Seems like I'd have to jailbreak my phone then put some buggy software on it to do that, and I don't want to go there.
― Blitzkrieg Bop Gun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 15 March 2011 00:36 (thirteen years ago) link
4.3 has hotspot in it (3GS or better)
― stet, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 01:19 (thirteen years ago) link
Thanks. Just downloaded 4.3, but in fact Personal Hotspot only comes on iPhone 4.
― Blitzkrieg Bop Gun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 15 March 2011 03:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Really? I've got it on this 3Gs. That's dev build tho, poss different. Swizz if so, because it works fine.
― stet, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 03:34 (thirteen years ago) link
Yes, looks like it was on there for a while and then they removed it when it went production.
― Blitzkrieg Bop Gun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 15 March 2011 14:52 (thirteen years ago) link
magic catalog has magically stopped working for me
every time I click one of the links it says kindle unable to open the page :/
― cozen, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 22:00 (thirteen years ago) link
magic catalog has magically stopped working for meevery time I click one of the links it says kindle unable to open the page :/
ditto :(
― FUN FUN FUN FUN (gbx), Tuesday, 15 March 2011 22:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Think gutenberg is up and down.
― Blitzkrieg Bop Gun (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 15 March 2011 22:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Also, after one instance of navigation error to the Gutenberg pages, the error page tends to redisplay with new links clicked, *but* it still DLs the new book asked for. Well, on mine at least.
― anatol_merklich, Wednesday, 16 March 2011 14:06 (thirteen years ago) link
gutenberg is/was moving servers, there's a note on the homepage.
have just installed KindleForPC under wine on linux laptop. just for larks, really. but the ease of clicking gutenburg links and having them download and pop up in the reader means i already have 12 things to read.
― koogs, Wednesday, 16 March 2011 15:52 (thirteen years ago) link
This thing is amazing. Suddenly the Kobo feels like a neglected stepchild.
― Head goes goes goes (Schlafsack), Monday, 21 March 2011 05:29 (thirteen years ago) link
I haven't used this in ages. I think I read one book from it. Maybe I'll just give mine away.
― Nathalie (stevienixed), Monday, 21 March 2011 09:44 (thirteen years ago) link
It either suits you or it doesn't. Nothing beats it for travelling though.
― Head goes goes goes (Schlafsack), Monday, 21 March 2011 21:49 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm considering this, is there anything i should know, or alternatives anyone would rep for?
Looking at the 3g etc model, if they ship to ireland, which can be tricky for electricals with amazon sometimes
― the salmon of procrastination (darraghmac), Saturday, 9 April 2011 21:00 (thirteen years ago) link
I can't rep for anything else anymore. Kindles are the shit.
Unless you really need to (a) urgently buy books on the go and (b) urgently sync your current page with Amazon on the go every time you turn a page, get the wifi. If your phone has a hotspot feature or if you have regular exposure to a wifi hotspot, get the wifi. If you don't have a wifi thingy at home and you don't know wtf I'm talking about, get the 3G.
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 9 April 2011 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
i have a wifi thingy at home, but am likely to be moving in the near future and wifi status is uncertain going fwd.
i do however have an awesome gf (whom i plan to be taking with me) who doesn't mind getting the 3G model for me.
ta for confirmation, i was 90% certain anyway
― the salmon of procrastination (darraghmac), Saturday, 9 April 2011 21:49 (thirteen years ago) link
how is the quality of free public domain books on the kindle?
― three megabytes of hot RAM (abanana), Saturday, 9 April 2011 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
― Yossarian's sense of humour (NotEnough), Saturday, 9 April 2011 22:12 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.freekindlebooks.org/MagicCatalog/magiccatalog.html <--- 456735725186782 times better
Quality is reasonable ime
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 9 April 2011 22:26 (thirteen years ago) link
I should explain that link.
1. Open the link in your Kindle's browser2. Let it save the file as a book on yer Kindle3. Open the book (called "Magic Catalogue something-or-other")4. Search for a book or author5. Click the link to that book and it will download the book to your Kindle
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 9 April 2011 22:31 (thirteen years ago) link
the display on my kindle broke several weeks ago (by "broke" i mean, 2/3 of the screen was stuck looking like a scrambled cable channel). got another one under the warranty but after a few weeks the new one's screen is broken as well. i believe i can get yet another replacement. i think the culprit is my tendency to carelessly tossing my backpack around.
― blank, Saturday, 9 April 2011 22:47 (thirteen years ago) link
have you considered not tossing your backpack around
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 9 April 2011 22:50 (thirteen years ago) link
no
― blank, Saturday, 9 April 2011 23:12 (thirteen years ago) link
eh i will probably just use it at home from now on.
― blank, Saturday, 9 April 2011 23:14 (thirteen years ago) link
oh wait my library only has EPUB files. no kindle for me.
