I’m not just talking about the results of the DOJ suit against the publishers over their adoption of the Agency Model.  I’m glad that’s happening, and I wish them all the luck in achieving a decisive conviction, but even those publishers who have chosen to settle already will not have had much of an effect just yet.  I’m more concerned with common sense.

The most obvious side of this is the obvious dislike of the format.  Publishers want physical media to be favored because it is more easily controlled.  eBooks are too convenient and most especially too easily pirated, so we have to expect these publishers to try to persuade people to stick to proven methods, right?  Some variation on this argument is likely to come up in any defense of the Big 6.

I’ll be honest, I’m not even going to address it at length here beyond saying that it flat out ignores the facts.  Study after study demonstrates that piracy either increases  or fails to affect overall spending as a trend.  It’s unintuitive, so I don’t blame them for being slow to catch on, but surely somebody employed by these companies could do some research that goes beyond ominous warnings of the dangers of piracy like those thrown around by the MPAA.  Maybe I’ll go into more detail on that another time.

Even assuming that was too hard to grasp, however, there is plenty of easy to understand information about adapting to a market that does away with the concept of limited supply.  The most dramatic example comes from the video game industry where Valve CEO Gabe Newell explained a while back that briefly discounting media by 75% had unexpectedly resulted in sales numbers jumping by a factor of 40.  I’m not saying the two industries are directly analogous, but clearly there are signs that digital distribution needs to be approached a bit differently.

There have been a few signs that publishers were tentatively trying to figure all this out.  Some short-lived discounts have popped up, and last summer’s Kindle Sunshine Deals promo comes to mind as a large effort to feel out the market.  It still seems like the biggest motivator for these publishers is a desire not to change.

They have a good thing going and can basically control the entire publishing landscape when they work together.  The Kindle, along with its eReader competitors, is an unknown.  If it were embraced, somebody else might figure out how to do things better and that would be bad.

I have no idea when this will change, but it can’t come soon enough.  All that publishers have managed to accomplish with this ridiculous behavior is temporarily setting back Amazon by shooting both themselves and their customers in the foot.

Nobody really wants traditional publishing to be completely out of the picture, but lately they’re doing more harm than good.  One of these days they will have to realize this and Kindle owners everywhere will breathe a sigh of relief while stocking their digital libraries.

Related Posts

• April 24, 2012 -- Thoughts on Amazon, the Kindle Platform, and the Anti-Amazon Publisher Defense (2)
• April 13, 2012 -- Kindle Owners Win Big With First DOJ Publisher Settlement (2)
• April 3, 2012 -- Agency Model Set To Fall! Kindle Book Prices Will Follow Suit (4)
• March 26, 2012 -- Arguing that Amazon’s Behavior Justifies Agency Model Price Fixing is Idiotic (1)

Billy Creekmore was born to be a psychic. His mother, a Choctaw Indian schooled in her tribe’s ancient mysticism, understood that the barrier between life and death is permeable. She knew how to cross it, and used that knowledge to help the dead rest easier. She passed that power on to her son, and he has spent his whole life learning how to communicate with the dead to prevent them from meddling with the living.

Though his powers are the same, Wayne Falconer’s background could not be more different. The son of a prominent preacher, he would be disowned if his father learned he was using supernatural powers in service of the church. Though they don’t know each other, Billy and Wayne share a recurring dream—and a common enemy. When a nightmarish monster descends on their community in Alabama, mankind’s fate will rest in their hands.

Some words about the Author

Robert McCammon is the New York Times bestselling author of fifteen novels, including the award-winning Boy’s Life. There are more than four million copies of his books in print.

Also Amazon offer to get CrossMe which is a game for training your brain.

Cross Me is a Japanese crossword known as a Nonogram. The objective is to discover a hidden image by marking cells or leaving them blank, according to the numbers displayed on the side of the grid.

Facing a grid of cells, you will carefully determine which cells to mark and which to leave empty. The darkened cells will begin to take shape and reveal an image.

Look at the numbers displayed across the top and the left-hand side of the grid. Each number represents the number of filled cells in that row or column. Fill all cells in the correct way to solve the picture. All numbers should have a strike-through after filling in the appropriate cells. If you tap on a cell, it will be filled. If you tap on that cell again, it will be crossed. If you tap on that cell one more time, it will be empty again.

A few simple crosswords are provided for you to learn how to play the game, as well as the step-by-step tutorial. Those familiar with Japanese crosswords may skip this and go to more challenging larger pictures. All crosswords have been checked.

Tip: To fill the line of cells at once, tap and hold the cell. A ring will appear and after that, move it. You can find other tips in the game rule.

Random Posts

In keeping with a redesign of the stores themselves, Waterstones customers can expect to see dedicated areas of the outlets set aside for digital reading purposes.  Presumably this will include easy cafe access and free WiFi.  Other than the fact that Waterstones will now be able to jump into eReading in some small way, however, it is hard to say exactly what their plan of attack will be here.

Details, aside from the abandonment of previously reported Waterstones efforts at eReader design, have not yet been made available to the public.  They will not be available, in fact, until this fall.  Considering that James Daunt, the guy in charge of Waterstones at the moment, declared just months ago that Amazon “never struck [him] as being a sort of business in the consumer interest” and called the online retailer “a ruthless, money-making devil”, it must have been a fairly impressive deal.

We know that Waterstones will not be selling the Kindle hardware any cheaper than Amazon’s own store or any of their other partners.  Not only was that obvious anyway, Daunt himself confirmed that it would not be happening.  Everything they pull off will have to be related to the sales of the media.  This opens up a whole field of speculation.

It is definitely possible that this will be an opportunity to finally bring together hardcover book sales and digital reading.  Customers have long asked for an opportunity to acquire their eBooks at a discount when they already own the physical copy and if Waterstones was to start selling bundles priced roughly equal to the cost of a hardcover book it would give them a major edge in marketing alone.

This would also be a good opportunity for Amazon to test out some of Barnes & Noble’s tricks.  Using the Special Offers aspect of the Kindle to display coupons and other such deals any time a user is connected via the Waterstones WiFi would be a start, for example.  It wouldn’t hurt to put together the same sort of free access to entire eBooks that Nook owners get in B&N outlets, but that might be stretching things a bit.

Without knowing more about how the partnership is structured we can’t say anything for sure.  This doesn’t seem like the smartest move for a major Brick & Mortar chain, though.  Amazon is many things, often many positive things, but kind to physical outlets would not be one of them.  The whole arrangement smacks of a last ditch effort to test out possible ways to keep physical book stores from losing traction in the face of the overwhelmingly popular Kindle.  In that respect, as a fan of the bookstore, I can only offer my sincere hope that they succeed in finding one.

