling it up with thousands of emails from Gmail, Hotmail and .Mac accounts. It didn’t run properly on my company-issued computer, which is plugged into a network firewall. Postbox says it supports open protocols like IMPAP, POP and SMTP, and that it would work with Microsoft Exchange if Exchange were set to use those open protocols.

For all of Postbox’s terrific features, it can be hard to suddenly see your email in a different way since most of our email programs haven’t changed much in years. Outlook, for example, has plenty of hidden features that many people never learn how to use. Postbox seems to know how slow users are to adapt to change and so it reveals many of its features whenever it gets the chance.

For example, Postbox pops up an alert that shows you how to connect this email program to Facebook and Twitter so that you can post status updates or tweets without leaving your email. These connections also let Postbox try to pull one representative photo for each of your email contacts by matching a name in an email with someone’s Facebook or Twitter name—if you follow the person. It also uses photos assigned to contacts in the Mac OS X address book, which is used by Apple Mail.

Or take a feature in Postbox called Topics. This is a way of auto-organizing messages into different groups after you label them as being part of a certain topic, say “Mom’s Birthday.” All messages in an email conversation are grouped into “Mom’s Birthday,” as are any future responses to the same conversation. Postbox gives you three ways to label an email conversation as being part of a certain topic: from the toolbar, using a Topics button in the message header or by pressing “T” from within a message. You can also select a topic as you’re composing an email, pre-sorting that conversation into a designated topic.

Not everyone will like Topics because, however helpful the feature is, it makes the user do more work when he or she just want to get through a huge pile of unread emails. Labeling each email with a certain topic doesn’t take long, but it’s still an extra step. I would like Postbox to create automatic topics for sorting emails. For example, I recently sent and received at least 50 emails related to rescheduling tennis matches. Even though all the messages had the word “tennis” in them, not all of them were related to the same email, so they wouldn’t sort into the topic I created, “Tennis Make-Up.” Postbox says it has considered automatic options like these and may try to incorporate something similar in future versions of the product.

If my 30-day trial ran out tomorrow, I’d miss Postbox’s Inspector Bar the most. This feature works like a filter, instantly sucking out the most important parts in each email—including messages, attachments, images or links—and displaying them in a blue, right-side panel.

Another useful tool in Postbox is the Compose Sidebar. This also appears as a right-side panel but it shows up when someone is writing an email. This panel can display attachments, images, links or contacts found in all emails so you can simply drag and drop that item into your email as you’re composing it. This took me a while to get comfortable using because I’m so used to hunting through emails for things that I need to find. But once it became a habit, I found myself using the Compose Sidebar often.

If you have Postbox running in the background and you get an email, small notifications appear in the bottom left of your screen telling you which email account received the message and who sent it.

In the Content Tabs, which fill up with all attachments, images, links or contacts found in your indexed email, a feature called the Action Bar lets you save, send, or instantly glance at a document. This saves you from opening each email and its attachment, a process that sometimes requires opening a slow-to-open program to see the document. A slider in this Action Bar lets you adjust the size of images from small to large.

Postbox shines a unique light on email and the way we work with it every day. Not all of its features will come naturally for long-time users of the same email program. But for someone who wants a fast search option built into email, Postbox is a winner.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

The new software, called Snow Leopard, succeeds Apple’s 2007-vintage Leopard, which I regard as the best computer operating system out there, and markedly superior to its main rival, Microsoft’s Windows Vista. Snow Leopard goes on sale Friday, Aug. 28, and will be pre-installed on all new Macintosh computers.

The company, which often proclaims its new releases as revolutionary, has been very low key about Snow Leopard. For many months, Apple (AAPL) has made it clear the new OS wouldn’t sport new eye-popping features, but would instead be focused on what it calls “refinements” and “fine-tuning.” Perhaps its biggest new feature is something only a minority of Mac owners will ever use: built-in compatibility with Microsoft’s Exchange corporate email, calendar and contacts service.

Snow Leopard is priced accordingly, at just $29 for people upgrading from Leopard. That’s $100 less than what Leopard cost. And it’s $90 less than what Microsoft plans to charge upgraders for the main consumer version of its next version of Windows, called Windows 7, which is due out Oct. 22. Windows 7 is also an iteration on its predecessor, rather than a revolutionary new product, though it has some nice tweaks and will be a more dramatic improvement due to Vista’s failings. I’ll have a full review of it closer to its release.

