Kindle Tips: Free Android App of the day, a PDF reader with annotation capability normally $7.99 ... Certified Refurbished Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G-LTE (Nov. 2012) on sale May19-only at 219

Free Android App of the Day, PDF MAX, normally goes for $7.99

For those who didn't see this already, Guven Witteveen sent an alert that PDF Max, normally $8 is available today as the free Amazon Android app of the day.

  While popular in the Apple iOS version, this Android version has been less successful in the past, although there have been various recent improvements noted and seen if you sort Customer Reviews by "Newest first" (as I've done in the reviews link).

  Things customers have noted:

1. Ability to print via wireless
2. Can annotate (but this seems a bit glitchy for some)
3. Also possible: Magnifying, highlighting, dropbox file sharing, editing tools
4. Works offline (as I'd expect)
5. Seems quicker than some other PDF readers and handles large files
      but large files will take a lot of memory
6. Downloaded PDF files are more easily 'found' than with some other PDF readers
7. Print drivers are found under "SHARE"

At any rate, worth a try at the one-day "free" price and if you just keep it in your Cloud, you'll be eligible for future updates as an owner of the app.


GoldBox deal today ONLY on Certified Reburished Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G LTE (November 2012 model), with physical HDMI port to HDTV.
  It needs to be added to a data plan to be use the 4G Capability, though of course it has WiFi access too.
  IBM charges $130 additional for any of its 4G/LTE models.
Normal pricing: 32GB storage: $299     64GB storage: $349
May 19 pricing: 32GB storage: $219     64GB storage: $269

 This 8.9" HD model will be slower than the current 8.9" HDX tablet and will not be nearly as light -- and doesn't have "Mayday" help, "Miracast" mirroring (wireless) to HDTV, or "Fling" technology for separate content shown on tablet and HDTV. But as a 4G LTE cellular network tablet, it's quite a bargain.

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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Q&A on the Kindle's My Clippings feature (repeated for new Kindle owners)

The private password-protected web page that we each get, showing our annotations for each book has been quite thoroughly updated already for the new features in software version 2.5x that is being slowly distributed by Amazon.
  They've added book-reading-status choices that we can customize and the choice to see 'popular highlights' (though I have no interest in the latter but your book club might).  The *basic* information on annotations for that webpage, before the additions, is below.  You can just see the additions when arriving at the page.  Most I've talked with don't know about this webpage, which we've had since May 2009,but soon we'll hear a lot more about it.   There is also important basic information in the Q&A that new, and even some long-time, Kindle owners, will probably find useful.

Q & A on My Clippings file and Highlighting and Notes  (repeat)

Mike M. wrote to ask some questions about the My Clippings file and suggested I could respond in the blog -- a very good idea, so here are his questions.

Q:  If I remove an Amazon book from my Kindle are my marks and bookmarks deleted from the "My Clippings File"?

No, they remain in that file.  The marks (notes, highlighting, and bookmarks) are copies of what you did for your books and are actually retained in the My Clippings file even when the book is no longer on the Kindle, as that is a detailed log of the marks that you make for all your books, in chronological order, for your use in editing or printing (from a computer).

 So, even when the book is inadvertently deleted, copies of the annotations and bookmarks are still on the Kindle in straight-text format for your use.
  (This is why, in the infamous '1984' incident here, the notes taken for homework actually were still on the kindle.)

  The actual marks that are used with your Kindle book are kept in a small associated file for each book, for reference by the Kindle when the book is opened.

  The My Clippings 'book' file is a pure-text file (unlike the book's associated marks-file, which has placement coding in it).  The My Clippings file is made so that the customer can edit or print, at any time, the clippings that were saved while reading.

  To do that, you attach the Kindle to your computer, via the USB cable that is part of your power cord, and use the file manager to copy that file to your computer.  You can then edit or print that copy as you would any text file.

Q:  If I delete a non-Amazon book from my Kindle are my marks and bookmarks deleted from the "My Clippings File"?

No, those also remain in the My Clippings file, which is a separate file kept for you so that you can work with it, apart from your book.  Each note or highlight that you make is automatically copied to that file for use in editing and printing.

 When editing a copy of the file, I recommend highlighting, copying and pasting the file's text to a WORD doc or any text-editing program you use that allows you to retain the bolding for the headings, which look like this:
      " Your highlight at location 1596 "
as that will make your actual notes easier to differentiate from the headers.

Q:  Once I load the "My Clippings" text file onto my computer:
  Is there an easy way to assemble all the clippings and marks from a single book into one location?