Related Posts

• May 4, 2012 -- Target Tosses the Kindle, Says Goodbye to Amazon (0)
• February 18, 2012 -- Kindle Store Coming To Seattle? (0)
• February 14, 2012 -- Amazon vs B&N Conflict May Mean More Kindle Exclusives (2)
• September 15, 2011 -- Waterstone’s To Be UK’s Next Kindle Competition (0)

Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run — run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don’t understand anything and won’t be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan, “where my status as a U.S. passport holder and card-carrying ‘American English’ speaker was an asset rather than a liability.” It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn’t speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind everything he had ever known to move to “a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people that make him look fat?” In Tokyo, Tim became a “gaijin,” an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen howlingly funny stories. Yet despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way. Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it’s invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected…right when he least expects it.

Some words about the Author

Tim Anderson has done many amazing things in his life. Well, two amazing things. OK, one thing that he did twice. But he’s got nothing on his older brother, who can play his teeth like a xylophone with his thumb. As for Tim, he is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he was inducted into both Phi Beta Kappa and the Golden Key National Honor Society. (These honors have yet to pay off.) He has worked as a waiter, a data-entry clerk, a photocopier repairman, a freelance writer, a music editor, a middle-school teacher, and a depressed employee of the state of North Carolina. He dreams of one day being an underwear model/bookie. Until then, he will keep working as an editor and living in Brooklyn with his boyfriend, his cat Stella, and his viola, which he plays in the band Simple Shapes.

Also you can download Alphabet Coloring for free today only.

Alphabet Coloring is a fun way to help kids practice their ABCs. It includes 26 beautiful custom made coloring pages for each letter of the alphabet. In addition, each coloring page has a professionally recorded voiceover. A is for Apple…B is for Butterfly…C is for Cat!

• Simple user interface
• Curated color palette
• White and black canvas
• Multiple undos
• Tons of stickers
• Multiple erasers
• Multi-touch support
• Adjustable stroke size
• Share artwork via e-mail or save to gallery

Random Posts

Steven Kotler was forty years old, single, and facing an existential crisis when he met Lila, a woman devoted to animal rescue. “Love me, love my dogs” was her rule, and Steven took it to heart. Spurred to move by a housing crisis in Los Angeles, Steven, Lila, and their eight dogs-then ten, then twenty, and then they lost count-bought a postage-stamp-size farm in Chimayo, New Mexico. A Small Furry Prayer chronicles their adventures at Rancho de Chihuahua, the sanctuary they created for their special needs pack. While dog rescue is one of the largest underground movements in America, it is also one of the least understood. An insider look at the “cult and culture” of dog rescue, A Small Furry Prayer weaves personal experience, cultural investigation, and scientific inquiry into a fast-paced, fun-filled narrative that explores what it means to devote one’s life to the furry and the four-legged. Along the way, Kotler combs through every aspect of canine-human relations, from humans’ long history with dogs through brand-new research into the neuroscience of canine companionship, in the end discovering why living in a world made of dog may be the best way to uncover the truth about what it really means to be human.

Some words about the Author

Steven Kotler is the author of the novel The Angle Quickest for Flight, a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, and West of Jesus, a 2006 PEN West finalist. His work has appeared in the GQ, Wired, New York Times Magazine, National Geographic and elsewhere, and he writes The Playing Field, a blog about the science of sport for PsychologyToday.com. Kotler runs the Rancho de Chihuahua dog sanctuary with his wife in rural New Mexico.

Also you can download Factbook for free today only.

FactBook is an app that literally puts the world at your fingertips. Want to know what the population of a country is? How about their standard of living and the general life expectancy? What are their military expenditures? How many people own a cell phone?

Research, explore, and compare information for nations all over the world. The application processes statistical data to produce charts and graphs that provide more appealing and easy-to-digest representations of the information. FactBook allows you to quickly compare all countries with respect to a particular statistical category. For instance, you can compare the GDPs of all countries and the app will generate a graph that clearly shows how each stacks up to the others. An embedded Share key in the hard menu makes sharing information easy through messaging, email, or any other networking program you wish you use.

FactBook draws its WorldStats information from the CIA World Fact Book and from the United Nations world database.

Random Posts

Karen McQuestion, the author of the bestselling Kindle e-book, A Scattered Life, has a new book out called The Long Way Home.  Four women of varying ages embark on a road trip to Las Vegas.  Along the way, they face past fears and tragedies, form close bonds, and of course have the adventure of a lifetime.

A good author puts you into the circumstances and gives you a full idea of their character’s personalities.  McQuestion does a good job of this in The Long Way Home.  There is even a supernatural element to the story.

Sarah Pekkanen writes classic chick lit, but I enjoyed These Girls more than most chick lit books I’ve read because the characters had real personalities.  It also boasts great reviews.  They dealt with real issues and showed compassion for each other.  There wasn’t a snooty tone to this book like there usually is in a book about working at a magazine.  That’s not to say that These Girls doesn’t give insight to the cutthroat nature of the competition for higher jobs within a magazine.

Jennifer Weiner is the bestselling author of In Her Shoes.  It was developed into a hit movie a few years ago.  I think my favorite part about Jennifer Weiner’s books is the humor.  Usually she writes from the point of view of a “second best” who give their funny take on another popular, “have it all” type, that doesn’t really have it all.  Her latest, Then Came You deals with fertility issues from different perspectives.

All of these books are $9.99 or less in the Kindle Store.  Karen McQuestion’s book is available in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library.  Happy reading!

Related Posts

• August 1, 2010 -- Fly Away Home Kindle Edition (0)
• June 5, 2011 -- Summer Reads for $3.99 or Less (0)
• October 2, 2010 -- Kindle Books on a Budget (0)
• May 23, 2008 -- New York Times Best Sellers: 23 May 2008 (0)

The first novel to be released in The Foreworld Saga, The Mongoliad: Book One, is an epic-within-an-epic, taking place in 13th century. In it, a small band of warriors and mystics raise their swords to save Europe from a bloodthirsty Mongol invasion. Inspired by their leader (an elder of an order of warrior monks), they embark on a perilous journey and uncover the history of hidden knowledge and conflict among powerful secret societies that had been shaping world events for millennia.

But the saga reaches the modern world via a circuitous route. In the late 19th century, Sir Richard F. Burton, an expert on exotic languages and historical swordsmanship, is approached by a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados about translating a collection of long-lost manuscripts. Burton dies before his work is finished, and his efforts were thought lost until recently rediscovered by a team of amateur archaeologists in the ruins of a mansion in Trieste, Italy. From this collection of arcana, the incredible tale of The Mongoliad was recreated.

Full of high adventure, unforgettable characters, and unflinching battle scenes, The Mongoliad ignites a dangerous quest where willpower and blades are tested and the scope of world-building is redefined.

