A Windows Phone 7 'Mango' update feature for the Fall. The Kindle Chronicles podcast Aug 5: textbook rentals, Kindle with Evernote

KINDLE FOR WINDOWS PHONE 7

First announced in January this year, this Kindle app was the first major eBook app for Windows Phone 7-based devices.  It has one feature I wish the Kindle itself had -- the ability to send an email to someone with a link to one of your Kindle books (rather than having this confined to Facebook or Twitter announcements).

The Windows Phone is in the news this week because those who were at Gdgt's live Seattle event Friday night got a preview of some main features coming to the "Mango" update to be ready this Fall.

' A search for a specific movie, for instance, can bring up not only websites about the movie, but connect directly to the phone's IMDb app that can play the movie's trailer.

  Scanning the title of a book, via the phone's camera, can forge a connection to the phone's Kindle app to download the book to be read on the phone. '

I thought that seemed a nice feature, while hoping it would download a sample rather than buy the book right off :-) but they probably just skipped a step when describing it.


KINDLE CHRONICLES PODCAST INTERVIEW ON AMAZON TEXTBOOK RENTALS PLUS A TECHNICAL TIP
Len Edgerly mentioned in this Friday's night's Kindle Chronicles weekly podcast that until September, the podcast will shift to a bi-weekly schedule until Labor Day.

You can, though, catch his other weekly podcast, The Edge of the Road, Len's newish Podcast on "technology and driving," short episodes of about 11 minutes each, recorded in the car, dealing mainly with Ford's new MyFord Touch system, installed in the 2012 Ford Focus.  This is a sort of grand experiment, and he reports (with Darlene's help) the ups and downs with this new technology.  Len also asks that his podcast listeners give him their experience with the built-in navigation system, made by Xanavi.  You can email him on that at PodChronicles AT gmail.com

This week's TheKindleChronicles has a short segment on the success of author Karen McQuestion, an interview with Amazon's Kindle Vice President, Dave Limp, who talks about Amazon's plans to expand the program and 'constantly improve' its usability.  That interview starts at 17:38 of the mp3 which can be streamed or downloaded to your computer.

  This week's Tech tip from the podcast: "How to to store your Kindle highlights and notes in Evernote, courtesy of a blog post by Michael Hyatt."

  Hyatt talks about the private, password-protected webpage at Amazon given to all Kindle users, to (among other things) hold and present their notes and highlighting for each Amazon book.  I've written about that little-known but highly valuable feature (especially for students) here.

  (To Kindle-edition subscribers on Kindle 3's: you can actually click the link to read it but you'll need, once you're on that page, to press Menu and then "Article Mode" in order to read it easily.)

  Also, in connection with making notes on the Kindle, there's an undocumented step that will make it easier.  Here is one section from my blog article on "Copy-paste to Note" that I'll insert here for convenience.

' ... sometimes I'd like to add a thought about something from a passage I'm reading.  I really don't want to type the passage, so I've wished for a way to copy and paste an excerpt to a Kindle book's "Notes" box and add, to that Note, shorthand thoughts.  The brief note added this way can be expanded on a computer later.
  This is doable.

The following steps are for Kindle 2's, then modified for Kindle 3's, and for Kindle DX's

  1.   Begin to highlight the sentence(s) you want to reference in your note by pressing down the 5-way button where you want to begin the copy.

  2.   5-way down, and at the last line to be excerpted, 5-way right, to the end of the referenced passage.   Do NOT press the 5-way button down to end the highlight.

  3.   Instead, press the space bar.  That'll bring up a search field.

  4.   Your now-highlighted passage is pasted into the Searchbar on Kindle 2's and DX's and into a Note-box on Kindle 3's.

  5.
  For Kindle 2's and DX's
   Now 5-way to the right, through several options, until you reach
   the "note" option.

  For Kindle 3's
   Upon a press of the spacebar, you don't get a Searchbox.
   Instead you get a Note-box as a main focus and
   with seemingly fewer options, but if you go to the bottom
   and keep 5-waying to the right, you'll see other options.
   In this case, we want to stay with making this a Note.

  6.
  For Kindle 2's, DX's
   Press down the 5-way button on "note" and you'll see
   the highlighted portion entered automatically into
   a Note-box.  You can now add some thoughts
   about the highlighted portion just pasted in.

  For Kindle 3's
   You are already in the Note-box and can save the note
   on the Kindle
   or save & share it on Facebook or Twitter. That process
   lets you write a cover note as well.

Tip: Anything you highlight, copy and paste this way, you have options to, instead, Google or search in Wikipedia or your Kindle's dictionary or on the Kindle itself.  But we've chosen "note" here because this makes notes about designated passages quite a bit easier.

'

Michael Hyatt's tutorial, linked above, on using your Amazon book annotations with Evernote looks really useful.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.