Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Saturday, September 13, 2008
The Complete User's Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle (Kindle Edition)
Editorial ReviewsProduct Description
Stephen Windwalker's latest book is the premier guide for Kindle owners -- written for serious readers rather than gadget heads, 51,000 words in length and newly packed with great tips. 192 "print" pages, including a detailed, link-enabled FAQ section. (Originally published in beta editions as How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Over 100 Pages of Other Cool Tips.)
If you’ve already purchased and downloaded it, you can get the latest iteration onto your Kindle at no additional charge with just a couple of clicks on your computer. Just go to "Your Media Library" under your personal Amazon account, pull down your “Kindle Books” list under the Downloads tab, find this book (clicking on the title will confirm your purchase and purchase date), and click on the right where there’s a “Send wirelessly to your Kindle” button. Also included, for Kindle owners who are considering giving another Kindle as a gift to a colleague, friend, or loved one: information on how to send this book **free** as the first book on the new gift Kindle, and a link to get the new Kindle for just $259!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I. How to Use this Book
II. What is a Kindle?
- What’s Inside the Kindle?
- Why Did Amazon Launch the Kindle, and Which is More Important, the Chicken or the Egg?
III. Kindle Basics
- Handling Your Kindle
- Choosing Among Six Font Sizes
- Kindle Keyboard and Menu Shortcuts
- The Care and Feeding of Your Kindle's Battery
- The Reset Button is Your First Tech Support Option
- Access Wikipedia Quickly and Smoothly
- Using "Locations" to Figure Out How Close You Are to the End of a Kindle Edition
- Buying and Sampling Content for Your Kindle From the Amazon Kindle Store
- Updating the Latest Version of Your Kindle’s Operating Software
- Adding an SD Card to Your Kindle
- Getting Help with Your Kindle
- Managing Your Kindle Content
IV. The Amazon Kindle Basic Web Wireless Service: Why It Is a Revolutionary Feature, and Why Amazon Should Keep It Free or Cheap
V. How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email
VI. Using Google Reader to Read Your Favorite Blogs on the Amazon Kindle
VII. Traveling with Your Kindle
- Using the Kindle to Translate Foreign or Technical Words and Phrases
- Making the Most of Your Kindle Connections Overseas or in a Sprint Wireless Dead Zone
- Using the Kindle as a Travel Guide
- The Kindle and GPS
- Intriguing but Frustrating
- Checking Sprint Wireless Coverage for the Kindle
- Downloading Kindle Editions Via USB Cable
VIII. The Kindle as a Writing, Editing, and Publishing Device
- Taking Notes on the Kindle
- It's All in the Thumbs
- Annotation within a Kindle Document
- Google Notebook
- Annotating Your Working Documents
- Writing and Annotation to Email
- Saving, Printing, Editing and Working With Your Kindle Clippings, Annotations, and Highlighted Text
- 20 Steps to Publishing a Kindle Edition of Your Book or Document: How to Use Kindle, Amazon and the Web to Market Your Book and Connect with Readers
- Other Links for Publishing Content for the Kindle
IX. Projecting a Kindle Future
- How Many Kindles? Estimating the Current and Future "Installed Base," and Why It Is Important
- The Golden Age of Kindle 2.0 and Beyond
- Kindle Reading Subscriptions
- Kindle Buffet-Kindle Groups
- Kindle Owners as Kindle Sellers
- Kindle Content Affiliate Program
- Shop the Amazon Store Through a Kindle Gateway
A Big Tent for Kindle Content Availability On Other Devices
Shop and Play Amazon Music and Audio
Kindle Tribes
“Living Books” on the Kindle
Other Fixes for Kindle 2.0 and Beyond
Folders and/or Labels
Size, Location and Configuration of Bars, Buttons, and Switches
The Kindle Display Screen
Writeable Screen
Adjustable Fonts
Go Global
Open the Kindle Store to Accessories
Green Tax CreditScreen and Keyboard Freezes
Gifts
Make the Kindle More Kid-Friendly
Real USB Port or Bluetooth for Hardware Connectivity with Memory Devices, Keyboards &c
X. 20 More Kindle Tips and Tricks
Link-Enabled Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Details
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 266 KB
Publisher: Harvard Perspectives Press (hppress.blogspot.com); Revised 8.24.08 edition (December 19, 2007)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B0011XW1E8
Friday, August 22, 2008
Terry Goodkind Hits the Kindle
By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly
In an exclusive deal with Kindle, Terry Goodkind's first novel, Wizard's First Rule, was released this week as a RosettaBooks e-book, available for purchase on the Amazon device only. Goodkind, who is published by Tor, has held onto his digital rights up until now; Rule, first released in print in 1994, marks the first of Goodkind's titles to appear in e-book.
