The Complete User's Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle (First Generation) [Paperback]

Stephen Windwalker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 2008

Join 30,000 other Kindle owners who have unlocked all the pleasures to Kindle ownership by downloading Stephen Windwalker's premier guide for Kindle owners. This full-length book is over 50,000 words -- the equivalent of 192 'print on paper' pages -- but it is a snap to navigate with a link-enabled table of contents and a detailed, link-enabled FAQ section. There is also a paperback version available for prospective Kindle owners.

Windwalker's guide was the first book about the Kindle for Kindle users, and it remains the gold standard. If you are trying to make a decision about which Kindle guide is right for you, be sure to try a free sample of this book on your Kindle by clicking on the yellow button above. Once you've checked the table of contents and seen the extensive reach of the information provided by Windwalker as well as its ease of navigation and clear writing style, your decision will be a snap.

Written for serious readers as well as early adopters and 'gadget heads', it is now also available in a handy paperback version: the perfect accessory for a Kindle owner who wants to use it alongside his Kindle or the prospective Kindle buyer seeking to complete her due diligence before making a purchase.

For authors and independent publishers who want to make the most of the Kindle publishing opportunity, you may want to consider the 2-for-1 Kindle offer of this book with 'The Complete Step-by-Step Guide To Publishing Books, Articles & Other Content for the Amazon Kindle under ASIN B001AXYLD8.

HIGHLIGHTS:
-How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email
-Using Google Reader to Read Your Favorite Blogs on the Amazon Kindle
-How to Get Free Content for Your Kindle with ManyBooks, Gutenberg and Over a Dozen Other Services
-Traveling with Your Kindle
-Complete Kindle Keyboard and Menu Shortcuts
-The Kindle as a Writing, Editing, and Publishing Device
-Taking Notes on the Kindle - It's All in the Thumbs
-Annotation within a Kindle Document -Google Notebook
-Annotating Your Working Documents
-Writing and Annotation to Email
-Saving, Printing, Editing and Working With Your Kindle Clippings, Annotations, and Highlighted Text
-The Care and Feeding of Your Kindle's Battery
-The Reset Button is Your First Tech Support Option
-Access Wikipedia More Quickly and Smoothly
-Using 'Locations' to Figure Where You Are in a Kindle Edition
-Buying and Sampling Content for Your Kindle From the Amazon Kindle Store
-Updating the Latest Version of Your Kindle s Operating Software
-Adding an SD Card to Your Kindle
-Getting Help with Your Kindle
-Managing Your Kindle Content
-The Amazon Kindle Basic Web Wireless Service: Why It Is a Revolutionary Feature, and Why Amazon Should Keep It Free or Cheap
-Using the Kindle to Translate Foreign or Technical Words and Phrases
-Making the Most of Your Kindle Connections Overseas or in a Sprint Wireless Dead Zone
-Using the Kindle as a Travel Guide
-The Kindle and GPS - Intriguing but Frustrating
-Checking Sprint Wireless Coverage for the Kindle
-Downloading Kindle Editions Via USB Cable
-20 Steps to Publishing a Kindle Edition of Your Book or Document: How to Use Kindle, Amazon and the Web to Market Your Book and Connect with Readers
-How Many Kindles? Estimating the Current and Future 'Installed Base' and Why It Is Important
-The Golden Age of Kindle 2.0 and Beyond:
Kindle Reading Subscriptions, Kindle Buffet, Shop the Amazon Store Through a Kindle Gateway, A Big Tent for Kindle Content Availability On Other Devices, Shop and Play Amazon Music and Audio, Folders and/or Labels, Size, Location and Configuration of Bars, Buttons, and Switches, Writeable Screen, Green Tax Credit, and More

Editorial Reviews

Review

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 100% Worthwhile Investment, April 29, 2008 By K. Blaeser skipblazer (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Like many new Kindle users, I bought this cool tricks Kindle book on my first buying spree about 2 months ago. I reserved judgment on how useful it would be until now, giving myself a chance to both read the material and receive the very helpful free emails that the author offers as a bonus, if you choose to send him your email address. The very first tip that came through that I used, a tip on a free download, in one click repaid the cost of the initial cool tricks book. High energy author who is motivated to find a position in this new market, and why not? Someone's got to save time for the rest of us, and I appreciate it. --Amazon Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 100% Worthwhile Investment, April 29, 2008 By K. Blaeser skipblazer (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Like many new Kindle users, I bought this cool tricks Kindle book on my first buying spree about 2 months ago. I reserved judgment on how useful it would be until now, giving myself a chance to both read the material and receive the very helpful free emails that the author offers as a bonus, if you choose to send him your email address. The very first tip that came through that I used, a tip on a free download, in one click repaid the cost of the initial cool tricks book. High energy author who is motivated to find a position in this new market, and why not? Someone's got to save time for the rest of us, and I appreciate it. --Amazon Customer Reviews ... 9 of 12 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars

