Faster, better…

Archive for the ‘Kindle’ Category

I’m loving my Kindle DX. This Christmas I received a bundle of Amazon gift certificates that I used to buy more books and a clip on lamp. The Kindle and my computer, and the TV are my source entertainment while I have been home with an as yet diagnosed illness.

When I get tired of reading I can play old radio plays (mp3 files) that I downloaded from Zootradio.com my favorite old radio play site.  Using a male to male stereo cable I connect the headphone jack to a set of small amplified computer speakers. The Kindle DX brings new life to Sherlock Holmes episodes of the 40′s. Oh and don’t forget Orson Well and the Third Man.

The coolest part of shopping for Kindle books are the free books Amazon has made available. Amazon has quite a few Jack London titles. I’m a big fan of London. When I lived in California I visited Wolf House and his grave. When I was a kid I think I read White Fang three times.

Since I wrote my first comments on the device my Kindle fell from the seat of the car onto the curb as I got out of the car.  It was either damaged at this point or after placing it back in the car the car door slammed against one corner. When I got home I discovered the display had been damaged. I contacted Amazon using their on-line procedure of sending a form email first and then accepting telephone call from a support person. Amazon truly impressed me.  The warranty took care of my broken Kindle. Amazon had a new one in my mail box with forty-eight hours.

When I purchased the Kindle I bought this Belkin cover for it. In m ost circumstances it is all I needed but for longer trips I may consider a larger container with more padding. In a few days I should receive the clip on light I ordered for the Kindle. The reading light situation isn’t perfect in my home. I figure one of the small battery powered lamps will do the trick.  My only hope is the battery life of the lamp will be as good as the Kindle’s.   The Kindle has given me a great deal of enjoyment in the four or so months that I have owned it.  The good things about it out weigh the few gripes I have. Maybe I should have also purchased the extended warranty?  Perhaps you are thinking about purchasing a Kindle yourself. Feel free to use the links on this page to make your purchase and support DougWeb. While I am home and not able to work every little bit helps.

• Whispernet has spotty coverage in Southern Maryland. Why hasn’t SPRINT found new tower space YET to improve coverage? This has always been a VerizonWireless county but come on folks. In Calvert County we have huge dead spots for SPRINT service where Verizon Wireless picks up the slack. It has been that way for years. SPRINT does its best to cover the highways but leaves the neighborhoods along the bay wanting. I hope the Kindle is impetus for SPRINT to FIX coverage. I might even be tempted finally to switch allegiance.
• The experimental browser is still experimental. It’s not Firefox or IE7. It is years behind anything you have ever used. It is text based. It is very primitive. It is pig-dead slow and the displayed results of a URL will test your ability to read gobbledygook.
• As a book reader the DX is wonderful. I ENJOY reading books with it.
• As you may have already read I also bought the Kindle to read PDF files. I’m satisfied for the most part. As long as I have m,y reading glasses PDF works for me.
• MP3 works. You cannot use the Kindle like an iPod apparently. I still have some experimenting to do but I don ‘t think the unit will play a playlist of music files. The functionality appears to be for audio books and podcasts. Bummer! All of your indexed audio files are mixed in with your books. Dumb idea Amazon. I sure would like to group PDF files, books, and audio in different directories. I cannot even imagine having to wade through page after page of book titles, MP3 titles, and PDF file titles to find what I want. The organizational philosophy of the device needs to be reexamined. It too is primitive.
• Menus are simple and easy to find. Bookmarking is cool.
• I like the size of the DX. Anything smaller and I would not enjoy reading as much as I do.
• Battery life is nothing short of amazing.
• Turning the unit off requires you to wait four or five seconds. I’m used to it now but sheesh!
• I have had the unit freeze in one more or another for no apparent reason. Holding the off button over for longer than for seconds seems to help.
• Really pleased with no contract or commitment. Had Amazon made a a cellular specific offering millions would have eventually opted out. 
• Typing using the chicklet keyboard is difficult and non-standard.

I keep evaluating and writing as I learn more. Mostly I am very pleased and am not bothered by the price I paid for Kindle DX.

