A while ago I gave my thoughts about the Kindle Fire. Now that I’ve used it for a while it time to talk about where I think Amazon needs to go (in software) to take the Fire to the next level (for more thoughts about how to improve the Fire, check out Jason Snell’s article on Tech Hive).

  1. Better integration with Cloud Drive – Amazon does some really good things in terms of integrating the music, books, and magazines that you’ve purchased with your account. However, the piece that is missing is the syncing of documents that you would store on your Amazon Cloud Drive. An example of this is me. I’m now attending the University of Phoenix to get my MBA. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing for school. The reading is mostly from pdf files. I would be really happy if I could store these on my could drive and then get to them when I need. Using the send to Kindle app is nice but it seems to be an extra step that isn’t really needed. Maybe what I would really like is for the Cloud Drive to be more like dropbox.
  2. Playing nicely with Google Play – Neither Amazon or Google want to admit it, but the Fire is a device running Android. Amazon does a good job of creating a “walled garden” for apps. However there are times that you need an app that can only be downloaded from Google Play. The app that springs to mind right away is the native Facebook app. You can download it from Google Play but you can’t get it on Amazon’s Android Store. The other half of this equation is that Google Play won’t recognize the Fire as an android device. Amazon already allows you in install apps that aren’t on the Amazon Android Store so why is there an impasse?
  3. Folders – Remember how excited we all were when iOS finally had the ability to put apps into folders? Well, it’s about time that Amazon give us this functionality. While their carousel is very handy for getting to recently used apps, books, magazines, or media getting to an application you haven’t used it a while is difficult. Additionally, if you have a lot of applications in your “apps” section, you could be scrolling for a while to get to the app you are looking for.

{ 0 comments }

Back to School

March 1, 2012

Back to school
I’ve been giving it a lot of thought for about a month and I think that I’d like to head back to school to get my MBA. This is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time and it will help me with my business and with a job if I want head back to the workforce.

There are three things that are holding me back from going ahead with starting school again. The first question is will I really have enough time to dedicate to studying? Here I am trying to get this business off the ground; add to that helping my daughter do her homework and I don’t know if there is enough time in the day to get the studying/course work done in time.

The second question is the question of cost. This undertaking would cost around $30k. Now I can get this covered with student loans but the loans come due once I finish school and that is a lot of extra debit to be carrying around. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that much extra debit.

The final question that I’m wrestling with is one of writing. I’ve been told (and I tend to agree) that I don’t write very well, especially in a business setting. I’m very worried that my poor writing skills would effect my grades. There is an ironic twist to this but I’ll leave that for another time.

{ 0 comments }

Managing the Channel

February 27, 2012

I’ve now been on both sides of the VAR/vendor relationship and although I had my ideas on how to develop and maintain a channel, most of what I thought seems to be true. Here are some of my key ideas: Be an advocate for your partners - Yes you work for the vendor, you know that [...]

Read the full article →

Why We Honor George Washington | Cato @ Liberty

February 20, 2012

Why We Honor George Washington: George Washington was the man who established the American republic. He led the revolutionary army against the British Empire, he served as the first president, and most importantly he stepped down from power. In an era of brilliant men, Washington was not the deepest thinker. He never wrote a book [...]

Read the full article →

Mac Support bleg

January 19, 2012

A few years ago I blogged about how I got my mom a MacMini so I would be able to easily do support for her. For the most part that has been the case. Supporting her has been a lot easier than when she had a Windows machine. She’s also been a lot happier with [...]

Read the full article →

Extremeists

December 27, 2011

Tonight is the 8th and final night of Chanukah and I’m sitting on my couch watching the candles burn down. We all know the story of Chanukah where the Maccabes were victorious over the Seleucid Greeks. In essence the Greeks wanted to make sure that Judaism didn’t survive by abolishing certain laws. One could argue that [...]

Read the full article →

Thanks

December 23, 2011

I wanted to just thank everyone that has bought items through the Amazon ad to the right. I appreciate your support.

Read the full article →

Making the switch from an iPad to a Kindle Fire

November 30, 2011

I know that I left off my last post with a question. I don’t like to do that often but I really did not know what was going to do with the iPad or the Kindle Fire. I’m happy to say that I’ve made my decision and it may surprise a lot of you. I [...]

Read the full article →

Playing with (a Kindle) Fire

November 24, 2011

First and foremost a Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. When I first heard about Amazon’s Kindle Fire being released I was very interested but I decided not to buy one right away because I wanted to wait for the reviews to come out and make my decision based on those reviews. Sadly there was no [...]

Read the full article →

Me No Like

November 16, 2011

I saw this article this morning by way of Voz iz Neias (What’s news in Yiddish) and it just turned my stomach. Senate Republicans appear to be serious about creating a long-rumored “Jewish district” in Brooklyn, according to a well-connected Republican source who saw a copy of their draft redistricting maps. The idea, the source said, [...]

Read the full article →