News

Tech Tip – Via A Kindle World, I learn about an easy way to convert Google Books from ePub to Kindle format. The answer is RetroRead.

Interview (14:07) – Richard Nash is putting his visionary ideas about how to link authors with readers to work in creating his startup independent publishing business, Cursor.  We spoke on August 23 about how it’s going and what’s ahead. If you’re looking for a good read, he recommends You Were Wrong by Matthew Sharpe.

Content – I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman made history when the e-book version outsold physical copies during the book’s first week of sales.

Comments – Roy in L.A. passes along two links from MobileRead about reports of slow page turns on the Kindle 3. Allen MacDiarmid gives his first impressions of the Kindle 3.  Jean Remple is still trying to figure out what the microphone on the Kindle 3 is for, and Nick Todd has an idea about how he’d like to use it.

In this video, I compare the speed of 3G v. WiFi on a pair of Kindle 3s set up with identical configuration except for the wireless connection. Both are set to enable Java and Images, and cookies and history were cleared before the test. WiFi here at the cottage in Ocean Park, Maine, where the video was filmed, is averaging 9 Mb/second download and .22 Mb/second upload.

Note – The video player below links to the Blip.tv version of the review, which is identical in content but has lower resolution and file size — it’s the one that will go in the RSS feed and be available if you subscribe to The Kindle Chronicles in iTunes:

Kris Kindle

This is a special, abbreviated edition of the podcast featuring an interview with Kris Kindle, courtesy of Bufo Calvin, who, for his part, offers a list of terrific tips for anyone who will be learning how to use the Kindle this week because one arrived as a gift.

Here is my own suggestion: consider buying a Kindle subscription to Bufo’s ILMK blog, which offers a steady supply of highly original and useful information about the Kindle. He has also authored two books available in Kindle editions, Free Books for Your Kindle and Frequently Asked Kindle Questions.

In our phone conversation on Wednesday, December 23rd, Bufo also mentions his latest creation,  221B Blog Street: The Adventures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson…one chapter a day! If you subscribe to that one, you will receive a new chapter of a Sherlock Holmes short story or chapter of a novel each day directly to your Kindle, a recreation of the serial publishing era.

Bufo Calvin

Next week my wife, Darlene, and I will return to Denver for a while. Her press credentials for the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) have been approved, so she will be joining me for coverage of the show in Las Vegas next month.

Thanks for listening, and I hope your new year brings many good reads on your Kindle.

Kris Kindle photo credit: User Oldschool, via Wikimedia Commons, uploaded 3/29/06.

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip – Andrys Basten shows how the free program Calibre enables you to use  your Kindle for quick access to Google’s trove of public domain content in the EPUB format.

Interview – Bufo Calvin, a prolific and much-loved poster at the Amazon Kindle forum, talks about the most frequently asked questions, what he’d like to see in the next Kindle, and more.  His Kindle books include Free Books for Your Kindle. He also makes some news on the podcast by announcing the launch of his brand new blog, I Love My Kindle.  As a separate tidbit from the interview, click here for a recitation of his highly original work in the style of a fable for children, “The Happy Little Bookworm.”

Content – Jon Stewart gets off a good Kindle joke while interviewing Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. Stewart mocks this version of the book. Click here for the version that costs half as much and uses a lot fewer trees.

Comments – Mary Hundle tells a success story using Zoolert. Bufo Calvin on the Kindle 2 and DX screensaver hacks (you can click here for the Amazon Customer Service statement that they won’t void warranty), and Bob Lee on an entertaining review of the Kindle in Scientific American.

Note: Thanks to all of you who have given a “thumbs up” to my panel proposal for South by Southwest in Austin next year!  If you would like to help me out, please click here to vote for my “Taming the Kindle” proposal.  This will increase my chances of getting chosen to present the panel.  You’ll have to create a SxSW username and password, but you don’t have to plan to attend the event in order to vote. Thanks!

You can click here for details of my drama in the waves sent to Ocean Park, Maine, by Hurricane Bill.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – From Bufo Calvin’s Frequently Asked Questions, a hidden Kindle DX game of Gomoku. Also, via Andrei Pushkin’s blog kindle and clarknova of the MobileRead forum, I install the hack for relief from the monotony of my Kindle 2′s default screensavers.  You can find similar hacks via Andrei’s blog for customizing the screensavers on the Kindle 1 and DX.

