I was reading an article a couple of days ago that I thought made a good point.  It discussed how despite the surge of e-books and e-readers in recent years, there is still a place for print books.  On a personal note, I can still appreciate reading a print book from time to time despite owning a Kindle Touch, iPad and iPhone.

There seems to be a general consensus that print is on its way out, and getting an e-reader means you’ll never read print books again.  I think instead of replacing print books, digital books will just be adding to the types of formats that people can use to read.  Digital books allow more font adjustments and lighting, so they offer a more customized reading experience.

With the rise of e-readers including the Amazon Kindle, and the e-books that go along with it, many of the major book chains have faltered or have gone out of business.  Borders declared bankruptcy earlier this year, and Barnes & Noble is not doing all too great.  It does have the Nook in its arsenal however, and it has definitely provided healthy competition for the Kindle.

I think the foreseeable future still holds a big place for both print and digital materials.  Print books give a certain feel that digital books cannot.  There is really something for everyone.  You have print, e-readers, and most recently, tablets.  The Kindle Fire has taken the tablet market by a storm, and is taking a hit at the iPad sales already.

The thing that has hurt the big chain bookstores so much is that Amazon offers books in all formats so much cheaper.  Independent bookstores can also offer used books at competitive prices.  They can also offer a sense of warmth and community that you don’t get with a larger bookstore.

So, smaller bookstores have the potential to shine.  It is all a matter of addressing what the customers want.  I’ve always dreamed of owning a used book store where people can come to read, work, or just gather.  Maybe one day soon there will be more independent bookstores that sell both e-books and print books.

Today deals from Amazon: The Misremembered Man by Christina McKenna for $0.99

Memoirist McKenna’s debut novel—a pastoral, feel-good yarn set in 1974 County Derry—concerns two Irish 40-somethings who meet through a newspaper Lonely Hearts column. Both farmer Jamie McCloone and schoolteacher Lydia Devine have suffered the recent death of a loved one. Jamie’s traumatic childhood at a sweatshop run by the nuns from hell precipitates his dependence on Valium and whiskey. Lydia, meanwhile, grew up under the oppressive thumb of her now-dead rector father and—at age 40, still a virgin who has never tasted alcohol—decides it’s time to live a little. The pair, of course, are grossly mismatched—she prim and buttoned-down, he a rough-edged rustic—which is underscored repeatedly during their lengthy postal courtship. Comic relief comes from Jamie’s neighbors, the McFaddens, who do their best to aid Jamie and lift him from his saturnine moods. McKenna—who’s written a memoir, My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress—places a few twists in the narrative, saving the most startling until the close. (Mar.)

The Misremembered Man is a charming yet harsh portrait of Ireland and some of it’s characters, mainly a man and a woman whose younger lives shared a common bond, oppression. This tale is engrossing although a wee syrupy at times, and here and there are touches of humor that are in sharp contrast to the lives of these two people. The author builds the characters well, then plops them in the middle of life in the small towns of Ireland. You might feel the final chapters will bring a heartwarming predictable ending that you hoped would happen, but the writer surprises you….worth the time to curl up on a comfortable sofa and read the day away. —-Mary S. Long (Baltimore, MD USA)

Quisr PRO is a game for your Kindle Fire and others Android devices which you can get for free here.

What year was the Battle of Hastings? Who was the last .400 hitter in Major League Baseball? Which pop star had a hit with “Genie in a Bottle”? If trivia is your game, you’ll love Quisr Pro for Android.

Let’s face it: you know way too many obscure facts for your own good. What better way to show off all that useless knowledge than crushing your friends and ruling the world in a trivia game on your phone or tablet? That’s what you can do with Quisr.

The first time you open up Quisr you’ll need to create a unique profile. This allows you to participate in the worldwide leaderboards, and also enables you to create your own questions and review others’ suggested questions. You can even add an avatar to your profile to express your individuality.

Now that you’re registered, your pride is on the line. Quisr offers two modes of play: Singleplayer, where the app feeds you a series of questions, and Multi Player, where you and up to three of your trivia-loving friends can duke it out on your device. This mode is based on the “first to buzz in” method of gameplay, and it’s great for tablets. Note that trash-talking in Quisr is allowed (although trash-talking in Singleplayer mode is kind of silly).

Quisr features more than 1,000 different questions, with more being added all the time. You’ll find eight categories included, everything from geography to sports and games to entertainment to history to–well, you get the picture. How culturally literate are you? You’ll find out quickly with this app.

Unlike some quiz games, the questions are not all boring multiple choice. Sometimes you’ll be given a rotating list and asked to pick out the two or three correct answers for that question. There is a timer, so don’t think you have all day to Google the answer or ask your Mom for help. Questions are worth different amounts of points, based on level of difficulty and how fast you answer. If you’re stuck, you can use a Joker option to stop the timer, eliminate wrong answers, or skip the question entirely.

Earn bonuses by correctly answering multiple questions in a row. If you get enough right, you’ll advance to the next level. Miss too many, though, and it’ll be “Thanks for playing!”

After each game, Quisr tells you your total score for that game, your high score to date, and where you rank on the worldwide leaderboard. You can also go to the Quisr website and see the details, as well as participate in the making and reviewing of questions that will then appear in subsequent quizzes. See if you can stump your fellow players and claw your way to the top of the trivia heap with Quisr.

I’ve been watching the Kindle games collection closely to see if any holiday games would show up this year. There are a few, but not as many as I thought there would be.

Right now there are three holiday themed Kindle games out there. The first is a holiday version of the hit free puzzle game, Pixel Perfect Puzzles. The object of this game is to create a picture by filling in individual blocks. Each row and column contains the number of blocks that that particular row or column will include.

The part that makes this game a little more challenging is that you have to figure out how far to space each set of blocks. So, far example, if it says 5 2, then you would do a set of 5 blocks all together, then a set of 2 blocks separated from the other set by one or two spaces.. The columns and rows have to match up. If you can figure out the easy ones, the harder ones tend to just fall into place. Pixel Perfect Holiday Puzzles includes themes from all holidays that come around this time, as well as winter terms.

Puzzle Baron’s Cryptograms is also available in a holiday edition. Cryptograms are scrambled words or phrases that you need to reorganize. The most helpful tip for me is to keep in mind what category the phrase is in. You can also compare your results with others, which usually helps players improve on their score.

I think that cryptograms can be some of the hardest word puzzles out there. Puzzle Baron’s Holiday Cryptograms include themes like Gift Giving, Holiday Season, New Year’s, Wintertime, and more.  Lots of fun to be had for word game lovers out there!

Lastly, there is a festive collection of Word Search puzzles with holiday terms from all kinds of categories such as movies. Word Search is a great game for all ages, and they are puzzles that everyone is familiar with to some degree.

The Holiday Word Search Kindle game is available on the Kindle Touch, as well as all other models with the exception of the Kindle Fire. The other two games are not available for the Kindle Touch at this time. I was a little surprised that Amazon’s own game is not compatible with the latest generation.

I hope to see more holiday games trickle in as the season gets going. It is still pretty early, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot more to come in the next few weeks.

Today you can get When Parents Text: So Much Said…So Little Understood written by Sophia Fraioli just for $0.99

“An addictive and side-splitting read . . .  the underlying relationship between parent and teen is simultaneously touching and hysterical. This should be a best seller–it is a total moment-in-time classic. Enthusiastically recommended.” —-Library Journal (starred review)

In case you haven’t heard, the Bird is the Word. And now it’s also an entertaining game for your Android device.

In Bird’s the Word, the goal is to make as many words as you can, as fast as you can. Highlight the letters in the word and then enter it–the Submit button turns green as soon as you’ve created a legitimate word of three letters or more. When you do, the letters disappear and different ones take their places. The longer the word, the more points you get, and there are lots of special bonus letters that pop up as you go.

