Wow, Amazon! We're going to read more

Today's announcement is what was promised moths ago: the public library for kindlemen (kinelepersons? kindlepeople?).

The exact quote says:

Dear Customers,

Today we're announcing a new benefit for Kindle owners with an Amazon Prime membership: theKindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Kindle owners can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free, including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers — as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.

Not without a big fat hornet in the ointment of course: you should be a client with the Prime membership. What, in turn, means that you'd be better the US resident as only there you can benefit most of Prime.

Well, even if not absolutely free, it's a small step for a man and a big one for the Internet giant.

Kindle for PC 1.8.0: working with collections improvements

As I noticed while've been testing 1.8.0 on two desktops, there has been done some bugfix. Many may remember, that when one created a collection on a device in a locale not the same as at the time the collections have been imported from the device, suffixes applied to collections names like

collection@sp for a collection created when the locale has been set to es-es,

collection@sv is a result of creating collections when the locale was set to sv-se and so on.

Today I changed the locale thrice, every time creating a collections, and after importing, these collections appeared without suffixes. Maybe the reason is that I haven't restarted the device, since the collections I created previously still have the suffix, even to delete and to re-import them.

I'll continue testing the app and describe if possible the logic of creating and import collections.

Kindle for PC 1.8.0 for serious language learners

Amazon delivers a new version of Kindle for PC on a two months' or quarter basis.

First and foremost, why one should use a desktop application if the goal to make reading comfortable for eyes? I use the desktop version as well as web and cloud versions (are there now two or one web-based version?) primarily to read technical books. That is, if I need search and read from several sources, I put on my Kindle on a cradle (a $1 cradle for paper books :)), open cloud and desktop version and it's better than navigate on a slow device.

Well, about the news: since several days ago, Kindle for PC support several language GUIs as well as several mono-language dictionaries. Gratis.

Okay, may you say, there is nothing useful if you use Kindle for PC only for technical reading. Yes, of course, no more languages for technical reading than English. However, there may open possibilities to take a time for foreign-language reading. Along with excellent Oxford and New American Oxford, and Duden, Amazon blessed us with Portuguese-to-Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish-to-Spanish, French-to-French and Italian-to-Italian dictionaries. Enjoy, learners, enjoy!

Brand-new Kindle family members came to light!

What I say more? Nothing. Well said, and a great offer:

Dear Customer,

There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.

We are excited to announce four new products: the all-new Kindle for only $79, two new touch Kindles – Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G – for $99 and $149, and a new class of Kindle – Kindle Fire – a beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more, for only $199.

These are high-end products – the best Kindles we’ve ever made. Kindle and Kindle Touch have the most-advanced E Ink display technology available, and the 3G Kindle Touch adds free 3G wireless – no monthly fees and no annual contracts. Kindle Fire brings everything we’ve been working on at Amazon for 15 years together into a single, fully-integrated experience for customers – instant access to Amazon’s massive selection of digital content, a vibrant color IPS touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle, a 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, a state-of-the-art dual core processor, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, and an ultra-fast mobile browser – Amazon Silk – available exclusively on Kindle Fire.

We are building premium products and offering them at non-premium prices.

Thank you for being a customer,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO

p.s. – Kindle Fire has a radical new web browser called Amazon Silk. When you use Silk – without thinking about it or doing anything explicit – you’re calling on the raw computational horsepower of Amazon EC2 to accelerate your web browsing. If you're curious, watch this short video to learn more about how it works.

Buzz: Kindle Fire to fire today

BlogKindle admires technical data that are ascribed to the new toy. Dual-core OMAP with fantastic 1.2 Hz frequency should serve well at least a year, being ahead of NookColor.

The screen is 7''th typical one, of readable quality of course.

In addition, with competitible price equaling to Nook Color's, the tablet will include out of the box Amazon Prime subscription, free for a year.

As a consequence of this release, there may be a pleasant price fall, as said at TechCrunch, down to $99.

We're awaiting, Amazon. :)

Kindle appstore expands

Hmm, today's news says http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2011/09/19/amazon-appstore-expands-to-australia-elsewhere/ .

Today, that's a strange fact, I filled up a new tablet with software. I set up a number of e-book readers and tried to set up Kindle for Android. I won't read much on an LCD screen, but what's not to set up e-book readers? Well, I found the Kindle app and set it up. I was shocked, having thought previously that it's not possibly to do. But I managed to set up.

