Priced at $379, it is significantly lower than Apple’s iPad ($499. What you give up for $120 is the versatility of the iPad. If you’re not a big fan of consolidating devices though and actually read books for long periods of time like me, the Kindle is still a good option for you.

With the Kindle priced at $189 though, it’s hard for me to justify the almost $200 difference ($190) between the DX and the Kindle just for the benefit of a bigger screen, auto-rotation and the ability  to carry 2,000 additional books (The Kindle allows 1,500 while the DX allows 3,500).

Still, reading a newspaper on a 9.7″ screen and a 6″ screen….

zepol

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In the letter:

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

Unsurprisingly, it’s another issue long-time users have been griping about – AT&T’s weak coverage. I guess we can all look forward to when the IPhone becomes available with Verizon in 2011.

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While class action suits have started coming up, an interesting fix to the antenna attenuation issue of the latest IPhone has popped up.

While Apple is selling $29 cases to combat the issue, a cheaper $1 alternative exists with the LiveStrong bracelets.

Update: Apple is issuing a software patch to fix the issue which is really a software problem. Check it out.

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However a little bit of spare time last week allowed me to install the v4 OS and breathed new life (for the meantime) to my curve. I was also able to install some apps like the WordPress for blackberry which is very handy.

you can download it from here.

zepol

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I say this not as a criticism to Immortal Night but to point out that with proper planning and sticking with it no matter how boring things may get, brings about success.

A similar experience I have when I played Final Fantasy VII. My friends were saying how difficult the game and the bosses were, none of which I experienced, especially when I came to beating the Ultimate Weapons (Ultima, Ruby, Emerald) and swished through Sephiroth like butter. It was only when they asked me what my level was when I challenged the weapons that I realized that I had been, in my friend’s words, “over-training” Cloud, the main character in the game.

Much of my experience has taught me that this principle is so true in life as well. If you set a plan, consistently work with it, even how monotonous or boring it may get,  you can reach your goals. This does not mean however that you should be unbending to the realities of unforeseen events. What this means is that you should have a plan but be able to adapt to challenging events as they arise.

This reminds me of my plan to be a developer when I graduated from University. My first gig was not actual programming but in Software Quality Assurance (SQA).

It may seem to be divergent to my plan of being a developer, but what it gave me was first hand insight and appreciation to ownership of quality in the development life cycle. Long story short, I was able to use the seemingly divergent path of SQA to further my goal of being a better developer by being mindful of my plans.

So yes, while it may be boring, consistently sticking to a well thought out plan and adapting to challenges as they arise leads to success. Be it in raising a family, progressing in your career, investing or playing games.

zepol

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I’m still holding out and hanging on to my trusty old Blackberry 8320 Pearl but June and the IPhone 4G is just around the corner.

Weigh in on what you think should be the top 10 smartphones for 2010

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It looks like Amazon allows pre-orders on the standard edition and you can sign up for notification once the collector’s edition is available.

On top of the game, the collector’s edition contains the following exclusives:

After the longest wait, its finally upon us. En Taro Blizzard!!!

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Getting an automobile, while solving mobility issues, also helps you in your quest for a better credit score. There are a ton of car review sites so I won’t be focusing on what’s the best car to buy, what I will be focusing on is the process of how having a car can help you settle down.

Since you don’t have a good credit history, chances are you’ll have a high effective interest rate on your first car loan. To minimize the effect of this on your cashflow, you need to (1) reduce the size of the loan and/or (2) find someone with a more steady credit history to co-sign with you.

To reduce the size of your loan, you could either put in a higher down payment, purchase a car that is not too expensive to begin with, or both. In our case, we went with one of the best value compact cars in the market for 2009 – The Volkswagen Rabbit. Put up a large enough down payment to minimize the loan amount but still make it significant to show up in our loan history. We were also very blessed that we already have family in the US that could co-sign with us.

With the various initiatives to improve automobile sales, we also got a better deal on our purchase. This is something to watch out for. With the holidays in the US, you’re better off watching out for the sales events as well as checking edmunds for negotiating prices.

happy hunting and feel free to let me know your thoughts and experiences on getting the best deals on your next car purchase/loan.

zepol

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While there was a lot of cool new features in VS 2010, .NET 4.0, and Windows Mobile 7.0, one thing I could not stop thinking about was the side note Lynn Langit brought up about teaching programming to kids 9 years old!

She demonstrated this cool variant of Basic patterned after .NET and reminiscent of LOGO. It’s called Smart Basic. Once you download it, you’ll know why it reminds of LOGO. Lynn also mentioned great success so far with the program.

Needless to say, I checked it out the first chance I got with my eldest daughter who is 8 years old. It was very intuitive and my daughter grasped the concepts immediately. First thing she asked though was whether she could get a dog instead of a turtle for the cursor. After a while though, it was hard to tell who was enjoying more, my daughter or her dad.

If you’re interested in the program, check it out at www.TeachingKidsProgramming.org

Here’s a couple of samples of what we wrote:

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Incompetence in itself is demoralizing to teams as it unfairly burdens the entire team with trying to cope with one individual’s shortcomings. An individual’s unwillingness to help himself and in the process their team exacerbates exponentially the toxic environment.

What do you do if you manage an individual who is incompetent? First and foremost is to take the stance of responsibility. As the manager you have had a hand, either through hiring or retaining, on the effect of the incompetent individual on your team. From there, address the real problem – Is the problem, a problem of a lack of skill, a lack of will or a lack of skill and will.

Ask yourself these questions: (1) Is the individual aware of their incompetence? (2) If they are aware, have you tried everything as a manager to help them overcome their incompetence?

If you answered no to any of the above questions, there is still the burden on us as managers to try to get the individual to improve. At this point though, if you have not yet done so, you need to document everything that you will be doing to help the individual.

Now the steps:
1. Sit down with the employee, be clear about the gap between their performance and expectations.
2. Work with them on a plan to overcome the performance problem. This means letting them devise the plan and taking ownership of the improvement. Guide them as needed and set realistic milestones and checkpoints.
3. At each checkpoint, assess improvements and tweak the plan as needed.
4. If after a certain period, no observable improvement has taken place, unfortunate but you need to ready your documents (you were documenting them right?) and be ready to go to HR.

If you had experiences with incompetence in the workplace, I would be happy to know your experiences as well as how you deal with the situation.

zepol

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