Barnes & Noble launched their eReader, nook, in November of last year. But due to supply shortage and high demand on pre-orders, it was tough to get one until February of this year. A major plus for the nook from a selling standpoint is physical retail space. Barns & Noble will have nooks in their retail stores right in front of customers who may want an eReader device but are not ready to commit to a somewhat high purchase price online, sight unseen. The ability to have tactile feedback from the device is a selling point that is tough to beat.

In today’s world of multitasking, a device that does one thing can be a tough sell. But when it comes to an area like reading, you want simple and elegant. Just the words wrapping around each other and intertwining to form the intricate design of story telling. Sure, your smartphone, or laptop lets you read books. But they only accomplish the task, they don’t excel. eReaders are meant to do one thing, and do it very well. Electronic ink is meant to mimic the look of ink on paper.

Everyone is busy with their modern lives. Life has a way of making you think there just simply isn’t enough time. Some have even famously said, “no one reads anymore.” Reading a large novel can be intimidating, let alone in order to actually read it when you have a spare moment you must have the book with you. The nook solves these common problems eloquently. Weighing in at just a little over 12 ounces, it can be taken almost anywhere. As for a large novel being intimidating, the nook ensures that every book, no matter the number of pages is a mere half inch thick.

With value added features like expandable memory, replaceable battery, color navigation screen on the bottom, the open Android Operating System, and support for the open ePub book format, the nook truly is leading the pack when it comes to electronic paper media consumption. Will this change? of course, it wouldn’t be technology if it didn’t. That said, the nook stands to stay in the lead for a while given the limitless possibilities with software updates to the versatile device.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/

Well, to be honest, very little! I switched from using an iPhone to using Android in November of 2009. After switching I never looked back. To this day I do not regret it one bit. Sure the platform is a little less polished, but it is so much more forward thinking and open. This makes it number one for me. All that being said, there is one thing that is absolutely driving me up the wall; OS updates. I see a huge problem in the way Android OS updates are rolled out. I am mostly speaking to version 2.0 and later since all the 1.x builds were still, in my opinion, in Android’d infancy stage. When the OS hit 2.0, I felt it was ready for prime time.

Since Android is open source, anyone can grab the OS and modify it how they see fit. A lot of hardware manufacturers are doing just that. It’s great on the one hand because you get a bunch of cool versions of the OS, it sucks on the other though because updates to those handsets are very slow to come and are never up to date with the virgin “Google Experience” phones. If a handset maker wants to make a custom OS version, at this point, they seem to be locked into using older 1.5 and 1.6 versions of the OS code. This sucks for the consumer because even with a brand new phone they are stuck with 3-6 month old technology on day one of using the phone.

With each new release of the OS like 2.0 and 2.1, the new OS seems to launch with a single phone. With 2.0 it was the Motorola Droid. With 2.1 it was Google’s very own Nexus One. Meanwhile everyone else is stuck with whatever version their phone came with. This almost makes it seem like if you want the latest OS you have to buy whatever phone is launched with it. This of course will not work.

I am not sure what, if any, are the technical reasons for this. Perhaps drivers for specific hardware are the culprit. What I would like to see is a more uniform release schedule of OS updates. If drivers are the problem, there should be a more common specification for how hardware is to talk to the OS and every handset maker should follow that spec. If you want to have a hardware keyboard, here is how it talks to the OS, same with touchscreens, trackballs, cameras, speakers, and so forth. Something similar to how USB peripherals work on a computer. If i get a new USB keyboard, no matter what it looks like, it still types normally. There should not be a difference in how an HTC keyboard talks to the OS vs. how a Motorola keyboard does.

I use a Motorola Droid so I have a “Google Experience” Phone. In this case I would like to see updates hosted by google. When google put out the Nexus One with 2.1, I would have liked to see a ROM download for “Google Experience 2.1 Update” and one for each of the carriers if necessary. This would ensure the platform keeps moving forward, and applications are more likely to work across the board

Currently in the Android market you are seeing over and over applications that say “does not work with droid” or “must have 1.5″. If the latest version of the OS were more readily available, I think more developers would be developing for the newest version and taking advantage of all the newest updates have to offer

So, to say that Android sucks, would be a gross mistake. Android is absolutely fantastic! Any of the problems I have seen up to this point are all nothing to worry about. I had an iPhone from the very first day it was launched, and to be honest it sucked until half way through version 2.0 also. Although I love Android and recommend it to a lot of my friends, I would still not recommend my mom use it, but very soon in the near future I think I probably will be able to.

Handcent SMS – A frontend for SMS/MMS. Adds a great deal of functionality to Android for messaging.

Home++ – A full home replacement that looks great and is coming along very nicely.

Movies – Find movies, theaters, and even manage your Netflix Queue.

Wifi Analyzer – A graphical WiFi analyzer.

Foursquare – Official app for the Foursquare service.

NewsRob – RSS reader with Google Reader sync.

Yelp – Official app for the Yelp service.

Seesmic – Relatively new to Android, but a fantastic Twitter client. I use Tweetdeck day to day on my laptop, but seesmic is very similar.