I’ve been testing Snow Leopard on three Macs—an older desktop and a laptop of my own that I upgraded from Leopard, and a new MacBook Pro laptop Apple lent me for testing with Snow Leopard pre-installed. I found Snow Leopard easy to install, faster than Leopard, compatible with my most commonly used software and peripherals, and filled with a number of small, useful refinements and additions.

One delightful change: Snow Leopard takes up less than half the room on a hard disk that Leopard did, and Apple says the average user who upgrades will free up about 7 gigabytes of space. On my 2008-vintage MacBook Pro, I gained back a whopping 14 gigabytes.

But I also encountered a number of bugs and glitches, and a few incompatibilities, including a wildly wrong guess by Snow Leopard about which driver to use for an older, lightly used printer on one of my upgraded Macs. (It did fine with my main printer.)

Overall, I believe Snow Leopard will help keep the Mac an appealing choice for computer buyers, and I can recommend it to existing Mac owners seeking more speed and disk space, or wanting to more easily use Exchange. But I don’t consider Snow Leopard a must-have upgrade for average consumers. It’s more of a nice-to-have upgrade. If you’re happy with Leopard, there’s no reason to rush out and get Snow Leopard.

For some current Mac owners, Snow Leopard isn’t an option. About 20% of them are still using older models that aren’t powered by the Intel (INTC) processors Apple currently uses. Snow Leopard simply won’t work on these machines, including models designated as G4 or G5 and sold as recently as 2006.

And, for owners of Intel-based Macs who are still using the older Tiger version of the Mac OS, Apple is officially making Snow Leopard available only in a “boxed set” that includes other software and costs $169. The reasoning is that these folks never paid the $129 back in 2007 to upgrade to Leopard. But here’s a tip: Apple concedes that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140.

Here’s a quick rundown of what I found in testing Snow Leopard:

Installation

Snow Leopard comes in one version, rather than the multiple operating system versions favored by Microsoft (MSFT). And that single version handles hardware and software based on both a standard computer technology, called 32-bit, and a newer one, called 64-bit, which can use much more memory and is faster.

Both my desktop and laptop Macs converted to Snow Leopard quickly and smoothly, in about 45 minutes each. Unlike the upgrade process Microsoft is requiring to get to Windows 7 from Windows XP, the Snow Leopard upgrade preserves all your files, settings and programs where they previously existed, right down to your desktop icons and wallpaper. No disk wiping, file moving, or program re-installation is required. And, as noted above, you actually gain disk space, because Apple has slimmed down the OS and also automatically removes or compresses old system files (not your personal data) that are no longer needed or used often.

However, I did run into a couple of minor problems: on one of my Macs, a screen saver displaying certain of my photos didn’t work after the switch. Other photos did work. Apple says this is a bug it will fix.

Speed

After changing to Snow Leopard, my Macs worked faster. I already considered them pretty speedy, so the overall effect wasn’t mind-blowing. But Snow Leopard’s built-in programs, like Mail, the Safari browser, and the Finder—Apple’s equivalent of the Windows Explorer—have all been rewritten behind the scenes, so these and other specific features are now a lot quicker. I found that email folders stuffed with thousands of messages opened almost instantly, and copying files was noticeably faster, even when the destination was on the Internet or a network. The Safari 4 browser, already very fast with Leopard, is even speedier under Snow Leopard, especially on more complex Web sites that use a popular technology called Javascript.

New Features

True to its word, Apple has built few new features into Snow Leopard, and, except for Exchange (explained below), these are small. One touted feature is called Dock Expose, which allows you to see small versions of all the open windows in any running program by clicking on its icon in the Dock at the bottom of the screen. But this is mostly a reworking of a feature that already has been on the Mac.

Apple’s QuickTime video player has been upgraded, with a clean new interface for playback, and the new ability to record and trim videos. Icons can be more easily enlarged, and you can preview the files they represent, even playing videos in miniature or paging through multipage PDF or PowerPoint files.