A note on this edition: The Mongoliad began as a social media experiment, combining serial story-telling with a unique level of interaction between authors and audience during the creative process. Since its original iteration, The Mongoliad has been restructured, edited, and rewritten under the supervision of its authors to create a more cohesive reading experience and will be published as a trilogy of novels. This edition is the definitive edition and is the authors’ preferred text.

Some words about Authors

Neal Stephenson is primarily a fiction author and has received several awards for his works in speculative fiction. His more popular books include Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle, and Anathem.

Erik Bear lives and writes in Seattle, Washington. He has written for a bestselling video game and is currently working on several comic book series.

Greg Bear is the author of more than thirty books, spanning the thriller, science fiction, and fantasy genres, including Blood Music, Eon, The Forge of God, Darwin’s Radio, City at the End of Time, and Hull Zero Three. His books have won numerous international prizes, have been translated into more than twenty-two languages, and have sold millions of copies worldwide.

Joseph Brassey lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two cats. He teaches medieval fighting techniques to members of the armed forces. The Mongoliad is his first published fiction.

E. D. deBirmingham studied comparative religion and theatre at Harvard University and believes they are pretty much the same thing. She has written historical fiction and screenplays under various pseudonyms, much to the dismay of her mother, who wishes hers was a household name. She lives in rural Massachusetts with her husband and the world’s best dog.

Mark Teppo is the author of the Codex of Souls urban fantasy series as well as the hypertext dream narrative The Potemkin Mosaic.

Cooper Moo spent five minutes in Mongolia in 1986 before he had to get back on the train—he never expected to be channeling Mongolian warriors. In 2007 Cooper fought a Chinese long-sword instructor on a Hong Kong rooftop— he never thought the experience would help him write battle scenes. In addition to being a member of The Mongoliad writing team, Cooper has written articles for various magazines. His autobiographical piece “Growing Up Black and White,” published in the Seattle Weekly, was awarded Social Issues Reporting article of the year by the Society of Professional Journalists. He lives in Issaquah, Washington, with his wife, three children, and numerous bladed weapons.

Also you can download Farm Mess Pro for your Kindle Fire for free today only.

Farm Pen Puzzler

Oh no! Your farm is a complete mess. Your mission is to restore some order to your agricultural enterprise. Are you up to the task of sorting out these mixed-up farm animals?

You must move the animals to their correct places within the pen. The horses belong with the horses, the cows with the cows, the pigs with the pigs, and so on. You sort the animals two ways: Tap three small animals to rotate them, or tap a large animal so the smaller animals around it rotate.

For every level, you’re allowed to make a specific number of moves. If you exceed the number of taps, you’ll have to start that level over. Essentially, these animals act as a challenging puzzle of rotating cogs.

Farm Mess contains 54 levels and three levels of difficulty. Choose from small, medium, and large boards. Every board features a relaxing farm scene with funny animations, but your brain will be far from relaxed trying to puzzle out these progressively more difficult boards. So get those goats in order, or you’re out of the farming business!

Random Posts

The Kindle Fire is Amazon’s best-selling product, as their first-quarter earnings release made clear.  It shouldn’t take anybody by surprise, then, to find out that they intend to make sure advertising space on the device comes at a premium.  According to Ad Age, that premium might be an even more expensive one than we could have predicted.  Amazon is said to be looking for $600,000 to run an ad on the Kindle Fire’s Welcome Screen.  For a variety of reasons, some of which are apparent, there has not been a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea among advertisers so far.

In addition to this being an impressively high charge for something like this, there was a great deal that was left unsaid.  For one, nobody seems to be quite sure whether or not these ads would be served to the millions of Kindle Fire owners who have already bought their tablets.  Having purchased a new product at full price with no indication that it would be used by Amazon to serve up advertisements, doing so would definitely upset some people and potentially undercut the benefits of buying the ad space.  This isn’t exactly a situation where Amazon is incurring obvious costs on existing units, as the Kindle Fire lacks 3G access.

Also, the company seems to have failed to clearly define what they consider to be the “Welcome Screen”.  Is this the Lock Screen, or something else?  This could very well be a sign that Amazon is getting ready for the next Kindle Fire and the Welcome Screen is something that will be included specifically for the purpose of creating a space for ads.  Unlike the Kindle eReaders, persistent advertisements would not be possible when the tablet is powered down which creates the need for a more creative solution to make the ads worth buying.

If subsidized by advertising, the next Kindle Fire model could be impressively inexpensive.  Existing Kindle w/ Special Offers options are 30% cheaper than their counterparts.  If the same sort of trend applies to the Kindle Fire, it could mean a $150 7″ Kindle Fire or better yet a $200 9.7″ option.  Now they just need to clarify the details to attract some interest.  It is probably a smart buy for many advertisers, but how can they be sure of that when so many things are left unsaid?

Related Posts

• May 30, 2011 -- Can the Kindle Out-Deal Groupon? (1)
• April 12, 2011 -- New $114 Ad-Supported Kindle Announced! (4)
• December 21, 2010 -- Ads in Kindle Books a Possibility? (10)

For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy’s sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald. Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother’s life. Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother/daughter drama, Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive and the legacy of shame.

Some words about the Author

Jenna Blum is of German and Jewish descent. She worked for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation for four years, interviewing Holocaust survivors. She currently teaches at Boston University and runs fiction workshops for Grub Street Writers.

Also you can download to your Kindle Fire 6 Games: Hybrid Mind.

Six great games from Hybrid Mind Studios all come together within one low-priced app.

Orange You Glad features 20 levels of citrus madness, ten special power effects, and 25 unique and humorous items to avoid. Can you gobble enough oranges with your tongue to advance to the next level? It’s not as easy as it sounds. Find out how to reach Orange Frenzy mode–it earns double points.

Power Vacuum is a fast-paced puzzle game. Help the atom recover its lost electrons on each level by carefully guiding the electrons around the white energy areas, but don’t let them touch. There are 20 levels available, and ten are picked at random each time you play. You have 60 seconds per level to get the electrons to your goal.

Avoidal offers a simple but exciting premise: use your enemies to destroy as many blue stars as you can. Activate red seekers and yellow spikes, then get out of the way as they plummet towards the blue stars. Earn bonus points by destroying the blue stars as quickly as possible.

Contentric gives you just 10 seconds to collect the blue squares, refill your time limit, and avoid the black squares and borders. How long can you last? Contentric is a fast-paced agility game in which you avoid obstacles and collect items in a race against the clock. The obstacles you avoid are indirectly controlled by you, which adds a zen-like quality despite the game’s frenzied pace.

See how many robots you can destroy in Robot Reaction, a fast-paced chain reaction game. The ten exciting levels with six different robot types support online leaderboards for high score competition. Each of the robots explodes in a different way, and you only get once chance in each round, so think quickly and choose carefully.

