DOWNLOAD v2.5.x. - An Intro and Hands-on Guide to Kindle Software Version 2.5.x Features - Updated Info7

A KINDLE GUIDE

KINDLE SOFTWARE VERSION 2.5.x READY FOR DOWNLOAD
KINDLE-3 users should jump direct to the Intro and Guide by clicking HERE.
  You can now download the official software version 2.5.x instead of waiting for it to come to your Kindle over wireless.  Thanks again to Frankie Sutton for monitoring the appearance of it :-).

To check whether you already have it (if, for instance, if Amazon already sent it over Whispernet when reception makes that possible and your Wireless is On), press Menu Button, select Settings, and then look at the lower-right of the status line.
  If the version number has "2.5.2" or "2.5.3" you already have the new version.

  As mentioned, it is also being delivered over Whispernet, and as usual, it can take a few days or weeks.  So, you can also wait to get it that way, of course.
  I found v.2.5.3 appearing on my Kindle DX U.S. to my surprise, over the air, and v2.5.2 appearing on my Kindle 2 U.S. as well.

  As of this moment, the server files for all 4 Kindle types have filenames of v2.5.2 though people report Kindle 2 Int'l and Kindle DX (US at least) settings of v2.5.3 (probably Kindle DX Int'l too).

Also, here is an adapted Guide to Installation of update from an Amazon forum posting by Marc Miwords.   First,

. Go [to the help page].
. Download the file associated with the Kindle version you have.
(Do you have K2 or DX and is it US or International?)

. (You can find the serial number on the back of your Kindle.  If it starts with:

B002... it's a 6" Kindle 2, U.S. version, using Sprint's wireless network
B003, it's an International or Global version of the 6" Kindle 2 version and uses AT&T's wireless network - released October 19, 2009
B004, it's a 9.7" Kindle DX, U.S. version
B005, it's a 9.7" Kindle DX, Global version - released January 6, 2010. '

. Another way to get the serial number is to have Wireless On, press Menu button, click on Settings and then input the numbers 411

Steps to Start a Collection (no periods used after each step)
. Once you have loaded the file, put it on your desktop [or to a download folder you normally use], so you can easily find it
. Plug your Kindle in to the computer using the USB cord
. Find the Kindle, usually shown as a 'Drive' or labeled "Kindle"
. The space you then see with a bunch of folders showing is called the "root directory"
. Drag your new .bin (update file), to the root directory. [Make sure your file is placed ABOVE the folders you can still see, such as "Documents" "Music" etc.
. Safely eject your Kindle the way you normally would
  (How you do this depends on what operating system you have...do you have XP or Vista or a Mac? etc.)   For Vista, you go to "Computer" and right click on the drive letter with the Kindle.  For Marc's Vista, it's "F" but with other operating systems it could be 'G' or 'H' etc.  It may also be labeled "Kindle"... (You will see a choice to "eject" {or 'remove' on some Macs} and you click on that.)
. Unplug your Kindle from the computer
. From your Home page on the Kindle, click "Menu"
. From that menu, click "Settings"
. From the settings page, click "menu" again
. "Update My Kindle" should be black rather than gray'd out
. If black, click on it to start the update
. Your Kindle will update. (Takes a while because the file is large.)
. The Kindle wording will alert you to do nothing until it completes
. It reboots during all this of course
. When it is updated, click "Home" button


COLLECTIONS KINDLE 3 USERS - Ignore above section
. From Home, click on "Menu"
. Go to "Add New Collection"
. Name the Collection.  Repeat as wanted  *
. Go to your books
. At each book, push the 5 way controller to the right
. From that menu, click "Add To Collection"
. Using the 5 way Controller, scroll to a collection you want to use for that particular book
. Click the 5 way controller
. One click ADDs it, another click REMOVES it -- from the collection but not from your device
. Press Back button to get back to where you were in the books
. Repeat until you have all of your books in collections.

ALTERNATIVE Collections-creation method
* NOTE: You can, instead, create a Collection, name it, and THEN choose to
ADD books to it, and you will be taken to your book collection and you
can mark the books that are to be added to the collection.
  A book can be added to many collections. '

*** Kindle 3 users should start here ***
INTRO AND GUIDE - Main portion

Kindle Update v2.5x, featuring the new Collections capability among other new items. is still being rolled out via Whispernet while the files are downloadable from their servers.

 Amazon indicated that Kindle Support received good feedback on the few update version 2.5 files sent out early in May and were making 'small adjustments' based on what they did hear.  The update scheduled to be available 'before Summer' when announced in November made its deadline.

 Basic answers to questions we had initially are in the online documentation.

  So I've linked to the Amazon help pages for each new feature when I've found one, as those describe how these new features work.  As mentioned, the software updates have been delivered to many Kindles but without help files or alerts that a new nicely-different update was installed.

The topmost-left image starting this blog article is of my Kindle screen after I applied  a workaround recommended by knowledgeable Kindle user luvmy4BRATs.   Using certain symbols such as '*' or '[' or '{'  forces the Collections group-names into an above-individual-books alphabetical sort when using the  "By Title" option, which people with many Collections will find more useful than the official and separate "Collections" sorting that is done by the new software.