My three favorite tweaks, barely mentioned by Apple:

• “Substitutions,” which is like the auto-correct feature in Microsoft Word, but extends the concept to Apple’s email and other programs;
• the ability for Snow Leopard to automatically reset the time zone on the Mac’s clock based on your location while traveling;
• and a new built-in function in QuickTime that allows you to record videos of actions you take on the Mac’s screen.

Exchange

Although Exchange is a widely used Microsoft server product, employed by many, many companies to manage employees’ email, calendars, and contacts, it isn’t built into Windows. To use Exchange, you have to buy add-on software, usually Microsoft’s Outlook for Windows PCs. It also hasn’t been built into the Mac OS, and usually required Mac owners to buy Microsoft’s Entourage program. But, with Snow Leopard, Apple is building Exchange right into the operating system, so it works with Apple’s free, built-in email, calendar and contact programs.

With the generous help of my company’s IT folks, I tested this feature, and it worked very well. All my corporate information flowed into Apple’s programs, very quickly, and I could search the company directory, check the calendars of people with whom I wished to schedule meetings, and more.

However, Apple makes setting up this new feature look simpler than it is. In most cases, I believe, it will require the time and cooperation of corporate IT personnel, who will need time to learn it—especially since, at many companies, relatively few of these folks are Mac experts. In my case, an Apple employee had to help my IT colleagues and me to get it going. But you likely won’t have that aid.

Compatibility and Glitches

Commonly used third-party programs, like the Mac versions of Microsoft Office, the Firefox browser, and Adobe Reader, all worked fine in my tests after the upgrade. But a few things didn’t. Apple admitted I had found a few bugs and said that some software makers will have to upgrade their software because the programs rely on under-the-hood components that have changed in Snow Leopard.

VMware’s Fusion program for running Windows simultaneously with the Mac operating system worked, and I was able to use Windows. But it was a bit glitchy. VMware (VMW) provided me with a forthcoming new version tailored for Snow Leopard’s changed underlying architecture, which worked perfectly.

A Cisco (CSCO) program used to connect to corporate virtual private networks caused one of my test machines to completely crash, a rarity on Macs. But Snow Leopard now contains the same Cisco VPN connector as a built-in feature, and that worked perfectly.

Snow Leopard didn’t properly recognize my older-model Verizon (VZ) cellular modem card, though I was still able to use the card by digging into Apple’s network preferences screen. Apple says this is a bug it will fix.

As noted above, Snow Leopard didn’t work at first with an older networked printer on one of my test Macs, and thought it was a laser printer instead of an inkjet. I did get it working, by manually selecting a different printer driver, but Apple admits this is a bug it will have to fix.

Finally, the Time Machine backup file on one of my Macs stopped working. With my permission, Apple examined the file using a diagnostic tool and claimed it had become corrupted a couple of months ago, before the upgrade, and that Snow Leopard merely exposed the problem. I have no way of knowing if this is true, but Time Machine did work perfectly on the two other test Macs.

Underlying Technologies

In addition to greater 64-bit capability, Snow Leopard has two other big under-the-hood additions. One, called Grand Central Dispatch, makes it easier for developers to write programs that make better use of the multiple “cores,” or processing units, in modern processors. The other, called OpenCL, makes it easier for developers to offload some non-graphics tasks to today’s potent graphics chips. These are very important, especially for power-hungry tasks like video production and high-end gaming, but Microsoft is building similar capabilities into Windows 7, and they won’t really matter on either platform until third-party developers make use of them, which will take time.

Bottom Line

Apple already had the best computer operating system in Leopard, and Snow Leopard makes it a little better. But it isn’t a big breakthrough for average users, and, even at $29, it isn’t a typical Apple lust-provoking product.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090826/apple-changes-leopards-spots/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090825/sonys-kindle-competition-touchscreen-plus-att-for-399/ http://allthingsd.com/20090825/sonys-kindle-competition-touchscreen-plus-att-for-399/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:53:57 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=10266 Sony did indeed have a bit of news to announce at the New York Public Library: Its most direct challenge to Amazon’s Kindle to date. Like the Kindle, the “Daily” reader will feature a wireless connection–Sony (SNE) will use AT&T (T), while Amazon (AMZN) uses Sprint (S). And unlike the current versions of the Kindle, the Sony device will feature a touchscreen.