There is a catch: Make sure that all the letters in the word are touching each other. If not, a sneaky bird will fill one of the spaces rather than a new letter. The more birds that perch on the board, the harder it will be make new words. Don’t let the winged menaces thwart you!

With this game you can create a flap three different ways. In Classic mode, you must fill up the score bar as quickly as possible to advance to the next level. To make it to the top of the pecking order, score more points at each new level within the same amount of time.

The game tracks stats such as longest word, average word length, time per word, and high scores for each game mode. The more you play and the higher you score, the more achievements you pile up: Word Warrior, Nesting Instincts, Squabble, Pest, Stunner, etc. As you go further into the game, you’ll be able to unlock special birds and other features.

Since birds of a feather flock together, you can also go beak-to-beak with your friends in Bird’s the Word through Facebook. Just select Challenge on the main menu and pick out one of your friends. Then play a game in any mode and when you finish, a challenge will automatically be sent to your friend’s wall. Can you soar with the eagles or are you going to end up hanging out with turkeys?

Amazon has a habit of releasing some very functional mobile apps that subtly encourage customers to use their site more often.  Of course the fact that they do this by making these apps into genuinely useful ways to save money makes it rather hard to fault them on it.  The most recent of these, and the first one to be released specifically for owners of the new Kindle Fire, is the completely free Amazon Santa app.

At the most basic level, it’s nothing more than a pleasantly festive holiday wallpaper thrown across an Amazon.com wishlist building application.  It provides the user with a few categories – Music, Books, Video Games, Toys & Games, Movies & TV, Everything Else – to flip through, which can be run through endlessly (or close enough based on my experimenting and the claim of over 500,000 listed products).  Presumably these are sorted out based on current popularity, since the product page notes that dynamic updating is a part of the experience.

The reason I consider this one worth recommending, despite having a fairly narrow range of application, is the appeal to children for the benefit of parents.  The Amazon Santa app lets each kid pick out their own favorites in a separate wish list, then send it off to Santa.  While I can’t necessarily vouch for anything that is happening in the North Pole, I can definitely confirm that Amazon will send along some notice to the Kindle Fire owner’s registered email account.  This includes a short list of selections from the list, a link to the full list, and other relavent information.

It’s worth noting at this point that the company is quick to explain how their privacy applies to kids.  Specifically, that no information is in any way linked to the individual identity of a child on Amazon’s part.  Also, that it is preferred for parents to handle all naming of wish lists and registration of accounts under their own names.  While it is always tricky to market anything toward children in a manner that might pass on important information, in this case it would be difficult to think of Amazon picking up anything unless a parent goes out of their way to put a real name on the related list.

Now, I’ll openly add the disclaimer that I do not personally have children, nor do I do any particularly intensive shopping for the ones I am related to.  That aside, the parents I know were quite fond of the idea and their children (all ages 5-12) had no trouble using the app.  I’m told that at least one friend now has trouble retrieving her Kindle as a result, but that’s a completely unrelated problem

The reviews among the broader audience are generally positive, 4 Stars at the time I’m writing this, but there are a couple complaints.  There isn’t sorting, nor can you really narrow down what you want to look at beyond the main categories.  You also will not be able to make use of the app unless you happen to have a Kindle Fire or an iPad.  Definitely important things to note, but if you have the opportunity I would definitely give this one a try.  The value is great, especially considering the price.

Today you can get the very good book – An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser just for $1.99.

Novel by Theodore Dreiser, published in 1925. It is a complex and compassionate account of the life and death of a young antihero named Clyde GRIFFITHS. The novel begins with Clyde’s blighted background, recounts his path to success, and culminates in his apprehension, trial, and execution for murder. The book was called by one influential critic “the worst-written great novel in the world,” but its questionable grammar and style are transcended by its narrative power. Dreiser’s intricate speculations on the extent of Clyde’s guilt are countered by his searing indictment of materialism and the American dream of success. – The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

With Wordoku you can play this new Sudoku/Crossword game, enjoy 3000 unique puzzles, customize difficulty level, find the hidden word in each puzzle, use intuitive touchscreen interface. Right now the price is $0. You can get this game for free from Amazon.

Get Hooked

Love word games? Discover a new obsession with Wordoku, the addicting Sudoku/Crossword crossover game. You’ll get hooked in a minute, but play for hours and hours. This full version includes thousands of unique puzzles and words for unending puzzle fun.

Want a new twist on the classic Sudoku puzzle? Light up new regions of your brain by playing with letters instead of numbers. Whether you’re a Sudoku expert or novice, you’ll pick up Wordoku’s rules in a second.

Each unique Wordoku puzzle consists of nine letters that must appear only once in each 3×3 grid, once on each row, and once on each column of the puzzle. A hidden word is located on one of the nine horizontal lines. Find the hidden word and you’re done! Or keep going, complete the entire puzzle, and satisfy your inner Type-A.

Once you’ve got your Wordoku-legs, up the ante and adjust the difficulty level. Choose from three settings, and see if you’re up to the challenge.

Play on your ride to work, during a boring lecture, or anytime you need to kill time. The Wordoku app is up to the challenge, with over 3000 puzzles. Pick up the Wordoku app, and you’ll never be bored again.

The competition in the 7″ Tablet market was obviously thrown into disarray by the arrival of the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet devices.  Even if you completely set aside the service being offered in conjunction by either company, any moderately powerful Android Tablet in the $200-250 range is attractive.  Just look at how well the Nook Color did, even locked down with ridiculously few apps and a marketing campaign focused on reading.  What’s also rather clear, however, is that with the Kindle Fire getting the majority of the attention pre-launch, B&N needed to make an impression on potential customers.  They may have overdone it a bit.

The most obvious disappointment for Nook Tablet early adopters was the storage space.  One of the biggest draws in this case was the fact that they included twice the Kindle Fire’s storage space.  This is especially important given the huge emphasis on video viewing that’s been happening lately.  The Nook certainly offers more natively supported formats, so 12GB of available space to side load your library onto is great on paper.  As we’ve learned since then though, that’s not going to be happening.  Barnes & Noble decided that Nook Tablet owners would probably be needing to have around 11GB of that space blocked to outside content.  That’s less than 10% of what was promised, which means that the only people likely to ever get the most out of their new Nooks in this regard are the ones who root them.

Also related to the video viewing qualifications of the device is the quality problem.  Probably to set themselves apart from the Kindle Fire yet again, B&N advertised the new Nook as “The best in HD entertainment”, among a number of other similar claims.  Now, obviously this could not be the case.  Anybody who gave it a decent amount of thought already knew that, given the resolution of the screen if nothing else.  This sort of language has since been dropped from the Nook Tablet product page.

The official response was that what they “really” meant for customers to understand was that they pull a higher quality video feed from Netflix than the competition and the message just got lost in translation somewhere. Where the Kindle Fire pulls the standard definition stream and fits it to the tablet, the Nook Tablet grabs the HD and downgrades it.  This does, admittedly, result in a better picture for those with the network reliability to support it and would have made sense to advertise.  Instead, they opted for what seems to have been deliberate misinformation.

It’s taken a bit of time, but corrections are being made to the advertising.  I think it’s important to make note of these early efforts to drum up preorders, though.  While the Nook Tablet is definitely a good product for the money, there’s something a bit off about this approach to selling it.  There is a big difference between fixing launch bugs and having to significantly modify your product descriptions to avoid deceiving customers.

Amazon’s daily deal is The Grail Conspiracy (A Cotten Stone Mystery) by Lynn Sholes. You can get this book only for $0.99.

This book is winner of Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award for Best Mystery

Short description: On assignment in the Middle East, television journalist Cotten Stone stumbles upon an archeological dig that uncovers the world’s most-sought-after religious relic: the Holy Grail. With his last dying breath, Dr. Gabriel Archer gives it to Cotten, uttering “You are the only one” in a language she’s heard from only one other person–her deceased twin sister.

