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Entries tagged as ‘kindle’

Kindle for BlackBerry is LIVE!

February 18, 2010 · 1 Comment

There is nothing more exciting in my life right now than the long-awaited Kindle for BlackBerry app! (Ok, maybe there are a few things…)

For now it’s only available for U.S. customers (sorry, folks) and is compatible with the Bold 9000, Bold 9700, Curve 8520, Curve 8900, Storm 9530, Storm 9550, and Tour 9630. I have a Tour and I think it’s quite fun. Obviously the screen is teeny tiny but what do you expect from your BlackBerry? And it’s not like I expect to sit in bed and read on my BlackBerry at night – it’s for when you’re stuck waiting on some abysmal line and you don’t have your Kindle with you. In fact, I wish I’d had it yesterday when I was at the Philippine Consulate for HOURS to renew my passport! I’m glad it’s available now though because sometimes I do in fact get stuck somewhere unexpected and get a bit bored.

As for how it works, I’m not currently reading something I bought from the Amazon Kindle store but I quickly downloaded Pride and Prejudice from my archives and it’s as fast and intuitive as the Kindle and Kindle for PC. I tried taking screen captures but it looks like it’s protected against Capture It, so you’ll just have to try it out yourself. Since I’m on the Tour, I do have the trackball so I can either scroll right or down OR press Space to turn the page. To turn back a page I scroll left or up. Clicking on my Bb menu I can “Add Bookmark” OR just press “B” on whatever page I’m on. The smallest text size is quite small, but I do like reading on the second size. I think I get enough words on the page that I’m not scrolling every few seconds. The largest size is gigantor and fits about 20 words! There is also a “Full Screen” option (keyboard shortcut is “F”) that makes the page a full screen (obviously). Overall it’s exactly what I was looking for in a Kindle Bb app.

Actually, one thing I wasn’t expecting was to be able to access the Kindle Store through the app (although I don’t know why I wouldn’t have, since I already have the regular Amazon app). To be perfectly honest, I don’t buy many books, but I always like the option of doing so.

And since it’s still in beta, there’s plenty to fix. These future updates that they advertise on the website are pretty exciting:

Scrolling
In addition to page-by-page navigation, you will be able to scroll text line-by-line.

Create Notes and Highlights
Along with viewing the notes and highlights you created on other Kindle devices, you will be able to create and edit notes and highlights.

Search
You will be able to search within your book.

So it’s still missing some things that are standard to the Kindle itself, but it looks like they’re working on making that available. You can get the Kindle for Bb app by going to amazon.com/kindlebb on your device.

*cue maniacal dancing*

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Thoughts on the Apple iPad

January 27, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Since I’m somewhat interested in technology and have a blog, I am obviously compelled to give my expert analysis of the new Apple iPad.  If you have somehow missed everything about the iPad, try Gizmodo and Engadget since they’re pretty good at consolidating information about the newest gadgets.

Basically I agree with Gizmodo’s 8 Things That Suck About the iPad.  I just don’t think it offers enough for people who have actually already bought one or several gadgets that offer portability; as someone who has a Kindle, a netbook, a Blackberry, and an iPod Touch, there’s nothing new the iPad has to offer me.  Also, how in the world are you supposed to type on it?  Do you hold it up and type with your thumbs?  I’m not sure I can reach that far with my thumbs.  Or do you put it down each time to type properly?  (Not to mention I’m atrocious at typing on touch screens.  I just can’t get it right.)

And since this is a literary blog, and pretty much the only thing I care about is books, I have to comment on the iBooks app.  I certainly think it looks wonderful, but I don’t think we know enough about it yet to really jump ship.  The top publishing companies are working with Apple, but I firmly stand by Amazon’s bookstore; it’s amazing.  It has had almost every book I wanted, with the only exceptions being where the author explicitly refused (ahem, J.K. Rowling!)  We also know nothing about any of iBooks’ features.  I definitely don’t think it’s a Kindle-killer: I really think that people who want/have a Kindle are looking for a reading device which has an extensive library and which doesn’t give you a headache after several hours.  I’ve read on my iPod Touch some and I can’t stand it.  It’s not the size of the screen – I sometimes read on the Kindle with the biggest font size and there are about 60 words per page (bad eyesight + no contact lenses!) – it’s the backlit LCD screen.  I just can’t handle it for more than a few pages.  E-ink still wins on the extensive reading front.