But it will come at a price: The device, shown below (click on image to enlarge), will retail in December for $399. That’s $100 more than the current price of Amazon’s Kindle 2. And that price point is almost certain to drop in coming months.

Sony wouldn’t let reporters handle the Daily, and didn’t put it through its paces, either. So hard to get a sense of much here. But here’s a video I shot of Sony exec Steve Haber holding the machine while talking up its virtues — which include free access to books from your public library.

EXTRA, EXTRA: SONY’S DAILY EDITION ROUNDS OUT NEW LINE OF DIGITAL READERS

Wireless 3G Reader Extends Sony’s Commitment to Bring
Open Digital Reading to Mass Audience

NEW YORK, August 25, 2009 Delivering on its promise to give consumers a variety of choices, Sony today announced the third member of its new Reader family–the Reader Daily Edition™, a highly-anticipated wireless model with 3G connectivity. The Daily Edition caps its new line of Reader products, joining the Reader Pocket Edition™ and the Reader Touch Edition™ which were announced earlier this month.
The Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition are available immediately, and the Reader Daily Edition will be available this December in time for the holidays at SonyStyle stores and SonyStyle.com.
“We firmly believe consumers should have choice in every aspect of their digital reading experience,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division. “Today, we take another large stride to deliver on that promise. We now have the most affordable devices on the market, the greatest access to free and affordable eBooks through The eBook Store from Sony and our affiliated ecosystem, and now round out our Reader offering with a wireless device that lets consumer purchase and download content on the go.”
A Family of Three Readers
The Reader Pocket Edition sports a five-inch electronic paper display packaged in a stylish chassis and is available in a variety of colors, including navy blue, rose and silver. It is available for the ground-breaking price of $199, making it the most affordable dedicated reading device on the market.
The Reader Touch Edition features a responsive, menu-driven six-inch touch screen panel that enables quick, intuitive navigation, page turning, highlighting and note taking with the swipe of a finger or by using the included stylus pen. It comes in red, black or silver and retails for about $299.
The Reader Daily Edition gives consumers wireless access via AT&T’s 3G mobile broadband network to Sony’s eBook store from just about anywhere in the U.S. Book lovers will be able to browse, purchase and download books as well as select newspapers and magazines when and where they want. There are no monthly fees or transaction charges for the basic wireless connectivity and users still have the option to side load personal documents or content from other compatible sites via USB.
The seven-inch wide, touch screen display provides for intuitive navigation and comfortable layout of content, including newspapers and magazines, whether you’re reading in portrait or landscape orientation. In portrait mode, about 30-35 lines of text are visible, making the experience very similar to that of a printed paperback book. A high contrast ratio with 16 levels of grayscale ensures that text and images are crisp and easy to read. The Daily Edition also boasts an attractive aluminum body with an integrated cover for durability. It has enough internal memory to hold more than one thousand standard eBooks and expansion slots for memory cards to hold even more. It will sell for about $399.
All three models feature Sony’s award-winning industrial design and an E Ink® Vizplex™ electronic paper display that emulates the look of ink on paper. Sony’s eBook Library software 3.0, which now includes support for many Apple® Macintosh® computers as well as PCs, makes it easy to transfer and read any Adobe® PDF (with reflow capability), EPUB, Microsoft® Word®, BBeB® files, or other text file formats on the Reader.
Access to Even More Content at the eBook Store by Sony
In addition to announcing a new family of Readers, Sony has also made several changes and improvements to its eBook Store to provide better access to an even greater variety of ebooks. Earlier this summer Sony announced the availability of more than one million free public domain books from Google, and the company made new releases and New York Times bestseller titles available for $9.99.
Today also marks the launch of Sony’s Library Finder application. Sony, working with OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), the leading global digital distributor of eBooks and to libraries, will now offer visitors to the eBook Store by Sony easy access to their local library’s collection of eBooks. Thousands of libraries in the OverDrive network offer eBooks optimized for the Sony Reader, and visitors can now find these libraries by typing their zip code into the Library Finder. Through the selected library’s download website, visitors can check out eBooks with a valid library card, download them to a PC and transfer to their Reader. At the end of the library’s lending period, eBooks simply expire, so there are never any late fees.
The Reader Pocket and Touch Editions, as well as available accessories such as AC adaptors, cases and covers with reading lights, are available now at SonyStyle.com and SonyStyle stores. Book lovers interested in trying out a Reader in person will also be able to find them for sale at Best Buy, BJs, Borders, Sam’s Club, Staples, Target, Toys“R”Us, Wal-Mart and other authorized retailers nationwide.