What begins as a hot news story for the ambitious young reporter soon turns into a nightmare when the Holy Grail is stolen and strange “accidents” befall her dearest friends. Running for her life, she turns to John Tyler, a priest with firsthand knowledge of religious artifacts, for help. An anonymous source leads them to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, where an abominable experiment is underway that–unless destroyed–promises to unleash an ancient evil upon the Earth.

Lynn Sholes has worked as a writing trainer for Broward County Schools and Citrus County Schools in Florida. Before writing thrillers her interest in archaeology led her to write historical fiction under the name Lynn Armistead McKee. Lynn is a member of the International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, and The Authors Guild.

Helium Boy is application for your Kindle Fire. Today you can get it for free.

Helium Boy is a playful 3D platform adventure game that will have you soaring high above diverse landscapes on your quest to collect bright yellow stars. If you’ve ever wanted to fly, now you can with this gorgeous app.

Grab a few balloons, tap the Jump button, and you’re on your way, flying above houses and trees, over water, and across chasms. Be careful to time your moves correctly or you’ll fall to your death. Watch out for birds, ninjas, and other spiked things that will burst your balloons or otherwise get you killed.

If you need to pass under obstacles or want to lose altitude to gather stars, just drop your balloons and go it on foot. When you’re ready for more flying adventures, simply tap the Pump button and it’s up and away. To judge the distance between objects and navigate your way more skillfully, keep an eye on your shadow.

Helium Boy boasts amazing graphics, lighthearted music, imaginative scenery, and adventurous gameplay that will challenge and delight both children and adults. Choose between two modes (Beginner and Normal), fly your way through eight challenging stages, and remember to watch out for the ninjas!

While overall the response the the Kindle Fire has been overwhelmingly positive, there have been a number of ongoing complaints that hold some merit.  Some professional critics, as well as Amazon.com reviewers, have been incredibly negative.  In response to some of the more important issues, Amazon is planning to release a content update within the next two weeks.  That does not necessarily tell us what will be addressed, of course, but educated guesses are possible.

Much of this is speculation, of course, but there are a few things that need to be taken care of right now that Amazon would be foolish to delay on.  My predictions:

Likely To Be Addressed

Connectivity Issues

Some users have experienced ongoing problems with their WiFi connections.  Whether these take the form of a complete inability to connect or an intermittent and unreliable connection, they get in the way of enjoying what is meant to be a portable means of streaming internet content.

Privacy & Parental Controls

Let’s face it, no matter how this was marketed it would end up in the hands of kids.  It’s durable, gives easy access to books and movies, and lasts for hours.  It makes little sense, then, to have such vague and occasionally buggy parental controls.  Censorship might be bad, but few people think that everything a parent enjoys is suitable for their children.

Expect something that will allow either blocking of media content based on content ratings or a Whitelist system to designate child-approved titles.  The ability to remove items from the home screen’s shelf and the account’s app selection will be vital in this area as well.

Responsiveness

While usually fine, in my experience, the Kindle Fire occasionally has a spurt of input lag that gets in the way of a seamless user experience.  My understanding is that this some people far harder than it has me, possibly depending on what the tablet is being used for.  Look for some degree of performance optimization to address this.

Possible Update Features

Improved Browser Configuration

The Silk web browser is a decent enough application for a mobile device, but has yet to really impress people.  A great deal of that is that it will take time for the predictive features made possible by the two part browser setup to begin paying off in any major way, but we can’t count on that ever happening until proof shows up.  For now it would be enough to get the ability to prioritize mobile versions of sites, since the 7″ screen is less than ideal in some cases.

Categories

Missing up to this point has been the ability to organize your purchases, be they books or apps, in any way.  They are simply either on the Kindle Fire or in the Cloud.  This is something that I am certain will come up down the line, but it is unclear how much of a priority it will be.

Improved Netflix Streaming Option

Let’s face it, the Nook Tablet is currently doing precisely one thing that is clearly superior to the Kindle Fire.  It draws from the HD stream on Netflix content and downscales rather than the other way around.  No reason this should not be an option for Kindle owners, though this may be dependent more on a Netflix agreement than a device update.

We’ll know soon enough what is going to be addressed. and I think it is fair to assume that while the vital fixes will be quick they will also be followed by more substantial feature improvements as time goes on.  If nothing else, if the next generation of Kindle Fire is expected as early as six months from now then they’ll want to be optimizing in the meantime.

Today Amazon drops down price for On Gold Mountain written by Lisa See. You can buy this book for $1.99

Amazon gives the following short review of the book: “Lisa See, daughter of novelist Carolyn See, brings a novelist’s skill to this sprawling ancestral history. Books tracing the roots of overseas Chinese writers are not uncommon these days, but See uncovered in her family tree a capsule history of the Sino-American diaspora: her great-grandfather, Fong See, founded a California business, married a Caucasian woman and fathered many offspring, and returned periodically to China to redistribute some of his wealth and launch another family. See, a Publishers Weekly writer, has conducted extensive interviews and drawn on family lore for an enthralling saga of ambition, prejudice, love, loyalty, and sorrow–social history at its best.”

“The See family history is becoming public property. First mother Carolyn with Dreaming (Nonfiction Forecasts, Jan. 2) and now daughter Lisa?but with something far different in mind. Always aware of her part-Chinese roots, she set out five years ago to learn about her far-flung and, as it turns out, famous paternal family. Her great-grandfather Fong See was an extraordinary figure. He established a business in Sacramento, Calif., and later in Los Angeles, when it was an unheard-of thing for a Chinese to do; married a Caucasian and fathered a large brood; returned to China on and off, spreading his wealth around in his tiny native village and creating another extensive family there too. Drawing on family legends and dredging up intimate history through countless interviews with uncles, aunts and cousins both in California and in China, See, PW’s West Coast correspondent, has created a matchless portrait not only of a remarkable family but of a century’s changing attitudes. The early anti-Chinese racism was horrific, and even 40 years ago it was hard for a Chinese to emigrate here, let alone become a citizen. The ambitions, fears, loves and sorrows of See’s huge cast are set forth with the storytelling skills of a novelist?and a great, sprawling novel is what her book often resembles. There are times when it flags and the constant new names become tiresome, and a heartfelt but superfluous chapter on actress Anna May Wong disrupts the flow; but the book is a striking piece of social history made immediate and gripping. Photos. 60,000 first printing; Literary Guild alternate.” —- Reed Business Information, Inc.

Also you can get Butter Lion Memo for free. But only today.

Historians believe that humans first invented a system of writing to keep from forgetting things, like which types of plants and dinosaurs were good to eat and which weren’t. Fast forward thousands of years, and the ancient quest for an effective way to keep simple notes is finally over: Butter Lion Memo is now available for your Android device.

The genius of Butter Lion Memo lies in its simplicity. Don’t look for any elaborate dating, sorting, tagging, or highlighting features in this app–you won’t find them. There’s no color coding, no keywording, no special interface needed.

All you really need is this: a way to create a note with one tap. A simple title bar. A basic field where you can record the necessary information. (“Get stegosaurus milk.”) Hit Save, and you have your memo.

But what if I need to share my incredible note with the world, you ask? Butter Lion Memo has thought of that. Just touch the Mail icon and you can send your note to any e-mail address on Earth. Use this feature as a way of backing up your important memos, in case your Android device gets eaten by a giant sloth or a velociraptor.

That’s all there is to it. Create, edit, and save as many notes as you need and access them no matter where your travels take you with Butter Lion Memo.

There’s been some trouble since the launch of the Kindle Fire.  While responses have been overwhelmingly positive on most fronts, there is a substantial crowd that has been unable to get themselves online with their new tablet at all.  As any amount of hands-on experience will quickly demonstrate, a Kindle Fire without internet access loses a lot of its potential usefulness.  No video streaming, no app store, no store whatsoever for that matter…it isn’t isn’t as much fun!