To my amazement, after some time I found news where was declared that appstore is available across a bunch of countries.

What's a coincidence! I tried to set up the app the same day it perhaps was announced as for not only the US market.

A small Cloud Reader bug is reported

Today I reported the following (in the next post I'll describe the pleasant Cloud Reader that I discovered recently):

"Hello,

first of all, I would thank you the Amazon team for this amazing Cloud Reader.

What is the most demanded thing for technical people? To see code samples or technical details in paralel with the related work in process. And to make highlights (i.e., quotes) and to put them into code or into letters as a proof in a discussion. Along with the kindle.amazon.com -> Your Highlights, the cloud Reader is a promising feature.

But there I found a bug. I use highlights intensely. The book I'm working with for now is of thirteen thousand locations long and I have hishlights in various areas of the book. Of course, I don't read technical books from cover to cover, instead I read what I needed now leaving gaps in 'highlights space'.

Coming close to a bug, the bug is that I can see in the Cloud Reader only highlights before location 2195, whereas I have at least several highlights near 7775th location and in other locations.

Th highlights list simply ends up at 2195th.

My chrome is 13.0.782.112 m.

Thanks, Alexander

P.S. Another minor bug is the window where I'm writing this - its size is unchangeable.

P.P.S. Time ago I asked for the ability to open several books in parallel. Cloud Reader is the answer. Thanks again!"

Below the screenshots of what was described in the letter. The first figure displays the highlight in Kindle for PC 1.6:

The same book in Cloud Reader is deprived of highlights after location 2195:

A new proposal to improve Kindle software from technical readers' point of view

I've sent the following to Amazon:

Hello,

I'd like to discuss the needs a reader of technical literature may have. Further, I'll propose a variant of solution done from the reader's point of view.

First of all, what the process of working with technical books is? I work more than ninety-five percent of time that I spend working with techbooks with computers-related (programming, system administration) literature.

How does the working process go? The person uses computer-related books in two ways:

- reading (or reading and doing actions like control clicks, menu clicks and so on)

- search with small stripped reading.

The first way is obvious, there is only one problem: poor bookmarking functionality. For example, the user guide says that you need to open the 'View notes and marks' menu option and navigate from there.

Aha, the technical literary is the area where people do a lot of highlights. Why? To see Your Highlights everywhere, to see highlights on a desktop (Kindle for PC), to see highlights of your personal documents (I use also for reading the documentation of the products I'm working with) using third-party software.

Now, let's recall what we a second ago discussed: bookmarks. How is it possible to navigate to a bookmark having tens or hundreds highlighted places in the book you are reading?

The conclusion is simple, you need or to add a menu item 'Navigate bookmarks', or a window as it's done in other vendors' e-readers. The first way is preferable since there is less to do than in the second, UI is athe same and it's also the same 'View Notes and Marks' menu item but with filtering 'only bookmarks'.

The second problem is not so easy to resolve. Again, it is the Search. When you need to find something, it's very rare luck if one book suffices. Compared to Advanced Search in Adobe Acrobat Reader, your search in almost nothing. (Do you know their search? Open a document, press Ctrl+Shift+А and type a path. After that Advanced Search works over a FOLDER of documents (one document is also supported). Of course, working with more than ten or twenty documents may feel burdensome (desktop slows down, even Acrobat may fall down if too many resources have been consumed), but compare please with your offer.

The key of success is the ability to search in a book as well in several books. There'll be very good if you allow us to search in three books in parallel, and work with three books in parallel. Three is usually enough because or these three helpful, or one or two should be closed and other opened.

The typical style of work with technical books is to get code samples from three of four places and to read in one or two areas of one book. The dedicated bookmarks navigation would help here.

The second stage is search in two or three books in parallel, finding alternate solutions in books or code sample in the first and something like an explanation how it works in the other (some authors are best in code writing, whereas others write text well :)).

Please think about the propossal. As a technical person (I also read fiction, but there is no problem) I need to have improved navigation and search capabilities.

What do you the Kindle users think about the above proposal?

How fast are books you have bought visible at Kindle.Amazon.com?

As I noticed, the worst thing with the Kindle.Amazon.com portal is that books you have recently bought are not added to the Your Books list for a significant time. Even hiatus more than twenty-four hours is lately observed.

How can it be avoided? Seemingly, simple search in the search box promises to be helpful. You search for the full book title or for a fragment, and it returns books so that one of them is the result. Or you need to see the full search results list to pick up what you need. However, the marking a book as Read or Reading doesn't add the book to the Your Books list!

