Amazon having a Free App of the Day Greatest Hits Promotion Today

If you have a Kindle Fire like I do, then this might be something you'll be interested in. Amazon.com has made free 15 (yes 15!) apps that are usually paid ones that were previously offered as the paid free app of the day.

But if you are interested in these 15 apps which include Splashtop Remote, Red Wrecker, Lame Castle, Gravilux, Call of Atlantis, and more, you had better hurry up since this appears to be a 1 day only free sale for these apps!

I should mention these might work on other Android devices as well, and you might need a credit card and an address in the U.S. for verification purposes in addition to your Amazon account to get these free apps today.

An Ironic Segment for NBC's Hoda and Kathie Lee portion of this morning's Today show

First, I want to congratulate those who won their elections even though I don't agree with the direction this country is headed in. But I don't want to discuss politics today since we have been crammed with this stuff for months.

Instead I want to mention the rather ironic segment on the Kathie Lee and Hoda part of this morning's Today show on NBC.

I found it very odd that Kathie Lee and Hoda are talking about tips to prevent being hacked with a computer expert even though NBC's own website (YES, NBC the company!) was hacked just this past Sunday by a computer hacker.

Not one mention of the successful hacking attempt was mentioned during this segment. This is not really surprising since NBC does not want to embarrass itself, but the problem is the public has the right to know, and therefore NBC News has the duty to report news that is negative to their own company.

I just thought how ironic it was that NBC is giving information on how to prevent a breach from a hacker. I would have probably found the segment somewhat more credible if NBC wouldn't have tried to hide the fact that they have computer security issues themselves.

NBC.COM apparently has been hacked

Just wanted to let people know that NBC.COM appears to have been hacked by some Nigerians. This is not very comforting to know since this is happening so close to a presidential election here in the states. You might want to be careful when going to NBC.COM right at the moment.

This election year is getting ugly

I am back after several months because I have been rather busy the last several months, and I am getting very frustrated with the current election year political tactics. Therefore, I want to let some of my thoughts known.

The race that is really getting me the most frustrated right now is the Washington State Governor's Race between Congressman Jay Inslee and the Attorney General Rob McKenna.

This race is so ugly now since the Seattle Times newspaper has made some very poor choices in judgment.

For example, they publish an article just a week and a half before Election Day and after ballots have already been mailed out that makes Rob McKenna out to be a frequent traveler on the job going to places such as Disneyland during his days as Attorney General. Jay Inslee, who has already aired many misleading ads about McKenna during this campaign, quickly used the article in his new commercials with The Seattle Times logo making this look like a very negative fact about McKenna.

Why is it so bad about The Seattle Times running this article?

First, the article is a little biased favoring Inslee by making McKenna the main subject of the article.

Second, McKenna does not get a chance to debate this with his opponent on live TV before the election.

Third, it is too close to the actual election.

Fourth, this information was made available by McKenna a long time ago as it was public disclosure information.

and let me bring up a fifth reason that most people are not aware of:

Fifth, McKenna's daughters are now being used to make their own Dad look bad.

How is the fifth reason possible? Well it goes back to that Disneyland trip. It was actually for a conference that was a legitimate trip attended by other Attorney Generals from other nearby states.

What has happened is that one of his daughters happened to go to Disneyland with their Dad and innocently posted a Twitter picture taken at the amusement park.

Well someone against the McKenna campaign found this and are now using this as proof that McKenna was maybe abusing public money.

I find these types of political attacks offensive. Children shouldn't be used to discredit their political parent. With attacks like these, it is no wonder why there is a shortage of good politicians, both Democrat and Republican.

As for whether or not McKenna went to Disneyland funded by taxpayers, maybe he did, but even if you want to assume he did, why is going on a vacation with your family such a negative thing?

Would you have rather seen that money go towards something else such as his pension fund or more TV campaign ads that are already too frequently airing right now?

I didn't think so.

Even though there may have been some bad tactics used by McKenna's camp in this campaign, my vote is still for Rob McKenna. Sorry Jay Inslee, you lost my vote due to your rather misleading ads and your supporters dirty tactics which are way worse than your opponent McKenna's campaign.

What was that something that happened today that made me think Michael J. Fox would make a better presidential candidate than Obama or Romney?

Answer: The NBC Today Show this morning.

Now let me explain what I am talking about.