The Orlando Sentinel whined that the Kindle DX did not do enough for the newspapers.  The headline was, “Amazon’s Kindle DX: Not the answer.” There were several clues in the article that the paper clearly understood the nature of the Kindle and why, but was ignoring some current truths about newspaper success in general and their own role in utilizing new technology.

First newspapers were on the decline before the recession hit because of their progressive liberal editorial views and what I call “anger news.” Like the failure of liberal talk radio, the American market has spoken. No one really wants to listen to or read propaganda. There was also the rising cost of energy to run the presses and newsprint was more expensive. The Internet played a roll as people began to get their news from on-line sources. It isn’t the Kindle spoiling the newspaper’s success. No I think the Kindle is another potentially positive tool for the paper that decides to use the Kindle to its fullest advantage.

The medium in the Kindle’s case may not be the message.  the newspaper still has that roll but through a new and very speed-and-size-conscious digital delivery format. The media (newspapers) may have to adapt to the Kindle – you think?  Are we at the start of a paradigm change like we were in the 70’s with the invention of the digital watch? Watchmakers sloughed those off remember. I understand the concerns in the Sentinel article about graphics, pictures, and charts, and the positioning of headline text. The presentation is new. Be creative with headlines to attract attention.  Make the Kindle work for the paper now and support it as it begins to succeed as a delivery system.

A third party news distributor now sells a book reader/newspaper reading device that is subscription free to the customer. The customer decides which digital books they buy and which newspapers to subscribe to using the Kindle as a delivery device. The business model appears to be that Amazon pays its Whispernet charges out of book sales and newspaper subscriptions. Amazon also needs to make a profit to stay in this business.  In the article I believe the Sentinel acknowledges the model.

The paper wants to use the Kindle as a means to instantly deliver news.  It seems reasonable to me that unless the newspaper actually develops a subscription base on the Kindle to support additional payments to Amazon to develop such a mode, that Amazon’s one download a day is enough. In the Sentinel article the paper’s progressive entitlement mentality is showing through. Perhaps some focus on the part of newspapers to create thoughtful Kindle editions of their papers that take advantage of the available technology without trying to mimic paper media is in order. This has been a problem for newspapers since the creation of the world-wide web.  The Kindle offers newspapers another way to help the newspaper succeed in the digital age. Newspapers can either adapt or sit back with their arms tightly folded across their chests, chins up, teeth clenched and watch others succeed. Their choice.

I’m not so sure that, at least ion my case, that newspapers or even instant news is actually an attractive option for the Kindle. I get this elsewhere and the size of the DX and the way in which I use it doesn’t make it an attractive option. Except for the Wall Street Journal, most newspapers are suffering from a lack of journalist excellence which cause me to take no interest in their content. That and I purchased the Kindle to read books and PDF files and not newspapers. Newspapers and blogs were not even on my list of desired content for the Kindle. Living in the country as we do we have our own newspapers, some of which have minor on-line editions that I can read on a larger computer screen. My Twitter feed from Fox News and Drudge serve me well and a visit to the local grocery puts a newspaper in my hands. Old fashioned but adequate.

The concerns some folks have about being able to save newspapers in quantity on the Kindle or moving them across Kindle devices and saving back issues at Amazon.com also concerns me. There doesn’t appear to be a solution for that so if I eve need to read or search a paper I will visit its website.

It is hard to tell where the Kindle will actually be in one year or two or even five. Grumbling by newspapers early in the game doesn’t help much. I suggest they get some Internet savvy people on board, retire the marketing people that don’t get it and move forward with some alacrity lest they be left gasping for breath in the dust of newspapers passing them by.

Since Amazon first introduced the Kindle I have watched and waited. Watched because the Kindle was due. It was time for a personal reader. Technology had gone beyond paper years ago and it was time for a device to carry the written the word. Waited because I didn’t want to be first. Sometimes first is disappointed and that wasn’t going to be me.

This terrific reader has so much inside that I want to write separate articles as I master the options in the DX. First I want to share what I know about reading PDF’s.