This is strange, you have at this portal two lists! One list is the Your Books one (books that you bought in an electronic format or in paper from Amazon), the second is the list in your profile. The latter includes not only the books you have bought at Amazon, but also any books you got through search and marked as Read or Reading (or any other status).

The roles of lists are different too. Being added to the Your Books list is a necessity if you want that a book was visible in Daily Review or in Your Highlights. At the same time, the books list in your profile is your profile's showcase, no more.

Okay, when both lists got synchronized, the happiness takes you. Then you see your highlights, can use Daily Review and your profile is truthful.

There is no right solution at this time on how to speed up the sync. Even issuing the request to support won't help since they reacted only when sync is done. :) As a palliative there can be advised the way to log off from the Kindle.Amazon.com portal and log in back; or use another browser.

Kindle fun

Too many applications, aren't there?

This is an existing book, bought from the Amazon's store. Technically speaking, in some cases replacing 'applications' with ones are not applicable since they are used in slightly different contexts...

An excellent comparison Kindle 3 with all-new Nook (kindleworld)

I honestly can't omit this article, so comprehensive it is. Sorry for that the content of this post is not mine but of another author.

The second article in the 'Kindle for PowerShellers' series

How to read blogs on a Kindle? The article describes the way Amazon provides.

Kindle for PowerShellers series

As a mission to advance the Kindle to areas where it's not common yet, a mission taken just because I love Kindle, I'm publishing a series of articles 'Kindle for PowerShellers'.

The series is intended to show IT people in which way they could use the Kindle to be on the edge of the technical progress. That does not matter PowerShell or another technical area is, the series aimed to highlight what is the Kindle does best on that way.

The Noble competitor to announce the All-New Nook. Part 2

After I've finished my previous post, I've noticed more features I like

• this new model supports extension cards, possibly SD/SDHC
• it also can be connected by a wire (that is not new one feature at all, but why don't mention it?). This is probably a mini-USB or most likely a micro-USB jack. Each of them fits 'less than 1/2 inch thin device'
• borrowing from libraries, what is not available on a Kindle yet
• the user is allowed to set a screensaver from a number the vendor offers or even use own picture as a screensaver.

The Noble competitor to announce the All-New Nook

B&N recently announced the availability of the all-new Nook in June. Which type of a gadget the all-new Nook is?

First of all, the commonly believed total move to color screens are postponed. Nook to get a Pearl screen with traditional 50% plus increase of contrast.

Second, the screen is a touchscreen. Thus, this is almost a hybrid a Kindle and a Sony Reader, touchable as the latter and with network capabilities as the former.

Third, it's of six inches as the most of world's Pearl readers population. Won't be a lack of screens this year?

Fourth, its weight is under eight ounces and it's incredible thin, of unannounced size though.

Fifth and the most fascinating if true, it is intended to work up to two months on one battery charge.

Sixth, its price is equal to a regular Kindle 3 Wi-Fi, implying that for the same price you'll have one more month of uninterruptible work and the touchscreen as a bonus. With two million titles in the store, especially that in opposite to Amazon's there is a number in foreign languages, the rivalry gets tougher.

Which will be the answer of Amazon? An Android tablet? One more Pearl reader? Both of them? It's the question!

Lowering the Kindle price of showing the real price?

Amazon made a new step towards its customers, offering Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi, special edition, for only $164. The Kindle may be of two color schemata of our choice, graphite and white. All the special features are the same as embedded into Kindle Wi-Fi, special edition, whareas all the remaining features are from Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi.

Despite the excitement the news brought to us, the only question concerned is that which of two prices, 3G or 3G special, reflect the true price?

Kindle as a network management tool

Since yesterday, it's proven that your Kindle might have helped you not only read blogs or check e-mail on a vacation, but with it you also may run services and set permissions across your corporate network. Under the link is the story.

There's a bearable fly in the oinment that you need to buy a soft of the price of a marvellous Kindle 3G. On the other hand, this is a relatively small fee, moreover paid once, enabling you to rest on the beach (Pearl rocks!).

Kindle 3 in dextrous hands

I doubt where this post is technical or not. Let's see.

No longer than yesterday I was asked about where a cover for Kindle 3 can be bought, in short time and on a budget. This is not an easy question for living outside the WTO world, out of its borders Amazon doesn't deliver Kindles, outside Moscow, where the rivalry suppressed prices and provides a choice, and far away of Siberia, the place to where delivering from China is fast and cheap.

