Merry Christmas

My Christmas gift to you: Kindle screensavers. Click to view the full-size image, optimized for Kindle 3.

Need to know how to put screensavers on your Kindle? Read this article.

You're welcome. :)

A 1-Click Mishap at Amazon

I guess it had to happen sooner or later. Last night as I was preparing to watch an episode of Dr. Who streamed from Amazon, I accidentally clicked on a link that instantly purchased a license for said episode. I was blind-sided because I knew that I had the right to stream the episode by virtue of my $79-per-year subscription to Amazon Prime. To me, it didn't make any sense that Amazon would offer to let me watch a show for $1.99 when I had already paid for the privilege of watching it.

What really frustrated me though were my fruitless efforts to back out of my mistake. With most 1-Click purchases, you can cancel the order for any reason prior to the order being shipped. It turns out that 1-click purchases of digital media are irreversible. I find this policy absurd and indefensible. I spent maybe 20 minutes poking around on Amazon's web site trying to find a usable "Contact Us" page. There were plenty of FAQs and Help pages, but their contact information was very well hidden. I finally discovered a usable page via Google search.

Amazon did reverse the charge after warning me that 1-Click purchases of digital media are non-refundable.

I like the convenience of 1-Click purchasing, especially when shopping on a Kindle or my Droid. I always assumed that I had a safety net if I accidentally clicked a purchase link. Now that I know this is not true, I've disabled 1-Click on all devices. Curiously, the "Buy now with 1-Click" buttons still appear.

Kindle Fire - Additional Observations

I'm still just nibbling around the edges of Kindle Fire ownership. This afternoon, after #CatAvailabilityTime, I watched Season 1, Episode 1, of Dr. Who. I had grave reservations about watching video streamed over Wi-Fi (specifically, from my Wi-Fi WAP), but the experience was surprisingly pleasant. I had anticipated hiccups ("Buffering..." pop-ups) occurring every few minutes. This did not happen. The video was smooth and absolutely free of jerky hiccups. There was a problem about a third of the way through the viewing: "Network connection lost" (to paraphrase). I don't know if the problem was due to Amazon overload or my WAP's flakiness. At any rate, after a couple of minutes, I was able to resume viewing and there were no further interruptions during the 45 minutes of the Dr. Who episode.

Thanks to my extreme nearsightedness, the viewing experience was extremely immersive. I watched the show without contacts (screen about 4" away from my eyes) and wearing good quality headphones. So... my sympathy to all you folks who are not debilitatingly nearsighted.

I continue to struggle with the lack of a few critical apps on the Amazon store. Dropbox I have mentioned. I can use Google Docs as a web application, but it would be so much better as an Android app! Google has provided a pretty slick mobile web UI, but dammit--I want a native app!

I find it ironic that the Google App Store offers some pretty cool apps for interfacing with Amazon, while Amazon has yet to offer an easy way to interface with Google. ::Sigh::

Kindle Fire - First Impressions

I received my Kindle Fire the day after the official release date. Truth to tell, I've not had a chance to do much with it, but for the sake of currency, here are my first impressions.

I have a Droid X smartphone, so my truly first impression was that the Kindle Fire is a 3X-sized Droid. Perhaps not surprising since the Fire runs the Android OS, as does the Droid.

The Fire fits snugly in the custom designed Malware (sorry!!! "Marware") protective case. Usually with portable devices I purchase an adhesive, protective cover. I did not do that with my Kindle Keyboard and I will probably not do that with my Fire. Big ol' screen, ya know--and it is touted as being extremely tough. We'll see.

If you have an Android phone, you will be immediately comfortable with the Fire's user interface. At times, I found myself reaching for the hardware buttons below the screen that I would find if I were using my Droid. Adjusting to a world of purely soft buttons is going to be a learning curve!

I do not own an iPod Touch (just a 160GB iPod Classic), but I have the feeling that the Fire is like a huge iPod Touch. It is a tablet, yes, but the emphasis is on entertainment. You've got your music, video, and eBooks. I've been a subscriber to Amazon Prime for a while so I already have the ability to stream any of their (many) movies and TV shows free of charge. A search for content using the phrase "Mystery Science Theater" turned up 76 matches. Impressive.

Downloading apps works very much like it does on an Android phone. The difference would be that, rather than tapping the Android Market Place for apps, you'd be tapping the Amazon App Store. There are some disturbing gaps here. For example, Dropbox is not available from the Amazon App Store. I've come across several sets of instructions for getting Dropbox on your Fire, but come on... this should be in the App Store! I've also read complaints to the effect that Amazon's App Store does not offer the latest versions of many programs. To some extent, I applaud Amazon's attempt to put a quality/security filter on the App Store. I just wish that the "major" apps were available in their most current incarnations on a timely basis.