― jay lenonononono (abanana), Sunday, 10 April 2011 03:00 (thirteen years ago) link
Get Calibre.
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 10 April 2011 03:07 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm not reading a book on my computer. I tried that with comics and it was terrible.
― jay lenonononono (abanana), Sunday, 10 April 2011 03:18 (thirteen years ago) link
No no no, you use Calibre to convert your epubs to mobi format (if there's no DRM).
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 10 April 2011 03:20 (thirteen years ago) link
this is on the way!
― the salmon of procrastination (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 April 2011 22:24 (thirteen years ago) link
\(^_^)/
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 10 April 2011 22:25 (thirteen years ago) link
ya srsly stoked
― the salmon of procrastination (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 April 2011 22:33 (thirteen years ago) link
calibre is a bit of a nightmare though right? any alternative?
― forest zombie (Vasco da Gama), Sunday, 10 April 2011 23:08 (thirteen years ago) link
(aa here) Not that I know of. Calibre's interface is an abortion but it's the best free conversion tool available.
― snythpop revolution (Schlafsack), Sunday, 10 April 2011 23:09 (thirteen years ago) link
Horrible interface, but I was shocked how good Calibre's conversion was. Saved me a lot of trouble at work, I originally planned to maintain two separate versions of our book, one Mobi and one ePub, but Calibre does a really great job converting ePubs.
― Nhex, Monday, 11 April 2011 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
Ok, I’ll take a beta blocker then try it again
― forest zombie (Vasco da Gama), Monday, 11 April 2011 16:15 (thirteen years ago) link
you can now buy a Kindle for $114 ($25 than the previous cheapest price) but it has "sponsored screensavers" and ads that run on the bottom of the home page
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HFS6Z0/ref=tsm_1_fb_kin_kdev_20110411
― congratulations (n/a), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:02 (thirteen years ago) link
whaaaaat
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:04 (thirteen years ago) link
save $20 and watch nonstop ads, the fuck
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:05 (thirteen years ago) link
i actually literally do not even
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:06 (thirteen years ago) link
well tbf they aren't "nonstop," they're on the screensaver and on the home page - not in the book itself - based on my understanding
― congratulations (n/a), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:07 (thirteen years ago) link
still totally bizarre, like they're giving people small discounts to be guinea pigs
― You Say Various Things (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link
p terrible idea
Also I recently got a couple medical texts on kindle and while its awesome to have thousands of pages of reference in my pocket, neither of them have ~functional tables of content~. like wtf. That is some bullshit imo
― FUN FUN FUN FUN (gbx), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:26 (thirteen years ago) link
from what I understand, you can put your own homebrew screensavers on the kindle and amazondoesn't give a crap (they won't say you violated warranty for some obscure reason)
― cold hands of monkeys on my heart (CaptainLorax), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:29 (thirteen years ago) link
there's freeware called Calibre that converts book files to one another
― cold hands of monkeys on my heart (CaptainLorax), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:30 (thirteen years ago) link
dude we were having the calibre discussion yesterday :)
gbx, there's an issue with publishers chucking their proofs into some magical machine and selling the results without so much as a glance. Also recently I downloaded samples of a few Chinese grammar books, all of which had the Chinese bits in jpg tables. What the hell am I going to do with a jpg table full of sentences ffs.
― snythpop revolution (Schlafsack), Monday, 11 April 2011 22:48 (thirteen years ago) link
I've been downloading samples by default now, burnt by too many terrible conversions.
― stet, Monday, 11 April 2011 23:09 (thirteen years ago) link
Oddly I find that some books on the ~~~~net are far more accurate than the official samples on Amazon. imo they have no right to cry foul until they start offering customers a quality product, especially at $10 a time.
― snythpop revolution (Schlafsack), Monday, 11 April 2011 23:20 (thirteen years ago) link
for real. these books are almost entirely useless now (two are references that aren't necessarily meant to be read in a linear fashion, and the other is a book of practice questions grouped by subject. again, non-linear).
even more aggravating is that fixing the book ought to be something i could do myself---i know LaTeX and HTML and the like, and i can't imagine that a functional table of contents consists of much more than links to anchors or w/e
― FUN FUN FUN FUN (gbx), Monday, 11 April 2011 23:26 (thirteen years ago) link
like this shit would take the publisher maybe a couple hours to fix
I suppose when ebooks hit critical mass (currently boosted by the death of Borders worldwide imo) they'll suddenly panic and pay some outsourcing company to do all the resetting, but by then customers will have seen the representative quality on offer and given up. And I've not even mentioned DRM, geographic restrictions &c.
― snythpop revolution (Schlafsack), Monday, 11 April 2011 23:38 (thirteen years ago) link