Chadarius.com

HP, as far as I'm concerned, has some of the most insane driver and software installs ever. They are right up next to Adobe, as far as craziness, some of the time.
At work, we just attempted to install the LJ M1530 multi-fuction printer. Of course there were issues as always with new devices like this in a proper enterprise environment. There are at least 5 workstations that the device driver needed to be loaded on. Once I hear that I wondered why I wasn't scripting the install.
So I downloaded the M1530's driver. The first thing I did was use 7-zip to unzip the contents of hp_M1530_MFP_full_Solution_usb_n_w.exe. I found the usual HP mess of install files with no useful instructions for a silent install.
I dug up what looked like the main install executable under the Installer directory and ran it with the /? argument.

hpbcsiInstaller.exe /?
The following text is what I got back

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The Fire is pretty awesome for $199. But it lacks several features that I think would put it right over the edge. I also have an older Nook Color. It has the one thing that I wish the Kindle did. An external MicroSD slot. 

The Kindle actually has MORE memory for media/apps than a Nook Color does by default however. The Nook only allows 1GB of its 8GB of memory to be used for user loaded content. The Fire has about 6GB for Amazon or user loaded content.

With the whole "cloud" thing, as long as you have a network connection, you really don't need much storage so its a nit picky thing.

The fact that it will be the best selling Android tablet guarantees that it will have great support in the modding community. I'm 100% positive that Cyanogenmod will create an Android OS install for it. As long as I can still do all the Amazon Prime streaming with a modded OS I'm game!

I've already "rooted" it and side loaded the Google Market and some Google apps. Its not perfect yet, but new tweaks and hacks are coming out everyday for it.

The bottom line is that if you are already an Amazon customer (especially if you are already a Prime user) the Kindle is spectacular.

If you have nothing invested in the Amazon eco system than it is cheap enough at $199 to make you want to be invested in it.

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Kindle Fire... Rooted from my Mac using http://blog.actlocalmedia.com/2011/11/developing-on-kindle-fire.html and http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1296916.

You need to have the Android SDK installed. To do that, go download the SDK at http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. Unzip it and install it to a location in your home directory. I put at ~/android-sdk-macosx.

Then you need to update the SDK by running the following command: 

That update can take quite some time. Sit back and relax while you watch a free Amazon Prime streaming TV show like Serenity or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

You can add the path to the adb command by editing your ~/.bash_profile and adding a path statement like the following.

Edit the ~./android/adb_usb.ini and add a line at the end with "0x1949". Then plug in the Fire (you have to have your own mini usb cable to plug it into your workstation). Then tell the Kindle to "Disconnect" so it is no longer sharing files over USB. Then run "adb kill-server" on the mac to to restart things. Once that is done you can check to see if you are able to see the device by running "adb devices". If a device is listed you are good to go!

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