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February 1, 2012

Microsoft Office 365

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,General Ramblings — Tags: , — BeckyStrause @ 2:49 pm

 

What is Microsoft Office 365?

According to their website, “It is secure, anywhere access to email and calendars, Office Web Apps, web conferencing, and file sharing.”

Microsoft Office 365 includes the following tools:

  • MS Exchange Online enables you to use your company email and calendars.
  • MS SharePoint Online gives you and your coworkers access to your documents and information.
  • MS Lync Online allows you to meet with colleagues through audio, video, and web conferencing.
  • MS Office Professional Plus gives you the latest versions of Office applications through cloud-connected service.
  • MS Office Web Apps makes it possible to view, and edit documents on virtually any device connected to the Internet.

Microsoft Office 365 gives you access to everything you need to do your job wherever you need it.

Contact Eberly Systems for more information on how Microsoft Office 365 can meet your needs.

 

November 23, 2011

My Top Technology of (all) Time

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,General Ramblings,Technical Ramblings,The Great Tech Blog-Off,Video Game Ramblings — Tags: , , , , , , , , — rjmccray @ 7:21 am

I was thinking back over the years about all the interesting gadgets that have been created, invented, and discovered. Some were gone before the public even new they were created. While some are still around today, in one form or another.

Anyone remember the Atari VCS/2600 which found it’s place in many homes (including mine)  in the the late 1970′s. You can’t underestimate the importance of the original Atari, which made home gaming what it is today. All modern game systems owe some portion of their success to this simple machine. The VCS (later named the 2600) sold 8 million units in 1982. The 2600 eventually sold nearly 40 million units, paving the way for competitors and imitators alike.

How about the Nintendo Game Boy (1989)?

A monochrome screen, four way control pad, and two action buttons used to be all it took to entertain kids for hours! The original Game Boy may look primitive by today’s standards, but consider the state of handheld gaming prior to then. Two words: Mattel Football. Through a whopping nine versions, the Game Boy has gotten progressively smaller, while Nintendo’s hold on the portable gaming market keeps growing larger. More than 188 million Game Boys have been sold throughout the years, making it easily the most influential portable gaming device ever constructed.

Iomega Zip Drive (1994)
Before broadband, and before the ubiquitous writable CD, there was the Zip disk. If you regularly dealt with files larger than a few hundred kilobytes, you invested in a Zip drive, which used a super-floppy disk of sorts to hold 100MB (later 250MB and even 750MB) worth of data. The Zip was fraught with technical problems (the “click of death” being its most infamous), but during the latter half of the nineties, you really had no other choice. (What, you were going to buy a SyQuest cartridge? Please.) Look through your desk drawer, and we wager you’ll find at least one of Iomega’s iconic squares collecting dust.

Nintendo Entertainment System (1985)

You didn’t think I forgot this masterpice, did you? Gaming had been wallowing in a two-year depression when its savior finally arrived. The NES was a powerful gray box that introduced millions to the world of Super Mario Bros., the console’s most visible and lasting hit. With the NES, Nintendo began a years-long reign over home gaming, thanks largely to its near-perfect ports of various arcade classics, like Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. The NES’s legacy is still apparent today in the success of Nintendo’s Wii console, with characters like Mario and The Legend of Zelda’s Link still holding court, some 25 years later.

Apple Airport Base Station (1999)
Apple wasn’t the first company to introduce Wi-Fi, but in 1999 its flying saucer Base Station became a visible (and stylish) emblem for the joys of wireless connectivity. Apple was a forerunner when it came to incorporating 802 b into laptops, and it championed the technology before other vendors did. Nowadays, Apple’s Airport Extreme Base Station is a direct descendant of the earlier technology. But even though the company is a relatively minor player in networking hardware, the original Base Station had a powerful influence in the early days of Wi-Fi and helped kick-start the migration to the wireless world as we know it today.

Netscape Navigator (1994)
Before IE, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari there was Netscape. Netscape was the reason people started spending hours a day on the Internet, leading to the boom (and bust) of many a Web site. The advent of the browser also led to the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against Microsoft, after the company embedded Internet Explorer into Windows. And Netscape’s August 9, 1995, IPO is universally considered to be the official start of the dot-com era. Netscape, unfortunately, couldn’t keep up with the times and was surpassed by Internet Explorer in the late nineties. The Netscape browser still exists (under the ownership of AOL), but has fallen into utter disuse. Nevertheless, its influence can still be felt all over the Web. Fragments of its original code, for instance, live on in just about every browser still in production, from Mozilla Firefox to Internet Explorer.

