Kindle Owners’ Lending Library

Today we're announcing a new benefit for Kindle owners with an Amazon Prime membership: the Kindle 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. No other e-reader or ebook store offers such a service.

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library features a wide array of popular titles, including Water for Elephants, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, and Fast Food Nation – plus award-winning novels such as The Finkler Question, motivational books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, biographies and memoirs including Kitchen Confidential, and Pulitzer Prize-winning books like Guns, Germs, and Steel.

We’re adding the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library to Prime membership at no extra cost — Amazon Prime remains just $79 a year, which gives you free two-day shipping on millions of products, plus unlimited instant streaming of almost 13,000 movies and TV shows.

If you’re a Kindle owner with Prime, you can start borrowing books today. If you don’t yet have a Kindle, our all-new Kindle family is available from just $79.

Kindle Lending Library

Free Kindle books with delivery

I've posted about Project Gutenberg before as a valuable source of old books for the kindle, at no charge. Today I want to share with you another fantastic source of out of copyright ebooks, that get delivered straight to your kindle for free. The site is openlibrary.org, and I highly recommend it. Search for a topic you are interested in (I chose Home Mechanic by Schofield), and then chose "send to Kindle". It was that easy. Check it out!

New Kindle Personal Documents Features

Dear Kindle Customer,

As a past user of the Kindle Personal Documents Service, we are pleased to let you know about some improvements:
• Your documents are now automatically archived in your Kindle library (you can control this from the Manage Your Kindle page at www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle).
• Archived documents can be re-downloaded from your archive to the all-new Kindle and Kindle Touch devices, as well as Kindle Keyboard (Kindle 3rd Generation--requires the latest software update v3.3 from www.amazon.com/kindlesoftwareupdates) – you will be able to find and download your documents from any of these devices that are registered to your account.
• Now (just as with Kindle books) Whispersync automatically synchronizes your last page read, bookmarks and annotations for your documents (with the exception of PDFs) across devices.

We expect to extend these features to Kindle Fire and Kindle apps (such as Kindle Cloud Reader, Kindle for Android, Kindle for iPhone, Kindle for PC, and Kindle for Mac) in the coming months.

You can control these new features from the Manage Your Kindle page at www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle where you can see a list of your archived documents, re-deliver documents to your Kindle, delete any document from archive, or even turn off archiving for your account.

Learn more about the Kindle Personal Documents Service from our help pages at www.amazon.com/kindlepersonaldocuments.

Thank you for choosing Kindle,

Amazon.com Kindle Support

The New Kindles Have Arrived!

Two touch screen versions, and a color tablet, like we previously announced, and lower prices on the k3 editions, now called Kindle Keyboard, are all available now! There are now 6 versions of the Kindle, ranging from $79 to $199. The library book borrowing option is now online as well. It's an early Christmas from Amazon!

Color Kindle Tablet - Available very soon

November 2011, if reports can be believed. It's color, 7", multi touch, built on Android, and very Amazon centric. This is not just another Android tablet. The book reader is a Kindle app (which looks similar to how it does on Android and iOS now). The music player is Amazon’s Cloud Player. The movie player is Amazon’s Instant Video player. The app store is Amazon’s Android Appstore. Oh, and the best part? $250

Oh so painful!

Green Trust Blog now on Kindle

News and articles on living a more self sufficient and sustainable life style. Produce your own electricity through solar and wind, harvest rainwater, composting and much more.

Kindle Blogs are auto-delivered wirelessly to your Kindle and updated throughout the day so you can stay current.
It's risk free—all Kindle Blog subscriptions start with a 14-day free trial. You can cancel at any time during the free trial period. If you enjoy your subscription, do nothing and it will automatically continue at the regular monthly price. $1.99 / month

Vote for your favorite Kindle Sponsored Screensaver

You can now vote on the sponsored screensavers that show up on the Special Offers Kindle. Voting helps Amazon determine what screensavers are useful and popular. Currently there is a free app you can push to your kindle, but web voting will be available soon See http://www.admash.com/

Black or White Kindle?

I was given a 3rd gen kindle 3g/wifi for Christmas in graphite (black). Although I love it, It's hard to see the lettering on the keys in low light conditions. My wife just got the same model in white, and man what a difference. The key lettering is much easier to see, especially in low light conditions. Unfortunately, the white kindle does not seem to be an option for the wifi only version, just the 3g/wifi. She bought the special offers version at $139.00, and the ads are completely unobtrusive, being displayed on the screensaver and at the bottom of the home screen only, not during reading. I recommend this model!

Apocalypse Dawn

This was an edge of your seat, military thriller, loosely connected to the best selling Left Behind series. I couldn't put it down till it was finished. I was left wanting more.

From the decks of U.S. Navy carriers patrolling the Mediterranean to Fort Benning, Georgia, and the dusty sands of the Turkish-Syrian border, this new suspense thriller runs side by side with the phenomenal series that has sold more than 50 million copies.

Thread Words - A fun free game

I've been playing this game on the Kindle for a few days, and wanted to share. It's challenging (there's a timed option), and fun, and best of all, it's free.