This morning they had announced several times throughout the Today show that Anderson Cooper, a news personality at CNN, revealed he is gay. Well later in the 9AM hour of the Today Show, some interesting information was revealed by Willie Geist, who is filling in for Matt Lauer since Lauer is most likely on vacation until the Ann Curry situation settles down.

What I was unaware of was that Willie Geist's father is Bill Geist who is a regular on CBS Sunday Morning. I was also unaware until that segment which didn't air until the 9AM hour that his father Bill announced the other day that he has Parkinson's.

Now here is the AHA part!

Why is Anderson Cooper getting so much news attention for coming out being gay while Bill Geist revealing he has Parkinson's is getting hardly any attention? This is so wrong on many levels, especially considering they are even in the same occupation!

Is it that we have accepted that Parkinson's awareness is not important in this country these days? Parkinson's is still a major issue in the health field despite many scientific discoveries.

So back to my original question, why would Michael J. Fox make a better president than Romney or Obama?

Because President Obama gets more attention for coming out saying he is for Gay Marriages than if he talks about Parkinson's while Mitt Romney does not look like the type of guy who has had to deal with a health issue like Parkinson's and even if he did he could afford the best doctors unlike most Americans.

If Michael J. Fox was president, a cause like Parkinson's awareness would not take a back seat to politics, and Parkinson's would get the news coverage it deserves.

Sadly, there is one problem with Michael J. Fox becoming President: Even though he is a dual Canadian/American citizen, he was born Canadian!! What a shame!

Ann Curry's departure from Today just the latest in a series of problems for NBC

I have finally gotten around to posting something again. Today I want to talk about Ann Curry's very sudden departure from the Today show.

Was Ann Curry forced out at the Today show?

The answer to that is yes.

Did NBC do the right thing by letting her go so abruptly?

Yes, and here is why:

She is the most expendable Today show personality at the moment since they need Matt Lauer to do his "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" segments. They need Al Roker since his big mugshot covers the side of the Today show trucks during their annual charity drives. Natalie Morales is needed more than Ann too because of her exposure on other shows like the Marriage Ref. So Ann had to go because she is a news reporter on a show that focuses more on entertainment than actual news stories nowadays.

The only thing that NBC News is guilty of here is handling a departure of one of their own in a very lousy way. Like someone pointed out in online comments that I have read, Meredith Viera got 2 hours for people to say goodbye to her on her last day, and Ann Curry got one lousy segment at the end of the 8AM hour just because they wanted Curry gone before the outdoor concert series with Maroon 5 performing the following day, and NBC definitely wanted Curry gone before the start of the Olympics because by the end of the Olympics, most will have likely forgotten this lousy transition.

I think I said enough about the Curry situation. I will probably address NBC's many other problems soon.

Why are beverages the current news topics in WA State and NYC?

I am back because I feel like things are starting to feel a little more back to normal in my life after a lot of major changes. But the real reason I wanted to post something today is because of 2 beverage related stories in the news right now. One is about NYC's mayor Michael Bloomberg putting a limit on the size of soda pop. The other is the sale of hard liquor at regular Washington State retailers.

Here is how Mayor Michael Bloomberg SHOULD HAVE handled the soda issue:

Instead of limiting the size of a drink, the right thing to do is to allow the consumer to choose which drink size they want by making it mandatory for places to offer smaller size drinks if only large sizes exist. This is not a moderation issue but an issue of consumer choice which is a big difference. The only thing Mayor Bloomberg has done here is likely unite Pepsi and Coke drinkers behind an issue which is unheard of these days!

Meanwhile, Washington State has its own beverage issues today:

Let us hope that kids are not using today's newspapers here in Washington State as an educational resource. That is because nearly half of the front section of today's newspaper is ads for hard liquor. With beverage names like "Skinny Girl", these could appeal to young kids. It is kind of sad when even the newspaper is not a very family friendly way of getting news.

Conclusion:

With all of the bad things going on in this country today from Washington State to NYC such as high unemployment and rising fuel costs, can we please just skip the discussion on whether or not people should be able to drink soda and can we please cut back the "Black Friday" type ads to announce the start of hard liquor sales here in Washington? I know that is too much to ask, but at least I tried!