Interview – Michael Seringhaus , a 3rd-year student at Yale Law School, opines in The Hartford Courant on what he feels are serious drawbacks for readers in the Kindle’s Terms of Use.  His lengthy scholarly article on the topic is scheduled to appear around the end of the year in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. (Thanks to listener Paul Levin for emailing me Michael’s column in the Courant.)

Content – Via Andrys Basten and Jeffrey Trachtenberg in the Wall Street Journal‘s Speakeasy – Amazon maintains $9.99 as the price for Dan Brown’s next blockbuster, The Lost Symbol – but will the same be true of Stephen King’s next big novel, due out in November?

Comments – A question from Omaha about the CyberPad and an audio excerpt from Stephen Windwalker’s latest Kindle guide, Free,  with a tip on how best to listen to this podcast or any other on your Kindle.  Also, a Kindle meetup in Portland, Maine, with Leslie Nicoll of KindleBoards.

Note: I could use your support for my “Taming the Kindle” panel proposal for South by Southwest Interactive 2010.  Stephen Windwalker kindly posted this pitch and info on how to vote for my proposal using the PanelPicker.  If you want to go directly to the PanelPicker to offer a thumbs up, click here.  It also helps if you can take the time to leave a comment on my PanelPicker page. Thanks!

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip (7:13) – How to use Amazon’s great new feature that enables you to see Kindle highlighting and notes here.

Interview (10:25) – Paul Biba, co-editor of TeleRead and a way-early adopter of eBooks, back when he was a globe-trotting corporate lawyer.  He explains why he considers these early days of the eBook revolution so exciting, and why he and TeleRead owner David Rothman disagree on whether we should be afraid that Amazon will gain monopolistic power over the eBook industry.

Quote (30:12) – “Amazon’s Next Revolution” by Jeffrey M. O’Brien of Fortune.

Comments (31:48) – Verinder Syal, April, Cindy Brooks, yisroel parker, Billie Bogart, and Clark Dimond.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip (6:01) -  Blair Slavin details a way to play with words in the Kindle 2 dictionary.

Interview – (7:36) Roxanne Darling and Shane Robinson make a dashing Kindle Couple and are among Hawai’i's social media leaders. At Kailua Beach on May 20, 2009, they talked about sharing a Kindle 1, the Kindle iPhone app, and things you should not be afraid to bring to the beach.  They are creators of the long-running and inspiring Beach Walks with Rox video podcast, and their tech-savvy Internet consulting business is Bare Foot Studios.

Quote (22:20) – Neville Hobson is experimenting with Twitter/audio book reviews.

Comments (24:53) – John W. Halkias, Halimah Felt, and Karen Hagglund.

Click to download this episode here.

News

Tech Tip (7:35) – Courtesy of Pat Hawn, a consideration of putting your Kindle to sleep at night versus turning it off.

Interview (11:02) – Stephen Peters, author of Kindle Culture: Tales of How Amazon’s e-Reader is Sparking a Cultural Revolution.

Quote (33:03) – From Felonious Jazz by Bryan Gilmor Gilmer.  UPDATE: I have corrected the link for Felonious Jazz.

Comments (37:03) – Billie Bogart, Dan Meyers, John C. Adamson, Karl Bunker, April Dorris, Tom Lichty, and an audio comment from Dan Barnett.

Next Week – I’ll be in Honolulu to present a workshop for Board members and staff of the Hawai’i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.  On Wednesday while staying on after the workshop with my wife,  I’m scheduled to interview Roxanne Darling, creator of Beach Walks with Rox, a video podcast in which Roxanne walks along a gorgeous beach on Oahu, talking about life, with her partner Shane Robinson doing the filming.  They are also partners in Bare Feet Studios.

Click to download this episode here.

Tech Tip (22:56) -  Jesslyn Hendrix, who blogs here, shares an original idea for putting your Kindle 2 into hands-free mode.

Interview (25:09) – Andrei Pushkin of Blog Kindle discusses hacks such as Savory and Ted Inoue’s text contrast hack, as well as why the Kindle has been such a success.