Your goal is to find words in a 5 high grid of letters. Find words by selecting one letter from each column. On each level there are ten pairs of shapes. Make words matching each shape on the left with the same shape on the right to unlock the next level. After matching all shapes you can continue to find the rest of the words for a higher score or immediately move on to the next level.

The game progresses through 4 levels of difficulty, with grids that increase from 4 to 7 letters across. Each word you find is worth 20 points per letter, and if you find all of the qualifying words you get an 800 point bonus! Try to beat the clock or take your time in relaxed mode. The game tracks separate high scores for each mode.

Getting non-Amazon files onto your Kindle

There are several ways to get a non-Amazon file onto your Kindle. The 1st method we describe below is by USB cable. The second is by email. The 3rd method is the push method. This is the main method Amazon uses, and several other non-Amazon sources. When you order a ebook, it gets sent to your kindle through Whispernet (3g) or by Wifi.

One way is to copy the file from your pc to your Kindle's Documents directory through the USB cable. There are three directories on the Kindle, and the files types they support are as follows:

Documents: Kindle (.AZW, .AZW1). Text (.TXT), Unprotected Mobipocket (.MOBI, .PRC)
Audible: Audible (.AA, .AAX)
Music: MP3 (.MP3)

To connect Kindle to your computer:
Plug the larger end of the USB cable into an available USB port or a powered USB hub connected to your computer (remove the ac plug to access).
Connect the other end of the USB cable to the micro-USB port on the bottom of your Kindle.

When connected to your PC, your Kindle will go into USB drive mode and its battery will be recharged by the computer. Your wireless service is temporarily shut off and you will not receive any of your subscriptions while in this mode. Also, your Kindle is not usable as a reading device while you are in USB drive mode, but will return right to where you were when you undock the device from your computer.

Transferring Kindle Content

Once you've connected your Kindle via USB, your Kindle will appear in the same location as external USB drives usually appear. For Windows users, this is typically in the "Computer" or "My Computer" menu. For Mac users, the drive will appear on the desktop.
Open the Kindle drive. You will see several folders inside, one of which will be named "documents." This is the folder you will move the downloaded file into.
Locate the downloaded file, and copy it into the documents folder. You can generally copy files by clicking and dragging the file to the folder.
Using your computer, eject the Kindle from the computer. After ejecting the Kindle, unplug the USB cable. Your content will appear on the Home screen.

Remember: Kindle will only recognize transferred files if:

File types are listed in the Files Kindle Recognizes section below.
Files are transferred to the correct folder for their type.
Files are free of digital rights management software.

Using Kindle While Charging Via USB

You can continue charging your Kindle via USB and still use it by unmounting or ejecting it to exit USB drive mode.

Windows Vista and 7: Click on the Start button, select "Computer" from the options, right-click on the Kindle drive icon and select "Eject" from the pop-up menu.
Windows XP: Right-click on the "Safely remove hardware" icon in the lower left-hand corner of the task bar and follow the on-screen instructions to remove Kindle.
Mac OS: Control-click on the Kindle device icon and choose "Eject."

Kindle will then exit USB drive mode and display the Home screen. You'll see a lightning bolt on the battery status icon that indicates your Kindle is still charging.

Another method is to email a file to your Kindle, and optionally have Amazon convert it to Kindle format for you. The following document types can be emailed with the convert command:

Microsoft Word (.DOC)
HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
RTF (.RTF)
JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG)
GIF (.GIF)
PNG (.PNG)
BMP (.BMP)
PDF (.PDF): See below for details.
Microsoft Word (.DOCX) is supported in our experimental category.

The above file types can also be combined in a compressed ZIP (.ZIP) file. ZIP files are automatically opened up by the conversion service, converted to the Kindle format, and sent to your Kindle or computer as specified. Some complex PDF and DOCX files might not format correctly on your Kindle.

Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address you can set on your Manage Your Kindle page. You can send unprotected Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files to your Kindle e-mail address.

To access your personal documents on your Kindle, send attachments to your Kindle's e-mail address ("name"@free.kindle.com). The files will be sent to your Kindle via the Wi-Fi connection and also to the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account at no charge. You can use the "name"@kindle.com address for wireless delivery via the 3G network, or "name"@free.kindle.com for free delivery via Wi-Fi only, or to the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account.

To have your PDF documents converted to Kindle format so you can take advantage of functionality such as variable font size, annotation, Text-to-Speech, etc., type "Convert" in the subject of the e-mail when you submit your personal document to "name"@free.kindle.com. Image-heavy PDF files are presented in landscape orientation and don't work with devices that have auto-rotation, so those will be delivered in the Kindle format.

A third option is several non-Amazon sites (and Amazon itself) have a direct to Kindle option posted on their website, using Whispernet (3G) or Wifi. Gutenberg.org ebooks are available using this method by installing the "Magic Catalog" on your Kindle. See http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/gutenberg-ebooks-direct-to-the-kindle-the-magic-catalog/ for more info.

For more information on Transferring documents, and documents types, see Transferring, Downloading, and Sending Files to Kindle.

