E-Book Readers Make a Great Gift For The Bookworm on Your List!

One thing that is certain about the future, and that is the way we will all be reading our favorite books. With the rising popularity of e-book readers, they are becoming one of the most wanted Christmas gifts this holiday season. Now there are many choices out there, and choosing the right one for the bookworm on your list can get confusing. Some of the main features to look at when choosing your e-reader is the size of the library available, the size of the reading display, the weight of the reader, battery life, and WiFi accessibility. After considering all the available features, a smart choice would be to take a look at the Amazon Kindle DX.

The Amazon DX is the the 2nd generation of the Kindle reader. The DX offers you a huge 9.7" which reads like real paper because of the 16 shades of gray for clearer text and images. Also I've found with the e-ink screen, and the ability to rotate your device to read from either landscrape or portrait makes the Kindle easy to read even in the sun. Another great new feature to the Kindle Dx is the support of PDF files. PDF's are the gaiing in popularity as the preferred file format for online reading. Previous versions of the Kindle did not support PDF files and the reader had to go online for a PDF conversion.

With the ability to access wireless Internet with the built in WiFi on the Kindle, the reader now has the ability to access over 360,000 books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs, including access to the New York Times Best Sellers list. One of the great new Kindle features I thought was big improvement, is the read to me feature. Read-to-me is a text to speech feature that can read your on screen text to you out loud if you so wish.

Now all these new fancy bell and whistles are fine and dandy but lets look at the core of the Kindle e-reader. The big display and WiFi are all great to help you out, but what about the size? How many books can you bring along with you on your Kindle? The Kindle can hold up to 3,500 books and documents, which provides you with hours upon hours of reading. Another core feature I look for in an e-reader is the size. Whats the point of having an e-reader if its bigger and bulkier than the book itself. The Kindle solves that problem because it is only 1/3 of an inch thick! Don't break out your rulers that's only about the size of a most magazines.

Now I know the price of the Kindle DX may scare off some buyers with the over $400 price tag, but just think off all the money you have spent, and will spend on further books and hard backs. If your serious about reading then and almost certain you've spent at $500 over the years. The original Amazon Kindle sells for a little over $250 but also comes with a much smaller 6" display, and can only hold around 1,500 books.

I know making a deciding on an e-reader can be a tough decision but just take a look
at all the features that interest you, and better suit your reading situation. An e-reader can also make a very wonderful Christmas gift for an avid reader that will use this great new technology for years to come.

A Car Audio Upgrade From Santa

Christmas time is just around the corner so that means you are going to have to
start shopping for the men in your group of family and friends. This time of the year is a great time to pick up some new car electronics for all those car audio nuts in your life. You may even be searching around the Internet looking for a new receiver for yourself. In either case there are many great products to choose from, but in today's car audio market there are many choices that can distract a buyer, and leave you utterly confused about what is the best head unit for you.

With so many new features and options that have popped up the past decade, finding the right choice for you can become time consuming, and frustrating. Today's market is no longer just CD players, they include whole multimedia systems. The functions available in car audio head units range from DVD players, GPS navigation systems, to even television.

I first want to give you a few parameters to check off for yourself, and also give you some ideas to narrow down your choices so you can be ready to pick the best head unit for your vehicle. But also keep in mind that your head unit or deck is the control center for your car audio system.

First things first you need to do is identify your price range. There are many, many units out there that are well over three, four, and even five hundred dollars, so if your not willing you spend that much then you will have to narrow down the features you are looking for to match your price tag.

Additional features that come with your car audio head unit is another area you will want to look into. If you are an iPod owner, then you might want a research a head unit that offers iPod playback capabilities. Another rather new and popular feature is HD radio. HD radio offers CD-like quality on FM stations, and FM like quality on AM stations. Although I would suggest you check and see how many HD radio stations are in your area before you settle on a unit with HD radio. A real quick run down other features currently available in head units worth taking a look at, are Blue tooth, MP3 playback, and size.

I don't want to skip over size of your head unit because this is an important factor to take in consideration before purchasing any head unit. Take a look at you vehicles standard factory head unit. All main car audio head units today come in either one of two sizes. The standard size for most factory installed vehicle CD players is called a single DIN. If your vehicles is made with an over sized receiver then you will want to look into purchasing what is called a double DIN or a 1.5 DIN receiver. Harnesses are also available to provide better support for your receiver if needed.

One last subject I want to touch on real quick before I go, is considering if you are going to build onto your car audio system after you purchase a head unit. Are you going to be adding upgraded speakers, sub woofers, or amps? These are all different areas that can be touched on later if you even decide to upgrade your car audio system further.

Now before I go I would like to share with everyone a great starter head unit for your audio upgrade. The JVC KD HDR50 carries with it many features including iPod playback, CD-R & CD-RW, and MP3 playback, and an iTunes tagging feature that lets you "tag" your favorite songs on the radio and then add them to your iPod next time you connect it to your head unit. Some other nice features include HD radio, which I discussed, and also Blue tooth, and even 30 different color schemes to choose from to personalize your receiver. The price also can't be beat at $132.36 on Amazon.