Mobile versions of webpages for Kindle web browser - Update2

UPDATED FILE 9/28/10 - Kindle 3 users should see the later article instead.

UPDATED 8/10/09 1:30 AM - Original posting was 4/20/09, 9:55 AM

I've made a separate Kindle file for the bookmarks below, which you can use as a Kindle file made up OF the bookmarks listed -- the websites are linked already in that file so that you can use them for the Web when your Wireless is On.

(Uploaded corrected file replacing wrong file, 8/10/09 at 11:05 AM PDT.
  Update info at bottom of file should say 8/10/09 at 12:33 AM.)

If you're not in email while Kindle-browsing, and the words are too small because the Kindle is showing the full screen, try going to Manu/Settings and changing to "Basic Mode" instead of Advanced or Desktop modes.  That'll make the fonts normal sized and it'll all be more black & white with higher contrast.  See How to use the Kindle web browser tips.

  The exception to Basic Mode mentioned above involves sites needing your Log-in which usually requires "Advanced" or "Desktop" (DX) modes.  For that, go to Menu/Settings/Advanced and make sure that 'javascript' is 'enabled.'   Email-sites require Advanced mode w/Javascript on.
  Otherwise, Basic Mode is faster and in better contrast (more b&w) but you may have to "NextPage" through the website's left-column of links first, if they have one. The text being larger is worth it usually.

FILE for download:
 You can click or right-click here to download mobiweb.azw which you can then transfer to the 'documents' folder of your Kindle, via your USB cable -- or you can email the downloaded file to [you]@kindle.com to have it sent to your Kindle.  Let me know if there are any problems.
  Update:  If you're on this blog page using Amazon's Kindle-subscription edition of this blog, you can download the file direct to the Kindle.  (The live web-browsing version on the Kindle, with rectangle cursor, doesn't allow it for some reason.)

After downloading something to the Kindle, you may have a blank screen.  Just press the "Back" button to get back to where you were earlier.

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Original Posting of 4/20/09 The Kindle comes with webpage bookmarks put in place for us by Amazon as part of its "experimental" web browser feature, the use of which is at no cost to us currently (partly because web-browsing on a small vertical screen is less than optimal for the eyes and it's difficult to fit a wide page of several columns in a tiny vertical screen.  However, with the Amazon's ultra-sharp fonts, it's doable and, best, we're able to use this anywhere cell phones can access Sprint, which provides the wireless ("Whispernet") access prepaid by Amazon -- the estimated average Sprint EV-DO wireless costs are factored into the price of the Kindle unit.
  There are no hourly or monthly charges for the user at this point (though Amazon reserves that right), even though cellphone web-data packages are normally a minimum $30/mo. for unlimited access.  So, unlimited cellular data access like this normally costs, at the least, $360 a year.  For now, we do have tjat unlimited use, though most Kindle users would want to use it only for emergencies when outside the home.  It's not speedy.

So, I've used it at restaurants, stores, concert intermissions, whenever I want to look up something.  I used it the other day while waiting for diem sum, to read and post to one of the Amazon forums, and will eventually did put up a couple of photos from that to show what it looked like while posting to the forum via the Kindle.   The keyboard lettering is very pale and you need to do a full key-dip, which means it is slow-going, but it does the job and I'm getting used to the little keyboard.

A friend wrote that she lost most of her Amazon-placed website bookmarks while experimenting the other day, and asked me to give her the Amazon-made bookmarks.  Since she has a Kindle 1 while I have both Kindles, I gave her a list of what was pre-placed by Amazon on both Kindles.  The Kindle 2 handles the web far better than the K1 does, though.  By default it tends to present the full width of a regular Internet page, with words very small but also very sharply presented.  To get the data in normal larger text instead, we can switch from the automated "Advanced" mode to "Basic" mode (via settings-menu while web-browsing), which means, then, paging through left column data first and then arriving at the middle data columns readable in normal-sized fonts. We can also 'disable images' to just get the text much faster if in a hurry for basic info and not images.

Mobile versions of webpages, however, are programmed to fit on mobile phones with their small screens and so they're very good for the Kindle.

Here are the basic bookmarks put on by Amazon, followed by links to excellent and fairly extensive lists of mobile-versions of popular sites.  You won't need to type any of this list if you downloaded mobiweb.azw.

* You NEVER need to type in the "http://" portion for Kindle bookmarks. The Kindle will add that. *

LIST (This is in the file you can download for your Kindle.)
First, AMAZON-placed bookmarks (mostly) from Kindle 1 and 2:
Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com
Wikipedia - http://en.m.wikipedia.org
GMail Mobile – INBOX ONLY, text focus
http://m.gmail.com
Gmail Mobile – FOLDERS ALSO, Slower, many boxes
http://gmail.com
Google - http://www.google.com/pda
Google Mobile products – http://m.google.com/?hl-en
- (Don’t use Mobile Products ‘gmail’ option. See above instead.)
BBC News - http://news.bbc.co.uk/text-only.htm
CNET - http://m.news.com
CNN - http://m.cnn.com
ESPN - http://mobileapp.espn.go.com
MSN MOney - http://mny.mobile.msn.com/en-us
MSNBC - http://www.msnbc.msn.com
AllRecipes - http://mobile.allrecipes.com
E! Online - http://eonline.mobi/topstory.ftl
Fandango - http://mobile.fandango.com
National Weather Service - http://mobile.srh.weather.gov
    The following were possibly put there by me:
Lonely Planet - http://m.lonelyplanet.com
Yahoo! - http://us.m.yahoo.com
Yelp - http://mobile.yelp.com

WEB ON YOUR CELL (I use this a lot.)
http://webonyourcell.com
  (WebOnYourCell is excellent - added 8/8/09, 11:58 PM)

SKWEEZER.COM (Terrific)
http://www.skweezer.com
  This *squeezes* your chosen sites for mobile/Kindle use.

