#363 Unamerican Kindle User

[AsianKidsPro]

how would you buy a kindle

[ElevenColors]

@AsianKidsPro From Amazon US. They ship all over the world.

[newharmony85]

I had no idea there was surcharge for roaming. I'll see if I have to pay for one when I visit taiwan.

[ElevenColors]

@newharmony85 No idea what the deal is now, what with the iPad out. I heard somewhere that in the US, Amazon is giving away Kindles to Prime users.

[hokusbloke]

Covert the PDFs to mobi for kindle and you can zoom...uses calibre to do this

[ElevenColors]

hokusbloke,

True, but then the formatting can get wacky.

[HebinoMetaru]

There's a ghost in top left corner 1:45~1:57

[ElevenColors]

HebinoMetaru,

Stray down feather from a jacket.

[platonicmojo]

think proxy servers...

[ElevenColors]

@platonicmojo Wouldn't quite work for the Kindle, if that's what you meant. It runs over 3G cellular networks. No configurable web proxy settings.

[betamaxdc]

you're the man...that's all i have to say.

[ElevenColors]

betamaxdc,

Coming from y'all, that means a lot.

[denitson777]

@ElevenColors

Amazon is misleading and deceiving people by calling that "kindle" international.if you can't buy any book from any country,doesnt support japanese,what's so international about it?

Yeah,I dont understand japanese stores,the way the organize cds,dvds, and book its crazy,it takes a lot of time to find anything if you dont have the exact information and with all that kanji its way too crazy for me :)

[ElevenColors]

denitson777,

For the "International" Kindle, true, very true.

CDs took a while but I can just about think in Katakana clearly enough so I can find things. DVDs though... When there was a Tsutaya in the neighborhood they organized movies by leading actor sometimes. WTF.

[ElevenColors]

gencbiba,

Oooo, not available for Kindle. BUT I have been meaning to read Art of War. Bought that just now.

On the rare occasion books are available, buying them is easier than farting.

[saiyouken]

that was helpful. I've had my eye on a kindle for a while. I didn't know it could not handle other languages besides roman script.

[maximum1]

@denitson777

As a followup, there are also ebook conversion services that can take any printed book, scan it, and convert it to Kindle format. I can scan any book I own myself, save it as an optimized PDF and upload it into my Kindle, no problem.

There are also services that will convert books you do not own, even technical manuals and text books, into the Kindle format for you, for a fee, but I suspect there's some legal skirting there, so I won't use them until I find out more,.

[ElevenColors]

saiyouken,

Yeah, in the beginning it could support only iso-8859-1 a.k.a. Latin-1. Now it can also support iso-8859-10, but it still can't handle Unicode.

[aussielung]

A friend of mine uses the iLiad and loves it. She uses it for reading and for her writing.

[ElevenColors]

@aussielung iLiad? Never heard of it. Are there places you can buy books for it?

[aussielung]

well it is made by irex and it has a stylus so you can use it as a note book which is the feature my friend loved about it the most. As for downloads apparently you can get them from anywhere because you download the books to your computer and then load them onto the iLiad like you would load a song onto an iPod rather than having to get device specific downloads.

[waigugi]

That looks cool. I might have to get one. My shelf space is limited and I am currently surviving only because I am loaning out all of the books I've read to coworkers so that I have space to buy new books. Have fun on your trip home. Hopefully you won't have to shovel too much.

[ElevenColors]

@waigugi Aye. The Kindle bookstore doesn't have everything, but it has enough to keep me busy. I can see myself owning multiple eBook readers and still saving money and space.

[LordBalto]

How does reading off of a screen compare to reading a page in a paper book? I know reading off of a computer screen gives me eyestrain much faster than a real book. Is the type on the Kindle sharp compared to a paper book?

[maximum1]

@LordBalto

Reading on a Kindle is just like reading a book. There is no eye strain and no glare. The e ink technology is pretty amazing. Also, being able to change the font size on the fly makes it even better. Text is crystal clear and sharp.

[ElevenColors]

@LordBalto Aye, maximum1 has it right. No strain at all. There's no backlighting, and you can read it underneath bright sunlight. Type is just as sharp as your average paperback.

[DerReisendeGaijin]

sxephil doesn't breathe in his videos or at all as far as I know

[ElevenColors]

@DerReisendeGaijin Aha. That solves one riddle.

[denitson777]

You should try barnes and noble's "Nook" it supports a few formats(PDF,ePub,PDB,MP3,JPEG,­GIF,PNG and BMP) has a flash memory card slot and user replaceable battery,and the beautiful thing is you can download and buy ebooks from other sites than the barnes and noble site.

Somebody told me you can use ebooks from Amazon too,but using a conversion software,but dont quote me on that.

Sony started sellin a ebook reader like a month ago,I tried it,but its crap.

