Do You Need a Tablet?

Tablets have exploded in the marketplace in the same way that smart phones did a few years ago. Just like with smart phones, Apple led the pack and soon dominated the market. However, other manufacturers have caught up, and there are now dozens of models available.

If you haven’t already purchased a tablet, you may be asking yourself whether you need to buy one. Is it a replacement for your laptop? An upgrade on your smart phone? Here are some of the reasons why you might consider buying a tablet:

Affordability

Compared to a laptop, most tablet models are quite affordable. While prices for the iPad still rival those of laptops — with the high-end iPad models costing more than low-end laptop models — there are many other tablets that are available for $200 or even less. Depending on the features you need in your laptop or tablet, you could end up saving hundreds of dollars and still get the functionality you need by choosing a tablet over a laptop.

Portability

While laptops are also portable, tablets offer more ease in portability. You don’t have to bring bulky adapters to recharge a battery, and you don’t have to find a table or other surface to setup comfortably. You don’t even need a carrying case for a tablet.

You can easily carry a tablet in your hand and work with it anywhere — no setup or surface space required.

Adaptability

A tablet combines the features of a laptop and your smart phone. You can download apps to do just about anything you need to do. Depending on the model of tablet, you can take photos, type documents, surf the web, and much more. For more advanced work, there are programs or add-ons you can purchase to expand the capabilities of your tablet.

Entertainment

Tablets are a great source of entertainment. You can use them to connect to the web, or you can download games and other fun apps. You can also use it as an e-reader, or you can watch movies and television shows on it. You can do all of these things anywhere, at any time, right in the palm of your hand.

The question of whether or not you need a tablet is a personal one that only you can definitively answer. However, a tablet offers many benefits that you can consider when making your decision, including affordability, portability, adaptability, and entertainment.

Do you own a tablet? Which model did you choose? Tell us what influenced your decision in the comments!

This guest post is contributed by Heather Green.  Heather is a Christian mom, freelance writer, pet lover and the resident blogger for OnlineNursingDegrees.org, a free informational website offering tips and advice on different types of nurses and online resources.

Top 5 Apps for Travel

Whether you’re a business traveler or just like to hop around the world for leisure, utilizing travel apps on your smart phone device can make jet setting easier. From applications that help you organize an itinerary, to maps that provide details of far away lands you’re visiting, here is a look at the top 5 travel apps you should download to your smart phone device.

TripIt

Are you a disorganized traveler who can’t remember the details of your reservations? Are you a busy business traveler that travels from city to city? Then the TripIt app is for you. Why? Because this app takes the confirmation emails you receive from airlines, trains, hotels and rental car companies and it creates an itinerary for your trip.

The app also updates the departure and arrival gates for your flights as well as provides you directions to the airport. That’s quite a helpful tool when you’re traveling in a city where you’re unfamiliar.

iXpenseit

Keeping tabs on how much you spend when you travel is important for a couple of reasons. First, if you’re traveling for pleasure you want to make sure you’re not blowing your budget between meals and additional expenses you don’t usually have when you’re at home. If you’re on business, then often you’re reimbursed for the money you spend. Whatever the case, iXpenseit will track every penny you spend.

You have the option of pie, bar or standard charts which detail how much money you’re spending. It also lists your top expenses and how close you are to reaching your budget limit. Finally, the app also operates in multiple currencies making tracking international spending a snap.

Weatherbug

One of the toughest parts about traveling is knowing what to wear. While traveling you don’t have all the comforts of home to suddenly change when the weather surprises you. With Weatherbug, you’ll always be prepared. Weatherbug includes weather for your current location including updates of storm warnings and alerts.

The app also lets you check weather throughout the entire United States by simply pointing to that location on the map. This can be quite a handy tool prior to boarding a plane to that city. Finally, the app provides easy to read weather forecasts for up to 10 days.

AroundMe

Need to find a bank? Restaurant? Hotel in a pinch? Then AroundMe is the application for you. While you are probably familiar with where you live, AroundMe will provide information about everything that is around you when you travel to a new location. This can also be helpful when trying to find local area attractions in a new city.

Once you determine where you want to go, AroundMe will provide with directions and contact information in case you need to call the place you are heading.

World Customs & Cultures

When traveling to a foreign country, you want to be mindful and respectful of their customs. However, if you were never steeped in their traditions, how will you know? Enter the World Customs & Cultures application. Things such as eye contact, personal space, communication style and taboos are all discussed.

The app also details views of the time and gender issues that may or may not be present. Downloading this app will ensure that you are always an appropriate traveler.

While these are some of the best travel apps on the market, there are certainly many others that people use. What are some of your favorite apps?

Author Bio:

This is a guest post from Mark Lindstrom who is a savvy shopper trying to save money wherever he can. He uses everything from Priceline discount codes for travel, down to HP promo codes for the ultra book he takes with him.

Save 30 Dollars – Download WinX Cell Phone Video Converter Free (Offer Expires May 15, 2010)

My Internet friend Kingpin, who is always on the lookout for Tech Thoughts readers, when it comes to freebies, has found another one – WinX Cell Phone Video Converter.

From the developer’s site:

WinX Cell Phone Video Converter helps you convert any HD and SD video formats to mobile phone compatible video and audio formats, such as 3GP, MP4, AVC, MP3, etc. which are supported by all mobile phone and smart phone, like Nokia, Blackberry, Google Android phone, iPhone, etc.

This mobile phone converter is also designed for creating personalized videos for mobile phone by clipping video segment, adjusting parameter settings, changing video size, etc.

Time-limited Giveaway Offer – Regularly: $29.95. Now: $0.00

Fast facts:

Converting All Video Files for Mobile Phone – WinX Cell Phone Video Converter can convert all popular video files such as M2TS, MKV, AVCHD, AVI, WMV, FLV, MOV to MP4, 3GP, AVC video formats for Nokia, Blackberry, Android phone, iPhone, etc.

Support Multi-track HD Video – WinX Cell Phone Video Converter is the best mobile phone video converter which can convert Multi-track HD video BDAV, M2TS, MKV, and AVCHD. e.g. It lets you convert multi-track MKV, M2TS/MTS to MP4, 3GP, AVC, etc, you can freely choose audio language track.

Support Blu-ray, M2TS, BDAV – Support BDAV, TrueHD, M2TS, MTS, MPEG-TS Aduio/Video. It is a definitely useful feature when making a digital copy to backup your Blu-ray videos.

Multi-core CPU and Hyper-threading Supported – With Multi-core CPU and Hyper-threading, it offers you up to 5x‐8x real time converting speed. Besides, you can also convert videos in batch mode.

Video Editing with Ease – This mobile phone video converter is easy to use for splitting the video to fit the mobile phone and trimming the video segment you favor from the video files by choosing the start point and duration. You can make personalized videos by your own.

Optimize Videos by Adjustable Parameter Settings – With the assistance of this cell phone video converter, you can customize and compress the videos according to your preference by adjusting the video and audio parameter settings, such as resolution, frame rate, video bitrate, etc.

Extract Audio to Make Ringtone for Mobile Phone – Extract audio tracks and save as MP3 music file which can be made as the ringtone for mobile phone. It can also extract pictures from the video and save as mobile wallpapers.

Fast Speed, High Quality and Ease-to-Use – WinX Cell Phone Video Converter, designed with user-friendly interface, is easy to use for users of any level of experience. It works as the fastest 3GP and smart phone video converter which can keep the converted videos the same as the original.

To get the full version for free, please download this program and register with this License Code: WINXV2-CPHONE-27361-75133

Or, go to developer’s site: Winx dvd.com

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