2000s Music Favs Delicious Stack

Well here is my first Delicious stack. A short (but growing) list of my favorite music available on YouTube. Hopefully I can come up with a stack for each decade.

Mike's Music Favs - 2000s

Kindle Fire Burns up the Tablet Market

Well there is big news today and it is the new tablet from Amazon, the Kindle Fire. Here are the quick facts:

Price: $199
Size: 7 inches
Memory: 8 Gig
Camera: None
Networking: Wifi, but no 3G
OS: Amazon's version of Android

Functionality

• Book Reading
• Web Browsing
• Music player
• Amazon Store App
• Games (They already have Angry Birds)
• Videos - An Amazon Prime movies and streaming app

Note: Rumor has it that a 10inch version is in the works. So if you are more interested in a full size tablet, you may want to think twice about buying this version.

My thoughts are as follows.

First, the price is huge. A $300 dollar price difference is significant. Many people who have balked on the $500 iPad may take a hard look at the $200 Fire. Heck this is cheaper than most iPods! All the other tablet manufacturers are gonna be under serious pressure. They can't make money on the books, videos and music like Amazon. Right away it looks like Amazon and Apple are the only horses on this race.

Second, it has all the key features a tablet needs. Web browsing, book reading, and movie playing. (At least that is what I do the most on my iPad 2.) I really think features like cameras and 3G are not something wanted or needed by most consumers. People will ask themselves if they really need an iPad?

Third, this puts pricing pressure on rival Barnes and Noble right away. By also announcing a black and white Kindle touch at $99, this will probably force Barnes and Noble to drop the price of their most excellant Nook Touch and Nook Color.

Fourth, this announcement is a direct shot at Apple. Amazon is gonna put their integrated music, video, ebook, and shopping services against Apple. This is why I scolded Apple for their silly attempt to get 30% of any in app purchases. You risk waking the sleeping giant. And now, the sleeper has awakened and he looks angry.

Finally, this makes me wonder about Android or at least Android on the tablet. Does this move put Amazon firmly in control of the UI on Android tablets? From the demos I've seen, the interface is a lot more elegant than any Android device I have seen to date. This is the danger of open source software, someone might fork the code right at your existing business model.

Well anyway, it should be interesting to watch. Here are links you might find interesting.

Feature Comparison from This is My Next
Molly Wood from CNet
Josh Lowenstein from CNet
Engadget Video Demo

Delicious Adds Stack Feature

The new Delicious bookmarking service added a new Stack feature to their service today. Check out the demo here:

Delicious Demo Video on Stacks

Essentially it is an easy way to create a list of links about a topic or subject. Very simple, yet useful. I predict this could be quite popular.

Thanks Best Buy!

Best Buy has just accepted Blue Sky Workshop into their associate program. Woo hoo! Expects some links to products at Best Buy soon.

It is nice to know some local retailers support small web sites like mine. :)

How do I Block Flash Ads in my Browser?

What is the most likely cause of sudden bad performance on your computer? Generally, poorly written Flash ads. No other tool seems to max out my CPU and cause my poor little laptop to turn on its fans. So the question is how do I block these ads?

FlashBlock
The easiest solution is to simply block Flash in your browser. Firefox and Chrome share a common plug-in named FlashBlock. (FlashBlock for Firefox, FlashBlock for Chrome). Basically the plugin prevents Flash from running on a page. Instead, an icon is shown where the Flash would have run. Clicking the Flash icon allows you to run that Flash element on your page. In addition, you can choose whether to run all the Flash on a page and/or allow that page to permanently remember this decision.

For Chrome, a FlashBlock icon appears in the address bar. Click on it to set up a page to run Flash all the time, or temporarily disable FlashBlock.

For Firefox, the same capability is there. However, you must customize your toolbar and add the FlashBlock button to your toolbar.

What about Safari?
On Safari you can use ClickToFlash which provides the same functionality. However, Apples plug-in support is not as smooth as Firefox and Chrome. So setting up exception pages and disabling the plugin temporarily is much more clunky.


