Thursday, October 1, 2015

Kindle for Samsung Free e-Books for October 2015

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Amazon has a specialized version of the Kindle app for Samsung devices, called Kindle for Samsung. Every month readers have four e-books to select from and can read one of them for free. Amazon and Samsung never really hype this and they leave it up to their customers to figure it out for themselves. Today, lets take a look at the four books available for October 2015.

Emma’s Secret (Finding Emma #2 by Steena Holmes

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For two years, Megan, Peter, and their two older daughters, Alexis and Hannah, dream of nothing but being reunited with the family's youngest child, Emma, who was kidnapped just before her third birthday. When Emma is miraculously found living with an elderly couple just miles from the family's home, they are hopeful that her return will heal the wounds her disappearance created.

But Emma is vastly different from the sunny toddler they remember. She barely remembers her parents or her older sisters. She is quiet and withdrawn, and, worst of all, longs for the very people who kidnapped her.

Megan is consumed with bitterness, while Peter works later and later nights in the company of his gorgeous business partner. And in the middle of everything, Megan's best friend has become suddenly distant and secretive.

Then a chance encounter in town leads to a secret that changes everything again for Emma. And Peter must decide between the happiness of his youngest daughter and the trust of his family.

Nightstalkers (Area 51: The Nightstalkers #1) by Bob Mayer

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Staff Sergeant Winthrop Carter has just been drafted into the Nightstalkers—an elite group of soldiers that…

Actually, he's not quite sure what they do.

Born from the Area 51 initiative, the Nightstalkers defy sanity and decorum and include among their ranks Moms, a Black Ops trainee too extreme for Special Forces; Doc, a scientific crackpot; Roland, the weapons enthusiast; and Mac, a contemporary MacGyver. All of them take their orders from the elusive Ms. Jones, who everyone claims is just a hologram.

Those orders include tracking down and sealing tears in our reality that are releasing interdimensional beings known only as Fireflies— creatures that take control of both living and inanimate matter in order to unleash wanton destruction.

Just as Carter is settling in, a rogue scientist triggers a fresh invasion of Fireflies that swarm a swanky gated community. Now it's up to Carter and his new teammates to neutralize the threat while figuring out who's behind the breach.

Home by Morning (Powell Springs #1) by Alexis Harrington

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The futility of war… An invisible, indiscriminate enemy, striking without mercy… Hearts broken, then restored and sustained by love… A story of two worlds—one at war on the Western Front, the other grappling with an unseen adversary at home. In October 1918, Dr Jessica Layton stops in her hometown of Powell Springs, Oregon, on her way to a new position at Seattle General Hospital. She has stopped to visit her sister Amy, now being courted by Cole Braddock, the man Jess once expected to marry. But before she can escape the heartache of seeing him again, the influenza epidemic that is ravaging the world comes to town. With no other doctor available, she must stay to care for the patients who are falling ill in alarming numbers. She must also deal with Cole, the love of her childhood, who broke his promise to wait for her to finish her medical training.

Cole Braddock isn't happy to see Jessica. Her promises to return home after medical school proved to be as insubstantial as mist. He's sure that Amy Layton, sweet and domestic, is the right woman for him. With his brother fighting in the trenches of France, he's busy operating the family horse farm and supplying mounts to the Allied Forces. He assumes he won't have to see much of Jessica. But time and again, their paths cross when they are faced with duplicity, treachery, and the ultimate betrayal..

The Gauntlet Assassin by L.J. Sellers

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Each year, a down-and-out America looks to the Gauntlet games for sheer spectacle and — for one lucky state — a better chance at survival. In 2023, former-police-detective-turned-paramedic Lara Evans is poised to enter the punishing endurance competition, determined to bring glory and a major economic boost back home to Oregon.

But treacherous tests of physical and mental prowess — and a pack of cutthroat rivals — are far from the greatest obstacles Lara faces. Saving a hit man's victim has made her a target, and the murder of a fellow contestant has branded her a suspect. Yet the games must go on. And with a nation's eyes — and a killer's crosshairs — focused on her every move, Lara will have to think faster, hit harder, and risk far more than any player ever has in order to outrun the jaws of defeat and outgun the specter of death.