Apple II (1977)
What was so special about the Apple II? It offered plenty of productivity tools (it was the first PC to run the VisiCalc spreadsheet, for instance), it was good at gaming, and it was quite extendable (when is the last time you saw a computer with eight expansion slots?). And the machine itself looked so much cooler than anything that had preceded it, a philosophy that still lives on in the Apple computers of today. The Apple II may not have been the first personal computer, but it was the spark that ignited the personal computing industry. If you’re lucky, you might still be able to find an Apple II on eBay, thought they don’t seem to last long.

Lastly, my personal favorite, TiVo HDR110 (1999)
It’s hard to believe but it’s true–TiVo has been around for almost a decade, making it nearly geriatric in the world of technology. The premise is simple: TiVo replaced the VHS tape with a monster hard drive, recording shows to disk instead of to analog media. That meant you could pause and resume live TV, skip through commercials in an instant, and record an entire season of 24 with just a few clicks of the remote control. TiVo’s innovations helped it to handily beat ReplayTV in the battle for mind share, though it struggled to reach profitability and now risks falling prey to that killer of many a promising company: commodity status. Though TiVo the brand may eventually die, “tivo” the verb will probably be with us forever.

These are some of my top gadgets….tell me some of yours.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/123950-7/the_50_greatest_gadgets_of_the_past_50_years.html

November 15, 2011

The Future of the Paperback Book

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,General Ramblings,Social Ramblings,The Great Tech Blog-Off — Tags: , , , — rjmccray @ 6:06 am

With the latest development of eReaders and tablets many people believe it could spell the end of the paperback book. The most popular “ePaper” technology used today is called electrophoretic – an electric charge is used to arrange titanium dioxide particles – and the Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and the Kindle all use this version. From what I’ve read online there are more than a dozen other technologies available, but the most popular eBooks I’ve looked at all use this technology.

Some popular facts that about eReaders:

  • The Apple Newton, which came out in 1993 came was envisioned as a device for reading books.
  • Waterstone’s sells an ebook every 90 seconds; and its fastest selling ebook is Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol
  • One crucial part of the e-book library is Project Gutenberg, started by Michael S Hart in 1971 to make uncopyrighted texts available to as wide an audience as possible: the first document he digitised for that was the United States Declaration of Independence.
  • One unexpected side-effect of the eReader is a rise in the sales of erotic fiction, because it gives anonymity by doing away with the shaming, give-away dust-jackets.
  • The e-book is not limited to specific devices: Kindle for iPhone allows users to read Kindle e-books on their iPhones, too.
  • The Sony Reader Pocket Edition weighs 220g, and will hold about 350 books. The average novel, however, weighs 340g. That means that an eReader can be the equivalent of 119kg worth of books, which is roughly two sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  • Google’s controversial Books project – digitising 1.5 million texts and making them freely available – is available online and as an iPhone App. Visit books.google.com/m.
  • On Christmas Day 2009, more e-books were sold on Amazon than print editions.

Although it is still a relatively small market a recent Pew Research Center survey found eReaders in 12% of American households in May 2011 (up from 6% in November 2010) with tablets in 8% of homes. This may seem like a small percentage compared to mobile phones and ipods; it is worth noting that both the eReader and tablet markets are still relatively new; the 2nd generation iPad is less than a year old.

While digital will never be suitable for all books, if the “enhanced” bestsellers find success in digital app stores rather than on the shelves of high street booksellers then the repercussions on the publishing world will likely be widespread. With retail print sales being lost to Amazon, and print sales being lost to eBooks, the impact of  virtual books could have a lasting financial effect on the local bookstore.

If you find this post interesting please read a previous post written by PJ during the last blog contest titled College Textbooks Going Digital.

November 14, 2011

Zero-day Exploit Duqu has Microsoft posting hot fix

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,Security Ramblings,Technical Ramblings,The Great Tech Blog-Off — PeterWallace @ 8:58 am

In the past few days a zero-day exploit named Duqu has surfaced.  It is a word file containing malware that exploits a previously unknown flaw in windows that was sent to one if its victim companies, but still doesn’t provide much more information on what Duqu is up to or who all should be worried about it.  Duqu was found in some European organizations and seemed to be going after Certificate Authorities (CAs) and industrial control-system vendors.

