Special Black Friday special on Kindles, Fire TV devices and Amazon Echo. Additional 30% off any PRINT book. Note on Voice-dictation (speech-to-text) for HDX models for later blog article today. UPDATE 2

Amazon Kindle and Fire Devices on special sale, Black Friday (See Update 2: 30% off PRINT book.

  The special pricing on the Black Friday Amazon Devices page tends to be available until Nov 28, said to be 11:59 pm that day, tho' some have later ending dates.   Some will become available again only during lightning deals for the following "CyberMonday week" and for as long as the items are in stock).

  Clicking on the small-version images of Amazon's special sales page for its devices today will get you to the larger, much more readable page at Amazon.

The special device deals today include e-Readers, tablets, as well as Fire TV box and Fire Stick.

  Highlights

  Fire TV devices
Fire TV Stick, normally $39.99, is nearly 40% off at $24.99.

Fire TV Box (more fully-featured), normally $99.99 is 25% off at $75.99 and that's a rare price for this.

  Here's Amazon's Yr 2015 FireTV-comparison table


  Kindle e-Readers and tablets
The basic Kindle e-Ink e-Reader is almost 40% off at $49.99.

You can save $15 on the new Fire tablet, which has been, Amazon says, "the #1 best-selling product" on Amazon.com since launch.  Normally, $50, it's $34.99 today.

  Once more: the sometimes confusing lineup of Kindles and how to decide
  which ones would work best for you
  Here's a set of links that should help clarify the differences between models and allow easier comparison of features and prices:

  • Amazon's Tablet Comparison table
  • Amazon's Comparison table for the e-Ink Kindle eReaders
  • Paperwhite 3 vs Paperwhite 1: photos
  * Yr 2015 lineup: Details
        plus a quick-text listing or table of the various models:
  • Which Kindles Where? (Models available)


The previous blog article was on how the 8 days of Black Friday would work and the coming CyberMonday Week starting Nov. 30 will see similar multiple sales events.

GENERAL Black Friday pages for the US, UK, and Canada


UPDATE 2: Additional 30% off ANY Print Book 11/26-11/29 (thru' Sunday)
I got word of this and forgot, and it's not easily findable on the Amazon pages:

' Shopping Alert: Amazon Books announced it's offering shoppers an extra 30% discount on any print title beginning on Thanksgiving Day.  Shoppers must enter "HOLIDAY30" at checkout between Thursday (11/26) and Sunday (11/29) to receive the discount. '

[Amazon adds that the Amazon Book editors recently announced their Best Books of 2015 and that if any of you are looking for gifting options to use this 30% off on, take a look at the Editors’ Holiday Gift Picks.]

I'll end this here, since Thanksgiving and other events kept me from getting this out last night.

  I'm also working today on another blog article, to be completed this weekend, on how to dictate emails (voice dictation) and notes to Evernote and other apps on the Kindle HDX models.

  I've tested what works and doesn't in the way of punctuation and certain formats it understands (currency and time). This works very well for me on the 8.9" HDX that I have and for a friend's 7" HDX.

UPDATED, after initial posting:
EDITED: According to Amazon help pages on Language and Keyboard options:
  "For Kindle Fire HDX (3rd Generation), Fire HD (4th Generation), or Fire HDX 8.9 (4th Generation) devices, tap the microphone icon on your keyboard to use your voice to dictate text instead of typing."

  This means that the current HD6 and HD7 "Fire" tablets do have the Voice-dictation-to-text feature.

One more thing
  I'll also include, in that later blog article today, an example from a very effective voice-recorder app (NOT voice-to-text but an audio file) that I bought ($3), which is clearer than others I'd tried earlier, and is even said by commenters to be very good for recording singing.

  This is of course for Kindle tablets that use a microphone, although I saw that someone who bought earbuds with a mic attached was able to do the simple recording of voice to an audio file, which they can save and send or keep in a library.



