Tech Tip – My personal system for active reading, in this case to prepare for an author interview.  The secret sauce is this handy cache of all your highlights and notes on books you’ve bought from Amazon.

Interview - Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, found herself in the midst of a Kindle Kerfuffle which she handled gracefully on her blog. In this interview recorded on March 8, 2010, she talks about literature, reading on her Kindle, and what it was like to have pre-orders on her book blocked during the Amazon v. Macmillan showdown.

Content – The New York Times plans to offer its great Book Review section as a separate digital eReader product for the Sony Reader, Kindle and nook. BTW, if you haven’t tried listening to the weekly NYT Book Review podcast, you really should check it out.

Your Comments - My friend Kes Woodward reports on a wintry stress test for his Kindle in Denali Park. Listener Gib Wallis helps listener Bob Anderson with a tech problem. Two questions from Patrick Scott.

Kindles for Kandahar – What a week! More than $600 in contributions will enable the purchase of at least two Kindles to be distributed in Afghanistan to active-duty troops by Army Sgt. Andre Corbin, who will be in country by the end of the month. Listener Ken Clark is helping me set up a nonprofit and a web page. Click here for the genesis. M-Edge Accessories CEO Patrick Mish and his team are planning their sponsorship activity to support the project.

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will take place at noon Mountain Time on April 1, 2010.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – How to check your Evernote account on your Kindle, using the mobile version.  Via Evernote’s latest podcast, we learn the CEO has three Kindles, and the team is looking at the Kindle API with an eye to closer coordination between the Kindle and Evernote.  Click here for Abhi’s Start Page Tool post if you’d like to streamline your Evernote access on your Kindle.  Click here for the bookmonk tool.  If you haven’t tried Evernote yet, check out Walt Mossberg’s rave review.

Interview – Andrys Basten’s “A Kindle World blog” had its debut on March 19, 2009.  In this interview recorded on March 2, 2010, we talked about what a difference a year has made in the world of the Kindle, especially in the hoard of competitors to the Kindle that has arrived on the scene.   Click here to subscribe to Andrys’s very useful blog on your Kindle. One non-Kindle eReader she mentions, depending on your reading needs, is the Sony Pocket Edition.

Content – Amazon announces how you can find lots of free content for your Kindle in places other than the Kindle Store. Click here for the great copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I found at ManyBooks.

Your Comments - Maurice Lawles buys a Kindle. Jim Jones loves Stitcher. Kevin Roher tests the Kindle’s battery. Glenn Blinckmann is not happy about the big increase in Kindle subscription price for Time Magazine. Blair Slavin thinks I may love reading my iPad in my favorite chair. Kevin Parsons puts flesh on the economics re: eBook pricing. Mike Detlefsen gets an unacceptable answer from Amazon.

Note: I will be in Austin, Texas, next week for this little gathering.  If you’re in the halls, twitter me and maybe we can rendezvous to say hi or have a coffee.

Click here to download this episode.

Scott Stossel

News – An interview with Army Sgt. Andre Corbin, who is headed for active duty in Afghanistan next month.  His gear will include a new Kindle and accessories in a sponsorship by M-Edge Accessories.  Andre describes how well-suited eReader technology is for military personnel serving in remote areas, and he announces his intention to blog about his experience in Afghanistan at Corbinistan.com (an in-process blog template, with content to come.)  Also, comments by M-Edge CEO Patrick Mish on why he and his team were so enthusiastic in their support for this project.

Note: Among the items mentioned in my conversation with Andre were the books Ghost Wars by Steve Coll and In Afghanistan by David Loyne .  Also mentioned is AAFES, which operates the post exchange at many U.S. military bases.

Tech Tip -  Click here if you have not yet received the latest slight update for your Kindle or DX software.  Listeners’ comments on my Facebook page indicate the update is a pretty good tuneup for the Kindle’s operating system, increasing reliability and speed for some actions.

Interview – Scott Stossel, deputy editor of The Atlantic magazine, describes the genesis of an innovative partnership with Amazon to sell two high-quality short stories for Kindle each month for $3.99 each.  Scott also tells what the reaction to the program has been so far from readers and authors.  If you’d like to provide feedback to him on the short-fiction program, you can email Scott directly at ScStossel AT TheAtlantic DOT com.

Sgt. Andre Corbin

Content - I’m holding over until next week’s show a creative way to organize your Kindle content using Instapaper AND Calibre.  For an advance peek, check out Dave Slusher’s blog post describing his method.

Comments - This week I’ll post your comments as a separate episode here at The Kindle Chronicles.

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will take place at noon Mountain Time on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Octovo for sponsoring this contest!

Click here to download this episode.

Here’s what you’ll hear in this file:

Craig Scarberry recommends You are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier. Jim Jones points to American Psychological Association guidelines for citing Kindle texts.  Bob Anderson wonders how he can get a 200-meg free baseball book in PDF format translated to Kindle format. (If you have a solution, please email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT com.) Mike Detlefsen offers an articulate rant about the poor quality of eBooks he purchases from Amazon. John Halkias’s BlackBerry does not support the new Kindle for BlackBerry app.  Thorn weighs in on Heather Hollick’s comment about eBook pricing. James Cooper offers his first-hand review and a trouble-shooting fix for the BlackBerry app.

Click here to download this episode.

Photo by Betty Scharf

News – Amazon releases the Kindle for BlackBerry app.  Lance Ulanoff worries about the screen size.  Motoko Rich of The New York Times gets a scoop: Perhaps rumors of Apple’s opposition to discounted prices for bestsellers was a tad exaggerated?

Tech Tip - How NOT to uninstall your screensaver and fonts apps in order to update your Kindle 2 to the new 2.3.3 .  I make some errors and am rescued by a member of KindleBoards, who pointed me to this folder of up-to-date tools for installing and uninstalling hacks. Thank you, Heather!

Interview - Stephen Windwalker’s Kindle Nation is the third-bestselling blog at the Kindle Store.  He’s also just released a new, comprehensive survey of Kindle Nation citizens, which has information the major publishers AND Amazon ought to be paying attention to.  I interviewed Steve in person on Feburary 17, 2010, in Arlington, Mass.

