Justin Germino Ramblings

I picked up a can of the [easyazon-link asin=”B001EQ5DLA”]Planters NUT-rition Digestive Health Mix[/easyazon-link] the other day and I swear this was the most flavorful and best tasting nut mix I have ever had.  It has dried berries to add a sweetness that compliments the almonds and pistachios so well.

[easyazon-image-link asin=”B001EQ5DLA” alt=”Planters NUT-rition Digestive Health Mix, 9-Ounce Cans (Pack of 3)” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51t99wQl5yL.jpg” align=”center” width=”500″ height=”498″]

I have eat a ton of trail mix brands over the years, but there isn’t too much salt, no chocolate or yogurt coatings and this just plain tastes exceptional.  Each can says it has about 8 servings in it, but I usually only get about 4 servings per can since I tend to eat two heaping handfuls in a serving.

If you are looking for a new nut mix that has cherries, cranberries, grain clusters, almonds and pistachio’s then the [easyazon-link asin=”B001EQ5DLA”]Planters NUT-rition Digestive Health Mix[/easyazon-link] is the right kind of mix for you.

How many of my readers have tried this particular flavor?  I have tried the Antioxidant and Heart Healthy mix before, both are really good as well.

-Justin Germino

With Twitter putting policies in place that allow it to expand into other countries but also comply with local laws that allow the censorship of tweets that governments flag as illegal Twitter has seen both attackers and defenders already over the past few days.

Twitter has legitimacy in wanting to expand and tap into a larger audience, with 100 million users, Twitter is about 1/9th the size of Facebook and only slightly bigger than Google+ and was around a lot longer than Google+.

Twitter also was the platform that most notably helped spawn revolutions in Egypt and protests in other countries.  The biggest fear is that now if people try to voice their opinions and calls for change, they will be blocked and shut down.

Censorship is not what most free countries tolerate or stand up for and the thought of Twitter potentially censoring tweets and removing them from countries where any outlet for free speech is a welcome and necessary option.

Twitter does however say it will investigate all “flagged” tweets and post any that were censored on another site mentioning what was censored and why.  They also state that they will allow the offending tweets to stay intact for other countries just not for the one where laws where violated.

We shall see how this shapes up and whether Twitter’s reputation will be damaged and possibly suffer a backlash with some people already declaring “No Twitter Days”.

How do you feel about the latest compromises Twitter is making in exchange for being more attractive as a social media network to more rigid countries?  Share your thoughts.

-Justin Germino

Was funny when my wife asked me why there were no songs on my iPod Touch and I told her I use Spotify exclusively for all my music now.  I pretty much don’t load iTunes at all to transfer music anymore to my iPod and only use the iTunes for apps, news, games that I occasionally play (I use my iPad for apps more than my iPod touch).

Spotify is pretty fantastic and though it doesn’t have everything I find new stuff is being added all the time.  Just a few months ago I didn’t find the Greenback Boogie song which came out a few months later and just was instantly available.

I have been a paying Spotify member for a long time now and have no regrets, they still need to add more Tangerine Dream albums but I already have listened to so many I haven’t heard before thanks to Spotify.

I really think that for people who think it is worth paying for Sirius or XM Satellite radio, Spotify is worth the $9.99 per month to get unlimited music streaming and even be able to store a hundred songs offline at any one time to listen while you are in offline mode.

Spotify now has apps too that provide extra detail like song lyrics, billboard charts and even more options for building radio features and your own stations.

I just wish Spotify app existed for the Kindle Fire so I can more easily build kids custom playlists and sync their devices.  I also would like to see Spotify contract with publishers and maybe allow audio books as well.  I would pay an extra $5 per month to have audio book access on top of my $10 per month subscription.

-Justin Germino

You know if you consider the fact that Naked Brand juices are $2.99 on average per bottle at Fry’s and cheaper at Walmart and you drink just 1-2 per day to replace a meal it is actually cheaper than buying a juicer and juicing your own vegetables that would give you the same nutritional value.

Seriously, my favorite is the Green Machine which in addition to having Apples, Banana, Kiwi, Mango and some Pineapple juice also has the following healthy ingredients.

Try putting all that in a juicer or blender and see how much it would cost you for 1 serving size?  They have over 24 flavors of juices including some smoothies with soy protein instead of milk protein.

My favorites are Orange Carrot, Blue Machine, Red Machine, Power-C, Mighty Mango and of course Green Machine.  I haven’t tried Gold Machine or some of the others but I haven’t encountered a Naked Juice that I didn’t like.

Because they are fresh juices with no artificial ingredients I can’t order them from Amazon.com and have to go to local store.  I usually buy about 4-5 bottles per week and drink one instead of a lunch on some days.

If you haven’t tried Naked Juices yet then you don’t know what you are missing.

-Justin Germino

With my Kindle Fire Giveaway having about a week left over on DragonBlogger.com I noticed that the official Kindle Fire fanpage on Facebook inches closer to 500,000 likes.

I almost never see any negative comment and majority of owners are passionate and love their tablet.