So what’s the problem, and how do you fix it?  Well, that’s a bit complicated as it turns out.  There are a number of possible issues, so we’ll start with the simplest fixes.  I’ll assume that you’ve already tried rebooting your device, just in case.

Update Your Kindle Fire’s Firmware

While it doesn’t help everybody who tries, the 6.2 update for the Kindle Fire seems to have resolved a lot of connectivity problems.  This is especially true of instances where connections are intermittent and hard/impossible to maintain.

The simplest way to update is to just get online through another network.  If that is not an option, just head over to the Kindle Fire Support page and follow the instructions under “Kindle Resources > Software Update”.

Reset and Update Router Firmware

Pretty much any wireless router you are likely to have will have the option to reset the on-board firmware to factory settings.  If at all possible, follow the instructions included in your manual.  The hardware is too varied to make it worth trying to walk you through it here.

Once that is accomplished, some users have experienced no further troubles.  In general it is recommended that you update to the most recent firmware to have been released by your manufacturer.  This seems to fix even more Kindle Fire issues.

Alternatively, some have had luck installing alternate firmware such as DD-WRT to their router.  If you have a supported device, this would definitely be my own personal choice.  It is simple enough to do by following directions and tends to offer greater control than what most manufacturers provide.  Use only at your own risk, of course.

Change Your Network Settings

In some rare instances, it can simply be a matter of problems with basic details not working with the tablet.  Extremely long SSIDs, for example, have been known to prevent connection entirely.  Setting a Static IP for the Kindle Fire sometimes helps as well.  As a last resort, forcing Wireless N broadcasting and manually setting the Channel sometimes seems to do some good.

Call Amazon

If none of this works for you, or it simply isn’t an option, the best option is probably to get in touch with Amazon.  They have been compiling details on ongoing problems and will hopefully begin having more luck the more information they have available.  Some routers have proven to be completely incompatible so far, for example.

Remember that as a last resort (and I believe that the vast majority of problems can be solved by taking these troubleshooting steps) Amazon very rarely balks at accepting returns from dissatisfied customers.  There’s no real motivation to keep around something that can’t perform the basic tasks you purchased it for.  Wait on further firmware updates and try again later.

As has been noted a few times in the past, Amazon didn’t really put any effort into securing their tablet against modification.  The Kindle Fire was bound to be rooted and they knew that would be the case well before it was even officially announced, I’m sure.  Since it started arriving in the mail, there have been quick results along these lines.  Andrei, here on our site, has posted instructions on how to root your own Kindle Fire for easy access to things like the Android Marketplace.  What many have been waiting for, though, is the announcement that custom ROMs were available to replace the default Kindle Fire OS.

This isn’t to say that there is anything wrong with what Amazon has done in their release.  It’s a great one and serves to highlight the capabilities of the tablet quite well.  For those who prefer to avoid being attached permanently to a company like Amazon for whatever reason, however, it is nice to have the option to make use of their affordable yet powerful hardware without the attached software.  That’s where developments from the XDA-Developers forum come in.

One of their users has been able to get a basic installation of Google’s latest Android release, Ice Cream Sandwich, working on the Kindle Fire.  So far, “working” is a relative term since at the time of this writing it still lacked the ability to use the audio, WiFi, accelerometer, or light sensor (yes, the Kindle Fire has a light sensor, they have just got it disabled at the moment since it was overly sensitive at the time of launch).  This is a big step in the right direction, however, and once some of the bugs and deficiencies are ironed out will likely result in making the Kindle Fire a great option for Android fans who might otherwise be put off by Amazon’s proprietary build.

While this will definitely open up the user options in a few ways, specifically by allowing a greater degree of configurability and better integrating the Android Marketplace (as compared to simply rooting and installing it), there are a couple down sides.  Most importantly, you lose access to the Amazon service integration.  While most people considering this option are likely looking for exactly that, the Kindle Fire’s limited storage space can make the Cloud Storage a vital part of daily use and the streaming options for music and movies provide an experience that many find superior to their general app equivalencies.  The freedom to install anything you want will also lead to the opportunity to pick up apps that are not optimized for the Kindle Fire’s specs in any way.  This can lead to poor performance at best and complete waste of a purchase if you aren’t careful.

While I wouldn’t advise anybody to jump up and grab the current working build of ICS for the Kindle Fire, given its incompleteness, you may want to keep an eye on it.  Personally I love the interface that Amazon has come up with, but that doesn’t mean somebody else won’t manage to improve on it.  The best performing option will always be the preferable one in the end, and there is a great community of Android developers out there that can’t wait to get the Kindle Fire working just the way they like it.

The video demonstrating a working ICS build from the dev who got it working:

Kindle Daily Deal: Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Hillary Jordan’s Bellwether Prize-winning novel is a gripping and exquisitely rendered story of forbidden love, betrayal, and murder, set against the brutality of the Jim Crow South.

Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Mudbound, her first novel. The prize was founded by Barbara Kingsolver to reward books of conscience, social responsibility, and literary merit. In addition to meeting all of the above qualifications, Jordan has written a story filled with characters as real and compelling as anyone we know.

It is 1946 in the Mississippi Delta, where Memphis-bred Laura McAllan is struggling to adjust to farm life, rear her daughters with a modicum of manners and gentility, and be the wife her land-loving husband, Henry, wants her to be. It is an uphill battle every day. Things started badly when Henry’s trusting nature resulted in the family being done out of a nice house in town, thus relegating them to a shack on their property. In addition, Henry’s father, Pappy, a sour, mean-spirited devil of a man, moves in with them.

The real heart of the story, however, is the friendship between Jamie, Henry’s too-charming brother, and Ronsel Jackson, son of sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm. They have both returned from the war changed men: Jamie has developed a deep love for alcohol and has recurring nightmares; Ronsel, after fighting valiantly for his country and being seen as a man by the world outside the South, is now back to being just another black “boy.”

Told in alternating chapters by Laura, Henry, Jamie, Ronsel, and his parents, Florence and Hap, the story unfolds with a chilling inevitability. Jordan’s writing and perfect control of the material lift it from being another “ain’t-it-awful” tale to a heart-rending story of deep, mindless prejudice and cruelty. This eminently readable and enjoyable story is a worthy recipient of Kingsolver’s prize and others as well. –Valerie Ryan

Amazon Appstore Deals: Corona Indie Bundle

Used to getting just one game per mobile app? How would you like to get five different games in one package? It sounds too good to be true, but that’s exactly what you are purchasing with this game bundle–five separate, complete games in one app: Grisly Manor, Robot 99, Walkabout, Chickens Quest, and Float.

A visit to Grandpa’s house always promised a little magic when you were a child. A fantastic engineer, he was always coming up with new ideas and inventions that never failed to amaze. But Grandpa has mysteriously vanished–it’s up to you to explore his creaky house, solving the puzzles and uncovering the secrets that will explain his disappearance in this engrossing game.

Familiar objects around the house have been re-engineered to create a variety of challenging puzzles for you. Clues abound, and as each puzzle is solved, another one materializes. Grandpa obviously spent a lot of time making sure that only you would find him and uncover his big secret. Hopefully it’s not too grisly!

In this fast and furious game, robots fall from the sky like so many raindrops. Your job is to catch them before they crash onto the pavement and transport them to Powerizona. Hold them in this special zone for as long as you can to collect extra points, but don’t get too greedy, or a plummeting robot will slip by you. If three robots hit the ground, your game is over.

Queenie needs your help collecting the Magic Stars scattered throughout her kingdom. But be careful: One wrong move could leave you trapped, with no way out. There are 64 levels to negotiate, split across four regions of the kingdom. While you travel, you will discover keys that unlock eight further bonus levels. You’ll have to be at your best to complete them all.

