Tag: financial - Part 5

What Happens If You Get Your Lost Or Stolen Kindle / Fire Back?

Regular readers may recall my son lost his Kindle Fire when we were visiting family out of state this past June, and the incident inspired my post, What To Do If Your Kindle Or Kindle Fire Is Lost Or Stolen. Since that post quickly became, and continues to be, among the most popular posts of all time on this site, I’m assuming many of you have dealt with a lost or stolen Kindle or Kindle Fire so I’m back with an update: my son’s Fire was turned in to the airport lost and found, and my parents were able to pick it up and mail it back to me. This post is about what happens next: how to get your formerly lost or stolen device back into your Amazon account’s good graces.

What’s The Difference Between SD And Micro SD Memory Cards?

I won’t bore you with all the technical details of what makes a micro SD card different from a standard SD card, because I’m pretty sure all you care about is whether or not a micro SD card will work with your various devices. The answer is, so long as your device can accept a standard SD card, yes, it can accept a micro SD card — provided you have a standard SD card adapter or USB plug-in adapter (as pictured in this post). You can buy micro-to-standard SD card adapters and USB plug-in adapters on their own, but plenty of micro SD cards come bundled with adapters, too. To use a micro SD card in a device that takes standard SD cards (most digital cameras, for example), you just slide the micro SD card into the adapter’s card slot, then insert the adapter into your device the same as…

HD vs. SD – Is It Worth Paying Extra For HD Digital Videos?

I recently got this question from a site visitor and thought it’s probably something a lot of site visitors are wondering, so here goes. Neo is just as much The One in SD as he is in HD. High Definition (HD) vs. Standard Definition (SD) In a nutshell, the difference between high definition and standard definition images is the number of pixels contained in the image on display. HD images have more pixels per square inch than standard definition videos. Okay fine, but what does that really mean? It means that HD images can show much finer detail than SD images. Here’s a simple analogy that should explain why. Imagine you have a 3×5″ card, and you’ve been asked to draw a picture of a flower on it. You’re given your choice of two drawing tools: either a preschooler-type crayon (the really big ones) or a finely sharpened pencil. If you…

Amazon Review Tips & Tricks For Savvy Shoppers

Amazon is one of my preferred shopping outlets, mainly because I’m an Amazon Prime member and that means I get free two-day shipping on almost everything I buy there. However, it’s also a great resource for any shopper, even if you ultimately make your purchase somewhere else. This is largely because of the customer reviews, but if your approach to Amazon customer reviews is to merely look at the overall average review rating for a given product and maybe spot-check a few of the most positive and most negative reviews, you aren’t getting the maximum level of helpfulness and guidance from those reviews. How To Use Amazon Customer Reviews Like A Boss: The Little-Known Search This Product’s Reviews Feature Amazon reviews are a particularly great shopper resource when you’re looking at a big-ticket item, such as the Samsung Galaxy Player pictured in this post. You may have heard it’s the exact same hardware as…

Ebooks Settlement Refunds: How To Get Your Share of the Ebooks Price Fixing Settlement Fund

Today Publisher’s Weekly reports: According to a recent filing, publishers have paid a total of $166,158,426 to settle state and consumer e-book price fixing charges, including an additional $3,909,000 to settle consumer claims in Minnesota. In all, the total damages assessed to the publishers came in at $218,883,000…And that figure could jump considerably now that Apple has been found liable at trial. Pending a reversal on appeal, Apple will eventually have to pay to settle the state and consumer claims as well. I wrote an article about this for Kindle Fire on Kindle Nation Daily, Apple Loses in Ebook Price Fixing Case. The article provides more information about the basis of the government’s case against the big publishers who were involved as well as Apple, so if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about here that may be a good place for you to start. Don’t worry – the link…

Amazon’s Instant Video Finder Is A Terrific, FREE Tool For Finding Your Next Great Movie Or TV Show

Whether you get your movies from Redbox, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Video on Demand from your cable provider, or even the old-school way, by purchasing discs, you’ve got to give Amazon’s Instant Video Finder tool a try! You know there are LOTS of great movies and TV shows out there you’ve never seen, but you also know there are plenty of clunkers. How can you narrow the field down to the winners? When you’ve got specific criteria, like maybe you need a kid-friendly film to keep the young ones occupied while the grown-ups socialize in another room, how can you quickly drill down to appropriate viewing material, AND choose something the kids will actually enjoy? When you’re in the mood for something fairly specific in terms of subject matter or tone and the usual broad categories of Thriller, Drama and Action aren’t cutting it, how can you find what you’re looking for without spending as…

What To Do When Your Kindle Or Kindle Fire Is Lost Or Stolen

Hey, Thief Who Took My Son’s Kindle Fire: Think you just got a free tablet you can use to order all kinds of stuff on MY Amazon account? Not so fast. When you lose your Kindle or Kindle Fire, believe it or not the loss of the device is not the worst part. No, that would be the fact that your Amazon account is now vulnerable to wrongful charges from anyone who finds your missing gadget. There is a tiny bit of good news, though: as always, Amazon’s exceptional Kindle customer service reps stand at the ready to prevent this from happening. Note: if you’ve already gotten your lost or stolen device back, see this follow-up post: What Happens If You Get Your Lost Or Stolen Kindle / Fire Back? The Thief Not Only Gets A Nifty E-reader Or Tablet, But Full Access To Charge Stuff To Your Amazon Account, Too Remember when…

Music Lovers: Are You Checking Out Amazon’s Monthly List of $5 MP3 Albums?

Did you know that MP3s you buy from Amazon are totally iTunes-compatible, and totally DRM-free? DRM-free means no restrictions on copying to all your various devices, no restrictions on backing up, and no problem using these MP3s on both Apple-brand and non-Apple devices that can play MP3s. That means you can play ’em on your iPod, iPhone, Android phone or tablet, Kindle Fire, PC, Mac, or any other device that can play MP3 files. And did you also know that Amazon kicks off each new month in its MP3 Store by discounting 100 MP3 albums and posting that list to the “deals” page of the MP3 store? I’ve been posting about this list each month for over a year at the Kindle Fire on Kindle Nation Daily site, so I can tell you true: every month’s list has more than a few of those “essential” albums that always turn up on annual lists of…

Bargain Hunters: It’s An Ideal Time To Get A Free Amazon Prime Trial

5/16/13 UPDATE: Note that the 30 Day Free Prime Trial offer may no longer be in effect; it was valid as of the writing of this post, and comes back from time to time, but I can’t guarantee it’s still in effect as you read this. I am a bargain hunter par excellence, I know a great deal when I see one. I also know that time-consuming, hassle-filled “bargains” aren’t really bargains at all, and neither are low prices on crummy products or services. Having said all that, I can tell you that taking advantage of free trial periods for premium services is one of the major tools in my bargain hunter’s utility belt. Free Trials: These Days, It’s Easy To Cancel Before The Expiration Date You may be leery of “free” trials, because as we all know the sellers’ goal is to hook you in and hope you forget…

Can I Share Content From My Thingie?

This is a question I get pretty often, in many variations. “Can I share the movies on my iPad with my daughter, on her iPad?” “Can my wife use an app I bought for my Galaxy Tab on her Android smart phone?” “Can my roommate listen to the audiobook I got for my Kindle Fire on her own Kindle Fire after I’m done with it?”  The answer to the question of whether or not you can share content from your thingie with someone else’s thingie is twofold: It depends on the thingies, and the content. I can’t possibly address every portable device (the thingies) or every existing piece of content. So I’m going to deal in types of thingies and types of content.