Content – EduKindle creator Will DeLamater is beta-testing a new tool for creating content for the Kindle with Wikipedia and other sources. It’s named eReadUps and you can submit a request to become a beta tester.  Nice!

Comments – Richard Fischer, Heather Hollick, Marie Sotiriou with a podcast recommendation, Maurice Lawles, Bob Anderson, Brian Rupert, Craig Scarberry, Sean, and Bruce Kessel.

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will take place at noon Mountain Time on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Octovo for sponsoring this contest!

ONE MORE THING…. With this episode, I’m announcing that a fan of the podcasts on my Reading Edge Facebook page, Sergeant Andre B. Corbin, will be taking a complimentary Kindle and accessories with him when he deploys for active duty with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan next month, courtesy of M-Edge Accessories.  I saw that Andre had expressed the hope he’d win the Octovo drawing for the Kindle on April 1st (see above), so I contacted Patrick Mish, CEO of M-Edge Accessories, to see if his company might be interested in donating a Kindle and accessories for Andre.  Patrick quickly agreed, and they are working with Andre on the details, which I’ll have for you next week. Congratulations Andre, and thank you for your service!

Click here to download this podcast.

UPDATE: Just after recording the episode, I checked Amazon for Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and it’s now available in hardcover for $13.46.  No Kindle edition at any price. Brad Stone and Motoko Rich break the story in Bits.

Forrester’s James McQuivey says that by capitulating Amazon actually wins in the short term and long term.  Dave Slusher of Evil Genius Chronicles echoes a twitterer’s question — “How does increased competition (Apple’s iBooks to Amazon) result in higher prices to consumers?” — and adds, “That, sir, is an excellent question and one worth thinking about.”  Or do Amazon simply look like fools?

News item #2: Amazon reportedly buys a touchscreen maker.

News item #3: 93 percent of these eReader owners are very or somewhat satisfied with their devices.

Tech tip - Via Andrys Basten’s Kindleworld, Steve Brady (aka The Professor) creates a Word macro (Windows only) that might bring some order to your My Clippings file.  To see your highlights and notes online, click here.

Interview - This is the conclusion of my conversation on February 1, 2010, with James McQuivey, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, where he covers media technology. In this part, James describes what his Forrester associates are calling “The Kindle Flame.”  That’s the next version of Kindle, the one that will really get the fire going. Click here for the first half of the interview at The Reading Edge.

Content – Instapaper just keeps getting better for Kindle users.

Your comments - Lots more discussion of the Apple iPad, and a way for authors to autograph Kindles!

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a brand new 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo.  The drawing will at noon on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Elle Moran and Octovo for sponsoring this contest!

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip - How to keep track on your Kindle of words you’ve looked up using the built-in Oxford American Dictionary or another dictionary which you’ve set to the default dictionary.

Interview – Brad Stone, New York Times technology reporter in San Francisco, is one of the lucky few who not only touched but had a chance to try out an iPad at Apple’s debut extravaganza on January 27.  I spoke with him that night about his impressions of Apple’s new creation, and about what he thinks the impact will be on the Kindle and other dedicated eReaders.  This episode contains the first portion of our conversation.  The conclusion is posted here, at my new companion podcast, The Reading Edge.  Note: In fact, TKC 80 contains the entire Brad Stone interview, because I neglected to delete the conclusion here.  The conclusion is also available at The Reading Edge Episode 7 along with the Steve Jobs’s comments about the Kindle and the iBooks store.  Sorry for the confusion.  –Len

Click here to go directly to audio for the second part of the interview.

Content – Harvard Business Review and Amazon launch an innovative use of the Kindle Store, selling HBR titles by chapters as Short Cuts.  I sampled the $3.16 book summary of The Innovator’s Dilemma: Why New Technologies Cause Great Companies to Fail,  by HBS Professor Clayton M. Christensen.

Comments – Because of the volume of terrific comments prompted by the release of the iPad, I have created a separate episode for the comments this week.  Click here to hear from Pastor Mark Pierce, Mary McManus, Bob Anderson, Jim Jones, Kipp Poe, Jean Remple, Marie Sotiriou, Dan Meyers, John Halkias, Candy Yates, and Stace Wile.  For audio link to comments, click here.

Click here to download this episode.

Jim Jones of Omaha

I’ve been reading nonstop this week about the iPad’s impact on the Kindle and eReaders, and some of the smartest commentary so far comes from listeners of The Kindle Chronicles.

So this is a special episode comprising just your comments.  Many thanks to those who joined the conversation, namely Pastor Mark Pierce, Mary McManus, Bob Anderson, Jim Jones (in photo at right), Kipp Poe, Jean Remple, Marie Sotiriou, Dan Meyers, John Halkias, Candy Yates, and Stace Wile.

There’s more to be said, so please feel free to email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT com, or leave a comment here on the show notes page.  You can also leave an audio comment by calling 206-666-2713.

You might be interested in a Wired.com article titled “Apple iPad Raises the Stakes for eReaders” by Priya Ganapati.  I’m proud to be quoted by her as a die-hard e-reader fan, and I thought she did a good job reporting a complex story in a fair way.

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip – Via listener Bill Carson, a tip for sharing web content with someone in a place like, say, China, where not everything is available the way it is in the U.S.

Interview – Seth Harwood talks about his experimental and successful journey via podcasting to publication of his crime novel, Jack Wakes Up, and his new collection of well-honed stories available in Kindle edition, A Long Way from Disney. Photo by Mark Coggins.

Content – Via Jean Remple, a great explanation in The Times of Apple’s whatever-it-is, to be revealed next week.  Two new Kindle books worth checking out: One Way Journey by Dean Whitbread and Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business by Steve Garfield.

And your comments…

Click here to download this episode.

Intro

News – Can the Kindle really account for 90 percent of all eBook sales? TBI Research says yes, according to unnamed sources. Abhi says it’s not totally crazy. Are you getting tired of HarperCollins delaying eBook releases?  Some of us got rowdy at the Amazon listing for Game Change, leaving one-star reviews that maybe will get someone’s attention. Stephen Windwalker notes the book is still selling well.  Marion Maneker muses about how much easier it would be to match supply to demand if publishers took advantage of the eBook platform instead of delaying eBook versions.  The National Federation of the Blind settles with ASU. Amazon makes it easy to send support to Mercy Corps to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti. And finally, via Rick Limpert and Bufo Calvin, changes in Amazon’s self-publishing service, the Digital Text Platform.

