Gears of War 2 Amazon.com Exclusive Lancer (Accessory)
By Neca


Buy new: $139.99
$139.99

First tagged "video games" by M. Rodriguez "Diablito93"
Customer tags: lancer(9), xbox 360(7), gears of war(7), limited edition(5), gears of war 2(5), gow2(5), exclusive(3), nerd chainsaw, cliffy b, amazon exclusive, hardware, video games




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They've got Nickel Creek's self-titled debut for $2.99. If you've ever wanted to get an album of theirs, today is the day. Fantastic bluegrass. Great album. Steal of a deal. I'd buy it in a heartbeat, but I already have it.

I love the iTunes Store, but Amazon has some great deals...

I have! I just recently got a hold of a US$30 Amazon gift certificate for participating of a 1-hour phone study. I could have used it and bought something for me, right? Instead, I decided to present it to Jacek Åšliwerski, the guy behind Open-Tran. There is not a day that I don’t use it for my translations, as I can use its awesome comparisson tools to QA my work!

How about you? Have you hugged your favorite open source tool today?

Digizo R4 / R4DS / R4 Revolution (support up to 32Gb) for DS Lite + 4GB Memory Card
by R4
Date first available at Amazon.co.uk: 26 Aug 2008

Buy new: £12.98

(Ranking is updated hourly. Visit the Hot Future Releases in Electronics & Photo list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

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From the Web

Review of The Entrepreneur’s Manual -Ben reviews the book and has some great tips for new entrepreneurs.  It’s no secret that entrepreneurship is a passion of mine, so I try to gobble up every piece of novel advice on the subject I can get my hands on.

The World is Fine - I agree with Leo.  Although there is definitely room for improvement, I would say that the world is a fine place, and in many directions it is getting better.

Why Not? - Scott shares this entry on the difference between regretting actions and regretting inaction.  In the end, we regret more the things we didn’t do.

Apparently 8 gold medals isn’t enough for some people… - Chris, from his fantastic blog The Art of Nonconformity, writes about a recent feature on Michael Phelps.  Despite breaking the record for number of gold medals won, many people were still critical of his methods.  The lesson: you will always have critics, even if your ideas are sound and your approach is flawless.  It’s better to learn how to ignore the critics than to try to persuade everyone.

From the Archives

Do You Need More Effort or Better Opportunities?

“One way to split up the world is to divide areas of life into those that need opportunities versus those that only need effort. For example, imagine you are writing a book. Writing a book is mostly a matter of effort. Having a stroke of creative genius helps, but ultimately finishing is about putting in the effort to write every day.

Compare that to publishing a best-selling book. Effort doesn’t seem to matter as much anymore. Many authors will pour their soul into a book for years only to sell a few hundred copies. While other authors can churn out best-sellers in a series. Publishing a best-seller is about having the right opportunities, effort isn’t the limiting factor.”

Update on Posting Schedule

Based on the feedback I’ve received from readers, I’ve decided to cut down my writing from 4 articles per week with a weekly Friday Links, down to 2 articles per week, and Friday Links every second week.

Notes on Affiliate Relationships

I run affiliate programs here on the website.  Although they account for a small portion of the income for this website (direct sales and advertising are more important), they still make up a portion of my earnings.   As always, links I leave in bold, mean I earn a commission on sales (usually it is through Amazon).  I’ll always have and will continue using this linking scheme for anyone who is interested in which links are non-affiliated.

When I complained on twitter about a 2 hour iPhone sync, a Giz reader Brandon Lusk told me I was lucky. He had a much longer sync, sometimes over 6 hours. I called bullshit. And so, he provided me with two videos, timelapsed; this one is over 8 hours. That's a full night of sleep. That's a full day of high school. That's as longer than it takes to fly cross country, or drive from SF to Los Angeles. After seeing this video, I stopped complaining and tried to figure out what caused Brandon's problem with him.

