10 Reasons Why:

1. Books are cheaper. Yes, you can find used books for pretty cheap at bookstores, but rarely will these books be new bestsellers or hardback books. Kindle books are drastically cheaper than regular books and some of the classics are even free. On top of that, Amazon sometimes has random book sales, and I’ve gotten some great best selling books for like, $2. Worth it!

2. You can get books instantly. Forget about going to the bookstore, you can download your favorite book in under 5 seconds. Books are never sold out, unlike at the store, and you can buy new releases on your Kindle at midnight. I definitely wanted to start reading Jaycee Dugard’s story, “A Stolen Life,” as soon as I could, so I bought it right after midnight on my Kindle. I know people still having a hard time finding it because it sold out at all the bookstores.

3. You can change the size of the font. Ever buy those books where the font is microscopic? I have, and those kind of books make me so tired when I read them, I don’t even want to read them. They are too much work! On Kindle, you can change the size of the font, although the standard size font is perfect for me. Great for those folks with not so keen of vision.

4. It’s small and lighter than a regular book. It’s easy to just pop in your purse or backpack or book bag and take with you anywhere. You don’t have to worry about smashing your book or loosing your bookmark in your bag because your book is all secured. Buy a cheap case for your Kindle to protect it, and you’re good.

5. I tend to read in awkward, curled up positions, so reading on a Kindle is great for me – no book pages to smash when you try and turn them. All you have to do is push the forward button, and you’re good to go. Because it’s so light, it’s easy to read in every position.

6. I have the 3G Kindle, meaning I have internet access everywhere. Free internet. On my Kindle, I can go online or check my Facebook or buy a book wherever I go. This 3G is also global. Can your book do that?

7. I personally think the Kindle is better than other eReaders out there, particularly the Nook. First of all, Kindle is created by Amazon. Amazon isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Barnes & Noble? Not so sure about that. Amazon has an amazing selection of books for great prices. I don’t know about B&N, but I’d rather not invest in something made by a bookstore at this point in time. Besides that, I just like the look, feel and price of the the Kindle. It’s so simple and light, as it should be.

I feel like the Nook tries to do too much, like with their touchscreen eReader. I am not a fan of the LCD touchscreen eReader; I feel like it’s trying to be a tablet, but it’s an eReader. It’s not really great in any one way, rather, it’s mediocre in both the tablet and eReader markets. It’s not the same reading on an LCD screen, and it lacks a lot of things a tablet needs and has. The touchscreen eReaders with the eInk technology is laggy, and it seems to imprint more than it would be on a regular eReader. That’s just my 2 cents.

8. The Kindle tells you your progress on your book, what percentage you’ve read and how long until the next chapter. No longer will you need to turn page after page to see when the next chapter is, or count pages to see how much you’ve read.

9. You can read it in sunlight. Yes, this is a benefit over the LCD screen tablets, but it’s also easier to read than a normal book, too. There is no glare, and because the Kindle background is sort of an off white, it doesn’t shine right back into your eyes like some white paged books do.

10. It’s fun to read on! I don’t know why, but I get excited to read on my Kindle. I never thought that I would be so excited to read again.

The one downside that I’ve seen is that not every single book is available for Kindle. Although all the books that I’ve wanted to read are available, I know of a few books that I’ve already read that aren’t (like Harry Potter). I see great potential with eReaders and textbooks for college, although it doesn’t seem to have taken off quite yet. I also think that libraries supporting eReaders and digital books will be a huge trend later this year and next, and it will completely revolutionize the way we read.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m a big Kindle fan. What do you like about your Kindle? Or what turns you off about getting an eReader? Let me know in the comments.

I thought that I could upload to YouTube straight from my Photo Booth, and while it did allow me to do this, my audio and video did not match up, making the video unwatchable. Then I tried to upload the Photo Booth video straight onto my blog post through WordPress’s options, but it wouldn’t even recognize the file. What I had to do is bring the video into iMovie (should come with your Mac) and export it with QuickTime though there.

Now, this is where I had the most trouble. I have never really used iMovie before, and I was getting super frustrated with items being blocked out for no apparent reason. Here’s what you need to do (what I did)…

First: You need to import you Photo Booth movie into iMovie. I could not, for the life of me, find the movie in the Photo Booth when doing this option, so I had to drag the Photo Booth movie onto my desktop and import it that way.