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Amazon News Roundup: Amazon 'Flex' delivery coming. Early reactions to new device line details. Yr 2014 and 2013 HDX 8.9" tablet availability (US and UK). Amazon halts sales of Google and Apple streaming devices from Amazon and its Marketplace vendors, citing incompatibility problems with Prime Instant videos. New Echo feature to control garage-door opening and closing. Updates1 and 2 , 10/3/15

'Amazon Flex' begins in Seattle
Amazon is hiring everyday or 'average' people who can do 2, 4, or 8 hr shifts (and even 12 hour ones) on days they choose, delivering packages for Amazon, described by reporters as similar to the Uber system.

Drivers must be over 21, pass background checks, have their own car, and an Android phone (iPhone won't work for this at this point).  Amazon's offering $18-$25/hr.

While it's been launched only in Seattle at this point, they plan to expand this service soon to (in alphabetical order) Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Miami, New York, and Portland.

The original order shown is: New York, Miami, Portland, Ore., Baltimore, Austin, Dallas, Chicago and Indianapolis.
  Interesting idea.

  The illustration they use is for Prime Now, which is a current service for 1-2hr service for Prime members.

  I wonder what happens, on 2-hour or 2-day service, when an average person (not an employee) doesn't feel well and calls in (or doesn't call in), sick.  But they must have thought of that.  People can apply to provide Flex delivery at flex.amazon.com


Early reactions to new lineup of tablet and streaming-tv
(Note that the original or first (main) post about the new Yr 2015 Amazon devices was updated several times,
  and if interested in that, you can read the continuing updates at the original blog article.

For updates for this News Roundup that you're reading, see Update1 and Update2.

  1. From mainstream articles, a couple of points made that might not have been clear in early reports.
    Wired: "Amazon Has 6 New Devices — And an Actual Plan for Hardware"

' ...Next to the carousel-filled, dark-on-dark interfaces Amazon’s built before, Fire OS 5 is a refreshing and desperately needed change. Now, you get a light background and a grid of content; your favorite stuff on one page, your recent stuff on another, all your movies on another yet. It feels usable, really for the first time.
  ...
On the TV side, the Fire TV has been maybe the best set-top box on the market since the day it came out. (Or at least since whatever day it finally got HBO.) Now, with Alexa, the voice search should be even more useful.

  And not only do the new set-top boxes offer 4K streaming, they use a better kind of video encoding (called HEVC) that uses less bandwidth to stream video. That means you’re more likely to get a high-definition stream, even when you have a bad connection...

  ... When Amazon does its job well, it makes finding and consuming stuff easier than anyone else. '

    The $99.99 Fire TV box now uses Amazon's cloud-based personal assistant Alexa (the voice for the Echo device), which will allow viewers to check the weather, look up sports scores and play music by request.

  Amazon said that Fire TV viewers could soon also control home appliances through Fire TV, a function available on that Echo, which has been able to regulate thermostats and lights -- and today it was announced that the Echo will also be able to let you know if your garage door is open, without having to go outside.  Of course that requires a gizmo for it:

  SIDE item - New Echo feature, using Alexa (which means it'll come to the FireTV also) :
  The new Echo feature - Garageio Garage Door Controller - announced today

' Garageio is a simple and convenient way to control and monitor your garage door--without needing to replace your existing opener. With the Garageio Smart Garage Controller, and the new Garageio Alexa skill, you can now check if you left the garage open (and close it) using just your voice. ...

  To get started, install the Garageio controller, enable the Garageio skill using the Alexa App, then ask "Alexa, ask Garageio to begin setup." Next, connect Garageio to Alexa by following the instructions in the Alexa App and ask:

- "Alexa, ask Garageio if any of my doors are open."

- "Alexa, tell Garageio to close my door." '

  2. First reactions in Kindle customer forum
    This one on the Fire 10.1" tablet is the first discussion I've seen on the Kindle forums of any of the new tablets.  Pro and con.
    Update1
    And here's the second discussion, this one about the $50 Fire 7" tablet.