To troubleshoot the problem, he restored his phone from scratch, but even after reinstalling 7.7.1 iTunes and 2.0.2 firmware in his never-jailbreaked iPhone 3G, the sync is unbearably long. We even tried syncing on an Air and an iMac and used another cable. The only outstanding set of data Brandon had is that he loads 74 apps to his phone. And he says that by adding apps one at a time, his sync/backup time slowly goes up — so it's not a single buggy app ruining the process.

Now, I'm sure Brandon's case is an exceptionally complicated problem. He still has an iTunes error message pop up when he syncs, for example. His back up is an astounding 848.1 GB in size. And even when we both load up 50 apps on our phones, his sync is much longer at 4 hours. This is clearly not a normal example, but that doesn't mean its not real, and it doesn't mean it isn't related to the big problem many have been suffering from since firmware 2.00 hit. Maybe Brandon can be our poster boy for the enternal sync/backup problem. Or, until Apple fixes it, we can watch this video every time we complain about the iPhone's sync times and we can feel like it could have been worse. Like 8 hours worth of worse. But damn if that video doesn't make you happy when it's finally done with the transfer.

The song in the video is Foreplay/Long Time, by Boston, FWIW. [Brandon's blog, Foreplay/Long Time Amazon, iTunes]

His setup:

Both machines running 10.5.4 and iTunes 7.7.1 (but again, this started on 7.7)
Air is a day 1 1.6GHZ, 80GB and the iMac is a 2.8GHZ 4GB RAM 320GB HDD

When I started, I had

997.1 MB of music (163 songs, all .m4a files, except 27 .m4p)
5 playlists
93.6 MB of photos
27 ringtones
No movies or TV shows
47 MB video (all video podcasts)
contacts, calendar synced to mobile me
3 other imap email accounts
74 apps (a lot, I know, but certainly not as many as you could possibly have)

The sync added

No music
No playlists
No photos
No ringtones
No movies or TV shows
3.5 GB of video (99 podcasts, and this part only took about 10 minutes, as you can see in the video)
6 app updates (2 of which were not installed because of an error)
No new apps

The backup folder produced this time weighs in at 9,771 items and 848.1 GB

My observations:
It doesn't matter if the app updates error or not, my last sync was 6:49 with 4 app updates, all of which were successful
Since 2.0, backup and sync has been very long, but not to this extent. Usually 1.5 - 2 hours
It started getting this bad about a month ago, right before iTunes 7.7.1 came out, an app crashed mid install via wifi app store, crashing the phone to the apple logo but not booting all the way
When it crashed like that, I put it in DFU mode and restored from backup, immediately had the same problem
Back to DFU mode and restored with fresh firmware - instead of crashing daily, it did it every few days, requiring DFU mode and fresh download of firmware
Did a complete wipe from within the phone, installed fresh firmware again, and started from scratch. New iTunes installation (removing support files first, empty trash, reboot, then reinstall) new firmware download
Since then, no more Apple logo of death, and very few app crashes in general, but still excruciating backup/sync times
If I skip the backup (I'm inclined to do that these days, since they are usually corrupted, even with a fresh copy on the desktop) it still takes at least 2-3 hours to sync

It's been such a long time
I think I should be goin', yeah
And time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rollin'
Sail on, on a distant highway
I've got to keep on chasin' a dream
I've gotta be on my way
Wish there was something I could say.

Well I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' along
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.

It's been such a long time. It's been such a long time.

Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm tryin' to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're comin' back to find me.

Recently, the RWW team was tipped off that Amazon's Mechanical Turk is currently being used for activities that are somewhat less than honest. Although they may stop short of being "fraud" in the legal sense of the word, they are certainly dishonest and unsavory. Specifically, it seems that some people have decided to use MT for ill-gotten social media gains - that is, they are paying people to bookmark, Digg, Stumble, Slashdot, etc. their web page or web site.