So for me, the iPad just doesn’t cut it.  (Plus, Amazon is launching a Kindle app store.  I’m not sure if I really want any apps on my Kindle, but at least they’re addressing the Apple threat.)

Oh, and it’s pretty damn expensive.  I already pay $30 a month for my Blackberry plan, no thanks.

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New Yorker jackets by M-Edge

December 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Ok I know I already have a Kindle cover, but those New Yorker jackets by M-Edge ($49.99) have me drooling!  I have this serious love for The New Yorker, and these jackets are really beautiful!  I can’t decide which I love best – though I’m a really big fan of the Bookopolis one.  These are made of genuine leather and hurrah, use the hinge system and elastic straps.  They’re also compatible with the M-Edge book light – super important for an in-bed reader like me!

Also it seems that today M-Edge is offering a buy one, get one 10% off deal!  Sooo tempting, except I have no reason to buy two jackets…

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Please don’t hit me, Sherman Alexie.

August 14, 2009 · 1 Comment

At a panel of authors speaking mainly to independent booksellers, Sherman Alexie, the National Book Award-winning author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” said he refused to allow his novels to be made available in digital form. He called the expensive reading devices “elitist” and declared that when he saw a woman sitting on the plane with a Kindle on his flight to New York, “I wanted to hit her.” (Motoko Rich, NY Times)

I have to be honest, I’m appalled at his statement.  Sure, you can call the Kindle “elitist”.  It might be, but I think the iPod and the idea of laptops for everyone in the household are too.  Or maybe I should also feel bad that the house I live in has running water when my mother grew up walking to a community well every day.  Now I’m glad he clarified some of his ideas, because I suppose his greatest concern is that the literacy/educational gap will widen even further.  But can we really place that burden on Jeff Bezos?  One man?  I know we as a society feel like we can call upon political and business leaders to correct all of the world’s problems, but I feel like this is a tall order for one company.  I’m not saying that I condone the lack of corporate social responsibility, but I also don’t believe in forcing businesses to suffer losses on purpose or to act counter to their self-interest.  And does Alexie have a plan for Amazon to singlehandedly fix the problem of illiteracy among the lower classes and in developing nations?  It sounds like he faults Bezos for trying to innovate without handing out coupons to everyone who can’t afford innovation immediately.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve always been a champion of the impoverished.  I, like Alexie, come from an impoverished background, from a largely agrarian country where 45% of the population lives on under $2 a day (UNDP).  And coming to America, my father gave up his career to work minimum wage in food retail.  I remember wearing hand-me-downs (and worse, I only had older brothers!) and getting “reduced-price” lunches at school.  But the idea that Bezos is at fault for not taking care of the entire world is ludicrous.

“How does he plan to change the way that poor kids read books? How does he plan to make sure that poor kids have access to the technology? Poor kids all over the country don’t have access to current textbooks, so will they have access to Kindle?”

Of course I think it’s horrible and cause for action that illiteracy and access to education is a world-wide and even U.S. concern.  But I certainly don’t expect one business to suffer losses just because no one else wants to shoulder the burden.

P.S. “I wanted to hit her.”  Does he really hate a person for owning a Kindle?  Is that how he judges people?  He wants to cause physical harm to a person for what she owns?  Let’s fight evil corporations for not solving all the world’s problems, but let’s also speak words of violence towards others for having material possessions!  I’m absolutely offended by that statement.

Edited to Add: When Kevin read this post, he was more than mildly incensed. It warranted a post of his own. (Warning: If you’re on Alexie’s side on this, you won’t like Kevin’s post either.)

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E-Book competition

August 13, 2009 · 4 Comments

Unless you haven’t been on the Internet for about nine months (and if that’s true, why are you reading my blog? Don’t you have slightly better things to do, like catch up on lolcats?) you’ve probably heard a lot of talk about the e-book industry.  If you haven’t noticed I’m pretty invested in the Amazon Kindle 2 since I’ve had it for about six months now.

