"The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions, but to kindle minds." ~ Frederick William Robertson
According to a press release today on Staples.com, the office supply store chain plans to carry the Amazon Kindle in all of its stores “beginning this fall” (kind of vague, I know). For anyone who is on the fence about buying one and not comfortable with buying on-line from Amazon and returning it within 30 days if not happy, this could be your opportunity to get your hands on one without any commitment.
“Staples is not just bringing this incredible product to our 1,550+ US stores, but we are offering customers a chance to discover first-hand Amazon’s revolutionary reading device,” said Jevin Eagle, executive vice president of merchandising and marketing at Staples. “As part of our efforts to offer customers a wide range of top technology products and services at amazing values, the new Kindle is a natural fit.”
It appears the pricing will be the same as at Amazon (and without any shipping charges):
- Kindle ($139.00) – 6″ diagonal
- Kindle 3G ($189.00) – 6″ diagonal
- Kindle DX ($379.00) – 9.7″ diagonal (available at Staples late fall 2010)
The press release also states that Staples will carry some Kindle accessories, though it does not give any details. I would guess that at a minimum they would have a selection of cases/covers, possibly the USB/charger cables. Hopefully they will do a better job of marketing the Kindle than reports seem to indicate that Target has; and one would think that the typical Staples sales staff might be more inclined and able to do so.
This is a little tutorial on how I go about making screen-saver images for my Kindle. These can be used to replace (or add to) the so-called “dead author” screen-saver (a.k.a. sleep screen) images that come with your Kindle. To use them, you will need to install the screen-saver “hack”, however. Those of you who are experienced users of any image manipulation programs such as PhotoShop probably do not need any of this information, other than knowing that the final image should be 600×800 pixels for a 6-inch Kindle (Kindle 2/3) or 824×1200 pixels for the DX, and for best results with minimum file size I recommend saving it as a gray-scale PNG file. And now for those of you who are not image whizzes….
Because I’m cheap, I use the GIMP, which is the GNU Image Manipulation Program, a free open-source piece of software you can get from GIMP.org. It runs on most popular personal computer types and operating systems. So, if you’re still with me and want to use the GIMP, download and install it now. (I’ll wait.)
Okay, hopefully that wasn’t too painful. Now let’s get going.
The first thing to do is choose an image you want to convert into a screen-saver. We’re going to assume here that it’s for my Kindle 2 with a 600×800 resolution screen. For the demo, I’m going to use this image: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: GIMP, image, screensaver
If you do a little Googling or blog trawling, you’ll likely find people lamenting how e-books do not have the look, feel, and even smell of traditional paper books, suggesting that this somehow diminishes the reading experience for them. You will, of course, also find e-book fanatics who don’t understand this apparent, to them, Luddite-like reaction. While I can empathize with the paper-lovers to some extent (not the smell part, though), I recently found myself with a sort of reverse reaction.
I have been reading books primarily via my Kindle for over a year and a half now. Recently I decided to reread my trade paperback copy of Charles Stross’s The Atrocity Archives (a fun mish-mash of horror, espionage, and techno-geek). While reading it, I noticed some things were lacking in my reading experience:
- A couple times I came across words which I was not sure about (meaning or usage). I wanted to look them up, but it would have been too much of an effort, as I would have had to get out of bed, go to another room, and either grab my dead-tree dictionary or go on line. With my Kindle, on the other hand, a few tweaks of the 5-way controller, and I would have had my definitions in seconds.
- In a similar vein, there were some references to people and organizations in the story which piqued my interest, wanting to know how much Stross was or was not taking liberty with history, or simply wanting to know more about the subjects in order to better understand the references. Once again, with my Kindle it would have taken only few toggles and clicks along with a wee bit of typing to be reading up on the subjects on Wikipedia.
- Whenever it was time to put the book down (e.g. to go to sleep), I had to fold down a corner of the page to keep my place (no dust jacket to use as a bookmark, and I’ve never gotten into the habit of using real bookmarks). With my Kindle, I can just set it aside and let it go to sleep — or put it to sleep immediately — and know that it will “remember” where I was and take me back there immediately when I’m next ready to read.
- Lastly, for my less than perfect eyes, I missed the ability to increase both font size and line-spacing. My vision is not so bad that I cannot enjoy reading my “dead tree” books, but it is a bit of a strain that I don’t feel while reading on my Kindle.
- Oh, and where’s that reassuring “click” when I go to the next page. <grin>
I am not trying to start an e-book versus paper book “flame war” here. But I do think that those who denigrate e-books as being deficient when compared to the paper experience should consider that it might be a two-way street. Each format has its strengths and weaknesses. How you prioritize those may well differ from how I do, but if you have not tried reading on a Kindle, I really don’t care that you think it will not be as good of an experience if you cannot smell the ink and paper.
Just a quick post to bring you a video demo of the new voice option for the menu system of the new Kindle 3. Thanks to “Varin” at the KindleBoards.com forums for posting it.
