• Any.DO is the web site for a free to-do list that includes voice recognition. Tell it to remember to get some milk and it stores that to your list. It also listens and captures any other task you need to do. You can collaborate with others in creating a list of tasks or objectives.  It’s available on Android tablets and phones and is coming “soon” to the iPhone, iPad and the web. (When we signed up, there were 18,485 people ahead of us on the waiting list.)
• “Skitch” lets you add comments and sketches to a photograph. (Also available on the iPad.)
• Price Check compares a store’s price with Amazon’s and has links to movie trailers and reviews. This will stop a lot of in-store purchases, and stores are already protesting. We’ve done this kind of check a lot, and it’s worth noting that Amazon does not always have the lowest price.

We have both tablets, so it’s easy to compare them. Joy finds she likes the small size and light weight of the Kindle Fire, just seven inches and 15 ounces. That’s nine ounces heavier than a regular Kindle, but seven ounces lighter than an iPad. The Fire is easy to throw into a purse or a bag. And it’s easy to hold in your hands for long stretches. In fact you can easily hold it in one hand, which is quickly tiring with the iPad.

The Fire’s “carousel” main page shows dozens of revolving images, representing your apps, books, videos and magazines. It’s very easy to navigate. You can use your finger to pin favorites to a shelf below the main screen image or move to other categories by tapping a link at the top of the screen. The links point to music, videos, apps, Web sites, documents, etc. If you’re already using Amazon’s Cloud Player for music, or getting free movies through a subscription to Amazon Prime, the Fire handles all that plus Netflix and games like “Angry Birds.”  We like it that you don’t have to type in a password every time you add an app.

The Fire connects to the Internet through a WiFi connection. Apple has a WiFi-only version of the iPad and another that adds a 3G cellular phone connection. You pay more for the cellular version upfront, plus a monthly fee. You may not mind the absence of 3G on the Fire, since much of your reading takes place offline. You save money by not having monthly charges.

Our favorite free news app is “Pulse.” This comes with stories from the Wall Street Journal, ESPN, and a dozen or so magazines and blogs. Turn on the Fire for a few seconds before you leave the house and those stories will quickly download. They will then be there when you’re offline on the bus or at the dentist’s office.

When the iPad first launched, a dozen how-to books immediately followed. We haven’t seen any yet for the Fire, which is an indicator of how easy it is to use. But of course there are books on how to use the iPad because it has more functions.

The bottom line: If you plan to use a tablet for business or creative tasks, get the iPad. If you like a larger screen, especially good for magazines, which tend to spill off the page if you enlarge them on the Fire, get the iPad. If you need a 10 to 12 hour battery life, get an iPad. In fact, the iPad is a charmer. Play around with one at an Apple store and see if you can get out the door without buying it. We couldn’t. But if we hadn’t already bought the iPad, the Fire would easily be enough for us – and the $300 savings is appealing.

A Prime membership costs $79 a year, but we obviously thought it was worth it. If you’re a Prime member, click “See all categories” from the store menu on your Kindle, and then click the category “Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.” They’ve got some good ones. “The Hunger Games,” a favorite of our nephews, is near the top of the popularity list. Joy downloaded the number one choice: “Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson.”

You can also lend your own Kindle books to another Kindle owner for a two-week period, whether you’re a Prime member or not. Update:  Of the 50 books we own, only one is lendable.

Amazon’s new $199 “Kindle Fire” may surpass the phenomenal sales of Apple’s iPad.

In the first five days it has been available for pre-order, 250,000 were sold. Apple sold 300,000 iPads on opening day, but that included pre-orders and live sales. If Amazon continues like this, the Fire will probably burn past the iPad.

Should you get one? Unlike the iPad 2, the Fire doesn’t have a microphone or camera, but its simplified interface makes it easy to switch from movies to games to books to photos. And no matter how many downloads you have, Amazon will store them for free if they originally came from Amazon. They have 18 million items: movies, TV shows, songs, magazines and books. Ten thousand movies can be downloaded for free if you pay $79 a year for a “prime” membership; which also gives you free two-day shipping on other Amazon orders. We took the deal because of the free shipping.