Second: You need to export the movie using Quicktime. When I tried to do this initially, the option was blocked out. What you need to do, is make sure the movie clip is not only in the main, bottom box but also in the top box on the left hand side. If the clips were not on both sides, I could not export the movie. All you have to do is command + a the video clips in one box and drag it into the other. Then you should be able to Share > Export Using QuickTime.

Third (read before you hit export): You might need to mess with some of your export settings, but if you’ve never really changed anything, I think the default settings are okay. Now, make sure that the export settings say “Movie to Quicktime Movie.” For some reason, mine defaulted to “Movie to Image Sequence,” which I accepted accidentally… and let me tell you, you don’t want to do that! All the other settings are probably okay, but make sure that the section “Prepare for Internet Streaming” is set to Fast Start.

*Also, I kept going back and forth between my notes and the iMovie settings, and each time I did this, it completely blocked out my options. I don’t know if it’s my computer or what, but I recommending knowing what you need to change first, so you can avoid this.

Fourth: Once your video is done exporting, you can upload that file straight to YouTube. Your audio and video should be synced perfectly!

Good luck and hopefully you don’t have to deal with as much trail and error as I did.

The first thing to determine before you buy a camera is what you want to use it for. At first, I wasn’t sure whether or not to splurge and learn to use a digital SLR camera or just choose a nice point and shoot (PAS). For me, this camera would be my primary camera. I wanted to be able to use it to take my artistic-like pictures, but I also wanted to take it to concerts and out with my friends — something that I could easily carry around and not have to deal with equipment. Although I eventually want to purchase a DSLR, that isn’t what I needed at this point in time. This choice ultimately led to me to not choosing one of the point and shoot DSLR look-a-likes because it’s too big to carry around in my purse. Now, there are cameras on the market called compact system digital cameras, which are supposed to be the in-between choice of PAS and DSLR cameras. These are new to the market and expensive but seem a like a great concept. When I was buying my camera, there was only one on the market and it wasn’t the right choice, but I’d definitely consider it for my next camera.

Once you determine you want to buy a PAS, you have to look at the features. Keep in mind that the better the features, the more expensive they will be, but it’s worth it. How often do you buy a camera?

Features:

Zoom: The zoom amount was important to me because I noticed that I take a lot of pictures that are from far away — like at concerts or wide nature shots. Zoom is tricky because there is optical zoom and digital zoom. Optical zoom is what’s important. The better the optical zoom, the better the zoom on the camera will be. Digital zoom usually ends up making the pictures a bit blurry and pixelated. The camera I ended up buying, a Nikon Coolpix S8000 (not a client or connected to Nikon in anyway, just the best camera on the market at the time of purchase – nearly a year ago), has 10x optical zoom and 4x digital. The zoom is amazing, and I would never get anything less again. You also have to keep in mind, the more zoom, the better image stabilizer you need because a shakey camera with a long zoom can equal a blurry image.

The image below was at a Carrie Underwood concert. I was very pleased with how the pictures turned out!

Megapixel: Megapixels aren’t extremely important. First of all, most cameras have a high megapixel now-a-days. Mine has 12.1. Second, if most of the pictures you are going to use are going to be printed in 4×6 size, then megapixel isn’t even an issue. The only thing you’d have to worry about is if you wanted to print a lot of large sizes and even then, most PAS are above 10 megapixels (and the most I’ve seen is 16-18).

Image Stabilizer: As I mentioned earlier, the image stabilizer is something to do some research on. I find it best to just go into a store and mess around with all the cameras they have. Zoom all the way out and take pictures. Shake the camera a little and take pictures. See how they turn out. Read reviews of the camera. People will tell it like it is. It’s more valuable to read the reviews of people who have used the camera than the wording of the manufacturer (Amazon and Best Buy have good reviews to read). I’m satisfied with my camera’s image stabilizer. I find that sometimes in low lighting, far zoomed images, the pictures can turn out a little blurry, but that situation is a little extreme (not regular photo situation).