Not a matter of yesterday's buddy's problem, there is in Saint-Petersburg the local custom service, even more slowdowning the delivery of goods.

So that there are two possibilities to obtain a cover: to find a local supplier or an individual willing to sell one, or to make it by hands. Make it by hands? Incredible thought! The utter nonsence many have heard. But, despite the chance to lose readers' veracity, I continue publishing craftworks of local people.

The topic on one of the biggest local forums on e-readers represents models for transporting as well as models for reading during a dinner or a bath.

The first model fo today's review is an armored sock:

With one tenth inch wooden protection, it took the time calculated in such a way:

• 10 minutes for preparation of wooden list including sawing and polishing
• 3 hours does it took to entice the Kindle owner's wife to join the craftwork
• 1 hour is spent on calculations and layout projecting
• 15 minutes was needed to weave the cover using the Silver Reed machine
• and, finally, 30 minutes for piecing together all the previous results

Is it pretty thing, isn't it?

The same master went even farther and proposed one more thing to use

with Kindle. As many of us obviously read at the eating time, this old CD cover may help in some cases:

At last, applause to the last model of the today's show, the Book in the Book!

I promise to continue informing you about revealed cases of all-around-Kindle craftmanship further.

The future of LCD readers?

Yesterday's session in the local Ikea's restaurant, where I tried my new light-weight Android netbook for browsing, emailing and reading, showed that I can't understand the advantage of using LCD screens.

As I recently wrote, to read during spending time with family in the Ikea place is almost impossible thing. Technically, the child gladly can play with peers inside the shelves-barriers on the children's spot, but the surrounding noise disperses my attention (I do like drinking coffee or tee in time of reading, though.)

This time, instead of the Kindle, the notebook was taken with us. The first part of the lunch (the eating itself) has taken place under the glass roof and the pleasant sunlight made me irritated regarding the LCD screen (free, but Wi-Fi smoothed my mood:)). The second part of the lunch was in the shade (the child has moved to children's steam and motobyke) and, despite that the free Wi-Fi's gone, I relieved.

All this turned my ming in the way I need investigate how it is possible to read using LCD (TFT or any other) screens. As a starting point, today I approached my Kindle and removed the Amazon's screen protector from it. I used this for months, knowing that the labels on the keys are not worn-resisting and the screen protector is primarily the coffee protector. :)

After that I went to the patio and tested the Kindle under the sun shining. It's readable almost well excluding the positions where the reader's eyes are approximately positioned at a sixty degree angle relatively to the Kindle's surface. This and only this position is not only the worst, this impedes the reading process stop completely. With the exception for this placement, all other angles are almost equally well to read.

For what reason I started this post? Today I have occasionally read that Archos are going to release two tablets of the lowest price. It was about Arnova 8 and Arnove 10. In visiting the company's site, I found two readers, 7o and 7oc. Both of the LCD family, the later supports colors.

How it is possibly to read on such devices? What is good for night reading, can be apropriate for day's? I'll seek the possibility to use some of such things to test. Wife's Android phone is not something that can be readable under the bright light. What's about others? How do Nook and Galaxy the tablet behave under the sunlight?

Mashable's opinion on the upcoming Amazon's tablet

There is also a post at Mashable, where their analysts's predictions are composed to two points:

- 7 inches

- 200 dollars

and Android onboard.

KIndle competitors: a new B&N Nook loomed

Generations of readers occurs annually. Noticeable, that Sony's litter (for last years, of three) is thrown out in fall, Amazon's one or twins are of August's birth, and Barnes and Nobles's one or two are almost in the wintertime.

Yesterday's leak says that B&N will announce something this May. The current tablet is a very strong on the market due to its low cost and the ability to be hacked or upgraded to an Android tablet.

So, let's wait what says the B&N this month.

Klip.me is being buggy last days

After clicking the orange K, on the page preview, the bug appears as the text to Kindle is crowling down. There isn't a limit for this effect, it will move down so long so you allow to.

Hopefully, the bug gets fixed in the nearest future. Seen on several hosts with Chrome from 8 to 11.

Why Some of Us Get More Done at Coffee Shops, Some Don't

As does the LifeHacker say, cafe is a place of creative power. At least, the reading spot. Because of or not I visit such places with the family, it's not the truth to me.