DIGITAL READING ECOSYSTEM EXPANDS FOR SONY’S READER

NEW YORK, August 25, 2009 Further evidence of the broad support for its open approach to digital reading, Sony today announced relationships with a variety of traditional and digital publishers who provide content in industry standard formats to create a universe of reading material compatible with the Reader.
All of these sites will offer content in the EPUB format, the International Digital Publishing Forum’s (IDPF) XML-based standard format for reflowable digital books and publications. EPUB has gained acceptance among major trade book publishers with dozens of publishers already producing the majority of their eBooks using the standard. Sony recently announced that the company is transitioning its entire content library to the EPUB format, giving consumers the freedom to purchase or download free eBooks from the eBook Store by Sony and read them on any EPUB-compatible device.
“From the beginning, we have said that an open format means more choice for consumers,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division. “Now, working with other industry leaders, we can provide a device that is compatible with the widest selection of content available. Readers can shop around for what interests them rather than be locked into one store.”
Sony’s eBook Store already provides access to more than one million public domain Google Books in EPUB format and, starting today, Sony’s Library Finder application will go live. Library Finder offers visitors to the eBook Store by Sony easy access to their local library’s collection of eBooks. Thousands of libraries offer eBooks optimized for the Sony Reader, and visitors can now find these libraries by typing their zip code into the Library Finder. Through the selected library’s download website, visitors can check out eBooks with a valid library card, download them to a PC and transfer to their Reader.
Other sites offering EPUB content include:
• Independent Bookstores–More than 200 participating members of the American Booksellers Association–including stores such as Tattered Cover (Denver, CO) and Vroman’s Bookstore (Pasadena, CA)–will have the ability to sell e-content to consumers beginning this fall. The stores using ABA’s IndieCommerce platform will offer content in the EPUB format and protected by Adobe’s Content Server 4 (ACS4) digital rights management, which is compatible with Sony e-Reader products. In addition, plans are underway to make Sony’s e-Reader devices available for purchase from independent bookstores in time for this holiday season. ABA is a not-for-profit trade organization devoted to meeting the needs of its core members–independently owned bookstores with storefront locations–through education, information dissemination, business products and services, and advocacy.
·        BooksOnBoard–BooksOnBoard, the largest independent eBook bookseller and member of both the ABA and IDPF, has been a staunch supporter of the EPUB standard through its founder Bob Livolsi. BooksOnBoard was the first eBook site to offer the EPUB standard to its burgeoning customer base and has sold more EPUB formatted books than any other online bookstore. BooksOnBoard believes that the EPUB standard significantly benefits the publisher, authors and most importantly the consumer.
·        NetGalley–NetGalley is an innovative and easy-to-use online service and connection point for book publishers, reviewers, media, librarians, booksellers, bloggers and educators. NetGalley delivers digital galleys and promotional materials to professional readers and helps promote new and upcoming titles. Starting today, NetGalley will support the Reader with the ability to download a protected PDF file and this fall the company will offer digital galleys in EPUB format.
• Powell’s Books and Powells.com–Powell’s Books is the largest independent bookseller in the world.  Innovative since its inception in 1971, it was one of the first booksellers online (beginning in 1994), and one of the first to sell eBooks for reading devices (the Rocket eBook) in 1999. Powell’s offers EPUB content for a wide range of compatible devices, including the Sony line.  Powell’s is an important player in the open access world of eBooks, where titles are provided by a wide range of publishers in a competitive retail environment, read on a range of devices, and downloaded and owned by millions of people around the world.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090825/sonys-kindle-competition-touchscreen-plus-att-for-399/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090610/the-latest-kindle-bigger-not-better-than-its-sibling/ http://allthingsd.com/20090610/the-latest-kindle-bigger-not-better-than-its-sibling/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:04:03 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090610/the-latest-kindle-bigger-not-better-than-its-sibling/ There’s a brand-new variant of the Amazon Kindle e-reader, and it’s available from the online bookseller starting this week.

