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Showing posts from April, 2012

Free Kindle Edition: Gutenberg the Geek by Jeff Jarvis

I first saw this as part of Google+ What's Hot email links . Get your copy before the deal expires. Kindle books are readable on nearly every computer platform using the  free Kindle Reader software . You can also now read directly in your web browser. From Amazon.com… Who was the original world-changing techno-entrepreneurial innovator? Not Google's Larry and Sergey. Not Steve Jobs. No, to find the man who made the mold, you've got to go back to fifteenth-century Germany to find Johannes Gutenberg. Jarvis portrays the famed inventor as creator of more than just the printing press and the market for Bibles. "Gutenberg," he argues, "should… be seen as the patron saint of Silicon Valley, for he used technology to create an industry." Setting Gutenberg's successes against the real pitfalls he endured, notably his early struggle to amass sufficient capital, Jarvis portrays a bad-boy innovator with a deft, if sometimes heavy hand. He bravely wears his as

Computer and Technology Jobs Available - Search Your Location

Check out our list of Computer and Technology jobs (and others) available via SimplyHired.com. Enter your location for jobs close to you. You can also search on other keywords.

Software: Send to Kindle Desktop App released for Macintosh

My son won a Kindle Touch a few months ago, so now whenever I see a new Kindle utility or service I am quick to notice. While the Windows version of Send To Kindle was released a few months ago, the Mac version was just recently released. This app allows you to convert nearly any document to Kindle format and then send it to your Kindle (or Kindle app on your smartphone). You can use drag and drop to convert a document or even the "Print to Kindle" command that gets added to your Mac when the software is installed. I think i will be used for converting longer documents and articles I find on the web so that I can read them when I am out and about or simply don't want to use my laptop or iPhone for reading. If you have a Kindle, this app might help you convert some more reading material to use on it. Download Send To Kindle for Mac

Quick News: Firefox 12 now available for download, Windows users get silent updates

"...Firefox users can now download an update that adds a few other new features and new tools for developers." Read the entire article at Engadget.com

Google Drive Finally Arrives...and syncs Google Docs to your desktop

I have been a big user of the DropBox service which allows easy sharing of large documents "in the cloud" for quite a while now. As mentioned in the post below, this new service from Google has been rumored for a long, long time. It has obviously been gestating for a long time within the company and they have been thinking about how to do it right. As a heavy user of many Google tools, the integration of Google Drive into all the other areas of Google, including Google Docs, makes it a bit more useful than DropBox itself. Now I can keep a copy of my Google Docs library automatically synced to any computer I choose. This, along with the ability to store and share large files, was intriguing enough to make me install the Google Drive app on my Mac as soon as possible. As some have pointed out, this is also a new area for Google in another way. This is commercial product that requires extra payment if you want to increase the amount of space you have available. Instead of &q

Are software patents the new technology bubble?

Are software patents the new technology "bubble"? Are all these software patent lawsuits our latest technology "bubble"? Millions spent on patents that could end up, eventually, being absolutely worthless seems an awful lot like bad mortgages packaged into bad investments. Anyone else seeing some parallels here? "...and the walls came a-tumbling down..." How far will this game of "his said/she said" go before all software patents are declared null and void? I didn't  think you will see anyone refunding any of these companies for the money they laid out for the patents. With the current Facebook/Yahoo patent battle, the story gets sillier (and potentially more damaging) every day. April 24, 2012 Update : …and the bubble continues to build... Facebook paying Microsoft $550 million for 650 patents, Ballmer clicks 'like'

App: Sleep Time by Azumio - Monitor your sleep cycles

As I have gotten older, I have had more issues with my sleep. Perhaps it stems from the fact that I am a night owl where my wife and son are both early risers, but it seems like wake up more frequently during the night. There is also this odd issue where both my wife and I wake up around 4am nearly every night. We have never been able to find an exact reason for it and it seems to occur regardless of what time we got to bed in the evening. I have been looking at various sleep tracking technologies lately, including the FitBit, but they seemed a little pricey to casually purchase them. Recently, though, I have been introduced to a series of iPhone apps by Azumio that track variety of health related information relatively inexpensively. I first tried out their Heart Rate app , and more recently their Stress Check app, both which were recently available for free due to a promotion. Both of these apps use the iPhone camera and flash to register your pulse and other info. When I was usi

Elsewhere Online: Use (almost) any remote with an Apple TV

Wish I had seen this before I installed an Apple TV this morning. I could have tried it out. I will test it the next time I am at that client site, though. -- Douglas Use (almost) any remote with an Apple TV : While the small, sleek aluminum remote that comes with the Apple TV is nice, it may be one too many. The Apple TV can work with many other infrared remotes, and an Apple technical document outlines the procedure for having the Apple TV "learn" your remote. You'll need to use the Apple remote to set this up, and you do so by choosing Settings > General > Remotes from the Apple TV's interface. Choose Learn Remote, and press the six buttons that the Apple TV needs to learn. Some remotes may not work, so read Apple's technical document for more information. Via Mac OS X Hints

Read Amazon Kindle Books in your Web Browser

I just happened to see that you can now read Amazon Kindle books right in your web browser -- no software download or install needed. This makes it even more convenient for people to buy and read my eBooks. You can still download the Amazon Kindle Reader software for your computer, iPhone/iPad or Android smartphone or tablet, but if you just want a quick diversion -- perhaps you are using someone else's computer (or a public access terminal at your local library) -- you can easily access the books you won directly from the cloud. Visit Read.Amazon.com Find Amazon Kindle Books by Douglas E. Welch