Kindle Book

Yes you can, but you are probably wondering why you want to since it is a wireless device. Well not everyone in the Country can get a good signal to Sprint's cellular network (dubbed the Whispernet network by Amazon). You may also find yourself traveling outside of the Country and still want to retrieve books which is possible if you have access to a computer with Internet access and a USB port.

To download a purchased kindle book to your computer you will need to login to your Amazon account and access the Manage my Kindle page. Next, scroll down toward the bottom of the page to view the section called "Your orders". Here you will see a list of all the kindle books that you have purchased. Notice the drop-down menu box to the right of each book's order date? Click on this box and choose "Computer".

A standard pop-up window will display asking you where to save the the kindle book. Kindle books purchased from Amazon all have an file extension of .AZW which should not be renamed. After the file is downloaded you can connect your Kindle reader to the computer via the USB cable. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to where the kindle book is saved. Select the book and copy it to the Documents folder under drive letter that is assigned to your Kindle.

Once copied you can safely eject your Kindle device from the computer and start reading your book.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal is one of the latest US newspapers added to the Kindle Store which now features 29 domestic and 11 International newspapers. Be sure to check out what is happening in Vegas and don't forget you can try it absolutely free for 14 days.

Las Vegas Review-Journal Sale Price: $5.99

Description The Las Vegas Review-Journal, as Nevada's largest newspaper, captures the unique spirit of the "international entertainment capital of the world". The Review-Journal delivers a well- balanced voice to the richly diverse community of Las Vegas in which it resides. The R-J prides itself on its comprehensive local, state and world coverage and stands alone as the international entertainment directory for all who seek to enjoy excitement and adventure as vacation goals. The Review-Journal presents its readers with information that is concise and relevant to today’s issues and serves as an important guide to southern Nevada for travelers the world over. People who want to know what's happening in a world famous and exciting city turn to the Review-Journal as the resource needed to navigate and research while visiting Las Vegas. The Kindle Edition of The Las Vegas Review-Journal contains most articles found in the print edition, but will not include all images and tables. Also, some features such as the crossword puzzle, box scores and classifieds are not currently available. For your convenience, issues are automatically delivered wirelessly to your Kindle so you can read them each morning.

The main difference is that Amazon will now start charge by the file size vs. each document sent starting May 4th. The old pricing structure was ten cents per doc sent wirelessly. The new price is fifteen cents per megabyte (MB). There still is now charge to use the Free kindle email account to transfer the converted document manually via the USB cable.

Now that price change may not sound like a lot but keep in mind that if you do convert large files and picture heavy PDFs, the price could cost you up to a $1 or more for the wireless transfer. That may cost more than some Kindle books.

So do the file size get bigger or smaller after they are converted?

I recently converted a 2.2MB PDF file (mostly text) I had and compared it to its coverted .AZW file. The converted file size was smaller at 1.4MB for a reduction of 36%. I am sure file compression does vary greatly on the source file and document type. So going under the assumption that Amazon will charge us for the 1.4MB file, the cost of this document to be wirelessly sent is 30 cents. This won't break my piggy bank but it is a price increase of 300%!

I am sure that Amazon is paying more for the wireless 3G network since the introduction of the Kindle 2. This new price change was implemented as a cost recovery measure which also leads me to believe that more and more people are using the Personal Document feature.

My suggestion to you is to utilize Amazon's free conversion and manually upload the document to your Kindle.

The thing to keep in mind is that the Kindle 2 web interface uses a simple mobile browser best suited for text which is great for typical text emails. It is not so great for emails that are heavily formatted with html, graphics or attachments. Still, it works with most of the big "Free" email account providers and paid Internet service providers through their mobile-friendly pages.

Here are the following email providers (that I could test) and the correct URL email access page that will work on your Kindle 2.

	Yahoo Mail	http://m.yahoo.com/mail
	AOL Mail	http://m.mail.aol.com
	Google GMail	http://gmail.com
	Microsoft Live Hotmail	http://mail.live.com/md updated!!
	Fastmail	http://www.fastmail.fm
	Comcast Cable	http://m.comcast.net
	Optimum Online	http://m.optimum.net

Please contact me or post a comment if you know of any other email services that work on the Kindle 2. Thanks!

A very useful feature of the Kindle is the ability to email Amazon a personal document and have it converted to a Kindle compatible format for your viewing. They even give you a special email address to send your documents (i.e. YourID@kindle.com). Nothing fulfills your need for instant gratification then to see your document converted and wirelessly sent to your Kindle for your reading pleasure.

But there is a catch...

Amazon charges you ten cents for each emailed document that is converted and wirelessly sent to your Kindle. That might not seem like a lot but it can add up if you use this feature a lot like myself. Amazon accrues these fees until your balance hits $3 and then charges your credit card.

So you can do one of two things. Call someone who cares (just kidding) and continue to pay the fee or use the free email account (i.e. YourID@free.kindle.com). Sending a document to Amazon with this free email account will have it converted and you will receive an email notification to download it to your computer. Once downloaded you can transfer it to your Kindle via the USB connection.

It is up to you to decide if the convenience factor of wirelessly transferring of your personal docs is worth ten cents each. I like the ability of having both options.

Note: I did try to see if I could use the Kindle browser to retrieve the file directly from my web email account but it didn't work because the link is a redirect to the Amazon website and not a direct link to the file. I guess Amazon was too smart for that trick!

So how good is Amazon's Whispernet network? In the northeast tri-state area where I live, it is better than my Verizon coverage on my cell phone.

Click picture to enlarge

Check out the Kindle 2 Wireless coverage map below. Use this interactive map to enter an address to see what coverage is available.

Click Picture of Map to Open

Amazon just rolled out a new Firmware update  (version 2.0.2) to the Kindle 2 reader this past week. I haven't seen any official word from Amazon on what changed but according to Cnet News it mostly affects the refreshing between page changes and pixel ghosting.

I have noticed a big improvement with the refreshing. Before the update the screen would sometimes "flash" refresh several times to display the next page (especially when displaying pictures). Now it seems to refresh the page only once and is a little quicker too.  As far as the ghosting goes, I still see on occasion a very light image of pixels from the previous page. This seems to be more pronounced when switching from a page with dark images to a text page. I do have to look closely to see it but it doesn't have any negative affect on me reading the page.