Unfortunately, there's no Kindle utility for that.  However, there is a WORD macro made by a Professor that will sort the file and display the notes BY book. From the professor's description:

Here’s what the macro does:

* Creates a table of highlights, notes and bookmarks.
* sorts the table by book and location in book
* removes a (now useless) column
* changes the font to a smaller one
* adjusts the column sizes

If you try it and like it, let him know.

Q:  Can I delete some of the information and copy the altered My Clippings file back on my kindle?

Yes, you can, and it's a good idea.  However, if you decide you prefer to start afresh and you remove the file from the Kindle, the Kindle will create a new one the next time you make an annotation or a bookmark.  Anyone doing that should definitely keep a backup-copy on the computer of what was done in the past in case it's ever needed.

Q:  If I delete the My Clippings file and start fresh, will I still be able to view marks previously made in a book by searching the "My Marks" from the book menu?

As long as your book remains on the Kindle, yes, you'll be able to do that because the actual marks referenced by the book you open are in the small marks-file that is associated with the book.

---

Web Kindle Tool for Books Purchased from Amazon
 The title link, above this line, goes to the full blog article on the Web Kindle Tool.
As a bonus -- although it's not a feature that Amazon advertises -- a private, password-protected annotations webpage is made at Amazon for each customer, if the customer has Annotations Backup enabled under Menu/Settings.  This feature backs up, to Amazon servers, annotations for books purchased from Amazon but not annotations for any of your other books or personal documents.

  You find that Kindle setting with Menu button/Settings/Menu button.

  If you delete an Amazon-purchased book (which then just retains it in your Archives at your Amazon page) and then decide you want to download it again, your annotations will also be archived along with the book and will be downloaded as well whenever you need to re-download that book.

  I've written a detailed explanation of how to use that very useful Amazon annotations webpage tool.   They've also added a feature to add notes to your highlights, which should show up on your Kindle too.  Am testing that.  It worked!  Very nice.

  (However, if you ever want to permanently delete an Amazon book from your Amazon highlights -- you'd need to re-buy the book if you wanted it again -- that's also possible.  Some found they hated some books they'd bought and strongly requested that permanent-removal feature.)

Hope that helps!

---

Check often:  Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Q&A on the Kindle's My Clippings file

Mike M. wrote to ask some questions about the My Clippings file and suggested I could respond in the blog -- a very good idea, so here are his questions.

Q:  If I remove an Amazon book from my Kindle are my marks and bookmarks deleted from the "My Clippings File"?

No, they remain in that file.  The marks (notes, highlighting, and bookmarks) are copies of what you did for your books and are actually retained in the My Clippings file even when the book is no longer on the Kindle, as that is a detailed log of the marks that you make for all your books, in chronological order, for your use in editing or printing (from a computer).

 So, even when the book is inadvertently deleted, copies of the annotations and bookmarks are still on the Kindle in straight-text format for your use.
  (This is why, in the infamous '1984' incident here, the notes taken for homework actually were still on the kindle.)

  The actual marks that are used with your Kindle book are kept in a small associated file for each book, for reference by the Kindle when the book is opened.

  The My Clippings 'book' file is a pure-text file (unlike the book's associated marks-file, which has placement coding in it).  The My Clippings file is made so that the customer can edit or print, at any time, the clippings that were saved while reading.

  To do that, you attach the Kindle to your computer, via the USB cable that is part of your power cord, and use the file manager to copy that file to your computer.  You can then edit or print that copy as you would any text file.

Q:  If I delete a non-Amazon book from my Kindle are my marks and bookmarks deleted from the "My Clippings File"?

No, those also remain in the My Clippings file, which is a separate file kept for you so that you can work with it, apart from your book.  Each note or highlight that you make is automatically copied to that file for use in editing and printing.

 When editing a copy of the file, I recommend highlighting, copying and pasting the file's text to a WORD doc or any text-editing program you use that allows you to retain the bolding for the headings, which look like this:
      " Your highlight at location 1596 "
as that will make your actual notes easier to differentiate from the headers.

Q:  Once I load the "My Clippings" text file onto my computer:
  Is there an easy way to assemble all the clippings and marks from a single book into one location?

Unfortunately, there's no Kindle utility for that.  However, there is a WORD macro made by a Professor that will sort the file and display the notes BY book. From the professor's description:

Here’s what the macro does:

* Creates a table of highlights, notes and bookmarks.
* sorts the table by book and location in book
* removes a (now useless) column
* changes the font to a smaller one
* adjusts the column sizes

If you try it and like it, let him know.

