Internet Talk

Barnes & Noble Introduces Cheaper $199 Nook Tablet

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:57:38 +0000

Barnes & Noble has introduced a cheaper Nook Tablet sporting half the RAM and internal storage capacity.

To combat Amazon's current command of the low-priced Android tablet sector (thanks to the Kindle Fire), Barnes & Noble has modified its 7-inch Nook Tablet design and released a second model for a mere $199. The only difference between the new model and the older $249 version is that it sports half the RAM and storage capacity, offering 512 MB and 8 GB respectively.

"For any customer who likes to read digitally, watch movies or TV shows, browse the web, or help their kids read and learn through interactive books and apps, our new $199 Nook Tablet with 8 GB is the best product value on the market," said William Lynch, Chief Executive Office of Barnes & Noble.

The book retailer has also reduced the price of its Nook Color e-reader, knocking the consumer's cost down to a tastier $169. This device hasn't changed in regards to hardware specs, offering the same video and music services, apps, comics and more. It's not as "feature rich" as the pricier Nook Tablet series, but it's a step up from the $99 basic monochrome Nook Simple Touch.

Both the Nook Tablet and Amazon's Kindle Fire accounted for 21-percent of the overall tablet market in 4Q11 although Amazon's gadget took two-thirds of that specific market share. Amazon has the upper hand thanks to its stronger ecosystem which provides movies, music, Android apps, books, magazines and direct access to Amazon's virtual mall of goods. It's also one of a limited number of devices that's allowed to stream Amazon's Instant Video. Barnes & Noble depends on third parties to offer video and audio content.

For the uninitiated, the Nook Tablet sports a dual core TI OMAP 4430 SoC clocked at 1 GHz, a microSDHC card reader supporting up to 32 GB of extra storage, 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, 8 or 16 GB of storage, and 512 MB or 1 GB of RAM. Also included is Google's Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" underneath B&N's UI, a battery coughing up 11.5 hours of reading time or nine hours of video viewing, and more.

The Nook Tablet 8 GB Edition is available for purchase today for $199 at www.nook.com and in Barnes & Noble stores, and will be available in leading retailers including Best Buy, Target and Walmart in the coming weeks. Nook Color is now available in Barnes & Noble stores and www.nook.com for $169.

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The $199 Nook Tablet sounds like a good deal since it has a 1GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, MicroSD memory Card reader and microphone, and the 11.5 hour battery life seems pretty good for such a thin device.

Mozilla SeaMonkey based on Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and made by Mozilla

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 05:13:40 +0000

Anyone here used Sea Monkey by Mozilla, and your thoughts?

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

I used Sea Monkey before, and I thought the user interface was pretty good. Sea Monkey was also pretty easy to use.

I got a feeling, if Firefox keeps on changing/updating their web browser every few weeks, some of Firefox original users will try out sea monkey and switch to it since it is also made by Mozilla, but it has most of the features of Firefox, but without the constant updating like FireFox.

Views on Web Browsers which don't support Flash or Online Video?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:49:37 +0000

I probably won't use a web browser which does not support flash or online video playback since I use flash and online video for listening to music online, or watching videos.

I might use it if it is a mobile web browser like Opera Mini, but won't use it if it is a desktop browser like Chrome, IE, Opera, etc.

Do you ever wonder why shared web hosting cost 5 dollars a month while fast Internet cost 40 dollars a month?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:34:22 +0000

I'm not sure why ISP is so much more expensive then shared web hosting since they seem pretty much the same to me. You pay for your web hosting, so your website can go online, and load your site onto other websites.

You pay for a ISP, so you can visit a website on a web host server.

I think once someone figures a way to cheaply sell ISP service from another country like web hosting, the price of ISP bill might go down because other countries like China, and Mexico don't pay their workers as much, so they spend less paying for staff which mean they can charge less money, and still make money.

My best guest is ISP have less competition then web hosting since if one web host over charges me, I can subscribe to another web host in another country, state, or city for cheaper prices.

Plus, there are also a lot of free web hosts like Jcink, Blogspot, Free Forums, Tumblr, etc where you can host for free, but there are advertising on free accounts to help pay for the server and staff costs.

Is it hard making enough money online "just to pay for the internet and electricity your PC uses"?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:23:07 +0000

It can be hard to make enough money to just pay for your internet bill and electricity your PC uses if you don't know how to get started, but if you use eBay or Amazon to sell some of your old stuff online, or make paid website templates, apps, online videos, ebooks, write articles for blogs, computer programs to sell then making enough money to pay for the internet bill and the electricity bill is not very hard.

Plus, there are plenty of people who pay money for links if your website is popular.

Firefox to Get a New Interface in Second Half of 2012

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:01:05 +0000

Mozilla has updated its Firefox roadmap for 2012.

Those who have been following the Firefox release tracking tables will not find any surprises, but the list certainly serves as a guide of the baseline of new features and changes Firefox will see by the end of the year, when we will be using Firefox version 17.

Immediate changes for Q1 include add-on sync and add-on compatibility improvements as well as the long-overdue Chrome migration feature, which will allow Chrome users to switch to Firefox and take all their data, including bookmarks, conveniently with them. Mozilla will also update its media control set for HTML5. Q2 will bring the also long overdue Home Tab app, Firefox's new start page, as well as a new New Tab page and Silent Update support, which has been delayed since version 9 and now appears to be scheduled for a final and complete release in version 13, scheduled for a June 5 release.