In For the Twin, a simple, fast-paced matching puzzle game, find your example’s identical twin from among the dancing aliens. A game that both kids and adults can enjoy, it features six unique challenges with ten levels each, 30 different dancing aliens, an offbeat electronica soundtrack with seven original songs, and online leaderboards for competition. Who knew that aliens were all twist-and-turn tango twins?

Random Posts

Perhaps the most interesting case is the early education classroom.  I’m thinking Primary School here (1^st – 5^th/6^th grade).  On the surface it makes perfect sense.  Using a Kindle rather than buying books means that schools can potentially avoid everything from lost reading material to profanity scribbled in the margins of textbooks.  Students wouldn’t even need to worry about forgetting their books on the way to or from school.  For every positive, though, there is a negative.

The most obvious is probably also the most trivial to fix.  Kids break things.  Whether through overwhelming exuberance or deliberate malice, from time to time they just tend to do damage as a group even if the same isn’t necessarily true of any specific individual.  The Kindle, whatever else you might say about it, is not the most durable piece of electronics in the world.  Amazon has an amazing return policy and does great work in making sure that damaged E Ink screens are replaced when the occasion calls for it, sometimes even for customers long out of the warranty period, but we have to assume they would balk at 5-10 free service orders per classroom every six months.  Given the investment already being made in texts on a regular basis, it still might make sense to go with the Kindle.  At the very least, a good case can prevent all but the most destructive acts from doing damage in my experience.

More important would be the issue of efficacy.  While the Kindle is great for sequential reading, its limited navigational options and slow refresh rate can be a pain for referring to scattered parts of a book.  On top of that, until color screens come into fashion in the eReading world there will always be some question of whether enough is being done to hold student attention.  There is a reason that most textbooks for children are thoroughly illustrated and brightly colored.

Rather than just assuming a stance on this, I have to say that it feels like an issue best decided through trials.  There are surely ways to use the Kindle properly in these classrooms, just as there are obviously ways for it to be used poorly.  The only way to really figure out how to make it work is to throw the new technology into the mix and see how the kids take to it.  I do believe that exposing children to this sort of technology early in their lives can have positive effects on both their technical proficiency and their love of reading, but one person’s anecdotal evidence about a kid who loves their Kindle is hardly enough for me to argue for an educational policy even when the anecdote is mine.

I’m curious what you all think on this.  Do Kindles and kids make a productive combination?

Related Posts

• November 18, 2011 -- Amazon Kindle Daily Detail Now Available In UK (1)
• August 7, 2011 -- Head Back To School With A Kindle (0)
• July 16, 2011 -- The Unexpected Perks of Kindle Ownership (6)
• February 12, 2011 -- Did the Rise of Amazon(and its Kindle) Doom the Brick & Mortar Book Store? (11)

Seven souls risk everything to seek a home on the West Texas frontier. Will they discover a secret Eden, or have they embarked on a dangerous misadventure? Cowboys Luke Stuart and Tom Schurtz meet in the infamous Dodge City at the end of trail drives in 1877. Back in Texas, Luke and his wife, Elizabeth, divulge a plan to Tom. The Stuarts and Tom consequently partner up and venture out to establish an ideal ranch in the canyons region of the Llano Estacado, only recently (and not completely) vacated by the Comanche.They seek the mysterious Canyon Escondido, which may not exist. They have learned of it from the family lore of neighbors and the legends of their peoples, Apache and Mexican. In hope, the pioneers drive their herd across rolling plains, through notorious settlements and the wanton buffalo slaughter. Various challenges test their determination along the path they have chosen, not least so when they finally face the success or failure of their quest and what must then follow.

Some words about the Author

P. A. Ritzer spent four years traveling through Kansas, Colorado, and especially Texas, researching primary and secondary sources, and the land itself and the people who live on it, to inform his crafting of Seven Ox Seven. He brings to his story a background in history (Gonzaga University BA) and theology (Harvard University, University of Notre Dame MA).

Also you can get ColorBook for free today only.

ColorBook is a photo-editing app for your Android device that lets you turn your own personal pictures into coloring book images. Create colored masterpieces and share them with your family and friends; each image you create will be truly one of a kind.

It’s easy to turn a photo into a customized coloring book image. Just open the ColorBook app and take a photo (or choose one from your personal photo gallery or Facebook profile). The photo will appear on your screen transformed into a black and white, pencil-drawn image.

If you like, you can change the visual style of the image before you go any further. Touch the Menu button, then select Style, and you’ll find three options: ColorBook (the default line-drawing style), GrayScale, and Original. Pick your favorite. Now it’s time to get coloring!

Start by choosing a brush size and paint color from the tabs at the bottom of the screen. Create broad strokes with a large brush, or pick one that’s pinpoint-sized to get precise. For detail work, you can use the app’s two-finger zoom feature to see up close and make sure you color inside the lines.

The color choices are wide open, so be creative. Basic options are available at a single touch, but you can also bring up a color wheel and choose the exact shade you want.

Coloring is easy. Using your finger, touch the screen anywhere. You’ll see the color appear immediately, as if you’re holding a crayon or pen. If you make a mistake, touch the Erase tab and use your finger to remove the offending strokes.

When you’ve finished your masterpiece, make sure you share it with your friends. You can post it to Facebook or send it via e-mail or text message.

And remember to save your work to your device! You can make sure you never lose a project by selecting “Auto save” in the app’s Menu settings. Then anything you’re working will automatically be preserved for you whenever you exit the app. Happy coloring!

Random Posts

Naturally the comparison will be made with the Nook Simple Touch w/ GlowLight.  We have to expect that Amazon will be making a more significant overhaul of their eReader than Barnes & Noble did, given how well the Kindle Touch has held up in direct Kindle vs Nook comparisons of late.  Adding a lighting layer to the existing model would hardly be enough to get people interested.

That said, it will meet demands.  Customers have been wishing for a light on their Kindles since the first version was released.  While the complaint has not been enough to derail the Kindle, as many initially thought would be the case with so many LCD-based eReaders on the market, the demand has not gone away at any point.

The type of lighting we believe will be used in the new Kindle will allow for adjustable intensity for reading in any situation while not being a major source of eye strain or power depletion.  Essentially we get to keep all the benefits of E Ink without making the sort of sacrifices that are usually involved in switching to lit devices.

Chances are good that Amazon will attempt to draw attention to the new Kindle by pricing it below the comparable Nook model.  Reuters speculates on a $10 price increase related to the added light and that does seem reasonably in line with previous Kindle pricing, as Amazon loves to demonstrate how affordable they can manage to be.  The normal, un-lit Kindle model or models will be priced the same as ever, most likely, with further cuts possible should they have managed to source cheaper parts.  Clearly the strategy of selling at or near cost is working to their advantage and will continue.