    Also, as of about 6pm on Oct 2, Amazon began posting customer reviews on the product pages for these new tablets.
    The product page customer reviews for the $50 Fire tablet is topped currently by a very honest, blunt, and also hilarious review, another one below it that has good pros and cons, and a third one that is mostly a very-informative video review that shows what the tablet display is like, for videos, and for text, as well as giving example of the this $50 tablet's functioning.  [End of Update1]

  3. Re the new dedicated game controller for the Fire TV, it was noted in a couple of articles that Apple had insisted that developers use the Apple TV remote for its new unit rather than a dedicated controller.

  4. Amazon has made readily available the higher-resolution and speedier Yr 2014 HDX 8.9" Fire Tablet and even the Yr 2013 one (!) -- the latter is the one I still use daily after two years -- while the UK seems to have both the Yr 2014 HDX 7" and 8.9" tablets available.

    I have no idea whether this is until they run out (they were unavailable for a bit after a huge 1 day sale just before the announcement).

    For the Amazon links to these earlier-Kindle pages whenever you need them, you can always see this blog's current Kindles table, which itself includes links to the OLDER tablets table.

  NOTE: Those earlier or older Kindles have higher-resolution and speedier chips but are more expensive, but they are also ON SALE today, I just noticed, probably for a limited time, the way Amazon works.  The prices had been reduced for these but they were further reduced today.  At these lower prices, they can be a good deal for those preferring higher resolution and a somewhat faster experience.

The new Yr 2015 devices have been shipping the last 3 days, so we'll get a closer look at these.  I saw one tech-site review yesterday that lamented that these budget-oriented models are not as fast as the more expensive ones of previous years.  Notice their expectations seem to be the same as for much more expensive tablets.


Amazon halts sales of Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast
Bloomberg reports that

' The Seattle-based Web retailer sent an e-mail to its marketplace sellers that it will stop selling the Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast since those devices don’t "interact well" with Prime Video.  No new listings for the products will be allowed and posting of existing inventory will be removed Oct. 29, Amazon said.  Prime Video doesn’t run easily on its rival’s hardware. '

See the Bloomberg story for more details and an analysis of what it means for Amazon and consumers who've looked to Amazon to buy these.

Update2 ... Adding an interesting set of points from the Amazon Kindle Forum on this, although there is obviously the danger for Amazon that it is sending paying customers to Google Store, benefiting Google more than Amazon in the long run:

' HJ Leonard says:
Keep in mind that Apple and Google refuse to sell the Amazon equivalents in their stores, too.  It's just another step in their battles.

  T. J. Hawkins says:
Not only do they not sell the Amazon equivalents they do not allow the Amazon video app on their devices.  So anybody who bought one thinking they could watch their prime video... well I guess you are just going to have to pay to buy it in the Google or Apple store or else subscribe to an alternative like Netflix.

It's true that Neither Google Play or iTunes are available on the Fire either.  But when you buy a product from a company you will likely expect that the companies services will work on that product. If I bought something from Apple I would expect iTunes to work on it.  If I bought something from Google I would expect the Play store to work on it.  So Amazon would be completely brainless if they continued to sell a product that Prime Video did not work on.

That's why I prefer Roku. Both Amazon and Google Play work on it. iTunes doesn't of course since Apple will never allow their service to work on any streaming device except an Apple product. '

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Amazon Echo now reads your Audible books on command ... Other capabilities recently added involve accessing services outside Amazon's walls ... Getting traffic info - sports scores ... Controlling lights in the home.

Amazon updates their Echo voice assistant and speaker to add direct read of Audible books

This has been a big request.  Earlier, people had to pair phones or tablets with bluetooth to have their Audible books read through the convenient and very clear Echo speaker system.

Amazon's wording:

' Listening to audiobooks from your Audible library is easy. Here's how:

- Start any book you own with "Alexa, read [Audible book title]"
- Resume the current book you're reading by saying "Alexa, read my book."
- Control playback with "Alexa, go back/forward."

[You can, of course, also pause it as needed.]

