Marcin bloguje

5 best things to do with your Kindle

I bought a Kindle (3rd generation, Wi-Fi only) some time ago - like half a year ago. Read some books, done some web-browsing (awful, quite unpleasant). Gradually I became more and more curious of other things possible to achieve with this slate-looking piece of tech. These are my thoughts and ideas.

Got a Kindle? Use it every day? Feel like modding or extending your ways of usage? Great! Read on, and share your thoughts in comments!

1. Readability! - This web app is great! Generally this is a simple plug-in for your browser that will show a little button somewhere on the toolbar, and if you click it, the page you're reading now will be transformed into nice and sleek content-only page. Look on the screen below:
   
   This plug-ins additional function is sending to Kindle account. That's the nicest way to read those loads of RSS-sources articles :) The only limitation is that graphics won't be included if resulting file would exceed allowed size of kindle documents - that's 2MB AFAIR.
   
2. Install some hacks! - be that serious hacks or rather some simple software modifications:
   • read all book formats with Calibre - link
   • play Zork on a Kindle!!! - link
   • alternative Kindle keyboard - link
   • custom fonts - link
3. Install custom screen-savers - do this to be able to install your own images. ...because you've always wanted to have some other things on screen when your kindle is in standby mode. Of course, the original screen-savers look great, but there are only few. Installing this hack gave me an opportunity to have a multitude of new images. Now my Kindle looks even better!
4. Try out Chinese kindle software - doukan.com - As a matter of fact, I haven't installed that software yet. It doesn't look good enough for me, and has some minor problems. However this is great, that there is actually some other option - I'm not forced to use the official firmware. And this distribution has many nice features like PDF reflow.
5. Enable Chinese fonts support on your kindle - damn! I'd like a simple, step by step tutorial on how to set up chinese fonts on a kindle. I'd like to put some font file on my device, fire some chinese book and be able to see the actual characters..
6. Programming for Kindle - with Kindle Official SDK - well, not quite! - unfortunately this is reserved only for the Chosen Ones. I've applied for the SDK but they haven't sent me my developer key yet, and it's been ~2 months. This is not "being supportive" or "supporting the community".

And how do You use your Kindle? Perhaps you're doing some serious, crazy things with it? Share your thoughts!

Great many ways to enjoy life!

This looks like a very nice art+video project. Look at those clips:

1. EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

   
   

2. LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

   
   

3. MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.