Top 10 Kindle Irritations

[dragonette]

Hey all,
I have a K3 and it is possible to do a multiple word look-up from within a book. I am not very good at explanations, but I will try...

1. Use the five-way to put the cursor in front of the first word.
2. Press down as if highlighting.
3. Press right on the five-way to highlight the second word, but do not complete an actual highlight.
4. Press the space bar to make the words appear in a box at the bottom of the screen.
5. The bottom of the new box will give options: Cancel---Clear---Save & Share---Save Note--- and then a little arrow pointing to the right. Go down to this line and keep clicking to the right until the -Dictionary- option appears and is highlighted.
6. Press center of the five-way and the dictionary will open on the definition.
7. Press the Back button to return to your book.

I know this more tedious than simply moving the cursor up to the front of the word, but it works for me.

[NVash]

Wait, the free 3G isnt free? Then why am I paying an extra $50? Whats the difference between the $139 version and the $189 version?

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Vandy

Hello, All.

Very honestly, my NUMBER ONE (complaint? irritation? wish?) enhancement to the Kindle 3 would be in giving use a much more robust collections management function.

I am a nester -- no, not someone who is comfortable in always staying at home. I like to keep my "stuff" be it files, documents, music, books, etc. nested in a folder structure of MY choosing.

You can add a single book to multiple collections. It works like the smart tags in Gmail. I really prefer this set-up to set folders because this way the book can reside in many different "folders" without creating a copy of it.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by NVash

Wait, the free 3G isnt free? Then why am I paying an extra $50? Whats the difference between the $139 version and the $189 version?

The article author says:

“Free 3G Wireless!” boasts Amazon in its Kindle advertising. This would be wonderful if true. The delivery of books over 3G is free if you buy books from the Amazon Kindle store. They’re beamed to you wherever you are via Amazon’s Whispernet service. If you send your own books to the Kindle via Whispernet, you’ll be charged 15 cents per megabyte. Sending files is done by sending the ebook as an email attachment to a special email address Amazon gives you.

Yes, you can transfer books for free using the USB cable, and, yes, you can send the book to an alternative email address Amazon give you that will only send the file when you’re using wifi (and therefore for free). But the fact remains that the “Free 3G” isn’t actually free. If you intend to use your Kindle to do little more than read Gutenberg titles, and rarely if ever buy anything via the Kindle store, then the 3G model is a waste of money.

But yes, it's essentially free. And if you use the web browser on 3g, that is also free. So it only costs if you're using 3g to email yourself documents. I just email myself documents to my @free.kindle.com address and it delivers it to me when I'm using wi-fi for free.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by queentess

You can add a single book to multiple collections. ...

Agreed. I find being able to put a single book in to multiple parallel collections vastly superior to a simplistic system based on a tree of folders. True, I would like to be able to nest collections, but while its a choice of one or the other I prefer the current Kindle approach.

With Collections, I can have genre based groups (SF, Mystery, ...), length based groups (Novel/Novella, Short Story, Flash, ...) and have a "My Shortlist". A single book can easily be in multiple Collections. It can't be done at all on a simple system based on a folder tree.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

I've got a few different dictionaries on mine and I swap out the "default dictionary" depending on what I am reading at the time. Although it is true that you can't highlight a phrase to look up, often if you highlight the key word in the phrase and open the dictionary you will see that phrase in one of the definitions.

I have a few dictionaries on mine as well, but it is just that swapping them is kind of tedious. I wish that you could have a shortcut to other dictionaries when you are not satisfied with the definition you get in the default dic.

[Vandy]

@queentess
@dwig
Thank you both for your thoughtful and well written responses. I must say you have presented an interesting concept - one that I shall have to give thought.

I must agree that keeping duplicate copies of the same ebook is a waste. I will comment that it is more important to me to have my ebooks in a single genre category than to "spread" them across a number of genres. Of course, with my method I would have one book in one sub-folder under one genre folder.

EDIT
I thought some more on your concept and have a few queistions for you.

I would assume, given the "flat" nature of Kindle collections, that you have separate collections for each genre (Fiction - Science, Fiction - Non, Fiction - Historical, etc.) as well as "specialty" collections such as collections named Novel/Novella, Short Stories, (what is Flash?) as well as (I would assume) collections named Author, Title, ... Is this a correct assumption?

Finally, are there other "specialty" collection types that I should consider?

Thank you, in advance, for your replies.
END EDIT

Again, than you for your replies.