Quote (36:25) – from Kindle Culture: Tales of How Amazon’s E-Reader is Sparking a Cultural Revolution by Stephen Peters

Comments (37:44) – Bob Hare, Dan Meyers, John C. Adamson, Linda Hopkins, Chuck Dunn, Dan Montopol, Dorian Nisinson, and Stephen Windwalker.

Next week’s interview will be with Stephen Peters, author of Kindle Culture.

Click here to download this episode.

UPDATE (5/2/09) – This is the raw, unedited recording of the User’s Group meeting, which I posted mainly for the benefit of those at the meeting who might want to hear it.  The multiple voices at times and the echo-chamber quality of the classroom make it difficult to listen to, as a couple of commenters have noted.  Next time I’ll trim a recording like this more judiciously.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip (8:23) – From MobileRead, clarknova’s Kindle 2 hack that enables you to customize your Kindle’s screen savers. Not for the technologically faint of heart, but Amazon says it won’t void the warranty. (Scroll down to March 2, 2009 post.) Go back to Episode 20 for a refresher on how to do this on your Kindle 1, or consult these instructions from phuocle at MobileRead.

Interview (16:35) – Pam McCarthy, deputy editor of The New Yorker, tells how the magazine decided to create a Kindle edition which in February immediately soared to the Number One bestseller spot among all magazines offered for the Kindle. This is a telephone interview recorded on April 21, 2009.

Quote (37:00) – “The Bells: How Harvard Helped Preserve a Russian Legacy” by Elif Batuman in the April 27, 2009 issue of The New Yorker. With audio of the bells from a related New Yorker podcast by NewYorker.com and Curtis Fox Productions.

Comments (39:10) – Bob Hare remembers the Rocketbook; Karl Bunker recommends Mysteria, and Scott St. Amant offers a much appreciated technical suggestion.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip (8:35) – Larry in Bay City, Oregon, provides an elegant tagging system for keeping track of content which you send to your My Clippings document.

Interview (15:00) – Charles Wright, systems editor for the Denver Newspaper Agency. He’s responsible for setting up, maintaining and improving The Denver Post’s Kindle feed.

Quote (25:44) – “Angels Take the Form of Wyo. Snowplow Drivers” in The Denver Post.

Comments (27:39) – Esmeralda deTrafford (who maybe helps lower a book‘s price to $9.99), Greg Vann (who somehow snagged a Kindle copy of Winds of War), Soosie Burnett (whose battery question is answered by Stephen Windwalker),Delores Martin (LibraryThing), and Dorothy Witter (new fonts hack).

Meetup – If you’re in the area, please join us for the second Kindle Chronicles meetup at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 18 at the Starbucks just off I-25 at Exit 240 (the Longmont exit).  Please email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT come if you plan to attend.  Bring your Kindle and your latest cool Kindle discoveries.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip (6:45) – Calibre can now transfer content to your Kindle without a USB cable!

Interview (10:02) – Kovid Goyal, creator and principal developer for Calibre.

Quote (25:52) – Introduction to Joshua Tallent’s The Complete Guide to Formatting Books for the Amazon Kindle

Comments (27:55) – Amazon Kindle Support (concerning the more-than-$9.99 price for new release Power Rules by Leslie Gelb, Ken and Kim Dell in Arizona, Linda Hopkins (mentioning a screensaver hack for the Kindle 2), Marcy McKenzie (on kindlefeeder) , Mary Hundle, and an audio comment from Esmeralda deTrafford.

Click here to download this episode.

News – NPR on DRM. Jacob Weisberg on the Kindle Revolution and the revolution that was.  David Rothman on what Weisberg left out.

Tech Tip – How Calibre will enable you to put The Economist on your Kindle even though you can’t subscribe to it at the Kindle Store yet.

Interview – Steve Rubel, Director of Insights at Edelman Digital, author of “The Amazon Kindle is the Great White Hope for Monetizing Print Media.”

Quote: “General Electric Losing Its Magic Touch” in The Economist.

Comments: Bob Cope, Brian Ruppert, David Hicks, April Dorris, and Gary Montague.  Reference to Jesslyn Hendricks’s blog, My Kindle Stuff, for how to get Google public domain books onto your Kindle.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – Where oh where did the articles list go on Kindle 2?  Mary McManus saves the day.

