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.

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.

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?

Instapaper got more newspaper-like

Once upon a time, I think this April, Instapaper had the ability to be keepable. That means, Instapaper as any newspaper from Amazon can be cleaned up automatically after, by default, a week.

As the majority of Kindle users may know, periodicals sent from Amazon disappear after a week. After a week’s time since being received, the old issues are placed to the ‘Periodicals: Back Issues’ folder (or collection). It the user wishes to keep the issue from being deleted, one should select the following menu item:

Despite selecting this, earlier Instapaper’s issues persisted all the time since they were received and no mark was noticed at the left in the Home screen.

As can be seen, February’s and March’s issues don’t have the mark ‘keep’ at the left of their rows.

In April I used to fill my Kindle with web-pages sent from Klip.me extension. However, the desire to have the content of my Kindle fully automated forced me to check Instapaper and other similar blog and content aggregators from time to time.

As when I wrote about the cool Klip.me changes, I caught the fish also here. Instapaper became even more likely to a newspaper than it was a month ago. So much do I love having all the articles in one place, that the Instapaper publishing system is one of my best loved features I have with Kindle.

Blogs, Google Reader, Instapaper and a Kindle - testing started

Technologies are in perpetual change. A couple of months ago I set up Instapaper sending settings, but almost never got newspapers.

Well, I found a time to investigate and discovered that things changed, as usual and as everywhere. My sending e-mail has been changed so that Amazon was unaware of a new sender to a kindle. Read Later booklet has not been set in my Chrome too...

Okay, I'll describe below which settings I've done to Instapaper.

Taken my Google Reader settings for Powershell blogs:

At left can be seen that several chosen blogs generated more than four hundred pieces of content. Not surprisingly that I don't want read such a pile on a desktop, preferring a Kindle for this purpose.

Next, I go to Google Reader Settings -> Send To and check Instapaper box:

After that, at the http://www.instapaper.com/user/kindle page I check my settings:

Next, at the Amazon's Manage Your Kindle page I add Instapaper's domain:

After all above actions, I expect receiving blogs to my Kindle.

Alternatively, Instapaper offers Read Later bookmarklet, allowing you to send blog items one by one from the Google Reader.

One more alternative is to use one of numerous Chrome widgets, which I will test in future posts.

Amazon.De verkauft Kindler

Kindles go easter and easter. Recently, Kindle store expanded into Germany. Following the storefront banner, you find 3G device http://www.amazon.de/dp/B003DZ1Y7M as well as Wi-Fi here http://www.amazon.de/dp/B003DZ1Y8Q .

Actually, as a fly in the ointment is their price, Amazon merely transferred the same price numbers changing only the currency (what added, by the way, a great increase to Kindle Store's revenue). So that further transfer of KIndles to unsupported developing countries is under a doubt, as well as retail price decrease only by the cause of this market expansion.

Kindle To Visit Libraries

Amazon delivers. How can it be spelled in another way? The new initiative, not yet available though, is very tempting.

Amazon to Launch Library Lending for Kindle Books

As can be seen from the second level headlines, there are even more than one news:

Customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 local libraries to read on Kindle and free Kindle reading apps

Whispersyncing of notes, highlights and last page read to work for Kindle library books

These mean that we’ll have strong alternative to the only available methods of picking up the books. We could download samples, usually ten percent of a book or thirty or so for several technical books, or read users’ reviews.

Regarding samples, they never supported highlighting, public notes and sharing, but dictionary check was available.I must note that dictionary search without saving a fragment where the word is used is no much worth for language learners.

The worst thing here is that ten percent sample is not valuable if you need a dictionary, an encyclopedia or a technical book.

Reading of reviews may help here, but if there are less then tens of them, you are under the risk that one says about style, one about usability for on a device, one is about the story that the user bought it accidentally and so forth.

The new possibility is free from these disadvantages. We’ll be able to read a book for some time, see the book in a whole, do our notes that are preserved until we’ll borrow the book again or buy it. Other’s public notes won’t be visible in library books.

However, as a warning alarmed the phrase ‘Customers will be able to check out a Kindle book from their local library’, implying that the user should be registered in an offline library first.

Hopefully, Amazon will give us lending available for world-wide customers, not only those living in the US.

Kindle for Android – how to get it?