It was a dark and spooky night. The animals are all sound asleep on the farm–but an evil presence lurks. Suddenly, a scream rings out. There’s been a chick-napping!

Your job in Chickens Quest is to help rescue the chicks by guiding them home. There will be plenty of obstacles in their way, but these cute little peepers are counting on you to lead them back to Mama Hen, Papa Rooster, and safety. Along the way you can collect stars, earn helpful items, and pile up points as you move through increasingly difficult levels in this fun barnyard romp.

Float

Float is a game with a concept similar to Robot 99, only instead it’s balloons rather than robots that you need to keep aloft. Tap the screen below the balloons before they reach the bottom, where sharp spikes await them. But whereas the robots drop like stones, these inflated objects peacefully float down the screen. Tap, bobble, and bump your way to fun. With multiple game modes (including Timed, Limbo, and Zen), various achievements, and leaderboards, this game contains something for everyone.

The Kindle Fire does a lot of things really well.  From the streaming video library to its many apps, there’s always something to do.  Despite all the effort at polish though, the majority of the sound playback abilities seem pretty much tacked on.  Admittedly this is not meant to be a portable MP3 player, as might be assumed based on the weight and slightly less than pocket compatible size.  There are a few things that could have been done to bring the level of functionality up a bit.  While it isn’t recommended that anybody pick up a Kindle Fire just for the auditory stimulation under most circumstances, it is definitely nice to know what the tablet is capable of to get the most out of your new toy.

Music

The obvious sound function is listening to music.  The integration for this is easily as clean as that offered for Instant Video titles, allowing users to browse by album, artist, or song as well as produce, edit, or start playlists.  Downloading albums to local storage is simple enough, but streaming from the Amazon Cloud Player is excellent and the extra 5GB of storage for user uploads that were not purchased through Amazon will allow for a lot of music even if you don’t have any urge to pay for extra space.  The store isn’t obtrusive, but it does let you look up albums based on the usual factors or look up other albums by artists already in your collection with the touch of a button.

Audiobooks

In most cases this will work exactly the same as Music playback, assuming you’re not using Audible.  If you are using Audible, things don’t get much different.  The Audible app comes pre-installed with every Kindle Fire.  Just pop over to the App page and you’ve got access to everything you own so far.  The internal store seems to be just a mobile skin over their website, but it does the job.  My only complaint is that if your audiobook is from Audible you can’t stream it.  The need to download can be a pain, given the size of some books and the Fire’s limited storage space.

Read to Me

Unlike every previous Kindle release with any form of audio output, this feature is missing.  Amazon hasn’t made any real comment on this so far, and it seems doubtful that they will.  Whether it’s an effort to push Audible to the front of things or a desire to break away from this feature, there is no indication whatsoever that this will change.  Annoying, but possibly predictable.

Playback

The most important concern in all these cases is probably how it will sound.  Sadly, this is where things come up short the most.  The Kindle Fire has stereo speakers built in, but they are about as mediocre as might be expected.  The headphone jack works just fine, and will probably be great for watching movies, but doesn’t seem as useful as it might be given the tablet’s lack of portability compared to an average MP3 player.  There also isn’t any way to output high quality audio to a stereo system, which would have been nice, or to hook up a bluetooth headset.  Overall, just good enough without impressing in any way.

Recommended Uses

The usefulness here will come from audiobooks and listening to music while reading.  Chances are good by now that you have a better, more portable MP3 player, so it would be silly to try to turn this into one unless you really need the streaming option.  The audio quality on the speakers is fine for listening to books while you do something out, and just about anything will do for listening to music while reading a book.  These are, at best, perks for Kindle Fire owners, but it’s the little things that add up.

Today Kindle Daily Deal is The Basement by Stephen Leather. The price is $0.99 only for today.

This book is about detectives Turner and Marcinko. They live in New York. And none are harder to figure out than the serial killer on the loose torturing and killing young women for NYPD detectives. In fact, right now, somewhere in the city, a woman is being held captive in a basement and it is up to the detectives to find her and the killer—before it’s too late.

As pressure mounts on Turner and Marcinko, their prime suspect is screenwriter wannabe Marvin Waller. He is becoming increasingly frustrated by his lack of success and the cops think he might be channeling his anger into murder—but he doesn’t seem to be at all concerned that they are hot on his trail. As Turner and Marcinko close in on Waller they have to wonder: is he the killer? And if he isn’t—who is?

Fusing shifting viewpoints with a growing sense of dread and almost unbearable suspense, the UK’s thriller master Stephen Leather arrives on the shores of the United States with The Basement, his most terrifying work to date.

Some words about the Author.

Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London’s Burning, The Knock and the BBC’s Murder in Mind series. The Stretch and The Bombmaker were filmed by Sky One.

I do love Panda. And I like everything that connected to Panda. So I’m ready to give this game a positive review in advance.

What is this game about:

Young Po the Panda is very excited when Master Shifu chooses him to be the host of the Winter Feast–until he finds out that he can’t bring his father along. What should Po do? Kids are sure to be entertained by the beautiful imagery and funny story of “Kung Fu Panda Holiday,” an iStoryTime e-book based on the movie of the same name.

Children and adults alike will relate to Po’s situation as he deals with his dilemma. Po has always spent the holidays with his dad, but no outside guests are allowed at the Winter Festival. How Po handles this conflict contains a valuable lesson that kids can learn from.

The app offers three ways for kids to enjoy the book. Confident readers can delve into the story themselves and change the scene with a single tap. Read to Me mode will read the story to the child but let them control the pace. In Auto Play mode, the app reads the story from start to finish–a great option for very young children.

Just like a sing-a-long song, the words in the story are highlighted as they are read, which helps children develop associations between written text, spoken dialogue, and visual images. Kids will be entertained as they improve their cognitive skills with this engaging app for Android.

Now that the Kindle Fire is out and making a splash on the tablet marketplace, a commonly heard description by people who aren’t trying to set it up as the next iPad is that it’s “Amazon’s newest, most advanced eReader”.  Now, in the interest of complete honesty from the start I will admit that nothing has managed to compare to the experience of E Ink Pearl for me when it comes to reading.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Kindle Fire is horrible for reading, just that for people who happen to have access to both technologies  it will likely remain preferable to use the dedicated eReader.

What if you only want, or can only afford, to have one device on hand?  The Kindle Fire will work just fine.  Thanks to some of the options for display, it is almost pleasant to read even though it’s an LCD and there are some features that work even better with the tablet than they would on the admittedly slower eReaders.  Moving from the Kindle 3, for example, to the Kindle Fire will require some adjustments, however, which it might help to be aware of.

Library

Your books are now arranged a bit differently.  Unlike on the other Kindles, which show you the books you actually have on your device unless you go out of your way to look at the “Archived Items” category, initially a Kindle Fire will display the Cloud view of your library.  What this means is that every book you currently own through Amazon will be displayed, regardless of whether or not they have been downloaded.  Kindle App users will likely be familiar with the concept.  To download a particular book, just tap it.  If you are interested in looking at only books that are already downloaded, though, such as in cases where WiFi is not available, there is a tab at the top of the screen called “Device”.  This will narrow it down for you.

Reading

The Kindle Fire’s reading app is pretty nice, all things considered.  Tapping the bottom of the screen will pull up a menu bar and slider.  The slider allows navigation by location or percentage.  The menu bar has the familiar “Aa” button that pulls up a Font Style tab to let you choose between all eight font sizes, three different options each for line spacing and margin width, and a few color schemes.  Those first two will mostly be a matter of preference while the latter contains the vital “white text on black screen” option that most people will prefer for extended reading.  This button will also pull up a tab for Typeface selection, of which the Kindle Fire has eight.

Interaction

Users of older Kindles will also be pleased to find how much easier it is to interact with the text.  Just hold down on a word to select it or drag across an area to make a larger selection.  The option will appear to highlight, annotate, or search based on that.  The search can take place through Google, Wikipedia, or within the text itself.

Overall it’s unlikely you will run into many problems adjusting to the Kindle Fire.  It might not be the perfect reading device, but it does the job better than most.  Feel free to leave a note if you have any questions about adjustment I haven’t touched on.  I’ll try to answer any questions that pop up.

If you have a question what to read on holidays Amazon give you a good chance to read a good book and have a good time.  It’s name is Christmas is Murder written by C.S. Challinor just for $1.99.

The first installment in this new mystery series is a winner. The amateur detective is Rex Graves, a Scottish barrister, fond of Sudoku puzzles and Latin quotations. In an old-fashioned conceit, Challinor begins with a cast of characters, along with hints of possible motives for each. Although set firmly in the present, with numerous references to the Iraq War, his tale reads like a classic country-house mystery. Rex and the others are snowed in at the Swanmere Manor hotel in East Sussex, England. Being the last to arrive (on two tennis rackets lashed to his feet à la snowshoes), Rex immediately hears of the unexpected demise of one of the other guests. Even though they are in touch with the outside world, the authorities instruct the hotel staff to keep the body in a cool room with the windows open. By the time the police arrive days later, additional bodies have piled up and motives are rampant, but Rex has identified the murderer. At times, it seems we are playing Clue or perhaps enjoying a contemporary retelling of a classic Agatha Christie tale (And Then There Were None, or At Bertram’s Hotel) with a charming new sleuth. A must for cozy fans. –Judy Coon.

You can get some additional information here.

Chicken Coup Remix HD is good choice to spend some time to forget about everyday problems and relax for a while. Or it is good program to attract your child and free some time for you.

Greedy Foxes Invade the Chicken Coop

Sound the alarm! A sly fox unlocked the chicken coop while you were asleep. Now he and his buddies are making off with some chicken dinners. Get down to the barnyard and rescue your roosters and hens before it’s too late.

Test your reaction time and eye-hand coordination by grabbing the frenzied fowls from the foxes. Build up your chicken power by yanking panicked pullets back to their coops. Make those foxes drop their intended victims by dragging the mangy varmints into the barn. Create chicken chains by sliding your finger across like-colored birds. Score massive multipliers for every chain you bring home to roost. This score multiplier will make the next chicken you save worth that many more points. And if too many foxes are getting away with chickens, you can unleash a doomsday chicken bomb to clear the screen as a last resort.

Fight to win the highest scores on the OpenFeint leaderboards and collect all of the awesome achievements. You may be kicking foxes from one end of the barnyard to the other, but can you earn all of the platinum stars? Are you good enough to become a “Chicken Messiah”? Find out with Chicken Coup Remix HD.

You can find all information about Daily Deal for ebooks and application on Amazon site. This is the link to: Kindle Daily Deal. And this one for Appstore Deals. Or you can read our site and get all fresh news here.

If you glance around the site here for any length of time, it becomes pretty obvious that we’ve had good experiences with our Kindle Fire testing.  Different people will probably assess the quality in different ways, though, especially given the variety of uses that it tries to make available.  As such, let’s take a look at what people are saying over at Amazon.com in terms of the pros and cons when it comes to their new $200 media tablet.  Many of the more helpful reviews are quite extensive, so feel free to click on the links for a more detailed view of what these reviewers had to say.  I’ll be avoiding outright pre-launch reviews and complaints about spec comparisons to the iPad, of course.

Video Viewing

Trevett:

As far as video, I have always disliked Amazon’s Video services. The prices are very reasonable and they now have a huge selection, but obtaining the videos [was] a huge pain due to Amazon’s terrible Unbox player. That changes with the Fire, as everything is native and streams/downloads beautifully.

Sid:

The video app is real snappy and I had no issues streaming video at home over wifi. I can honestly say that the Amazon video app is as good as the Netflix app on the Ipad.

Billy Radcliffe:

The biggest “unfinished” feature of the Fire is the Cloud integration; the Cloud doesn’t work hand-in-glove with the Fire in the way you think it might. In order to access features like the video or the docs, you basically have to go through a browser the way you would from any other device.

Reading

 J. Gower:

Kindle Fire’s weak spot, imo, and the reason I give it four stars. But to be fair, it was never going to compete with my Kindle 3. E-ink really is just that much more comfortable to read versus a (relatively low resolution) LCD screen

Raghee Horner:

I initially bought an iPad with the idea of using it as an eReader but after 15-20 minutes the 1.5lb iPad feels like it’s ten pounds and simply becomes too uncomfortable to hold like a nice light paperback. The Fire is much more realistic an eReader.

Apps

Michael P. Gallagher:

Speed of the apps as well as reading a book is VERY fast and responsive. I haven’t tried a a challenging spreadsheet or Word document with the Open Office app yet, but then again I can’t think of too many times where (based on my guesstimated usage) I will be doing those kind of tasks on my Fire: I like to keep my work separate from play.

Overall

Dubstep:

I put this at 5 stars because it MET MY EXPECTATIONS. I read all about this device before buying it, so I knew exactly what I was getting for $199 dollars. It has met all of my expectations of a small form factor tablet that is intuitive, media friendly, and has great processing capabilities. I did not expect an iPad, so there is no comparison in my mind.

Comdet:

None of the so-called limitations of the Fire detract from my using it. Yes it has limited onboard storage but with the way the Cloud is integrated, I’ve not had any difficulty using that as a way of storing content. Plus, when Amazon stores it, they deal with the issue of backup. I also don’t miss the 3G connectivity. Sure, I’d love to be able to connect anywhere, but I will not pay the prices charged for data connectivity.

The big news of the day is Amazon’s introduction of a potentially huge incentive for authors to make their content exclusive to the Kindle platform.  Starting immediately, any author or publisher who chooses to go entirely Kindle will be eligible for a share of the monthly Kindle Owners’ Lending Library fund after 90 days. it isn’t a guarantee of immediate profit any more than self publishing is an inevitable path to success, but for successfully marketed books it can spell some great new income in return for withdrawing from overall less profitable competing stores.

The payment scheme is based on the total number of rentals in the Lending Library, the percentage of rentals of a given book within that larger number, and the amount of money placed into the monthly fund by Amazon.  The promise they have given in the press release is for equal distribution based on the popularity of a title, meaning that if 500,000 people each borrow a book then every rental will earn one dollar.  If fewer than that join in, which seems likely at first since the pickings have been slim enough to prevent much excitement in the program so far, then each could be worth significantly more.  Best case scenario, this has the possibility of being more profitable than actual sales revenue for some authors.

Since at present the monthly installments are expected to remain at $500,000 through at least the entirety of 2012, the only real question is how much interest can be drummed up for a given title and the service as a whole.  Amazon does not release numbers on this, but the success of both the Amazon Prime program and the Kindle in all its many iterations would seem to indicate an impressive amount of overlap being likely, especially as the Kindle Fire continues to enjoy ongoing popularity and extra Amazon Prime functionality.  Each such instance is eligible to participate, supporting a favorite author if nothing else.

The fact that this requires the authors and publishers in question to completely withdraw from the Nook, Kobo, and other platforms will likely cause more ideological upset than financial distress for participants.  In general many make as much as 90% of their digital sales revenue through the KDP program already, according to some sources.  In doing so, however, these individuals may incur some bad press overall.  No author wishing to make a living on their craft is likely to easily make the decision to turn down an increase in income, but there is the very real possibility that this could be a crippling blow to other eBook vendors.