Tech Tip – Via Andrys Basten, here’s the official word on whether you should turn your Kindle all the way off at the end of the day, or simply put it in sleep mode.

Interview – Harvey Chute,  webmaster and owner of the fast-growing Kindle Boards forum, sat down for a visit at CES in Las Vegas.  He was busy learning about all the rival eBook readers, and he told us about what surprised him most in the eBook TechZone.  Check out some of his photos and commentary on eBooks here.

Content – Thoughts on Michael Seringhaus’s recently published “E-Book Transactions: Amazon ‘Kindles’ the Copy Ownershhip Debate” in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.

… and lots of comments!

Click here to download this episode.

Be sure to check out my new podcast, The Reading Edge.  The first episode is up, an interview with a product expert for the Sony Reader.

News

Tech Tip – Can’t delete an item from your Kindle using with the 5-way controller? Rick Askenase to the rescue…

Interview – Not everyone with an eBook entrepreneurial mission is making eBooks. Patrick Mish, CEO of M-Edge Accessories, tells how he and his wife reacted early to the eBook boom by focusing with laser-like intensity on covers and other accessories.

Content – I can’t say I’ve managed to get this new source of newpaper content to actually work on my Kindle, but I’ve gotten close enough to know that PressDisplay is worth checking out.

Comments – Lots of great comments on covers, the mysterious 311 command, and more. Including an audio comment on content from Linda Hopkins.

Dan Weitman of NewMediazine did a thorough profile of The Kindle Chronicles.  Check it out here.

We’re headed back to CES for more interviews in the eBook TechZone.  I’ll be uploading them to the new podcast I’m creating, The Reader’s Edge, which will cover eBooks in a more general way than The Kindle Chronicles.  Stay tuned!

Click here to download this episode.

Joe Kralowetz, software director at enTourage Systems, demos what they’re calling the first dualbook – the eDGE, which has one eInk screen and one LCD screen. Interesting concept.

Note: the duplicate video player below enables the video to be part of my feed to iTunes. There must be a way to have only one view of the video player in these show notes, but I don’t have time to figure it out here at the Venetian this morning.

Neil Jones, Interead CEO

The Interead booth at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has a nice wall of “real” books and appearances by authors available on the COOL-ER reader.

Yesterday (January 7, 2010) I spoke first with Erin Mitchell, head of communications for Interead, who got my attention at the booth by asserting that it is a bad idea to have dictionaries built into eReaders, because you learn words better by looking them up in a paper dictionary.  That led to a lively conversation that I enjoyed.

Neil Jones, CEO and founder of Interead, was available later in the day for a chat about why he founded the company and his ambitions for its role in the fast-growing eBook industry.

Click here to download this episode.

Maureen Mellon, senior director of product marketing at Plastic Logic, tells about the development of the company’s new proReader Que, which made its debut at CES today.

The Plastic Logic booth was one of the hot destinations at the Consumer Electronics Show.  Attendees and media crowded around the company representatives as they gave demos of the reader, which is aimed primarily at business users.

Click here to download this episode.

This episode contains audio clips from last night’s opening keynote speech by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.  They let the blogger/press contingent in first, so we found ourselves in front row seats, which was great except that it meant it would not have been easy to slip out early, which we were tempted to do.  The photo was taken by Elias Tsang, who sat to my right.  He blogs at Rotpod.

The Microsoft presentation included comments about the new Blio eReader software and a couple of mentions of the Kindle.

Today I hope to get my hands on a Plastic Logic Que, an Alex, and maybe an eDGe.  Stay tuned!

Click here to download this episode.

Deb, Darlene & Claire

News – Eric Engleman of TechFlash reports that Amazon’s no-numbers announcements of record Kindle sales are getting on Wall Street’s nerves. One of his sources is this item from Reuters.

Tech Tip – It’s New Year’s Eve. Do you know the IP Address of your Kindle?  Thanks to Kevin Warner, I learn how to find it.

Tom

Interview – Darlene and her sister Deborah talk about how they share Kindle books using the same Amazon account.  Separately, I talk with Tom, the third Kindle buddy sharing Darlene’s account.  He lets us know that a Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 may not necessarily meet with your bed partner’s approval.

Content – On listener Allen MacDiarmid’s recommendation, I spent $4 to purchase Why Is This Hill So Steep?, a very promising analysis of the history (so far) of eBooks, by Steve Jordan.

Comments – Greg Montague on a new game for the Kindle via the 2.3 update, Kevin Warner’s Whispernet troubles in western Australia, Patrick Scott’s link to “And the word was KINDLE,” an excellent profile of the Kindle in FLYP featuring a video interview with Jeff Bezos, Jonathan Bloom on DTP, Jim Jones on the difference between the story and the book, Kathy on why she bought nooks instead of Kindles for her sons, and David DeMorest on why he sent his nook back unopened and kept the Kindle.

Next week – Darlene and I will be in Las Vegas to cover the International Consumer Electronics Show, checking out all the would-be Kindle Killers. Stay tuned!

Click here to download this episode.

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 – Len’s 2Doo list 2.o, with help from Larry Goss.  Also, your host proves to be a dim bulb in the case of a Mighty Bright clip-on light that wasn’t getting the nightime job done.

Interview – Eric Engleman, senior technology staff writer at TechFlash, pretty much covers just one company – Amazon. That gives him a lot of time for hard work and the development of  good sources, which gives him unusual insight into what’s ahead for the Kindle and its competitors.  We spoke by Skype/landline on December 15, 2009.

Content – Via Bufo Calvin’s blog, I learn that Barnes & Noble’s Fictionwise has a Kindle store!

Comments – Esmeralda deTrafford’s downloading woes down under, Bruce Bouchard on Babylon Dictionary software, Vern Elmore on eBeam, Ted Inoue on Kindle version 2.3 fonts (The one I use for a slightly darker and larger font on my Kindle-US is named update_CModBold_K2iv23.bin), Craig Findlay’s net additional cost in the U.K. to upgrade from a Sony PRS505 to a Kindle International is only 20 pounds sterling – thanks to eBay, Alex Bowman looks forward to the next TKC meetup, Craig Scarberry on Cory Doctorow, Al MacDiarmid’s trouble updating to 2.3, Peggy Poellot speaking up on behalf of the original Kindle, Blair Savin’s sunlight 2.3 problem, and Richard Fischer on the Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg.