Echo also supports Whispersync for Voice, which allows you to seamlessly switch between reading and listening with your eligible Kindle books.  You can read on your Kindle, tablet, or smartphone and then continue listening on your Echo, right where you left off. '

While Amazon is offering "complimentary extended samples from popular titles and a free trial," there are ongoing monthly Kindle Book specials that feature inexpensive Audible narrations paired with some of the Kindle books featured at larger discounts for the month.  The product page for that month will sayk, "Add narration for a reduced price of ____ when you buy the Kindle book."

  For June's specially discounted Kindle books ($1.99 to $3.99), you can find the listing of 104 Kindle books that are paired, for June, with reduced-cost Whispersync for Voice here.  (In March there were only 53, so they seem to be expanding these.)

And for those who want to try a free Audible example with a free Kindle book to see how Whispersync works, here's the only one available currently.

Here's the help page for using Whispersync with more information.


Amazon's latest Echo features that allow you to escape its semi-walled garden
The Verge's Josh Lowensohn reported, in early May, on the Echo's new ability to work with Twitter, Gmail, and Evernote, "...plus a few others, thanks to the If This Then That" ("ITTT)" feature.  I'm repeating this section for those who had no interest in the Echo at the time but may be interested in some of the newer features.

  Lowensohn mentioned the recent updates already reported here, "things like Pandora, traffic reports, sports scores, and support for Belkin's WeMo and Phillips's Hue products" and describes the new features' capabilities:

' ... the IFTTT 'recipes' for Alexa let you send your shopping and to-do lists out to third-party services like Google Drive, Evernote, and Todoist

... There are 54 combinations in total.  Enabling them requires signing up for IFTTT, then linking it up with your Amazon account.  You also need to go through the motions of activating the various third-party app channels, and approving your accounts there so IFTTT can link everything up behind the scenes. Some of the really good examples so far are:

. Adding your Echo shopping list items to Evernote
. Sending someone a short email with your voice
. Sending someone an SMS with your voice
. Adding Echo shopping list items to the iOS Reminders app
. Adding Alexa to-dos to Microsoft's OneNote '

See the Verge's full article for illustrations and more details on what's involved in using the feature.

Amazon Echo was recently updated to control Wemo switches and Philips Hue smart bulbs in the home, to turn lights on or off in named rooms or to dim or brighten them.

Pandora was added, in May (in addition to iHeartRadio and TuneIn radio features).

The updates are coming quickly lately with more meat to them, and Amazon's obviously serious about making it a key device, as Boston Business Journal's David Harris pointed to Amazon's dedicating an entire floor of its Cambridge, Mass. Kendall Square office "to working on the Echo" and is still recruiting more staff for it, with "a hiring event on May 14, 2015 for roles that run the “gamut of distributed systems, speech/voice recognition, and big data.”


My own use of the Echo
I'm music and info-oriented, so while the device is not super knowledgeable about the universe, I tell 'Alexa' to "Wiki [subject]" which has it go to Wikipedia to read me the first couple of paragraphs, and then it sends the rest of the article to my tablet (or phone). This is helpful when I'm not near my computer and think of something.  It's also good for adding to my Echo Todo and/or Shopping lists when I think of things in the kitchen, and I can just say "Alexa, add [whatever] to my todo list" [or to my shopping list].

  For music, I ask it to "play playlist [name]" and I get about an hour of my favorite music, depending on the genre I feel like listening to.  If interested in an artist, I ask it to play [artist] from Prime (which is free Amazon music for Prime members) or I ask it just to "play [artist] and it asks if I want to listen to the musician on iHeart Radio or Prime, sometimes it chooses TuneIn.  I signed up for Pandora but haven't used it with Echo yet.  The local classical music station sounds surprisingly good on it, though this isn't true of some other stations.

The speaker is very clear, is loud enough that I can't use it at max for most material, has more bass than I thought it would for its size, but it's best with really well-recorded tracks. If the treble range is edgy, it's very edgy on the Echo.  I'd like loudness compensation added in the next version for late night listening at lower volume.

 It's great for my kitchen where I have no speakers and no computer. They've added news-sources for flash news but I'm waiting for them to allow direct-access to specific sources instead of my having to say "Next" a few times when not interested in the current source.