Send any web page to your Kindle

Find a cool web page? Want to read it on your Kindle? Kindlebility will send it as a PDF to your Kindle, already converted for easy reading. Enter your userid@free.kindle.com on the Kindlebility website, drag the special link to your bookmark toolbar, and add kindle@darkhelmetlive.com to your Kindle Approved Email List. That's it. While surfing the web, just click the "Send to my Kindle" bookmark link, and voila, it's there, albeit without graphics.

Visit http://kindlebility.darkhax.com/ for a cool video describing the process, and get your free bookmark link.

Easy Downloads of free Gutenberg ebooks

Project Gutenberg is a fantastic repository of free ebooks. Getting those ebooks onto your Kindle hasn't been such a simple process, until now. Download the Magic Catalog to your computer. Connect your Kindle to your PC with the USB cable, and drag that file to the Kindle's "Documents" folder. It will show up in your list of books on your Kindle's Home page. Open it, and use the Kindle's search function (Menu, Search this book), or just browse the thousands of titles. When you find one you like, click it, and you will be prompted to download that book. It will show up in your list of books on your Home page.

Amazon to Launch Library Lending for Kindle Books

Amazon to Launch Library Lending for Kindle Books
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

Read More

Kindle Books - A place for Authors and Readers

Want a place where authors can talk about their new Kindle offerings, and readers can review what they have read, and discuss with authors their material? Then check out the new group, Kindle Books. We hope that authors and readers alike will use this service to discuss the wonderful material available for the Kindle!

Play MP3's on the Kindle

Plug your K3 into the USB port on your computer, and copy your MP3's to the Music directory on the Kindle. Click Home, then Menu, then select Experimental, and select Play MP3's. Use the volume control on the bottom of the kindle to control the volume, and use headphones if you don't want to disturb others. Windows Media Player identifies the Kindle and will sync to it.

Alt - Spacebar will pause/start the music, and Alt- f will skip to the next track.

To access mp3's as "audible books", put them in the Audible folder instead of the Music folder. These will show up on your home page like any other book.

Calibre - eBook management and conversion

Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. It has a cornucopia of features divided into the following main categories:

Library Management
E-book conversion
Syncing to e-book reader devices
Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form
Comprehensive e-book viewer
Content server for online access to your book collection

Ok, so that's the official definition. Basically it allows us to gather ebooks from a variety of sources and formats, convert to Mobi format, and copy them to the kindle. It's free, and it's of great value. I highly recommend it. http://calibre-ebook.com/

Charging Your Kindle with USB

The Kindle has a USB port for charging and you can charge with the included ac to usb adaptor, from a usb equipped computer, or from a solar or car charger that has a USB output. Our favorite is Solar.

If connected to your computer, the Kindle becomes an external "hard drive", and you can copy files to and from it with ease. We will cover file format conversion and utilities (like Calibre) in a separate post, but this is the method for getting non-Amazon content (eBooks from other sources, PDF's, MP3's, etc.) on to your Kindle.

Protect your Kindle

My only close disaster with my kindle came shortly after receiving it. I had my hands full, and tried to open the car door. I dropped the Kindle, and it hit the ground scraping the plastic case and putting a small ding in the screen. I felt really stupid, but was relieved that nothing was badly damaged, and the ding isn't usually noticeable when I'm reading.

The next day I picked up a soft cover case at Walmart for $15, but I really wanted a light for reading at night. Amazon has a line of beautiful leather cases (in many colors) with an integrated LED reading light. The LED pulls out for reading, and slides back in when not needed. It's powered by the Kindle itself, so no additional batteries needed. The case keeps the charging port (USB) clear, and it folds back. You can also keep it open to give the Kindle more of a book feel when using it. The Kindle easily snaps into two metal clips that carry the power to the LED light. There is easily enough light to make the complete screen legible, even in complete darkness, but the keypad is less so.

In my opinion, this is a must have accessory. - Kindle Leather Lighted Cover

The 3rd Generation Kindle

I received a Kindle for Christmas. Now I don't normally blog about my Christmas presents, and I especially don't set up a whole website about one, but this gift is different. It has transformed the way I read, and greatly increased the number of books I read weekly.

Connectivity:

The particular Kindle I received is a K3 (third generation), with built in WiFi and 3G connectivity. This means I don't have to be at home to order new books or browse the Internet, just within range of a cell tower, or any Wifi hotspot. The cool thing is there's no charge for this connectivity, it's included free in the price of the Kindle ($189 for my model). Downloading new material is a one button click, and the new materiel shows up in seconds.

Ease of Reading:

Because there is no backlighting, I don't get headaches or eyestrain when reading for long periods. Because it's light weight, I can hold it in one hand and still easily navigate pages(forward and reverse) with my thumb. The lack of backlight also enables a long battery life of several days or more depending on reading time. It does mean you will have to have a light to read at night, and I'll discuss my protective case with integrated reading light in another post. The screen has high contrast, and text size is easily adjusted, so even old tired eyes like mine have an easy time of it.

Much has been written about the Kindle (and it's competitors), and I'll post links to several sources, but my experience has been 100% positive, and the only issue I have is getting it back from my wife. Guess who needs her own Kindle ....