The Kindle Chronicles

Kindle News: Amazon passes a milestone with 180,000 titles available in the Kindle Store.Tech Tip: A light for reading your Kindle in bed when your spouse is trying to sleep.Interview: Jim Cheshire, author of Decoding the Kindle.Kindle Quote: from Spirit House, a Vincent Calvino Novel by Christopher G. Moore.Kindle Comments: audio from Bryan Person, comments on the show notes page from Greg Pyles and Paul.

Kindle News: Forbes reports on two more would-be Kindle Killers from Plastic Logic and iRex Technologies.Tech Tip: My 79-year-old mother's clever idea for printing a Kindle page didn't pan out, but I did learn about the expanded location tool from Jim Cheshire's new book, Decoding the Kindle.  Interview: Andy Ihnatko, technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Kindle Quote: from McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking about Hope by the late David Foster Wallace and Jacob Weisberg.Kindle Comments: Rusty from the show notes page and an audio comment from Paul Higginbotham.  Music for my podcast is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.To leave an audio comment, please call 206-666-2713.  Email: PodChronicles@gmail.com . Photo of Andy Ihnatko at MacWorld 2008 by Nonie from Melburne, Australia.  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.  via Wikipedia

Kindle News: Kindle snags exclusive for new biographies of Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain.  Jim Cheshire's Decoding the Kindle is released.Tech Tip: How to highlight a section of text which begins on one screen and ends on the next. Also, Jan Zlendich's tip for helping your Kindle make it home if you leave it somewhere.The "What's on Your Kindle Interview?": Heather Hollick of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with a clever way to move lots of reading material from the web to the Kindle as .pdf files.  UPDATE: Here are some items on Heather's Kindle:   Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond   Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin   The Huffington Post blog.Kindle Quote: Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker.Kindle Comments: Al, and Bryce Craig of Santa Barbara, California.Music for my podcast is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.To leave an audio comment, please call 206-666-2713.  Email: PodChronicles@gmail.com .

Kindle News: Andy Ihnatko's possibly prophetic piece in Macworld titled, "How Apple Could Make e-books work and why Steve Jobs could do what Jeff Bezos hasn't."Tech Tip: How to put your Kindle on cruise control.  (Hat tip to chelsea etitameh on the Kindle  Korner Yahoo Group. )The "What's On Your Kindle?" Interview: Jan Zlendich of Tucson, Arizona, created The Kindle Reader blog while she waited for her Kindle to arrive last year.  In our phone interview on September 3, 2008, she gives a librarian's literate view of the Kindle.  Among the items on her 55 pages of Home screen are the following:  Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Daniel Klein, "Shade" a short story by Stephen Gould available for free download in Kindle format (Mobipocket) from Tor, Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 2,730 Pages by Ammon Shea, and subscriptions to Time, Asimov's Science Fiction, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and the blog TVNewser . Kindle Quote: from The Nigger of Narcissus by Joseph Conrad, a free download from Feedbooks.  Beginning at Locations 409-14.Kindle Comments by Bruce Kessel (who linked to NYT story putting end to rumor of new Kindle this year), dorianN and Patricia Hawn.Music for my podcast is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.To leave an audio comment, please call 206-666-2713.  Email: PodChronicles@gmail.com .