As I mentioned before, hopefully this will assist in the Kindle’s accessibility for the vision-impaired, which may also help Amazon to gain greater access to the educational market.
Also in the four weeks since their introduction:
- Kindle and Kindle 3G are the most gifted and most wished for products on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined.
- Customers in 125 countries on six continents from Austria to Zimbabwe have already placed orders for the new generation Kindles. Some of the most remote shipments will be sent as far away as Mongolia and the Northern Mariana Islands.
- Customers are already ordering books to read on their new Kindles. The most popular are the books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, “Star Island” by Carl Hiaasen and “The Rembrandt Affair” by Daniel Silva.
So for all you early adopters of the Kindle 3, enjoy, and know how jealous I am.
Inspired by a discussion at KindleBoards.com, I decided to post something here to do whatever I can to get the works of the late Roger Zelazny onto the Kindle. Mr. Zelazny is one of my two all-time favorite authors, along with Sir Terry Pratchett. I have read the original “Amber” series of his at least fifteen times, and probably closer to twenty, with the second Amber series not all that far behind; and I’ve read all his other novels at least two or three times each, some more (Doorways in the Sand and Lord of Light for sure).
In an effort to communicate what I hope is many other people’s interest in Zelazny’s books and a desire to see them “enKindled”, I am providing a bunch of “I’d like to read this book on Kindle” links which you can click in order to add your voice to mine. Also feel free to leave a brief comment here about your support, favorite Zelazny book, or whatever (though there is no guarantee anyone with the ability to get the late Roger Zelazny’s works onto the Kindle will see those comments).
- The Great Book of Amber
(an omnibus edition of all 10 “Amber” novels)
- Doorways in the Sand
- Roadmarks
- Lord of Light
- Creatures of Light and Darkness
- The Doors of His Face, the Lamp of His Mouth
- A Night in the Lonesome October
- This Immortal
- The Dream Master
- The Last Defender of Camelot
- Madwand
- Changeling
- Damnation Alley
- Dilvish the Damned
- Eye of Cat
- The Changing Land
- Jack of Shadows
And for each of the individual “Amber” novels:
- The first series (Corwin):
- The second series (Merlin):
Thanks for your help!
Tags: kindle, Roger Zelazny
My intent in this forum as far as book reviews goes was to limit them to positive reviews, i.e. reading recommendations. As I have not read anything recently that I can strongly recommend, I thought I’d give a brief rundown on a few books that I found wanting, but which were good enough that others may well find worth their while.
The Lighter Side by Kieth Laumer
Available as a free download from the Baen Free Library, this is a collection of several short stories and two short novels of less than serious content and themes. I’ve never read much of Laumer’s stuff, so I do not know how this rates among his other works, but I generally found the stories a bit contrived, and the humor seldom worth more than a mild chuckle. The stories may also have suffered some from being rather dated both in style and science content. Since it is a freebie, you probably should download it if you are a Laumer fan, or at least generally a fan of sci-fi from the latter part of the “golden era.”
Paingod and Other Delusions
by Harlan Ellison
Another story collection, this from one of the kings of the short story. Most of the stories appear to be from fairly early in Ellison’s career with copyright dates in the mid ’50s to ’60s, and a couple later stories. As usual with his collections, Ellison includes a brief intro for each story explaining something about how the story came into being, and often what was going on in his life at that time that inspired or influenced the story. I often find these interludes interesting, though I suspect others could find them irritating if they tend to be annoyed by Ellison’s brash, tell-it-like-it is personality. I found several of the stories moving and appealing, and a few on the weaker side. I think most that did not work for me came from the earliest writings, perhaps simply indicating that the author was still working toward his mastery of the form, and possibly also just the dated nature of the material here in the 21st century.
The Oblivion Society
by Marcus Alexander Hart
This is a sometimes funny, sometimes gross, and sometimes trite after-the-nukes survival novel. It follows several largely cliched characters from a small Florida town as they try to cope with the aftermath of an accidental nuclear war and the bizarre (and unbelievable) mutations which result. While I often found the writing to be both clever and effective — and hopefully indicative of better things to come from Mr. Hart — I felt that it was largely undone by the highly stereotyped characters, the unbelievability of the plot (even if it was supposed to be a farce, I think) and the sheer repetitiousness of the story. Parts of the book include some fairly graphic descriptions of physical damage to people and animals, and as such may be a turn-off to many readers. (I did not generally find it too bad, but there were a couple spots I would have liked to have seen toned down a bit.) I actually got about 75% through this book before I put it down, having simply become too tired of it to continue. I’ll probably go back to it at some point, at least to jump to the end and find out what happens, but I cannot really give it much of a recommendation for anyone for whom post-apocalyptic mutants are not in their genre “sweet spot.”