INSPIRING AND MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT ELSE THERE IS INSIDE THIS DEVICE..., May 3, 2008 By M. Burgos

Expert Kindle graphics artist (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Very interesting read. Ebooks like this should be encouraged. There's clearly more to the Kindle than meets the eye! --Amazon Customer Reviews .... With over 30,000 copies sold, The Complete User's Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle has helped thousands of current and prospective Kindle owners get the most out of their Kindles or conduct the due diligence necessary to decide if the device makes sense for them. Here are just a few of the dozens of five-star reviews that this book has received since it was first published in beta form under the title How to Use the Amazon Kindle for Email and Other Cool Tricks in December 2007:

Stephen Windwalker has done it again. --Manuel Burgos, author of Graphics on the Kindle

77 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

Great info for Kindle readers, many thanks!, March 26, 2008 By P.E. (TN, USA)

Informative and expanding, much information that an avid reader-turned-Kindle-reader might otherwise miss. Available elsewhere? Definitely, and those with an urge to tinker will find it. But if your focus is on the books and you are the sort who looks for answers in the user manual, then articles such as this are invaluable. This is the first review I have ever submitted to Amazon. Must admit that the electronic shouting matches that many of these review lists become puts me off. But the potential for a real paradigm shift in how we use, and value, cyber access exists here and the window won't likely stay open long. The more folks learn about the possibilities, the greater the push. Stephen Windwalker appears to be writing for the typical Kindle buyer who wants an electronic reader for the convenience of having a lot of books in a small, transportable package. --Amazon Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 100% Worthwhile Investment, April 29, 2008 By K. Blaeser skipblazer (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Like many new Kindle users, I bought this cool tricks Kindle book on my first buying spree about 2 months ago. I reserved judgment on how useful it would be until now, giving myself a chance to both read the material and receive the very helpful free emails that the author offers as a bonus, if you choose to send him your email address. The very first tip that came through that I used, a tip on a free download, in one click repaid the cost of the initial cool tricks book. High energy author who is motivated to find a position in this new market, and why not? Someone's got to save time for the rest of us, and I appreciate it. --Amazon Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars

INSPIRING AND MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT ELSE THERE IS INSIDE THIS DEVICE..., May 3, 2008 By M. Burgos

Expert Kindle graphics artist (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Very interesting read. Ebooks like this should be encouraged. There's clearly more to the Kindle than meets the eye! --Amazon Customer Reviews

About the Author

Stephen Windwalker is the founder of Harvard Perspectives Press, the Kindle Home Page website at kindlehomepage.blogspot.com, and the author of half a dozen books and numerous articles and short stories. He reports: I cut my teeth as a writer covering the Cape Cod Baseball League and other sports for what was then called the Cape Cod Standard-Times and later the Boston Globe, studied the craft of writing with Robert Lowell, Kurt Vonnegut, Monroe Engel and Carter Wilson, and served as Fiction Editor of the Harvard Advocate. In 1999 I founded a small independent publishing company called Harvard Perspectives Press (named after two of my favorite institutions from my undergraduate years, the Harvard House of Pizza and the Harvard Wine Company), and it has done astonishingly well, with a couple of niche bestsellers, other work that we have been proud to publish, and now some stunning successes with the Kindle publishing platform. I'm proud to be a member of the Boston chapter of the National Writers Union and the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Perspectives Press; 1st edition (August 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971577870
• ISBN-13: 978-0971577879
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Computers & Technology > Microsoft > Applications > Outlook
  • #16 in Books > Computers & Technology > Microsoft > Scheduling & E-mail
  • #39 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Hacking

More About the Author

I cut my teeth as a writer covering the Cape Cod Baseball League and other sports for what was then called the Cape Cod Standard-Times and later the Boston Globe, studied the craft of writing with Robert Lowell, Kurt Vonnegut, Monroe Engel and Carter Wilson, and served as Fiction Editor of the Harvard Advocate. In 1999 I founded a small independent publishing company called Harvard Perspectives Press (named after two of my favorite institutions from my undergraduate years, the Harvard House of Pizza and the Harvard Wine Company), and it has done astonishingly well, with a couple of niche bestsellers, other work that we have been proud to published, and now some stunning successes with the Kindle publishing platform. I have three wonderful children, and along the way I've been an author, a community organizer, a bookseller, a publishing executive, a marathoner, an elected official, and some other things unsuitable for mention here.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