Flash: I never looked at the flash range when I was purchasing my camera because generally the PAS flash is sufficient for most pictures. Something to keep in mind though is the location of the flash/how it turns on. My flash pops-up, which I like because it saves room on the front of the camera and seems extremely bright. However, when reading reviews, other people I noticed don’t like this feature because they end up blocking the flash with their finger. This just proves as another good reason to read reviews, but an even better reason to try out the camera many times before you buy it.

Special Features: This is different for every photographer and every camera, but I wanted a camera with a macro mode because I love taking macro photography. Find what you love, see if it’s available and don’t settle for less.

I love the macro mode on my camera. It focuses the zoom and takes awesome photos.

Have questions? Anything else you’d look for in buying a point and shoot camera? Let me know in the comments.

It made me realize that I didn’t know much about Groupon, so I decide to sign up and give it a try. 

After a couple of weeks in, I’ve come to the conclusion that Groupon is an excellent source of local deals. I definitely believe that it is the most powerful and successful deal provider of its kind at this day — it was even rumored to be in the works of being sold to Google for billions. Though they turned down Google, they’ve been able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in funding — it’s pretty incredible. LivingSocial is a relatively close competitor, and just landed $175 million investment from Amazon. To the consumer, it’s beneficial to have multiple, successful deal or discount provider sites because it gives more opportunities for for us to save. Bring on the competition! Because these two sites are so similar, I’m not sure if they will both continue to thrive — I believe that one will eventually beat out the other with better quality deals. For right now, we can just thrive in the savings. There is no harm in subscribing to whichever site you want, you’ll just have to sift through more e-mails.

Getting back to Sheldon’s question, I would not consider Groupon and Facebook Places (or even Foursquare) a direct competition. Sure, they both provide deals and discount for consumers. Groupon and LivingSocial provide daily deals to your e-mail. You may have no desire to use the deal and it might not even be something targeted to you. However, these deals may be huge. I just bought a Groupon Deal for $50 at Nordstrom Rack for only $25. 50% savings! Amazing.

On the other hand, Facebook Places or Foursquare deals are offered to you when you check-in to a location. These are far more valuable because you are already at that location when you are checking-in, and you’re probably planning on spending money there already. Theses type of location-based check-in deals benefit current customers while Groupon and LivingSocial rake in a lot of new customers coming in for a one-time deal. I have only bought one Groupon in the months that I’ve subscribed; however, these location-based savings I use all the time.

It really is only the beginning with these deal providers and location-based social media sites. Right now, I don’t see the harm in using as many of these that are you are wanting or willing to. Personally, I subscribe to Groupon and LivingSocial because I don’t have to do any work to earn those deals. Why not subscribe? As far as location-based social media, Foursquare is still my favorite. That’s where I see the better deals and that’s where my friends are. This may change in a month — that’s how fast these sites pop up.

What do you use? Where have you found the best deals?

Which do you prefer?

Although Facebook Places is in its infancy, it is definitely causing a stir in the social media world — especially for one of the leading location-based networks, Foursquare. Blogs everywhere are blowing up on this topic and many believe that Facebook Places will be the Foursquare killer once it becomes more developed. I don’t think anyone can accurately determine which will come out on top yet. Personally, I’m team Foursquare and though I love Facebook, I want to use Facebook for Facebook purposes, not location-based purposes. After the jump I point out the pros and cons of both Foursquare and Facebook Places and why I ultimately believe that Foursquare won’t be dying anytime soon.

Foursquare

Pros:

• When checking-in to a location, you can post to your Foursquare wall, Twitter feed and Facebook wall all at the same time — or not at all. You can be prompted that option each time you check-in and decide where to post on a case-by-case basis.
• Foursquare has some great badges that users strive for, making this social network more than just a network — it’s a game, too. Games are fun and people like having fun, thus, people like Foursquare.
• Discounts, discounts, discounts! Businesses have linked with Foursquare to promote discounts and special deals for check-in’s and mayors.
• Available for Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, and more.
• Foursquare is focused on the location-based service — they don’t have any other services that they are working on. It’s more about quality not quantity.

Cons:

• Foursquare has a much smaller market than Facebook or Twitter. A social network game is more fun with friends!
• Like all location-based services, you are allowing other people to know where you are. Check out PleaseRobMe.com to see what others have to say about location-based services. However, if you have issues with privacy, you probably shouldn’t be using location-based services anyway. I feel relatively safe with using Foursquare — I regulate my small group of friends and I feel like less of my information is shared to the world (than Facebook).