While it is disappointing to not have a color Kindle on the horizon just yet, it makes sense that this upgrade had to come as soon as possible.  The Kindle has not always been the best eReader available, especially in early comparisons with what Sony was offering, but there has rarely been a feature that could be pointed to as overwhelmingly important and only available through the competition.

Look for the newest Kindle eReader to be released before the end of July 2012 and the newest developments in Kindle Fire and color Kindle hardware in the months that follow.  It is unlikely that Amazon will fail to pursue color E Ink in the year to come and we know that the Kindle Fire is due for an upgrade before the holiday season.  This should be the first of many big Kindle developments.

Related Posts

• May 14, 2012 -- Will the Next Kindle Have Lighting AND Color? (1)
• April 28, 2012 -- Review: Barnes & Noble’s GlowLight Nook Leaves Kindle Playing Catch-Up (3)
• May 9, 2012 -- 5 Ways Amazon Can Save the Kindle (5)
• May 6, 2012 -- Nook Simple Touch and Color go on sale for Mother’s Day (0)

It’s July, 1975 and an overworked Chicago police force receives a call that an 85-year-old white man has been attacked by a gang of black youths on the lakefront in Burnham Park. Amid public outrage, contentious Mayor Richard J. Daley commands his police to find the killers fast and make the bucolic park safe again.Uncommonly but fortunately for the police, twelve-year-old James Overstreet steps forward and identifies five of the six assailants and arrests are made. But detectives and county attorneys bungle the case, leaving the judge no choice but to release the accused.This startling turn of events jeopardizes James’s life, forcing the entire Overstreet family into witness protection in Arizona, and creates a nightmare that will haunt the brave witness forever.Fast-forward thirty years. The stoic young man has grown to become Maricopa County’s most feared prosecutor. But his life is about to be turned upside down when paths from the past cross into the present, veering toward a shocking climax.

Some words about the Author

Pascal Marco, a Chicago native and long time resident, uses his intimacy with that city and his present residence to weave a tale of terror and murder with as many twists and turns as the city streets themselves. A successful entrepreneur and businessman, he’s a graduate of the University of Illinois Chicago and a member of the Scottsdale Writers Group.

Also Amazon give a chance to download for free the following game: Fragger

The world of Fragger is at risk, and he needs your help to explode all enemies. Unleash your shooting abilities to kill all the enemies and unlock three different perks. Play the interactive tutorial to get comfortable launching the grenades, and then put your game face on; it’s Fragger time.

Featuring 340 challenging levels, and 11 different worlds, Fragger guarantees long hours of exploding fun. Once you become a grenade-launching expert, earn achievements and compare your score online with the millions of Miniclip users who play Fragger too.

PLEASE NOTE: This app lets you purchase digital content using actual money. You can configure parental controls for in-app purchases, which will require your Amazon account password or a 4-digit PIN, by tapping the Menu icon and then Settings.

Random Posts

When Helen Francis was a child, her mother died and her father walked out, leaving her to be raised by her older sister. Now thirty-five, married, and trying to start a family of her own, Helen has moved on but never really healed from her traumatic childhood. She has always believed that a new baby would help fill the loss of what was taken from her at such a young age. After four years of trying to become pregnant, however, she is resigned to the fact that she will never be able to bear children. Halfheartedly accepting adoption as an alternative, Helen gradually embraces and grows excited over the prospect. And when her new baby is finally in her arms, true happiness washes over her. But her unimaginable bliss is dashed when she learns that Claire, the sister who raised and loved her throughout her childhood and adult life, has been diagnosed with cancer.

For Helen, the pain of her childhood returns and the old wounds of abandonment are once again torn open. Balancing the joy of her new daughter with the painful experience of watching her sister, the physical embodiment of unconditional love in her life, slowly die, Helen must reconcile her inner feelings and heal her broken spirit. A heart-wrenching exploration of the ties that bind us and the lasting pain of childhood loss, Daughters for a Time is about longing for a family to heal a broken heart, experiencing unconditional love as a parent, and finding solid ground to stand on when suffering and elation have equally powerful holds on our life.

Some words about the Author.

Jennifer Handford was born in Phoenix, Arizona, where she lived until she moved to Oregon for college and graduate school. After graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C., and has lived in the Virginia/Washington, D.C., area for fifteen years. Jennifer is married and has three daughters. Daughters for a Time was awarded one of three first place prizes in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. It is her first novel.

Also you can download a game for your Kindle Fire which called Gunman Clive. It is free today only.

The west is overrun by thugs and outlaws. A group of bandits have kidnapped Mayor Johnson’s daughter and are spreading havoc across the land. Only Gunman Clive can bring order to the west and save the girl. Gunman Clive is an old-school, side-scrolling platform game set in the old West with full 3D graphics and a unique art style.

Navigate Gunman Clive through the dangerous Wild West using three controls. Directional arrows are located at the bottom left-hand side of your screen. Jump and Shoot buttons are located on the lower right-hand side. Move Clive through a number of obstacles while dodging bullets and taking down the outlaws.

Jump and shoot your way across 16 diverse and challenging levels against a variety of outlaws–from your run-of-the-mill gunman to their powerful bosses. The unique sepia sketch-shaded graphics pull gamers into the rough and rowdy ways of the original Wild West. Be careful out there.

Random Posts

For a while now Dropbox has been the standard in cloud storage.  With their application you have a limited amount of free space and options to pay for more as needed.  Files are dropped into a local computer and synced to the net where they can be automatically downloaded on any other computer you happen to log into your account on.  It makes things so simple that it takes very little time to forget Dropbox is even present on the computer.  I take it for granted, as do many people.

Microsoft’s most recent attempt to interest users involves a revamp of their SkyDrive system.  Previously restrictive options have been removed and the whole interface now functions much like Dropbox with its automatic syncing.  Users do get 7GB of free storage, which is substantial, and there are limited Office applications tied right into the web portal.

Google Drive is essentially more of the same.  Google is still finding their footing so it may be too soon to criticize overly much when it comes to their interface and such, but they shine in the obvious area of in-document search function.  While this is the option that started the recent surge of web storage interest, it is probably not going to be setting new standards any time soon.

Amazon, as I mentioned, works differently.  There is no syncing.  Every act of storage is a conscious decision that saves the exact instance of the file you are interested in rather than the most up to date at any given time.  Like Send-to-Kindle, you can just use the usual “Send to…” dialogue in the Windows Explorer context menu to make any transfers.  You can also use a drag and drop onto the taskbar icon, should that seem simpler.