Pizza Hut and Amazon team up for free e-books

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To launch the 2015-2016 Pizza Hut BOOK IT! Program, today Pizza Hut announced a collaboration with Amazon to offer two free Kindle children's books to parents of BOOK IT! Participants. Hundreds of Kindle books from Amazon Publishing's Two Lions children's imprint have been discounted to 50% off with the promo code FUNREADS.

Amazon has been focusing on the restaurant industry in recent months to promote their extensive e-book collection and Kindle e-readers. A few weeks ago the company partnered with Chipotle for a writing contest and over 50 free e-readers are being sent out to winners every day.


Kobo is Shipping out all e-Readers for Free Until Oct 14

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Kobo has announced that they are including free shipping to Canada, US and the UK for anyone that orders an e-reader.   The companies current online ordering system stocks six different devices, including the new Kobo Glo HD and Kobo Touch 2.0. You have until October 14th 2015 to quality for the free shipping, so act fast.

Kids! Teachers! Developers! PyConUK was a blast!

PyConUK is one of the Education Team’s favourite events of the year. We love the fact that as well as being a great community developer event, they also run an Education track for kids and teachers to learn and share.

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It started with one of the organisers, Zeth, humorously holding up a wall clock saying “This is not a bomb” referencing the recent case of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed clock incident, and it ended with evacuation from the building due to the discovery of an unexploded WWII bomb.

On the Friday, teachers were invited to the Education Track (bursaries to get teachers out of school sponsored by the Bank of America) to participate in workshops and discussion sessions. A teachmeet took place to give teachers a chance to give a short talk, presentation or demonstration of a great idea or teaching tool.

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Saturday was the kids’ day. Our big interest at the moment is Astro Pi – we’re keen to see what people can do with the Sense HAT, the hardware that’s going to the International Space Station this December. Carrie Anne and Marc led workshops giving kids the chance to experiment with the board and learn about the physical world through activities using the sensors and LED display with Python.

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Nicholas interviewed a few kids and parents about their experience at the event:

PyCon UK Education Track 2015 – a Mum’s perspective

Uploaded by Nicholas Tollervey on 2015-09-21.

As well as our Sense HAT workshops there were other activities for the kids – Minecraft Pi with Martin O’Hanlon, and the Internet of Toys with Alan O’Donahoe. Meanwhile, a group of teachers from Skycademy did their own high altitude Pi balloon launch and James tethered a balloon at the venue to take birds-eye-view photos:

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At the end of the day some of the the kids were asked to present what they’d done on the conference’s main track:

PYCON UK 2015: Lightning PyKids

PYCON UK 2015: Saturday 19th September 2015

Also on the main track I gave a talk on Physical Computing with Python and Raspberry Pi:

PYCON UK 2015: Python Projects on the Raspberry Pi

Talk by Ben Nuttall PYCON UK 2015: Friday 18th September 2015

(see the slides)

The next day I gave a lightning talk on the story of pyjokes. There was also a talk on teaching using PyGame Zero by Tim Golden. Read about his experiences on his blog.

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Nicholas Tollervey launched the Education track and it’s grown over the last few years, reaching hundreds of teachers and kids

On Sunday, James and Marc drove to the National Space Centre in Leicester to do a balloon launch with a Sense HAT collecting data throughout the flight. You can download the data as a CSV file – see if you can do anything interesting with it and let us know in the comments!

Carrie Anne was part of a panel discussing the state of Python and its future before the closing of the main event, and James presented some photos taken by the Pi he sent up that morning:

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On the final day we joined in with the sprints, where we invited developers to help work on some education focused projects. We had teams working on PyGame Zero, GPIO Zero and porting PITS (Pi in the Sky) software to Python.

Humongous thanks go out to the organising team, and particularly to Nicholas Tollervey who took on the running of the conference part way through the year when the long-standing chairman John Pinner sadly passed away.

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What a good idea! Thanks John!

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