Advent is here!

Our Daily Bread
I never really celebrated Advent when I was growing up or even in early adulthood.  I went to a few services over the years, but not many.  The church I currently attend has Advent services each year.  They can be very nice.

The devotional for today talks about the four themes of Advent: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.  What better themes could you have?  ;-)  Check out your area churches to see if they have Advent services.  Or, you can review this web site for Advent information and resources.

Lord, help us to remember the four Advent themes all year long!

Technology Thursday
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I bought a Kindle Fire tablet from Amazon.com the first day they were out.  Here is my informal review after using it for a few weeks.

eReader
As an eReader, this is a nice device, though very different than the original Kindle devices.  The Fire has a color screen instead of the e-ink screen.  Color is better, right?  It is very cool when the book or magazine has color illustrations.  The problem the device has is similar to the iPad -- the glossy screen.  You can get a lot of glare off the screen.  The good news is that the screen does not wash out quite as bad as the iPad (I tried them side by side in the sunlight!).  The adjustable font is very cool as well.

Apps
There appears to be several apps available.  I haven't checked them all out yet.

Interface
The interface is very easy to use in my opinion.  There is a home button that takes you to the home screen.  From the home screen you have a ribbon of choices across the top like Books, Newsstand, Video, Music, etc.  The navigation is fast due to the dual core processor.  There is also a scrolling list of apps or books that you have recently accessed.  That is pretty cool to look at and flip through!

The device has an external power button and a micro USB port.  That is it.  Everything else is done on the screen, like volume control, etc.

Video and Music
I tried watching a TV episode via Amazon Prime on the device.  It was very cool!  I like the picture quality and sound quality using headphones.  The external speakers are not that great (not as good as the iPad).

Web browser
The web browser is decent.  I am still not sure if the Amazon web servers they advertise really help or not.  The performance is not bad.  Most web sites look pretty good.  I haven't tried a Flash site yet.

The "Gotchas"
The device holds only 8 gig of stuff.  It is not horrible since you can store everything you buy from Amazon on the Amazon Cloud service and then bring it down to the device when you want to view it.  It is not expandable (no external card slots).  The device only works with wireless networks right now.  There is not a 3G option like the other Kindle devices.

This is a great device.  I think they will sell a ton of them.  Please make sure you know what you want before you buy it.  It is not an iPad.  At $199, it also doesn't cost as much as the entry level iPad!  Check them out at Best Buy or on the Apple site.

Other Stuff
I had a relaxing afternoon yesterday after my eye doctor and dentist appointment.  I broke off my temporary crown AGAIN at breakfast yesterday morning.  Oh well.  My dentist is very patient with me.

We had a nice D1 class last night.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the snacks I took.

Back to work today.  Woohooo!  I need to pay for all of this fun!

Let go, my friends!  God will be there to catch you and hold you in his loving arms!