And Internet Explorer?
LifeHacker explains the options. Kind of clunky, but better than nothing I suppose.

Blogger App for iOS

This is sort of old news, but it is new to me. :)
Blogger App for iOS

So now if you have blogger blog, you can post on the go.

Matte Anti-Glare Laptops Week of 9/19/11

This is the first in a new series on laptops with a matte finish. If you are like me and spend most of your day in front of a computer, you know how nice it is to have a matte finish. Briefly, a matte finish display reduces glare from other light sources, especially natural light. When turned off, an anti-glare matte display looks dark with little or no reflection. Contrast that with today's ultra bright displays that when turned off look like a mirror. This super reflectivity can lead to eye strain and headaches in some people. However, the new bright displays do look good in showrooms and thusly are very popular with many retailer today.

So to help those of us who still want laptops and netbooks with anti-glare displays I plan to produce a list of what's available every few weeks.Currently I derive no benefit from the links since I live in Colorado and our legislature has pretty much wiped out any associate revenue thanks to their silly Amazon tax. However, if the situation changes I will note it in the post.

Lenovo
Lenovo has a sale this week on four ThinkPad models. The E520 and T420 both come with anti-glare matte displays. I think the X220 is anti-glare as well, but I have not seen one to confirm this. Price is generally based on weight and performance.

T420 - 14 inch displays. Offer 1600x900 resolution as an option. Under 5lbs
E520 - 15 inch display. One of the best prices your will find on a 5lb laptop


Apple
As always, Apple provides the best laptops on the market. All systems come with Mac OS X but thanks to Bootcamp, can run Windows just fine.

15 inch Macbook Pro - 15 inch display at 1440x900 resolution. Weighs in at 5 lbs. A beautiful machine that is build to last.

New version of the list.

Will TextBooks go the Way of Book Stores?

While running an errand at lunch, the local radio station reported a textbook protest at the downtown Auraria campus.
Textbook Rebellion Comes to Auraria Campus

Searching around the net I also found this:
UMass Students Join Textbook Rebellion

The gist of the story is this. Textbook costs are rising to $500 to $1000 per semester. Given the tough economic times, this strains already cash strapped students. So how to solve the problem? Open source text books. Free or very low cost books that can be copied and distributed to your hearts content. Just like Linux, but with books.

There doesn't seem to be many books out there yet. I found this site: opentextbook.org. They have a few math books, but that is it.

However, this could become a very serious issue for textbook publishers. Given the coming massive shift to iPad and tablet devices it would seem lower costs electronic books focused on this market could have quite an impact. And if professors start collaborating on open source books, how do you compete with free? It is still early days, but issues like this tend to snowball.

So what should the publishers do? Lower their prices. Will they? Probably not or not until it is too late. It will be interesting to watch over the next few years. This looks like an opportunity for someone to me.

Google Making a Flip Board App

All Things D is reporting Google is coming out with a new Flip Board, social media reader thingy.

All Things D: Google Propeller

Could this be a really nice Google+ client for mobile devices? Hmmm.... One does have to wonder how something like this fits into the larger Google picture.

7 Web Usability Tips

Mashable has a nice article with 7 tips on Web Usability. Lots of good ideas.

New Vader and Old Vader

A little levity to end the week.

Check out the new ESPN commercial featuring Mark Schlereth and Darth Vader.


Which reminds me of this Jetta commercial: The Force.

Matte Laptop: Lenovo T420 Labor Day Sale

I am starting a new series of posts on matte laptops. Matte is a type of anti-glare finish for a laptop display. Not so popular with manufacturers any more as most systems come with glossy displays now. If you spend hours and hours staring at a screen like me, there is no substitute for a matte finish. So in the series you will find links to the best matte systems I can find.

Today's offering: Lenovo T420. On sale this weekend, a lightwieght 14inch laptop with i3, i5, and i7 processors. Since it is a Lenovo, count on a great keyboard with a trackpad and a eraser pointer.