As competition for the area of most seamless storage option, Amazon has issues.  Nobody is going to find this as convenient as simply having a user-defined folder that is always up to date.  It seems to be more for users of the Kindle Fire.  Anything sent to the Cloud Drive is immediately and conveniently available on the Fire, so long as the internet connection is active, and since the Kindle Fire doesn’t ship with a transfer cable this will address some user complaints.  This is the one situation where I truly recommend you check out Amazon’s new app.  If you have a Kindle Fire, life just got a lot more convenient; if you don’t have a Kindle Fire, grab Dropbox or SkyDrive.

Random Posts

In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year’s westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival. But until now, the full story of what happened–and what it tells us about human nature and about America’s westward expansion–remained shrouded in myth.

Drawing on fresh archeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snowfall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century-and-a-half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner party and their unimaginable ordeal: a mother who must divide her family, a little girl who shines with courage, a devoted wife who refuses to abandon her husband, a man who risks his life merely to keep his word. Rarick resists both the gruesomely sensationalist accounts of the Donner party as well as later attempts to turn the survivors into archetypal pioneer heroes. “The Donner Party,” Rarick writes, “is a story of hard decisions that were neither heroic nor villainous. Often, the emigrants displayed a more realistic and typically human mixture of generosity and selfishness, an alloy born of necessity.”

A fast-paced, heart-wrenching, clear-eyed narrative history, Desperate Passage casts new light on one of America’s most horrific encounters between the dream of a better life and the harsh realities such dreams so often must confront.

Some words about the Author.

Ethan Rarick has written about politics, crime, business and sports throughout the West. His work has appeared in many publications, including the Los Angles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, and he is the author of California Rising: The Life and Times of Pat Brown. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Also you can download The Wonderful Adventures of Nils – An Interactive Children’s Story Book HD into you Kindle Fire for free today only.

An Adventure of a Lifetime

Join Nils on his magical journey, meet new friends, and see the world like you’ve never seen it before! The Wonderful Adventures of Nils is a beautiful interactive and magical storybook created for young readers. Watch how Nils learns an important lesson and comes to understand that we should treat all living things with trust and care. Enjoy fun interactive activities, superb animation, and brilliant sound effects your child will love.

Interactive Magic

TabTale’s interactive storybooks provide an exciting interactive reading experience for beloved children’s stories. Richly filled with innovative and engaging activities, each book inspires young children’s creativity and imagination in a uniquely enjoyable and interactive way.

The story comes alive with interactive fun. The young reader gets to meet Nils and and his animal friends, watch how a magic dwarf casts a spell on Nils, and fly over stunning landscapes with Nils aboard Muli the goose.

Nils eventually saves the day by warning the geese of an impending danger, and then your child will help welcome Nils back to the farm in a joyous celebration. Your child truly becomes part of the story.

Experience the Adventure Your Way

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils comes packed with features:

• Beautiful high-definiton illustrations joined with a rich narrative on every page
• “Read to Me”: automatically reads each page of the story to you
• “Read it Myself”: allows you to control the reading yourself
• “Auto Play”: automatically reads the entire story to you
• Numerous engaging and fun animations on each page

Random Posts

The Kindle Touch recently arrived in Europe.  How fitting that this update also includes more language support and instant translations.  Amazon is finally getting going with reaching out to the global market.

I have noticed that my Kindle Touch has a crisper display.  I was disappointed to see that there were still shadows of the previous page text.  Does anyone else with a Kindle Touch see this issue as well?  This is one thing that I keep hoping will be resolved with each update.

I like the landscape option a lot, especially since I have to blow up the text size.  It allows more room for the text, and also provides another option for holding the e-reader.  It also adds more flexibility when holding the device for a long period of time.

To access landscape mode, you have to tap the menu and turn it on.  Maybe one day the ability to just turn the Kindle sideways will trigger it.

If your Kindle is using wi-fi, then the update should automatically download.  Otherwise, turn on wi-fi, go to menu, then settings.  Once in the settings, tap menu again and select “Update Your Kindle.” This option will be greyed out if you already have the latest update.

If the success of the Nook GlowLight is any indication, the next big update to the Kindle Touch will be a built in light.  I look forward to being able to read in all lighting conditions without the added hassle of extra accessories.

Related Posts

• February 8, 2012 -- Kindle Touch 5.0.3 Update Available for Automatic Download (3)

This riveting biography recounts the life of the world’s first truly modern explorer, a life of unrelenting adventure and the high drama of polar exploration. Hubert Wilkins was the most successful explorer in history: no one saw with his own eyes more undiscovered land and sea. Largely self-taught, he was a celebrated reporter, pilot, spy, war hero, scientist, and adventurer. He captured in his lens war and famine, cheated death repeatedly, met world leaders like Lenin, Mussolini, and King George V, and circled the globe on a zeppelin. Knighted for being the first person to fly across the North Pole, Wilkins was also the first to fly in the Antarctic, discover land by airplane, and take a submarine under the Arctic ice.

Some words about the Author

Simon Nasht is an Australian-born writer, journalist, and filmmaker. He has worked all over the world, lived in half a dozen countries, and reported for leading newspapers and TV networks everywhere. His acclaimed documentaries have been shown by the BBC, ABC, the National Geographic channel, and PBS. He lives in Australia.

Also Amazon offers KeyChord for free downloading today only.

Find Chords and Scales on your Android Device

Do you love your piano or keyboard but get bored when it comes to the nuts and bolts of finding chords and scales?

KeyChord is a virtual keyboard on which you can select chords or scaletypes. Now you can create beautiful music by tapping the screen of your smartphone or tablet without the strain of figuring out scales and chord root notes.

A Personal Piano Teacher

You can use KeyChord as your personal music tutor, learning chords and scales while enjoying the creative side of the piano. For instance, simply tap on a key to make it the root of your chord, or long-press a selected chord note to invert the chord to that position. You can do the same with scales. Tap an already-selected root note for different kinds of information modes like note names or intervals.

Features

KeyChord lets you select a chord dynamically anywhere you want on the keyboard. It doesn’t use a database to give you just a few predefined chord locations, but knows how chords work mathematically, giving you the power to explore chords on your keyboard.

Reverse Lookup allows for dynamic note selection for the chords you have in mind or that you discover on your piano: Keychord tells you automatically how the chord is called, and supports even missing notes like CMaj7 (no 5th).

• More than 50 chord types
• More than 100 scale types
• Note names
• Component intervals
• Inversions
• Staff view
• Favorite and recent chord types
• Hear every chord and scale

Audio playback is also enabled in all modes. And included as a bonus is the playable five octave multi-touch piano from Mini Piano Pro (128 sounds and 5 octaves).

Random Posts

Now, E Ink eReaders have a new standard to live up to since the launch of the Nook Simple Touch w/ GlowLight.  We can be relatively certain that Amazon is aware of this fact and interested in stepping up the game a bit with their next Kindle release.  This means that there will obviously be a similar lighting feature that doesn’t intrude too much on the battery life users have come to expect from a Kindle eReader, but there will have to be more if they want to really stand out.  The new Nook has been around for long enough that light alone will probably fail to impress even if Amazon could launch immediately.

