Before & After & Inbetween

My old Sony PRS-505 ereader is dying. For over three weeks I contemplated the available options to replace it:

Sony PRS-T1 or T2? In the 2nd generation users still report crashes and the reader "forgetting" which page you were reading? Something their old brother never did and I'm supposed to pay 180 and some € for that? Out of the question! Besides, I'd like to synch my reading with both - my home computer *and* my Galaxy Note phone.

A Kindle? I have a gazillion epubs (and Calibre, yes!) and the new paperwhite model with the best resolution screen won't be shipped until right before Christmas when ordered now. Besides... 130 € (without 3G)? My Sony is dying now...

...and I still want to synch with my phone. I read phone on my daily commute, I want something bigger for reading in bed. Something bigger...

I ordered myself a Galaxy Tab 2 (7", 16 GB, 1 GHz processor - slow, but more than efficient to serve as home ereader, WLAN only) for 200 €. The Sony option wouldn't have been (much) cheaper (and doesn't allow direct read'n'tweet as I love to do with books I love) and in terms of reading, it can be considered the big brother of my beloved phone, meaning all four installed reading apps (including Amazon's and the one that synchs directly with Calibre) will work there, giving me the same options and screen quality I enjoy on the commute at the size of a paperback (and less weight, at least compared to my usual paperbacks).

Why didn't I think of this four weeks ago?!

denise wrote a very nice post about technical debt in software development (and I might say, actually in any kind of development). While the post mostly concerns with the seemingly slow advance in DW feature coding, it's actually a very readable summary of what technical debt is, how (and why) it comes to pass, and what it means. If you don't want to get through some of the -notoriously displeasing- tech-articles about such things, I highly recommend reading denise's Technical debt and the making of payments on it instead. :)