Interview – My wife Darlene asks me some great questions about the Kindle 2, submitted by members of the Kindle Chronicles Email Alert List.

Quote – From Stephen Windwalker’s new guide, The Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2.

Comments – Dan Barnett, Linda Hopkins, Robert Brownson, Shelly Crawford-Stock, Steve Windwalker, Rho, Marcy MacKenzie, Al MacDiarmid, Michelle Farmer, Dorian Nisinson, Larry Goss and audio comments from Joshua Tallent and Linda Hopkins.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – Creating and Using Folders on a Kindle by Anonymous.

Interview – Ian Freed, Amazon’s vice president for Kindle, talks about folders, WhisperSync coming “soon” to a smartphone near you, and why whatever Amazon adds to the Kindle must be “really simple.”  (Photo by Dan Schlatter of Puget Sound Business Journal, Seattle)

Quote – “The Background Hum: Ian McEwan’s Art of Unease” by Daniel Zalewski in The New Yorker.

Comments – Dorian Nisinson, Pam from Minnesota, Linda Hopkins (link mentioned), Ben Benner, and anonymous.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – The shift key is sticky! Who knew? (Thanks to Al MacDiarmid)

Interview – Staton Rabin, author of OH BOY! The Life and Music of Rock ‘n’ Roll Pioneer Buddy Holly , a tweens’ and teens’ biography of Buddy Holly, timed for exclusive Kindle release to mark the 50th anniversary of the rock ‘n’ roll legend‘s untimely death in a plane crash on February 3, 1959. Her book was formated for Amazon’s Digital Text Platform by Joshua Tallent, who was my interview guest in Episode 22. Staton in a phone interview on January 26, 2009, tells how strongly she felt called to write about Buddy Holly, and how the Kindle platform offered her unique advantages for the project.

Quote – From the Introduction to OH BOY! by Staton Rabin.

Comments – Leslie Nicoll, Tom Linton, Karen Oland, Kevin Parsons, Marie Sotiriou, Al MacDiarmid, Jenn Broomfield, Dan Meyers (on a KindleKorner kerfuffle), Mary McManus, Linda Hopkins, Stephen Gold, and Bruce Wiley (reference to a foolish post at Motley Fool).

Please consider leaving a voice comment by calling 206-666-2713.  You can leave a text comment by emailing me at PodChronicles AT gmail DOT com .

If you’d like to be put on the Kindle Chronicles Email Alert List to receive updates on Kindle news, please email me at PodChroniclesg AT mail DOT com .

Music for my podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – How to offer your blog to the Kindle Store for subscriptions. Thanks to Charles Hugh Smith , author of Weblogs & New Media: Marketing in Crisis, for the question.

Interview – Leslie Nicoll, an author of The Amazon Kindle FAQ and a leading light at the Kindle Boards forum, answers questions everyone has about the Kindle. She also owns an editorial services business, Maine Desk.

Quote – From Cash Magazine, a 2009 economic forecast from one of the rare analysts who foretold the crash.

Comments – Will DeLamater, Steven Schwindt, Mary, Karen, Rebecca, Bob Cope, Paul Higginbotham, Linda Hopkins, Joe D. Clark and a really great Tweet from Coleenis.

At the end of the show, I drew the name of a member of the Kindle Chronicles Email Alert List to win a $10 Amazon gift certificate. If you’d like to join the list, simply send me an email at PodChronicles@gmail.com .

To make an audio comment, please call 206-666-2713.

Next week’s guest will be podcasting pioneer Michael Geoghegan, who is a Kindle enthusiast and now a Kindle author, since the second edition of his excellent Podcast Solutions book is available in Kindle edition.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – Ever wonder how much further you have to read before reaching the end of a chapter?  This tip will help you find out.

Interview – Mike Elgan, widely read tech blogger and columnist, who puts the Kindle’s phenomenal success in perspective and looks ahead to huge profits for Amazon from the Kindle.  (Part 1 of the interview is in this podcast, and part 2 follows in a Kindle Chronicles EXTRA.)