David Pogue compared the new Barnes & Noble e-book program to that of Amazon and quite clearly concluded that Amazon is the much better deal, what with the much better selection of books, overall better pricing, and the fact that Amazon actually has a dedicated reader device out on the market right now.  Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, just now re-emerged in the e-book market and still hasn’t put out their device, the Plastic Logic reader.  Also, according to Pogue, B&N’s reading software (for BlackBerry, iPod/Touch, or PC/Mac) is confusing and difficult to navigate.  I haven’t used it so I can’t comment on it, but I’ve always loved how the Kindle is so easy to use.

To be fair, Amazon doesn’t have everything I want to read.  Prime example: the Harry Potter series.  I read the series at least once a year and it’d be nice to have my hardcovers in pristine condition on my bookshelf.  See? – I’d even pay to have the hardcovers AND e-book format.  Other books that are notably missing as of today: Catch-22, The World According to Garp, most of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s works as well as those of Umberto Eco, all of Rand except for Anthem, and most of Orson Scott Card.  In some cases (such as Harry Potter), the author/publisher has outright refused to allow his/her/its works to be available in e-book format – and there’s not much we can do about that except continue to buy e-books in hopes that they’ll realize they’re losing sales.  In others, it’s simply a matter of ironing out the details and getting the rights worked out – for example, Tolkien’s works just became available for the Amazon Kindle a few months ago.  (It was April – I remember because I blogged about it.)

And of course there’s the issue of DRM restrictions.  So far Amazon has been a champion of it.  For the most part I haven’t had any strong opinions – if I had been one of the people who’d had 1984 deleted remotely from my Kindle, I’d probably be somewhat pleased because I’d have a refund to spend on another book – or to buy 1984 from a legitimate source!  And to be quite honest, I’m kind of siding with Amazon on this one, since it turns out the publisher that sold the redacted copies was never authorized to do so and was selling them illegally.

However, DRM-free literature (and other media) is undoubtedly important to a lot of people.  I figure I might one day want the ability to read my library on several different devices without having to buy the books in several different formats.  There is also a limit to the number of devices to which you can download the works you’ve purchased – n.b. not the number of times downloaded, but the number of devices.  So I suppose it means you can delete works off your Kindle and re-download indefinitely, but you can’t have 6 Kindles on an account (or several Kindles and some Kindle iPhone apps) and use them to share all the same books.  One guy found out the hard way, but at least we all know now.  It does suck, though, that he had to find out through what seems to be a difficult and stressful process.

Finally, there’s the idea that you can’t share your library.  Personally, I don’t share my library that much, except for a few romantic bestsellers with my mom.  I do think, though, that pretty soon Amazon will at least start to lift their restrictions, much like Apple eventually had to (let’s hope it happens faster this time though).  I think it’s much more an issue that Amazon insists on selling their books in the proprietary .azw format, which is only supported by the Kindle or the iPhone Kindle app.  In the last few days it’s come out that Sony is going to offer their books in the open ePub format, which is readable on most other e-book readers out there (but not the Kindle, if I understand correctly.) It’s also rumoured that Sony is coming out with a wireless capable device by year’s end – that’ll be interesting to see because one of Amazon’s biggest selling points for the Kindle (hey, it worked on me) was the ability to purchase books anywhere, instantly.

My guess is that Amazon will fold under pressure and offer books in an open format/without DRM, or they’ll come out with programs for more devices, such as the BlackBerry and PC/Mac.  It looks like the trend is really leaning towards more open formats – if we can learn from The People vs. The Music Industry.

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Kindle on the beach

August 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday was mercifully lovely in Ocean City, MD (Sunday was flash floods and lightning… apparently a tornado touched down a few towns over!) so we were able to test out the beach.  The water was FRIGID.  So obviously I settled down to read because I have approximately 800 pages of Infinite Summer to read…

I was, of course, concerned for the well-being of my Kindle 2.  After all, he has a name and you just can’t throw something around if it has a name.  (Take my poor env2, for example.  I never bothered to name it so it is often thrown to the bottom of my purse and I don’t pay attention to it unless I receive a call/text or need a makeshift flashlight.)  I decided to stick Guy, with the front cover folded back, inside a gallon-sized Ziploc bag to protect him from the elements.  Another anecdote (AKA evidence of my irresponsible behaviour towards electronics) – my dear old pink Sony Cybershot met her untimely and inglorious demise after I took her to Wildwood Crest with me last summer and happily took photos right and left.  She got a lot of sand in her no matter what I did and eventually the zoom lens was ruined and would’ve cost a lot more money to fix than I was willing to spend.  Sad, sad story.  So you can see why I was worried for Guy’s safety.

