Tag Archives: kindle 2

Hacking The Kindle: Kindle Books Store – Free Books?

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If you’re keeping up with my Tweets, you know I made my first impulse purchase on the Kindle yesterday night. The fact that Kindle makes buying books so ridiculously simple forces me to make the comparison to buying songs from iTunes (except, I don’t buy songs from iTunes… I’ll talk about this in another post).

This isn’t like those other “hacks” that people keep talking about getting your own eBooks on the Kindle, but to download from the Kindle Store; free, copyrighted material.

Disclaimer: This is all for educational purposes only. I’m NOT responsible for what you do with your Kindle with this knowledge. And I can only hope that Amazon figures this out faster than the rest of the Kindle freaks like me. If you know someone who can fix this bug inside Amazon, please let them know.

The hack

Steps are as follows:

  • Buy the book
  • Lie and say you’ve accidentally purchased the book
  • Turn off the wireless just after the book has been downloaded

I don’t know, but you probably should wait on the screen that has the accidental purchase link until the book has finished downloading… I didn’t really think about this, but my download is fast enough on the awesome 3G network anyway. (Go Kindle GO!)

A couple of seconds after I turned on the wireless, the books did disappear. To get around this, simply make a copy of the file on your computer.

As a sidenote, while I was messing around with moving .azw and .mbp files the book that was downloaded seems to be about twice as big as the sample… I wonder why this is the case. I can only think that there’s some compression going on.

I had to see if there was some kind of remote killswitch on the DRM, and turns out… there isn’t. After the original downloaded copy was erased by Amazon, Amazon was satisfied it seems. I turned on my wireless again and as I expected, I was able to use my Kindle on wireless while reading my “free” book.

Dear Amazon,

Fix it. I don’t even know who to talk to, but I’ll try to forward the link to this post to some people I see on Twitter.

Kindle 2 Official Leather Cover Review

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Being the first adopter of anything, in this case, a physical product, you run the risk of not only having to deal with the gadget itself, but with any other issues that related accessories might bring.

I can think of numerous examples of this. I remember when I got the 1st generation iPod nano, and I dropped it not one day from when I opened the packaging. There was no cover/case at the time, and so I used the plastic packaging that came with it.

More recently, just before the Kindle, it was the MacBook Pro. I had a Brenthaven Metro bag (which, to this day, I love and cherish… the sucker is built like a womb for the earlier MacBook Pros), and when I switched up to the late 2008 unibody one, it wouldn’t fit. Actually, nothing would fit it snugly at the Apple Store, except for the not-so pretty 15″ Incase sleeve/bag.

Now, with the first Kindle, I hear there was a cover included, which sucked: the Kindle would fall out of the cover constantly (and I bet the fact that you couldn’t pick up the Kindle without turning the page didn’t help with it either). Here, it’s an additional $29.99. Is it worth it?

In a Nutshell

Yeah, It’s absolutely essential. That screen has absolutely no protection whatsoever. With the iPhone, you have whatever magical substance between the LCD and the world around it (which is why I was okay with not having a case for it… until I dropped it, but there’s a story there… moving on). With this cover, I feel much secure in knowing that the top and bottom of the Kindle is safe and sound.

So here comes the pics. In the same way as the Kindle was packaged, you have to tear open the box using the neat tab marked “Once upon a time…”

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For the Kindle 2 redesign, they made sure to incorporate notches to the unit itself, so that it would work perfectly with the cover.

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I loved the instruction insert. Very clear. You first insert the Kindle into the lower curved hook, rotate it to be parallel to the cover, then use the top latch (which retracts to its original position) locks the Kindle in place.

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The trouble I had was with the lack of any attachment on the right side of the Kindle. The hooks in the binding of the cover are strong, but fairly thin. This picture above shows how far the back cover will open up, if left hanging. I fear for the notches on the Kindle 2 might get ruined if held like this for a while. Of course, this hopefully never happens, as you will always be holding the whole case firmly… but it’s not a big deal.

