Todd Clarke's Technology Corner v2.0

I recently upgraded my Kindle readers to the Touch and the Fire. Although I haven’t had a time to write a review, one of my complaints for the Kindle Fire is that my Wall Street Journal subscription can’t be read on it.

I received this email yesterday from Amazon – good news / bad news.

From: “Amazon.com”
To: “tclarke@nmapartment.com”
Subject: Amazon.com: Your Kindle Subscription to The Wall Street Journal

Hello,

Because you are a subscriber to the Kindle edition of The Wall Street Journal, we would like to inform you of a price change and expanded access through The Wall Street Journal Kindle and Digital Plus program. Effective December 20, 2011 the price of The Wall Street Journal has changed to $18.29/month for new subscribers. As an existing subscriber to The Wall Street Journal, you will continue to be billed at the previous rate of $14.99/month until February 20th, 2012, after which you will be billed at the new rate of $18.29/month.

Also, starting on December 20th, through The Wall Street Journal Kindle and Digital Plus program, you will receive access to The Wall Street Journal online at WSJ.com and other mobile platforms including Kindle Fire and smartphones for as long as your Kindle subscription remains active.

To activate access to The Wall Street Journal website and apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, please visit http://www.wsj.com/kindleaccess.

The Wall Street Journal Kindle and Digital Plus access includes:
1) All WSJ Kindle Editions for E Ink devices
2) The Wall Street Journal App for Kindle Fire
3) WSJ Kindle Editions for Kindle for iPad, Kindle for iPhone, and Kindle for Android reading apps
4) WSJ.com
5) The Wall Street Journal App for iPad & Android tablets
6) WSJ Mobile Reader for Blackberry, iPhone and Android smartphones

You are free to cancel your subscription at any time. If you are still in the free trial period of your subscription you will not be charged, otherwise you will receive a prorated refund for the unused portion of your subscription. To change or cancel a subscription please visit www.amazon.com/manageyourkindlesubscriptions

Best regards,
The Amazon Kindle team

For the last three years, our family has taken a 21 to 30 day trip every summer across the nation. First year we did most of the states either side of the 35th parallel from NM to NC. Last year we hit most of the national parks west of the Mississippi. This year we headed north and east and saw the Cosmosphere in Kansas, President Truman’s house/library, President Hoover’s Library, the Ford factory (where we saw them build Ford F150 pickup trucks), President Ford’s library, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, the Erie Canal (road a bike through the locks), Susan B Anthony’s house, The Hudson river valley artists houses, Theodore Roosevelt inauguration house, Niagara Falls, FDR’s House/library, Gettysburg, a coal mine, the Walton’s house, and Thomas Jefferson’s house and many other places.

Part of the adventure for us is to camp along the way – our kids have become masters at setting up and taking down their tents, while we stay in the diminutive teardrop trailer. Since we both basically work for ourselves, working these trips is a bit more challenging than when I travel to teach (and have a hotel or classroom to office out of).

Clients and friends often ask – “where do you work on the road?”

This panoramic photo gives you a pretty good idea!

Yes that is my laptop on the small table on the side of the teardrop. Last summer, we rewired the little guy teardrop trailer to run off of a portable rechargeable battery and to plug into the “shore” power we might find at some campgrounds. The rechargeable battery provides 8 hours of uninterrupted iPhone charging, iPad charging, lights for the cabin, lights for the kitchen area and laptop plug in power.

If you need to have the Internet with you while you travel, there are a number of options from tethering your mobile phone, to portable Wi-Fi like devices to a tetherless iPhone that acts like a Wi-Fi Router.

IREM recently had me review some of the latest and greatest tools in their Journal of Property Management, a publication of the Institute of Real Estate and Management for publishing our article on mobile internet devices. The article compares hardware, speeds, and services offered by the major mobile phone operators.