Amazon Kindle Handheld eBook Reader

A few days ago, I noticed that one of Oprah’s favorite things was the Amazon Kindle handheld ebook reader. EBook readers have been around in different forms for many years. The Amazon Kindle was introduced last year without much notice. But now that Oprah has endorsed the Kindle, sales should really start to take off.

It took me a long time to get used to reading electronic books instead of traditional print versions. I had trouble adjusting to the back-lighting and font size, and often got headaches if I stared at my computer screen for too long. But now that I’m more accustomed to reading off a screen, I’ve grown to appreciate the convenience of ebooks, and I actually prefer them to paper books. In fact, I’m currently in the market for a good handheld ebook reader that will allow me to enjoy my electronic texts even more, now that I’ve written my own ebook on how to write a professional resume.

I’ve been doing some research for the last few days, and I’ve discovered that there are essentially three different kinds of handheld ebook readers on the market today. I’m not exactly sure which one I want yet because they all have their pros and cons.

The first type of handheld ebook reader I can buy is a PDA (or Pocket PC). While PDAs are most commonly used for keeping track of appointments, tasks, and contacts, they’re also capable of displaying electronic texts. I like PDAs because they’re easy to carry around, have relatively large screens, and can store a lot of books.

However, since PDAs come with a bunch of other features such as a web browser, word processing and spreadsheet software, and games, the prices are a bit inflated. I’d essentially be paying for a lot of things I’d probably never use, when all I really want is a handheld ebook reader.

Smartphones represent a second type of handheld ebook readers available today. Smartphones combine the functionality of a cell phone with a PDA, so they can generally do everything that PDAs can do — plus make phone calls. The biggest benefit to using a smartphone is that I would only have to carry one device around instead of two.

But I think most smartphone screens are a bit small for reading books on a regular basis, so I’m not sure that this would be the right device for me. In addition, most smartphones are actually priced out of my budget, which means this isn’t really a viable option for me.

Finally, there are a couple of dedicated handheld ebook readers on the market, too. These devices are only used for reading books, so they typically have special features that smartphones and PDAs don’t have, such as automatic scrolling, a comprehensive dictionary, adjustable backlighting, and a variety of font sizes. The Amazon Kindle is the hottest handheld ebook reader around thanks to Oprah’s endorsement, and looks like the best device for my purposes.

I haven’t completely made up my mind about which handheld ebook reader I’ll purchase, but I’m definitely going to get one soon. I can’t wait to be able to read my favorite electronic texts even when I’m away from my computer.

By the way, the Amazon Kindle sells at Amazon and EBay for $360. That’s still a lot of money to me. But I did come across a website that is giving away free Amazon Kindles if you take a short poll.

Here is their website address:

http://ezsuggestions.com/amazonkindle.

 

Finding People Through Social Networking Web Sites

There are many great tools that you can use to find the people that you’ve lost contact with. Many of them are online. You may have thought to use the search engines to search for someone by name, or perhaps you turned to the white pages to see if you could find a current landline phone number through which you could contact them. These tools do not always work, but don’t should not give up just yet. Thanks to the internet, you can use social networking websites to see if you can find them. Even those with no mention anywhere else online can come up in these social sites.

There are quite a few ways that you can go about searching for someone through social networking websites. You can start with the most obvious. You can use the name search that each has to see if something comes up with that name. You should be prepared to have a lot of results to go through if someone has a rather common name. You can then look through the listings on social networking websites to see what you find through the pictures. They can help you look through much more quickly.

If you don’t seem to find someone that way, don’t give up just yet. Some will sign up for social networking websites with names other than their own. They may do this for many reasons, the biggest being privacy. They may have changed names due to marriage or other life circumstances, so finding them through social networking websites this way is tricky. If you have an email address for them that you are not sure is current, use the email search. If they used that email to sign up, they are going to come up for you that way.

You may think that you have hit a dead end if neither of those options have worked, but there are other ways you can search social networking websites for that person that you miss from your past. You can see if you can find any people that you both knew. If you can find their profiles on any of the social networking websites out there, you may find the person you seek on their friends’ list. If so, you then know how you can contact them.

Some people are simply not online, or perhaps they do not have profiles through such social networking websites. They may have one through some professional networking websites however, so use the same tools to search through them. Keep your own profiles open if you really want to find someone, as you never know, they may come looking for you. If they can see your profile, and they can tell it is you, they may very well surprise you by contacting you through these sites.