Microsoft and Symantec who are studying the malware have not shared any dropper information with other virus companies.  Droppers are typically very small, are designed to evade detection by anti-virus and can sometimes contain exploit code used to inject themselves onto the target computer. Microsoft is working on a fix but knows it will not be ready for patch Tuesday so they released a hot fixed November 3, 2011.   Even if you’re not a certificate authority or a manufacturing firm — the two industries cited publicly so far as having Duqu victims — security experts say there are some steps you can take to help protect your infrastructure from this new targeted attack.

1)      Install the “hot fix” from Microsoft and Workaround.  Microsoft has posted security advisory 2639658 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/advisory/2639658) to address the recently disclosed Windows kernel vulnerability (CVE-2011-3402) exploited by the Duqu malware.  The flaw lies in the Win32k TrueType font parsing engine, according to Microsoft: “An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode. The attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. We are aware of targeted attacks that try to use the reported vulnerability; overall, we see low customer impact at this time. This vulnerability is related to the Duqu malware,” Microsoft said in an advisory today.

2)      Run updated anti-malware – Not all antivirus products can detect Duqu yet, but security experts say to keep updating to be sure you get protection for Duqu as soon as it’s released. They also highly encourage people not to click on attachments in email that seems suspicious, even if it comes from someone they know.

3)      Scan or Filter Word Documents from unknown sources - One handy tool is Microsoft’s MOICE tool (Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment), (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935865) which checks for malformed Word documents which is how Duqu starts: with a malformed Word file. It’s playing a trick on Microsoft Word to run this code.

4)      Monitor for traffic from potentially infected machines – Be on the lookout for machines trying to connect to a Duqu command-and-control server or trying to resolve to a Duqu-related domain. Two command and control servers have been taken down thus far, but there are likely new ones. The IP addresses that were found and ultimately shuttered: 206.183.111.97 and 77.241.93.160.

5)      Watch for any Port 443 traffic that’s unencrypted, and keep an eye out for ~DQ files – Watching for unencrypted traffic on the HTTP-S or SSL-based traffic port can help detect malware, including a possible Duqu infection. If it’s not encrypted it’s probably bad. Meanwhile, a Duqu-infected file may start with “~DQ” in the Windows temporary file directory, so be on the lookout for that as well.

November 11, 2011

Are you pwned?

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,General Ramblings,Security Ramblings,Social Ramblings,Technical Ramblings,The Great Tech Blog-Off — Tags: , , , , — PeterWallace @ 7:16 am

PWN (verb)

1. An act of dominating an opponent.

2. Great, ingenious; applied to methods and objects.

Originally dates back to the days of WarCraft, when a map designer misspelled “Own” as “Pwn”. What was originally supposed to be “player has been owned.” was “player has been pwned”.

Pwn eventually grew from there and is now used throughout the online world, especially in online games.

  1. “I pwn these guys on battlenet”
  2.  ”This strategy pwns!” or “This game pwn.”

 

About 50,000 breached records appear online every week.  Do any of them include your usernames and passwords?  A free website – http://www.pwnedlist.com – has been created that lets you easily check if your information has been compromised.  I sure would not want to be the one that sees the following message after inputting their information:

 

 As of November 4, 2011 almost 5 Million e-mail and user names were recorded in the system. PwnedList introduces itself as

“…a tool that allows an average person to check if their accounts have been compromised. No passwords are stored in our database. You can read more about where our data comes from here. Just enter an email address or username associated with any of your accounts to see if it’s on our list. Data entered is not stored, re-used, or given to any third parties. Don’t trust us? You can also use a SHA-512 hash of your email/username as input. Just don’t forget to lowercase all characters first.”

Now this will sound like great news to a lot of people. A team of security experts are doing some good work to help the folks on the internet find out whether or not they have been compromised. That’s great but how many of you know how to do a SHA-512 Hash?  Let alone what is? (You can find more information about the SHA-512 algorithm at The SHA-512 algorithm) SHA512 is a hashing algorithm that cannot be decrypted so the information they have stored may be safe.

My worry about sites like this is what is stopping a hacker from putting up a site like this to collect information?  Sure the site looks good but if you’re worried that your user name or password may have been hacked it’s time to go change them.  Also you’re not using the same user name and password on different sites are you?  Are your passwords dictionary words?  Time to change that around and create secure passwords and different ones for the different sites you are using.

