Anyone who knows me, knows me at all, knows I read…I read a lot. I have posted reviews of authors I like, books I’ve read, blogs and posts I like. I Retweet most of my favorites to give them the kudos they deserve, even from my small corner of the world.

This week I discovered Amazon’s Kindle for PC. I have to tell you, I think I am addicted. I carry a netbook with me a lot. Mainly because I am never sure exactly where I’ll be when I need to do some work, school or otherwise. Or have an idea for a really neat article and want to get it on at least a notepad file if not a word document. I have a bit of arthritis in my fingers and typing is much easier for me at this time than writing by hand.

Unfortunately, like the book freak I am, I put the application on my regular laptop and my desktop too. Note to self….Self,

you need to work when at your desk, not read Harry Dresden or Jane Austen or all those lovely Scifi books and stories you now have on these machines. Girl, you need to work. Okay, so you can read on breaks and at lunch, after you finish all those web pages that need your attention. Now go.

Self is not happy. Self is a geek, a book worm for over fifty years and does not give up easily. Self is going to get her ass kicked for not getting stuff done.

I read everything, books, magazines, blogs, articles. I don’t feel the need to have fancy fonts or colors, black on white is good works fine and my ‘puters will magnify stuff big enough I don’t have any problems with it. I have read a lot of reviews where people don’t like not having pretty fonts and colors, come on now, get real…how many books do you read that uses a Script text in dark blue on a pink page?( a bit extreme here, but you get the point) Books I buy are usually standard, black on white, something similar to a Times Roman in size 12pt.

Do I like the feel of a book? You betcha. Do I need to have a thousand or more volumes taking up space in my home? Nada. I have relegated all my classics and older books to the Kindle app. I have discovered too that I can type out anything I want, send it to my kindle site, they convert it and send it back to my email and I can put it in my kindle library. I do not type anywhere near as fast as I read, but it is food for thought.

I can also make notes in the Kindle app after highlighting a section. I am always loosing something I want to check on, some fact or other and then can’t find the damn thing. The notes make it easy for me to find what I need. I have a folder on all my computers called “Odd Shit”. I keep all the bits and pieces of stuff I don’t put anywhere else. Like ancient languages, impact craters, weird definitions; you see my point. I frequently read something, think “I need to look that up” and then have to thumb through the entire book to find it again. I notice on the Kindle, I highlight and make the note instantaneously, so I miss nothing.

Amazon has thousands of Kindle books. I paid less than a dollar for a lot of them, but stuff like Jane Austen, I got for free. I bought Jim butcher’s “Changes” for 12.99. I wanted to get a new book to check it out. I was not disappointed. I read it in one day, only getting up to go potty, eat and do those mundane things that have to be done every day.

Changes is 488 pages and is only in hardcover at this time, it weighs 1.4 lbs and Amazon sells it for 10.99. Borders sell it for 24.99. At Amazon you pay shipping unless your order is over $25. In the long run, I think I got a bargain. It was delivered to my account in less than 5 minutes. It weighs nothing..nada. I now have it on all three of my computers. Reading it was easy, the words flowed and I was a very happy camper, lost in the world of Harry Dresden.

Do I recommend Kindle for PC for everyone? It depends. I always carry the net  book, so carrying a Kindle too would just suck. My bag is already too heavy. If you carry your laptop or netbook everywhere it is very useful, just one less piece of equipment to carry. If you don’t then I would suggest an actual Kindle. The idea itself is great. I did a few e-books in pdf form, sent them to free kindle.com; had them converted  and sent to my email in the kindle format, just to see how it went. It worked fine. I also sent a lecture document to see how it did. No problems. So I see if I had the kindle itself it would work well.

It’s not perfect. Then and again, nothing is. It is however a very neat thing to use. I will have to make sure I don’t get too involved and break my personal bank.

A few months ago, my son Jamie; bought me a Dell Mini 10. I was not sure if I would use it for a lot other than, you know park, mall; stuff like that.

I use my desk top for almost everything. I have a really good Bamboo pen tablet and a 17″ monitor, so why did I let him get me a mini pc?