Quote – from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Downloaded from MobileRead

Comments – Rebecca, Nicholas Schutz,and Linda Hopkins (Amazon’s Best of 2008 List)

If you’d like to be on the Kindle Chronicles Email Alert List, please send me an email at PodChronicles@Gmail.com .  I’ll be doing a drawing for a $10 Amazon gift certificate, to be awarded at random to someone on the list.

Next week’s interview: Leslie Nicoll, author of The Amazon Kindle FAQ.

You can leave an audio comment at 206-666-2713 or a text comment at PodChronicles@gmail.com.

Click here to download this episode.

Part 1 is contained in episode 24 of the Kindle Chronicles.

Click here to download Part 2.

News

Tech Tip – How to put content on your Kindle in the middle of Wyoming. Click here to see a map of Whispernet coverage.

Interview – Starbuck, the online name for an Army Captain, Blackhawk helicopter pilot, blogger and Kindle enthusiast serving in Irag.  Check out his Wings Over Iraq blog. What’s on his Kindle: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max, Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence

Kindle Quote – From Barack, Inc. by Barry Libert and Rick Faulk.

Comments – from Dorian Nisinson, Dan Meyers, Linda Hopkins, and John B.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip: Try pdfdownload.org for a one-click way to move web content to your Kindle.  The results won’t always look as good as this, though.

Interview: Linda Hopkins, an engaged and engaging listener of the podcast from southern California. Her first Kindle read was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. She subscribes to the following blogs: Amazon Daily (free), Reuters Health (99 cents a month) and Reuters Top Stories ($1.99).

Quote: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Comments: Karen Hagglund and Dan.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip -Igor Skochinsky’s motherload of Kindle tech stuff.

Interview – Sriram K. Peruvemba, Vice President of Marketing at E Ink Corporation, interviewed at the company’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.  The audio podcast contains excerpts of our conversation, and this video has the full interview.

Quote – “Senior Moment” by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post.

Comments – Audio from Peggy, text from Julie Booth.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip: How to put 20,000 2,000 classics on your Kindle using MobileReference (thanks to Nick for suggesting this one) -
1.    Connect your Kindle to your computer with USB cable.
2.    In your computer’s web browser, go to MobileReference
3.    In the main area of the web site, not the column on the left, scroll down to the section titled “Fiction Books.”
4.    In the last subcategory of that section, titled “Collection:”, click on “Classic Books Collection. Over 2,000 complete works. Only $19.99.”
5.    For use on the Kindle, it doesn’t seem to matter which platform you choose; I’ve just tested the “Desktop/Notebook/Tablet PC” platform, and that worked fine.  So in the row for “Desktop/Notebook/Tablet PC” platform, go over one column to the “Trial Version” column and click “Download Now.”
6.    You will be asked to enter your email address, so do that and then click on the green “Download Application” button.
7.    On the next screen, click on the live link which says “Click here to download: Best-Selling Classic Books Collection. Over 2000 complete works. FREE biographies and works in trial”
8.    From here, what you see will depend on whether you are using a PC or Mac, but the essentials are the same as with any other download from the Internet that you do on your computer.  For the Mac, I see a dialog box saying, “You have chosen to open classicstrial103.zip” which is a zipped file containing numerous separate items.  I click on “OK” to open it with Stuffit Expander.  However your computer works, your goal is to be able to find a folder on your hard drive titled “ClassicsTrial”.  Mine shows up in a Downloads folder.
9.    Open a window that shows you the “ClassicsTrial” folder you just downloaded, and then open that folder so you can see all the items in it, beginning with “AlexandreDumasDEMO.prc” and ending with “WilliamShakespeareDEMO.prc.”
10.    Open another window that shows the Kindle icon, which you should see because your Kindle is attached to the computer by the USB cable.
11.    Doubleclick the Kindle icon, so you can see five folders, including the one labeled “Documents.”
12.    Drag the “ClassicsTrial” folder into the “Documents” folder of your Kindle.   I just tried this on my MacBook Air, and it worked fine – I assume the same process will work on a PC, but if you run into trouble you might try selecting all the individual books in the “ClassicsTrial” folder and dragging them in one big bunch into the “Documents” folder.
13.    Once you have the “ClassicsTrial” contents in the Documents folder of your Kindle, safely eject the Kindle icon and then unplug the USB cable.
14.    Checking on your Home screen, you’ll now see about three added pages of demo versions of classic books.
15.    I’m pretty sure that once you sample some of the demo books, you’ll want to spend the $19.99 to purchase the actual collection.  I’m going to do that now but make sure they go to my SD card, to keep my main Kindle.
16.    The purchase process via Handango is routine, and you don’t have to wait for a registration code.  The folder is called “ClassicsFull” . It’s about 115 megabytes in size, so even with my speedy Comcast connection (31 megabits per second when I was doing the download last weekend) – it took a while for it all to load to my computer, and then another few minutes for it to load from the computer to the Kindle.
17.    I’ve got a 1 GigaByte SD card in my Kindle. After adding 2,000 classics I’ve got  838 MB left, or room for another 16,000 classics on a storage device that cost me less than $20.
18.    One thing I don’t like is that all these new titles appear in my Home pages on the Kindle, even though I put them on the SD card.  At least they are gathered by author, so you click on an author to see all the titles he or she wrote.
19.    All in all this is a great resource, and I want to thank Nick for suggesting that I follow the process for this week’s Tech Tip.

