Showing posts with label following links in kindle-edition blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label following links in kindle-edition blog. Show all posts

Friday, February 17, 2012

Kindle Tips: To Kindle-Edition Subscribers: How to handle free-book link results



    Webpage result with tiny fonts


  After Choosing Menu and Article Mode


    After Pinch-zooming larger


KINDLE EDITION OF THE BLOG: HOW TO DEAL WITH LINKS LEADING TO IMPOSSIBLY TINY FONTS


I've received some understandable grumbles from subscribers that links to free books don't go to the Kindle-device version of the Kindlestore, which is easier to read, and that, instead, the links go to unreadable webpages with tiny fonts.

  That's true, and in the Free-book-alert blog entries, I mention that Kindle Edition Subscribers, who get the last 25 blog articles on an edition, should do those links from a computer.

  Having said that though, it's Amazon who decides where the links go, and they take subscribers lately to a fast-loading modified or simplified web-site version for mobile devices although not to the simplest version, the Kindle-device version of the store.  I can't do anything about it, unfortunately.


SOLUTION
What I do want to point out is that once you're on one of those result pages of TINY print for an item, there is a solution.

  You can press Menu and then "Article Mode" to read the book description there.
  It's extremely clear that way.  And it loads quickly also.

  I've made some screenshots above to show you the difference if you choose this reading mode that Amazon has provided but doesn't say much about.

  In Article Mode, however, you can't choose to buy or interact -- but once out of Article mode and back to Web Mode (you can use Menu or Back-arrow to get back to Web Mode), you can opt to press a button to get a free sample (from which you can later get the book if you like the sample) or to "purchase" it for $0.00 if the current pricing is still free.  If intrigued, the latter is wise, as the free-books last for only hours or a couple of days.

With a Kindle Touch, all of this is fairly easy.  While you can pinch-zoom the entire page of text and see it larger, you'd still need to scroll around.  So it's best to start with selecting 'Article Mode.'  Once you're back on the tiny-font webpage, use pinch-zoom to enlarge the text to find the box to request a sample if wanted, or to get the book.

With the Kindle Keyboard's results page, you get a ZOOM box that you can click on to enlarge that boxed section.  This can be good for getting a sample but it's awkward. You still do have, however, that 'Article Mode' for reading the book description.

I hope this helps.  Amazon's recent change to a faster-loading books-webpage makes clicking on links of interest with your Kindle device more worthwhile than in the past.



Kindle Touch 3G, US-only   Kindle Touch WiFi (US)   Kindle Touch WiFi-Only, outside US    Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

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. )
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Monday, January 10, 2011

Amazon Kindle-Edition blogs now allow 'new window' links to be followed

AMAZON KINDLE-EDITION BLOGS NOW ALLOW SUBSCRIBERS THE ABILITY TO FOLLOW LINKS THAT ARE CODED FOR "NEW WINDOWS" ("new tabs" on a computer web browser, but not recognized formerly in the Kindle Editions).

This is a long-desired feature, and its absence in the new Kindle 3, despite its more capable web browser, was lamented.

  With this kind of link which is meant to bring you to another website via a new window while keeping the blog-website in place in the original window, we'd get a Kindle-edition blog error message instead, saying:

          "Web Browser could not open this link
          because opening multiple windows is
          not supported"


Now, the Kindle Edition blogs can now just follow links like this!

And you can get back to your last Kindle-Edition page merely by pressing the BACK button.

  (The image at the top is a screenshot of a page in the Kindle-Edition (UK edition) of this blog.
   The blog holds the last 25 blog articles as of that day.)

Amazon programmers were apparently able to enable this feature, finally, from their servers (which makes sense), so that no new software change was needed on the Kindle itself.

Earlier Kindle devices
  As a result, subscribers can not only follow links now, with Kindle 3, but I tested my DX Graphite, which uses software version 2.5.x rather than Kindle 3's v3.0.x and it worked for that software version also.  It, however, made me realize how much faster the website-response time for Kindle 3's  (UK: K3's) is, relative to how long it takes a site to load on the Kindle 2.

  I've always been patient with loading time on the Kindle because the experimental web browser is free.  I'd forgotten just how patient I was until I tried this on the Kindle 2 -- but if you're not in a hurry, this is now doable.

  Kindle 1's are enabled also.  I accessed the last Kindle blog received on my Kindle 1 and tried a link to a businessinder.com page.  Well, I thought the Kindle 1 probably was not able to do it, at least not in my lifetime, but after 45 seconds, the page actually came up.  This will not be what most Kindlers will want to do on a Kindle 1, but it's nice it was enabled for all Kindles, for the Kindle-edition blogs at least.

Twitter and Facebook links, not enabled in this way
  However, new-window type links are still not doable, with Twitter and Facebook.  Hyperlinks placed by users on those services almost always involve coding for the 'new window' (or new tab) process.  In these cases, there is just no response to clicking on one of those links.  Nothing happens.

  Since so many of us are on (costly to Amazon) 3G cellular network access when trying to get on the Net when outside our homes, I can see the lack of motivation to enable this capability ASAP for those extremely popular, somewhat addictive social-network sites.


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!

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