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I’ve used a Samsung Galaxy S since August last year and in that time I’ve downloaded and played with lots of apps and games. Here are a few of my favourites. Tweetdeck Dolphin Browser HD Kindle and FBReader Amazon Appstore and Android Market Reddit is Fun GO Contacts/Dialer/Launcher EX/SMS Pro CardioTrainer WordPress aCar Juice Defender And some games Galaxy Domination (not on the market any more, now here!) Cut the Rope Guns ‘n’ Glory Besides those, there are so many apps on my phone now that it’s ridiculous. I recently started using the Google+ app, and the Amazon Appstore gives away a free paid app every day so that’s my first port of call shortly after 8am every morning. There’s also getjar.com who have a free ad-supported version of Cut...

In the science fiction book Fahrenheit 451 I often wondered what the catalyst was. In the current age, that has become apparent, control, with government leaders demanding ‘controls’ over the Internet, and most other communications media the books presented in the Novel are information. However, there is another aspect of books which in this age of electronic books (eBook) presents itself as a missing element in control. While experimenting with the Kindle on Android I found that the Android Pad I was using, while reading a Kindle book was in constant communication with Amazon Books. Almost every page turn was being recorded and sent to Amazon, even the location of where I was reading them was a requirement during the reading of the eBook. I discovered that if you turn off...

Matt has made it well known that he loves his Kindle and for a while I thought about buying one too. Unfortunately I’ll have to order it from Amazon.com in the US because I live in Ireland. Attempts to buy it from Amazon.co.uk result in an error and asks me to go visit the US site. When you add shipping costs and import fees it drives the price on Amazon.com up to $193.58! So, if not the Kindle, how do I read ebooks? On my phone of course! I downloaded the Android Kindle app for my Samsung Galaxy S. The 4 inch screen of this phone is plenty big enough for reading, though you won’t be doing it at arm’s length. It’s also backlit so there’s no need for a light to shine on the device to read it. That suits me as the majority of my reading is done when I’m...

The Amazon Appstore for Android opened today and apparently Apple are already suing them for confusing consumers with a name similar to their App Store. I wouldn’t really know because after downloading the Appstore app (beautifully simple procedure: click a link in an email/text to a .apk file) and logging into Amazon it refused to let me download the exclusive Angry Birds Rio game. The Amazon Appstore for Android is not yet available in your region Good thing I’m sick of Angry Birds, but it’d be nice if it worked over here too! Related PostsMP opens windows to Linux – wh …Amazon “used products” scamIraq – EU...

Matt has made it well known that he loves his Kindle and for a while I thought about buying one too. Unfortunately I’ll have to order it from Amazon.com in the US because I live in Ireland. Attempts to buy it from Amazon.co.uk result in an error and asks me to go visit the US site. When you add shipping costs and import fees it drives the price on Amazon.com up to $193.58! So, if not the Kindle, how do I read ebooks? On my phone of course! I downloaded the Android Kindle app for my Samsung Galaxy S. The 4 inch screen of this phone is plenty big enough for reading, though you won’t be doing it at arm’s length. It’s also backlit so there’s no need for a light to shine on the device to read it. That suits me as the majority of my reading is done when I’m...

Hands up if you were a fan of 2000AD back in the day? It’s still going, maybe not so strong, these days. I picked up a copy a while back and it’s reduced to a what seems like a few pages of stories with adverts thrown in here and there. It reminded me why I rarely bought comics. I was too impatient to “wait until next week to find out the stunning conclusion to this week’s story!” Thankfully friends did buy it and I had more than a few copies of the comic myself when curiosity got the better of me. As you may know I have an Amazon wishlist which is occasionally frequented by users of my plugins who very very occasionally will buy me something from it (and each and every gift is much appreciated!) Anyway, I read with sadness that one of the artists behind the...