Arthur Klebanoff, CEO of RosettaBooks, said the fact that Goodkind's work has never been published in e-book format is less surprising than one might assume. "A range of 'A' list commercial authors--Dean Koontz until recently, J.K. Rowling--have either held back or frozen their e-book rights," he said. Now, with the growing popularity of digital reading devices like the Kinde, Klebanoff thinks industry players are seeing, for the first time, the market viability of e-books. "Slowly but surely Kindle, Sony Reader and other [devices] are convincing publishers, and publishers are in turn convincing their bestselling authors, to release e-books."
When asked why Goodkind opted to be published in e-book by an independent, in Rosetta, Goodkind's agent, Russell Galen, said Rosetta "offered us much better terms." Klebanoff, who negotiated the Goodkind deal with Galen, added that he thinks the size of a publisher is also less important in e-book publishing. "Obviously Random House has a compelling argument when it comes to what it can do [in publishing] a phsycial book," he told PW. "But in e-book [publishing] the people selling the books are Kindle, Sony Reader and various other e-tailers. So, whether the title is fed by Rosetta or Random House makes no difference."
In an exclusive deal with Kindle, Terry Goodkind's first novel, Wizard's First Rule, was released this week as a RosettaBooks e-book, available for purchase on the Amazon device only. Goodkind, who is published by Tor, has held onto his digital rights up until now; Rule, first released in print in 1994, marks the first of Goodkind's titles to appear in e-book.
Arthur Klebanoff, CEO of RosettaBooks, said the fact that Goodkind's work has never been published in e-book format is less surprising than one might assume. "A range of 'A' list commercial authors--Dean Koontz until recently, J.K. Rowling--have either held back or frozen their e-book rights," he said. Now, with the growing popularity of digital reading devices like the Kinde, Klebanoff thinks industry players are seeing, for the first time, the market viability of e-books. "Slowly but surely Kindle, Sony Reader and other [devices] are convincing publishers, and publishers are in turn convincing their bestselling authors, to release e-books."
When asked why Goodkind opted to be published in e-book by an independent, in Rosetta, Goodkind's agent, Russell Galen, said Rosetta "offered us much better terms." Klebanoff, who negotiated the Goodkind deal with Galen, added that he thinks the size of a publisher is also less important in e-book publishing. "Obviously Random House has a compelling argument when it comes to what it can do [in publishing] a phsycial book," he told PW. "But in e-book [publishing] the people selling the books are Kindle, Sony Reader and various other e-tailers. So, whether the title is fed by Rosetta or Random House makes no difference."
Why Kindle Must Support ODF
I'm not a Kindle user. In part, because it's not available in the UK, but also because it seems too closed in terms of its overall architecture. But it's clearly winning fans - and I think that's going to be a problem.
Why that might be is revealed by this interesting posting:
Reading .DOC and (some) .PDF files. This part of the Kindle's function turns out to be much more important than I anticipated.
Mine can't be the only line of work that involves an endless stream of material to read, often arriving as Word .DOC or Adobe .PDF files. I resist printing them out, and I resent the additional hours of sitting in front a computer screen to read them.
By moving them instead to the Kindle, (a) I have them all in one place, (b) I avoid lugging around, or forgetting, that much additional paper, and (c) I have them in a much nicer form for reading than the computer itself.
I think this is right: I, too, would be tempted by a very lightweight system with a high-quality screen specifically designed for reading electronic texts. But as the writer notes, Kindle is great for two main formats: .doc and PDFs. As far as I am aware, there is no support for ODF. Assuming Kindle catches on, that's going to be an increasing problem for those of us pushing ODF.
Maybe time to start a campaign for ODF support on the Kindle....