133 of 143 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great info for Kindle readers, many thanks!, March 26, 2008

By 

Paul Ertsgaard (TN, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete User's Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle (First Generation; DRM-Free) (Kindle Edition)

Informative and expanding, much information that an avid reader-turned-Kindle-reader might otherwise miss. Available elsewhere? Definitely, and those with an urge to tinker will find it. But if your focus is on the books and you are the sort who looks for answers in the user manual, then articles such as this are invaluable.

This is the first review I have ever submitted to Amazon. Must admit that the electronic shouting matches that many of these review lists become puts me off. But the potential for a real paradigm shift in how we use, and value, "cyber access" exists here and the window won't likely stay open long. The more folks learn about the possibilities, the greater the push. Stephen Windwalker appears to be writing for the "typical Kindle buyer" who wants an electronic reader for the convenience of having a lot of books in a small, transportable package. Thoughts of expanded uses are not even entertained in many cases. Without articles like this to inform the conventional user of these possibilities, many will be happy, contented readers and never know other capabilities exist.

Kindle is a terrific way to read books. I started a skeptic, bought my wife one as a gift, and we now have a pair. (She offered to share but I knew she didn't really want to.) We are both voracious readers, several books a week when we aren't being consumed by one work crisis or another. While we both have the tech savvy to figure out anything that is discussed in this article, for a couple dollars we didn't have to. It came instantly to my Kindle at the push of a button. And that is the bottom line for me.

Any information worth having is worth a couple dollars if you can get what you need in a concise, ordered format and if it saves you the time you would have spent in finding it yourself. The more people that have this information, the more clamor there will be to enhance and expand these capabilities, and the sooner the better. And that will make a $2.39 investment seem like a prophetic decision.

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 100% Worthwhile Investment, April 29, 2008

By 

K. Blaeser "skipblazer" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete User's Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle (First Generation; DRM-Free) (Kindle Edition)

Like many new Kindle users, I bought this "cool tricks" Kindle book on my first buying spree about 2 months ago. I reserved judgment on how useful it would be until now, giving myself a chance to both read the material and receive the very helpful free emails that the author offers as a bonus, if you choose to send him your email address. The very first tip that came through that I used, a tip on a free download, in one click repaid the cost of the initial "cool tricks" book. High energy author who is motivated to find a position in this new market, and why not? Someone's got to save time for the rest of us, and I appreciate it.

Yes, technically all the information contained therein could be found for free if one had enough time, but if I had that much time and energy, I could also eventually travel to libraries to borrow, and back to return, every time I wanted to read a title for "free". "Free" is not the primary motivation of Kindle users, it's convenience, and personally, I find this "cool tricks" Kindle guide a no-brainer, common sense investment. For a couple of dollars, you get the benefit of this author's many hours of beta-testing. What's to regret?

87 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not give this guy your e-mail address! He just spammed me., October 6, 2008

By 

Speednet - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete User's Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle (First Generation; DRM-Free) (Kindle Edition)

This book was my first Kindle purchase, because I was looking for some info on how to use the device. Little did I know how this seemingly helpful chap would misuse my e-mail address to promote his political ideology!

The book is "OK" -- it covers the basics, and gets you to the point where you can use the fundamental features, but it does not go too much further. On the book's content alone, I would maybe give it 2-1/2 stars.

I then went on to follow his suggestion of adding my e-mail address to his list. He claimed that he would be sending alerts when his Kindle book was updated.

Surprised was my reaction this morning when I opened a lengthy e-mail from Stephen Windwalker (yes, it was a real e-mail from him) in which he wrote an extensive note about the importance of buying a Kindle book that paints a certain female candidate for VP in a very negative light.

I have read several books and articles about that particular candidate -- enough to realize what is agenda-driven and what is detached accounting of the facts. The rag this Windwalker guy is pushing is something that clearly advances one particular political opinion.

Whether you agree with Windwalker's viewpoint or not, how dare he mis-use my e-mail address to send me his thinly-veiled political opinions!

I would therefore recommend find an alternative source of Kindle information, and definitely not providing your e-mail address to this guy. The "sheep in wolves' clothing" image comes to mind.