Next Week: Will TKC’s staff succeed in their (actually, her) reasonable request for just one week off a year to celebrate Christmas?  Stay tuned….

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – Amazon is rolling out the ability to delete items from your Kindle archive. (Hat tip to Rick Askenase for spotting this one.)

Interview – Brent Evans of GeekTonic returns to the podcast (click here for his last visit, in March)  for a gabfest on our first impressions of the nook.  Click here for my unboxing video. We tried out the LendMe feature, which was cool, but agreed the Kindle is easier to use than the nook and works better.   Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal agreed, in print and video, as did David Pogue of The New York Times (print here, video here).

Content – Motoko Rich of The New York Times broke the news that The Atlantic has launched “the iTunes-ization of short fiction” with exclusive $3.99 Kindle versions of two short stories, “Shovel Kings” by Edna O’Brien and “Cynara” by Christopher Buckley.

Comment – The word from Guam.

Next Week’s Interview Guest - Eric Engleman, senior technology staff writer for TechFlash and the Puget Sound Business Journal, who writes a must-read blog all about Amazon.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip - Bruce Bouchard helps me find an old French dictionary and a Spanish-English dictionary as well as a 1913 Webster’s Unabridged and a very big Collaborative International Dictionary of English, courtesy of the MobileRead forum. These can all be made your primary Kindle dictionary. Another one I liked enough to pay money for: the Merriam-Webster French to English Translation Dictionary.  My dream English dictionary is not yet available for Kindle, but one day…

Interview (Begins at 17:00) – In a telephone interview on November 29, 2009,  Forrester Research’s eBook/eReader sage, Sarah Rotman Epps, talks about what’s ahead for the Kindle, the Nook, the looming Apple tablet, and much else.  Additional coverage of Sarah’s forecasts here.

Content - Opening this court file on my Kindle and DX in PDF and converted-to-Kindle formats.

Comments – Ann Miner’s link to Seattle Channel interview by Nancy Pearl with Paul Collins that wandered into a Kindle discussion at about 22 minutes (iTunes podcast link); Craig Scarberry’s recommendation of the excellent Books on the Nightstand podcast; Jean Remple on OCTO covers (more on covers here and here); Ann Miner with a good idea for Amazon; Marcy MacKenzie on a meetup with Bob Cope; an Amazon PR spokesman confirms the Facebook post stating that “a better way to organize your Kindle libraries” is coming; Jim Jones links to the Cushing Academy of Canada-Sony Reader style; Tom Lichty links to a charming coming-of-Kindle-age column by Margie Boulé in The Oregonian; Kevin Warner, a new Kindle owner from Down Under; Len Charnoff’s tutorial video on Inkmesh; audio comments from Pastor Mark Pierce of Church Requel and Bob Lee.

Next Week – Let’s try this again: Brent Evans of GeekTonic is scheduled to join me for first impressions of our yet-to-be shipped nooks.

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip – Chris Westergaard writes in praise of Stanza as an alternative to Calibre for managing eBooks on your Kindle.

Interview – David Weinberger, a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, interviewed Cory Doctorow recently on copyright issues and the future of the eBook. (Click here to download audio file of the Doctorow interview.) I caught up with David this morning via Skype for his experience with the Kindle, and for more of his thoughts about the issues raised by Doctorow. Click here for David’s Wikipedia entry and here for Cory’s.

Content – A few items currently on my Kindle: Rick Limpert’s blog, “My Little Place on the Interweb” (Click here for Rick’s profile of The Kindle Chronicles); Makers by Cory Doctorow;  Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You’re 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D.;  A Kindle World blog, Kindle Nation Daily and the Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg eBooks.

Comments – Firmware update and larger-font hack.

Next Week – I hope to interview Brent Evans of GeekTonic to share our first impressions of the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip – New Kindle features at Instapaper.

Interview – Brian Kellett (aka Tom Reynolds) of the Random Acts of Reality blog drives an ambulance for the London Ambulance Service, and he’s a recent convert to the Kindle.  He will soon begin another blog, Paper Not Included, focusing on eBooks in the U.K.  He is also the author of Blood, Sweat and Tea: Real-Life Adventures in an Inner-City Ambulance. (Also available as free TXT file at the Internet Archive.)

Content – A TeleRead post leads me to the Resource Shelf and then the Online Books Page and the Internet Archive, where I found an ePub edition of Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh. Can my Kindle read an ePub book? Yes, it can, thanks to Calibre.  Click here for Calibre video.  How would Edward Tufte explain all that’s out there for eBooks?

Comments – Lots of great comments, including the Kindle on an episode of “Castle” and an audio comment from Jim Jones.

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – I fail to find a way for my wife to delete titles from her Kindle archive.  Mary McManus addressed this in March.

Interview – James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, talks all things Kindle in an interview recorded on November 11.  His most recent book, Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China, is available for Kindle, as is Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel.  He cites this book as one that’s best read on paper, because its graphics matter.

Content – Len Charnoff tipped me off to a great eBook search engine, Inkmesh.  Highly recommended!  Click here for Modern Library’s “100 Best Novels” list.

Comments – yisroel parker with a link suggesting the Kindle International has better screen contrast than the discontinued Kindle 2, Paul Levin, Bob Hare, Alex Bowman on the new Kindle TV ad, Rick Limpert on Kindles for breakfast at the Four Seasons in Washington, D.C., Mary McManus, Jesslyn Hendricks,  Richard Fischer noting a price drop on Bufo Calvin’s “I Love My Kindle” blog, Kindle edition,  Vern Elmore with a Cole Haun Kindle cover recommendation, and Andrys Basten (welcome home, world traveler!) with a link about Cushing Academy’s new Kindle purchases.

Click here to download this episode.

Our conversation roamed far and wide, from the just-released Kindle for PC application (which Steve is showing off on his new netbook computer), Kindles in Congress, covers, newspapers, and bookstores.