I really like that I can control the volume by just saying "alexa, louder" or "alexa, not so loud" when I'm working in the kitchen. Or asking it, "what's playing?" or "who's singing?" and it tells me the artist and album. If you like a track, you can of course buy it (but you need a confirmation code to do it), and I've added a lot of good, free Prime tracks to my library while listening, by just saying "add this to my library."

  Others are interested in being able to get current sports scores or scores for ealier games, and in getting traffic reports, when we give it starting and ending addresses.  (I haven't used it, as I have lifetime traffic status and recommended alternate routes on my Garmin Nuvi, which is a bargain for what it does, well.)

A post on the Kindle Forums mentioned that TuneIn offers a lot of nearby scanner stations if you use the Echo app to enter, in the Search field at the top,
  'fire and police' -- but it doesn't work well by voice.  Just a curiosity.  TuneIn offers local, national, and int'l radio stations (music, talk) with clear, easy access.

  What's struck me most about the Alexa voice is that its answers are often lightning fast, which I wouldn't expect when it needs to go to the servers, access whatever, and then get back to me with an answer, and even then the speech is so natural, I have found myself saying, 'Thank you.'

  I also found that I sort of enjoy ordering something around :-) ... "Do this, do that, get me this, or that. What, you don't know? Take a class, get trained!"

I do shut off its hearing often, by pressing the microphone icon down, because I don't want it to waste electricity waiting for the word-string 'alexa' to fly by so it can say "Your command is my wish."

  I often just use the remote and press the mic and talk without needing to say her name.  She tries to obey, does what she can, and then stops listening for anything unless I press the remote button.  When will Amazon give us a male voice that takes orders from us?


Echo now does Google Calendar
This is one I waited for, except that i started to use a small printed calendar lately.  Why? I don't know, but it's sort of convenient :-)

  I had a bit of difficulty finding out how to do the linking, but finally found this help page on how to link your Google calendar to Echo, and its instructions are very clear.

  Richi Gupta, with octafinance.com has good details on what you can and can't do with Google calendar, from Echo.


Some Echo tips from the Kindle forums

' Beauty Fool says:
Wow... I just discovered you can get the latest episodes of various NPR, APM, etc shows by simply asking for them.
Case-in-point: "Alexa, play Splendid Table."
Reply: "Getting the latest episode of The Splendid Table from Tune-In."

+++
romper says:
If you ask, "what's the weather or forecast" she will give you only today's weather.  Ask "what's the extended forecast" she will give you the next 7 days...

+++
Cheryl Jones says:
as for the weather you can ask her for 10 days. so you can ask for the weather next sat or the weather for may 30 etc. or you can ask if it will rain next sat.... '

Recent mainstream reviews from mainstream tech writers who use it quite a bit
• "Five months in, it's the most used gadget in my home" - James Kendrick, ZDNet, May 15, 2015
• "It sucks.  It's awesome.  It sucks.  We want two more" - David Gewirtz for DIY-IT - May 21, 2015
• "Amazon Echo review" - Margaret Dornbusch - Gadgeteer, May 31, 2015
• "Amazon Echo talks to Google Calendar (and you)" - (more tips) David Gewirtz for DIY-IT, June 1

---

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


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How to import music from iTunes or Windows Media to your Amazon library ... Shortcuts to find Prime Music for Echo and Prime Instant Video for FireTV and Stick+tablets ... Today's Kindle Daily Deal: 45 'Summer Reads' instead of one .

I've been collecting my PRIME-info shortcuts for friends new to FireTv and to Amazon Echo, which I still haven't done a fuller report on -- still hunting things down when here.

  These shortcuts include what's available on Instant Prime and --for the Echo --  what is included in Prime Music (and helpful for getting Echo to play what you intend).
  Details will follow on another post I'm working on today.

