Recently in amazon Category

Amazon's Kindle is one of those devices that I've been looking at for a long time, but I couldn't quite convince myself that I needed one.

Well I still don't need one, but I suspect I might end up with one ..

Why?

Very simply put - they've cut the price on them down to something more palatable and introduced some new options.

So what's it got that makes the difference?

It's slimmer and the screen contrast is meant to have been improved. Anyone I know who uses the Kindle has always been impressed with the screen, while iPad users have complained about not being able to read text in bright light..

The introduction of a cheaper, Wifi only, model is also a good move. Sure, you can opt for the 3G model, but putting a wifi only one at the close to £100 mark is a good move.

I mentioned the introduction of free shipping to Ireland yesterday. At the time it didn't appear to be available and the article in The Irish Times hadn't specified when it would be ..

This morning I can confirm that it is live and available.

I placed an order a few minutes ago for over £25 and did NOT pay shipping!

See screenshot below:



Great news for everyone!

Seemingly Amazon UK has finally "seen the light" and is planning on introducing free shipping to Ireland for purchases over £25.

There's more coverage in The Irish Times, but it's not exactly clear WHEN they are going to start offering this. (They obviously aren't today)

Almost three years ago I wrote about how Amazon UK had stopped shipping a lot of goods to Ireland. At the time it was very hard to get any tangible details from Amazon about the change in policy. Eventually an answer of sorts was forthcoming, though it took a lot of effort to get it! Basically Amazon were concerned about the Irish (and EU) legislation affecting the recycling of electronic goods. What was incredibly annoying was that Amazon managed to apply the same criteria to a much wider range of products than just electronics.

In any case as of a few days ago the restriction has been lifted. I've successfully ordered a Logitech Harmony remote control (I'd been thinking of getting one for ages) and they took the order without any issue. Admittedly the Amazon site still has lots of references to delivery restrictions on the product details pages and the change only applies to Amazon not their marketplace vendors.

It would be interesting to know why Amazon took so long to make this change in policy, but it is very very welcome. More competition is always good.

Richard O'Connor, aka "Grandad", got a book deal about a year ago with Mercier press and the book itself will be out in the new year. When exactly I don't honestly know, but it's already available for pre-order on Amazon.

The cover image isn't available on Amazon at the moment, but Grandad posted it the other day, so here it is (I'm saving on his bandwidth bills by stealing a copy - he can sue me later!):
I really like the subtitle!

So who do I have to kill to get a signed copy I wonder....

Since I live in Ireland I'm used to waiting several days (or longer) for my Amazon orders.

It's not an issue.

Yesterday morning I ordered a few DVDs, but since some of them weren't due out for another week or so I wasn't expecting to receive anything immediately.

So I nearly fell of my chair when I took delivery of a DVD boxset this morning. They'd managed to get it to me in approximately 24 hours! And no, I hadn't opted for express delivery or anything like that - I'd chosen the normal options with a total postage cost of £2.99.

Here's the part of the email:

Delivery estimate: 29 Aug 2008 - 4 Sep 2008
Dispatch estimate for these items: 26 Aug 2008

Wow!

I am truly impressed!

It looks like Amazon is jumping on the Green bandwagon as well...

I don't blame them. If I could push the "green" aspects of our new hosting solution more and it led to sales I would without hesitation.

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Since my blu ray player is a US import I have to be very very careful about which discs I buy.

I either choose US region or multi-region discs, since there is no easy way to make a blu ray player recognise all discs (yet!)

Unfortunately Amazon haven't updated their website to take into account the Blu Ray regions.

Any film released on blu ray will end up with a DVD region listed beside it, which is, of course, incorrect. The silly thing is that Amazon's site has all the information on regions for blu rays - it's just the item display that is showing the wrong data.

It's a shame, but at least Amazon actually show the disc region, whereas a lot of the other sites don't even do that much!

Amazon.com had issues last week, but today it's Amazon UK's turn.

How long it was down for is unclear, but several people, including myself, got an unhelpful "service unavailable" message when trying to access the site earlier this evening.

It just goes to show - 100% uptime is a myth :)

Amazon's main site, Amazon.com, has been down for the last hour or more. Currently some sections of the website are available sporadically.

The really scary thing is that based on their reported revenues every minute of downtime equates to about $31000 of lost revenue!

Now that is really mission critical!

In the meantime you might amuse yourself looking at some of the craziness in the current whois output:

whois amazon.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

   Server Name: AMAZON.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
   IP Address: 69.41.185.219
   Registrar: INNERWISE, INC. D/B/A ITSYOURDOMAIN.COM
   Whois Server: whois.itsyourdomain.com
   Referral URL: http://www.itsyourdomain.com

   Server Name: AMAZON.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
   IP Address: 203.36.226.2
   Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
   Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
   Referral URL: http://domainhelp.opensrs.net

   Server Name: AMAZON.COM.IS.N0T.AS.1337.AS.WWW.GULLI.COM
   IP Address: 80.190.192.24
   Registrar: EPAG DOMAINSERVICES GMBH
   Whois Server: whois.enterprice.net
   Referral URL: http://www.enterprice.net

   Domain Name: AMAZON.COM
   Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
   Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
   Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com
   Name Server: UDNS1.ULTRADNS.NET
   Name Server: UDNS2.ULTRADNS.NET
   Status: clientDeleteProhibited
   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Status: clientUpdateProhibited
   Updated Date: 28-mar-2008
   Creation Date: 01-nov-1994
   Expiration Date: 31-oct-2017