Amazon Kindle (ebook thingy)

I gotta get Instapaper working. Seems like Kindle WiFi+Instapaper would be a really pleasant way to read stuff on the Internet, especially longer articles.

it's amaaaazing

like a wicked lil magazine edited by YOU

my girlfriend bought me a kindle for xmas and i'm so so pleased with it. really easy on the eye and im amazed at all the extra things you can do on it - things like go online, listen to music, etc. just great. esp love having the page layout horizontal, just looks beautiful, shame it wasn't designed that way in the first place with keyboard the same way but that's a very minor gripe.

what i need to do next is work out how to angle a nightlight to give enough light so i can read the kindle without waking up a snoozing girlfriend. currently using this with normal books but not sure if it'll clip on the kindle as easily. she also bought me that mighty bright clip on tool, but it's crazy powerful - im considering wrapping masking tape round it to dull the intense searing light.

could any kindle powerusers help me answer these questions?

1) is there any way of using msn messenger on it? i've logged into facebook which is great, but the instant message system there doesn't seem to be active. on the mobile facebook site anyway.

2) is there any way of making the 'next page' button even quieter? i know its barely audible as it is, but is there any simple way (ie. without unscrewing the whole device) of softening it even more? my partner wakes up at the slightest noise and i can it really bugging her if im clicking on it every 40 seconds.

3) downloaded a ton of books and i'd like to stick them all on the kindle in one folder (think they're called 'collections' on there) so it doesn't overload the home page. also want one folder/collection for instapaper articles and another for pdf magazines. what's the easiest way of doing this? i stuck all the books in a folder called 'books' and dragged that on but they all showed up on the homepage regardless. really hope there's an easier way than going through each book and manually putting it into a specific folder/collection.

4) trying to get my head round the whole emailing articles thing. i don't have 3g on mine but i've set up my wireless for it, so if i do mail a few things to my kindle address im not risking any charges am i?

For 2 - you could use Text-to-Speech (if it's enabled for the book) with the sound turned off. The pages will turn automatically.

ah that's handy! although i can imagine getting panicky as i reach the end of the page worrying it's gonna turn before i've finished reading it. either that or get ridiculously annoyed at having to wait a few seconds before it turns. could definitely work though, thanks very much.

just been readin more about this collections thing. looks like the only way is to set up a collection then manually add all the books. i've got about 66 to add so won't take more than a minute really. however i am finding that it won't add my instapaper article files (i have 3 on there, each with 20 articles on) to any collection. the whole instapaper thing is a bit weird and confusing, like why is the maximum 20, and how come they're classed as periodicals? im reading up on this calibre thing now and hopefully that'll help.

I haven't done anything with organizing into collections - I keep 80 - 100 things on mine and just page through them. I do archive off the fiction and periodicals I've finished, but that's about it for my housekeeping.

I believe if you sort your homepage by collection, the individual titles will not appear, only the name of the collections.

Here's 10 ebooks I downloaded (4 in .mobi format and 6 in .pdf format). I was planning on getting my dad a Kindle for xmas but that fell through. Anyways these books are paperbacks from guys like Dean Koontz, Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver...

Amazon does a Kindle case with a built-in light that's powered by the Kindle itself. Worth a look imo.

So I've yet to meet anybody who owns one of these yet.... am I begging the obvious when I ask if the appeal of buying one is so that you can illegally download books?

So I've yet to meet anybody who owns one of these yet.... am I begging the obvious when I ask if the appeal of buying one is so that you can illegally download books?

Not for me. Everything on mine is either in the public domain or paid for.

NI - For number 4, if you don't have 3G, you won't get charged for anything.

i got one of these for xmas, and have been v pleasantly surprised by how readable it is. like i was worried that it might somehow deaden the reading experience or make me feel like a goon sitting there looking at a screen but....it doesn't.

:)

Lending finally announced

There are very few books I can read in 14 days.

Then those are exactly the ones you should lend out.

Yeah, 14 days is tight. Maybe while on vacation.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/07/kindlefinger.jpg

got a permanent ink smudge on the screen so had to send it back. backed up the files onto my pc but to my huuuuge annoyance it doesn't backup the bookmarks, collections, settings or any of that. only takes 20 mins to sort but grrr all the same

update on my qus above: the next page button is quiet enough, thankfully. still anxiously awaiting kindle msn messenger (they're working on it apparently), collections thing works great (few minor problems with how long it takes to put each book in a certain collection but no biggie), and like schwantz said my kindle doesn't have 3g so no charges. bears repeating: i fucking love this thing. so easy on the eye. £100 for something i can see myself using for years, amazing.

just started using calibre to send the papers over each morning, again so great.

more questions:

1) is there a site i can use to check my email (two gmail accounts)? normal gmail uses java and is a processor-heavy refreshing mess. i've not tried html version but i imagine that would work, but how to check two at the same time?

2) wondering about renting an e-book from my local library and ripping it, if i do this (if indeed it's possible?) and i sync it with my kindle account will amazon clock on to it and shut me down for this or anything else dodgy? how big brothery are they about it all?