This alternative Kindle, called the DX, is a super-size version of the popular Kindle 2, which arrived earlier this year. It sports a 9.7-inch screen, some 2.5 times as big as the surface area of the Kindle 2′s 6-inch display. It also sports a higher price tag — $489, versus $359 for its smaller sibling, which remains on the market.

Amazon’s Kindle DX

Like previous models, the Kindle DX allows you to shop for, and wirelessly download, any e-book in Amazon’s (AMZN) growing catalog — now about 275,000 titles. It uses the same easy-on-the-eyes screen technology as the smaller model but at a higher resolution. It still lacks color, and renders images only in gray scale. But the new DX adds a new capability: auto-rotation, which allows you to read in landscape mode.

This new, larger model isn’t primarily aimed at readers of standard books. It is targeted at three markets: textbooks, newspapers and other periodicals, and business documents in either Microsoft’s (MSFT) Word format or Adobe’s (ADBE) PDF format.

Unfortunately, I’ve been testing the Kindle DX and I didn’t like it nearly as much as the Kindle 2, which I own and enjoy using daily. While it performs its promised tasks adequately, I found that its size and weight made it awkward and tiring to hold for long periods of reading. It’s still fairly thin and light, but it’s 85% larger and heavier than the standard Kindle.

In addition, Amazon has degraded the user interface. To prevent the device from being even larger, the company had to remove the left-side page-turning buttons, confining all the controls to a vertical strip on the right. The keyboard at the bottom is also more vertically cramped.

If you’re left-handed, you have to spin the device around and rotate the screen to get buttons on the left, where they appear with their labels upside-down.

Similarly, if you choose to read in landscape mode, all the navigation controls, including the joystick for moving the cursor, will be awkwardly placed at either the top or bottom, far from where your hands are holding the device, and the keyboard essentially will be unusable.

In my view, the Kindle DX would have been a better product with on-screen touch controls that could instantly adapt to its size and orientation.

In reading standard books on the DX, I also encountered instances where the text on a page varied in shade from light gray to black.

I had mixed results with business documents. As with previous Kindles, you can either email personal documents to your device, for a fee, or drag them onto the Kindle via a cable, for free. But, unlike the smaller models, the new DX has PDF display capability built in, so it renders PDF files much more accurately than the older Kindles. That is a big improvement. It also allows you to view Excel and PowerPoint files if you save them in PDF format before sending them to your Kindle DX.

The Kindle DX, right, is a large-screen version of the popular Kindle e-reader, left.

I tried a variety of documents, and in many cases the results were great. The text was crisp, and the tables and graphics looked like they should. But I found that on some of these PDF documents, the text was too small to read. Yet, the Kindle lacks the ability to zoom in on PDF documents. You often can make the type larger by rotating to landscape mode, but this splits the PDFs into multiple pages, sometimes breaking them awkwardly.

Also, Amazon has raised its fees for converting and delivering business documents via email to all Kindles. The charge was formerly 10 cents a document. Now, it’s 15 cents per megabyte, which can add up if you load up your Kindle with lots of large documents. Most of my test documents, which were fairly small, cost over $1 each.

Newspapers looked about the same on the DX as they do on the smaller Kindles. Despite the larger screen, they don’t use traditional print or Web layouts, but a special Kindle layout that some users like a lot, but which I find annoying because it makes it harder to quickly scan multiple headlines.

The Kindle DX does have some nice touches. For the extra money, you not only get a larger screen, but also about twice the storage capacity. Also, because the screen is wider, you can adjust the margins on the DX, to obtain a line length that’s comfortable for your eyes and optimal for reading speed.

Amazon claims the same multiday battery life for the DX as for the Kindle 2. In my tests, I was able to go for several days of moderate reading without recharging, and much more if I turned off the wireless capability.

Although I wasn’t able to test college textbooks, I suspect they may be the killer app for this product. Many already are so expensive and heavy they could make the weight and price of the Kindle DX seem trivial in comparison.