There may be a case to be made for expecting a front-lit color E Ink Kindle in the second half of this year that will make besting the Nook’s GlowLight model possible.  Consider the shortcomings of E Ink’s Triton displays.  They do have color, yes, but it is dull and lifeless except in ideal lighting situations.  Even in some specially selected showrooms there are times when Triton’s color fails to impress.  Adding in a front-lighting solution along the lines of what Barnes & Noble has achieved with GlowLight may eliminate that problem.  If the lighting is built right into the device and still doesn’t significantly reduce the battery power then there is no reason to avoid color E Ink anymore.

This is not new speculation, but it does carry slightly more weight than it used to.  We have already had information leaked about Amazon’s possession of lighting technology for the new Kindle.  It was reported on shortly before the new Nook was made public.  Now DigiTimes, that highly unreliable but occasionally informative Taiwanese publication, has made the claim that parts suppliers are getting orders for color eReader components on a schedule that would set release in the second half of 2012.  I would never rely wholly on DigiTimes for information and so would advise against considering that confirmation, but they have been right even more often than they’ve been wrong.

If we do get a color Kindle eReader before the holidays, expect a fresh boom in eReading in general.  Not only would it be impressive new technology that addresses a major customer demand, it would benefit from the first major change in eBook pricing since the introduction of the Agency Model.  We can’t be sure how soon Amazon will jump on the pricing issue given that there are still unsettled defendants in the DOJ case, but the end result will definitely benefit Kindle owners immensely.  This could be a very big year.

Related Posts

• March 24, 2012 -- Kindle Color E Ink Rumor Completely False (0)
• May 18, 2012 -- Front-lit Kindle Coming Soon; Amazon Not Waiting On Color (0)
• May 9, 2012 -- 5 Ways Amazon Can Save the Kindle (5)
• April 10, 2012 -- Coming Soon: An E-Ink Kindle You Can Read In The Dark (1)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

To Dance with the White Dog: A Novel of Life, Loss, Mystery and Hope by Terry Kay

Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell

Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella

Fuzz by Ed McBain

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna

Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy

Red Alert by Peter Bryant

Make Room! Make Room! by Mark Harris

Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

In the Heat of the Night by John Ball

The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett

The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey

Also you can download Pot Smash: Addictive Type & Match Game! for your Kindle Fire or any other Android gadget.

Have you ever just felt like smashing everything in sight? You know, like Anarchist protesters in a march through a downtown commercial district? Well, if you like not getting arrested while smashing stuff, you’ll have a simply smashing time with Pot Smash. In this brain challenging game, let your fingers do the virtual smashing with no harm done to public or private property. Combine thinking skills required with quick, rapier-like swipes to smash every pot in sight.

Features include achievement awards, addictive gameplay, and five unique game modes, including Teapot Match-up, Smash Typing, 3 Letter Words, Zen Smash, and Relax Mode.

Related Posts

• December 15, 2011 -- Daily Deals: An American Tragedy and Wordoku (0)
• March 4, 2011 -- Kurt Vonnegut for Kindle (1)
• June 13, 2009 -- Kurt Vonnegut, Good Kindle Books at a Glance #13 (0)
• April 27, 2012 -- Daily Deals: The Sirens of Titan and Recipe Guru Pro (0)

Naturally, the speculation makes a number of rather impressive claims.  The iPad Mini will sport a 7.85” Retina Display, for example.  It will also be priced between $200 and $250.  Basically it is a scaled down version of the iPad 3 that just happens to be half the price of the cheapest version of that tablet.  The price drop can apparently be accounted for at least in part by the reduction of on-board storage space to 8GB.

Once again, despite how seriously this rumor is being taken at the moment by various sources, there is a major flaw in it.  None of the details make sense.

The most obvious point is the pricing.  In previous iPad offerings, Apple has never once accepted less than a 50% profit margin on every sale.  The newest version, the iPad 3, is estimated to cost about $310 to manufacture (16GB, 4G Model).  This makes it the least profitable iPad for Apple so far at an estimated 51%.  Even if we assume there to be a relatively large decrease in production costs as they move from a 10” display to a 7”, there is no real way that the company could hope to get even a 25% margin out of a $200 iPad Mini.  The Kindle Fire is only viable at that price because of Amazon’s heavy emphasis on media sales after the purchase.

There is also the issue of OS fragmentation.  Regardless of whether the proposed device would be able to maintain the iPad’s 2048 x 1536 resolution, the decreased size would change the way that users interact with their device and therefore the way designers create their interfaces.  It would introduce a new tier of apps that would have to be directly targeting the Mini.  Coming into what will likely be a major competition with Microsoft’s Windows 8, Apple will not want to be dealing with a complete refresh of their store this fall.

There are plenty of other reasons that we can expect no iPad Mini.  It would cannibalize iPod Touch sales.  It would indicate that Apple was far more concerned about the Kindle Fire than the numbers come close to justifying.  The list goes on.  Basically, the chances of such a product hitting shelves is slim at best.  Even if it happens, the final specs are certain to look nothing like what sites like iMore indicate unless the price is totally different from what they are expecting.  The Kindle Fire will continue to be the dominant $200 tablet for a while longer and Apple will continue to be disinterested.

Related Posts

• September 3, 2011 -- Kindle Tablet Finally Sampled? (0)
• April 20, 2012 -- Will the iPad Mini Kill the Kindle Fire? Also, Will iPad Mini Rumors Ever End? (0)
• March 6, 2012 -- Is Google Taking On the Kindle Fire With a New 7” Tablet? (0)
• February 13, 2012 -- New Kindle Fire 7” & 9” Models Reportedly On The Way (0)

A smart and determined field operative in Tucson, Del Shannon has earned a reputation for being nearly invincible in tracking down missing persons. Ironically, the only person Del has not been able to locate is the mother she’s never known. Deep in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky, the Feds are investigating Nazareth Church, an isolated religious compound led by faith healer Silas Rule. People desperate for salvation are giving up everything they own—and are never heard from again.

Del is recruited when the FBI discovers that her father owns an abandoned house in the clannish community. Hoping to locate her mother, she goes undercover with ATFE agent Frank Falconet, a New Yorker who is battling his own demons. Caught in a deadly web of lies, scheming, and righteous threats of damnation, Del risks everything to find the truth. What secrets is Nazareth Church hiding? And could Silas Rule hold the key to her mother’s past?