Interview: Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of MIT’s Technology Review, a rising star in the Kindle Store.

Quote: “The Lady with the Dog” by Anton Chekhov.

Comments: Bob Boyken, Jim Brooks, Gail Scott, Julie Booth and Will D.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip: From David Emberson’s Kindle Cookbook, a clever keyboard shortcut that zooms you through books 1/20th at a time.

Interview: My wife’s opinion of her Kindle improves during her first month of use, despite her biggest fear coming true.  NOTE: If you know some great sources for contemporary mystery writers for the Kindle, please let me know, so I can pass them along to Darlene.

Quote: from a book about Afghanistan being read this week by the President-Elect, Ghost Wars by Steve Coll.

Comments: Do you read YOUR Kindle during takeoff and landing?  And, good news on book sales from David Emberson.

Please feel free to leave me a voice comment by calling 206-666-2713 or a text comment at PodChronicles@gmail.com or as a comment here on the show notes page.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip: What are those white boxes to the right of some items on the home screen?

Interview: Dave Emberson, author of The Kindle Cookbook: How to Do Everything the Manual Doesn’t Tell You.

Quote: Technology Review’s editor Jason Pontin has some advice for the next president.

Comments: Stephen Windwalker, Kesler Woodward, and Linda Hopkins.

You can leave a voice comment by calling 206-666-2713 or by emailing me an .mp3 audio file at PodChronicles@gmail.com .  You can leave text comments at that email address or here on the show notes page. I’d love to hear from you!

Music for my podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

Click here to download this episode.

Kindle News

Tech Tip: From The Kindle Cookbook by David Emberson, how to put the MobileRead guide on your Kindle for free book downloads.  (Other good Kindle guides mentioned: Decoding the Kindle by Jim Cheshire and Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle by Stephen Windwalker.

Interview: Evan Schnittman, vice president of business development at Oxford University Press, speculates on why November 19, 2008 may be another big day in the history of the Kindle.

Kindle Quote: Don Juan by Lord Byron, in French.

Comment: Linda Hopkins finds the most expensive book available at the Kindle Store.  Be careful before you click on “purchase”…..

I’d love to hear your comments. You can leave a voice message at 206-666-2713 or email me at PodChronicles@gmail.com .

Click here to download this episode.

Kindle Quote: The Nigger of Narcissus by Joseph Conrad.

Kindle Comment: A promising overture from someone at Amazon…

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Tech Tip: A recent newbie (me) walks you around the Kindle Korner Yahoo group.

Interview: Laurel Hicks, a moderator of Kindle Korner. On her Kindle: War and Peace by Tolstoy, Works of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov from MobileReference and the blogs Opinionated and An Unamplified Voice, an opera blog.

Kindle Quote: Mmm-good: Campbell Soup fares pretty well in the financial debacle.  An article in Investor’s Business Daily.

Comments: Linda Hopkins, Jimmy Buffet video, and a good correction from Greg.

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip: How to find out there’s no Whispernet in Missoula, Montana. Click here for Sprint coverage map.

Interview: My wife, Darlene, opens her Kindle and starts using it.