No earlier than yesterday I’ve bought our family’s first Android mobile. Leaving out of focus how hot we’ve been struggling who’ll be its owner, the question I faced first is that Amazon doesn’t provide Kindle application outside from the US.

Knowing that Amazon keeps an eye on the fact that something is downloaded outside of the US using 3G, but not having even a bit of interest if it’s done through Wi-Fi or downloading to PC, I’ll try to get it somehow.

The most disappointing fact here is that I’m not interested acutely in downloading content directly on an Android phone (but who don’t want), but only in having a book from their store in twilight when regular Kindle device is forceless. Even so, for people who are not planning to consume AT&T’s traffic, the application is unavailable. Too sad.

Kindle Price To Lose Weight

The beloved Frustration-Free company, I mean Amazon, announced further decrease of Kindle 3 Wi-Fi price. With almost twenty percent fall, readers can afford it since May for $114.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1549144&highlight=

"We're working hard to make sure that anyone who wants a Kindle can afford one," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. "Kindle with Special Offers is the same #1 bestselling Kindle - and it's only $114. Kindle is the best deal in consumer electronics anywhere in the world."

The absolute truth. Not only price, of course, but also Wi-Fi, 3G, reading the Internet including blogs, wikipedia, google, almost wherever you may navigate, dropping books to it over air and gettting email to the reader.

Living in the devepoping country outside of WTO ring is not a pleasure when you need to order a gadget being sold only in the US, Canada and Western Europe. Delivery cost is not only high, it also complicated. You need buy a Kindle as a gift from the American or ask middlemen like Shipito to re-route it with more or less significant increase of its price. Thus, lowered cost is not what we will ignore.

Thanks, Amazon! I don't know whether will or won't users see you screensavers, with screensaver hack is available, but as I think many agreed to use advertising screensavers if price they bought it lowered.

Klip.me has been recently updated

Klip.me've got a pair of interesting features.

If you had never heard about this Chrome extension, activate it now unless you don't need reading blogs (what do you read now?), news, online newpapers and other readable media.

The link is https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ipkfnchcgalnafehpglfbommidgmalan

The first feature I enjoy is that since several days ago it sends articles not addressing as from Klip.me, but using the actual name of the publisher, dn.se ot latimes.com, as an example.

The second and most recent addition is a preview mode, turned on by default. When you press orange square, it generates a preview page displaying how it will be seen on your Kindle. After that you may press Send (it works slightly slower than earlier) and after getting positive response, you are able to press OK or Cancel and go back to the chosen webpage. The Cancel button is always available in case you are not satisfied with text prepared by the extension.

Despite what you see on the preview screen, pictures are not sent by default to a Kindle.

WASP by Eric Frank Russell

Non-stop reading

I have first time read this book in the early nineties, in the translation to Russian (I'm not a native speaker of English). Since than, the book has been read several times, needless to point out that every time it was a great pleasure to me.
What took me then? Believe or not, but Jaimec of the late fifties was very similar to Russia, Saint-Petersburg of the early nineties. Let's see, what I mean:
-personal computers were utterly uncommon due to their cost and the fact that ninetynine percent of the population was unaware of MS-DOS
-personal typewriters existed, but in opposite to Jaimecian users, there was the need to register any one bought
-mobile phones weren't available for citizens
-Russian kaitempi wasn't so severe, but rumors represented it so frightening as Jaimecian spec ops
-not many had a car, similarly to Jaimec, being free of heavy traffic
-the ruling caste was strong, admired and abhorrent, just as for now here
In other words, Jaimec matched exactly our life of those times.

Discussing the plot, it's one of the most dynamic and fun, the great combination, I ever read. The book is relatively short, so this factor along with aforementioned makes the impression of an explosion! The good fun explosion of actions performed by the protagonist James Mowry.

Recently I read this in English, of course slightly slower then in Russian, but the plot caught me again. I almost completely forgot the most of the book, since I last time read it in the late nineties, and it's been read as virtually new to me.
Indeed, no mobile phones even for military officers, no traffic jam and using of typewriters are not signs of the contemporary landscape, but the intencity of actions, somewhat formal style of narration combined with the humor, again overwhelmed me for a couple of weeks commuting with the Kindle.

Never regretting if you bought it. Also, this Kindle edition has a font slightly bigger than usual.

Posted here: http://www.amazon.com/WASP-ebook/product-reviews/B003TFESY2/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_recent?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending