The New Kindle

Yesterday Amazon.com announced they are about to release a new Kindle which is smaller, lighter, and faster.  Since Amazon introduced the Kindle it’s taking on a life of it’s own, for a device that I previously though would not be around.  Amazon has figured out the right way to market this device to those in need and they love the product hands down.

Amazon has two new models both come with a 6′ display, both have wifi, but one will feature a 3G connection that has no contracts with no additional cost.  Don’t get your hopes up to high this device will not let you surf the web like the iPad, but I would say thats probably coming along soon for Amazon. *wish list*

Kindle Wi-Fi $139 Click here to view

Kindle 3G $189 Click here to view

While I can see the uses for this new Kindle I have never been able to bring my self to pay the high cost of the other older 1st generation units $300+, but the new lower cost and the additional improvements make this a possible 2010 Christmas Gift to myself.

Enjoy

TBTR

These days it seems everyone is trying to intergrate Visual voicemail into their wireless service.  I ran across a post where YouMail has brought the service to the iPhone in a post here from Cnet’s Jessica Dolcourt.

I also heard Verizon charges for this service, while everyone is trying to make money off the Visual voicemail one service is not.  Google’s former service GrandCentral has been providing this feature for over two years now it’s been renamed Google Voice.  At one time you could invite people to the service, but that option has been turned off for some time.  This is the latest post about Google Voice:

To clear up any confusion, please note that there are no Google Voice invites available at this time. There has been no distribution of any sort of Google Voice invites, as these invites do not exist. The best way to be informed when Google Voice becomes available for sign up is by providing your information at https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/.

I would suggest you signup, also if you already use Google Voice leave a comment about how you like the service.

Thanks,
TBTR

One of my twitter friends posted on her blog “Palm Wanted To Know If I “Got Opinions?” I just happen to find this post in over 1000 RSS feeds which I should clean up, but that’s another story.  Anyways Tessa took the challenge and answered the call.

If you can tweet your opinions about Palm phones in 140 characters or less, we want to hear from you.

Palm on their blog ask the question “Got Opinions? Become a Real Reviewer (and get a new phone courtesy of Palm).  I’m super excited about this, and I’ll tell you why.

Back in 2000 I moved out to Denver Colorado, it was a time in my life when I felt I had to get away from the comforts of home (Atlanta).  While in Denver I started working for USWest wireless which later became Qwest Wireless.  I was part of a data team which was started to test, teach, and help troubleshoot phones used for data communications.

The team was great I learned a lot, one of the phones we used was the Kyocera Smartphone 6035.  As a techie you don’t know the joy I got using this phone.  It was my first introduction to a true Smartphone, and while I use a Blackberry now I would be very open to the new Palm phone.  I am the type of person that can give you accolades and in the same sentence tell you that your missing the mark.  It looks like Palm wants both sides of the coin.  That’s the kind of review that makes change and improvement possible.

So anyone who wants to become a reviewer for Palm should take the survey here.  If your selected you will be notified on May 8th good luck to us all.

It would be a pleasure and honor to be one of the choosen few.

Why on April 1 would you open or launch your signature product?  I guess the buzz you create could carry you into the next year, or people could take it as a joke and over look you all together.  RIM the makers of the Blackberry Smart phones have launched what they hope is the defect o home for bb users.

The Blackberry App World ( I guess they didn’t use store because Apple would probably sue) is now open for business.  When I got in this morning I saw the buzz and decided to jump on the bandwagon.  I went to the signature page with my Blackberry www.blackberry.com/appworld/download to download the icon OTA (over the airwaves) but I had and issue just like Larry Dignan said in his post “First impressions and a weird IE requirement.” so I turned to the blackberry desktop software.  I had to download the app this way.  It worked perfect and I was able to get in the application.

Put more of your life on your BlackBerry smartphone! Download BlackBerry App World for free to load up your BlackBerry smartphone with games, social networking, online shopping, personal productivity, organization tools and other fun and functional apps. It’s your world – bring more of it with you with BlackBerry App World!

While most of the featured applications we probably all have on your Blackberries as an out of the box application.  I did some research inside of the app world and found a lot of apps I never knew existed.  During the coming weeks and days we will review some applications and give our take on the success or failure of the Blackberry App World.

BlackBerry App World is a free download. To purchase applications from BlackBerry App World, a PayPal account is required.

Application makers can also take the time to create new apps, and place them in the app world just like on apples itunes app store.  This is opening up the devices to innovation from small programmers, and also opens them up like apple to foolish applications that do nothing but charge money for access.  Lets sit back and watch the paint dry, or you can get involved if your an avid Blackberry user.

I plan to get involved, just wait an see

Leave us comments

TBTR

This post might get a little technical please forgive me a head of time for showing my full geekyness.

Wireless routers get older and older every day, if you were an early adopter of WiFi technology. The price and headache you paid in the early days is now a thing of the past. All good things must come to an end or end of life cycle in geek terms.

Most wireless routers were made with the future in mind by way of something called a firmware update.

What is firmware? According to wikipedia.org firmware is a computer program that is embedded in a hardware device. It can also be provided on flash memory or as a binary image file. This can be uploaded onto existing old or new hardware by a user.

Usually this gives the device new code that can fix issues (software bugs), add features, or totally change a device to do new, different and exciting things.

New is what happens when you install Tomato Firmaware on your old Linksys WRT54G, GL, GS, Buffalo WHR-G54S/WHR-HP-G54 and other Broadcom based routers.

Routers that are known to work with Tomato:

• Linksys WRT54G v1-v4, WRT54GS v1-v4, WRT54GL v1.x, WRTSL54GS (no USB support)
• Buffalo WHR-G54S, WHR-HP-G54, WZR-G54, WBR2-G54, WBR-G54, WZR-HP-G54, WZR-RS-G54, WZR-RS-G54HP, WVR-G54-NF, WHR2-A54-G54, WHR3-AG54
• Asus WL500G Premium (no USB support), WL500GE
• Sparklan WX6615GT, Fuji RT390W, Microsoft MN-700

This will not work on Linksys WRT54G/GS v5 or newer WRT54G/GS routers.

Your probably asking yourself why do I need this? Well the truth is you don’t need this at all. The reason why we talk about this today is to let you know that if you have an old wireless router mentioned above, and it’s crashing or your always having to reboot the unit. You don’t have to toss it you can update the unit and turn it into a super router.

With any firmware updates you run the risk of bricking your unit just be sure you can afford to do this before ever doing a unlicensed firmware update.

Other programs that do the same thing listed here:

• DD-WRT
• FreeWRT
• HyperWRT Thibor
• OpenWRT
• Tarifa
• X-Wrt

Have Fun.

TBTR

So you don’t want to be tied to that one room in your house, the junk room where your DSL or Cable Access is located.  Well your in luck with the continued success of the wireless Access Point you can have wirless broadband communications anywhere in your house.  All you have to do is purchase a Wireless router, and make a couple of setting changes and your off.

On 8/8/07 we discussed wireless communications, also wireless security and we talked a little bit about what manufactures to puchase.

Enjoy,

Jayson