Karen Hagglund was the genesis for the meetup. She suggested it, because she was visiting Boston from Michigan with her husband Michael for a medical conference. Thanks, Karen, and thanks to all for participating!

Note: In preparing the audio, I neglected to trim the endpoint, so there will be quite a bit of dead air after the conversation concludes at 51:45.

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tip – Via listener Mike Detlefsen, a handy way to find out at Amazon when a book was published, and an additional resource for similar information, Fantastic Fiction. Also, Andrei Pushkin updates his Unicode Font Hack for the Kindle International, and Al MacDiarmid turns me on to a font-enlarging hack from Ted Inoue.

Interview - Karen Oland of Books on the Knob highlights some non-Amazon sources for Kindle content, including Baen Books, Fictionwise, and Smashwords. Click here to subscribe to Karen’s blog on your Kindle.

Content – Sudoko for your Kindle from MobileReference, and a Kindle crossword puzzle from Puzux, “the first company to bring quality interactive content to Amazon’s Kindle.” For a look at what these offerings may foretell, I’m singing, “What’s it all about, Abhi?”

Comments – Steve Shank, Rick Askenase, Will DeLamater with a question from the Kindle Educators Group, Jim Jones, and Mike Detlefsen.  Also worth checking out: Will DeLamater’s thoughts on last week’s interview with Michael Koenig of the Darden School of Business.

Cambridge Meetup Scheduled – Please email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail if you can attend a Kindle Chronicles meetup Wednesday, November 11, at 2 p.m., probably at Darwins Ltd. in Cambridge, at 148 Mt. Auburn St.

Next week’s guest: I’m working on final scheduling for an interview with James Fallows, senior correspondent at The Atlantic and an insightful Kindle owner and observer.

Click here to download this episode.

News –

Tech Tip - My personal method for creating a To Do list within a book I’m reading on my Kindle.

Interview - Michael Koenig, director of MBA operations at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, has been a prime mover of Darden’s pilot program testing the Kindle DX in a test involving 60 MBA students. Click here for Darden’s very good BusinessCast, which interviewed Robert Carroway, associate dean for MBA education, in June after he and Koenig had attended the press conference unveiling the DX. Koenig makes clear that Amazon is serious about its test of the higher education market for Kindles, and that there are areas for improvement of the current design of the DX.  Did anyone say “folders?”

Content – Stephen Windwalker notes that the new Barbara Kingsolver novel, The Lacuna, is available for pre-order for $9. And Karen Oland reports the same is true for Pirate Latitudes by Michael Chrichton, due for release in hardcover and Kindle on Nov. 24th, and Under the Dome by Stephen King, set for Kindle release on Dec. 24th – more than a month after the hardcover release on Nov. 10. Grrrr.

Comments - Craig Findlay from Scotland, Steve Gold relays Kindle news from Japan via the Mainichi Daily News, James Palmer and Rick Limpert note USA Today’s coverage of the Cushing Academy digital library, Linda Hopkins on the Nook, Allen MacDiarmid on the large-fonts hack for Kindle 2, Jesslyn Hendrix on the 2.0.4 firmware, Ann Miner on Bookmarks Magazine, Melissa Gann and John Halkias on Kindle for PC (and Mac and Blackberry).

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At the end of this TKC Extra you will hear David Pogue’s charming musical sendup of Steve Jobs, titled “Don’t Cry for Me, Cupertino.” Click here for a video of the same performance.

Click here to download this TKC Extra.

News

News that broke too late to mention in the podcast:

Amazon announces Kindle for PC, to be followed soon by Kindle for Mac and Blackberry.

Tech Tip - Don’t try these keyboard shortcuts on your Kindle 2 or DX.  They only work on the lowly and much-loved original. Via MobileReference’s Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features etc.

Interview - Associate Prof. Jim Jones of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s College of Business Administration has some original ideas for research that someone (Jim himself?) could do on how the Kindle and other eBooks might affect educational outcomes. The interview followed Jim’s emailing me a New York Times blog piece titled “Does the Brain Like E-Books?”

Content - Jan Zlendich of The Kindle Reader blog points the way toward a trove of book titles at Amazon in Spanish and other non-English languages.  C’est magnifique! Wunderbar! Jan also notes the addition of several non-English newspapers available on Kindle, including the wonderfully named O Globo.  Click here to subscribe to Kindle Reader on your Kindle.

Comments -Clark Dimond also sent me the link to “Does the Brain Like E-Books.” Steve Gold alerted me in advance regarding the Talk of the Nation interview with Tina Brown (he’s the one whose name I couldn’t remember when I was recording). Mike Detlefsen on Firefox Calibre plug-in, Jesslyn Hendrix with info for Kindle newbies, Larry Goss on a workaround for My Clippings limitations, Brent Evans on the Nook.

Note: After recording this episode, I heard back from Prof. Christensen’s office that he would like to do an interview for the podcast. We are trying to schedule it for sometime in December, before I return to Denver.

I will be attending the Boston Book Festival tomorrow, hoping to record some sessions of interest to listeners of the podcast. If you’ll be there, please Twitter me -@LenEdgerly .

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Tech Tip - Courtesy of Mike Detlefsen, you might try Bookit, a FireFox plug-in that enables you to create eBooks with Calibre.  Not that I could get it to work, but you may be more successful.

Interview – Stefaan van Gerven is product manager for embedded speech at Nuance Communications, which provides the Text to Speech capability of the Kindle 2 and DX. I spoke with him in Belgium via Skype and phone on October 13, 2009 .  He tells how embedded speech works.  As a footnote, I discovered that my Kindle DX can pronounce Obama’s name correctly, but the Kindle 2 can’t.

Content - Check out Books on the Knob for bargain Kindle books and lots more.

Comments - Warwick Head on Oberon Design, James Garland, ProlificProgrammer, and Rick Askenase on Disney Digital Books.

Click here to download this episode.

News – A brief interview with Ian Freed, Amazon’s Kindle VP, on G-Day, October 7, when news broke of the Kindle’s global availability–in more than 100 countries, and an immediate $40 price cut on the Kindle 2, to $259. I heard about it first from Andrys Basten. The new Kindle International edition ($279) will begin shipping on October 19, and you can preorder now. Also, a Forbes.com article proclaims “The Coming e-Book Boom.”

