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Amazon Kindle |OT| of eInk superiority

Esiquio said:
It'll take funds from the gift card for sure. I just did it.
I meant how hard is it to self-publish a book to the Kindle store? Is there a process, or can anyone sell anything (as long as it's not plagiarism, of course)? I'm guessing Amazon take a good cut of the sales?
 
So I received my kindle today. I bought it off from ebay. Its New and was sealed. Now I find something weird. I asked the selller if this was the Ads version and he told me it was. But when I turned it on and after a while I havent seen any ads. And when I turn it to sleep Screensavers from books and authors appears.

Another thing. The USB Cable was included but the AC Adapter wasnt.... WTH?!
 
you should have gotten this..

Kindle+Replacement+Power+Adapter.jpg
 

Clevinger

Member
I got my $114 Special Offer Kindle. Whoever said it was a bad deal is an idiot. I usually don't have wireless on, so the only screensavers I get are nice pictures of Mark Twain, Jane Austen etc.

Couldn't be happier.
 
The US and the UK Kindles come with a power adapter in the box. Mainland Europe (plus Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, and Malta), Australia, and Canada (wtf Amazon) don't have the plug included.


Edit: added Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, and Malta.
 
I bought mine off from ebay. It came in the box sealed. Now Theres a sticker with a kid sitting in a tree and has an R on top of it. Does this mean refurbished or Replacement?
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
Clevinger said:
I got my $114 Special Offer Kindle. Whoever said it was a bad deal is an idiot. I usually don't have wireless on, so the only screensavers I get are nice pictures of Mark Twain, Jane Austen etc.

Couldn't be happier.

Odd, mine never shows any screensavers other than the offers ones. And I don't have wireless on all the time, only once a week or so.

That said, I like the offers screensavers better than creepy Jane Austen. This week's travel ones were beautiful.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
Mystery-white-boy said:
I have the very same one - Kindle case buddies 4ever!

It's a fantastic little product. It looks awesome, the texture of the material feels great in your hands, and the design is all about functionality/practicality.

I promised pics for others:

IMAG0176.jpg


IMAG0179.jpg
 
AndyD said:
Odd, mine never shows any screensavers other than the offers ones. And I don't have wireless on all the time, only once a week or so.

That said, I like the offers screensavers better than creepy Jane Austen. This week's travel ones were beautiful.
The Guy I bought it off said mine was the Special Offers one. Its been a day of use and never seen ads. EVen though I have 3g on. Maybe he sent me the wrong one I dunno.
Wouldve been good to sell some coupons off.
 

brentech

Member
SixStringPsycho said:
The Guy I bought it off said mine was the Special Offers one. Its been a day of use and never seen ads. EVen though I have 3g on. Maybe he sent me the wrong one I dunno.
Wouldve been good to sell some coupons off.
Yeah, I'd say it's not a special offers kindle. I've had my wireless off for a few days while traveling and still got the offers showing up.

That's bum too, cause the offers are quite honestly, awesome. Pay less for the device, and save money on the backend? Can't beat that.
 

Pachimari

Member
I'm contemplating buying a Kindle 3 (Wi-Fi), but apparently I can only buy books from the American Kindle Store here from Denmark? So I will only be able to buy/download/read books in English? And if I buy one from the UK Amazon, will I be able to read books bought from the US Amazon?

Edit:
Oh wow, Amazon UK can't even deliver a Kindle to Denmark and refer to the US Store.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
SixStringPsycho said:
The Guy I bought it off said mine was the Special Offers one. Its been a day of use and never seen ads. EVen though I have 3g on. Maybe he sent me the wrong one I dunno.
Wouldve been good to sell some coupons off.

Actually I bet its a special offers one that was flashed with the regular firmware. Its possible to do it.
 
maxxpower said:
Hey guys whats the best way to clean the screen on my Kindle? Should I get a screen protector?

I use my reversible club Nintendo DS pouch- like a dust mitten. You could probably use any lcd cleaner and the cleaning cloths they come with, or a cleaner made for 'squishy' (I don't know the real word for them) screens.
 
maxxpower said:
Hey guys whats the best way to clean the screen on my Kindle? Should I get a screen protector?
Just wipe it off with anything. I usually just brush any annoying bit of dust or hair off with the side of my finger and it's fine. Screen protector is unnecessary, unless you consider a case to be the same thing--the screen may stand up to standard wipes fine, but letting it sit totally naked where it might have something scratch it or knock against it or it might fall down or whatever is asking for trouble.
 
I'll be the ignorant computer user who wants the world from technology.

Are there any waterproof cases I could use to read my kindle in the tub? Reading in the bath is something I've enjoyed all my life.