Why that might be is revealed by this interesting posting:
Reading .DOC and (some) .PDF files. This part of the Kindle's function turns out to be much more important than I anticipated.
Mine can't be the only line of work that involves an endless stream of material to read, often arriving as Word .DOC or Adobe .PDF files. I resist printing them out, and I resent the additional hours of sitting in front a computer screen to read them.
By moving them instead to the Kindle, (a) I have them all in one place, (b) I avoid lugging around, or forgetting, that much additional paper, and (c) I have them in a much nicer form for reading than the computer itself.
I think this is right: I, too, would be tempted by a very lightweight system with a high-quality screen specifically designed for reading electronic texts. But as the writer notes, Kindle is great for two main formats: .doc and PDFs. As far as I am aware, there is no support for ODF. Assuming Kindle catches on, that's going to be an increasing problem for those of us pushing ODF.
Maybe time to start a campaign for ODF support on the Kindle....
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Kindle Tips and Tricks
Kindle Tips and Tricks
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jay_Sud]Jay Sud
Well I have bought this neat device and have been buying ebooks and have had great success with the ease at finding books there. When I got the Kindle I wanted to find any kind of modification, tips, or tricks for this device. After searching I found some things that I wanted to share with everyone.
1. It can be used as an MP3 player as it as a headphone jack and speakers. If you go to the site as i listed above it has MP3’s that can be downloaded to the kindle. The only thing is that you need to buy the software which is required for you to connect and purchase from their website.
2. A number of people have complained that it’s impossible to close the flap of the Kindle’s cover without pressing one of the navigation buttons. An easy solution: simply put Kindle to sleep before closing the cover. To do this, simply press Alt + the text key (aA) as though you were waking it from sleep. Putting Kindle into sleep mode also conserves battery life.
3. If you want to know the time while you’re reading, pressing Alt + T will briefly display it for you in the bottom left footer, where “Location” is usually displayed. Note that this features works only in the Reader.
4. Dropping your MP3 based podcasts into the (Audible) folder on your Kindle or SD memory card will allow you to see the podcast in Home. When opened, you can bookmark, pause, fast forward, etc., just like you do with an audiobook.
5. From the general Search box. Just start your search with the term below followed by your search term: @store - searches the Kindle Store, @web - searches the web, @wiki - searches Wikipedia, @help - lists these shortcuts above.
6. If you sort your Home screen by title or author, you can type a letter to jump to the first item that begins with that letter.
7 Getting to your home screen is very easy and can be accomplished by pressing the Home key on the bottom row of the keyboard.
If you are even contemplating on buying this piece of software I think its a must have. can anyone say lets go GREEN, no more paper being wasted
Amazon Kindle TextBooks
Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device
Buy Electronic Books
Amazon Kindle Reader
Kindle Ebooks Store
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jay_Sud http://EzineArticles.com/?Kindle-Tips-and-Tricks-&id=1281672
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jay_Sud]Jay Sud
Well I have bought this neat device and have been buying ebooks and have had great success with the ease at finding books there. When I got the Kindle I wanted to find any kind of modification, tips, or tricks for this device. After searching I found some things that I wanted to share with everyone.
1. It can be used as an MP3 player as it as a headphone jack and speakers. If you go to the site as i listed above it has MP3’s that can be downloaded to the kindle. The only thing is that you need to buy the software which is required for you to connect and purchase from their website.
2. A number of people have complained that it’s impossible to close the flap of the Kindle’s cover without pressing one of the navigation buttons. An easy solution: simply put Kindle to sleep before closing the cover. To do this, simply press Alt + the text key (aA) as though you were waking it from sleep. Putting Kindle into sleep mode also conserves battery life.
3. If you want to know the time while you’re reading, pressing Alt + T will briefly display it for you in the bottom left footer, where “Location” is usually displayed. Note that this features works only in the Reader.
4. Dropping your MP3 based podcasts into the (Audible) folder on your Kindle or SD memory card will allow you to see the podcast in Home. When opened, you can bookmark, pause, fast forward, etc., just like you do with an audiobook.
5. From the general Search box. Just start your search with the term below followed by your search term: @store - searches the Kindle Store, @web - searches the web, @wiki - searches Wikipedia, @help - lists these shortcuts above.