In case you're unfamiliar, Amazon's Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourced marketplace for tasks. A person needing work done can set up a HIT (human intelligence task) - the small job they need done. Others come along to perform the HITs, earning micro payments along the way. In this way, businesses, developers, and other individuals have access to an affordable, scalable workforce

The Dark Side to Mechanical Turk

Unfortunately, it appears that the convenience of the Turk marketplace has some appeal to social media spammers, who are now using the site to earn Diggs, bookmarks, and other social recommendations they do not deserve. Here's an example:

Photo courtesy of Brynn Evans

Anyone who uses Amazon's Mechanical Turk has no doubt come across similar HITs posted by spammers. For example, this guy is requesting someone create 29 social bookmark accounts from 29 sites:

A search for "bookmark" on MT today displays 48 results (at the time of writing) where spammers are requesting social bookmarking of their web site. Search for "digg" and you'll find people paying for Diggs.

Of course, whenever there is a system in place (like social media) that can help drive traffic to a web site, there will be those people who use it to generate traffic for their spam sites. But why are they able to use Amazon Mechanical Turk to do so? Shouldn't Amazon police the Turk to shut down these spam accounts?

Mechanical Turk Still Has Promise, Despite Spammers

However, this doesn't mean that Mechanical Turk doesn't hold any value - it's still an innovative and useful tool for many. In fact, members of the HCI community (Human Computer Interaction) have begun to use Turk for user research studies with great success. This work has inspired others like open source advocate, Chris Messina, to do the same. He plans to use Turk for usability studies on OpenID and OAuth. Since the HITs are spread out among many, the cost of performing these studies is greatly reduced. Being able to crowdsource research is a great way that MT can be used today, and one that will have a big impact on the future, too.

Thanks to Brynn Evans, a graduate student in the Department of Cognitive Science at University of California, San Diego for discovering this and thanks to open source advocate Chris Messina for sending it along to us.

Nintendo’s Wii Fit currently tops the Amazon.com software chart, but it’s one of only two Wii titles to make the top ten, the other being Mario Kart Wii at No8.

PC-only EA pair Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and Spore sit in second and third ahead of their September launches, while the Xbox 360 version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, also due out next month, and 360-exclusive Fable 2, set for release in October, chart in seventh and ninth respectively.

read more

In the world of paid digital music downloads, there’s iTunes, Amazon MP3, maybe the Zune Marketplace and eMusic a rung or two lower on the industry ladder. The rest seem to comprise the land of the unspoken. Even Microsoft’s efforts and the indie fave eMusic are susceptible to falling into insignificance. After all, the music industry as a whole, as with virtually any market of capitalist design, tends to support winners. The tracks go where the traffic is. Most of the time anyway. Enough for the strongest of players to claim ubiquity and permanent and unchallenged staying power, and for those underneath to struggle for breath.

You might wonder why it is that I raise a point raised so many times before. The health of the music industry has been opined over ad nauseam, and to do so once more is to toss tired copy on a pile of wasted wordplay, right? Well, it depends, really. The story of the digital sales model is far from complete, and with new developments happening in the land of Apple and Amazon, as well as a steady flow of stories occurring along the fringe of the market, there still is room to press points further along and observe the space from underrepresented perspectives.

The last 24 hours or so, for example, have brought items having to do with a Napster letter addressed to shareholders, in which it notes that it is “open to a sale,” according to Joseph Weisenthal of PaidContent, as well as something or other to do with recently launched LimeWire MP3 Store and a marked 100% growth in its music catalog, to a mere 2 million in total, as noted by Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica. These you might thing to be insignificant. And taken as they come, I would admit that they are not very impactful. But if you consider them to be the newest round of pockmarks in the middle- and lower-class digital music scenes, they add to the subtle signs emerging each season that tell us the market’s bottom feeders are not long for this world.

Is that a good thing? Well, only the best survive, yes? Sure, ideally. It’s hard to say who would be left standing. Rhapsody? Maybe. The Zune Marketplace? That’s quite a variable at this point. Microsoft doesn’t seem to be “in it to win it.” On the upside, the loss of such actors - if indeed they do expire in the next year or two or three - would perhaps uncomplicate things more. Too many choices can more detrimental than few in some cases.