Quote: The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield.

Comments: Bob Boyken, Sang-Won Kim, Heather Hollick, and Linda.

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip: A light for reading your Kindle in bed when your spouse is trying to sleep.

Interview: Jim Cheshire, author of Decoding the Kindle.

Kindle Quote: from Spirit House, a Vincent Calvino Novel by Christopher G. Moore.

Kindle Comments: audio from Bryan Person, comments on the show notes page from Greg Pyles and Paul.

Click here to download this episode.

Kindle News

Tech Tip: My 79-year-old mother’s clever idea for printing a Kindle page didn’t pan out, but I did learn about the expanded location tool from Jim Cheshire‘s new book, Decoding the Kindle.

Interview: Andy Ihnatko, technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Kindle Quote: from McCain’s Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking about Hope by the late David Foster Wallace and Jacob Weisberg.

Kindle Comments: Rusty from the show notes page and an audio comment from Paul Higginbotham.

Music for my podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

To leave an audio comment, please call 206-666-2713.  Email: PodChronicles@gmail.com .

Photo of Andy Ihnatko at MacWorld 2008 by Nonie from Melburne, Australia.  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.  via Wikipedia

Click here to download this episode.

Kindle News:

Tech Tip: How to highlight a section of text which begins on one screen and ends on the next. Also, Jan Zlendich’s tip for helping your Kindle make it home if you leave it somewhere.

The “What’s on Your Kindle Interview?”: Heather Hollick of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with a clever way to move lots of reading material from the web to the Kindle as .pdf files.  UPDATE: Here are some items on Heather’s Kindle:
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin
The Huffington Post blog.

Kindle Quote: Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker.

Kindle Comments: Al, and Bryce Craig of Santa Barbara, California.

Music for my podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

To leave an audio comment, please call 206-666-2713.  Email: PodChronicles@gmail.com .

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip: How to put your Kindle on cruise control. (Hat tip to chelsea etitameh on the Kindle Korner Yahoo Group. )

The “What’s On Your Kindle?” Interview: Jan Zlendich of Tucson, Arizona, created The Kindle Reader blog while she waited for her Kindle to arrive last year. In our phone interview on September 3, 2008, she gives a librarian’s literate view of the Kindle. Among the items on her 55 pages of Home screen are the following: Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar…: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Daniel Klein, “Shade” a short story by Stephen Gould available for free download in Kindle format (Mobipocket) from Tor, Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 2,730 Pages by Ammon Shea, and subscriptions to Time, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and the blog TVNewser .

Kindle Quote: from The Nigger of Narcissus by Joseph Conrad, a free download from Feedbooks. Beginning at Locations 409-14.

Kindle Comments by Bruce Kessel (who linked to NYT story putting end to rumor of new Kindle this year), dorianN and Patricia Hawn.

Music for my podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

To leave an audio comment, please call 206-666-2713. Email: PodChronicles@gmail.com .

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Kindle News:

LATE-BREAKING REPORT WHICH DIDN’T MAKE THE PODCAST: Via Jim Cheshire, I see the New York Times today is quoting Craig Berman, Amazon’s chief spokesman, as saying, “One thing I can tell you for sure is that there will be NO new version of the Kindle this year. A new version is possible sometime next year at the earliest.” I hope that’s just smoke.

Tech Tip: Adrienne Cousins on the Yahoo Kindle Korner group has posted several bookmark files which make it much easier to reach web sites on the Kindle. Also, Jim Cheshire of DecodingTheKindle recommends Skweezer to format blogs for quicker and cleaner viewing on the Kindle. Hat tip to Stephen Windwalker for suggesting Adrienne’s bookmarks.

The “What’s on Your Kindle?” Interview: My guest this week is Randal L. Schwartz of Stonehenge. We met at a photography workshop last week conducted by Chris Marquardt of the Tips from the Top Floor podcast.   Randal recommends Baen Books as a great source of inexpensive quality books for the Kindle, especially in the science fiction category.  A favorite of his is James P. Hogan.

Kindle Quote: “Fear Oratory Will Be Obama’s Undoing” by Edward Luce.

Kindle Comments by Bob Boyken, RobinTX and Steven Schwindt.