But for standard books, I’d stick with the smaller, more comfortable Kindle 2.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090610/the-latest-kindle-bigger-not-better-than-its-sibling/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090506/using-pc-and-mac-interchangeably/ http://allthingsd.com/20090506/using-pc-and-mac-interchangeably/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 23:10:02 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20090506/using-pc-and-mac-interchangeably/ There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

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I switched from PC to Mac a year ago, but now I am thinking of adding a Windows laptop. If I do, what kind of compatibility problem would I have? I would be using the laptop mostly to write, to send/receive email and to Web browse.

In the old days, there were compatibility problems, but most of those have gone away. Based on your simple predicted usage, I’d say that you should be fine. For instance, both Macs and PCs can interchangeably open and edit all of the major file types — JPG pictures, MP3 music, Microsoft Office documents, Adobe PDF files, etc. Email and instant messages can, of course, be exchanged between the two platforms, even if you are using different programs. And Macs understand Windows file extensions. Also, you can use both platforms simultaneously on the same home network to access the Internet.

In some cases, you might need different programs to open the same files on the two platforms. But even that obstacle has greatly diminished. For instance, programs like the Firefox and Safari Web browsers, Adobe Reader, iTunes, Microsoft Office, Google Earth, Picasa, Photoshop and many others come in native versions for both platforms that can handle the same files. And, of course, Web-based programs like Gmail and Yahoo Mail work on both. Sometimes, the same programs have different features and user interfaces on Windows and Macs, but I haven’t found these differences hard to master.

The biggest problems for average users are Quicken, whose Mac version is inferior and incompatible; Internet Explorer, which is no longer made for the Mac; and Microsoft Outlook, which is replaced on the Mac by a program called Entourage that is similar but uses a different file format. And networking can be tricky. In general, the Mac does a better job of seeing Windows PCs on a network than Windows does of seeing Macs.

I use Outlook Express for my email, and I store a lot of mail in local folders. Is there a simple way to back these up? If I buy a new computer, can they be transferred?

Yes. There are two methods. One is a manual method, which Microsoft explains in a detailed document at this Web site: support.microsoft.com/kb/270670.

The other, quicker, method is to obtain one of several utility programs that can back up your Outlook Express data and, in some cases, allow you to transfer it to another PC. I haven’t tested these in years, and thus can’t recommend one over another. But one example is a free program called Outlook Express Backup, which can be found at genie-soft.com/products/oeb. Another is a $40 program called Outlook Express Backup Wizard, which can be found at: outlook-express-backup.com.

Do you know of an iPhone GPS application that speaks directions? It would make the iPhone similar to a TomTom or Garvin GPS unit.

A: No, but Apple recently announced that, under its new 3.0 operating system for the iPhone, such programs will be possible. Several companies are believed to be working on them, and I expect them to be available later in the year. The reason none exist yet is partly legal, having to do with the licensing of the underlying maps.

• You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090506/using-pc-and-mac-interchangeably/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090407/a-desktop-that-begs-to-be-organized/ http://allthingsd.com/20090407/a-desktop-that-begs-to-be-organized/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:02:02 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/20090407/a-desktop-that-begs-to-be-organized/ Like many people today, I keep a lot of my important documents and communications in digital form. But I still print out the files and put them on my desk so I can have them in front of me instead of buried in computer subfolders within folders.

This week, I tested BumpTop, a program that displays items in a way that makes programs and files easy to see and open. It does this by turning your digital desktop into a three-dimensional environment that looks like your physical desktop. A few quick gestures neatly stack piles of items or tack important items onto one of four virtual walls. You can even flick your mouse to “toss” files to programs or group files into a pile, like stacking all your PDF files together. Special photo frames on the walls show slideshows of photos from PC folders or feeds from photo Web sites like Flickr or Picasa.

BumpTop comes from Toronto-based Bump Technologies Inc. and it has been in a private testing stage for a little over a year. Starting Wednesday, it’s available for anyone to download at BumpTop.com. It comes in a free or $29 Pro version. In Pro, files you use most often will grow bigger over time and you can flip through a pile’s contents by rolling the mouse’s scroll wheel, among other things.