Think about it is it real safe or is it fakes just trying to get your information?

New Partner – BigCommerce Shopping Cart and eCommerce Platform

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,General Ramblings,Technical Ramblings — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Kordel Eberly @ 12:10 am

Newsflash!

Eberly Systems has been partnering with BigCommerce to bring industry leading eCommerce solutions to new and existing clients. You can see what our clients have done with eCommerce and BigCommerce, leveraging this powerful platform to deliver simple, professional and automated Internet Sales and Marketing to their existing product lines.

Visit www.ArcFlashPPE.com and www.StokesSolar.com (still under construction) for ideas, and then visit www.BigCommerce.com to see how YOU could get up and running with a full-featured Online Store for as little as $24.95 per month! Free 15 day trials are available – what are you waiting for?

November 10, 2011

Top 10 LAN Party Games

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,Social Ramblings,The Great Tech Blog-Off,Video Game Ramblings — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — redbenflies @ 9:29 am

After reading my LAN party blog, you may be considering hosting your own.  Go for it!  But a question that is usually high on the list is “what games should we play?”.  This decision can make or break your evening of fun.  Some people’s computer’s may not be able to handle the latest and greatest multi-player games (obviously, single player games are off of the list!), and some of the older games may not work without a lot of help on the newer operating systems.

I’ve compiled a list of games that have been played at our LAN parties over the years (I think we are on year 7 of LAN parties that I have hosted).  I’ve applied various ratings to the top 10 games we’ve tested and rated them by things like the following: How hard is it to learn the game (some games take a long time to get the hang of…which makes them less popular), System requirements (can anyone’s computer run them with no complications?), how much skill is required (can anyone pick it up and do well?), fun factor (is everyone laughing to the point the have a headache? The noise factor coming up from my basement is usually and indicator of this.  :o P), graphics (is it a pretty game?), group size limit (how many people can play?  The 8 or below limit had stiff penalties), re-playability (can the group play this one all night with no one getting bored?  many maps and options of play give this one a boost.).

You may see some games absent from the list that would seem to work well.  Notably “Halo” or the “Battlefront” series.  Those games require each person to have their own copy of the disk to play in a LAN setting.  Most of the games here allow you to play with each other from the same disk (with no *.exe or  no CD hacks) at a LAN party, while those listed above require each person present to use the same disk to play online or in a LAN setting.  The Call of Duty series allows you to play at a LAN party off of the same disk, but you must have your own copy to play online.  I think this is smart on the side of the producers, because if the players all enjoy the game at the LAN party, there is a high chance that they will be looking to buy the game  for themselves in the near future.

Anyway, with no further introduction….my top 10!

 

-in 10th place…. Starcraft!

Pros: Anyone’s machine can handle it, lot’s of fun!

Cons: High learning curve, unable to zoom in and out, and the group size limit of 8 hurt this one.

 

-9th place….IL2 Sturmovich 1946!

Pros: Beautiful graphics, and low system requirements, great simulation.

Cons: No one can join in after the game begins, really steep learning curve, and not everyone is a pilot…..

 

-8th place….World in Conflict!

Pros: Graphics and interface are excellent, most machines can handle it, a lot of fun making enemy weapon system go “BOOM” (lots of noise from the basement).

Cons:  Another steep learning curve, and learning the strategy can be tough.

 

-7th place….Insane!  (Actually tie for 6th)

Pros:  Anyone can play this off-road racing game, any machine can handle it, good view distances, and FUN (laugh till you have a headache, lot’s of screaming, and great hit detection).

Cons: 8 player limit, quirky system linkup (seems to always be someone who can’t find the host).

 

-6th place….Descent!

Pros: Fun game, lots of maps, and any machine can play it.

Cons:  Do you get vertigo?

Really tough to get a feel for controlling the ship for a beginner.

LOTS of buttons!

 

 -5th place….Dungeon Siege!

Pros:  Easy to learn, and controls are basically point and click.  Pretty graphics, but low system requirements.  Lots of different areas to explore.  Anyone can pick it up and figure it out with little coaching.  Lots of fun in Co-op or vs.mode.

Cons:  8 person group size limit.  If you choose a melee character and have a good mage supporting you, you may fall asleep….right Ben Lutz?  :o P  It is fun for a couple of hours, then on to something else.

 

-4th place….Battlefield 2!

