It has been over a year since Palm released the Palm Pre. At that time all the tech reviewers were joking that the Palm Pre was the pre-bankruptcy release for Palm. Well, Palm has not gone into bankruptcy. Three of the four major cell phone carriers offer the Palm Pre.

In call seriousness the Palm cell phone is different than the Blackberry, or the many smart phones that use the Android operation system. Palm came out with one of the first handheld personal digital assistant (or PDA), in 1996. Today, their Palm Pre cell phone gives you the ability to colorize your calender, along with other personal time management features.

I love sitting around coffee shops, and lounge area. What I over hear is so amazing. Just the other day this guy asked a friend, “Where was the best place to get a LCD TV?”

The friend answered quick, “Fred Meyer, they have the best prices.”

I was so tempted to lean over and ask what empirical data he was making statement. Instead I bit my tongue. Without any ceremony, I got up and walked to my car. From there I went to Fred Meyer.

School is almost back in full swing. Last minute shoppers of school supplies and school clothes are bustling through places like Wal Mart and Target with almost the ferver of Christmas shoppers on Christmas Eve.

In addition to the traditional school supplies a computer is needed. On that computer is required a word processing program, spread sheet program, presentation program, and internet access.

Some schools just say that Microsoft Office is what their students need to successfully complete homework assignments. The complete unrestricted version of Microsoft Office will cost just over $300.00. However, the Student Edition of Microsoft Office will cost only $123.00.

Earlier this week I was sitting in a coffee shop observing people coming and going, while sipping on my iced mocha. Sitting at a table not six feet from me was three thirty something individuals who were talking about their cell phones. Naturally, my ears tuned in on their conversation.

Two of the four had just got new cell phones. One had a Blackberry Curve for about a week. The other who had just got a Droid X, the day before. So like the excitement of any child with a new toy each wanted to show them off their new phone.

I remember a time as a teenager we go through the neighbors trash just to see what we could find. This was at the local dump outside a small town, in northern California. People saw us and thought we were looking for old aluminium and copper to sell at our version of the recycling center, in 1968. In addition to the  aluminium and copper we found old love letters, adult magazines, and credit card numbers. Of course we only used what we found for our amusement.

Today, there are unethical people going though other people’s trash, before the garbage man comes to get information for identity theft. This could be a credit card offer, or a bill from a life insurance company, or even an electric bill. You see adding up these bits and pieces of information, along with the internet can yield enough information for identity theft.

The following is one way I help people save money, other than at TheShoppingNazi.com

When our last HP color printer died of exhaustion, we acquired a LaserJet4L, which we have used for the past couple of years.  The best thing about these older LaserJets is that that they are so well engineered that they will not die.  Unfortunately, finding new cartridges is nearly impossible, since HP has new products and no longer services the LJ4 printers.

The LJ4 worked well until recently, when we decided to start producing our sales materials in-house to save some money on printing – especially since we want to do full color presentations and the companies that can do color copies want to charge us fifty-cents a side.  That is way too expensive for our start-up project.

We have come a long way with our technology. Not to many years ago you were a state-of-the-art company if you had a computer in the office. A home basic business was very special if it had one computer. Today, every home and/or small business has at least two or more computers. We have 2 to 4 computers running off our network at anyone time.

How we distribute our internet connection is with an old Linksys 4 port wireless router. This is the one that is a blue and black box with two antenna sticking out the back.

On June 4th I wrote about getting my daughter her first MP3 player. At that time I was looking at the Element 2GB MP3 Player w/ Video from K mart that was selling for $39.99.

When it came time to pick up the MP3 player they had another brand. It was a Eclipse. I had not done any research on the brand and was wanting to wait. My daughter insisted on that one.

Up until the release of Apple’s iPad the Amazon’s Kindle 2 was the choice to have for eBook readers. So what makes or made the Kindle 2 so popular?

First Generation, was released only in the United States on November 19, 2007. It was revolutionary in the way it displayed its’ text. The Kindle hardware device used what is know as E Ink on electronic paper. The display features 16 shades of gray.

The first Kindles allowed you to download content over Amazon’s Whispernet using the Sprint EVDO network in the USA. The Kindle 2 devices use AT&T‘s network and its roaming partners for international wireless access.

Since Apple released the iPad, there has been renewed interest in reading non-paper books; aka eBooks. What is interesting to note is great number of ways you can read an eBook.

Wikipedia list 18+ formats for eBooks. There is almost just as many different types of hardware that is designed to be used as eBooks readers. Most all of them have met with marginal success from the general public in the terms of sale and popularity.

The Amazon Kindle 2 being the most popular of the eBook reader. They recently lowered their price of its’ basic 6″ model to $189, to pull in sales from Apple’s eReader/tablet computer the iPad.