This is clearly a move on Amazon’s part to increase the Kindle platform’s lead over the competition.  Not only does the new program mean that more high quality titles will be showing up in the free-ish category that the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library represents, it decreases the value of competing devices by taking away the content they need to thrive.  Self publishing is an increasingly important area to control, given how much the Agency Model pricing scheme imposed on digital book vendors cripples competition over pricing of products passing through traditional publishing. It’s easier to get your books out on the market than ever before thanks to Kindle Direct Publishing, but it’s worth weighing the decision carefully when it could mean fewer options in the long run.

Don’t mistake me for being against the program.  I’m not.  Anything that supports authors and makes books more readily available to readers with Kindles is wonderful in my eyes.  There is definitely reason to worry about it being too successful in the end, however.

Today you can add to your book collection “All She Ever Wanted“ written by Barbara Freethy just for $1.49.

From #1 New York Times Bestselling Author comes a romantic and suspenseful story of three best friends and a terrible, life-changing secret.

From the back cover:

She was their closest friend, or so they thought — until years later, when her secrets send them on a perilous search for the truth about who she really was … and why she died …

Ten years ago, during a party gone out of control, beautiful, vibrant Emily plummeted to her death, leaving her three best friends and sorority sisters — Natalie, Laura and Madison — devastated. None of them has ever forgotten that night — or the role each may have played in Emily’s death, the guilt that has pursued them, and the loss they still suffer.

Now an unknown writer has rocketed onto bestseller lists with a novel that eerily mirrors their own story. Who is he? How does he know the intimate details of their lives? And why is he accusing one of them of murder? As they begin to unravel the startling truth about their friend, each will rediscover a love she lost long ago and uncover secrets that will forever change her life…

Reviews…

“Three friends reunited to uncover a haunting mystery — I couldn’t put it down.” Luanne Rice.

“ALL SHE EVER WANTED is a gripping tale of romantic suspense, but it’s also a story of friendships, betrayal, love, heartache, and second chances. It’s the story of four young women on the brink of adulthood, full of dreams and expectations, and the tragic event that changed their lives in ways none of them could have foreseen. But even though a tragedy is the basis of the book, it is an uplifting and hopeful tale.”

“Barbara Freethy is a master storyteller with a gift for characterization, and in ALL SHE EVER WANTED, she gives readers seven intriguing characters. In order to discover what happened, Natalie, Cole, Madison, Dylan, Laura, and Drew must come to terms with their pasts, and in doing so, they learn a great deal about themselves and each other. Well written and compelling, ALL SHE EVER WANTED is a fascinating blend of romance, mystery, and suspense. Don’t miss it!” Susan Lantz, Romance Reviews Today

4 /12 stars – Top Pick of the Month – Romantic Times Magazine – “Freethy’s expertly penned novel is a true page-turner.”

Get more information about this book here.

Snow Go Kiddo is entertainment application for your Kindle Fire, which you can get just for free today.

Holiday Fun and Games

From the award-winning team that created the “Vitamin-Fortified” children’s app Go Go Kiddo comes Snow Go Kiddo! Packed with five different digital, sticker-based holiday activities, Snow Go Kiddo provides boundless holiday fun for kids ages four and up.

Snow Go Kiddo includes the following activities:

Starting with an oval shaped like a chubby face, kids can create tons of different Silly Santas by selecting and placing eyes, ears, noses, mouths, beards, hats, glasses, and other silly stuff.

Kids can create over 10,000 different elves and arrange them in scenes with the elf-part stickers provided.

There is some magic in that ol’ silk cap! Kids can construct endless variations of snowmen using the stickers provided.

Designer text elements such as “Happy Holidays!” allow kids to create and save holiday card images that they can send to friends and family.

The Snow Go Kiddo characters are decked out for winter and enjoying the holiday in these fun stickers and backgrounds. Kids can combine the stickers and backgrounds from all the app’s activities to celebrate the season.

You can find all information about Daily Deal for ebooks and application on Amazon site. This is the link to: Kindle Daily Deal. And this one for Appstore Deals. Or you can read our site and get all fresh news here.

Let’s say that you know you want to buy a brand new Kindle eReader.  It could be for a Christmas gift, a charity donation, or just because you’ve been wanting one.  Technically I suppose you could just have a desire to use the new Kindle to wedge under the leg of a desk to stop it from wobbling, but if so then we have different priorities and budgets.  Anyway, there are a couple options right now as far as which to buy, so it’s important to know what you want to get out of it.

Displays: Tie

This part doesn’t matter too much.  Basically any modern eReader will be making use of the E INK Pearl display and the Kindle family is no exception.  Unlike an LCD, you can read on this type of screen with no eye strain in any sort of lighting that would work with a normal paper book. In an extremely minor way the Kindle Touch might be at a disadvantage here since there is a likelihood of fingerprints, but in practice they are surprisingly minimal and don’t have an effect on anything that quickly wiping the screen down every couple days or weeks won’t fix.

Interface: Kindle Touch

The Kindle Touch is far superior in terms of interacting with your books.  If you have any interest in taking notes, highlighting, or just about anything else besides flipping pages while you read, then the touchscreen will be practically necessary.  The Kindle 4′s directional control is fine for choosing a book, but using the virtual keyboard is tedious at best and you’ll find yourself avoiding it quickly.

Storage: Kindle Touch (Barely)

The storage space on the Kindle Touch is effectively twice that of the Kindle 4.  While this might seem at a glance to be a big deal, in actuality it won’t come into play much.  There are only so many books you can easily navigate at a time anyway which means most people hit their limit well before the Kindle’s storage fills up and start archiving titles that aren’t needed.

Battery Life: Kindle Touch

The battery life is also doubled on the touch model by comparison.  Once again, however, it doesn’t much matter.  The cheaper model still gets a month of use in between charges.  When you hit the point where your biggest problem is remembering where the charging cable was after such a long time has passed, it stops mattering much which eReader wins.

Price: Kindle 4

Obviously the Kindle 4′s price is its biggest advantage.  An $80 price tag makes it the cheapest major eReader on the market.

Form: Kindle 4

The Kindle Touch weighs slightly over 25% more than the Kindle 4.  It’s a fairly negligible amount, and both devices are comfortable to hold in one hand, but every bit helps.

Extras: Kindle Touch

Hands-down, the Kindle Touch provides the most extras aside from simple reading.  It has text-to-speech, audio playback, optional 3G, simple PDF zoom and scroll control, and Amazon’s new X-Ray feature.  While none of these is likely to be enough to sell the device on its own, the ability to access audiobooks and PDF documents easily is likely to be important for some people.

Recommendation: Kindle Touch (Mostly)

Basically, the Kindle Touch has the most to offer you.  It does everything that the Kindle 4 can do and more, for just $20 price difference.  This isn’t to say that the Kindle 4 has many problems, because if all you want to do is read cover to cover in your favorite books then it’s wonderful, it just isn’t as versatile.  We’ve effectively reached the point where all new eReaders will be equally pleasant to use for basic reading, so I’m forced to weigh other factors more heavily.  Regardless of that, the Kindle will almost certainly be enjoyed regardless of which one is chosen.

All our Kindle Dictionaries are now available for free trail via Amazon Kindle Owner’s Library. You can use your prime subscription to loan the dictionary and try it on your device, if you like, you can buy it later and loan some other book.

Hurry up! Kindle price is only $1.99 within daily deals from Amazon. It is real good book for thriller amateurs.