Pros:  HUGE maps, lots of vehicles, player kits.  Graphics are nice.  Fun!  Coop (against bots) or vs. mode.  Up to 64 players!

Cons: Fairly high system requirements, LONG install and patch time (patch 1.5 is 1.9 GB).

 

-3rd place….Freelancer!

Pros:  Beautiful graphics!
Lots of fun!
Coop or vs. modes, any machine can handle it, and easy to learn.
Huge universe!
Large group…i think 32?

Cons: Takes some skill to stay alive and with the group, and if you die…back to the starting point!  Can get a little monotonous after a while (after you’ve achieved the biggest and best ship)….

 

2nd place….Team Fortress 2!

Pros:  It’s FREE (download from steam)!

It’s pretty! Most systems can handle it.  Lots of fun!  And we just figured out how to host it at the next LAN party.  That’s a hint, for anyone who is planning on coming in January…..

Cons:  Everyone will need to download it for themselves, and no one can join us from off-site.

 

1st place…no surprise here…the Call of Duty franchise! The original and 4 (2 had a odd feel to it, and 3 was not released for PC) have seen extensive, almost exclusive, use at our parties.

Pros: It’s easy to learn, a lot of fun, you unlock new weapons as you level up,  almost any machine can handle them, lots of maps and game mods, 32 player group size limit, and those with their own copy can join in from off-site.

Cons:  Jeremy Gonyea’s knife……:o)
Not many people want to play something else.  My kid’s can’t seems to sleep through the almost explosive outbursts when someone finally detonates the bomb after 15-20 minutes of tense silence, broken by the occasional burst of laughter.  I think that sums it up!

 

So there you have it.  I’m sure there will be many comments about games I missed.  That’s great!  If anyone has suggestions of a new one to try, we are always open to new suggestion, and happy to try them out!  Hope these help, and if anyone needs technical advise, make sure to contact Eberly systems for all your LAN party needs (it’s great having some Tech’s available to t-shoot the occasional issue at the parties.

 

November 8, 2011

IPad, IPhone and IPod Touch Printing in the Windows World

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,Technical Ramblings,The Great Tech Blog-Off — Tags: , , , , , , , — PeterWallace @ 9:18 am

I recently had to work with 3 Apple IPads and integrate them onto our network for e-mail, files and printing.  The first 2 items were easy to do but printing drove me up a wall.  Apple IPad use what is called airprint.  As Apple states it simple to print your email, photos, web pages, and documents. There’s no software to download, no drivers to install, and no cables to connect. With just a few taps on your IPad, you can go from viewing something on the screen to holding a printed copy.  They also state True wireless printing. “No cables” means exactly that. AirPrint printing is 100 percent wireless. IPad automatically locates and connects to AirPrint-enabled printers on your Wi-Fi network. So whether you’re on the other side of the room or the other side of the house/office, you can print what you need, when you need it.

Sounds simple all you need is an AirPrint-enabled printer.  Canon, Epson, and HP make printers that fit the bill, but none of them were on the network here at the office.  I wanted to use the printers and copiers I had on the network.  Doing some searching I found FingerPrint from Collobos Software (http://www.collobos.com).  They offer a free 7 day trial then it costs $10.00 for the software.  I was able to download the software and install it on a windows XP computer and was printing within 10 minutes from the IPad.  They do say that not all printers are compatible with AirPrint but so far everything I have tried works.  It would be nice if it ran as a service but at this time you need to have the application running on the pc.

Give it a try pretty neat application.

Example screen from the IPad

Screen that runs on the Windows PC.

November 7, 2011

The Three Methods of PC Gaming

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,Social Ramblings,The Great Tech Blog-Off,Video Game Ramblings — Tags: , , , , , — KyleEberly @ 8:00 am

Computer gaming has been around since the early 1950′s and has steadily become more and more popular until today millions of people will list it in their top favorite pastimes.

There are three main ways in which you can game: Single-player (just yourself against bots), over the internet (with people you may or may not know), and via a LAN (local area connection). I am going to endeavor to explain some of the pro and cons of each method.

 

Gaming by yourself: Single-player games generally follow a story line in which you play as the hero following the plot of the story. While single player games are fun the majority of them have very little replay value as once you complete them you have little desire to go through the story again. There are always exceptions to this, some games such as Mass Effect, and Dragon Age, which are RPG (role playing games), provide multiple story lines and paths that you can choose from. These take several play-throughs to complete all the content within the game. Single player games are fun but they are my least favorite method of gaming, after a while most FPS (first person shooters) start to feel the same and playing RTS’s (real time strategy) games against bots gets downright predictable and boring. Everyone’s tastes are different but I would suggest RPG games most as they generally offer more play time and replay value then other genres.