Long story short, the Ziploc-ed Kindle worked; the on/off switch and buttons were all accessible!  Sure, it wasn’t attractive, but who wants to be attractive on the beach?1  I did notice, however, that the Ziploc bag perspired a little bit on the inside – definitely not enough to damage anything, and I suspect it still kept out more humidity than it let in so I feel certain Guy was all right.

I also took Guy out of the bag to check to make sure the screen was still easy to read in the brightest sunlight – and I promise, it was really freakin’ bright out – and it was!  There was no glare and I could read it just as well as a paperback.  In fact, I’ve had problems with reading paper books in bright sunlight before because of how white the pages are, but not so with the Kindle because the background is a bit grayer!  I got a fair bit of reading done, worked on my tan (being an untanned Filipino in the summertime is shameful!), and didn’t have to worry about ruining Guy!

Of course, you could avoid my conundrum completely by getting a case that’s more meant to withstand the elements – I unfortunately have nothing to recommend because I haven’t really seen anything that I think would be ideal.  Something like the Leisure Jacket by M-Edge would be perfect, except it’s only compatible with the Kindle 1.  I am also quite certain that I’d never pay for two different cases for my Kindle, but maybe I’m just cheap like that.  I’m much more of a Ziploc kind of person.

1 *smirk* See what I did there? That’s a literary device called irony. I’m sure you know that because you’re reading a blog devoted to literature right now.

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FIFTY!

July 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

If your goal is to read more, get a Kindle! My goal used to be 50 books a year, and I usually reached around 48 or 49 in the last three years that I’ve been keeping track.

I’m at 50 1 now, barely halfway through the year!

I give owning a Kindle about 90% of the credit (the other 10% being out of school and mostly unemployed). I’ve found that I’m able to read the Kindle even while standing on a subway clutching desperately to the overheard rails which honestly are just a few inches too high for me to feel comfortably stabilized. I also find it much easier to read a book while lying on my back because heavy books tend to wear my wrists out or sometimes, if I lose my grip, fall onto my face! I’m also able to start reading another book immediately, which is a great improvement because I don’t often get to go to a bookstore or the library. (Wow, the Kindle is a great friend for the vehicle-less!) And best of all, I can read after I’ve taken my contacts out and properly read until I fall asleep.

I swear, the Kindle has changed my literary life.

1 That’s 50 whenever I finish Stranger in a Strange Land. I think I’m about halfway done.

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Kindle 2 for $299!

July 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I kept meaning to blog about this for a while now but it slipped my mind! Anyway, the Amazon Kindle 2 is now going for $299, down from the $359 we suckers paid before. No idea whether it’s going to last, but from experience when prices go down on technology they stay down, at least for the same device. The Amazon Kindle DX is still $489 though.

Anyway, if you’ve been toying with the notion of owning one of these bad boys, go on and do it! $60 off is a great deal… you’ll need it to buy a decent case! (But you might have some left over for a book or two!)

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M-Edge book light, finally!

July 21, 2009 · Leave a Comment

RUN! DO NOT WALK! (virtually, that is) to go buy the long-awaited e-Luminator2 Booklight for 2nd Generation Amazon Kindle! It was $24.99 but is currently on sale for $19.99… and a neat little tip – use the coupon code ELUM2DAY by midnight on July 25th and you get $5 off! Take note that the website says it ships in 10-14 days. Now snap to it!

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Updated M-Edge website

July 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Whoa, M-Edge’s new website is quite sexy! They’ve also added two new Kindle cases: the Sleeve jacket and the Latitude jacket. Both are $29.99 and the sort that zip around the Kindle, the Sleeve made of neoprene and the Latitude made of nylon. The Sleeve comes in several different colours while the Latitude is in black only. Also, the Sleeve is just what it sounds like, the Kindle slips into it, but the Latitude uses the four-point mounting system.

Also to update, since I’m still obsessively checking whether the book light is available yet: it still says “Summer 2009″. And by the way, I can’t remember for sure but wasn’t it $14.99 before? Now it says $24.99.

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