When you see a nice cheap product on Amazon or any other online retailer beware of the shipping and handling charges. This HDMI to DVI-D converter goes for a paltry £2.59 but then attracts a hefty £11.08 from the reseller. I can’t pretend that I didn’t notice it on the order page but at the time I wanted to get the order done and dusted so I didn’t quibble. The box it comes in better be lined with velvet and the address better be hand written and signed with the artist’s name… I had enough trouble with console AV cables and certain retailers in the last few weeks I wanted the whole sorry episode over and done with. Related PostsHow to avoid Amazon Wishlist headachesLearning by Shipping – this re …Amazon “used products” scam...

Well after all the lame excuses for a release that Nokia has be performing with the N900 it’s should come as no surprise that I was notified that it has been delayed again. This time Amazon is not expecting to receive any product until after the 25 of December. How lame can Nokia be? If anyone doesn’t believe that the Nokia N900 is a fake product only has to count the numbers of real handsets shipped. It should tally under 1000, a typical prototype batch run. What has been being publicized, have been those chosen few who have been shipped a ‘demo’ unit, or a few select squeaky wheels on the Internet that needed to broadcast the N900 greatness. Guess what, I’m not one of them. So just as a suggestion, if anyone actually HAS a real, purchased Nokia N900,...

Watch this video from Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos, which sold this summer to Amazon for $928m. I have ordered the Zappos Culture book he mentioned (just email ceo@zappos.com and they’ll post you a copy) and downloaded the Tribal Leadership audiobook from here (use California 90210 for your address in the registration screen). Wonderful stuff. Most Irish businesses are still a decade behind the US exemplars when it comes to customer service. But one of our clients who really seems to get it is Louis Fitzgerald Hotels....

From the email this morning… We regret to inform you that the following items have been delayed as we are still awaiting stock from our suppliers : “Nokia N900 Mobile Computer with Maemo 5 Software” Estimated arrival date: December 17 2009 One of Amazon’s aims is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this case, we have fallen short. Please accept our sincere apologies. I order this on the 2nd of Oct 2009 and this is the third delay. Could Nokia get the release of this phone more wrong? No! they have nothing to release, it’s a fake, vaporware! There are stories out there of Nokia shipping empty boxes to keep up the illusion. I’t no wonder that the boxes themselves look so cheap, they are cheap mockups. Time to look for another REAL...

Drugstore.com Every so often, Twitter surprises me. When you think you’ve had enough of the consultants, snake oil salesmen, link baiters and spammers, someone uses it to blow your socks off with great customer service. Drugstore.com just did that for me. I make maybe two large orders a year from drugstore.com which is based in the US (and owned by Amazon I think). The main purchase is a generic OTC medicine which costs a ridiculous fortune in Ireland in branded form. But I also stock up on ibuprofen etc. Buying 250 of those for the same price as 24 in Ireland is all you need to know about the rip-off that this country remains. Two weeks ago, running out of that OTC med, I put in another order. Something went wrong in their system and the order was never processed. So I...

If, like me you have an Amazon wishlist you may be missing out on wishes if you’re not careful selecting them. The wishlist is a great idea. Browse around Amazon picking items you like and add them to a public list that your friends and family can use to buy you gifts. The only problem is that Amazon won’t always deliver the goods, but you won’t know until someone tries to buy something for you. The first I knew about this problem was when someone sent me a tweet saying they got an error buying a game on my wishlist. Alarmed, I tried to purchase the same item. The first time I saw the message “We’re sorry. This item can’t be delivered to a Wish List or gift registry address” I hadn’t noticed the previous “Marketplace items cannot be...

How about adding $2.7B to you bottom line? Via Econsultancy: … calculates that, since displaying the most helpful reviews has increased sales in the media products category by 20%, overall this feature was worth $2.7bn to Amazon Contact business@loudervoice.com if you’d like to hear how reviews can help your business!...