Q:  Can I delete some of the information and copy the altered My Clippings file back on my kindle?

Yes, you can, and it's a good idea.  However, if you decide you prefer to start afresh and you remove the file from the Kindle, the Kindle will create a new one the next time you make an annotation or a bookmark.  Anyone doing that should definitely keep a backup-copy on the computer of what was done in the past in case it's ever needed.

Q:  If I delete the My Clippings file and start fresh, will I still be able to view marks previously made in a book by searching the "My Marks" from the book menu?

As long as your book remains on the Kindle, yes, you'll be able to do that because the actual marks referenced by the book you open are in the small marks-file that is associated with the book.

---

As a bonus -- although it's not a feature that Amazon advertises -- a private, password-protected annotations webpage is made at Amazon for each customer, if the customer has Annotations Backup enabled.  This feature backs up, to Amazon servers, annotations for books purchased from Amazon but not annotations for any of your other books or personal documents.

  You find that Kindle setting with Menu button/Settings/Menu button.

  If you delete an Amazon-purchased book (which then just retains it in your Archives at your Amazon page) and then decide you want to download it again, your annotations will also be archived along with the book and will be downloaded as well whenever you need to re-download that book.

  I've written a detailed explanation of how to use that very useful Amazon annotations webpage tool.

  (However, if you ever want to permanently delete an Amazon book from your Amazon highlights -- you'd need to re-buy the book if you wanted it again -- that's also possible.  Some found they hated some books they'd bought and strongly requested that permanent-removal feature.)

Hope that helps!

---

US: Kindle Fire  7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow 3G web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

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

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

The Test-Run at Univ of Washington with Kindle DX's

Seattle's KOMO Newsroom reports on the test run of the Kindle DX being done by the University of Washington, with 40 graduate students participating in using the Kindle DX in place of both textbooks and classroom reading materials this semester.

They need to see how well that might work.  Seven universities are taking part, and the University of Washington students will be among the first to actually get the Kindles.

  This is the fundamental question posed:
"How would you have to change a device that was designed as a personal pleasure device to turn it into a learning device?"

  Professor Dan Grossman says, "We want to be able to annotate and highlight and flip back and forth and have that physical experience," he said.
  But on the other side, he says, "We want to be able to search and look up and have massive amounts of information on one lightweight device." - a strength of the Kindle.

PILOT PROGRAM BLOG
seattlest.com reports on the University's blog of results so far as noted on the UW Kindle Pilot blog by the Computer Science & Engineering Dept.

If you follow the link, you'll see they want to annotate PDFs, but since this can't be done under the current licensing with Adobe, the University is converting the PDFs to the Kindle's own format instead, in order to be able to annotate the text, but since the textbooks include engineering materials, there is multi-column material as well as equations, the layouts for which tend to be lost or mangled when converted to the normal text-oriented formats.

Seattlest.com's article interpreted the blog comments as reports that the PDFs themselves were not being shown correctly, with multi-column format changed to single column format only and the math "messed up."

CONVERTED FILES (no longer PDF)
However, it's actually the converted files (in Amazon format rather than PDF) which are not showing correctly.  A number of us have written about this since May, before the DX was released when we saw in the early User's Guide for the DX that they were not offering PDF annotation features (which normally requires a fuller Adobe license for support).  I wrote a comment at Seattlest.com to try to explain that the DX can read and display PDFs accurately but that the problem involves converted files in another format that don't interpret the PDF layout correctly.

WORKAROUND FOR THE TIME BEING
In the meantime, the school's Kindle Pilot blog details a workaround they're trying, using a PDF to WORD converter such as Nuance's and then using Word to reformat the document to single column (this will often not be appropriate) and then sending the single-column'd WORD doc to Amazon's converter to put it into the Amazon format.

The school is of course asking Amazon "if these things can be improved."

THE FUTURE?
I imagine they are!  While I think the tech team has done a really good job with these units and the study tools for the regular books, the Kindles are early consumer-priced versions versus the expensive iRex models (already here but $800+) and Plastic Logic model due in early Spring with good PDF annotation features and more file formats supported but which will cost quite a bit more while not offering web access for reference and research.

I think the DX screen at 9.7" is the smallest students could use for PDFs meant to display on a full letter page, and the landscape mode usually does help quite a bit in enlarging the fonts.  But for university use, I don't understand how students could enjoy not being able to highlight and add notes to their PDFs.  I'm puzzled why Amazon hasn't moved on this aspect of PDF use in academic settings for the coming Fall session as so many of us asked them to in May.  I'm hoping they find a way since they've chosen to run the college studies.