Tech Tip – Opportunities and frustrations with your My Clippings file.

Interview – Becca Smith of Oberon Design in Santa Rosa, California, tells the how the Kindle has helped an artful leather- and pewter-working studio continue to thrive with the creation of classic Kindle covers.  She also offers intriguing insights into Kindle owners and how they differ from users of other eReaders. Also, a contest in which you can win an Oberon cover.

Content – Stephen Windwalker dons his wizard’s hat to look deeply into recent search info at Amazon.com. What he finds is a virtual ton of new, free public-domain books added to the Kindle Store.

Comments – Robi Drell, Esmeralda de Trafford, Pastor Mark Pierce, Rick Askenase, Jesslyn Hendrix with a “regular user’s” take on the Kindle International and Amazon’s cool “Kindle Love” sweepstakes contest, Dorian Nisinson, Werner Aguilar, Daniel Meyers with a link to Robin Young’s “Here and Now” interview with Dr. James Tracy, Peggy Poellot with first-hand evidence that Amazon is now doing it right when it discovers a book with copyright problems, Candy Yates, Len Charnoff, Marcy McKenzie, and an audio comment from Tom Lichty of Portland, Oregon.

Next Week’s Interview: Stefaan Van Gerven, product manager-embedded speech at Nuance Communications, which makes the Text to Speech system for the Kindle.

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News

Tech Tip – From Bret Ingerman at the Yahoo Kindle Korner group: move the 5-way controller to the left or right to skip behind or ahead by chapters.

Interview – My wife Darlene returns to the podcast on the occasion of her one-year anniversary as a Kindle reader.  Includes snippets from Day 1 when her Kindle 1 was unboxed, and an interview after her first month.  And now, she tells how the Kindle has completely changed the way she reads a series of books by the same author.  She also has a good idea for a hybrid Kindle/audiobook product and a tip for an un-tech-savvy reader like herself who may be thinking about trying a Kindle.

Content – Abhi’s painstaking list of Kindle books by independent authors. Suzanne Levin makes her Chick with Books available for Kindle subscription.

Your Comments – Ron Molnar on refurbished Kindles, Rick Askenase’s idea for reviewing blogs available on Kindle, Al MacDiarmid on the Belmont Public Library.  Audio comments from Clark Diamond and Jim Jones.

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News –

Tech Tip – Another handy little keyboard gem from Andrys Basten of Kindle World.

Interview - Brad Stone, technology reporter in The New York Times’s San Francisco bureau, talks about secrecy at Apple and Amazon, Dan Brown, a Kindle developer apps store, and the brilliant description his 22-year-old daughter had of his Kindle recently.

Content - Jan Zlendich of Kindle Reader highlights a promising list of new historical fiction titles for the Kindle.

Comments – Mary McManus on True Compass, Al MacDiarmid on Adrienne Cousins’s  cool set of web links for the Kindle, and Len Charnoff on the mysterious 2.0.3 firmware update to the Kindle 2.

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Click here to download a mobile version of this video.

Click here to download this video extra.

Tech Tip – Thanks to Bufo Calvin for last week’s tech tip.  And to Andrys Basten for an amplification that will help save you key strokes.

Interview – Maureen Connors, left in photo, is director of the Belmont, Mass., Public Library.  She and Emily Smith, technology librarian, told me all about their impressive Kindle experiment on a visit I made to the library on Sept. 16.

Content – It felt like Santa coming down the chimney Monday night when Amazon delivered my copy of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol overnight. And it’s an ironic week for Stephen Windwalker to promote the new paperback edition of his essential The Complete User’s Guide to the Amazing Kindle 2.

Comments – Jim Jones, Len Charnoff, Paul Levin, Allen MacDiarmid, Dorian Nisinson, Rick Askenase on the return of MobileReference to the Kindle Store, John C. Adamson, and Delores Martin.

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Click here to download this TKC Extra.

Tech Tip – a good way to save a few keystrokes when you are looking for things on your Kindle 2 or DX.

Interview – Dr. James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Mass., describes his secondary school’s commitment to 21st Century education and how it led naturally to a radical move to a nearly all-digital school library.

Content - Stephen Windwalker has a list of five books you can buy for your Kindle almost for free.

Click here to download this episode.

Tech Tips – New firmware is apparently out for the Kindle 2 and DX.  Click here for the Amazon source code notice.  Andrei Pushkin has the scoop at Blog Kindle, and they’ve been talking about it at KindleBoards since August 6.  But no one seems to know what the update does.  Do you?  If so, please leave a comment!  Also, a test drive of Abhi’s new Kindle Start Page Tool.

Abhi – Creator of the influential Kindle Review blog, the BookSummit Kindle social network, and the Bookmonk collection of handy Kindle tools.

Content – Yet another new work-in-progress by Abhi, the Kindle Page Number Tool, attempts to help you translate physical-book page numbers into locations on the Kindle.

Comments - Fred Zelders’s trip to France and how Pat Hawn’s Kindle helped her survive a computer virus.

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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.

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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!

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DATE CORRECTION – In the audio I say it’s October 14 instead of August 14.  Must have been a touch of fall in the air yesterday….

News – Sony announces (and the New York Times scoops) plans to convert Sony’s eBook store to the EPUB format by the end of the year. More coverage here , here, and here. Abhi says “wow,” Paul Biba says, “fantastic,” and David Rothman chides the Times for underplaying the DRM part of the story. Will Amazon hop on the EPUB bandwagon? Also, via Andrys Basten, news of a generous couple’s donation of 10 Kindles for an experiment at the Belmont, Mass., public library.

Tech Tip – How to buy and feed a Kindle if you don’t live in the U.S.  You might check out the “Using Kindle Outside North America” thread on the Amazon forum, as well as several links offered by a listener.  Also, Len Charnoff has done a helpful tutorial video inspired by last week’s tech tip on Zoolert.

Interview – Steve Shank of Arizona is a Kindle fan with 35 years of experience introducing new technology, dating back to his days as an early employee of Apple.