But, just for kicks, imagine a world that doesn’t have the spread of choices that we have today. If we start to see Napster, LimeWire, et al., start to drop like flies, what’s to say the consumer will really benefit? Those interested in music subscriptions, say, may no longer have such options. And labels that currently opt for one outlet or another due to variations in revenue agreements, might have to succumb to less advantageous contracts elsewhere. Which could hurt their bottom line. And though more musicians are taking an entirely solo route to promotion, the role of the studio, big or small, remains important. The music industry is busy enough as it is with a small set of great sounds and a vast amount of non-sellers. Some editorial is a good thing.

Granted, there are quite a number of ifs to take into account as things in the digital industry progress, but its certainly worth contemplating its evolving dimensions. It’s not been a decade since music downloads became “popular,” and already we’ve seen it balloon, we’ve seen its squeezed, and we’ve even seen it begin to consolidate.

Some might argue that where one gets his or her downloads won’t matter much. But I disagree. Businesses in a complex market such as media move to higher ground at the expense of others. And the “others” don’t simply get to continue on when left behind. So just know this. It may now seem purposeless to quibble over the failed and the failing. But if all but a few disappear, the consumer experience that might have been - that you can get what you want, how you want - probably won’t be realized. And that’s a shame if proven true. If any paradigm shift of modern making in the media world could be taken closest to an ideal, it is the convenience of the digital music download.

(Image source: Flickr/peymon)

Comcast will institute a 250 GB cap on its broadband connections starting Oct. 1. Expect other carriers to follow suit and make tiered broadband a reality. Much as I would like to think otherwise, this is the end of the Internet as we know it. I will say this again: this is to stymie services like Hulu, NetFlix and Amazon On-Demand. Read more over at GigaOM.

As an avid user and supporter of Apple TV, I am greatly concerned about Comcast's recently announced 250 GB/month bandwidth limit.

I've heard that 250 GB/month is quite large. However, with 4 macs, two iPhones and one Apple TV, we are on the internet quite a bit, and download the overwhelming percentage of our content. As more and more media is delivered over the internet, and as HD content becomes more available, isn't it possible to get to this limit much quicker than Comcast asserts.

Obviously, Comcast is concerned with Netflix, Apple, Amazon and other future on-line content providers impacting their on-demand service.

Also, I contacted Comcast to determine if they would provide information about bandwidth usage, and the response was to download software on each computer. (No one could tell me if such a program was available for an unhacked Apple TV) Quite frankly, that is not sufficient. All cell phone companies let you see your minutes used, and with them, the punishment is a per minute charge, while in this instance Comcast will suspend your internet for a year. As such, it does not seem right that Comcast cannot provide bandwidth usage so we know where we stand.

Curious as to others thoughts on this.

Hewlett Packard 12C Financial Calculator with original case and handbook. Like new, rarely used. The most popular financial calculator used by financial analysts, planners and professionals.

Only $40.00 Compare to $88.00 at Amazon.com

Contact me at mailto:caho@sympatico.ca

Just got this email from amazon:

Thanks to Chase, your readers may be eligible to receive $100 off the regular Kindle price. Amazon.com’s revolutionary wireless reading device now has more than 160,000 books plus top newspapers and blogs available and is more affordable than ever with this limited time offer from Chase.
Product Overview

Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.
Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.
Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
More than 160,000 books available, including more than 98 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers.
New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
More than 350 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN's Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post—all updated wirelessly throughout the day.
Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
Holds over 200 titles.
Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot.
No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments—we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.
Includes free wireless access to the planet's most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.
Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.
Included in the box: Kindle wireless reader, Book cover, Power adapter, USB 2.0 cable Details Here -->
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...kiangagenew-20

Je m’emballe très rarement pour un plugin de blog. J’en vois et en essaie un nombre incalculable. Quelques uns parfois retiennent mon attention et entre dans mon quotidien de blogger: MyBlogLog a été l’un des premiers, Lijit qui fournit le meilleur moteur de recherche pour un blog est aussi sur la liste. Apture, que je viens de découvrir également. Je joue avec depuis une semaine et voulait voir si l’habitude allait s’installer ou pas. Mission accomplie.

