Making Things Work

I've been busy these past few days doing work on the ISC Strategic Plan. I have sort of worked out the framework for the plan and have begun the work of putting together the pieces. The framework itself is beginning to evolve as I read and research things. One of the things I have decided to consider more seriously is actually implementing aspects of ITIL.*

* I've gone back-and-forth on this a few times.  Conceptually, I get ITIL and think would be great to implement. I just have no experience in an actual ITIL implementation and no real time to go get trained.**

** I can only assume the costs of bringing out an experienced consultant to be way too expensive.  I'm happy for any volunteers. 

The change in my thinking has come about through a small bit of research into ITIL and by taking the plunge and purchasing a couple of ITIL books.* I've skimmed both books and I'm now reading the "Service Design" book more carefully. This post is not about ITIL or what I have learned thus far, it is about how was able to get the ITIL PDFs to work on my iPad.**

* Those books are expensive. I think they could help a lot of initiatives like AMPATH, but the costs of the books are hard to justify.


** Such a long wait to get to the point.  Feeling wordy today, apologies.

One of the things I really appreciate is being able to buy eBooks and load them on to my iPad.  I make extensive use of both the Apple iBook and Amazon Kindle iPad eBook reader apps. They're both pretty good, not great. I also make heavy use of GoodReader and iAnnotate reading PDFs. Between the four apps, I'm pretty well covered.*

* Okay, it really sucks having four different apps, I'm still hoping for the one single app that does everything to my expectations. 

That the ITIL books are available as encrypted PDFs posed a bit of a challenge. None of the aforementioned apps support Adobe's Digital Edition encrypted PDFs. If I had to order the actual books, I would have no idea how long it would take to get to Eldoret. And I assumed the shipping costs to be a bit on the crazy side.  Fortunately, "there is an app for that." I found another application that will allow me to read the ITIL PDFs on my iPad.

The app is called the 'Txtr Reader" and it is available for the iPad. The app itself is pretty basic. The navigation is not that polished, the PDF rendering (for small text) in not great, there is no support for annotations or bookmarks. But after downloading the ITIL book, then uploading to the Txtr server, then downloading it back to my iPad, I can read instantly.*

* You can add getting content on to the device as a negative.

Another plus, is that all of this is free! From what I can gather, Txtr is in the business of selling eBooks (many in German, but they have English titles as well). They are using the razor-blade business model.  Give away the software/service and charge for the books.*

* It really bugs me that I have to have a Kindle device to get a Kindle email address so I can send my own content up to Amazon, so I can get it to my iPad while being charged for it.**


** I do like toys, but I'm really in no mood to buy a Kindle. 

So, it was all a bit complicated, but in the end I got it too work. And for the ITIL stuff, I am committed to starting to implement some of it and helping the guys here get to the point where they can finish it after I am gone.