O’Reilly recently released a new book in their Head First series – all about Wordpress, the blogging/CMS platform that this and millions of other sites run on. We had a chance to review this solid book over on one of our sister blogs, Untethered Dreams.

Google’s bouncy ball logo on their home page is amusing, but not sure it can beat the Pac Man game version!

Now, don?t take this like I don?t think the Kindle is a slick and slightly sick piece of technology? because I do. But still, there?s room for improvement. Seeing that Dali himself would seem as creative as arithmetic in comparison to me (if I do say so myself), I figured I?d sit down and create a list of Kindle apps that would undoubtedly rock? if they existed. Observe:

1. Star Trek App

Picture this: you pull out your Kindle, flick it on and you?re greeted by a readout that looks just like a Star Trek style maintenance log. This app would let you go where no man has gone before? or at least not that many. Throwing up Spock?s ?Vulcan salute? as you read is optional.

Extra features ? Download Jake Sisko?s novel!
Source

2. Sheet Music App

If the Kindle could offer guitar tab and/or horn charts alongside their standard sheet music app, musicians (myself included) would be jubilant. More so for those with the large-screen Kindle DX, which seems built for impromptu jam sessions. Throw in a metronome coupled with automatic page turning and you got a musician?s wet dream.

The iPhone has been one of Apple’s biggest successes but it’s not exactly the apple of online poker players’ eyes. The iPhone does many things amazingly well, but online poker games aren’t one of them, as Apple’s decision to not support Flash and its stringent approval process for any iPhone app have left online poker fans out in the cold.

The primary roadblock to enjoying real money poker on your iPhone is Apple’s reluctance to approve any app that can be used for online gambling for real money. For better or for worse, the legal landscape is still unclear in many countries when it comes to online gambling, and Apple has decided to steer clear of the issue entirely by not approving the vast majority of online gambling apps. If left to the best poker sites, they’d have had online poker apps for the iPhone available the day it was released, but unfortunately for online poker fans, that decision is still in Apple

Google has a new Gmail feature to help those of us suffering from e-mail overload – Priority Inbox.

The idea is relatively simple. The Priority Inbox component watches your e-mail, what you read and reply to, what you delete and other signals and tries to ‘learn’ what you consider important. It then separates your Inbox into 3 sections: Important (at the top naturally), the Starred items, and Everything Else.

Requisite cute video:

So will it work?

Well that question is really misleading. Shuffling your e-mail around doesn’t necessarily address the flood or your capacity to deal with it. Yes, it does help with pushing the important stuff to the top. But if you are simply receiving more mail than you are able to deal with – if your unread message count keeps growing – then you have a much larger issue.

You need to simplify! You need to start unsubscribing from newsletters and those Facebook notifications (or possibly consolidating them

As an amateur guitarist, I’m always trying to emulate my favorite guitar players, and of course, their sound. But without their rack of effects, getting even close to their sound is tough. And once upon a time, effects were very expensive, but as home computers have become more commonplace, effects have found their way (at least partially) into software.

Within the last few years, the iPhone has become one of the hottest gadgets to own. Enter IK Multimedia who have decided to marry the iPhone to a guitar effects rig in the form of the AmpliTube iRig. I got a chance to review this gadget and its associated iPhone app.

Hardware
I must say that I was surprised by fact that I was going get sound out of this little black tubular device barely larger than my guitar’s audio jack, much less a barrage of effects. It was quite easy to hook up. Plug your guitar in with your standard ?? jack into the iRig. The iRig then plugs into your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. The user then has the choice of plugging in their headphones or patching into speakers with a 1/8? jack.

Football season is here at last after hybernating over the spring and summer months, the old pigskin is flying again! Football season begets tailgate season and every year innovative tailgating products are introduced including this Char-Broil gas grill from the Grill2Go series that includes a couple of coolers that you attach to the bottom shelf of the grill to provide a restful and cool place for your tasty beverages.

Furthermore, the Grill2Go Ice has a collapsible design with 2 wheels and a lift-and-lock mechanism similar to rolling luggage with a stay-cool lid handle for easy transport. The removable coolers are each 30-quart coolers while the grill can cool burgers, sausages, brats and ribs over a 290 square inch area. The only downside I see is that the grill collapsed does not include the propane tank so you’ll need to make sure you bring along a strong friend that can carry that!

As it turns out, we have much deeper ‘relationships’ with our computers and other gadgets (think cars) than we think we do. Stanford professor, Clifford Nass, has done the research and even written a book (The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships) on the subject.

We treat computers and other devices like people: we empathize with them, argue with them, and form bonds with them. We even lie to them to protect their feelings.

From an article he wrote in the WSJ:

After being tutored by a computer, half of the participants were asked about the computer’s performance by the computer itself and the other half were asked by an identical computer across the room. Remarkably, the participants gave significantly more positive responses to the computer that asked about itself than they did to the computer across the room. These weren

tugo is one of those items you wished you would have thought of first… it’s a drink holder that keeps your cup suspended between the upright handles of your rolling bag and its unique design keeps your drink level and works as a shock absorber to help prevent sloshing.

tugo easily attaches and is removed to fit in any pocket of your carry-on luggage… tugo is easy, simple, strong and fast.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $12.95 (includes h2otugo!)
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Skullcandy has modified the headphone and earbud industry with incredibly designed and great sounding music ear wear. The Holua Wooden earbuds are popular among those who are lucky enough to own a pair as reviews appear typically between the 4-5 star mark (out of 5) on the various sites the geeks have checked.

The earbuds are quite stylish “sporting wood” with laser cut aluminum accents all wrapped up in a matching wooden carrying box. The wood is said to have enhanced the sound of the earbuds. The earbud wears comfortably with an inducing foam earbud cover and is equipped with a pair of 8mm diameter small size driver units that fit just within the ear canal creating a snug seal for 200mW of input from a 3.5″ gold plated stereo plug.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $87.45
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)