  Re Kindle books -- I noticed today the changes to Kindle Owners Lending Library and where that appears on Kindle Fire tablets now, as that was changed recently.  The e-Ink Kindle eReaders are clearer in that this borrowing feature appears in the main store menu, up front oon the older Kindles, the Paperwhite and Voyage readers.  So will show that later today and/or tomorrow with some screen shots.

  In the meantime, included with this post are shortcuts for Prime Instant Video info and the less easy to find Prime Music pages that are very useful for the Echo.

  With the Echo, you've a lot more to work with if you join (for free) iHeart Radio and Pandora, which now both work well with Echo.  Echo users use these sites by identifying them and your free accounts in the Echo app's Settings/Music after joining those two music sites. Both are free for the basic service.

  Until then I say, 'Alexa, play [artist] from Prime Music' if wanting to hear something I don't already have.
  If you're a Prime shipping member, the Prime music songs are free, and there are well over a million involved.
  From your own playlists, you can just say, 'Alexa, play playlist [playlist-name]'

Will have somewhat more interesting things in the follow-up Echo report - these are just what some are asking about on the first day of use.

At any rate, here are some Prime feature shortcuts for finding what you want in connection with accessing them on  Fire TV, tablets, or the Amazon Echo.

Prine Instant-eligible Video: Movies and TV
1. http://amzn.to/primeinstantvideo3 (by category)
2. http://amzn.to/primeinstantvideo
    (Listing of ~18,000 Prime Instant-eligible videos
      You can narrow these down by using the search box at the top of the page. )
3. http://bit.ly/instantvideowebplayersetting
    (Settings to use for instant video web player -- for tablets use, 'flash' instead if 'silverlight'

Prime Music for streaming from your library at no added cost/
1. http://bit.ly/primemusicpage (by category
    (Free Prime music by categories. You can just add these to your library
    On tablets and on Fire TV many songs have scrolling lyrics w/ current line highlighted
2. http://bit.ly/primemusic-amazon (help page)
3. http://bit.ly/primemusic-who
    (Who and what's included in Prime music (artists and albums, as of 6/12/14)


Importing Music from iTunes or Windows Media Player to your Amazon Library
  (source: Amazon help pages)

  To import your music:
Go to your Music Library from a web browser on the computer you want to import music from.
Click Upload your music in the left menu,
  If prompted to install the Amazon Music Importer, follow the on-screen instructions.
Once you've opened or installed the Amazon Music Importer,
  click Start Scan to automatically scan your iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries for songs to import.
  You can also click-Browse manually to choose files on your computer to find music.
    This process may take some time to complete.
After the Amazon Music Importer has located your music,
  click Import all to add the entire selection to your music library.
    OR, click Select Music to choose which songs you'd like to add."

  However, what is free and what isn't when importing music?
  Amazon limits free uploads to 250 songs.
  Anything bought from Amazon does not count against the 250 songs limit.
    The alternative they have is to pay $25/yr to be able to import up to 250,000 songs...



Saturday's Kindle Daily Deal - today only (May 23, 2015 only)

Sending this mid-day for people who didn't check the Kindle Daily deal today, which is good for only one day (or remaining night for east coasters, at the time I write this).

This consists of not the usual one book but 45 books, some of which are priced considerably higher usually.  For instance, I never got Amy Tan's latest book, but at $1.99 I will probably click on that today.

---

  For daily free ebooks, check the following links:

Temporarily-free books - Non-classics USA: by:    Publication Date      Bestselling   High-ratings UK: PubDate   Popular The Kindle Daily Deal What is 3G? and "WiFi"?       Battery Care Highly-rated under $1,  Newest: $1-$2, $2-$3

Most Popular Free K-Books U.S. & Int'l (NOT UK):    Top 100 free UK-Only:    Top 100 free USEFUL for your Kindle Keyboard(U.S. only, currently):   99c Notepad 1.1,   99c Calculator,   99c Calendar,   99c Converter

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


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Library resources online - explore your regional libraries for some amazing resources. Also, my Amazon ECHO arrived yesterday. Initial brief report.