That official Collections Home-listing, as seen in the image at the right, sorts only by most-recently accessed Collection and at times it even appears to be random.

  With 30 Collections and three pages of those on my Kindle 2 (U.S.), I had problems finding any Collection I knew held the book I wanted because I had to check each Collection name on the Home screens.

  See image on the right for how the Default listing for Collections displays.

  Then note image at top-left for the workaround recommended by luvmy4BRATs.


THE LIST OF ENHANCEMENTS - emphases mine:

* Collections: Organize your books and documents into one or more collections.


 

Sorting Content and Using Collections

Once you have this software (most of us in late May), we would still go up to the top of the HOME screen and navigate the SORT options, which will now include "Collections," which are categories we create.   The set-categories given us before (Personal Docs, etc.) are no longer shown.


The HOME screen will look the same, but when we go up to the SORT options area at the top of the screen, we'll be able to view the Collections we've created.  You can see that the categories or collections are shown along with the number of books or documents in those collections.  The default option will remain "Most Recent First" unless we arrow over to Collections option and click on it.

Collections are created from a Menu option on the Home screen and can be renamed or deleted later (see screen image below).

  A book can be in several collections, but even if it is in only one collection, the deletion of that collection won't affect the book, which will then just show on the Home screen.




  Collections can be transferred across registered Kindle devices and you'll be able to import collections from your other Kindle devices under the Archived Items page, using "Add Other Device Collections.

  If you re-download a deleted book, it will download to the collection or category it was a part of before.


M O R E     O N. . .
THE COLLECTIONS FEATURE
Except for no option for Alpha sorting of Collections, this feature is especially well thought out, so it's intuitive, logical, and therefore easy to use.   It has a tag-type structure, so that you can have a book in several groupings at any time.  There is only one level of groupings though.

  See a Step-by-Step for Adding Collections and books for them, by Marc Miwords, above.  After reading that, press 'Back' on your browser to return here.

  Already I have 30 named Collections under which I want to find things.   But it's still brought my list of 200+  books and documents way down.  And it's really easy to find the books I'm in the mood to read now.

   I had wished earlier that we could mark and move several books at once into this or that collection.  A few reporting having a thousand or more books on their Kindles would need this even more.
UPDATE - Ray Fowler (and later, Eric) points out in the Comments area that we can "Open a collection.  Press Menu.  Select Add/Remove Items.  Now you can go through your list of books checking them off as part of the collection or unchecking them as you go."
  While it wasn't what I had in mind exactly, as I wanted to check books off and then create or fill a new 'Collection' for those, it fills the bill.
  Thanks to them for taking the time for the reminder.  I had not looked forward to opening 30 collections one by one and then reviewing over 200 books each time to see what should go in, but the way I had wanted would have its own probs.


* PDF Pan and Zoom: Zoom into PDFs and pan around to easily view small print and detailed tables or graphics. 

  Zooming on Images and PDF Documents
  That page will show how it's done for books and for PDF documents. 
    Normally, rotating to Landscape, which fits the PDF width to the Landscape screen   will be all that's needed.

   But, you can also Press "Aa" key (font & layout key) to magnify a section by 150%, 200% and   300% -- or view in "actual size," which sometimes allows you to scroll to right and left.

   When using the little boxes to identify what you want zoomed, be sure to use the Shift-key with 5-way button to "nudge" the box in any direction you want to get something closer to the specific area you need.


* Password Protection: Password protect your Kindle when you're not using it. 
  Here's the guide.  This feature is Off as a Default and is optional.
    The password is set from the Menu/Settings screen and you provide a hint.
    If you don't remember the password, you'll get a phone number for
    Customer Support who will help you reset it.


* More Fonts and Improved Clarity: Enjoy two new larger font sizes  and sharper fonts for an even more comfortable reading experience.


* Facebook and Twitter Posts: Share book passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter directly from your Kindle.

    Sharing Highlights and Notes on Facebook and Twitter
  The linked Amazon help page for this (just above) details how this is done.


* Popular Highlights: See what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books you're reading.

  Annotations: Highlights ...
    Part of this feature is already included in our private, password-protected Annotations webpage (we have this page if we left Annotations Backup enabled in the Menu/Settings options).
   Here's an example of what highlights for a book look like on our private annotations webpage (ignoring my own idea of privacy for a moment) before the recent addition of  "popular highlights."

  If three or more people highlight overlapping portions of a passage, this will trigger the alert, in your book, that others have highlighted a given passage.  You can turn this feature off under Menu/Settings.

  I think I'll turn this off until I've read
the chapter or book because I don't want to be influenced by what others highlighted while I'm still reading.  I don't read movie reviews in detail for the same reason.  I'd like to read just what the author wrote, without cues from others.  The feature is probably very useful for bookclubs though.