Just read the following reviews to be sure that this book has great worth:
“[A] fastidious reconstruction and expansive analysis of the Road Hill murder case…Summerscale smartly uses an energetic narrative voice and a suspenseful pace, among other novelistic devices, to make her factual material read with the urgency of a work of fiction.”—New York Times Book Review

“A terrific book.”—Nicholson Baker

“A brilliant reconstruction of the obstacles facing detectives long before the advent of forensic technology.”—L.A. Times Book Review

“Not just a dark, vicious true-crime story; it is the story of the birth of forensic science, founded on the new and disturbing idea that innocent, insignificant domestic details can reveal unspeakable horrors to those who know how to read them.”—Time

“One eloquent doozy of a true-crime thriller. A-”—Entertainment Weekly

“The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher combines a thumping good mystery yarn with fine social and literary history.”—Fresh Air

 “This is a great biographical fiction of an interesting real life mid nineteenth century detective working a shocking homicide case.”—Mysterylovers.com

“Fascinating.”—Denver Post

“If you are a mystery lover, or if you have ever wondered how the modern love of the genre began, you’ll enjoy Summerscale’s tracing of the early days of the profession and the fascination it exerted…a fascinating look at Victorian life, death and detection.”—Associated Press

“In crime annals, it’s right up there with the Lindbergh trial or the mystery surrounding JonBenet Ramsey: In 1860, one of Scotland Yard’s finest was sent to solve the murder of a little boy at an upscale address near London. It turned out Jack Whicher’s hunch was right, and his footwork fed the public imagination as well as writers such as Charles Dickens. Sadly, failure to clinch the case in court upended Whicher’s career.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Other reviews you can read here.

 Ice Cube Caveman

Nine out of ten Cro-Magnons agree: the Ice Age is a tough time to be a caveman. Considering the sub-zero temperatures, severe fire shortages, and notoriously flimsy outfits, any caveman who isn’t working overtime is probably frozen solid. But it doesn’t have to be this way!

In Ice Cube Caveman, you’ll help a caveman live to shiver another day. Maneuver him along a narrow path of icy tiles toward life-sustaining fire, avoiding cracks along the way. Help him escape the ice cube he’s trapped in and lead him through increasingly difficult challenges.

This logic-based puzzle game looks simple, but you’ll discover plenty of challenges as you work through its 60 challenging levels. 3D-like animation and quirky background music create an atmosphere of fun and suspense, and you’ll soon find yourself addicted to the rush of saving imperiled troglodytes from a chilly fate.

The more cavemen you deliver to warmth and freedom, the greater your bragging rights. Submit high scores to the OpenFeint leaderboard, and boast to your friends about your caveman rescue skills.

You can monitor Daily Deal on Amazon site personally. This is the link to: Kindle Daily Deal. And this one for Appstore Deals

When it comes to video games, Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls franchise is a giant and the latest installment, Skyrim, received an almost ridiculous amount of attention in the months leading up to its release.  It’s one of the largest, most ambitious developments in the genre so far and the depth of the game world is such that you’re faced with around 16 square miles of highly detailed world space packed with interactive content.  Now, fans can take some of that to go on your Kindle thanks to a big fan who took the time to reformat some of the in-game text for eReaders.

In various places throughout Skyrim players are likely to come across books.  Some are obvious, others might require some fairly extreme efforts to get to.  Regardless of their “physical” situation, they serve to enrich the game world by offering interesting bits of history and culture built up across thousands of simulated years.  The writing is surprisingly good, if predictably cliched for the most part.  When put together they make up a huge collection of relatively short stories and articles.

The eBook that Skyrim fan Capaneus put together contains literally every bit of book text in the game.  It seems that upon inspection it was discovered that the entirety was contained in unencrypted text files that were somewhat easily broken down and arranged. As a result, interested readers can now check it all out on their eReader of choice.  There is even a table of contents to make it simple to find whichever piece of literature might be particularly interesting to you at the moment.

The whole file is just over a megabyte worth of text, amounting to slightly less than 2,000 page turns on my usual reading settings.  Your own may differ, of course.  It has been made available both in EPUB and Mobi, so practically any modern eReader, phone, computer, etc. should be able to display it without trouble.  While it is entirely possible that the legality of this distribution is questionable, given that it is game data that might be picked up by people who don’t own the rights to use the game, real problems seem unlikely.

This is, when it comes right down to it, exactly the sort of added value content that many media distributors would kill for.  Owners of the Kindle w/ Special Offers might recall an ABC offer back in October that allowed users to pick up a free copy of the script to one of their new pilot episodes.  This is essentially the same idea.  While I consider it unlikely that this will set the trend for future use of eReaders as venues for promotional material built along these lines, it’s also hardly the first time that fans have found ways to bring content to the Kindle in unexpected ways.

Should the Kindle Fire take off in the long run, of course, things may be very different.  Allowing a TV network or publishing company to throw up additional content for limited periods of time via an app might just make it worth the effort in a way that is not currently the case.  Time will tell, but either way we can see the importance of Kindles as advertising avenues increasing.

To get a copy for yourself, head over to http://capane.us/2011/11/24/dovahkiin-gutenberg/

Today you can get: Unraveling Anne just for $1.99 and Pocket Informant absolutely free.

The book get you in Los Angeles in 1950s. Anne Ford was the epitome of the California golden girl, a former beauty queen and model-turned-fashion designer whose success and charm were legendary. So how is it possible that such a woman could die in squalor, an alcoholic street person brutally murdered in a burnt-out West Hollywood building?

In searching for answers to the heartbreaking trajectory of her mother’s life, writer Laurel Saville plumbed the depths of Anne’s troubled past and her own eccentric childhood to untangle the truth of an exceptional, yet tragic, existence. What she discovered was a woman who was beautiful, well-educated, and talented—yet tormented by internal demons and no match for the hedonistic culture of Southern California in the 1960s and 70s.

With unflinching honesty and stirring compassion, Saville struggles to reconcile the two faces her mother presented the world: the glamour-girl-about-town the public saw and the unpredictable, bitter alcoholic her children knew. Most importantly, Saville explores how what we bring forward from previous generations can shape our own lives, and how compassion and love for a difficult parent can be a person’s bridge to a better life.

The book has the following reviews:

“Saville creates lovely imagery and writes with introspection.” –Publishers Weekly 

“Riveting.”–Chronogram Magazine

“A remarkable read.” –Midwest Book Review 

“[Unraveling Anne is] as unflinching an act of courage as you’re likely to find in everyday life…Laurel Saville is capable of the gaze of steady, lucid prose that continually ascends to eloquence, wisdom, and, at the end of it all, compassion.” –Bob Shacochis, National Book Award-winning author of Easy in the Islands and The Immaculate Invasion

Pocket Informant is an integrated calendaring and GTD-based tasks solution for Android. It fuses together best-of-class calendaring and task management utilities into one great solution. No matter how you like to manage your day-to-day activities and juggle appointments, meetings, events, and items on your to-do list, Pocket Informant can help. With robust features that are all fully customizable, you may wonder how you ever survived without Pocket Informant.

Pocket Informant delivers a full-featured events management solution that is integrated with Android Calendar plus a separate PI Calendar. Pocket Informant makes it easy to focus on everything you do in a day, from grocery shopping and meal planning to work meetings, doctor appointments, and everything in between.

To get started, Pocket Informant offers templates for entering events and tasks. The configurable event and task edit dialogs can be displayed or hidden. You can add items to one or all of your Android calendars. To see upcoming tasks and events, you can access the day, week, or month view.

The Pocket Informant app uses the Android Calendar Database and syncs with Google Task and the powerful to-do list manager, Toodledo. Searching for a particular event or task couldn’t be easier with the pre-made filters that allow you to quickly find active, due, undated, overdue, and completed tasks. The app also delivers search and notifications integration with standard Android services.

Pocket Informant offers a highly configurable interface with more than 100 different customization options. To easily see what’s on your calendar with a quick glance, Pocket Informant gives you the ability to assign colors to each individual event or task, category, calendar, different task statuses, as well as your work and free days, and more. You can also adjust the automatic functions, like the option to auto-delete tasks on completion or after a certain period of time.

GTD and Getting Things Done are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company. Pocket Informant and WebIS are not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company.

You can monitor Daily Deal on Amazon site personally. This is the link to: Kindle Daily Deal. And this one for Appstore Deals