I can't remember a day I coped with a couple of pages in a cafe. The only thing I managed to do there is to listen to easy audiobooks on a lowered loudness to hear people, or, and more effective, to listen to audio dicitonaries. Owing to a small or medium size of its entries, it is the content I acquire most in noisy and disturbing environment.

Above all, the picture is appealing:

Not having seen namely it before, and for sure having seen many similar, we've bought in a RajaMarket the day before yesterday ten pieces set of plastics to paint capuccino leafs, animals and so on. Or to share it with the child of us, he likes painting on paper. :)

Oops, was I asked where I do read? having changed the car to public transpost, the year since gave me the opportunity to read much more than ever before.

A free for all Duden is added to Kindle for PC

The latest German e-book readers market expansion not only gave us a topic to discuss prices, but it brought to us the update of Kindle for PC. Which nice features are comprised of this update?

First of all, there is a new dictionary, a Duden one of the level comparable to both well-known Kindle Oxford's. That means, no more no less, that you have one more free but genuine dictionary on your desktop. On every your desktop, wherever your desktop is (proxies are left for the further).

Second, the changes applied to the context menu:

The menu became more structured and you can change the dictionary on the fly. Unfortunately, no more dictionaries allowed, those you bought you may use only on a hardware Kindle.

Third, the German localization (I'm neutral to it especially comparing to a lot of applications having up to tens of locales out-of-the-box).

As seemed, but I can't confirm that remember it right, some more items were added to the main menu.

Regrettably, they didn't help people suffering the corporate proxy: as earlier, it can't go through so you are deprived of most wishing things like having dictionaries or access to your paid content. Regarding 3rd party books, there is no impedement to read them, isn't it strange or not to you?

Not surprising rumors about a new Amazon's tablet

Believe or not, I wasn't shocked by the news saying about Amazon's future Android tablet. Didn't you see this note?

Well, why don't imagine which kind of thing it can be? As DigiTimes reports, "The device is expected to receive support from Taiwan-based electrophoretic display (EPD) maker E Ink Holdings (EIH) for supplying touch panel as well as providing its Fringe Field Switching (FFS) technology. However, EIH declined to comment on the news when asked, saying it does not discuss clients with the media.

EIH has also recently been in contact with a Taiwan-based small- to medium-size panel maker, aiming to obtain capacity to support Quanta, the sources said. Volume production of Amazon's tablet PCs is expected to allow EIH to gain more profit from the patents of its FFS technology."

As seemed, this will again one of e-Ink readers that is a must have for serious reading, touch capabilities will be added too. Like a Sony Reader plus access to Android Market? It's very likely.

If Kindle 4 to support Android apps, there is a promise that people will be able to set up the reading application of their choice, CoolReader or FBReader, for instance. Here many read in Russian and support of fb2 format is vital for them since a Kindle allows them to download fb2 books directly from *** sites. I don't prefer reading in Russian, of course (Does your brain work all the time you are reading in your mother's tongue, doesn't it? Don't you waste your time with merely swallowing and digesting the text instead of adding such activities as acquiring new to you words and phrases, extending grammar rules known to you along with getting the same information?), but out-of-the-box reading application is what I want to have no longer.

There's only one dictionary per language that can be touched from the text (if you set, for example, an English dictionary as the primary and begin reading some text in German, the German dictionary can be accessed. But not two English dicts at the same time). Two or more dictionaries are what I interested in, in most cases. As an example, everybody may take FBReader on an Android. It opens up so many dictionaries in its context menu activated by a touch of the word chosen as you opted in the Settings. No restrictions on languages used are there, online dictionaries are possibly to use if needed.

Second, the need to bake a hand-made dictionary as a mobi file. There are lots of dictionaries in the Internet, many are gratis, of many formats. On the other hand, to buy a Swedish/Norwegian/Holland/other small people's to English dictionary with right word formations recognition is an impossible task. German and Spanish dictionaries are on sale, but not in a great number too.

Second-B, baking the dictionary is not only an arduous task, it's problematic due to Amazon's bugs. People must their best to avoid these bugs (squares and other litter in transcription shown in the context menu is a the first example came to my head), but new versions of Kindle software shipped with new formatting bugs.

Third, the context menu is too narrow (only onf two row making a sense and one appeared every time, useless for translation or reading the definition), people want at least three or four rows to be allowed to see.

Do you see, for what reasons we are awaiting for an Adnroid-supporting device?

One more thing to add to this topic is that Amazon provides magazins in color, will or won't their new reader support colors?