LIBRARY RESOURCES ONLINE FOR MANY REGIONAL AREAS

  I've mentioned this earlier and am updating the info -- there is a treasure that many of us have at our fingertips without realizing it -- none of my friends knew we had the access I'm describing in this updated posting although we are all somewhat heavy readers.

One day, while looking for information on something, I wanted to access Infotrac which has articles going back to 1970s or so, in full text, for participant institutions like my city library.  I live in California, and the requirement for accessing my library's special online resources is California residence.

  To give an example of what may be available in your area -- the Berkeley and San Francisco libraries both give its members access to databases that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive for most of us.  And merely as a California resident, I am able to access both.  (I didn't look for others.)  Many of you will have similar access in your areas.

 Infotrac is one of the offerings and a more common one.
  See http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/services_and_resources/online_resources.php for an example of what is often available through public libraries in the U.S.
.  I saw, on a web search, that many remote county libraries have the same access, so it's not just where a university might be.

  Besides Infotrac, I clicked on one of the gazillion links that came up on my screen, this time:
  http://0-proquest.safaribooksonline.com.www.berkeley-public.org/home
  This link will work only for people with a Berkeley Public Library card, even if California residence is all that's needed.  A similar link should work with your own public library's link, which you can google.  That'll depend on the state you're in.

Safari Books Online
To see, OTHERWISE, what Safari Books Online is like without the special public library access, here's their own site.  The regular situation (without library access) -- They have a free trial, but the monthly cost is, at $39/mo. for full access to all their books (see what's included, below) in the Safari "Bookshelf" option.  In this blog article, I'm describing the (free) "Library" option instead.
   I have no affiliation with Safari Books Online.  And, at $39/mo, or $399/yr for full access to all their books  (no limit on time spent online)  their regular offerings may be worth a look for any who need such books regularlyh for their work or study.

  The rest of us may have, though,  free public library access to what we need from that collection.

  The free library access version, if your library has it, is to almost all the current major computer/technical books that I've browsed at Barnes & Noble while lamenting that I couldn't justify spending that much money, since I wanted to read so many of them. It gives access to most of the current offerings I'd browse at the store.

 Included in the free Safari Books Online are O'Reilly Media, Prentice Hall, Addison-Wesley, PeachPit Press, New Riders, Sams, que, Adobe Press, and many others.

 It's all current -- books on items like Photoshop CS5, some on using Facebook :-) --  and so I tried it at the library (from home) for free to see what the various e-books are like, to read on my desktop or netbook.

 These offerings are FULL TEXT and speedy online reading if you have fast Internet access.  Every now and then a graphic image might not show up where it should but all the text is there as well as most of the graphic images. I did a tutorial on fixing photos from a book that normally costs $40 to buy.

I hope that most reading this will be able to find similar resources at their regional or state libraries.

Pennsylvania's Free Library of Philadelphia offers a library card for out-of-state-residents for $50/year (the link is to www.freelibrary.org/register/getcard1.cfm ).  No in-person visit required in Philadelphia.
  HOWEVER, while they do carry Infotrac and a myriad of other reference databases, they unfortunately don't carry Safari Online books.  They DO carry Overdrive for ebooks (for those of you who don't get Overdrive for easy Kindle book public library borrowing on Whispernet and need to rely on 3M instead but would prefer the easier to use Overdrive).

My Amazon ECHO arrived today
I ordered the almost vaporware Echo in January, and it actually arrived yesterday, after I had really lost interest.  But I'll report tonight on my initial explorations and I have to admit it's more fun than I had guessed.  After reading in the forums about all the things that didn't work quite right at first, from the paying beta-exploration customers who nevertheless related what they did like so far, I found that most of my instructions were working well (without doing the 'training' in my voice and enunciation), after the requested almost daily feedback to the Echo team who are adding features on a regular basis.  For example, lowering the volume while I'm doing something else, normally you'd say 'softer' or 'lower volume' or 'level 4' -- but I just said, naturally, "Alexa, not so loud" and it went down.  It's 'learned' from customer feedback.

Word on the street now is that Amazon has positioned itself ahead of Apple, who had to stall theirs for a while, and mainstream reviewers are more delighted than they'd expected to be.