From an ergonomic standpoint, I have few complaints. Using the Fire feels perfectly natural. So far, I've not found a way to install and enable the Swype keyboard, which is my KB of choice on the Droid. At times it seems like the soft buttons at the bottom of the screen are reluctant to respond to my touch--maybe my fingers are too dry... I'm not sure yet.

As for the comparison of Kindle Fire and Kindle Keyboard, I consider these two devices quite separate. If I want to read the text of a novel, I will use the Kindle Keyboard. The battery life is amazing and the screen is beautifully legible in bright sunlight. The Kindle Fire is my multimedia  entertainment device and my portable web browser.

I tend to be suspicious of corporations mining my web presence for marketing data, but I consider Amazon to be one of the "good guys" along with Google. They're all business enterprises so, yeah, they're going to try to make money. As long as all the cards are on the table, I don't have a problem with that. When I read that Amazon's Silk browser caches content on Amazon servers, I'm like yay go, Amazon. They're trying to make the Fire web browser as responsive as possible. Technically, it's storing personal data that, in a perfect world, it should not. But hey, I could sit inside a cave with no electrical power (let alone internet access) and be smug as Shinola in my locked-down egosphere. I'd rather play it a little more loose than that, though. I'm not ready to move to Idaho just yet.

Okay, so... more to come (it says here).

eBooks?

Do I Need An eBook Reader?

Recently, I've been enjoying reading The Iliad on my Droid X using Kindle for Android. The eBook was free and I needed something to read during lunch breaks.

The nicest aspect of reading a book this way is that I can highlight a word and pull up either its definition on Dictionary.com or its Wikipedia article. The Iliad is not an easy read because the characters can go by several names. For example, Agamemnon is also referred to as The King of Men, Atreus' Son, and Atreides. To make matters worse, the last two names could also refer to Menelaus, Agamemnon's brother, who is also a Trojan War combatant. The instant, no-typing Wikipedia look-up is a great aid to comprehension.

I've started to seriously consider buying a Kindle. I'd always thought that a dedicated eBook reader would be a waste of money. Why buy a Kindle when for a bit more money you could buy an iPad which could serve as an eBook reader and so much more? After some thought and research (Ha! Mostly reading Amazon's pro-Kindle propaganda!) I decided that there would be advantages to using an eBook reader:

• Legibility
• Battery Life
• Convenience

Legibility

If you've ever tried to use your smartphone or a car navigation system in bright sunlight, you know how difficult it is to do. Since the Kindle uses "E Ink", the screen is (purportedly) legible in direct sunlight, just as a physical book would be.

When I used reading glasses, at first I couldn't use them for computer work. The glasses made the view of the screen sharper, but that meant I could distinguish the pixels that made up the letters of text. The text on a Kindle screen is sharper and more easily legible than the text on a standard computer screen.

Battery Life

I plug my Droid in several times a day to recharge. I haven't used an iPad, but I'm pretty sure they need to be recharged daily when heavily used. The Kindle uses power to render a page of text on the screen but does not require power to maintain the image. For that reason, the Kindle would only need to be recharged every 2-4 weeks. That's a huge difference, especially if you wanted to read on a trip away from home.

Convenience

Since the Kindle is a dedicated eBook reader, it's more of an "appliance" than a computer. In many ways it's hard-wired to do what you want it to do.

Disadvantages

If you buy a Droid phone, you've got to drink the Google kool-aid. Likewise if you buy a Kindle, you've got to drink the Amazon kool-aid. I've been an Amazon customer for a long time, so I'm fairly comfortable with them as a company. Still, as I accumulate a collection of eBooks, I have to accept the fact that they'll be locked in a cabinet to which Amazon holds the key. Technology evolves and formats change. There will always be a chance that my eBooks could become unusable with little or no warning. Given the number of books that I've read once and then packed away in boxes in the basement, I think I'm willing to run the risk of losing most of my collection. There are some books that I reread or that I refer to occasionally. I'll either want physical copies of those books or find a way to back up the eBook in a non-proprietary format.

The Decision

I'm waiting to hear the opinion of a librarian/author friend before I place the order for a Kindle. I'm sure she's thought a lot about eBooks and she might point something out to me that I hadn't considered.