Facebook Places

Pros:

• With over 500 million users on Facebook, you will find others to be able to share this experience with.
• Facebook and Facebook Places are in the same location.
• You can tag other people in your check-in’s (could be a con as well, leads to privacy issues).
• A good projected guess is that Places will integrate with businesses, which will result in discounts and promotions. Because Facebook has a larger market, they have a better opportunity to get businesses involved — leading to more deals and discounts for users.
• Once integrated, Facebook Places will provide yet another social media marketing strategy for businesses.

Cons:

• Facebook Places is only a small portion of what Facebook is — they could be taking on too much to create a quality location-based service.
• You might not want to share your location with all your Facebook friends (old high school friends, Grandma, coworkers).
• Currently available only on iPhone and Facebook Mobile Touch site.
• Facebook has recently changed their brand/community pages — I’m really not sure which is which. Not super intuitive right now.
• Thought you had privacy issues before on Facebook? Well, Facebook Places can and will open up a new can of worms, especially because you have the option to tag other people in your check-in’s. Read more on that topic here and here.
• Most of the people that I know who want to use location-based networks already use Foursquare and those who don’t, don’t want to become involved, period. Facebook Places could just anger people by forcing Places into their faces.

Though Facebook Places will rapidly change and grow, Foursquare will definitely not give up either — they will both continue to update and work to be on top. Who knows, you may want to use both Facebook Places and Foursquare in the future for double the benefits. Personally, I believe that Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter can all run together because they each have their own benefit. I don’t necessarily want to share the same information on all three networks, instead, there is a time and place to share on each individual network.

What do you think? Have I missed anything? Let me know in the comments.

Phone Frustration

A few weeks ago my phone started saying that it was low on storage space. Low on space? I hadn’t changed anything! Needless to say, it was frustrating for the notification to keep popping up — especially since I kept deleting apps to free up my internal memory. I finally fixed the problem — Facebook was syncing with my phone contacts, making my contact storage over 25 mb! Facebook was also a memory suck, taking up nearly 10 mb. On top of that, my battery was draining too quickly, and I had to start bringing my charger everywhere. Crawling the internet, I found the solution, but I thought it might be helpful to put all the info in one place for other people who are having the same problems I had. Here are my troubleshooting tips for getting your Droid Eris under control.

IF YOUR BATTERY IS DRAINING:

After doing some research, I found out that apps are stored on internal memory while pictures and music are stored on the phone’s SD card. Lame, right? I’ve heard you can load apps onto your SD card if you root your phone and that a Froyo update might have a setting to do this automatically, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Right now, I use a couple apps to help me out – Spare Parts and Task Manager.

I’ve heard debate on whether or not a task manager is necessary on a phone because most apps don’t take up enough internal memory to cause problems. For me though, my phone’s up time and awake time were exactly the same time — meaning my phone was awake and running full-on the entire time my phone was up. Not good. Major battery drain! With Task Manager (or any task killer), you can see what programs are running even when you think you’ve closed out of them (and then it will close out of them for you). Trust me, you may think that an app is shut down… but it’s not. The Task Manager really has saved my battery. My up time is now 43:43:27 and my awake time is 8:20:34. My phone will stay charged from 7 in the morning until around 12 midnight with moderate use.

I recommend the Spare Parts app as well because it can provide you more of your phone’s information than your settings can. With Spare Parts, I can look at the partial wake usage of the battery and find out what exactly is draining the battery. For me, Android system is at the top for what is using my battery and there is nothing else that is even close to that. Before, when my battery was draining quickly, Facebook was using up a hefty amount and catching on quickly to the Android system usage amount. By using Task Manager and Spare Parts, you should definitely see your battery draining much more slowly.

IF YOU ARE RUNNING LOW ON SPACE:

Before I fixed my phone, I only had about 10-20 mb of internal space free on my Droid Eris. The way you check this — go to Settings — SD card & phone storage — Internal phone storage at the bottom. After I cleaned up my phone, I now have over 100 mb (I have less than 50 apps).