I'll blog on this tonight when I get back. It's been interesting to see my own reactions to using such an odd duck but also I was surprised at why I like certain aspects of it. A sort of weird but fun experience I'll explain later tonight.

---

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Kindle tips: 18 Fiction Favorites on one-day deal today (Mar.28) ... Amazon announces new photo storage plan + an 'Everything Plan' ... A really good Amazon Echo video-demo plus a tip to shorten delivery time on a current Echo order.

Today's Kindle Daily deal (March 28 only) includes 18 Fiction Favorites for up to 80% Off
For those who don't check the daily Kindle book deal, there are 18 to choose from today in the Fiction category and they're described as "Favorites."

Amazon Echo - Excellent demo of this creature, on a Youtube video
plus a tip on how to speed up delivery
  (Reminder: Kindle Blog Editions don't do video, but you can view the video on a computer instead.)

There's now a Youtube video that gives a good, somewhat frantic demonstration of what the Amazon Echo can do, as of January 30.
  Since the video is fast-paced vs an earlier one which was narrated in almost slow-motion, quite a bit is covered.
The Deal Guy throws questions at Alexa and interrupts her answers with other questions, and you can hear the general response time.

  If you already ordered it and it won't be delivered for 2 months:
I took a tip from a forum note and changed my delivery speed to one day instead of free 2-day Prime to see if I might get this gizmo earlier than May 27 to mid July as had been noted on my order since mid-January.  I opted for the one-day delivery option to see how much the date would change and, while the charge would be $6, the shipping date range changed to March 24 - April 8.  I went for it, my curiosity driven by the several thousand notes on the Echos already received and discussed.  It's now March 28, and it's not shipped yet.  Amazon normally tends to ship earlier than planned, so these appear to still be relatively backlogged, although my new earlier date range is still to April 8, rather than to mid-July.

  Caution - Someone tried just 'confirming' the order, and this resulted in a later shipping date.
  In any case, there should be no rush for most, but this tip is for those who do want to get it earlier.

Amazon offers unlimited photos storage plan + an unlimited-every-type-of-file plan
Those who are Amazon Prime members already get Unlimited free storage of photos (+ video files smaller than 2 gigs).  I described what's involved in the Prime feature, in detail, in the earlier article on the Prime version.  The free storage is there for Prime members as long as the Prime memberships are kept.
  Many don't know that this is available to them, since November 2014.

  Yesterday Amazon announced another way to get Unlimited cloud-storage of photos ($11/yr) or Unlimited Everything for $59/yr (equivalent of $~5/month).  They're offering a 3 month trial to try either plan.  Here's the key part of their announcement:

• Unlimited Photos Plan (free 3-month trial, then $11.99 per year-- equivalent of less than $1 per month): Store an infinite number of photos in Cloud Drive without worrying about taking up space on phones, cameras, or other devices. Customers can upload existing collections and store all future photos taken. This plan also includes 5 GB of additional storage for videos or other documents and files.
  
  
• Unlimited Everything Plan (free 3-month trial, then $59.99 per year-- equivalent of less than $5 per month): Store an infinite number of new and existing photos, videos, files, documents, movies, and music in Cloud Drive.

Again, Prime members already have the equivalent of the first plan (and even better since videoclips are included).
  Amazon also emphasized that these two new plans allow customers "to securely store their existing content collections and automatically [if wanted] upload endless amounts of new content, including photos, videos, movies, music, and files. ."  So, there'd be "no worry about storage space" ... with an affordable, secure solution to store unlimited amounts of ... files in one convenient place."

  To learn more about Amazon Cloud Drive and the Unlimited Cloud Storage plans, visit amazon.com/clouddrive.

  I don't know what the retrieval speed would be like, but I take advantage of the free feature that imports my Facebook photo albums to the Amazon space, and when I access them to view them from the Cloud on a tablet or phone, it's very fast.  At any rate, both plans have the 3 month free trial, so we can try them out before deciding.



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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!