Tags: Harlan Ellison, Kieth Laumer, Marcus Hart
Amazon announced today another exclusive Kindle e-book deal, this time with Monster.com for the book Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career
“My objective for ‘Six Fundamentals to Building a Lifelong Career’ is to move people from urgent job search to lifelong career management,” said Doug Hardy. “Everyone needs to take command of his or her career: to anticipate change, prepare for job transitions, and continuously grow in skills and knowledge. These six fundamentals are timeless, proven principles applicable to any stage in a career. I want to inspire others to keep moving ahead through today’s turbulent economy, to prosper and succeed in the years ahead.”
While I have no idea how good this book is or is not, I find it interesting that they have penned another exclusivity agreement, similar to the deal struck with Wylie Agency for their “Odyssey Editions” books. I admittedly have mixed emotions about this. On the plus side, it would seem to be bringing more titles into the e-book domain and making them available for my Kindle. On the negative side, I do not care a lot for the exclusion of other vendor’s platforms that do not support Kindle books, and I’m afraid I find this rather disturbing. Right now it’s not hurting me, but it may be hurting Nook owners, for instance; and what happens if, say, Barnes & Noble were to get the exclusive e-book rights to the works of Roger Zelazny? (What would happen for me is that I’d probably have to buy a Nook.)
Tags: exclusive, monster.com
The press release has been, well, released; and the Kindle 6-inch WiFi + 3G
“Kindle is the best-selling product on Amazon for two years running. We lowered the price to $189 and sales growth tripled. Now, we are excited to introduce a new generation Kindle that is smaller, lighter, and faster, with 50 percent better contrast. Readers are going to do a double take when they see Kindle’s bright new screen and feel how remarkably light the smaller 8.7 ounce design feels in one hand,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder & CEO. “If you don’t need the convenience of 3G wireless, we have an incredible new price point–$139 for Kindle Wi-Fi. Kindle Wi-Fi has all the same features, same bookstore, same high-contrast electronic paper display, and it’s even a tiny bit lighter at 8.5 ounces. At this price point, many people are going to buy multiple units for the home and family.”
New features include:
- New E-ink screen with 50% better contrast
- 20% faster page turning
- Hand-built custom fonts for improved text clarity
- 21% smaller and 15% lighter than the Kindle 2
- Double the storage space for books and documents, putting it in the same category as the larger DX
- Improved battery life: up to 1 month with the wireless turned off
- In addition to the 3G wireless (on the higher-priced model), both models include WiFi connectivity
- New “Webkit” internet browser
A significant improvement in Amazon’s attempts to penetrate the education markets is an improvement in its text-to-speech ability, now including support for the menu screens. This may help it get past certain legal stumbling blocks that previous models have encountered.
New Voice Guide: With Text-to-Speech, Kindle can read out loud to you. New Text-to-Speech enabled menus allow customers to navigate Kindle without having to read menu options. In addition to listening to books aloud, users now have the option of listening to content listings on the home screen, item descriptions, and all menu options.
Overall I think this looks like a good step forward in the evolution of the Kindle. The only thing that has jumped out as me so far as a potential negative is the reduced keyboard: like its DX big brother, the top row of number keys has disappeared. This means that typing notes that include numbers will be clumsier, and begs the question as to whether it also means that the ability to adjust line-spacing has been lost. (My bad eyes cause me to use this feature a lot on my Kindle 2, via the Alt-Shift-
Amazon already has a couple leather cases ready for the new Kindles, too. One of them even includes a built-in reading light.
It appears that at this time the $189 version with free 3G comes in both white and graphite options, while the $139 WiFi-only version is only in graphite.
Tags: kindle 3
According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon will begin taking orders Thursday, Jul. 28 for a new Kindle model to start shipping on Aug. 27, presumably the much speculated upon “Kindle 3″. It appears that it will be in the same 6-inch screen size range as the Kindle 2, but the overall device size will be somewhat smaller, which may mean many existing covers and cases will not be compatible. No color, no touch-screen, no new “whiz-bang” features will be appearing. In fact, the 3G wireless will be an option, with a WiFi-only model available at $139.00. (The 3G wireless model will remain at the $189 price point.)
This would seem to continue Amazon’s policy of concentrating first and foremost on a device for reading e-books and making it as accessible as possible to readers of all sorts, regardless of how tech-savvy they may be; as opposed to trying to compete directly with multi-function devices such as the $500-and-up Apple iPad.
“For the vast majority of books, adding video and animation is not going to be helpful. It is distracting rather than enhancing. You are not going to improve Hemingway by adding video snippets,” [Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos] said.
Underscoring that, Mr. Bezos said he wasn’t interested in making an Amazon tablet computer. “There are going to be 100 companies making LCD [screen] tablets,” he said. “Why would we want to be 101? I like building a purpose-built reading device. I think that is where we can make a real contribution.”
I’m sure I’ll have much more to post tomorrow, as presumably there will be an official Amazon press release, plus photos and specifications on the Amazon store web pages. Now if I could just find a couple hundred dollars lying around so I can get my hands on one….
PS: Engadget.com has an article with photos of the new Kindle.
Tags: kindle 3
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