6. If you sort your Home screen by title or author, you can type a letter to jump to the first item that begins with that letter.
7 Getting to your home screen is very easy and can be accomplished by pressing the Home key on the bottom row of the keyboard.
If you are even contemplating on buying this piece of software I think its a must have. can anyone say lets go GREEN, no more paper being wasted
Amazon Kindle TextBooks
Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device
Buy Electronic Books
Amazon Kindle Reader
Kindle Ebooks Store
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jay_Sud http://EzineArticles.com/?Kindle-Tips-and-Tricks-&id=1281672
Saturday, August 9, 2008
$750 Million in Kindle Sales by 2010
Mark Mahaney - an Internet Analyst at Citigroup Investment Research - is predicting that revenue generated by Amazon from the sale of Kindle’s will be between $400m - $750m by 2010. That would account for 1% - 3% of Amazon’s total revenue, about half the projected revenue would be from the sale of Kindle devices and the other half from book sales after purchase. However, revenue is not profit and we don’t know what the profit margins are on the Kindle device.
Read the full statement by Mark Mahaney/Citigroup Investment Research below:
How Is Kindle Doing So Far In The Marketplace?
Our ability to answer this question is very limited. Amazon is the sole retailer of the Kindle and it has disclosed no information about its sales other than to say that it sold out in the first 5 1⁄2 hours. But we have pieced together four different clues to gain a sense of Kindle’s traction.
First, we note that Kindle has consistently been ranked among Amazon’s Bestsellers in its Electronics category. Ahead of the Apple iPod Nano, the Garmin GPS Navigator, and the Canon Powershot Digital Camera.
Second, we note that the Kindle has received a very large number of customer reviews. Per the exhibit below, we note that Kindle has received more customer reviews than any of the other Top 10 Bestselling items in Amazon’s Electronics category – 2,537 reviews as of May 12th – vs. 663 for the Apple iPod Nano 4GB Silver (3G), the #2 Bestseller. This is in part an unfair comparison. Kindle is a new product sold only on Amazon.com, while there are numerous versions of the iPod, and they are sold by numerous retailers. But still, the volume of reviews does indicate material traction for the Kindle.
Third, we see that the quality/tone of the customer reviews the Kindle is receiving is relatively positive. Below we compare the Star Rating Diffusion – 5 Stars vs. 4 Stars vs. 3 Stars etc… – for each of the Top 10 Bestselling Electronics Items on Amazon. What we see is that the Kindle actually receives fewer high scores than the other Bestsellers – 69% of its reviews are 4 or 5 Stars vs. an average of 80% for the other items. And it receives more low scores than the other Bestsellers – 22% of its reviews are 1 or 2 Stars vs. an average of 13% for the other Items. But for a Version 1 of a product “competing” against a several times iterated leading consumer electronics item like the iPod, a 69% Star 4 or 5 rating is relatively positive.
And fourth, we note that the most reviewed Customer Review of Kindle (“Why and how the Kindle changes everything” by Steve “eBook Lover” Gibson) has been reviewed by at least 27,000 people. Specifically, as of May 13th, 26,931 have read Steve Gibson’s review and actually commented on it by pressing the Yes or No button when asked if the review was helpful. And logically, there would be more people who read the review and didn’t bother to vote, although the voting step is hyper-easy. We believe that this helps provide something of a proxy for how many Kindles have likely been sold. We’d peg the number as somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 Kindles sold to date.
The numbers look about right to us, what do you guys think?
For Amazon to hit the $750 million in sales figure a few assumption have to be made. The figures are based on the assumption that sales will grow from 189,000 units by the end of 2008 then to 2.2 million units by 2010 and that Amazon will drop the price to about $300.
Source: Silicon Ally Insider
Read the full statement by Mark Mahaney/Citigroup Investment Research below:
How Is Kindle Doing So Far In The Marketplace?
Our ability to answer this question is very limited. Amazon is the sole retailer of the Kindle and it has disclosed no information about its sales other than to say that it sold out in the first 5 1⁄2 hours. But we have pieced together four different clues to gain a sense of Kindle’s traction.