My kids love their Kindle Fire and every weekend I am preloading new music or switching out movies on both Kindle Fire’s that my boys received as Christmas presents.

There are new games added every week but I will admit that there needs to be a larger selection of high quality games, this will come to grow in time but in general I still find that Apple Store has a higher selection of quality games or at least licensed movie based games and such.  You won’t find any Superman, Green Lantern, Spiderman games on the Amazon App Store for example yet.

You will find Real Steel boxing game for Kindle Fire which my 5 year old loves, and you will find other excellent games like Battleheart but Kingdom Rush isn’t available yet.

The Kindle Fire is growing rapidly and is highly recommended if you want a tablet that is $199 and worth every penny.  Just ask any questions on the Kindle Fire page and you will get a glutton of people willing to share their advice, feedback or opinions.  Or if you already own a Kindle Fire, you can join my Kindle Fire Owners Facebook group and share your stories and ask for help.

-Justin Germino

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In addition to still running the Kindle Fire Giveaway on my technology blog which has around 6,000 entries so far, I am also giving away a free video game (winner’s choice) the game can be for any console or PC as long as retail value is $59.99 or less.

You still have time to enter either contest, go ahead and click on the banners below and enter to win either a Kindle Fire or Video game of your choice.

-Justin Germino

What other giveaways would you want to see on DragonBlogger.com technology blog?  Share what you want a chance to win.

One shorty award vote for dragonblogger in the blogger category and I thought why not see how many votes I can get?  I decided to see how many of my fans and friends would be willing to toss me a shorty vote and though I have no chance of reaching the 9744 votes that the 1st place person has, I thought I may just make the top 10 with about 270 votes being all that’s needed to place the #10 spot.

Nominate Justin Germino for a social media award in the Shorty Awards

So currently I am running in about #40 out of 1400 people nominated for a Shorty, and the voting ends on January 27th. 

My selling point on why people should vote me for a Social Media Shorty award is because few social media personalities can do technology, gaming, blogging, WordPress tips, poetry, movie reviews, make money online at same time. 

If you wouldn’t mind, nominate dragonblogger for a Shorty and let’s see if I can reach my top 10 placement.

-Justin Germino

Something about Level Up from Cartoon Network just drew me and my kids in to watching the movie last fall and looking forward to the new series which starts tonight.

The premise behind Level Up is some high school MMO gamers accidentally open a portal which allows an evil sorcerer to send monsters into our world.  There are all the gamer stereotypes and even in some cases the kids who make fun of gamers, but the show is light hearted and really fun.  It is about people who have similar interests putting aside differences and teaming up to help send the monsters back into the game world.

My 8 year old and 5 year old must have watched the movie premiere 25 times since it aired and I did enjoy watching it with them.  I hope the show continues to be creative and fun and look forward to it being one of our Tuesday night traditions that we watch together, Huzzah!

We needed to replace Star Wars: The Clone Wars which is ending soon and was another one of our shows we traditionally watched together.

-Justin Germino

I have been a member of the e-Rewards system for several years now and one thing that hasn’t changed much is the type of rewards you can apply for once you take enough survey’s to collect.

I particularly enjoyed some magazine subscriptions but several of them were no longer offered.  I also exchanged my rewards for local Blockbuster store movie rentals but they removed that and put a $10 coupon for Blockbuster Express kiosks instead where there isn’t one close to my house.

e-Rewards has to be more like Swagbucks which had a vast partnership and offers rewards for everything from shopping to gift cards.  Particularly Amazon.com gift cards or certificates would be of value to me because I can translate them into giveaways for my blog readers.

As far as I know, e-Rewards is still an invite only service and you have to be a member of a company which partners through them to get invited to partake in doing surveys for e-Rewards.  You get far more dollars from e-Rewards surveys than anything else I have seen like Inbox Dollars, Swagbucks or any other I have tested.

But the rewards are only as good as the items you can cash them in for, and e-Rewards has frequent flier miles up the wazoo, but very few tangible rewards that interest me as a person.

Hopefully they will offer more valuable rewards too, I have been rejecting surveys lately only because there aren’t awards worth saving up for.

-Justin Germino

Swagbucks looks to be pretty interesting however and I know several people who already signed up and earned some Amazon gift cards as rewards.  It does take a lot of points to get a gift card though and you don’t own them fast without making purchases.  I do like however they have coupons where you can simply print out coupons for items you buy at the grocery store, not only do you get that .30 – $3.00 of the product you purchase but you also get an equal amount in Swagbucks as well.  This is probably one of the most valuable category of rewards.

-Justin Germino

Photo Source: Yahoo

This is no false report, this 57,000 carat Emerald was found in Brazil and then sent to India to be cut.  The emerald is to be auctioned off in British Columbia, Canada on January 28th where it is expected to fetch a 1.15 million dollar price.

We are talking about an emerald the size of a turtle shell, and this is just something you don’t see everyday. Though you couldn’t make any wearable jewelry out of this thing, imagine owning the largest emerald in the world?  This would be one collector’s piece as rare as they come.

Who has a spare 1.15 million dollars?

-Justin Germino