Advanced Task Killer – A must have app to manage running applications and even schedule app killing.

Barcode Scanner – All around barcode scanner for prodcucts or QR codes.

Evernote – Official Evernote app. Have your notes everywhere. Always synced.

DroidLive – Shoutcast internet radio player. Beautiful UI.

Remember The Milk – Official app for the best to-do list service there is, Remember The Milk.

Qik – Live stream DVD quality video from your phone.

LOLcats – Gotta get your daily fix of cheesburgerz!

Google Maps w/ Navigation – Hands down, THE BEST turn by turn navigation software I have ever used.

Weather Widget – Absolutely beautiful widget for the weather, with cool animations.

Amazon.com – Official Amazon shopping app.

Autorotate Widget – A quick one tap widget that will enable/disable the accelerometer for screen rotation.

AppsInstaller – Installer to install .apk files.

ASTRO File Manager – The best file manager I have found to date for browsing files in the Android filesystem.

Feel free to add more apps in the comments below or let me know what apps I should have picked. I will most likely have late additions since the year isn’t actually over yet. :)

You get the toothbrush body, a couple brush heads, the external LCD display, and a dock type charger / brush head holder for the counter. You can use this toothbrush for multiple people since you can remove the brush head. The External LCD display not only tells you how long to brush on each section of your mouth, but also tells you when you are brushing too hard and when it is time to replace your brush head. Sounds gimmicky, but it is a really nice addition. Not to mention, it’s a nice clock for the bathroom.

My mouth has never felt as clean as it does after using this toothbrush! Once you use it, you won’t go back to a normal toothbrush. A little pricey, but totally worth it I think. I mean after all, I wrote a friggin review about it on my blog. :)

That’s it, short and sweet. Buy it at Amazon.

You can easily hold 2 SLR bodies and around 6-8 lenses in this bag. You can customize the whole inside with the velcro padding. There are also several zippered pouches inside for storage. On the outside there are even more zippered storage areas. There is also a tripod holding system that can fold down and secure a tripod to the back.

The bag is very comfortable to wear. It has 2 very padded shoulder straps along with a chest strap and waist strap to secure it to your body. The zippers on this bag are big and easy to zip. I wore this pack for a photo hike that was about 5 hours and it was great. Everything was safe and secure with no issues. One thing I would like to see however is a memory card pouch on the shoulder strap that is easy to get to. Other than that, it is an all around awesome bag for your photo gear.

On a side note, if you have a Nikon D90, you know it came with the LCD protective cover. LEAVE IT ON! During this last shoot, my plastic cover got scratched to all hell, not even sure how it happened, but if the cover wasn’t there, my LCD would be wrecked! So if you have it on, keep it on. If you don’t, put it on now! If your particular camera model doesn’t have a protective cover, research to find one that will suit you. You won’t regret it. A new $10 cover is always better than a permanently scratched LCD.

The two seemed to have pretty similar specs minus the video on the D90, although the D300 was touted as more of a “professional” camera. One of the biggest features I wanted was the command and sub-command dials for aperture and shutter speed adjustments.

The video on the D90 leaves a little to be desired. Especially compared to the new D300s that came out a couple months after purchasing the D90. Video is not all that important to me, so it is just a bonus to be able to shoot little video clips with the same camera I already have with me.

I find the build quality of the D90 to be much higher than some of the newer bodies coming out like the D3000. The body feels great in the hand and is a good weight. I like a larger camera body and this is just that. I found the D40 a little annoying to hold due to its small size. I had a battery grip on the D40 simply to make it more comfortable to hold with a longer lens.

The image quality on the D90 is great. A very nice improvement from the D40, although the raw files were a lot harder to work with on my old laptop. The D40 raw files were no problem, but the D90 at twice the size made the computer chug. I have since upgraded to a new MacBook Pro, so it is no longer an issue.

As far as lenses go with this new body, I bought the Nikon 35mm f/1.8. This lens is AMAZING! Super sharp and fast. And for only $200, you have to have this lens in your bag. I also rented the Nikon 18-200mm from Lensrentals.com and I WILL be buying that lens at some point. It was so versatile and handled a full day shoot walking around town without having to stop and swap lenses.

Overall, If you are in the market for a Nikon body upgrade from one of the lower tier bodies I would say this is definitely a camera to look at. If video is more important to you, you may want to look into the D300s instead. For me, stills are where I want to be, and this camera body does not disappoint!

Everything sounds pretty good, so what’s the problem? The problem is what I am calling “The SquareSpace Effect”. It’s unfortunate that they were the ones that had to take the blame for this, but they were the first ones that made me realize the problem. The problem is frankly over advertising. To the point of turning would be customers into anti-product maniacs. Over the 15-20 audio and video podcasts that I subscribe, a company like SquareSpace is on 90% of them with the same exact ad every week. I understand you need to get your companies name out there, but when you are targeting something that is an RSS feed where you are pretty sure you have a majority of repeat customers, you maybe can cut back some. Also a lot of the podcasts I listen to are on the same network, and it’s pretty likely that listeners subscribe to many podcasts on the same network due to similar content. This could be a problem that only effects the technology genre of this new media, but that is my focus.