First, we note that Kindle has consistently been ranked among Amazon’s Bestsellers in its Electronics category. Ahead of the Apple iPod Nano, the Garmin GPS Navigator, and the Canon Powershot Digital Camera.
Second, we note that the Kindle has received a very large number of customer reviews. Per the exhibit below, we note that Kindle has received more customer reviews than any of the other Top 10 Bestselling items in Amazon’s Electronics category – 2,537 reviews as of May 12th – vs. 663 for the Apple iPod Nano 4GB Silver (3G), the #2 Bestseller. This is in part an unfair comparison. Kindle is a new product sold only on Amazon.com, while there are numerous versions of the iPod, and they are sold by numerous retailers. But still, the volume of reviews does indicate material traction for the Kindle.
Third, we see that the quality/tone of the customer reviews the Kindle is receiving is relatively positive. Below we compare the Star Rating Diffusion – 5 Stars vs. 4 Stars vs. 3 Stars etc… – for each of the Top 10 Bestselling Electronics Items on Amazon. What we see is that the Kindle actually receives fewer high scores than the other Bestsellers – 69% of its reviews are 4 or 5 Stars vs. an average of 80% for the other items. And it receives more low scores than the other Bestsellers – 22% of its reviews are 1 or 2 Stars vs. an average of 13% for the other Items. But for a Version 1 of a product “competing” against a several times iterated leading consumer electronics item like the iPod, a 69% Star 4 or 5 rating is relatively positive.
And fourth, we note that the most reviewed Customer Review of Kindle (“Why and how the Kindle changes everything” by Steve “eBook Lover” Gibson) has been reviewed by at least 27,000 people. Specifically, as of May 13th, 26,931 have read Steve Gibson’s review and actually commented on it by pressing the Yes or No button when asked if the review was helpful. And logically, there would be more people who read the review and didn’t bother to vote, although the voting step is hyper-easy. We believe that this helps provide something of a proxy for how many Kindles have likely been sold. We’d peg the number as somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 Kindles sold to date.
The numbers look about right to us, what do you guys think?
For Amazon to hit the $750 million in sales figure a few assumption have to be made. The figures are based on the assumption that sales will grow from 189,000 units by the end of 2008 then to 2.2 million units by 2010 and that Amazon will drop the price to about $300.
Source: Silicon Ally Insider
See a Kindle in your city
The Amazon folks are eager to get the word out about Kindle and they really want people to see a Kindle device, so much so that they want existing Kindle owners to go out and market the device for them! On May 19th Amazon requested that Kindle owners to go out and market the Kindle, actively encouraging you to meet stranger with your $400 Kindle device plus the value of books to meet a total stranger and “show off” - Amazon’s own words - sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.
I wonder which smart alec at Amazon PR thought this idea up:
We’ve heard feedback that many Kindle owners love their Kindle and like showing it off. Some of you even said you have trouble reading Kindle in public because people always ask, “What is that?” We’ve also heard from prospective customers who would love to see a Kindle before they buy one.
We created the “See a Kindle in Your City” area to help prospective owners connect with Kindle owners to get a chance to see the device in person. We started with a selection of cities - find yours or start one for your city. Whether you want to meet at your local coffee shop, a public park, or your favorite watering hole is up to you. We hope you enjoy meeting your fellow Kindlers.
Please cut and paste the following link in your browser to go to the “See a Kindle in your City” discussions.
As Michael V. Accettura puts it “What an outrageous request from amazon!” - I couldn’t agree more, Amazon want us Kindle owners to do their job and market the device for them. How about you go out there Amazon, and show off the Kindle yourself? I could understand this request if Amazon was employing some kind of referral system where a sale would result in cash compensation or perhaps a couple of free Kindle e-books from the Kindle store, but Amazon aren’t even doing that.
User Diane point out this may be the perfect “steal a Kindle” opportunity for all technology loving crooks and looking through the forum, unsurprisingly, very few people have taken Amazon up on their offer to parade their Kindle around in front of strangers.
Finally to quote Micael V. Accettiura again “I appreciate the offer to become an unpaid pimp for the kindle, but no thanks amazon.”
Would you take your precious Kindle and show it off to a complete stranger?
Source: Amazon Kindle Customer Discussions
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