Amazon has recently expanded the usability of their Amazon Kindle devices. The Kindle device is best known for being a reader for electronic books and the ability to subscribe to newspapers and other regularly updating content sources. Well Amazon has expanded this subscription option to now include blogs. For blog site owners who choose to participate, giving their site’s visitors an additional avenue to read the blog on the go.

The service will not be free, as Amazon will charge approximately 99 cents or $1.99. It hasn’t yet been determined what prices they will charge but essentially consider the cost as covering the Kindle WhisperNet wireless delivery system. I have gone through the process of applying for Ryan’s Incredible World to be carried by Amazon’s Kindle Blog service, but it will be Amazon that determines the price, I have no say in the matter. This site should be listed in the next couple of days and I’ll post an update when that occurs.

Unfortunately, the subscription content is not yet available through the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch Amazon Kindle Applications, so it’s strictly for actual Amazon Kindle users initially. It’s nice to have an additional avenue for people to find and enjoy this blog. If you’re interested in purchasing an Amazon Kindle, they’ve recently had a price reduction to $299.00 for the regular size model and $489.00 for the DX (larger sized) model. Click here to visit Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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Yesterday, after visiting my mom for Mother’s Day, I stopped at the Apple Store at Westfield – North County Fair and needed to exchange the Nike+ sensor I had bought in December because I couldn’t get it to work yesterday and I thought it might be a dead battery. The battery is supposed to be good for 1,000 miles, but so far I’ve only gotten about 200 miles on it. So I was a little ticked off that it wasn’t working so I could get in a 2 mile run before visiting my mom.

Before I determined the battery was the most likely source of the problem, I thought the 3.0 beta of the Operating System (OS) was causing the problem. I had managed to get a few runs in using the new OS, even though a couple of those runs ended up not being tracked because the Nike application crashed the iPod. Just to be sure I reinstalled the Operating System but that didn’t fix the problem. So on that basis I figured it was the battery causing the problem.

Well I printed off my purchase receipt since the store emailed me my receipt at the time of purchase. (How cool is that?) And sure enough, I walked right in, talked to one of the employees at the Apple Store and they were more than happy to help me out with no grief whatsoever. The Nike+ sensor was exchanged for a new one in just a matter of minutes and they even went so far as to renew the warranty to the date of the exchange as opposed to the original purchase. I am extremely impressed with the service I received at the Escondido Apple Store. It’s so rare to see service that doesn’t treat you like a criminal for needing assistance. I am so happy to be recommending their stores.

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Skype officially made it’s debut in the iTunes Application Store recently. To say it was a highly anticipated application would be the understatement of the year. Some reports have indicated that the application was downloaded over a million times in the first two days it was available, approximately one download every six seconds to put it in perspective.

What’s so special about Skype? If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service. It’s major claim to fame is it’s ability to allow users to call one another on their computers for free anywhere in the world. Skype can also be used to dial landline phones all over the globe for incredibly cheap phone rates. Calls to mobile phones can be made as well, but outside of the US and Canada, calls to mobile phones elsewhere costs a little more than calling a landline.

Well now that Skype has officially made their debut on the iPhone and iPod Touch, now there’s another avenue for making calls from these devices. In the case of the iPod Touch (2nd Generation only due to the 1st Generation not having microphone support) it brings the ability to make phone calls over a Wi-Fi network to a device not designed to make calls. I decided to pick up one of Apple’s headphones with a built in microphone that’s supports the recording ability the iPod Touch supports and give it a try.

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