I can carry the Dell anywhere. It fits in my purse. (Just in case you want to try this, invest in a good cover for it). To do a big assignment I carry a 250gb external usb drive that I keep most of my files on. I try to keep this updated from the desktop, sometimes I’m good and sometimes, well we’ve all been there, done that.

If you aren’t a gamer, I’m not by the way, the Mini is great. If you can watch a movie on a portable dvd player, you’ll have no problem with the 10″ screen. I use notepad for most of my files and it’s wifi so I can check my stuff pretty easy. The 160gb internal hard drive is plenty big enough for adobe, office, alot of img files, and other assorted stuff. I have dreamweaver and all on there, but right now I am hand coding stuff for school, so I don’t use it much.

It is a good thing for me. I have heard all sorts of reviews and stuff. I know I could have got different stuff, more; but this works fine and gives me a portability I needed. I even took it on a plane to Wisconsin and had no problems at all. The WIFI works great and I find it easy to find public hotspots.

It also has a built in web cam, so I can have video conferences. I am 90% deaf so using MSN or Yahoo works real well. Of course people on the other end have to have the programs on their machine too. My husband’s $2000+ HP does not have a web cam, though it does have a killer processor and 4-freakin-gb’s of ram…that’s the only thing I would like to have more of, he actually have the same size hard drive (160gb) that I have on the mini. We are NOT gonna talk about the 17″ display or the full size keyboard. The weight is three times my mini. Then and again, I don’t have to write software programs on my Dell either.

I think all in all we got what we need. If I want to do websites on the Mini , I have no problem with it. It works fine and if I have a good enough hotspot everything flows good. If the hotspot is weak, I just save stuff for home, that’s why I pay big bucks for my internet connection.

I am still dithering around about security and stuff. Sean on www.ourodyssey.us has a good article on their blog about moving stuff from a full size laptop to an Acer Mini. Sean is a puter geek so he know what he’s talking about.

Just be aware if you go the Mini route. It is called a Mini for a reason. It’s small (though I think I’d rather have a Mini than a blackberry, those screens are hell with tri-focals), it’s very portable. It runs (mine does at least) Windows XP. I would not buy anything with Window Vista on it, and Windows 7 is still coming;though they loaded Windows 7 on my hubby’s HP, cause Vista wouldn’t run his programming programs. Gotta love it.

I love my little Sanyo point and shoot, it has never let me down. Somewhere along the line, I have realized, I need something just a bit more, not a lot, just a bit.

I am a fortunate woman to have a very generous husband that lets me act out all my desires. I find I enjoy web designing, a lot. The problem is, I have allergies and the headaches make it hard for me to stay focused on a web page for long lengths of time. It is however, something I am working at.

“What in the hell? ” you may ask. Does any of this relate to getting a new camera?

Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. I am always looking for interesting photos I can use for various projects. Frankly, I am getting tired of “stealing” them from the web. I want to use my own stuff.

Enter the, “I got a new camera.” deal. It’s not really new, not as far as cameras go, it came out in 2006. To me, though, it is great. I got a Kodak Easyshare z650. Which has to be one of the easiest cameras out there to use. I can use one hand to do almost anything. Which means, I can drive and shoot, which makes me marginally safer than those that drive with a cell phone permanently attached to one hand and ear.

If you haven’t caught it in any of my earlier posts, I am 90% deaf, so operating a cell phone while driving would make me slightly less dangerous than , let’s see, umm, the freaking plague. I can however point a camera out the window, pay attention to my driving and push the little button. Of course this is much more fun if my husband and best friend, Steve is doing the driving.

I can’t stress enough that if you’re going to buy something like this, buy for yourself. Not for mom, dad or someone’s reviews. Pot, kettle, black! I know. I do a lot of my buying from someone’s likes and don’t likes. So far I have been lucky. The only things I haven’t always scored with is someone’s opinion of wine or food. At that point I seem to have my own, singular opinion.

I have included some shots with my “new” camera

. Hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed shooting them.