Minus this single downside, everything else is amazing. The leather cover and the soft inside feels wonderful. The fact that the front cover can be folded behind the back cover like a magazine is great. The added thickness and traction actually makes the whole Kindle reading experience a bit better (although, I do like to take it out of the cover now and then, and feel how amazingly light it actually is). The cover also makes it very easy to just close up the “book” and go.

If I’ve somehow convinced you to buy the cover, here’s the link: Amazon Kindle 2 Leather Cover

I still have a couple more Kindle reviews left in me: one general one about the Kindle itself, and at least another about how Kindle is going to change my reading habits. Stay tuned for those.

Kindle 2 Review: The Unboxing

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I was delightfully surprised by the unboxing process. I definitely felt like it added to the whole experience.

I have lots of pics from my awesome iPhone camera (sorry, I don’t own any others… photogs, please don’t hurt me). Thanks to Flickr for footing the bandwidth.

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Just as I gave on UPS delivering this thing on time before the end of my lunch break (I kid you not, I was reaching for the doorknob as I was leaving my apartment), I heard the knock on my door.

A few unboxing pictures had made it earlier today, however, I didn’t see any pictures peeling open the box, so I was excited to tear it open.

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Inside were two more boxes, one for the Kindle and the first party case I bought.

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In my hurry to open the box, I was annoyed at how difficult it would be to open the box. The flaps were glued shut. Then I took a deep breath, calmed myself down a bit, and looked for another way in. Then, I realized that there was a nice tab opening on the side, with the words “Once upon a time…” written on it. Definitely a nice touch.

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Inside, I saw a lovely black embossing of letters feeing into the plastic compartment that held the Kindle.

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Again, with the same tab action. After that, you see the innards. Basically, it comes with the Kindle itself, a quick start guide and a USB cable with an adaptor.

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That’s the shot of the stuff behind the Kindle.

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But wait, here’s the moment where I was in awe of the whole unboxing experience.

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It looks like it’s a protective plastic sticker with an even quicker start guide printed on it. I removed the sticker… and the guide was still there! Oh, you lovely e-ink! Even as I use it right now, I can’t believe I’m not using a lot of (if not, at all) power to have the characters stay on screen (minus the wireless, of course).

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Happy little loading screen later, I’m in business.

More on this, as I find time to blog. And here’s an affiliate link, just in case I’ve somehow made you buy the thing. Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

More to come, with time and use.

Kindle 2: Initial Impressions

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I don’t have pics. I’ll post them up later tonight.

Packaging is great. I like the whole “Once Upon A Time…” opening strips on both the Kindle and the cover accessory. The rest of the packaging has a nice mixture of cool and environmentally-friendly.

Mind explosion #1: I open the Kindle, and I see a nice diagram about what I should do first on the sticker covering the face of the Kindle. Of course, I remove this sticker after I plug it into the wall, and those same directions are there. I did a double take. Ah ha, I figured out. It’s this awesome e-ink business. Oh, you trixy Kindle.

Another cool thing is that whenever you turn off the Kindle, it defaults to a portrait of the writer. Last time it was Poe. This time, it was Twain. I wonder how many of these portraits exist.

The new cover design. I hear the first gen Kindle’s kept falling out of their covers (which was included back then… not so anymore. These revisions are a bit better, although it seems like one more latch of the right side of the Kindle would have been nice. The Kindle is only attached at the binding, which might cause the two tiny little slits on the Kindle to break if opened improperly. You’ll see what I mean when I post some pics.

The size. Much smaller than I thought… then again, I’ve never seen these in real life. Not a good or a bad thing, just a thing

One HUGE disappointment: responsiveness of the UI. The page turning is fine. It’s a tiny tiny bit slower than what I’m used to, going from page to page on a normal book… but when you start messing with that 5-way button, the lag is ridiculous. I feel like this is a firmware issue, and not a limitation of the device… but it does bother me a little bit. However, it’s not missing my clicks, so I can just hit it 5 separate times to have the cursor go down 5 lines… it just takes a little bit of time for the Kindle to catch up.

Yeah, I know. No pics, or it didn’t happen. Blah.