I used BumpTop Pro for over two weeks and tried it on four computers running three different Windows operating systems: XP, Vista, and the prerelease version of Windows 7. BumpTop says it hopes to develop a Mac version in the future. (It should work on Parallels, a program that runs Windows virtually on a Mac, according to Bump Technologies, but not on Fusion, a similar program.)

Good-Looking Display

This program is a real looker. When I showed it to friends, they immediately wanted to play with it, dragging pictures to pin on virtual walls and drawing circles around several icons at once to stack them into piles like magic. And when you toss files to certain programs, they perform functions. A Microsoft Word document tossed to the email icon generates an email with the document attached. Photos I tossed to the Facebook icon were posted on the social-networking site. Files can be tossed to a printer, the recycle bin, other piles and, in the Pro version, attached USB drives.

Program Switch

But as much as I liked BumpTop, I kept coming back to the same conclusion: It was fun while I was using it, but I wasn’t naturally inclined to leave the program I was using — like my email program, my browser or TweetDeck — just to do something on the desktop in a more visually pleasing way. And since the computer’s desktop has never been as functional as popular programs, it’s hard to expect people to spend a lot of time there.

BumpTop creates a three-dimensional desktop where files can be cleverly organized or displayed.

Also, while BumpTop introduces a new, attractive user interface to the desktop, its 3-D functionality doesn’t extend throughout the whole computer, so you find yourself jumping back and forth between different ways of doing things.

BumpTop requires a computer with 3-D graphics and drivers, which older machines won’t have. Just for kicks I installed BumpTop on my older XP machine, which didn’t have the necessary requirements, and sure enough, it ran slowly and didn’t represent programs like Microsoft Outlook (MSFT) and Mozilla’s Firefox with the correct icons. Specific system requirements for BumpTop, along with a list of what the Pro version has that the free version lacks, can be found at BumpTop.com/download.

BumpTop’s point of view is like looking down from the ceiling in a room with four walls. It installs with three picture frames on its walls, and these display content from three sources: your computer’s My Pictures folder, Flickr.com’s main photo feed and a Flickr feed of photos Bump Technologies chose. You can change the images in settings, or delete the frames altogether.

The picture frames show ever-changing slideshows, and to do this, they only load low-resolution thumbnails of the images they display. This looks good when you’re quickly glancing at BumpTop, but if you double-click on a frame to zoom in, you’ll see a blurry photo. Bump Technologies says it plans to improve this where possible. Any photos on BumpTop other than those displayed in frames are visible in high resolution when you zoom in.

BumpTop loads with icons representing Twitter, Facebook and Email pinned to its right wall. And you can add your printer to the wall and toss things to it, printing them immediately.

Wall Clingers

The small visual details built into BumpTop make it a pleasure to use. Every time you open something, its representative icon hurls toward you in 3-D as if it were thrown. Items that are pinned to a wall flip end over end and playfully cling to the wall surface like a starfish with sticky, suction feet.

Special mouse movements generate on-screen options for organizing your BumpTop. Lassoing multiple images by drawing a line around them with your mouse pulls up a pie menu with options like “Grow,” “Shrink” and “Grid.” A “Pile by Type” option can organize all or just some of your desktop icons into piles arranged by similar characteristics, which by itself could be a big help.

Searching for something on your desktop isn’t a hassle anymore. Any time BumpTop is open, you can start typing and the program will search names of all items in BumpTop for results with the text you’re typing; those that match your request will glow.

I tried BumpTop on a touch-screen PC running Windows 7 — the HP TouchSmart PC — and the feeling of reaching out and tossing things around with my finger was even more enjoyable than using the mouse. As touch-screen PCs become more popular, BumpTop and programs like it will fit in more naturally.

If you miss seeing the photo that was on your regular desktop, an adjustment in Settings lets you use your Windows background on the BumpTop floor. Images can be assigned to each of the four walls; I assigned a photo of the National Mall at night to my back wall and a photo of my favorite lighthouse to my floor.

BumpTop is a pleasure to use and for no cost, the free version is certainly worth a try. If you like what you see and you’re willing to change the way you use your desktop, the Pro version might be worthwhile. Just be sure your computer has the correct specifications and be ready for blurry close-ups of the picture frames.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

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