Kindle Pages

Kindle User Guides

Rick — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 04:18:32 +0000

If you’re interested in previewing the Kindle’s user guides before placing an order (or while waiting for a back-order to arrive), you can find the PDFs here.

The first booklet, “About Your Kindle”, is 36 pages and explains the fundamentals of the hardware. The second booklet, “Kindle User’s Guide”, is 92 pages (some of the information duplicated from “About Your Kindle”) and focuses more on using the installed software and Kindle functionality.

The FAQs appearing on the user guides download page cover most of the Kindle basics and some interesting questions if you don’t care to download the PDFs.

Open All Night

Rick — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:07:34 +0000

Another advantage to Amazon’s Kindle struck me late last night as I stood in the cold, pulling to no avail on the locked doors of my local chain book store: Kindle owners don’t have to worry about getting to their favorite book store before 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday night. Now if only I could order a good latte at all hours.

Happy New Year!

Early Kindle Adopters

Rick — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:07:09 +0000

So far it seems that early adopters of the Kindle have not been plagued with the types of software bugs and hardware troubles that often accompany new products. Watching the forums and blogs, the complaints by actual Kindle owners seem to be very limited. User reviews at Amazon have improved over time as well; after 1, 280 reviews, the Kindle now merits three and a half stars out of five. Of some interest, early Kindle adopters have had to tolerate a certain limitation on the number of ebooks available from Amazon. Although the 90,000 titles Amazon stated they had at launch is certainly impressive, it is quite possible that a specific title you’re looking for won’t be found in the Kindle store yet. The future looks bright though as new titles are being added all the time.

Additional Kindle Functionality

Rick — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:17:42 +0000

Igor Skochinsky’s Reversing Everything blog has announced some undocumented functionality located in the Kindle that is pretty exciting to say the least. Well I should say, Google Maps functionality via the built in CDMA network is exciting, Minesweeper, less so. A picture viewer, screenshot capability, and slideshows are also revealed.

E-Books Forever

Rick — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:53:42 +0000

With technology ever changing and document formats and storage media evolving in lockstep, is there a concern that e-books will become unreadable in the perhaps not-too-distant future? Does the addition of digital rights management (DRM) impact the expected life of an electronic document?

While we don’t know the answers to those questions with any precision, I’m encouraged to know that you can re-download any items you’ve purchased from Amazon for your Kindle, as well as back-up your annotations and bookmarks on Amazon’s servers. One would expect Amazon to maintain an upgrade path over time as devices, formats and delivery channels evolve. How you view your e-book investment may depend on how you currently use hard-copy books. Do you read them once and pass them on or do you keep them and return to them again and again?

Book Poundage

Rick — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:59:46 +0000

There’s a humorous video at Cracked.com that purports to introduce us to the Kindle’s target audience - hypothetical readers who lug around great quantities of books everywhere they go, including reference works and “The Complete Works of Shakespeare”.

Amazon.com’s Kindle allows you to carry up to 200 books with you at all times. It’s like a big ugly iPod for people who like to read. Which raises the important question: who the hell reads that much?

Although the video pokes fun at the notion that anyone would need to carry their entire library with them everywhere they go, I confess I’m often torn when it comes to going on a trip and figuring out which books and publications I’m going to take with me. The iPod solved that problem when it came to figuring out which CDs you were going to take with you; you take them all now. The same may be said of the Kindle some day, even though there’s little room for putting your books on “shuffle”.

Kindle Economics

Rick — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 19:28:56 +0000

Amidst the gripes about Kindle’s $399 price tag, stop to consider the efficiencies built in that over time will end up saving users money. For example, although Sony’s ebook reader is priced $120 less, Sony’s ebooks are often more expensive than Amazon’s. To illustrate, Sue Grafton’s bestseller, T is for Trespass (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries), is priced at $9.99 on Amazon for the Kindle, while the same book lists for $12.99 on Sony’s eBook Store. The same price differential applies to Patricia Cornwell’s bestselling Book of the Dead (Kay Scarpetta, No. 15). At $3 per book, how long would it take you to make up the difference in price between the two electronic book readers? (Never-mind the additional functionality you get from the Kindle.)

Kindle Pricing

Rick — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 05:45:25 +0000

One of the chief complaints about Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader is the $399 price tag. While it’s true that the Kindle comes with some conveniences that other ebook readers don’t have (most specifically, free wireless and downloads from the Amazon Kindle Store), it’s also true that a low-end laptop can be had for not much more. The Sony ebook reader is $100 dollars less ($299) without the wireless functionality and access to Amazon. On the other hand, the Cybook Gen 3 costs almost as much as the Kindle ($350) even though it also lacks the wireless capabilities. If you’re not going to get a dedicated ebook reader with E-Ink for much less than $300 anyway, the free wireless and Amazon access is certainly worth the additional $99.

Kindle Status Check

Rick — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 05:22:09 +0000

If you’ve ordered a Kindle and need to check the shipping status, try the following Amazon link and click on “View Shipping Details”:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/h.html

Then, count your blessings that you actually have one on the way!

Green Books

Rick — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:50:11 +0000

Some users/proponents of ebooks espouse the advantages of soft copies over “dead tree” versions of books from an environmental standpoint. I have no idea whether ebooks are “greener” overall once you’ve factored in what goes in to producing the reader, the wireless transmissions, etc., etc. But, it did occur to me that people used to predict that we’d use far less paper with the advent of the computer, when in fact I believe the opposite is true. Computers made it so easy to revise and reprint that many modern offices and homes have never gone through so much paper before. Is it possible that the same effect will be spawned by ebooks? Will more hard copy books be sold as a result of people finding themselves exposed to more authors and texts electronically in their spare moments?