NOTE: If you have the file listing that shows "www.squeezer.com"
  please re-download the file, as it should be "www.skweezer.com"
  and the file has been corrected.  Apologies.

CANTONI MOBILE BOOKMARKS:
http://cantoni.mobi/

TOP MOBILE WEBSITES - Excellent recommendations here
  Press Menu/ *Click on “Use Basic Mode” for this.*
http://tinyurl.com/topmobilesites
( Easier to type than http://webtrends.about.com/od/mobileweb20/tp/Top-Mobile-Websites-.htm )

Amazon asks for feedback on how the experimental basic-web feature works for us.   Send them feedback at kindle-feedback@amazon.com or to
kindledx-feedback@amazon.com

Please feel free to add to the Comments area any useful mobile-formatted pages you like that are not on Amazon's, Cantoni's, or Webtrends' lists.  There's a delay in posting comments, and I'll try out any recommended links first.  Thanks!

Last update for List - 8/10/08 - 12:33 AM
Last update for blog entry - 8/10/08 - 1:30 AM



Kindle Touch 3G   Kindle Touch WiFi   Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

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Check often: Temporarily-free recently published ones
  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 Kindle and Sprint EV-DO's 24/7 wireless costs

There are no wireless costs at this point for the customer.  But there are for Amazon.  Information Week's Howard Anderson writes:

"On vacation, my wife was busy reading books on her new Kindle 2.0.  Do you know what they call Sherpas in the developed world? Husbands.  For years, I would go on vacation with a hernia-producing bag of reading material.  I was carrying atoms; now I carry electrons -- much lighter. The publishers make money because they don't have to buy paper and pay printers and the Postal Service.  Amazon makes money because it doesn't have to ship anything.  The consumer (me) gets books for $9.95.  The Kindle is as impressive as the iPhone, maybe more so.  How is this possible?  Because Sprint Nextel has excess capacity, which it sells to Amazon.  If you can't use your extra capacity to sell cellular service, then wholesale it to someone who can.

So Sprint Nextel is going to try to replicate what it's done with Amazon with any number of consumer electronics companies, such as Garmin, which offers a GPS device.  And since Sprint has excess capacity, it can assume that its costs are (almost) zero.  No billing expenses, no customer service.  That was what really cost money..."

It seems Sprint is looking to make similar deals with other companies, including Garmin.  Might that have an impact on wireless network speed?  There are times when I wonder if they intentionally throttle the download speeds for the Kindle access (unless we happen to be at the Amazon Kindle store).

Also, there are now many articles mentioning the enthusiastic use of the Kindle 2 by either the writer or the spouse.  I was surprised to see a somewhat over-the-top love letter to the Kindle by Slate.com's Jacob Weisberg, who is Slate Group's chairman and editor-in-chief and author of The Bush Tragedy.  A few of his remarks:

"I'm doing my best not to become a Kindle bore.  When I catch myself evangelizing to someone who couldn't care less about the marvels of the 2.0 version of Amazon's reading machine -- I can take a whole library on vacation!  Adjust the type size!  Peruse the morning paper without getting out of bed! -- I pause and remember my boyhood friend Scott H., who loved showing off the capabilities of his state of-the-art stereo but had only four records because he wasn't really that into music.

So apologies in advance if I'm irksomely enthusiastic about my cool new literature delivery system. Like the early PCs, the Kindle 2 is a primitive tool...But however the technology and marketplace evolve, Jeff Bezos has built a machine that marks a cultural revolution."

But then he goes too far, in surmising:

"The Kindle 2 signals that after a happy, 550-year union, reading and printing are getting separated.  It tells us that printed books, the most important artifacts of human civilization, are going to join newspapers and magazines on the road to obsolescence..."

WELL, I don't think so.  This is more like the idea that television would spell the death of movie theaters.  Most of us K-readers want both DTBs ("Dead Tree Books") AND K-books and periodicals (plus personal docs) on our Kindles.  I read far more than I did before but also find myself spending more time in Barnes & Noble enjoying hard-copy books of the type that cannot be shown successfully on a small e-ink unit.  However, in time, that will change too, I suppose.

 But a book or magazine with its own unique physical attributes and layout will always be an attraction, and a special treasure, although for actual ease of reading, it's hard to beat being able to change the font size and spacing between lines to suit our particular eyesight preferences and being able to carry around so much with you when out of the home.  Long waiting lines are no longer a problem for me.

If you click on the image that starts this entry, you'll be at a page that explains how wireless technology works, without hammering the reader with jargon. 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!