My needs in a personal reader included PDF capability. Having joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary in 2008 I was regularly printing large, multi-page PDF files used for personal study. My home library already had at least two wheel barrels full of training materials. There just had to be a better way.

When the Kindle DX was introduced in June 2009, I figured I was ready to make the purchase. The DX was a larger size and to me size mattered. The closer the Kindle was to 8 1/2 x 11 inches (actually 9.7) the fonder I would be. Larger is readable when your eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be. I’m one of those that carries reading glasses to read the fine print. The Kindle DX was bigger and therefore better.

The price was a tough one at first but what finally sold me was that no subscription was required. Subscriptions ruin my appreciation for a service when the subscription prices begin to climb. I like the idea of being able to read my own PDF files, and purchasing Kindle books when I wanted to. What a great surprise to also find that Amazon.com has some free titles that include genres of interest to me! When you compare what you get with some of the other high tech devices out there today and you don’t want a cellular telephone contract to enjoy book reading the Kindle looked great at $489.

The Day Came

The Kindle was delivered to my mailbox. Strange that $500 worth of technology is delivered by the post office to a rural mailbox but that’s how it came. It even sat in the mailbox overnight because we didn’t check the box on a Saturday afternoon. Thank goodness it wasn’t stolen or that the Summer heat didn’t bake it. The box it was delivered in was obviously from Amazon but to the casual observer it probably looked like a book. Save the box and packing kit when you get yours. It was substantial and may come in handy someday.

When I opened the box there was the Kindle DX , an AC charger/adaptor and a tiny getting-started pamphlet. The Kindle had a half charged battery so I was able to try it right away. The actual manual was inside the Kindle as a readable book file. It’s been a week and I have yet to read the entire manual. Basic operation for the computer geek and former software professional was intuitive. My guess is the average reader will also find it as easy to use.

First on My List was the PDF

First on my list to try was reading Pmy DF files. I connected the supplied USB cable to my computer and the Kindle and then copied several PDF files to the Kindle. I was pleased but on a scale of one to ten I give the Kindle DX only a seven with the current implementation. Here’s what I discovered when reading PDF files:

There is no control over character size in a PDF. Zooming in to make the page bigger isn’t possible. Small text is very small requiring reading glasses and occasionally a little eye strain.

While in PDF mode you can’t highlight text and save it to the clippings file. When I read my paper files I mark text with yellow highlighter regularly. Adobe and Amazon need to get together on this with a version of PDF for the Kindle!

Large PDF files take a little longer to load than smaller PDF files.

When you use the “Go to Page” menu function you get to the right place but you cannot use the back button to return from whence you came. You must go back to the page number you left. Going to page 608 takes you to page 608 but pushing back takes you to page 607. Perhaps the button could work two ways or it would wait until you push page forward and a new return default of “the page you actually left” could be bypassed. That’s an enhancement request from me to Amazon.

PDF document search works very well. I searched for a combination of two words in a 618 page document. The Kindle found all of the occurrences I expected it would find. You can also bookmark a page. A very tiny, and I mean very tiny folded page corner appears on the upper right corner. You have access to your bookmarks from the menu button. This is an appropriate way to save an important page. The keyboard on the DX reminds me of the keyboard on a cellular telephone. In order to access numbers you first press the ALT key, find the number and press that key. Numbers are shared with the first row of letters. Using the chicklet style buttons requires my reading glasses.

So far images in PDF files are reproducing just fine. When I run into one that doesn’t appear correctly I note it under this article.

Anytime I’m going somewhere where I expect to have to wait I take my Kindle. Hey if the other geeks are all wearing their Bluetooth© headsets I can carry my Kindle. It goes to work so I can read on my lunch hour and with me to the doctor’s office.

So far I am very pleased with my Kindle DX. I hope to write as many more articles on using it as I find interesting topics to warrant the time.

[errata:  071109 DougWeb - It is possible to return to the page you came from after a jump to a page in a PDF file by pressing the "back button underneath the five-way control. The Prev Page button does exactly what it is supposed to do.]

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