Why Google-Checkout sucks - at least for me

I just tried to buy the electronic version of David J. Anderson's Kanban book, because I'm traveling the world quite a bit right now, left the paper book at home and wanted to look up a few specifics for the design my own personal kanban system.

Two things delayed my decision to buy it - and actually will delay it for a couple of days to come. Which is unbelievable for a process that takes a mere minute on amazon and the pragmatic bookshelf.

1) I have to buy the eBook twice to read it in iBooks and on the Kindle [see below]
2) I have to become a Google-Checkout Customer (which is the dealbreaker)

The Problems with Google-Checkout

• They (Google Checkout) added my credit card info to the currently logged in google account
  Really? The currently logged in account? That's just silly.
• They (Google Checkout) stored the credit card information

Actually Amazon also stores the credit card data. But amazon is a store - Google is a search engine and an information broker. So I'm supposed to give my credit card information to an information broker, who adds new services to it's portfolio every day?
So, what I'll have to do now - to get the electronic version of a book I already own - is to get a prepaid credit card, put some money on it, connect that to google checkout, buy the book, disconnect the card from google-checkout.
[Aka: No, I don't want others to be able to control my credit card and identity management. That's where I really want a push system]
What a waste of time!

The Problem with buying the book twice

I use the Kindle for reading and the iPad for Browsing, and since the Kindle UI is only mediocre compared to iBooks I would love two have both formats available as it is possible with the pragmatic bookshelf. I admit that the Kindle UI is not as bad on the iPad as it is on the Kindle itself, but still it's a drawback compared to the iBook experience. So the current option for buying the book online isn't "quite" as pleasant as it would be to buy it from the pragmatic bookshelf - or perhaps I'm just spoiled by the latter's focus on customer value.

Notes to self - 004, Keep local backups - The Cloud might dissolve

Keep local backups - The Cloud (aka the web) might dissolve locally

Just now a wiki that was on my list of important resources (the former wiki of the AYE conference) vanished with no clue about it's future.

It not only sadden's me because Cool URIs don't change but also because there was a lot of content even at the simple members pages, that I didn't bother to make a copy of.

The saddest thing is that it would have been easy for me to make a local copy of the wiki - after all, that is what tools like SiteSucker are for, right?

I just have to use them more often...
Therefore this very serious note to self: Keep local backups!

====8<------ End of Note to self

Comment to self:
Now the last resort for this case is the Way Back Machine, but that of course doesn't always have snapshots that include all I want to retrieve.