Music for my podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

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Kindle News – The Financial Times arrives! The EFF asks tough questions of the publishing industry.  Seth Godin gets skeptical.

Kindle Tech Tip – QuickFics points us to EchoDitto’s fix for partial RSS feeds.  And the difference between Previous Page and Back.

Kindle Quote – I can’t believe I’m quoting this book…

Kindle Comments – dorianN tells how her Kindle saved her from what could have been a very sad fate.  Heather Hollick wins a prize for saving a podcaster from laziness.

Music for my podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

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UPDATE: Two items on Bill Bulger’s Kindle are Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen and Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories by Elmore Leonard.

Kindle News: The financial analyst heard round the Kindlesphere-reverberations from a Citi analyst’s doubling of his earlier estimate of Kindle sales this year and NYT perspective here; Amazon adds a way to ping publishers who are not yet on the Kindle train (an item from Cush), and how 17 syllables might win you a Kindle.

Tech Tip: Do’s and Don’ts with an SD card, including screenshot tip from Stephen Windwalker.  More on using FeedBooks for free RSS feeds.

Kindle Quote: from Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beacher Stowe

Kindle Comment: Cory in Fla

New contest: the first person whose audio comment I use on the next episode will receive a $10 gift certificate at the Amazon Store.  Phone in your coment to 206-666-2713 or attach an .mp3 file to email to PodChronicles@gmail.com. I also welcome text comments here or at the email address.   Thanks for listening!

Special audio extra: Bill Bulger singing a solo with the Boston Symphony.

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Kindle News

Kindle Tech Tip:
How to use FeedBooks to load RSS news feeds onto your Kindle for free.

The “What’s on Your Kindle Interview?” – Stephen Windwalker, author of the current Number 10 Kindle seller, How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email & Over 100 Pages of Other Cool Tips (The Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle. I taped the interview after lunch on August 6, 2008, at Casablanca in Harvard Square, Cambridge.  Steve describes his experience writing for the Kindle and tells what changes he hopes to see in the next version.

Here is some of what’s on his 14 pages of Kindle titles:
The TechCrunch blog
The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller
Free Amazon Daily Blog
The New York Times

Kindle Quote: Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.

Kindle Comment: Bob Boyken of Bloomington, Indiana

Phone comment line: 206-666-2713.  Please call and leave a comment, suggest someone for a “What’s on Your Kindle Interview?” or offer ideas to improve this podcast.  I look forward to hearing from you!

UPDATE: Click Here for .mp3 file.

(Thanks to FeedBooks co-founder Hadrien Gardeur for the tip, which should enable us to read the full show notes on the Kindle and listen to podcast at the same time.  I’m going to try it now….)

The “What’s on Your Kindle?” Interview:

Kindle News: Spirit House, a Christopher G. Moore novel being offered for free on the Kindle through Aug. 28th, Josh Quittner’s glowing Kindle review in Time, the Kindle Social Network, and my fruitless hunt for independent confirmation of the CrunchGear rumor of a new Kindle coming in October.

Tech Tips: a hardware fix at 30K feet, keyboard shortcuts, and how to change the text justification.

Kindle Quote: inspiring words from The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie.

Kindle Comments: SCG, Baratunde Thurston, and Kesler Woodward.

Music for the podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

I’d REALLY like to include your feedback in this podcast, so please don’t be shy: leave a comment at 206-666-2713 or email an audio file or text message to me at PodChronicles@gmail.com, or leave a comment here.

The Kindle Chronicles is now listed for free subscription at the iTunes Store.  Please leave a comment!

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The Scar by China Mieville
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
The Daily Kos
treehugger
The Huffington Post
ReadWriteWeb
The New York Times

Also in this episode, News of rumors of a new Kindle in October, a Tech Tip for changing the images on your screen in sleep mode, and a Kindle Quote from Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Music for the podcast is “Ra-Monk” by Eval Manigat on the “Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective” CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

I’d REALLY like to include listener feedback in this podcast, so please don’t be shy: leave a comment at 206-666-2713 or email an audio file or text message to me at PodChronicles@gmail.com, or leave a message here in the comments.

Photo of Baratunde Thurston reading his Kindle on the subway is courtesy of Silicon Alley Insider.

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