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Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

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Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

#51

Post by MichaelSalib »

kroger wrote: post #35
pmjordan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, thanks. As far as I can tell, it's possible to convert PDFs to the Kindle's native format, any idea if this improves the situation? I've noticed the PDF delay on the iPad as well, although it's not sufficient to bother me. I'm reluctant to use the illuminated screen for extended periods of reading though, especially in the evening.

"Interesting, thanks. As far as I can tell, it's possible to convert PDFs to the Kindle's native format, any idea if this improves the situation?" Yes. I use mobipocket creator [1] to convert pdf files to the mobi format. It's free and works pretty well for documents with one column. For papers with multiple columns (like those from journals) I use papercrop [2] to slice the pdf in smaller parts so I can read in my (…

Papercrop looks really intersting...does it store text as text within the output PDF or does it just convert chunks of the page to an image?

Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

#52

Post by MichaelSalib »

aik wrote: post #50
MichaelSalib wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but remember, your Kindle is a much bigger threat to the navigation system than the 30 or 40 cell phones in people's pockets that they forgot to turn off. Plus, reading a Kindle might distract you in an emergency, which is why they don't let anyone read books or magazines during takeoff and landing either.

I have never been told to put down my book or magazine during takeoff or landing, or ever heard an attendant ask anyone else to.

Neither have I. That's why the flight attendants insisting that I have to put away my Kindle during takeoff and landing "to make sure I'm not distracted during these safety-critical times" is so absurd.

Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

#53

Post by proee »

jemfinch wrote: post #18

I just wish flight attendants would stop making me turn it off for takeoff and landing.

You should make a fake book cover that you can slide your kindle into. If you hide the bezel and only show the e-ink screen up flush with a page-cutout it just might work!

good luck!

Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

#54

Post by kroger »

MichaelSalib wrote: post #51
kroger wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Interesting, thanks. As far as I can tell, it's possible to convert PDFs to the Kindle's native format, any idea if this improves the situation?" Yes. I use mobipocket creator [1] to convert pdf files to the mobi format. It's free and works pretty well for documents with one column. For papers with multiple columns (like those from journals) I use papercrop [2] to slice the pdf in smaller parts so I can read in my (…

Papercrop looks really intersting...does it store text as text within the output PDF or does it just convert chunks of the page to an image?

It just convert the chunks to an image (the final format is a PDF as well). The result is a little bit hacky, but it works. If your goal is to catch up with your reading pile, so it may work for you. On the other hand, if you need/want to go over every single detail (tables, formulas, etc), it may not work so well. As usual, YMMV.

[Actually, mobipocket creator seems to be not too bad at converting multi-column documents. The problems I had converting academic papers were tables and math, and not the fact they had more than one column]

Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

#55

Post by jemfinch »

lallysingh wrote: post #36
MichaelSalib wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but remember, your Kindle is a much bigger threat to the navigation system than the 30 or 40 cell phones in people's pockets that they forgot to turn off. Plus, reading a Kindle might distract you in an emergency, which is why they don't let anyone read books or magazines during takeoff and landing either.

I was under the impression that the cell phone shutoff was to prevent the towers from freaking out about dozens of phones coming in & out of range at 650mph+.

I've heard that claim but I'm unsure why airlines would inconvenience their customers for cell providers.

Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

#56

Post by anateus »

mquander wrote: post #22
MichaelSalib wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just speaking to a friend of mine who is a EE/physicist who had just returned a Kindle DX two days ago. He got it specifically to read IEEE journal papers and found that it was unacceptable. His specific beef wasn't with the e-ink or the e-ink page turn speed but rather with the huge delay spent processing PDFs when you turned pages. In other words, page turn delays were no problem when reading a text only docu…

Wow, thanks a lot. I was strongly considering purchasing a DX for exactly this, after trying a Nook and finding the screen to be too small for most PDFs.

I have a DX that I use for just that purpose (reading journals and textbooks).

Yes, the two column text runs a bit small, but I haven't had any problems. Check to see how well it works for you. The DX crops out borders on good copies of journal articles (if it's a scanned image sometimes scanning artifacts cause it to miss correct margins).

PDF speed has recently improved, though since the person above returned it just a bit ago, that was probably too slow for him. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the PDF speed. I find the speed to be consistent even with very large scanned-image PDF files (e.g. 300 page book with each page being an image, rather than vector text). Journal articles tend to flip pages only a tad slower than native ebooks.

The most recent firmware version for the DX (2.5) has finally introduced PDF zooming and panning, which has worked for me pretty decently though I haven't had to use it much (once zoomed in to read fine print on a graph)

Aaand that's been my experience.

Re: Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

#57

Post by ableal »

brk wrote: post #7
tvon wrote: post #3

Some records are easier to break than others. Of course, if I read more I'd probably have one by now, at $190 for the free 3G model it's very tempting. Relatedly, has anything come of the SDK?

Relatedly, has anything come of the SDK? Two apps that I'm aware of, a hangman app and a "find the words you can make out of this random block of characters". Nothing too ground breaking, but it's gotten me thinking about some reader-centric style apps, including things that pull references or quotes from a users' Kindle library.

Not available worldwide, by the way. URLs:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93450

http://www.kindlepost.com/2010/08/free-games-on-kindle.html

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P37FW0

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P38AAG

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