Lincoln: Not Gone, But Somewhat Forgotten

Since I haven't posted any entries here for awhile, I thought I would talk about our 16th U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln, since today is what would have been his 203rd birthday if he were still alive.

Even though it is his birthday today, he is mostly forgotten today. Special editions of Good Morning America and Today this morning focused their broadcasts almost entirely on the passing of singer Whitney Houston.

But what I really want to talk about today is the United States penny which has a portrait of President Lincoln on the heads side of the coin. I want to try to give my opinions to some important questions: Why is the penny still around and should the penny still be manufactured today? I also want to mention how the outcome of this year's Presidential race could somewhat determine the fate of the penny.

Since we currently pretty much have the technology to do away with the penny, what are the main reasons why we still have it?

1. President Obama: He is from Illinois which is where President Lincoln is from. Even though they are from opposite political parties, Pres. Lincoln is still popular among many Democrats.

2. Lincoln's 200th birthday: In order to celebrate what would have been his 200th birthday, the U.S. Mint came up with the idea to release new designs for the tails side of the penny which is likely prolonging the penny's lifespan.

3. General public and politicians not open to change: It is rather strange how politicians and the general public seem to be OK with making changes these days from everything to Postal Service operations, definitions of marriage, and the legalization of certain controlled substances to make them fit with our modern times. But the penny seems to be ignored when making changes to modernize our currency.

Now should the penny still be manufactured today? Well it sort of depends on whether you are rich or poor. It also sort of depends on whether this country wants to be technologically advanced and globally competitive from other countries.

If President Obama wants to live up to his State of the Union address comments when he talked about being ahead of the other countries' technology and being competitive with them, one of the moves he should make is to eliminate the penny. Mitt Romney, who could be running against President Obama this year and is extremely wealthy compared to most Americans probably didn't make his fortune from the penny. The penny is becoming less important as inflation continues to dwindle the value of the penny.

In conclusion, my opinion is that the Lincoln Penny should probably be phased out sometime this century. With President Obama re-elected it will likely happen at a somewhat slower pace than it would with a potential Mitt Romney Administration since a rich guy like Mitt has practically no need for the Lincoln one cent piece, and our current president is likely to keep alive a piece of currency that shows the image of one of his political idols.

Amazon.com opening Washington State Retail Location???

There is a story floating around since this morning that Amazon.COM is planning to open a retail store right here in the State of Washington. The retail store is supposedly going to be a small store that carries mostly e-reader related items such as Kindle devices and accessories.

What does this mean?

The answer is we don't know yet what this means exactly.

If they do open a store here in Washington State, they will be facing a lot of competition: Walmart, K-Mart, Target, Fred Meyer, and Best Buy to name a few.

The only advantages to having a physical location to purchase from would likely be Black Friday promotions and sales to draw more interest to the Amazon and Kindle brands and the ability to shop for last minute gifts where even one day shipping would be too late to get to the buyer on time.

My first reaction would be that this doesn't sound like a great idea to open a physical store. But with the U.S. Postal Service's new slower delivery times coming very soon, this might actually be a good idea.

It should be interesting to see if this retail store idea makes it past the planning stages. We will all have to just stay tuned for now!

Kindle Fire News and WDTV Live Update

Since it is a new month already, I thought I would comment again on the long awaited WDTV Live Plus firmware. Sadly, we are still waiting (been about 6 months now) for a new and likely final firmware update from Western Digital for the older generation of the WDTV Live and Live Plus machines. It was revealed by Western Digital that they did intend to put out this likely final update around the beginning of the year. So once again it appears that Western Digital cannot keep up with putting out firmwares.

Now Archos, on the other hand, has been a rather different story when it comes to firmware updates. They put out one like every other month or so for their Gen8 tablets it seems. It is really too bad Western Digital doesn't try to put out firmware updates on a consistent basis like Archos does with their tablets.

Now I wanted to briefly talk about the Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet. There is a lot of talk going around that Walmart is going to give purchasers of the Kindle Fire this weekend a $50 Walmart gift card. It sounds like a good deal, but I am not sure I would take advantage of it since a newer version of Kindle Fire is likely going to be out by the end of this year. If you really need a cheap tablet right at this moment, that might be a really good deal. If you are wanting a newer version of the Fire that has better features, this might be a deal you will probably want to skip.