If you are needing to clean up your phone, first thing’s first — clear your cache on your apps. To do this — go to settings — applications — manage applications — wait for all to load — sort by size. Then click your largest apps and clear that cache! Like I mentioned above, my contact storage was around 25 mb which is way too large. Really, none of your apps should be larger than 5-7 mb. Clearing your cache should open up some space and if you really need to, you can uninstall and reinstall the apps to refresh them.

Now my problem was my contact storage was huge — and this was because my phone was syncing with Facebook. I wanted my current Facebook contacts, but I didn’t want my phone to constantly be syncing! I also didn’t want to sync all of my contacts, but I couldn’t figure out how to select contacts individually. I decided to save my Facebook contacts and stop the syncing. Here is how I did it:

- Go into people, hit menu and import/export contacts.
- Export contacts to the SD cards.
- Go back to manage applications in settings. Tap contact storage and then press clear data. This will erase all your contacts but don’t fear! They are all backed up on your SD card.
- Go back into people. Tap menu then import contacts. Load up all your contacts. For me, there were many, many contacts that I didn’t want (because Facebook synced all of my friends). You’ll probably want to go through and delete the ones you don’t want.

After doing this, my contact storage was down to below 5 mb. Don’t forget to unsync Facebook to your contacts, otherwise you’ll have to do this again.

Hopefully this information helps someone — I know it helped clean up my phone. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments — I’ll try and help as much as I can!

UPDATE — January 12th, 2011: Make sure that any new apps that you’ve downloaded are NOT syncing with your phone (unless you want them to — but be warned these apps will take up a lot of extra space). I recently installed the Twitter for Android app and it was syncing my followers with my contacts. I don’t know why anyone would really want to do that, but that is the setting it was at when I downloaded it. I only noticed it after my Twitter was nearly 11 mb.

Also, for some of those people who are having trouble clearing the cache of an app (or it just won’t give you that option) — just uninstall and reinstall the app. It’s a pain. I’ve come across this problem a couple of times with Facebook (why are the updates so huge?!), but when I uninstall and reinstall, it seems to fix the problem. Let me know if you come up with an easier way to fix this!

1. Internships. During my junior and senior year, I was involved in several internships — often more than one at a time. Yes, I was busy, but I also gained extremely valuable experience during the time when I needed it the most. Nearly all were unpaid but in the long run, it doesn’t matter. Take advantage of this experience while you can. Businesses will favor potential employees that have experience (unpaid or not) and it is much harder to work at an unpaid internship after you finish school when you have to start paying back student loans. Tip: There are many ways to find an internship — such as through your school, online, or social media. If you are still having trouble, find a local non-profit organization that you are passionate about. E-mail them and see if they could benefit from some of your skills!

2.Get involved on campus. Whatever your passion is, get involved in groups and activities with other people that share your passion. Though this is something I wish I did more of at the U of O, I had plenty of opportunity. For me, I could have become involved in my school’s PRSSA chapter or even Allen Hall Public Relations, a student-run PR firm at the U of O. If you don’t know of any activities that you can get involved in, ask your professor or talk to an advisor. These extracurricular activities look great on a resume.

3. Get to know your peers, professors and advisors — and stay in touch! Luckily for me, my classes senior year were all small and intimate, allowing me to get to know many of my peers and professors. These people are a great resource for you now and in the future. Everyone goes their separate way when they graduate and in the long run, that separation provides you to have resources in many different places. Not only can these people inform you about potential new opportunities but it’s always easier to get involved in a company if you already know someone who is connected. And, with social media now-a-days, it’s easy to keep in touch with these people.

4. Be involved and knowledgeable about new media. Technology is ever-changing and its growth will not stop anytime soon. Understanding and being involved in current and new technology just adds more to your personal branding. It’s even more important to know how to use this technology to benefit you in your field of interest. I personally have a strong interest in social media and have made an effort to incorporated my knowledge and interest in social media to use strategically for brand management. An updated and constant knowledge and understanding of new media, especially because it’s always changing, will set you apart from colleagues who lack this skill.

Although there are an infinite amount of tips for college seniors, these are my best four. What other tips would you recommend?

As I said, in the past I used to own an enV2. I also have an iPod Touch that I use pretty regularly. I know that the iPod Touch is not an iPhone but because they have so many similarities I will use some comparisons.