(Often wished-for enhancements that are Not on the list:   Direct editing of PDFs and ability to directly-read non-rights-protected ePub w/o converting them first).


M O R E   O N . . .
PAN AND ZOOM ON PDFS
This is very effective for zooming in on a selected area (zoom box size is not extendable as they fit what your chosen magnification is).  Using the  'Aa' font-key, we can choose magnifications of 150, 200, and 300x.  And the resulting scaled-up text is VERY clear.

  I'd like, though,  a smoother way to move to another part of the page, to the right especially, when using the moving box border but the shift + 5-way button to nudge it a bit over helps.


HUGE FONT SIZE
The Amazon Customer Service Team mentioned on the official Kindle forum and on Facebook earlier that this update promised before Summer would include a font that is twice the size of the current largest Kindle font.  The new fonts really ARE huge..

  There'd also been some hope that Kindle menu-options would be included in text-to-speech by then but I don't see that audio feature listed.  


FACEBOOK/TWITTER HIGHLIGHTS SHARING FEATURE
  The Facebook/Twitter features are ready, and the online-tutorial I'll link to shows you how to use it and what we'll see when we send out a highlighted section for others to read.  Those familiar with Facebook and Twitter know that these two companies ask you to link other webpages or processes to your page on their sites.  Some will be more comfortable with that than others.  Some already do like the feature quite a bit.  I decided to test it out and here's what the Facebook portion of this shared-highlight looks like there:


The actual highlight I made (and the nicer aspect of this is that we can make a longer highlighted passage this way) is linked to at Facebook (or at Twitter if you choose that) and the passage is then shown at an Amazon page made for that.  Here's how the highlighted portion appears at your shared highlight page at Amazon.

  News writers seem to find this by far the most interesting feature though Kindle-owners have long pushed for the other new features.

  Not only is Sharing across cables apparently sexy (newswise), but few e-readers have easy wireless access, not to mention almost-anywhere-anytime 3G Wireless access at no added cost.  So, you could be sitting on a bus, or a bench somewhere, reading a passage you want to share with friends, and you can just highlight something of interest to friends at Facebook or Twitter and send it off.  The advantage for Amazon is obvious. 


WHEN DO MOST OF US GET THE V2.5 UPDATE? (Only  maybe 25,000+ received v2.5, but many more have received v2.5.2).   This firmware update will probably be updated now and then and delivered over Whispernet (Kindle Wireless). I had said that Amazon is probably readying a final version or about to designate v2.5.2 v2.5.3 official and will eventually have an announcement about it and hopefully the proper files for each Kindle model, as usual, for manual download when necessary.  So that time has come (6/14/10).

  For Whispernet downloads when available - What I do - I plug in the adapter at night after turning Wireless ON through the Menu system, just in case.  Amazon has said that the update will be delivered when the Kindle is in 'deep sleep' mode. I've also read that they say that leaving your wireless on for 30 minutes a day when expecting an update will serve to get the update if it's been 'sent' to your Kindle.

  It's *important* also to remember to turn Wireless OFF after you remove the power adapter the next morning to avoid fast battery drain once you've  downloaded any subscriptions/periodicals that might be coming in that day.   I do appreciate the early birds taking care of any bugs before the rest of us get it though :-).

  Their over-the-air (OTA)Whispernet updates are usually distributed over a matter of weeks, so some will wait for what can seem a long time if they're reading about an update on the forums. With v2.5.x we now can download the software version and install it. (See top of this intro and guide.)

UPDATED INFO6 - Now that the current Kindle v2.5.x software update is downloadable from Amazon's servers via their manual update process, I've removed the history of Kindle owners sharing various files and previous files in order to get the update they saw others getting.

  I imagine this was encouragement for Amazon to finally get updates up, but it's also likely that Amazon wanted a subset of the v2.5.2 version to go out globally to see if there were problems with being able to use it intuitively and to make sure there were no obvious problems for the non-tech users which is their target audience.  For that they'd need non-beta-test-type users, and of course their software version would have been bullet-proofed earlier against damage to the Kindle and the users' files.
  It IS intuitive, to the extent that software with so many features offered in e-reader can be.

The Kindle-owner history of sharing unofficial update-files where there were none that they could download but people around them were getting them, which I felt was an unhealthy situation for Amazon but one that brought cheer to Kindle users not getting such an important update, is now at this page as a sort of "blog-archive."


EXCELLENT HANDS-ON GUIDE FOR THE UPDATE v2.5
Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng has a fine hands-on report on the Kindle software upgrade, thoroughly illustrated.  Don't miss this one.


KINDLE 1 INCLUSION SOMEDAY?
  Wording on the page had indicated the update would not be for the original Kindle 1, no real surprise, as the screen-handling of the cursor navigation for the Kindle Klassic, as it's often called, is "indirect" and uses entirely different software instructions from the "direct" screen cursor access for the current Kindle 6" and Kindle DX.
  But a note from Customer Support to a Kindle 1 owner suggests strongly that they may well be working on a similar organizational feature for the Kindle 1.

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