As a consumer-category customer not having to make notes for courses, I really enjoy reading on my DX (I find the screen beautiful to read from) and even highlighting and notating normal books, but if there is no other change coming, the one change they should make is to get the Adobe PDF annotations feature for the DX (and add the ePub format for all Kindles). Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

A different 'rights' theory on Amazon '1984' action

This is an update to the Orwellian tale - Part 1 that has non-customers more angry than most Amazon customers posting on the forums (probably because Kindle customer service has been so responsive over the last year), though we are definitely watchful -- but Amazon took less than 8 hours to respond that they're changing their systems so that this doesn't happen again.

Note the still hilarious ongoing Amazon Kindle forum thread in which customers create new scenarios of Amazon dropping by, unannounced, to make various changes in their homes.  Yes, this was serious stuff but Amazon seems to know it stepped into a dark, deep spot it'll want to avoid in the future.

  When publishers have decided to withdraw a book from Amazon, actions haven't been done retroactively insofar as customer copies are concerned -- but if you finished reading and then deleted a book which is later withdrawn by the publisher, and you then want to re-download that book to take another look at it, the publisher's new wish takes precedence at that point and it's not re-downloadable.

  TIP:  Keep a back-up copy on your computer.

As an addendum to the earlier "Furor" story, I came across an unusual CNet article by Peter Glaskowsky which included, in its Comments area, a unique theory about this mess, by "Jaleth."  He wondered if Title 17 of United States Code:
(c) Information Residing on Systems or Networks at Direction of Users could apply to Amazon affecting its predicament with the illegal edition of the book.

It's far-fetched except that a case could be made that Kindles are a part of a network within which Amazon regularly makes contact to add files, move them into folders, back up, record last-page read for synchronization with iphone apps, and replace once-a-day blogs with newer editions.

 And, while the Terms of Service say that Amazon grants the customer "the right to keep a 'permanent copy of the applicable digital content'," this right was not exactly assignable with a book edition that Amazon and Mobile Reference weren't entitled to sell at all.

It doesn't change the fact that Amazon should never have just deleted the book and they're not likely going to be doing that again, as they said.

The network-reach theory explanations by Jaleth (above) are an interesting read as are the arguments against his.  These are found in the bottom third of the final comments page.

I wrote a post in response about the way Kindle interacts with the Amazon servers, and I'll add it here (edited) in case some readers haven't read about that.

It also includes customer-approvable backups of highlighting and annotation in connection with the books on the Kindle - to two ends:

1) the customer has a web area on Amazon which holds all the highlighting and notes for viewing at any time by the customer, sorted in various ways -- and recently Amazon created the option to see all your notes for a book on one unbroken web page. This has been very well-received.

2) Once a customer finishes a book, they can delete it from their Kindles. At that point, it goes automatically into "Archives" -- meaning it is still held at your personal Kindle-management area at Amazon and can be re-downloaded if you want to look at the book again (no add'l fee of course) -- and this includes any highlighting and notes you made to the book, if you approved the backing up of annotations.
  For each user the notes-area is reviewable at kindle.amazon.com (a private page).  Amazon's servers need access to move subscriptions and periodicals into a periodicals folder, after a certain length of time, and non-Amazon papers into the Personal Docs folder.  They also need to be able to overwrite single daily issues of blogs as those are not accumulated for the customer, though each daily download will tend to include the last 25 blog entries, useful for searches and more leisurely reading.

That's all in connection with how this works as a network.  It's my own firm belief that Amazon shouldn't have deleted the illegal edition of the book once it was purchased.  At the least, they should have let the customer know the reasons the book should be deleted but they should have let the customer do it.

Apparently, they will do something like that in the future since a spokesman was quoted as saying that they are changing the systems so that this doesn't happen again in these circumstances (I suppose he means when they delete a book from their servers for copyright reasons).

For those concerned about the 17 year old student, Justin Gawronski, whose plight was described in Brad Stone's NY Times piece, a couple of us were able to contact him and let him know that Amazon replicates the highlights and notes of any book into a file called "My Clippings" and that this is kept separate, in straight-text format on the Kindle, and that his notes should still be there.  That is done so that the customer can edit and print the notes.

Justin confirmed they were still on his Kindle, in that file.

That doesn't mean Amazon was 'right' to delete the book -- only that they have a sometimes flexible and, in many ways, well-thought-out system for the study-use of books.  Since people voiced concern over how this affected a student's work on his notes, of course - I wanted to let any readers of this comment area know.

Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!