I’m sure you bought a USB stick or portable harddisk with the best intentions in the world but how often do you actually backup irreplaceable files? How would you feel if those wedding pictures disappeared in a puff of smoke? That’s why I consider online backup a must-have. I only recommend two services and the one at the top of my list is PutPlace. This low-cost solution by an Irish company is simple to set-up and then you just forget about it. All of your important files are kept safe on Amazon’s amazing storage system S3 and you can recover what you need with a few clicks. The important thing about PutPlace is that it for consumers. So whilst HP gives up and shutters Upline, PutPlace goes from strength to strength. Backup is boring but the day you lose those files is...

cthrnwall posted a photo: it@cork Amazon Web Services Event at the Kingsley Hotel, Cork on April...

Via boards.ie, It seems if you order a free book made by Hellmans, you can avail of free postage for anything else you add to your order. Simply go here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/hellmanns, add the book to your cart, click on “Proceed to the checkout”, choose your postal address and on the payment page add the gift certificate code “HELLMANAMZN2″ and click to continue. Choose a payment method for the rest of the order. You should now notice that postage for the other items are free. Handy for Christmas shopping. amazon blogs ireland irishblogs...

Worldchanging, the really good enviro-blog has a new book out. They want people to Amazon bomb the book so that it becomes the best selling book that day on Amazon. As a result of a No. 1 listing on Amazon a lot more doors and shelves of bookstores will open for them. Funny how this publishing lark works. There’s no real cheating in this. Just a way of concentrating purchases to be over one day instead of a week or two. If this helps get the word out then I’m all for it. Bonus link. Kevin Kelly’s guide to selling your books on Amazon. amazon blogs bombing book environment ireland irish irishblogs...

eBay Express. 1. Buy new items from eBay merchants. 2. Prices are fixed. No bidding and no waiting for an auction to end. 3. You have one shopping cart and can buy from different merchants i.e. free of the hassle of paying each merchant separately. 4. Everything including shipping done through one payment process. 5. Buyer protection is included. About time too eBay, what took you so long? Technorati Tags: amazon blogs ebay express ireland irishblogs purchase...

Google, Amazon and Ebay tell AT&T to make their day, punk! About time. So, in case anyone wasn’t aware the large telcos like AT&T wanted to blackmail the large web traffic generating sites to pay them to bring customers to them. Nevermind they are already payed to do this, the greedy telco dinosaurs now wanted premiums from Google and Amazon and EBay, three hugely wealthy companies. The worrying issue here is that with Washington being what it is, the telcos are lobbying hard and might just get their way with the FCC being almost as bad as the Irish Telecoms regulator. Imagine charging people a road toll and then charging them differently depending on which shop they’ll be visiting, even if all shops are in the same location. That’s what AT&T want. The...

The cheap as chips Amazon storage service also has BitTorrent support. Back in October I suggested an Irish Bittorrent service and I was thinking about it again recently. With Amazon I wonder do we need it now. The price: $0.15 per GB of storage per month, and $0.20 for each GB of data transferred up or downstream. That’s very bloody cheap. Should be very very handy for podcasters like the lads from Letter to America Technorati Tags: amazon awards blogs ireland irish irishblogs lettertoamerica s3...

Patrick Tufts visited my site and commented on the Aine post. Howdy Patrick. Don’t know who Patrick is? He’s into AI. You use something he developed everytime you use Amazon. Amazon’s “customers who viewed this item also viewed …” recommendation system. That was his baby. See more of his CV. Nice having you visit Patrick. Check out this Goatse Zen like moment on one of his blog posts. Subtle! Technorati Tags: amazon blogs ireland irish irishblogs patrick...

Amazon are to open a multi-lingual call-centre in Cork Airport Business Park. The fourth estate are recycling IDA pressreleases and praising the relevant Minister, but Tom Raferty has looked at the other side of the coin....

Thanks for the book whoever sent it to me. Interesting choice. The sad fact is that I’ll probably enjoy reading this book on regulation. As an aside, anyone else think the cover is slightly Goatse-esque? Technorati Tags: advocacy amazon blogs book broadband ireland irelandoffline irishblogs...