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Care & feeding for new Kindles

Open and plug in to charge a couple of hours. The light is amber near the plug to begin with. When it turns green it is complete.

The charge normally holds 2 to 4 weeks with normal use (30-60 minutes daily). But if you access the Internet, that draws power faster.

So when you've finished glancing online, use the Menu button to select "turn wireless off."

If you slide the power switch on the bottom near the plug, that will activate the thing.

As for power off, the best advice is let it "sleep" (after 10 minutes of inactivity it puts on a screen-saver). This has two advantages over forcing it to power off by holding the slider for several seconds:

1) hands-free: no need to add wear to the slider except to "wake up" the thing & 2) quicker start-ups

Having said that. Three occasions call for forcing a power off action:

a) When you won't touch the thing for more than 4-5 days

b) After loading vast volumes of new files and content (the power off and subsequent start-up helps the device to index everything)

c) Screen is frozen more than a minute (no response to any keys you push)

Tips & tricks for new Kindle users

-collections (add a bunch of titles into one or more sets)

-backup F:\Kindle\Documents a few times a year (the document folder where you've added incrementally since the most recent backup)

-power modes: auto sleep after 10 min ("waking up" uses less power to than beginning from "off" status: but manually turn off if unused 1 week or more)

-audio files in mp3 format can be copied to the "MUSIC" folder, either spoken word (podcast interview) or music tracks. Primitive start/stop control only.

-audio files can be copied to the "AUDIBLE" folder, too (either Audible.com OR mp3 book files). Controller "remembers" where you paused/stopped; has Fast-forward.

-getting the content on the device: USB cable (storage, documents, music, make>photos) for PDF, JPG, txt, mobi or AZW

-getting other content to kindle: Word.doc, *.rtf, and *.html (and also *.PDF) can be sent to your default amazon-kindle email box with subject line "convert" (no quotation marks).

For free conversion to kindle *.azw file format, send to __your-email-name__@free.kindle.com (move manually to Kindle via USB cable, or wirelessly at WiFi hotspot).

For paid conversion (15 cents per megabyte total for batch of personal documents, or single attachments), send to __your-email-name__@kindle.com

-screen capture: hold all keys simultaneously Shift+Alt+G (the resulting screenshot is in Documents *.gif then edit in ms-Paint or load into Word to trim and print)

-refresh any ghosty leftovers on the e-Ink screen with Alt+G

-annotate with your comment: press 5-way key to place the cursor in the text, then press again to start the highlight or note. To finish, press again.

But to copy the selected text to the searchbox (dictionary, wikipedia, google, search your kindle) then instead of ending with the 5-way, you press the spacebar instead.

-view your annotations (highlights, typed comment, bookmark page) from the Menu key when that book is open.

-copy and change your text by USB cable to PC: then go to Kindle> documents>MyClippings.txt (even when you delete or move from kindle to PC or another place, the very next time you annotate it will make a New file called MyClippings. So the one I move to the PC is what I rename with a datename, such as MyClippings12may2011.txt for example

-battery gives best performance between 25% and 90% full; turn off wireless when not going to Internet

-another great site is www.kinstant.com (it has links for online email, weather and so on)

-after typing a link to the kindle's Web browser, press Menu to bookmark that page. Often there is "mobile" version that loads faster; for example, http://m.yahoo.com or m.google.com

-any PC or mac that you can plug the USB cable into will display as a letter "drive" (e.g. F:\)

-download the free reading software at amazon.com "kindle for pc" then you can open your content from the kindle store (free or paid) there as well.

Try out: free 14 day subscription of Magazine, Blog, Newspaper (only one turn at each one, though). Login at amazon.com and choose "send sample chapter" (or subscription).

There are millions of free book sources. Use the links that I have gathered from http://kindleworld.blogspot.com at http://big1file.googlepages.com/kindlelore

Even without the gadget you can still download the free or paid books. Once you own them, it is possible to load onto your registered kindle any time, as well.

For reference here's how to register a Kindle (maximum 6 devices per User account)

1. Press the Menu button.

2. Select "Settings," then "register" and follow the instructions. If your Kindle has an existing registration, simply select "Deregister" before entering new account registration information.

See a video about registering your Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200588130#register

See how to shop for Kindle content at www.amazon.com/help/shopkindle

Manage your Kindle and content online at http://www.amazon.com/cs/manageyourkindle

1. More navigation tips for Kindle. From the HOME screen you can jump to the page you want by using the keypad to put the screen number in; note that you can type a number using two methods: press the SYM key (to show digits; this is the slow way), or press ALT+TopRow (from left to right the key buttons of the top row ALSO double up as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0; this is the fast way to type a number). Using the "ALT+" method (and the same for the SHIFT+) works as a "sticky" key. So you don't have to HOLD it at the same time you press the second key; just press ALT and let go, then immediately press the second key you want to use.

2. KindlePedia (to paste in a URL from wikipedia in order to create a *.mobi file for download onto the kindle by transferring from PC to kindle via USB cable)

www.edukindle.com/downloads/kindlepedia/ Even though you can browse and lookup Wikipedia by using the kindle browser, sometimes it makes more sense to use k'pedia to produce a portable file to read offline and use the built-in kindle tools (dictionary lookup, bookmarking, highlighting and comments).

3. The Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg E-Books The Magic Catalog of Project Gutenberg E-Books: Click Here to Download (MOBI Edition)

*This is a big file: download it to PC than transfer by USB cable to Kindle >documents. Then turn on the device. When you open this file you can browse or search for a book you want and click it to download straight onto Kindle (wirelessly).

4. Story of newly launched function to borrow eBooks via USA local libraries (from Amazon) by way of the Overdrive service that many libraries belong to, http://kindleworld.blogspot.com/2011/09/where-and-how-to-find-libraries-using.html

see categories below (taken from blog http://kindleworld.blogspot.com)

Temporarily-free books - (sometimes a few hours or days)

Non-classics - USA: by:

NEW (sorted by): Last 30+ days May 2011 Publication Date Late-listed Bestselling High-ratings

TIP: Battery-use advice from Amazon

Most Popular Free K-Books U.S. & Int'l: Top 100 free