Content – Stephen Windwalker’s useful new Kindle guide, Free: How to Get Millions of Free Books, Songs, Podcasts, Periodicals and Free eMail, Facebook, Twitter and Wireless Web with your Amazon Kindle, contains a way to download well-formated Project Gutenberg titles directly to your Kindle, using “Magic Catalog.”  Steve is offering free chapters here.

Comments – Peggy Poellot, Dan Meyers, Larry Goss, and Charles Tay on last week’s Nicholson Baker’s interview, a hack to change the Kindle’s fonts, Len Charnoff’s poignant tale of The Family Kindle, and comments on the Podcamp Boston 4 session.

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An active participant in the front row of the room was John Elder Robison, author of Look Me in the Eye, published on paper and Kindle edition by Random House.  The audience comprised 30-40 people by my estimate.

I’ve used a photo taken of me by Steve Garfield from an early Podcamp Boston, courtesy of SteveGarfield.com.

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News

Tech Tip – Zoolert really works! It checked every five minutes for four months and finally enabled me to purchase Power Rules for $9.99.

Interview – Nicholson Baker, author of “A New Page: Can the Kindle Really Improve on the Book?” in the Aug. 3 issue of The New Yorker, says he expected to like his new Kindle more than he did, and that led to a highly literate takedown of the device and his surprising preference for reading in bed with an iPod Touch. Also, what Baker has learned about the Kindle and the community of Kindle pioneers after publication of his piece.  Click here for a list of his books available at the Kindle store.

Content – Shmoop this week announced 200 new textbook titles for the Kindle. Also, a highly regarded translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy is now available on the Kindle.

Comments – Howard Dunlavy, Tom Lichty, Allen MacDiarmid, Charles Tey Tay, and an audio comment from Kes Woodward.

I’ve submitted a panel proposal for South by Southwest Interactive 2010, and when the PanelPicker goes live August 17 through September 4, I’d appreciate your support for the topic, which is “Taming the Kindle – Guidance for Readers and Authors.”  Thanks!

Click here to download this episode

Amazon's Kindle VP Ian Freed

News – Item 1: My telephone interview yesterday July 29 (audio incorrectly has it as “yesterday.”) with Justin D. Gawronski, a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed against Amazon in the wake of the Orwell snafu.  Comments on the lawsuit by Andrys Basten and Abhi. Item 2: Clues to what improvements may lie ahead for the Kindle, gleaned from an online Amazon survey. Item 3:  Nicholson Baker pens a mainly unfavorable review of the Kindle in this week’s edition of The New Yorker. Click here for his five books at the Kindle Store. Click here for the book that finally made his Kindle disappear, just like Jeff Bezos promised.

Tech Tips – Courtesy of Larry Goss, how to do math on your Kindle 1 or 2 and how to go directly to web links from a document on your Kindle home screen.

Interview – Amazon’s Kindle VP Ian Freed looks back on the first
618 days since the launch of the Kindle.  He considers the elements of the Kindle’s “flow” state of reading.  And he reveals that, although he and his team think about an international debut for the Kindle “all the time,” he can’t say it’s coming soon.

Kindle Content – How to find the best Anthony Trollope novels and then download this one from Project Gutenberg using the free GutenMark prettifier tool, courtesy of David Emberson’s excellent guide, The Kindle 2 Cookbook.  Highly

Justin D. Gawronski, plaintiff

recommended.  The Kindle Quote this week is the conclusion of Nicholson Baker’s “A New Page: Can the Kindle Really Improve on the Book?” in the August 3 edition of The New Yorker.

Comments -   Paul Levin worries about Kindle bashing. Suzanne Levin (I think they’re related) of the Chick with Books blog gets her happy hands on a DX. Jesslyn Hendrix reports on a major upgrade to Kovid Goyal’s free eBook library program, Calibre. Mary McManus lusts for the rumored Apple tablet especially if it will include a Pixel Qi screen. An audio commenter from Oregon urges you to consider asking for a price rebate on the Kindle 2 even if you bought one more than a month before Amazon dropped the price by $60.

Next week’s guest? -  With help from my contact at The New Yorker, I am inviting Nicholson Baker for an interview.  I hope he accepts, because I’ve admired his writing for a long time, and I’d like to learn if he’s still reading his Kindle after finishing work on the review heard round the Kindlesphere.

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2 UPDATES (7/26/09) – Courtesy of Andrys Basten – thanks, Andrys!

1.CORRECTION: Plastic Logic will be going with AT&T (not Verizon, as I say in the podcast) as it has European GSM while Verizon has only CDMA.  Amazon is with Sprint (not AT&T).

2. “The rest of the story” – The student mentioned by Mignon Fogarty in her podcast is Justin Gawronski, as reported by The New York Times.  Andrys tweeted that someone (NYT’s Brad Stone) should let Justin know that he should check his “My Clippings” file as that has all book notes duplicated (though interspersed with notes from other books, but she recommended a Word macro that will put the My Clipping file’s notes in order by book). Andrys was talking to another blogger on his website (and she wrote about this here) and who should come onto the site while they were discussing the My Clippings file but Justin!  I love how Andrys put this as follows in her email this morning: “Only on the Internet. It was a like a play, in which people come to the door at just the right time. He checked his Kindle file, and sure enough the notes were there. Afterward, the blogger (Ken Kennedy) helped him get another copy of that book that was legal.  So Justin is set.”  Click here for the Ken Kennedy post and don’t miss the comments, wherein Justin makes his dramatic appearance.

————————————-

News – Jeff Bezos posts a classy apology for Amazon’s Orwellian moment, earning a kudo from Andrys Basten.  Mignon Fogarty in her excellent new podcast, Behind the Grammar, notes that one of the retracted Orwell books had been annotated by a student for school. Oops! Barnes & Noble teams up with Plastic Logic to challenge the Kindle. New evidence via USA Today that the Kindle is seeping into the mainstream.

Tech Tip – Note: The promised trio of tech tips turns out to be only a duo on the podcast, proving that I should have paid more attention to the missing second one from Larry Goss – about how to use your Kindle 1 or 2 to do math tricks.  I’ll be sure to include it next week. The tech tips actually related on the podcast are 1) How to submit your blog for Kindle subscriptions, and 2) and how to read word definitions in larger font on the Kindle 2 or DX, courtesy of Allen MacDiarmid.