Some words about the Author

Random Posts

Is the heart smarter than the head? Artist Miranda Jones begins to trust her heart enough to escape from her life of privilege and start over in Milford-Haven, the small town of undiscovered beauty on California’s Central Coast. She connects with environmentalist Samantha Hugo-a brilliant PhD twenty years her senior who gave up a son years earlier; and with restaurant owner Sally O’Mally who left Arkansas to create her own dream. Each woman wrestles with her own core issues while balancing demanding careers with the attentions of interesting men. None is aware that journalist Christine Christian has just been murdered while investigating a half-built house. Though the book stands alone, it is also Book 1 in the critically acclaimed, popular series, a multi-generational saga. Based on Purl’s BBC Radio drama Milford-Haven U.S.A.

Some words about the Author

Mara Purl is the author of the popular Milford-Haven Novels, based on her original hit radio drama Milford-Haven U.S.A. that reached 4.5 million listeners on BBC radio. Mara is a former journalist for the Associated Press, the Financial Times of London and Rolling Stone, and a former actress on Days Of Our Lives.

Also you can download iRewardChart. It is a game for your Kindle Fire or any other Android devices. Today this game is free.

The reward system has always been an effective parenting technique, and now the iRewardChart can go everywhere you and your child go. The iRewardChart makes it easy to teach your child how to understand consequences, incentives, patience, and the value of setting goals and working to achieve them.

The iRewardChart app makes it easy to reward your children for good behavior and keep them motivated. Simply type their name, select a few tasks from the list of suggestions, and reward their accomplishments with a single tap in the weekly chart.

The app also allows you to set up abstract goals like “Patience” and “Sharing with Others” in order to reinforce the values you want your child to learn. When stars have been earned, your child can pick from the default list of suggested rewards, or you can customize the rewards (e.g., “$2 Pocket Money” or “One Hour of TV”).

While the iReward App has been busy implementing an effective reward system, it’s gotten quite a bit of recognitions itself!

• Recipient of “Best Parenting App” award two years in a row (2010, 2011) via BestAppEver.com

• Featured on NBC Today Show, CNET’s top5, AOL’s (ParentDish) top10 parenting app, CNN-Money

• Featured under Apple iTunes AppStore “Busy Parents” essentials

Random Posts

Those with access to the lending service will be able to select from the whole seven book series in English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish starting next month, thanks to an exclusive agreement with Pottermore.  This means that anybody with an Amazon Prime account and a Kindle device can check out one installment of the series every month.  If you are planning to read through these books again anyway and don’t necessarily need to own new copies in a digital format, this means about $56 in savings that could offset the cost of a new Kindle eReader or Amazon Prime annual membership significantly.

No details were released as to the nature of the exclusivity that Amazon mentioned in their press release.  Seeing as the Harry Potter series is already available in libraries across the country and has been since March, it is unlikely this will be exclusivity with regard to digital borrowing.  More likely, Amazon has an arrangement to be either the only purely digital lending service to carry the books or they have arranged unlimited distribution rights for the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library rather than a per-copy fee.  The only major impact this will have for users of Amazon’s library is that it will never have waiting lists.  Either way this will likely be more inconvenient for potential competition down the line than it is right now when the Lending Library is essentially the only one of its kind.

The usual Kindle Owners’ Lending Library rules apply to Harry Potter.  You get one book per month and the most.  You only get to borrow one book at a time.  There are no late fees.  To participate you must be both a Prime member and a Kindle Owner; the Kindle Apps do not qualify.  While reading, any notes, highlights, bookmarks, tags, or other personal interactions with the book will be saved via Whispernet in the hopes that you eventually decide you need to own the book.  Should you buy a copy, or borrow the same book a second time in the future, it will already have access to all of the marks you made in your library book.

If you are interested in taking advantage of this arrangement, the Harry Potter series will become available on June 19^th.  Assuming you meet the requirements for Lending Library usage, you will be able to get your free rental then regardless of the level of popularity it enjoys on launch.  If you don’t yet qualify but are in the market for a tablet, the Kindle Fire comes with a convenient month of Amazon Prime membership and thereby takes care of both sides of the qualification at the same time.  Something worth looking into.

Related Posts

• August 13, 2011 -- Pottermore Brings Books To Kindle, But Leaves Fans Open To Scams (0)
• July 28, 2011 -- Yes, Harry Potter Is Coming To The Kindle (0)
• July 9, 2011 -- Will Rowling’s ‘Pottermore’ Change Digital Distribution As We Know It? (2)
• July 8, 2011 -- J.K. Rowling Finally Bringing Harry Potter To The Kindle Through ‘Pottermore’ (1)

7 Money Rules for Life

Today Amazon offers 7 Money Rules for Life by Mary Hunt just for $1.99

Americans young and old are flunking their finances. A shocking 77 percent live paycheck to paycheck with no savings. And 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, while 49 percent could cover less than one month’s expenses if they lost their income. In the face of this bleak financial picture, bestselling author and finance expert Mary Hunt offers 7 Money Rules for Life. This no-nonsense and encouraging book gives readers the keys to get their money under control and get prepared financially for the rest of their lives. In her warm and engaging style, Hunt takes everything that she’s learned over the past twenty years and boils it all down. Presented in a conversational style and readable in a weekend, this book offers applications for each of the seven rules as well as practical advice for how to recover from past financial mistakes. These simple, unchanging, basic rules work in every financial situation, for every income level, and for every stage of life.
Money mastery isn’t really that hard. 7 Money Rules for Life can help readers change their futures from uncertain to rock-solid with principles they can apply right away.

Some words about the Author

Mary Hunt is founder and publisher of Debt-Proof Living (formerly Cheapskate Monthly™), which has 35,000 print subscribers and an average of 800,000 website hits per month. Her books have sold more than a million copies, she was the financial columnist for Woman’s Daymagazine, and her daily newspaper column is syndicated through United Features. The author of 7 Money Rules for Life, Hunt speaks widely on personal finance and has appeared on shows such as Good Morning America, Oprah, and Dr. Phil. She and her husband live in California.

Also you can download TKWeek for free today only.

An all-in-one, planner extravaganza, TKWeek is an in-depth calendar, date book, and week calculator.

TKWeek features an impressive array of functional capabilities. Containing the following options, it provides everything you’ll ever need to know about any day in question.

• Convert date and week
• About a date
• Days between dates
• Date calculator
• Events

The Converting a Date and Week feature finds the week number of a date or vice versa. The About a Date feature lists the day of the week, the day of the year, the leap year, and the sign of the zodiac. The Days between Dates and Date Calculator features calculate the number of days, weeks, months and years between any two dates.

With the Events Feature, figure out how many days it is until Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, New Year, Valentine’s Day, April Fools’ Day, International Workers’ Day, Mother’s Day, Bloomsday, Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Independence Day, Bastille Day, Swiss National Day, Assumption of Mary, German Unity Day, Nationalfeiertag, Halloween, All Saints Day, Shrove Monday, Daylight Savings, Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, Ascension of Jesus, and the Pentecost.

Random Posts