Apture est un outil d’édition qui vous permet d’ajouter du contenu connexe à vos billets. Aussi bien l’ajout que l’affichage de ces ajouts est d’une élégance sans égale. Apture permet sur un terme ou une série de termes d’ajouter une bulle intéractive qui s’ouvrira sur une source en relation. Contrairement à Zemanta qui essaie, sans succès à mon goût, de proposer automatiquement du contenu en relation à un terme au sein même de votre zone d’édition, Apture intervient une fois que votre billet est publié à même le blog et surtout vous laisse le choix de rechercher, trouver et inclure du contenu en relation.

Vous avez peut être remarqué sur les derniers billets des petits icones placés à côté de certains termes choisis et qui une fois survollés ouvre une bulle avec du contenu supplémentaire. Si ce n’est pas le cas, voici un exemple avec Albert Einstein qui ouvre une page Wikipedia ou Yaron Herman qui ouvre une vidéo Youtube. Attention cela ne fonctionne que sur le site et non dans le flux RSS. Une petite démo vidéo ci-dessous

Apture s’installe très simplement via l’ajout d’un script dans votre template ou via une méthode “1 click” qui fonctionne avec toutes les grandes plateformes de blogs. Une fois apture installé vous verrez une petite fenêtre de contrôle en haut à droite qui permet d’activer ou non l’édition à même le blog (en pressant “e” vous activez et déactivez ce module). Il suffit alors de choisir un terme ou une série de terme et apture vous propose une sélection de contenu en relation avec le terme issus de plusieurs sources par type de catégorie (Texte avec Wikipedia, Crunchbase, Imdb, Amazon,..), images (flickr), Documents (avec Scribd), sons/musique (avec imeem) vidéos (avec youtube notamment). Si vous n’êtes pas satisfait de la sélection vous pouvez saisir un autre terme. Au sein d’une même bulle vous pouvez ajouter du contenu en relation. Vous pouvez attribuer des droits d’éditions à plusieurs autres éditeurs (il faut être loggué à Apture pour éditer)

Notez que Wikipedia en français est disponible aussi en source. Le tout se fait de manière simplissime et élégante. Vous choisissez le contenu que vous souhaitez ajouter, cliquez et c’est fini, il est intégré au blog.

Alors à quoi bon tout cela?

L’une des vertus des blogs est leur générosité en liens qui permettent au lecteur d’avoir accès à plus de contenu à partir d’un billet. On trouve très peu de liens dans les titres et média traditionnels qui souvent ne veulent pas voir le traffic sortir de leur site ou simplement n’ont pas l’habitude ou les outils pour intégrer ces liens de manière commode. Avec Apture, les bloggeurs vont pouvoir enrechir simplement leurs billets et donner plus de corps à leur contenu. Apture ne remplace la nécessaire recherche de contenu centrale qui lui est placé sur le blog même mais facilite et encourage l’ajout de contenu secondaire pour mieux éclairer la lecture. Quelques exemples: vous faites référence à un texte de loi, dans une billet sur les copyrights, vous pouvez ajouter une entrée sur le DMCA américain par exemple, vous parlez du prochain film de David Fincher mais faites références à Seven et Fight Club dans votre billet, un billet sur la musique en ligne ou vous évoquez le profile de Last.fm

Bref après l’hyperlien, le super-hyperlien

J’ai eu plusieurs échange avec Tristan Harris, le patron d’apture, certains bugs persistent (notamment sur typepad), mais l’équipe est très réactive et à l’écoute de son audience. D’autres sources, notamment francophone seront bientôt disponbile. Je vous engage vivement à l’essaayer et à nos donner votre avis, comme bloggeur ou comme lecteur de blogs. Je suis convaincu que beaucoup vont l’adopter.

Promo: CrunchBoard France: Il serait temps de trouver un nouveau job, non?

Tags: contenu, blog, plugin, edition

College tuition is expensive enough, but hitting the campus bookstore with a shopping list of textbooks is where you can really get gouged—unless you know where to find the best discounts. With the start of the school year right around the corner, we asked savvy student deal hunters the best way to save money on textbooks. Over 100 responses later, we've compiled the best sources and tips to that will get you the textbooks you need without breaking the bank.