Regards,

Vandy

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Vandy

I am a nester -- no, not someone who is comfortable in always staying at home. I like to keep my "stuff" be it files, documents, music, books, etc. nested in a folder structure of MY choosing. For example, I would LOVE to be able to do:

<snip>

I completely agree with this one! But it's not only the Kindle who has this problem, the Sony also doesn't nest.

[HappyMartin]

Originally Posted by NVash

Wait, the free 3G isnt free? Then why am I paying an extra $50? Whats the difference between the $139 version and the $189 version?

Perhaps this is just an issue in South Africa but "free books" cost $2 and we pretty much have to add the same $2 to every book price for the "free" delivery. Web browsing is disabled in South Africa.

[shanghaichica]

Most of these points are not valid.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Vandy

I thought some more on your concept and have a few queistions for you.

I would assume, given the "flat" nature of Kindle collections, that you have separate collections for each genre (Fiction - Science, Fiction - Non, Fiction - Historical, etc.) as well as "specialty" collections such as collections named Novel/Novella, Short Stories, (what is Flash?) as well as (I would assume) collections named Author, Title, ... Is this a correct assumption?

Finally, are there other "specialty" collection types that I should consider?

I organize my Kindle the same way I keep my shelves at goodreads.com: sci-fi, fantasy, misc non-fiction, crafting, parenting, young adult, short story, read, to-review, bookclub.

I don't bother making a collection for each author because there's a sort that already does that. Granted, sometimes the sort doesn't work because publishers aren't consistent in their naming, so sometimes it shows up under the author's first name, and sometimes under the author's last name. If I'm looking for something by a particular author, I just search "My Items" for the author's name.

[EricDP]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

But Library books are DRM'd. Given that I have yet to see an ereader support ADE and another form of DRM...

nook supports ADE DRM and Barnes & Noble DRM.

The real reason Kindle doesn't (and won't) support ePUB is because Amazon doesn't sell the Kindle to make money on Kindle sales; they sell it to increase book sales. And they don't sell ePUB format books.

If one day they move to ePUB format books, then it will support ePUB (and probably an Amazon-proprietary ePUB DRM). Until then, there is no reason for them to support ePUB, and a reason not to: perceived lost sales.

The funny thing is, if it did support ePUB, I would have considered it, and probably would have bought more Amazon books. Right now, I avoid Amazon like the plague, because my reader (nook) doesn't support Amazon format. I only buy from Amazon if I can't find it anywhere else and I can confirm (by downloading a sample) that the book can have DRM stripped and format converted to ePUB easily.

[ProfCrash]

I thought that samples were not DRMed?

[kevinp]

Originally Posted by EricDP

nook supports ADE DRM and Barnes & Noble DRM.

The real reason Kindle doesn't (and won't) support ePUB is because Amazon doesn't sell the Kindle to make money on Kindle sales; they sell it to increase book sales. And they don't sell ePUB format books.

If one day they move to ePUB format books, then it will support ePUB (and probably an Amazon-proprietary ePUB DRM). Until then, there is no reason for them to support ePUB, and a reason not to: perceived lost sales.

The funny thing is, if it did support ePUB, I would have considered it, and probably would have bought more Amazon books. Right now, I avoid Amazon like the plague, because my reader (nook) doesn't support Amazon format. I only buy from Amazon if I can't find it anywhere else and I can confirm (by downloading a sample) that the book can have DRM stripped and format converted to ePUB easily.

If they did sell epub, they would have a ton more sales! They would have to either do away with the DRM (publishers would object) or release their code so all the 'little guy' ereader makers could support their DRM scheme. Amazon bought Mobipocket many years ago and have just kept the Mobi format since it already existed.

There's tools available to easily convert from Mobi to epub and vice-versa, so what's the big deal anyway?

[EricDP]

Originally Posted by kevinp

They would have to either do away with the DRM (publishers would object) or release their code so all the 'little guy' ereader makers could support their DRM scheme.

Not really. B&N ePUBs use B&N DRM, which is only readable on the nook. I've heard they did release it and some newer readers might support it, but they don't have to if they want it to only work on the nook (or, in this case, Kindle).

Originally Posted by kevinp

There's tools available to easily convert from Mobi to epub and vice-versa, so what's the big deal anyway?

Amazon books aren't all MOBI, some are topaz, which is proprietary format and I haven't (yet) found a way to convert them (I can strip the DRM, though - a start).

Also, the formats have different features. For example, in ePUB you can float images and tables beside text, but in MOBI you cannot. So conversions lose formatting, which, in some cases, leaves the book unreadable. In one case I had, the book had little 'tips' occasionally on the right. After a conversion, the tips were interleaved inside the text. It was terrible.