Kindle News: We have fresh rumors of new student-oriented Kindle models coming as soon as September from Andrea James of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Peter Burrows of Business Week's The Tech Beat.  This led John C. Dvorak to increase the warmth of his Kindle assessment compared with his initial scoffing on This Week in Tech just after the Kindle was introduced.  (Note to social-network savvy Amazon exec if you're listening to this podcast: feel free to call me at 303-919-7187 if you'd like to arrange for The Kindle Chronicles to evaluate a review unit of the any new Kindle...)LATE-BREAKING REPORT WHICH DIDN'T MAKE THE PODCAST: Via Jim Cheshire, I see the New York Times today is quoting Craig Berman, Amazon’s chief spokesman, as saying, "One thing I can tell you for sure is that there will be NO new version of the Kindle this year. A new version is possible sometime next year at the earliest.” I hope that's just smoke.Tech Tip: Adrienne Cousins on the Yahoo Kindle Korner group has posted several bookmark files which make it much easier to reach web sites on the Kindle. Also, Jim Cheshire of DecodingTheKindle recommends Skweezer to format blogs for quicker and cleaner viewing on the Kindle. Hat tip to Stephen Windwalker for suggesting Adrienne's bookmarks.The "What's on Your Kindle?" Interview: My guest this week is Randal L. Schwartz of Stonehenge. We met at a photography workshop last week conducted by Chris Marquardt of the Tips from the Top Floor podcast.   Randal recommends Baen Books as a great source of inexpensive quality books for the Kindle, especially in the science fiction category.  A favorite of his is James P. Hogan. Kindle Quote: "Fear Oratory Will Be Obama's Undoing" by Edward Luce.Kindle Comments by Bob Boyken, RobinTX and Steven Schwindt.Music for my podcast is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

The "What's on Your Kindle?" interview this week is with Joe Wikert, creator of the Kindleville blog and vice president & executive publisher within the Professional Trade Division of John Wiley & Sons.  Here is some of what's on Joe's Kindle:Subscriptions to The New York Times and Time MagazineSamples of Predictably Irrational, Obsessive Branding Disorder, and Nice Guys Can Get the Corner OfficeKindle News - The Financial Times arrives! The EFF asks tough questions of the publishing industry.  Seth Godin gets skeptical.Kindle Tech Tip - QuickFics points us to EchoDitto's fix for partial RSS feeds.  And the difference between Previous Page and Back.Kindle Quote - I can't believe I'm quoting this book...Kindle Comments - dorianN tells how her Kindle saved her from what could have been a very sad fate.  Heather Hollick wins a prize for saving a podcaster from laziness.Music for my podcast is "Ra-Monk" by Eval Manigat on the "Variations in Time: A Jazz Perspective" CD by Public Transit Recording, courtesy of IODA Promonet.

This is the .mp3 version of episode 5 featuring an interview with Joe Wikert.

This is the .mp3 version of Episode 4, which features a "What's on Your Kindle?" interview with Bill Bulger, 74, in active retirement after serving for 17 years as president of the Massachusetts State Senate and seven years as president of the University of Massachusetts.

This week's "What's on Your Kindle?" Interview is with Bill Bulger, 74, a legendary Massachusetts politician from South Boston who served 17 years as president of the state Senate and 7 years as president of the University of Massachusetts.  We visited at his home, and afterward his wife, Mary, revealed exactly why she bought her husband a Kindle.  His book is not in Kindle version yet - click on the link to let his publisher know you'd like that changed!   UPDATE: Two items on Bill Bulger's Kindle are Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen and Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories by Elmore Leonard.Kindle News: The financial analyst heard round the Kindlesphere-reverberations from a Citi analyst's doubling of his earlier estimate of Kindle sales this year and NYT perspective here; Amazon adds a way to ping publishers who are not yet on the Kindle train (an item from Cush), and how 17 syllables might win you a Kindle.Tech Tip: Do's and Don'ts with an SD card, including screenshot tip from Stephen Windwalker.  More on using FeedBooks for free RSS feeds.Kindle Quote: from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beacher StoweKindle Comment: Cory in FlaNew contest: the first person whose audio comment I use on the next episode will receive a $10 gift certificate at the Amazon Store.  Phone in your coment to 206-666-2713 or attach an .mp3 file to email to PodChronicles@gmail.com. I also welcome text comments here or at the email address.   Thanks for listening!Special audio extra: Bill Bulger singing a solo with the Boston Symphony.

This is the .mp3 version of this week's episode featuring a "What's on Your Kindle?" interview with author Stephen Windwalker.