I posted about my Amazon Kindle a few months back and someone asked me about the other generations of Kindle and which I liked better and why. I met a friend of mine (shout out to Lisa) at a restaurant where I brought my Kindle 2, Tom’s (my husband) Kindle DX and she brought her Kindle 1. I took a quick video (more after the video)…

Kindle 1 – I like that the WhisperNet has a physical button on the device. It’s really easy to flip it on and off. You want to keep it off unless you need to download a book so that it doesn’t drain your battery so fast. I don’t like the “Next Page” and other buttons on the side of the Kindle 1. They are really easy to hit on accident.

Kindle 2 – They got rid of the data card slot. I’m ambivalent about this for myself because I cannot imagine myself having more than 1500 books waiting to be read where I’d need a data card. I really don’t like the WhisperNet being software controlled, but it’s not a deal breaker. The big difference is in the controls. The buttons on the side are pressed inward towards the screen so it’s harder to accidentally change the page. They also moved to a small joystick (which can be fidgety at first, took me a while to get used to using it).

Kindle DX - My husband likes this one, but I don’t… It does have native PDF and you can flip the screen long ways to see better and it automatically knows and turns the screen for you. But for me, it’s too big. It doesn’t fit in my purse and it’s a little on the heavy side. The big thing for me is that there is no “next page” on the left. Their answer is you can read it upside down, but then the keyboard and controls are all on top – it’s awkward.

The bottom line is that there are different Kindles for different needs. My husband likes his DX because he doesn’t have a purse and it fits in his briefcase. It’s also good for magazine/newspaper reading as well as his technical documents. I like the 2 for the portability and the ability to use that left “next page” button.

It is a very cool device – either way

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Right now a beach vacation sounds great, but might feel unaffordable. And, uh-oh, the car odometer just rolled over to 60,000 and is due for one of those major expensive checkups, so that will wipe out a large part of your vacation fund.

Here’s how I took care of both of those obstacles by signing new clients who had services and products I wanted.

The owner/manager of some lovely beach homes in an area where we  love to vacation offers shared ownership of some of his beach front properties and rents them when the share owners can’t use them. We’d been invited guests of friends who own one of these timeshares and imagined how nice it would be to own one ourselves. My husband and I just couldn’t swing the cost of fractional ownership and the rental prices are staggering, too.

We visited this resort area once or twice a year, always staying in not-so-nice digs, and for just a couple of nights’ stay. After one of these visits, I decided to contact the owner  of the luxury properties and see if he needed any web support (I’d visited his site and knew it remained largely unchanged for long periods). It was one of those happy serendipitous connections: he’d been looking for someone to take over the site’s maintenance for awhile and I called at the right time. We went forward from there and now I barter with him periodically for a week at one of his lovely properties.

My auto mechanic of twenty years had never made the leap to the Web. Living in a small town means we’ve become well-acquainted over the years and when I come in for service we chat about kids, baseball, our town. Enough years have passed that father had passed ownership to son, who seemed poised to take the business in some new hip directions. During an oil change I the son if he had considered building a website. He responded that he knew they needed to do it but were too busy to figure out where to begin. We chatted about it and the seed was planted. A couple months later, he called and asked if I could come in and discuss building a site. We agreed to barter and I ended up with almost a year of auto service in exchange for the project.

On a smaller scale, I have worked out trades for advertising on one of my sites with my massage therapist, the owner of a local yarn shop, my hair stylist, and a cycling shop.

The approach to this strategy is simple.

1. List the  businesses you already frequent, and scope out their operations for a place where your services might be a fit. Since you already know what they have to offer, there is barter potential if you land them as a client.
2. Pay them a visit at a time when they aren’t swamped, and mention what you can do for them. If you’re a regular face and they are already familiar with you on one level, it we be much easier.
3. After you have a contract and have developed a good working relationship with this new client, broach the barter idea.

If you haven’t bartered before, you’ll need to become familiar with the IRS rules for barter transactions and be sure to issue invoices and keep accounting records which will satisfy the government. You also need to consider that barter income reduces cash income, so you’ll need to make certain you don’t arrange for more bartering relationships than you can afford.

In the current economy, hand picking the clients you want from the businesses you already know and trust is a low risk approach. Just look around. These may be in your community just waiting for you to tap them. Or, if you prefer not to work with local clients, think about the businesses you frequent when traveling, visiting family, or on vacation. You probably have many relationships with businesses in which you could convert your role from customer to service provider. And if you can add a bartering arrangement to the deal, you both win.

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Well this isn’t a geeky post – but it’s still relevant.   And I’m not just posting a link because I’m featured in the book.    Okay, well, maybe I am!  LOL

Pam Ivey (one of our GeekGyrls) and Kristi Pavlik have just released the new book called The Business of Being Virtual which is now available!

This book brings you insights into some of the best known and successful virtual assistants in the industry.

You can learn more about the book at www.businessofbeingvirtual.com.

Here’s the table of contents:

Congratulations Pam and Kristi!!!

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I recently did a Squidoo page (lens) for an author and ran across 2 widgets that are perfect for a pre-release book launch.

One is a Countdown widget and the other is the Amazon Spotlight widget.

There are a couple of Amazon widgets that do different things, but Amazon Spotlight allowed me to specify the author’s book on Amazon.com.  What’s cool is that it has a Buy Now button and everything, allowing this Squidoo page to easily act as the book’s sales page, if you don’t already have one.

Squidoo provides many widgets to make your page interesting and interactive. The fun part is finding the ones that will give your page that extra pop.

The Countdown widget supplies an air of anticipation and excitement to the page when your book is scheduled to be published and you have the date. Not sure what it looks like after the date comes and goes. Will keep you posted on that one.

If you want, check it out at The Introverted Leader.  It’s a good example of how authors and writers can use Squidoo to promote their book.

Social Network Marketing to the rescue!

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Showing off my newest toy

Learn more about the
Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device.

Resources:
My Written Review
Amazon Kindle Link
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

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I read TONS of books and Rob will attest that I buy TONS of books too. He actually had the audacity the other day, to say that I was going to create a sinkhole in our basement with my vast collection. Humph… he just doesn’t get it.

One of my favourite and often referred to books is  by Maria Veloso. I haven’t read another book that has given me so much inspiration or guidance in creating great sales copy for the online world.

One of the best tips she offers is to find a sales page online that you think is really great and effective, and literally sit down with pen and paper and copy it word for word, five or six times. Yep, it’ll take you forever – some of those pages are LONG but you’ll soon start to feel the rhythm of the copy and understand the methods they use and it can become second nature.

This book is chock full of awesome ideas with plenty of examples to get you in tune to write your own dynamic copy that sells!

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