By the way: We recently saw a comparative price chart in the October 1, 2011 issue of the Economist magazine and Amazon’s prices were lower than Walmart and almost all other large retailers. The exceptions were Costco and Dollar General. Interesting stuff.

A new Kindle eReader that has ads sells for $114 and is handily outselling the $139 Kindle 3, which does not carry ads. Is it because people want to save the $25? Maybe not.

Quite a few people with the regular Kindle have said they wish they had bought the cheaper version, because they like the ads. Here are some examples:

• $10 for a $20 Amazon.com gift card.
• $6 for 6 Audible Books (normally $68).
• $1 for an album in the Amazon MP3 Store. Choose from more than a million albums.
• $10 for $30 worth of products in the Amazon Denim Shop or Amazon Swim Shop.

This reminds Bob of the short-lived newspaper “PM,” which was started in New York by Chicago department store owner Marshall Field III during Word War II. Field believed that because of the dire nature of the times, a newspaper should just have news, and not take up space with advertisements. Readers soon complained about the lack of ads, however, and the paper had to send reporters out to cover sales at local stores. Ads, it turns out, are content.

The great thing about publishing on the Kindle is that it requires no middle man and no publishing company. Traditional publishers are so inundated with manuscripts that they throw them into what’s called the “slush pile,” rarely or never to be seen again. Most will only accept submissions from literary agents, and usually only agents they know and have dealt with. Those are the old days — still occupied by ossified book publishers.

What’s an author to do? How about this? Write your book, send it to Amazon, makers of the Kindle e-reader, and hope for the best. John Locke (not the 17th century philosopher) sold his books at 99 cents, keeping 35 percent of the revenue. He earned $350,000 in five months. Now he has a new book called “How I Sold One Million E-books in Five Months;” but this one is $5.

Amazon shows you how to self-publish on the Kindle on their website but the information is hard to find. We’ve created a direct link at tinyurl.com/pubnow. You can also use Amazon’s “Create Space” to publish your work as a hard cover book, CD, DVD, video download or Amazon MP3. Use tinyurl.com/22pubit for a direct connection to that.

The downside of this new publishing freedom is that plagiarists have gotten into the act. Known novelists have found some of their books published again under another name. It happened to Shayne Parkinson, a New Zealander who writes historical novels, with her book “Sentence of Marriage.” An Amazon spokesperson said the company is working on the problem.

The Groupon competition has gotten so bad that competitors are springing up like weeds. If you just tuned in, Groupon is a website that offers daily discounts on just about anything. It’s been very popular with shoppers looking for deals. So popular, in fact, that web giant, Amazon, has decided to get into the act. Their new service is called “Amazon Local” and you can find it at Local.Amazon.com.

The pitch is that Amazon Local will present special deals near the viewer’s location. However, their only location so far is Boise, Idaho. We doubt this is making Groupon tremble. Not that we have anything against Boise we know people in Boise, nice people. We asked one of them if he would try Amazon Local and report back. “Works great,” he said; “got good concert tickets for $10.” If you sign up for Amazon Local now, they’ll let you know when your location is in their universe.

The Kobo’s battery life is great: You can turn and churn through 10,000 pages before needing a recharge. It has the easy-on-your eyes “e-ink” technology, unlike the new Barnes and Noble Nook. Add a four gigabyte memory card to store 400 more books past the initial 100. You can also check out library books in the “epub” or PDF format. Read all about it (as they used to say) at Kobo.com.

The only major downside we saw was the absence of a physical keyboard. We prefer the Kindle’s tiny buttons for each letter of the alphabet; this makes it easier to search for new titles. But you can always use your computer to search and then transfer them by cable.

You don’t have to buy the Kobo reader to use its free software. There’s a Kobo app for reading ebooks on a computer, smartphone or tablet. Five free classics are included with the app. The Kobo app for iPad or iPhone syncs with the “Instapaper” app to let you start reading an article online and finish it offline as a virtual Kobo book. The Kobo app also includes “My Reading Life,” an app that makes it easy to share book passages on Facebook, win badges for reading, keep track of how much you’ve read and so on.

Residents of Grise Fiord, North of the Arctic Circle, ordered "Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul" from Amazon.com.

