There are three ways to place your personal documents on the Kindle: 1) sideload them with a USB cable; 2) send them to your kindle email address; 3) use one of the new(ish) PC or Mac applications to send to Kindle from your file system.  In this post I am going to review all three techniques and deal with questions readers might have about formats and fees. File Types Before we begin the discussion, here is a list of the file formats supported natively by the Kindle, taken from the Amazon web site: Microsoft Word (.DOC, .DOCX) HTML (.HTML, .HTM) RTF (.RTF) JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG) Kindle Format (.MOBI,...

Last week Amazon updated the software for the Kindle Touch that now makes the Touch the most advanced Kindle of all.  While the Kindle family continues to diverge, it is easy to see that Amazon is betting the future on the Touch and touch enabled devices.   The new versions is number 5.1.0.  To see whether you have it, go to the Home screen, then tap menu > settings, and on the settings screen, tap menu again, and then Device Info.   If the version number does not read 5.1.0, you can download the new software from Amazon and follow their simple directions for installing it. After update...

In preparation for my workshop on eReaders next week I did a blog post describing the Kindle Family.  I was pretty dissatisfied with it because it took a lot of words to describe the many Kindle options currently available.  To clarify things, I decided to make a graphic.  In the graphic I try to hit the historical highlights of Kindle development in addition to clarifying the Kindle models, with options—especially pricing—but don’t depend on the scale of the graphic for complete historical accuracy.  I leaned heavily on the Wikipedia article on the Kindle for dates, but wasn’t able to...

In answer to the question, ‘What page was that on?’  The answer is: ‘it depends.’  It depends if you are reading the book on a Kindle, that is.  The problem of pagination with electronic texts is shared by all eReaders, of course, but since Kindles are the most popular I will concentrate on them in this post. If you are reading the book on the Kindle Fire, Amazon’s latest color tablet eReader, the answer is ‘I don’t know,’ because the Fire does not display page numbers—yet, at least.  You read books on the Fire with the Android version of the Kindle...

Knowing which device is which in the current Amazon Kindle lineup takes a little thought.  There are five breeds, with variations within breeds depending on whether you choose with special offers (ads on the home screen, not in-your-face, but ads all the same) or 3G connectivity (unless your away from WiFi hotspots a lot, you don’t need this).  Further complicating things the special offers option is not available on all breeds and neither is the 3G connectivity.  The breeds are: The Kindle “The Kindle,” also called the Kindle 4th generation, the “basic” entry level...