Great googly moogly, I get so fed up trying to find owner’s manuals when I really need them. I mean, honestly, if I kept the owner’s manual for every gadget I buy, I’d probably have to, like, file them away. It probably wouldn’t take too much space, thinking about it. Just a small filing cabnet would do.
But I don’t! I always think, “Well, I can always find it online.” Wrong! Wronger! Wrongest!
You have be a Google-fu master just to find a blurry, tiny scan of the owner’s manual you are looking for most of the time. Thankfully I just found out about OwnerIQ.net. While I’m sure they don’t have every single manual ever made, they do have thousands which is a good starting point.
This post is more for myself in the future, when I’ll need to access owner’s manuals again. Because why should I store the darn things when it’s all online.
Stamp prices are expected to rise again on May 11. It’s been hard to keep up with the litany of stamp price increases lately, which is why the post office offers the Forever Stamps that will always cover the postage for first class letters. Forever Stamps cost the same as first class stamps online at $8.40 for a book, making them my new default stamp selection.
You know, for my frequent post office stamp purchases.
Amazon has announced the successor to their eBook industry-starting Kindle, the aptly named Kindle 2. As far as crafting an update to a wildly popular product goes, Amazon has done very well here. They have kept the obvious successful features (wireless book downloads, slim form factor, decent screen), and added just a few new features (new button layout, text-to-speech, thinner form factor) for some pizzazz.
eBook readers have been a part of the technology world for over a decade, under many different names. Despite what should be an obvious appeal of taking your entire library with you anywhere you are, they have never taken off until the original Kindle. In my mind the reason for this is the same reason that digital music never really took off until the appearance of the iTunes store: consumers want their name-brand content, not generic content.
The Kindle, and now the Kindle 2, can deliver all the content that is available through bookstores to you quickly and at a much lower price point. And, you don’t need to worry about losing your content if you lose your Kindle; anytime you want to redownload from Amazon it’s right there.
Like Apple updating a wildly popular iPod with a new version to buy, the Kindle 2 will draw in new customers while tempting existing customers to upgrade.
Google Earth version 5.0 was released today for across all end-user operating systems. What is most striking to me is the fact that in just a few short years, this app has gone from being the most remarkable program running on my machine to an interesting note in the history of maps applications.
Today I have Google Earth on my iPhone, minus some features. After having the whole world in your pocket on the train, having to sit at a desk to zoom in on the crowds at the Eiffel Tower seems impossible. If the functionality that Google Earth provides is not with you when you need it, it is useless. It’s neat to view the oceans, but I live on the land.