SHUT UP! It's totally masculine, I don't use bubble bath or nothing. >:|
 
is no one else pissed at the price of some of these E-Books? i'm so angry i might even make a thread ! ! ! ! ! ! >:eek:

i mean am i literally just paying for the time it took for them to copy and paste it from the publisher to the MOBI thing, format it for an hour and that's it?

sorry i've brought this up before but i'm still shocked at these prices.

even PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKS cost $.99, it's nickle and diming. they give you horribly formatted versions for free, then the real version for a dollar.

i bought the Kindle on the thought that i could have years worth of reading for free, not knowing just how bad the formatting was for the public domain works and how they would nickle and dime for the real versions.
 

Ulairi

Banned
Alpha-Bromega said:
is no one else pissed at the price of some of these E-Books? i'm so angry i might even make a thread ! ! ! ! ! ! >:eek:


Well, Apple didn't help consumers with that. Hopefully, the lawsuit takes off.
 

Socreges

Banned
HiroProtagonist said:
The US and the UK Kindles come with a power adapter in the box. Mainland Europe (plus Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, and Malta), Australia, and Canada (wtf Amazon) don't have the plug included.


Edit: added Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, and Malta.
Seriously. WTF Amazon.
 

Tuck

Member
Got to try out a Kindle in a store today. It was kind of cool, but I was a bit disappointed - the contrast wasn't good enough for me. I can definitely see the appeal, and why some people might like it. My eyes aren't great though, so I think it still has a ways to go though.
 

iammeiam

Member
I'm sort of confused by the Discworld selection on the US store. If you search for 'guard' or 'pratchett', one of the early links takes you to this $5.45 Kindle eBook. Search for 'guards' or 'discworld' or basically anything, and all you get is this $7.99 version. Weirdly, the cheaper version contains a link to the more expensive version, but not vice versa.

SixStringPsycho said:
The Guy I bought it off said mine was the Special Offers one. Its been a day of use and never seen ads. EVen though I have 3g on. Maybe he sent me the wrong one I dunno.
Wouldve been good to sell some coupons off.

Yours sounds more like the WarehouseDeals refurb kind of new than the Special Offers kind of new. I bought my dad a K2 off WarehouseDeals a while back, and it came in a sealed plain cardboard box, only the USB cord not the AC adapter bit.
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
HiroProtagonist said:
The US and the UK Kindles come with a power adapter in the box. Mainland Europe (plus Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, and Malta), Australia, and Canada (wtf Amazon) don't have the plug included.


Edit: added Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, and Malta.
So that's why my Canadian Kindle was shipped with a German manual.
 
Alpha-Bromega said:
is no one else pissed at the price of some of these E-Books? i'm so angry i might even make a thread ! ! ! ! ! ! >:eek:

i mean am i literally just paying for the time it took for them to copy and paste it from the publisher to the MOBI thing, format it for an hour and that's it?

sorry i've brought this up before but i'm still shocked at these prices.

even PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKS cost $.99, it's nickle and diming. they give you horribly formatted versions for free, then the real version for a dollar.

i bought the Kindle on the thought that i could have years worth of reading for free, not knowing just how bad the formatting was for the public domain works and how they would nickle and dime for the real versions.
It's not like it's some dastardly Amazon plan. The free ones are presumably just auto-converted from Project Gutenberg source files. The pay versions are where some opportunistic publisher or individual thinks they can get a piece of the pie by doing a better job at converting; or making a better presentation of things with a nice cover, table of contents, maybe packing together a series of related works. Either you think they do enough of a better job to make it worth the buck, or not.
 
SixStringPsycho said:
The Guy I bought it off said mine was the Special Offers one. Its been a day of use and never seen ads. EVen though I have 3g on. Maybe he sent me the wrong one I dunno.
Wouldve been good to sell some coupons off.
The SO kindle is only available in the US, so maybe that has something to do with it. You should try switching your country to the US on your 'manage your kindle' page to see if that does anything.

Lyphen said:
So that's why my Canadian Kindle was shipped with a German manual.
Wahrscheinlich.
 

DiscoJer

Member
Alpha-Bromega said:
is no one else pissed at the price of some of these E-Books? i'm so angry i might even make a thread ! ! ! ! ! ! >:eek:

i mean am i literally just paying for the time it took for them to copy and paste it from the publisher to the MOBI thing, format it for an hour and that's it?

sorry i've brought this up before but i'm still shocked at these prices.

even PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKS cost $.99, it's nickle and diming. they give you horribly formatted versions for free, then the real version for a dollar.

i bought the Kindle on the thought that i could have years worth of reading for free, not knowing just how bad the formatting was for the public domain works and how they would nickle and dime for the real versions.

Yeah, that's really the downside. Since the iPad came out, e-book prices have gone up and up and up and up and up (since the publishers now set the prices).

And Amazon doesn't make any effort to weed out weaselly people who try to get rich selling public domain e-books. Apparently this scheme is sold to people in get rich quick kits.

If you want nicely formatted PD stuff, try:

http://www.manybooks.net/


Or Mobileread

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=128

This is where B&N has Amazon beat though. They have their own line of classics that are really nicely formatted and annotated. While they charge for them, sometimes they give them away for free for special promos.
 