 

Gaming over the internet: This is the most popular type of gaming as you generally play with real people in real time which is almost always more fun then simply playing against bots. While many primarily single-player games have online multi-player options it is generally games that are crafted specifically for online gaming that become most popular (WOW, The Battlefield series, COD etc.). Online gaming stretches across every type of game but the most common are FPS’s and MMORPG’s (massively multi-player online role playing games). If you plan on trying online gaming I highly suggest purchasing a headset with a microphone as your experience will be greatly increased if you are able to communicate with the people you are playing with over VIOP (voice over IP). VOIP is often built into multi-player games as it helps to emphasize the importance of teamwork and I can speak from personal experience when I say that winning or losing is directly related to how much you communicate with your team. If VOIP is not built into the  game you are playing there are program such as Teamspeak that allow you to communicate with the people you are playing with/against.

The key to being able to really enjoy online gaming is that you have to find a game you like, and people you like playing it with. I played Battlefield 2142 for over 4 years because I found a group of people, none of whom I knew outside of the game, that I enjoyed playing it with. Finding those people takes time but it is well worth it, without them online gaming can be completely hit or miss depending on who ends up on your team. Having said that I would urge you to be very careful who you choose as your “friends”, the internet is not a safe place and there is a plethora of people out there who want to take advantage of you. Never EVER give out any personal information (address, phone number, any sort of bank or credit card information, etc.) including your email address.

 

Gaming over a LAN: This means everyone who is playing the game is connected to the same network. You can do this with one other person or you can do it with 20 other people, depending upon your equipment of course. This is most people’s, including my, favorite type of gaming, unfortunately it takes a large amount of planning effort to put together as it requires you to all be in one location at the same time to put it simply people are busy. That being said this type of gaming offers an element that neither of the other two do and that is actually contact with the people you are playing with. While doing something awesome while playing an online game is great it is not nearly as satisfying as being able to actually see the person you just shot in the face from way across the map. Its always loads of fun and generally involves consuming large amounts caffeine and junk food. If you would like to plan a LAN party there are some great hints from Ben Horning here http://www.eberlysystems.com/blog/2011/11/throwing-a-lan-party-lpiw-style/comment-page-1/#comment-1828

 

Well now  you should have a better understanding of the different ways in which you can game and hopefully learned a few tips to maximize your enjoyment. I will add a quick disclaimer here, gaming can be quite addicting as well as extremely expensive. I urge you to be wise in how much time and money you invest into gaming as your life will be much more productive if you invest your energy into other things such as education and family.

November 6, 2011

New Nook!

Filed under: Computer Ramblings,General Ramblings,The Great Tech Blog-Off — PJ @ 8:54 am

Get excited, Barnes and Noble is revealing a brand new nook e-Reader coming up in the next week to try and compete with Amazon’s new Kindle fire hybrid tablet and e-reader. The Fire apparently will be able to support apps and be able to stream movies and television shows through it.  Maybe this new Nook will be able to do that as well, but, this is just competition for the Fire.

Now, excuse me for not being overtly excited for this new Nook, it could be that I’m not exactly the world’s biggest reader, heck I read most stuff from Twitter. But, anyway, these e-readers may slowly be fading away, as the iPad and other tablets running on Android are quickly replacing these single use devices. The smartphone is quickly replacing the traditional iPods, GPS, and digital camera, as all of these are available in one smartphone. Granted, the newer the phone the better all these features are, but my hunch is that while Barnes and Noble and Amazon will continue to release new versions of their e-readers, they still will not come close to the storage capacity and the overall usefulness of an iPad or other Android powered tablet.

Plus, as these tablets continue to get more and more popular, the price will inevitably drop. Look at high definition televisions, as a prime example. These televisions used to cost upwards of $2000 or more for a 50″ television with 1080p and 120 Hz. But, now that price has dropped in half, due to more and more homes in America having them. And, with more and more folks getting tablet computers, the price will be dropping within a few years and e-readers will be non existent.

So, I don’t like how B&N is bringing out a new Nook, while it may work for some, it won’t work for most.

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