The Kindle eReader is now Amazon’s best-selling product, even outselling book seven of the Harry Potter Series. In other Amazon news, on November 29, Amazon.com sold 158 items a second. A few of those items, including “Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul,” were shipped to really remote places, including the hamlet of Grise Fiord, north of the Arctic Circle in Canada.

Other fun facts:

• “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” was the most purchased Kindle book on Christmas Day.
• “The Dork Diaries” saw the greatest gain in popularity on Christmas Day and is in the top 500 Kindle books.
• An Apple Mac Mini was ordered at 1:41 p.m. on Christmas Eve and delivered early that evening by local express delivery.
• Amazon customers purchased so many pairs of jeans that if you folded each pair and stacked them on top of each other, the height would be the equivalent of Mt. Everest.
• Amazon customers purchased enough Kyjen Hide-a-Squirrels to hide one toy squirrel everyday for the next 100 years.

Amazon.com’s holiday bestsellers (Nov. 14 through Dec. 19), were as follows:

• Electronics: Kindle (Wi-Fi); Kindle 3G; and Apple iPod touch 8GB
• Toys: Scrabble Flash Cubes; Qwirkle Board Game; and LEGO Ultimate Building Set
• Video Games and Hardware: Call of Duty: Black Ops; Just Dance 2; and Donkey Kong Country Returns
• Sports & Outdoors: Zumba Fitness Total Body Transformation System DVD Set; Razor A Kick Scooter; and Power Balance Silicone Wristband
• Movies: “Inception”; “The Blind Side”; and “Toy Story 3″
• Kindle Books: “The Confession: A Novel” by John Grisham; “Decision Points” by George Bush; and “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand
• Amazon MP3: “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” by Kanye West; “The 99 Most Essential Christmas Masterpieces” (Amazon Exclusive) by various artists; and “Born Free” by Kid Rock
• Watches: Timex Women’s Sports Digital Watch; Timex Kids’ My First Outdoor Black Fast Wrap Watch; and Casio Men’s G-Shock Classic Digital Watch
• Beauty: Philosophy Limited Edition Hope in a Jar; Philosophy Peppermint Bark Duo; and Burt’s Bees Essential Body Kit
• Home, Garden & Pets: Swarovski 2010 Annual Edition Crystal Snowflake Ornament; Cuisinart SmartStick 200-Watt Immersion Hand Blender; and Cuisinart 5-in-1 Griddler
• Clothing & Accessories: Levi’s Men’s 501 Jean; Levi’s Men 550 Relaxed Fit Jean; and Levi’s Men’s 505 Regular Straight Fit Jean
• Shoes and Handbags: UGG Australia Women’s Classic Short Boots; Red Large Vicky Giraffe Print Faux Leather Satchel Bag; and BEARPAW Women’s Eva 10″ Boot
• Health & Personal Care: Philips Norelco Men’s Shaving System; Omron Digital Pocket Pedometer; and Philips Sonicare Essence Power Toothbrush
• Home Improvement: Black & Decker Ratcheting ReadyWrench; Striker Magnetic LED Light-Mine Flashlight; and Rockwell Jawhorse
• Automotive Parts & Accessories: Battery Tender Junior; Wagan Heated Seat Cushion; and Michelin Digital Programmable Tire Gauge
• Baby: Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes; Cloud b Twilight Constellation Night Light, Turtle; and Baby Einstein Bendy Ball
• Software: Anime Studio Debut 7; Manga Studio Debut 4; and Adobe Photoshop Elements 9
• Grocery: Coffee People Donut Shop K-Cups for Keurig Brewers; Vita Coco 100% Pure Coconut Water; and Numi Tea Bamboo Flowering Tea Gift Set
• Wireless: Samsung Captivate Android Phone (AT&T); HTC DROID INCREDIBLE Android Phone (Verizon Wireless); and Motorola DROID X Android Phone (Verizon Wireless)
• Frustration-Free Packaging: Transcend 4 GB Class Flash Memory Card; Fujifilm FinePix 12.2 MP Digital Camera; and Coffee People Donut Shop K-Cups for Keurig Brewers