DiscoJer said:
And Amazon doesn't make any effort to weed out weaselly people who try to get rich selling public domain e-books. Apparently this scheme is sold to people in get rich quick kits.
I think they are now. This article seems to indicate they are cutting down on duplicates.
 
That article talks about them cutting down on get-rich-by-republishing-this-book wastes of space, but I don't think that affects the 100 year old books. There are always going to be multiple publishers for different editions of classic books in the physical and digital space--to do otherwise would be to give one publisher a de facto copyright. They sell a ton of different paper- and hardback versions of Dracula on Amazon, to name one example.
 
I know I read the article, but many of them are put up with little or no difference and as part of the those get rich easy schemes. It wouldn't surprise me that a ton more than 17 Draculas have been uploaded over the years. And companies can copyright editions of any public domain book as long as they add a unique introduction or notes, something that differentiates that edition.

The whole Private label rights thing is very nebulous. I believe Amazon being the publisher of many of 17 versions of the Dracula e-book probably has the right to take them down. There isn't much of difference between them and those get rich scheme books using the private label rights.

Besides that no publisher can get a de-facto copyright on Dracula's text. That's the whole point of a book being in the public domain.
 
VistraNorrez said:
Besides that no publisher can get a de-facto copyright on Dracula's text. That's the whole point of a book being in the public domain.
My point is that if something is in the public domain and 10 people are selling their versions of it, Amazon deciding that 9 of them must go is essentially bestowing the remaining 1 with the right to profit from it in that market.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
JoshuaJSlone said:
My point is that if something is in the public domain and 10 people are selling their versions of it, Amazon deciding that 9 of them must go is essentially bestowing the remaining 1 with the right to profit from it in that market.

If people add a substantive differentiator, I believe they can keep it up for sale even if the underlying book is the same.

I think they idea was to weed out identical copies which cannot be copyrighted to more than one person but which are being sold by more than one person. And the basic title itself being in the public domain should not be for sale anyway, it is free.

I think Amazon wants to encourage people who want to sell a book that is in the public domain to do something extra, not just post it because it creates confusion.
 

Pachimari

Member
Anastacio said:
I'm contemplating buying a Kindle 3 (Wi-Fi), but apparently I can only buy books from the American Kindle Store here from Denmark? So I will only be able to buy/download/read books in English? And if I buy one from the UK Amazon, will I be able to read books bought from the US Amazon?

Edit:
Oh wow, Amazon UK can't even deliver a Kindle to Denmark and refer to the US Store.
Anyone?
 

Angst

Member
I'm in Norway and you can as you found out only buy from Amazon US. You'll have to buy kindle books from the US and as far as I know you can only get books in English, Spanish, French and German.

If you want to read books in Danish, you have to buy them in a Danish online bookstore (do you have adlibris in DK? That works great in Sweden/Norway) that lets you download them to your pc. After that you can use Calibre to convert them to a kindle format and then transfer it to your kindle. It's very easy to do at least.
 

Pachimari

Member
Well, we got this: http://www.adlibris.com/dk/.

But it seems like it's only paperback? Or will I be able to download a book, as soon as I have bought the paperback as well?
 
So im looking for nice relaxing music to listen while reading. So far Ive got Game of Thrones OST and some Mario Galaxy music.
Any recommendations would be welcome.
 
SixStringPsycho said:
So im looking for nice relaxing music to listen while reading. So far Ive got Game of Thrones OST and some Mario Galaxy music.
Any recommendations would be welcome.

Check out Ryan Farish, lot of easy going(maybe not his latest Opus) instrumental music there. Songs like Night Wind, Autumn Mist, Dream In Essence, Sea of You, etc.
 
Lionheart1827 said:
Check out Ryan Farish, lot of easy going(maybe not his latest Opus) instrumental music there. Songs like Night Wind, Autumn Mist, Dream In Essence, Sea of You, etc.
Thx for those. But IMO those dont fit my book reading experience, they fit more porn and sex experience. I shouldve mentioned it before, Im looking more for classical music. Been looking for Lord of the Rings OST but can find em.
 
Every day is a day closer to the reveal. Today we have Lab 126 trademarks. Lab 126 is the subsidiary of Amazon that developed the Kindle, and presumably the Kindle tablet. I pulled this off their site:
WeMAf.jpg


http://www.geekwire.com/2011/amazon-seeks-lab126-trademarks-advance-expected-tablet-launch
Amazon.com has quietly applied for trademarks on the name and logo of Lab126 — the internal group behind the Amazon Kindle e-reader and, by all accounts, an upcoming Android tablet from the Seattle company

I'm so bored that I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to find info via the FCC. All of Amazons past Kindle hardware has had their FCC paperwork filed by Chaffin LLC 14 Bradley Drive Wilmington, Delaware 19801. Which is this house:

y2dh4.jpg

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&s...code_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ8gEwAA

I'm not going to lie, I feel a little stalker-y.
 
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