Mozilla expects to deliver web apps and market place integration by version 13 as well and provide URL auto-complete for Firefox's location bar, faster session restore as well as a memory improvements with a new garbage collector.

For the second half of the year, we are noticing a resurfaced Firefox Share, which was first mentioned for Firefox 5, a built-in PDF viewer, Mozilla's web identity management system and IonMonkey, Mozilla's new JavaScript engine. Noteworthy is also an updated interface, which replaces the current interface with a much more stylish version that makes Firefox much more recognizable than it is today.

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The new user interface for FireFox which will come out in the Second Half of 2012 kind of looks like the user interface for Google Chrome, but with weirder looking buttons. The Forward button is also missing...

What's up with FireFox copying other companies user interfaces since the current version of Firefox looks like Opera 11. Now it looks like Google Chrome.

Opera 11

Firefox 8

Skype Co-founder Wants To Offer Free 4G LTE Wireless Internet via FreedomPop

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:42:43 +0000

FreedomPop is moving forward with its plans to offer free 4G LTE coverage despite the recent setback with LightSquared.

FreedomPop, which is backed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, said on Wednesday that it's partnering with Clearwire to provide a "disruptive" mobile 4G broadband service for consumers, free of charge, here in the U.S. Clearwire currently offers a 4G mobile broadband network covering more than 130 million Americans, but FreedomPop is hoping to offer even faster speeds once Clearwire's planned 4G LTE Advanced-ready network comes online.

"FreedomPop's ultimate goal of providing our customers with a free mobile broadband alternative will soon be realized thanks to Clearwire's proven 4G network services," said Tony Miller, FreedomPop's VP of Marketing. "This agreement enables FreedomPop to offer a disruptive retail service, providing free, flexible, high-speed internet access to millions of Americans."

The "strategic wholesale relationship" formed between the two parties will see FreedomPop paying wholesale rates for access to Clearwire's 4G network. Specific terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.

The news arrives just after the FCC said it plans to kill LightSquared's terrestrial network waiver, FreedomPop's original mobile network of choice prior to Wednesday's announcement.

"LightSquared’s proposal to provide ground-based mobile service offered the potential to unleash new spectrum for mobile broadband and enhance competition," the FCC said in a statement. "The Commission clearly stated from the outset that harmful interference to GPS would not be permitted. This is why the Conditional Waiver Order issued by the Commission’s International Bureau prohibited LightSquared from beginning commercial operations unless harmful interference issues were resolved."

"NTIA, the federal agency that coordinates spectrum uses for the military and other federal government entities, has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time," the FCCadded.

Plans to launch a free mobile service was revealed to the public back in December, but Miller just recently explained to Forbes how the business model will work. He said there will be a "free" basic service that most of the customers will use, but premium users (bandwidth hogs) will be charged a fee -- this latter group will account for 10 to 15-percent of the overall customer base, he said.

FreedomPop won't sell devices, but it will loan out modems as long as customers put down a deposit. Three items will be up for borrowing: a USB dongle, a mobile hotspot and a third mystery device. Users will only be able to access the 4G LTE network through these three devices. That said, the service may be free, but will still require money upfront, requiring either a $49 or a $29 deposit -- that final price is still up in the air.

So how much data will freemium subscribers get with this new service? FreedomPop may enforce strict data caps or throttle back speeds to prevent users from streaming video without a premium plan. Like Dropbox and other services that sell premium plans by offering free access on a limited level, the upcoming 4G LTE will undoubtedly have some type of restrictions limiting free data usage.

We expect to hear more about the plans shortly, perhaps later this month at Mobile World Congress?

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This sounds like a good way to take customers from other internet companies by offering free prices to basic users while people who are heavy download users pay. I think it is very hard to compete against free unless you also make your internet free, and as fast.

I wonder if the free version will be ad or sponsor supported meaning they will occasionally send ads to your web browsers and newsletter e-mail.

What browser do you use?

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:17:58 +0000

What browser do you use to surf the internet?

I use Google Chrome.

Do you need to know a lot of coding, and graphic design to have a site with lots of traffic?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:28:43 +0000

No, I don't think you need to know much or any coding or graphic design skills to create a website which can generate a lot of traffic unless your site is a "website template site" where you sell or give away free website templates which you made.

Many people these days just use phpBB, Invision, vBulletin, other forum software, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and CMSes and buy or use pre-made themes which more skilled programmers made which are optimized for search engines.

Newbie users uses Tumblr, Blogspot, and membership blogs and forums which are free which requires no installing, or design skills since everything is pre-made.

I think what really matters is having a lot of unique and quality content like articles/posts, videos, and pictures on your website, and spending many hours a day promoting your website links on social networking sites, forums, blogs, and other type of sites which allow link backs to your site then the traffic will naturally come to your site when people click on your signature link.

Should everyone be able to access Government websites without a paid ISP by using Free Government ISP?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:16:57 +0000

Yes, it would be good if the police, fire dept., hospital, Army, Navy, City hall, government and the libraries website are free to access from home without subscribing to a paid ISP, or the city/government just provide free dial-up for accessing "ONLY" their government websites for people who can't afford Internet, but need to go on Gov. websites for accessing information about Government services like welfare, filing police reports, joining the Army and garbage collection schedule.

Although, there are already free dial-up internet services like http://www.netzero.net/free . But, they probably have a lot of time limits or require you to look at ads on your browser's toolbar when you use their free internet.