The second case of this comes from Hulu. They have a similar problem. They seem to have a very small library of commercials to splice into the shows. This means that during an hour of viewing Hulu TV shows, I am pretty much guaranteed to see the same commercials every time. There have been more instances than I can count where the same exact commercial has played 4-5 times in a row during my viewing. A specific example I can remember was the ad for the movie 500 Days of Summer. After seeing the commercial the first time I thought it looked like a movie I would wan to go see. After seeing the same commercial for the 6th consecutive viewing I hated the movie and wanted nothing to do with it.

There needs to be a compromise here! I find the advertising to be VERY successful on this “new media” but I feel like they might be beating and kicking the poor dead horse. I have purchased several products due to ads on these new media networks, but they have to be careful of over advertising and killing the brand.

Lamborghini Reventón Photo Gallery
Lamborghini Reventón Video
Bugatti Veyron Photo Gallery

This photo was taken during the Worldwide Photo Walk on July 18, 2009 in San Jose, CA.

Along with this photowalk there is a contest that goes along with it. Each walker can upload 2 of their photos to the pool, and from the pool they will pick one grand prize winner and 10 runner-up prizes, and I must say the prize packages are amazing!

There are my two photos that I picked for submission. Fingers crossed! :)

I will absolutely be going to the photowalk next year, and highly recommend you do the same. Oh and it’s free, so you really have no excuse not to go! :)

Stage I – Voicemail
I really like the voicemail in Google Voice, with its ease of use, ability to listen anywhere, and the transcribing features. Before today, if someone were to call my iPhone and I didn’t answer, they would get my AT&T Voicemail. Now don’t get me wrong, Visual Voicemail on the iPhone is great, but nowhere near as powerful as Google Voicemail. Now you may ask why not just give everyone my Google Voice number and problem solved right? Well, yes and no. It is going to take a while to get my new number circulated to everyone, and in the meantime it would be nice if I could start receiving all my voicemail in one place. There is also the problem of relaying text messages between my cell phone and Google Voice, but there will be more on that in blog posts to come. Anyway, back to the matter at hand: voicemail. I needed my iPhone number to go to my Google Voicemail when I don’t answer, and that is precisely what I have done. Here is how I did it.

Some of you iPhone users may know about things like Field Mode Testing which is a diagnostic tool that you can get to by typing *3001#12345#* on the dial pad in the phone app followed by pressing the call button. Nothing too special there, but a similar method to this is used to change where callers are sent when you do not answer your iPhone. Now, if you type *#61# followed by the call button, you will see a screen like the screenshot below, which shows you where your phone is currently forwarded to for voicemail. This is an AT&T central receiving center for AT&T voicemail from what I can tell. In case the regular number isn’t the same for everyone it would probably be a good idea to write this number down, just in case you need to revert back for some reason. The next step is for making the switch. Go ahead and fireup your dial pad again and enter the following:

*61*1<your google voice number>*11*<voicemail delay in seconds>#

If your Google Voice number was 555-555-1212 and you wanted your phone to ring for 20 seconds before going to voicemail it would look like the following:

*61*15555551212*11*20#

That’s it! Your iPhone will now fwd to your Google Voice number and subsequently your Google Voicemail when you don’t answer your iPhone.

Hope this helps you. Check back for additions to integrate the rest of the services more tightly.

As always leave comments, questions, and feedback in the comments below or send me an email twothirtyam@me.com

Today was the day I was finally invited to Google Voice! This might have had something to do with my constant badgering on Twitter (@googlevoice), or I was just lucky. So far it is a fantastic service I must say, even though I have only been using it for half a day. That said, I can already tell this is going to be HUGE, definitely the way to manage all your phone communications in the future. When signing up, one of the first steps is picking a phone number. They let you pick a number according to area code of course, but they also let you type in letters and words and then attempt to find you a number that corresponds to those letters or word. This is an awesome way to personalize your number since it will be your single number to give out. I was fortunate to get XXX-XXX-BURK! Really excited about that for sure. After the initial setup I started looking at features. Some of the features that stick out right away are the ability to route calls according to groups and the SPAM feature which lets you mark incoming calls as spam which I believe in affect will block that person (bot) from calling you anymore. One thing I had to do since I do not use the entire Google workflow is sync my contacts with Google so I can setup the groups and routing, but no big deal, Apple’s Address Book has a check box to sync with Google. So, for now that is my mini review. I am sure I will have MUCH more to say as I use the service going forward, but already I can tell this is going to be my command center for all phone traffic going forward.

I am currently saving to get a new Nikon Body, the D90. And I really hope I get it while I still have this lens, and I really hope I have both of them in time for the July 18th photowalk in San Jose!

If you have a chance to shoot with a lens like this and you are a beginner like me, I really really really encourage you to do so. I have learned more in the past month using this lens that the previous 6 using standard kit AF lenses.

Check out this lens at B&H!