Useful tips for Kindle users

More useful information about the Kindle is available on the Wired website:

How to do (almost) everything with a Kindle 3

Simple tip turns Kindle into ultimate news reader

Ok... still gushing about the silly toy!

Long live books!

My Kindle has arrived and it is truly magnificent. The reader is very easy to use and wonderful to read - the 'paper' is easy on the eyes and the device so lovely to use that it makes you want to read it all the time. Every spare minute! Downloading ebooks from Amazon is a doddle and the 3G means that I can browse for books, or get a new book, whenever and where-ever I like. I already have a number of books that will take me a few months to read!

A number of the classics that have entered the public domain are a couple of dollars on the Amazon site but they are also available freely at numerous other places on the net in the right format for Kindles. Sometimes however, the convenience of getting the book right there on-the-spot is worth a couple of dollars.

The new Kindle also comes with 'Experimental' features - a web browser which although limited still enables you to access your twitter feed, or download books from free ebook websites. It's a wonderful feature and I hope that Amazon develops it further as it makes the Kindle more multi-functional than just a ebook reader. Other experimental features include the ability to play MP3s on your Kindle, and a Text-to-Speech feature.

I love the dictionary too! It's fantastic to wonder about a word and then get the meaning of it within a few seconds. Hopefully my vocabulary will improve, as well as the depth of my reading.

Admittedly I haven't used other ebook readers but the latest Kindle is a wonderful thing. ****3/4

The world has changed... again

I'm getting a Kindle. It hasn't arrived yet but it's coming soon. It's being shipped now and I'm quite excited. Not just because it's a new gadget. But it's also a representation of me becoming even more involved with technology and the ever increasing need to keep up with it.

I had thought that getting a Kindle would not be not a great change... just reading books on an electronic device, instead of printed format. But I didn't realise that the world has changed... people are reading on various portable devices and sharing content and using interesting software that I had no idea about until now. I'm feeling very green.

So far I've learned a lot about e-readers. I've learned that the reason that Australia is offered a more limited number of publications than the U.S. has a lot to do with Digital Rights Management or DRM. I've also learned that I don't have to only buy ebooks from Amazon but can get them from other sources - I just have to upload them onto my Kindle which I can do with software like Scribd or calibre.

If you're looking to find out more about ebook readers and ebooks in Australia, then check out Kathryn Greenhill's blog Librarians Matter.

I should have my new Kindle by Monday!