First off, the Eris was free so that’s an awesome start. I’m on a family plan and my dad wanted to buy the Moto Droid, so we were able to use the “Double Your Droid” deal (he bought a Droid for regular price and I got the Eris for free). I would definitely recommend paying attention to these Verizon deals because sometimes they are amazing! Anyway, the Eris, with the new-every-2 is $100 less than the regular Droid. Yeah, over the course of a few years that one hundred bucks won’t really matter but it’s just a bonus for a poor, post-college student (and I wanted this phone anyway).

Second, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Moto Droid but it’s pretty hefty. I think that has something to do with the slide out keyboard which personally, I didn’t need or want. It might have some benefit, especially for people who aren’t used to using a touch screen, but I feel it’s unnecessary. Because I don’t like big, fat phones, I was definitely drawn to the Eris’ sleek, light design. I mean, the Droid advertises that “It isn’t pretty but it’s fast,” and I agree. The Eris on the other hand is pretty and cute, similar to many of HTC’s phones. All the goods and a little better packaging if you ask me! The Eris also has a little TrackBall similar to the Blackberry. Not a huge deal but it’s different, a bit useful, and you can set it up to light up when you get a text/notification.

The Moto Droid does have a bit better specs, as far as having Android 2.0 OS and flash on the camera while the Eris has the Android 1.5 OS and no flash. But from what I’ve heard, the Eris will be getting the 2.0 OS (or possibly even 2.1, like the Nexus One) within the next few weeks (speculated Jan. 20). From some of the research I’ve done, the reasoning behind having a 1.5 OS has something to do with the HTC Sense UI not quite syncing with 2.0 (which the UI is supposedly awesome) and that HTC is taking their time to make it work. Anyway, 2.0/2.1 should be up and running on the Eris soon anyway, so no big deal (the main difference from 1.5 and 2.0, or so I hear, is turn-by-turn Google navigation).

The Eris is completely customizable. Like the iPhone/iPod touch, it has sliding pages. There are only 7 pages but there is also a pop-up menu that has all the apps. Unlike the iPhone, you can decide how you want apps to look. You can make apps have little boxes, if that’s what you want — but many apps can be made bigger or shaped different based on what it is (like my Google Calendar can take up it’s own screen). Another difference from the iPhone/iPod Touch is that the Eris can run several apps simultaneously. Notifications (text messages, e-mails, Facebook updates, etc.) show up and scroll in the header, so you don’t have to stop what you are doing to read a message. So many different possibilities but for example, you can listen to Pandora while writing an e-mail and reading a text message.

One thing that compelled me to choose the Eris over a Blackberry was the Google integration. Overall, I wanted something easy, something that I could use to go online, update social media, and have apps. Both phones can do that. But I personally use Gmail, Google Calendar, and all those goods and the Eris is completely synced with these. I also liked the Eris design better than the Blackberrys that are currently on the market.

A few other quick things

• It has a USB charger, so you can charge your phone on the computer. I guess this is the new, more common thing to happen to cell phones but it’s a big difference from my old phone.
• It has a fun people shortcut so that you can easily text/call the people you talk to the most.
• Information can be organized based on a person, so I can see everything that someone sent me and their info in one place.
• I really could go on, but I don’t want to take all the fun and surprises out of getting a new phone. BUT, one more thing I like is the Google Search via voice recognition. Press a button, say “Taylor Swift” and it’ll search it for you on Google!

Hopefully that covered it. Any questions? Leave me a comment!

Celebrities usually want to keep their lives private, so why are they constantly updating their status on Twitter? Maybe it is a marketing technique for celebrities and it allows them to up their status in Hollywood — the person with the most followers is the most popular. Or it could be that Twitter allows them to share information with fans in a controlled way. Or maybe they are just doing because everyone is doing it. Could they simply be doing it because Twitter is… fun? Whatever the reason is, celebrities are joining at an alarming rate.

However, it may not be all that it seems. Celebrities are joining Twitter, but they are also on other social networks like Facebook or Myspace. While hundreds of celebrities are on Facebook, it doesn’t seem to make as much of an impact as Twitter does. This is because of the social aspects of Twitter. Fans are able to follow and even interact with their favorite celebrities unlike Facebook and Myspace where there is a slight chance that their response is even looked at. Twitter allows “normal people” to get close with celebrities. Good for fans, good PR for celebrities.

You can follow me on twitter: @nikimae