Interview – Leading tech blogger and columnist Mike Elgan returns to the podcast to give an engaging, insightful update on the State of the Kindle. Click here for his last visit to the show, on January 2, 2009. He’s also a lively and informative Twitterer.

Content – Check out Jan Zlendich’s excellent blog, The Kindle Reader, for frequently updated tips on good reading for your Kindle.  The Kindle Quote is from my sister’s new creation, Stephanie’s Bible Blog, newly available for subscription at the Kindle store.

Audio Comments – Stephanie Bowe, Joshua Tallent, Linda Hopkins, Rick from North Reading, Mass., Peggy Poellot, and Bryan Person.

Email Comments – Stephen Windwalker (a guest on the show here and here)  and Robert W. Rutkowski.

Note: I’m sorry this episode is a day late, the first time I’ve missed my Friday deadline since I began the Kindle Chronicles on July 26, 2008.  Thanks to a true genius at the Cambridgeside Apple Store, Justin Granger, the recording of my interview with Mike Elgan was rescued this morning from the crashed hard drive on my MacBook Air.  Thanks, also, to my mother for loaning me her MacBook Air for a few days, so I could complete this episode and upload it.

Cheers, Len Edgerly

Click here to download this episode.

I had a terrific interview on the hard drive with tech blogger and columnist Mike Elgan, along with some fine anniversary audio comments from listeners.

I wanted to put something on the feed to let you know what’s up, and my wife’s Mac Mini was available to do the job.  So that’s the story of the one-year un-anniversary of the Kindle Chronicles.  Thank you all for listening and supporting the show for the past year.  There’s nothing left to do tonight except to curl up in my leather chair with my Kindle and read today’s edition of The Economist.

Cheers,

Len

Click here to download this episode.

News

Tech Tip – A comparison of Instapaper and Hatchetapp and how to move web content to your Kindle for free, with a hat tip to Heather Hollick. You can follow Hatchetapp on Twitter here, and Instapaper here.  For an earlier tech tip on Instpaper, click here. For PC users looking for a way to download web content as PDFs, try this, this, or this – courtesy of Linda Hopkins. Or, from Bob Hare, try this, this, or this.  For my testing, I used this article from the New York Review of Books.

Interview – Suzanne Levin, creator of the Chick with Books blog, comes out of the closet as a book AND Kindle lover.

Kindle Content – The Works of John Witherspoon and a whole lot of free Kindle books, courtesy of Stephen Windwalker’s Kindle Nation. Plus (not mentioned on the podcast), Free really IS free for a limited time on Kindle. Click here for Steve’s “Religion and Spirituality” freebies.

Your Comments – Greg Montague, Woody Woodward on Yahoo Mobile, Dan Barnett on Blackboard’s new Kindle link, Jake Pippin, Rebecca Robertson, Lu Hood, and Blair Slavin.

Click here to download this episode.

News - Amazon lowers the price of the Kindle by $60 to $299, citing lower production costs. Or was it to maintain dominance of the eBook market?  If you bought a Kindle just before the decrease, read this.  Abhi thinks Amazon has sold at least 1 million Kindles so far. He is not alone.  Will future Kindle books contain ads?  An advert hints at a U.K. Kindle launch soon. And, now you can Kindle the Muse…

Tech Tip - How to put a To Do list on your Kindle. (Thanks, Allen MacDiarmid.)

Interview - Tom Weber, editor of SmartMoney.com , sees the Kindle blurring the lines among traditional journalistic forms.

Quote – An experiment using the Kindle DX in a Board meeting for the New England Foundation for the Arts.  Not recommended.

Comments - Mary McManus, Peggy Poellot, and audio in Spanish from Esmeralda de Trafford.

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News

Tech Tip -  From Marcy McKenzie, how to read your calendar on the DX. Also, how to decide whether to ask Amazon for a replacement for your Kindle 2 to try for better screen contrast.

Interview – Kesler Woodward, my friend the painter and omnivorous reader from Fairbanks, Alaska, challenges my oft-expressed preference for reading on a Kindle versus print.  You can subscribe on your Kindle to his “Painting in the North” Blog here.

Quote – “The Perfection of Sheep,” an original poem from A Poet’s Progress at Bennington – Vol. 1 by Len Edgerly. Kindle formatting by Joshua Tallent.  Recommended by Andrys Basten of A Kindle World.

Comments – Cindy Brooks, Lu Hood, Mike Malloy, Peggy Poellot, Rob Rutkowski, Allen MacDiarmid, and an audio comment in French from Gille Brunet.

Interview Guest Next Week – SmartMoney Editor Tom Weber, author of “The Real Genius of the Kindle? The Return of Unitasking.”

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Intro

News -   Abhi analyzes a recently approved patent for an amazing new Kindle pen, via TechFlash. Steve Bain of Kindle Zen finds evidence of WiFi readiness in photos of a torn-apart Kindle DX. Plus, Western States Arts Federation asks me to demo a DX as a possible tool to help state arts agencies go paperless for grant applications.

Tech Tips -  an nice viewing improvement at Kindle.Amazon.com and a reminder from Stephen Windwalker at Kindle Nation on how to do a hard reboot when scary stuff happens on your Kindle.

Interview – Andrys Basten, creator of the A Kindle World blog.  UPDATE: Click here for Andrys’s post on Ted Inoue’s hack to improve contrast on the Kindle 2.

Quote – A book that has rekindled my commitment to regular exercise.

Comments – Allen MacDiarmid, Bob Hare, and Greg Keck.

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6/27/09 UPDATE: I discovered editing errors in the original audio file for this episode, so I have corrected them and uploaded a new version of the file. My apologies for the glitch!

News

Tech Tip -  Via Andrei Pushkin, how to turn your Kindle DX into a calculator. (My interview with Andrei in Episode 42.)

Interview – Will DeLamater, creator of the EduKindle blog, shares his first impressions of the DX and looks ahead to its success in the education sector.

Quote – From the New International Version of The Bible, Matthew Chapter 6.

Comments -Marcie McKenzie, Dan Meyers, Yisroel Parker, Joe Clark and an audio comment from Pastor Mark Pierce, creator of the Church Requel podcast.

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