And finally I should mention today's Amazon Free Paid App of the Day available here in the United States. Today's offering is called Gravilux. It is quite a unique type app. It is hard to describe what it is like. It may not be for everyone, but it is way better than that rather cheap looking Tic Tac Toe game that was the free app yesterday in my opinon. If you are a creative person, chances are you will like the Gravilux app.

Hopefully, I will be back again soon!

A mid-January 2012 Update

I have been away for a while. So I thought I would check in again. It has been a snowy week here in Washington State. Much of the state from Seattle to Eastern Washington has been hit by snowstorms this week. The snow can really disrupt things in this state, especially around Seattle.

I should mention that my NATHANROADINWA YouTube Channel videos have recently passed the 50,000 total views mark. So I still feel good about getting 100,000 total views by the end of this year.

As for the rumored final firmware update to the WDTV Live Plus from Western Digital that was mentioned as being planned for early 2012, it has not happened yet which is no surprise because Western Digital has a long history of making you wait months instead of days for a new firmware. Like I have said before, it is highly unlikely I will purchase another Western Digital media streamer again because of the lack of updates. For a company like Western Digital to announce that they are not likely going to release another firmware update to a product like the WDTV Family less than 24 months after being released is totally unacceptable. They need to create products that can be easily upgradable without forcing you to buy a new media streamer every 24 months or so just to get a device that has current support.

As for those wondering when my next YouTube video on my NATHANROADINWA Channel is coming out, I will most likely put out another video by sometime in February at the latest. I just have been rather busy lately with other activities.

So that is my update for now. I will be back rather soon probably.

Possibly some good news about the AMAZON.COM App Store!

In my video review that I did last year for the Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet, I mentioned that a credit card WAS required to download even the free apps on their Apps Store. Well this morning I decided to try once again to verify that this was still the case. I tried to purchase a free app. I just selected a free Solitaire game app to purchase. And it worked! I was able to purchase the app for free even though I still had not entered any debit/credit card info. I tried to purchase another one. That time I chose the Sudoku Free app. And it also downloaded fine without any payment information!

Before you get excited and try it yourself, I should warn people that I had told Amazon.COM about the problem of the Credit Card being required for free apps and the Amazon.COM person said they would look into it. So they might have made an exception just for me. If you have had the same problem with getting free apps without entering a credit card, please let us know if my experience is an isolated one or if Amazon.COM has indeed changed their payment policy for all users.

2012 is here, but is that a good thing?

I want to start out by wishing everyone a Happy New Year. Now that 2012 is here, maybe things will improve. But there is a good chance they will not improve. Some of the bad things that happened in 2011 include:

Postal Service debates about cutbacks in service.

Postal Service is still cutting back processing centers and still threatening longer mailing times as we speak.

Western Digital continued to be slow to update their WDTV Live family machines.

There is a new firmware finally coming out any day now for the discontinued 2010 Plus model, but it is rumored to be the last. Western Digital will unlikely fix any more bugs or update the services supported on this model. This means if you bought the Plus model like I did, you are probably regretting the purchase of it now.

YouTube view count bug came back around December 2011 and appears to be still giving inaccurate view counts as of early 2012.

YouTube had listed the same view counts on several of my videos at the exact same number for days until a couple of days ago. But it appears that the view counts are still not updating right away which makes it hard for me to judge how well my videos are being received since I get very few comments or ratings on my videos.

2012 GOALS FOR NATHANROADINWA YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Now I want to talk about my 2012 goals for my NATHANROADINWA YouTube Channel.

Hit the 10,000 views milestone for a single video for the first time.

This one I am almost certain will happen this year.

Hit the 100,000 views milestone for my total views.

This one seems in reach as long as I continue to get views at the rate that I was getting during the 4th Quarter of 2011.

Finally the most important one which is to be more successful on YouTube.

YouTube is a tricky platform for someone with my video making style. I have seen videos similar to mine that are shot with absolutely no preparation on a low resolution webcam and get way more views than mine even though I try to research the topics thoroughly and make the information much more organized. Unfortunately, YouTube continues to be dominated by people who make funny videos and by celebrity videos or those with subscribers it seems. I don't really encourage subscribing on YouTube since it takes your attention away from videos made by other individuals who upload an interesting video on a rare occasion.

So hopefully I will be able to make the needed adjustments to my videos to accomplish the third goal. We will find out sometime this year.