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King County already has a vote-by-mail system in place. In fact, the last King County elections were handled entirely by mail.

First, a note - if you just need a curses or other CLI based interface, theoretically, any PDA device or PDA phone should work.

Palm Tungsten or TX devices work OK, and Blazer works decently on the "mobile" version of King County (WA) Library's online catalog. It has a time parsing the full website however. Tungsten E2 devices run about $150 on Ebay. Note, too, that Tungstens and Tungsten E2s require a device to be added on through the SD card port on top to achieve wifi - beyond that, the line I think has inbuilt wifi.

Windows Mobile devices work OK, but Pocket IE is going to have the same issues parsing sites that Blazer does on the Palm devices.

From there, the Nokia tablets work incredibly well, and parse web pages better than the above PDA devices.

Going up in price, of course, you have the newer web-enabled phones - T-Mobile offers the G1, Samsung Behold and Memoir (the latter of which is just a Behold with a good res camera stapled to it), and other carriers will offer similar devices. Note, though, that at this point we're entering into the realm of cellphones - so this is probably going to be more than you need, especially since most libraries that I know of frown upon people using their cellphone inside their buildings.

Didn't mention the iPhone (aw, dammit!) because the keyboard interface...well, it's not a full keyboard, it's a keyboard-like interface that you would require one finger for. Two and that means that you have dropped the phone, put it on a table, or are good with your index and middle fingers. The iPod Touch is right out in that regard - the iPhone is basically a iPod Touch with a GSM phone in it.

Podcast novels? Do you mean something like this? Or this? Not to mention this and this.

I wish we had something like this in New Mexico.

My local library lends Adobe e-books, with a similar scheme. I was able to read Wicked this way long before the physical copy showed up.

Linky

My library's catalog is online. In fact, if you want to use the catalog at the library you go to a library computer and access the same online catalog you can reach from home. And it's up 24/7.

My library's catalog is online. In fact, if you want to use the catalog at the library you go to a library computer and access the same online catalog you can reach from home. And it's up 24/7.

...And only IF they allow VPN traffic to go through.

Permit me to expand on this. While several libraries, bookstore/coffee places, and even a few hotels have installed WAPs for the benefit of their patrons, and said WAPs work perfectly well for generic web surfing, I've yet to find a single one that allows VPN traffic to pass through.

This makes no sense whatsoever to me. What good is a wireless LAN connection if you can't use it to attach to your home or office LAN via secure tunnel?

When queried about the outright blocking of VPN traffic, the folks at the library gave some nebulous excuse about "security issues" that prevented them from offering the feature, but that they expected to have it available "within a year or so." Considering that, at least for PPTP, all one has to do is open a bidirectional path for port 1723 on the firewall, this excuse seems weak at best.

As for Borders, finding anyone who even knows anything about the WAP beyond "Yes, it's available, how much time would you like to purchase?" is hopeless.

With that in mind: I would be VERY interested in hearing from anyone who happens to take advantage of this feature on a Lufthansa flight AND is able to link to their home LAN via a VPN tunnel through it.

I would also be interested in hearing from those who have tried using VPN through other public WAPs in their area, and what kind of success (or failure) you've had.

Keep the peace(es).

Not for King County Library System WiFi.

King County, WA

So it's up the librarian to determine what should and should not be filtered if a teen asks them?

In the King County Library System, WA, it is up to the parent or guardian to request filtered or unfiltered access.

Skipping the various examples of Bain , inform it , and etc, Legit e-books have been available for free, or nearly so for quite some time. My favorite being the King County, Wa library system.Mostly tech books, but then it's mostly geeks who will look for and use them at this point.