Kindle tips and tricks

Now that I have gotten my fresh unbroken kindle 3 in, loaded with all my books, and organized into collections, I have been testing out the features I have waited so long to tinker with. Like reviews and twitter after you have finished a book, or my favorite the RSS feeds. That's right, I be reading yo bloggin on my kindle! (ahem, sorry for the pirate talk…)If you're looking to read your RSS feeds on your latest generation Kindle here is a quick quote how-to I found.

"First, log into your Google Reader account and use the awkward cursor control to navigate your feed list. Then hit the "right" cursor to enter the news articles themselves. Then comes the trick: just press "f" to enter full-screen mode, instantly turning your Kindle into a custom newspaper. You can scroll through the article with the Kindle's page-turn buttons, and – using Google Reader's keyboard commands – press "j" and "k" to page through articles."

And if that's not easy enough for you, just point your kindle browser at nowsci.com. They have simplified the reader so that it is easier for you to read and navigate. I bookmarked it along with the google reader and am currently testing the pros and cons of each site.

Then there is the picture viewer you can access:

• Plug your Kindle 3 into the computer with the USB.
  
• Open the Kindle drive that is now in your displayed with your removable drives, in the root (i.e. not in another folder) create a folder called "pictures" within that folder you can create a number of other folders, then add your images/pictures to this (or these) folders. I've only tried Jpegs and they work fine.
  
• Once finished safely unplug the Kindle and then press "alt" and "z" on the home screen, this will refresh the screen and add your new folders.
  
• Click on the folder/collection and Image Viewer should launch.
  
• Once in the viewer the following control options are available:
  
  • f = full-screen
    
  • q = zoom in
    
  • w= zoom out
    
  • e = reset zoom
    
  • c = actual size
    
  • r = rotate
    
  • nav controller = pan
    

Finally there's a few hotkeys everyone should know about:

• alt + shift + G = screenshot
  
• alt + G = screen refresh
  
• alt + home = Kindle Store
  
• alt + top row of letters on keyboard = numbers 1-9
  

and while reading a book:

• alt + B = add and remove bookmarks
  
• shift + Sym = Turn text to speech on and off
  
• set cursor down the page to start text to speech from there
  
• right arrow on nav controller = skip to next chapter
  
• left arrow on nav controller = skip to previous chapter
  

 

Omigosh, I love this device! I still use Mobipocket Creator to convert my word files into readable e-book format. This helps a ton when working on my WIP. There is another converter called Calibre, but I've not tinkered with that program enough to give much advise.
 

How bad is kindle love in this family? Well the other night after telling my daughter I loved her, she tells me she loves me more than I love kindle. Yeah, it's that bad.

I hope this post helps rekindle a kindle lover's heart, or inspires a non-kindle owner to go out and get one.

Off to go read some blogs on my awesome kindle!

Ta!

A.McBay