[maximum1]

There are many, many ebook publishers and I can download their books onto my Kindle without a problem, many of which, by the way, are free.

[maximum1]

@denitson

Yep, I didn't know books for the Kindle are available/unavailable depending on region until James mentioned it in his video. Being in the US, I suppose, gives me maximum worldwide access to titles.

However, I can't believe it's Amazon's desire to restrict titles by region. They want to maximize sales, so it must be the regions/countries themselves imposing the restrictions.

Also, although Amazon wants us to buy from them only, that's not the reason for lack of technical titles.

[ElevenColors]

@maximum1 I think part of the reason Amazon ostensibly restricts books by region is that certain distributors have purchased the rights to certain books in certain countries. Same reason Hulu isn't available in Japan. Japanese companies have purchased the rights to their shows in Japan.

BUT I'm still not happy with Amazon for making it my problem.

[spoddie]

I can watch Hulu in Japan. I'm not telling how but you can probably guess.

[ElevenColors]

spoddie,

Oh I don't doubt you. But if Hulu really don't want Unamericans watching their material, who am I to argue?

[ElevenColors]

@denitson777 Barnes & Noble doesn't ship the Nook outside Japan, but I'm working on workarounds for that.

Amazon Kindle can read PDFs, and it can read mobipocket books as long as there's no DRM. Even if it's internal battery gives out in a couple years I'll still have gotten my money's worth.

[dboy11368]

its really nice that you are coming back to the states for the holidays with your family.

-you might run into snow again this year lol. theres a storm right now that lasts till sunday. D.C. already has a foot of snow, and the storm reached me in N.Y. just now.

[BahamutDKing]

Why are there still regions should be able to Universal. well all i know is about china blocking everthing.you thing ditail would put a end to the can't find it problem, Kinda bad them being a tease with stuff cause of location not like Japans a remote place bit mind boggling companys pass up on the chance to make money makes no sense.

[dboy11368]

@BahamutDKing the main point of region coding was to control the pricing of a product. different regions have different prices people are willing to pay for something. they also allow control to release dates.

[maximum1]

I'm probably going to be in Japan for vacation sometime next Summer, and will be bringing my Kindle. The idea of paying a $2 surcharge when out of my region is good information to have, so thanks for that. I'll just have to make sure I make all my purchases before my trip.

JA~~

[ElevenColors]

@maximum1 Aye. Load up before you get here. I believe there's also supposed to be a way to download to a PC and copy books over via USB but I haven't tested it yet.

[maximum1]

You are so right about technical books. Although the number of technical titles is very small at this point, if I can use my Kindle for even one technical manual I'm thankful especially, as you mentioned, when traveling for work, which I do quite a bit.

[maximum1]

As I mentioned in my comment in your previous vid, I have the DX, which is larger and, you are correct, is somewhat cumbersome to manage with one hand while walking, but the larger screen size, native PDF converter, text-to-speech, and auto-rotate functions more than make up for its unwieldliness.

I love my Kindle, and take it everywhere. I see you have the same cover I do which, at first, I hated. I found the magnetic closing mechanism to be a pain, but it's now grown on me.

[ElevenColors]

@maximum1 In retrospect I should have looked for a cover or zippable case that'd be better for keeping dust out. Ah well. And yeah, the Kindle DX would be better for PDFs. This Kindle can view PDFs but cannot zoom. Painful on your average manual or release notes.

[iamtakingover]

before clicking on this video i thought you meant kindle as in fire....glad to see you aren't messing around with fire

e-books...they save the environment...wonder when something like that will become mainstream

[maximum1]

Hi James,

Good vid. I'm not in Japan, but I didn't know Amazon charged for out of home region purchases. That sucks.

Anyway, you mentioned that the Kindle can't do Japanese. I have a number of Japanese books on my Kindle, one being 羅生門. It's all in Japanese and works well on my Kindle. The only downside is I can't search the novel content, but I can bookmark and add a note to a page without a problem, and I can search that.

[ElevenColors]

@maximum1 About 羅生門 on the Kindle... I'm guessing that any Japanese characters you're seeing are stored as image files, or each page is stored as an image file. Last week I read a few comic books on the Kindle -- Star Trek Countdown I think it was -- and each page was stored and displayed as a single image file.

[pmf026]

Can you convert text/pdf books to kindle format? what formats does it support btw? I use MobiReader on my N95-2 phone. Its pretty good too, but the screen is not big enough.

ps: Copyright is bullshit.

[maximum1]

@pmf026

I don't know about the original Kindle, or Kindle 2, but the one I have, the Kindle DX, has a native PDF converter, and the screen is quite large.

[ElevenColors]

pmf026,

Wikipedia goes into detail about formats. Unamerican Kindle supports Amazon's proprietary format, it supports reading (but no zooming) of PDFs, and it supports mobipocket format.