The majority of responses were specific web sites readers had used to save money on books. We've subdivided the textbook sites into categories for you, followed by tips and tricks for saving on your textbook haul this semester.

The Comparison Engines

When the price matters more than the store, online textbook price comparison engines shine. When you don't care what truck your $200 Chemistry book fell off of or what far reaches of the world it has to travel from to get to you as long as it's dirt cheap, comparison engines are the perfect tool.

BigWords.com is by far the most popular comparison engine amongst readers. BigWords has expanded over the years to cover not just the buying and selling of textbooks but price comparisons for DVDs, music, games, and other consumer products. According to the self-published statistics on the site:

Multi-Item Price Optimizationâ„¢ saves about $173 on average multi-item orders, including coupons, promotions, and shipping*. 35% cheaper than other online stores, 50% cheaper than bookstores.

Based on personal experience, while I have no idea if BigWords is in fact 35% cheaper than their competitors I have saved tons of money buying books with their comparison engine over the years. The real deal-sealer, of course, is the giant orange robot they employ as a mascot. You can always trust a robot.

While AddALL's web site isn't as polished as BigWords, it does search 41 book sites ensuring that whether your book is on Half.com or Walmart.com you'll end up with a low price. Unfortunately AddALL cannot do multiple comparisons like BigWords.

Rent Your Textbooks

Taking a hybrid approach between selling books and lending them, Chegg.com is a book rental service. From the test searches I conducted and from the comments left by readers it would appear that renting a book from Chegg for a semester is roughly 50% the cost of purchasing it. Chegg does offer the option to outright purchase the book if you so desire, but as any seasoned college student can tell you there are many books you'll never use again. If you're looking for an environmentally conscious bookseller, Chegg is an excellent candidate.

When we realized that 20 million trees a year are consumed for books—four million for textbooks alone—we decided it was time to give a little back to Mother Nature. That's why we plant a tree for every book you rent, buy, sell or donate! Together we can make a difference, one book at a time. Booksellers and Marketplaces

A powerhouse in the regular book industry, it didn't take long for Amazon.com to branch into the realm of textbooks. While Amazon didn't always have the lowest prices in my informal testing, some readers pointed out that there is sometimes more to shopping than the absolute lowest price. Amazon has history of strong customer service and the few extra dollars you may spend buying a book through Amazon.com might be worth the saved headache if things aren't quite what you expected. Also, Amazon offers a 30-day price guarantee, so if a book's price drops after you buy they'll refund you the difference. If you buy from Amazon, use a service like RefundPlease to monitor your purchases for price drops for 30 days after your purchase.

Half.com has built a name as a place to quickly buy and sell used books—and textbooks are no exception. With a spartan but efficient interface you can quickly enter entire lists of books to buy or sell and find out the going rate. Keep in mind that most textbook comparison engines will check sites like Amazon Marketplace and Half.com so visiting a single specialized retail site isn't always your best first stop.

The Free: The Library and Friends

The most obvious (and maybe most overlooked) place to find books is the public library. Many college libraries maintain a reserve of popular textbooks. If your library doesn't have the book you are looking for, check into getting it from another library. If you're new to using the library, see how to get the most out of your local library.

Finally, don't forget to simply ask around—online, like on Facebook, or in person. If you're a college student purchasing textbooks there is a pretty good chance you're in an area saturated with other college students who are all just as dismayed at the idea of selling back their $180 textbook to the campus bookstore for $15. Ask around, because no matter how cheap you find a book in a textbook search engine nothing beats the hassle of giving a fellow student $20 and being done with your textbook hunting on the spot.

Tell us about your best textbook discounts this academic year in the comments.

Rumors of a second-generation Kindle from Amazon.com before 2009 have been greatly exaggerated, Amazon said Friday. Although many fans of the e-book reader have been abuzz this week with rumors that Amazon.com planned to release an updated version of its Kindle, the retail giant will not, in fact, have a new device out before the new year, according to Heather Huntoon, an Amazon.com spokesperson. "Don't believe everything you read," she told TechNewsWorld.