3) anyone use kindlepad? it's only a few pence, is it worth it? does the kindle have something similar built in?

Don't know about 1 or 3, but anything you put on your Kindle that isn't purchased from Amazon isn't synced to Amazon servers. For this reason, I don't think they care.

Amazon was literally Big Brothery last year, when someone "self-published" an started selling 1984 by George Orwell, with having any copyright to it. Amazon then remotely wiped the books off of peoples Kindles (and refunded them) without asking. Jeff Bezos then quickly published a mea culpa, and promised not to do that again in the future.

having problems with calibre mailing my newsfeed/ebooks to me. tried both a gmail and hotmail account but nothing doing. gr.

also does anyone know if instapaper articles die when the original wbesite removes them?

It's frustrating that some books from the same author and publisher are available and some aren't. I can get recent Pevear/Volokhonsky translations published by Vintage, but not some older ones.

I love the Kindle for large books and things that are only available in crappy mass market editions - it's inconvenient to carry The Brothers Karamazov or a Stephen King novel around.

Generally pretty pleased with this, but:

• why no hyphenation/justification control? Even with the text at the smallest size, the full justification frequently fails on hyphenated phrases, resulting in odd ragged lines. Which wouldn't be a problem if you could just choose to force left justify.
• ebook formatting from major publishers still seems to be incredibly shoddy - footnotes awry, no chapter breaks etc etc.
• what the hell is a "location"? How does it relate to word/line counts or w/e?
• Why is the New Yorker available from the Amazon.com kindle store but not the .co.uk?

Location complaint OTM. Why not just make it pages?

Formatting can be incredibly bad with some titles. Amazon make it really hard to complain about too, trying to palm it off on the publishers. When pressed they'll go to the publishers, but surely this is something they should be vetting, or at least making it easy to flag problems with? Apple don't allow publishers to upload shit MP3s to iTunes.

Now hang on, I'm sure I've seen Pearl Jam on iTunes

Just got a Sony Reader and it's lovely. I need to sort to some kind of case + light tho.

Annoyed that I can't lend from Amazon tho, that's be sweet.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ilher3TRL._SL500_AA266_PIkin3,BottomRight,-16,34_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

ugh

For what its worth, a cheap, light, angle-adjustable LED headlamp has worked better for me than any clipon light. This model (while not great for either work or running) is well suited and has been sold at most department/hardware stores for around $14 for 4+ years now:

http://bike.com/mmbike/images/2/large/LT6000.jpg

For what its worth, a cheap, light, angle-adjustable LED headlamp has worked better for me than any clipon light. This model (while not great for either work or running) is well suited and has been sold at most department/hardware stores for around $14 for 4+ years now:

I assume you only use that thing in the privacy of your home.

Yeah, wearing that thing and reading off a little screen. I can see why people are choosing these things over the terrible, outmoded paper books.

gotta admit i see people using these on the metro and i get v v jealous

Someday you'll be able to buy your own headlamp and sit proudly as their peer.

My god. You need a headlamp? Seriously?

This is cool, if you use Chrome:

http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/2011/01/using-googles-chrome-browser-extension.html

I'm starting to want an ereader, which I never ever thought I would.

My god. You need a headlamp? Seriously?

― Solid Gold Danzas (Autumn Almanac), Monday, January 17, 2011 7:50 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

when its dark, yeah? i also turn the lights on at home when it's night time

The only time I've actually used the headlamp with the Kindle is for camping, and overnight flights when the overhead light has too great a spread. You only need about a 6 inch circle of evenly distributed light at reading distance, and that's about what this particular model provides. At home, the dogs don't seem to care about the 40w fluorescent reading lamp angled at their perch.

One of the appeals of ebook readers to me is the elimination of shadows caused by light sources. I find that they distract my attention making it difficult for me to read. Having to use a light with a kindle doesn't eliminate this problem. I prefer the iPad because of this.

Camping fair enough, but people who rate down e-ink readers because you need a lamp to read them might also want to avoid books.

I do avoid books!

Since I'm in a complaining mood, I hate the iBooks app because it try's to recreate that real book look with the binding/shadow etc. Too distracting! I just want white screen, black text.

I don't mind that, but the naff pine bookcase is too much.

is there any way of accessing my instapaper links from the kindle browswer? like a way i could go to the instapaper site and with one click get it emailed over or download from that page. i guess i could view them using the browser but it takes sooo long to go anywhere on that, can't wait for them to give it an overhaul and hopefully speed it up (as well as sticking an msn messenger type tool on there).

also weird frustrating problem when i take text from an excel sheet (i use various excel pages to store notes and ideas) and paste it into a doc/rtf/txt/html file and mail it to my kindle. it lops off half a line, as in the text will flow off the screen to the right, if i use landscape screen view it'll show more text but not all of it. v odd and frustrating, i had to convert to pdf but that's so much slower than mobi or text files. pretty sure it's something to do with excel cells but not sure what exactly.

I will submit a bug for that issue.

ah ta! do you work on the kindle or just a fellow user? i'll submit it myself when i get chance too