Archives for July 2010

Kindle owners do lots of things with their Kindles – some this you may already know how to do, but there may be a lot of you who never thought to do it.  There is a discussion thread going on over at the Amazon site where members are posting some of the random things they do with their Kindles in addition to “just” reading books.  I will be profiling some of these over the next few weeks – after all, part of the title line of this blog is supposed to be about Kindle tips vs. just a feature on free books!

Here’s one of the tips, and is a feature I use quite often: “I’ve also looked up the weather radar on my Kindle when we’re traveling. This past weekend we were on the road, and knew a storm was coming our way. I looked up the radar on my Kindle, and saw that the storms were only about a county away. That gave us time to get to shelter (which was good, since we were in a tornado warning!). Luckily, no tornados. However, the Kindle is good in a pinch to look up weather, and also if your electricity goes off.”

So, how do you go about checking the weather on your Kindle?  Just follow these steps:

• Make sure your Kindle’s wireless feature is turned on;
• Press the Menu button;
• Select the “Experimental” option;
• Select the “Basic Web” option;
• Press the Menu button again and then select the “Enter URL” option;
• Type in mobile.weather.com and then press the enter button (which looks like an arrow pointing to the left) on your Kindle’s keyboard.

You can then input your location by ZIP code, city name, airport code, or you can select from a drop-down menu from various large cities.  Why not take a look and see what the weather holds for your neighborhood or travel destination?

Want to have this blog sent wirelessly to your Kindle vs. reading it on your computer? Try out the free two-week subscription!  Click here for the Amazon page for Free Kindle Books Plus a Few Other Tips.

Don’t have a Kindle?  Click Here  to learn more!

To paraphrase Captain Queeg of The Caine Mutiny, “You can’t assume….”

In many posts, I assume each of you know how to access the Internet on your Kindle.  Judging from the number of responses I received over the last couple of weeks (you can email me: kindle at gagler dot com), I shouldn’t have assumed all of you know how to do it as after all, there are thousands of new users over the last couple of weeks due to the price decrease.

Please understand as of this writing, Internet access via the Kindle is free – that’s one of the ways Amazon has justified its pricing of the Kindle: you and I are paying up-front for the bandwidth required – but this Internet connection is not as fast as, say, your broadband connection in the office or at home.

There are several ways you can initiate Internet access on your Kindle; to make up for my incorrect assumption, here is how I generally access the Internet via my Kindle:

• I first push the “Home” button to go to the home page.
• I next turn the wireless feature on.  To do this, I press the “Menu” button, then select “Turn Wireless On.”
• I then press the “Menu” button again, then press the “Experimental” button.
• From here, you have three options: Basic Web, Play MP3, Text-to-Speech.  Choose the Basic Web option.
• Each Kindle comes pre-loaded with various bookmarks to places like CNN, Google, and the BBC.  You can choose one of those and check them out, but if you know the specific URL you want press the “Menu” button again and next choose the “Enter URL” option.

You will next see the Kindle’s experimental web browser: type in the URL you want, then press the arrow key on your keyboard.  Depending upon the strength of your cellular coverage (which effects the speed of the Internet connection) your selected page should show up.

Hope that helps!

Michael

Want to have this blog sent wirelessly to your Kindle vs. reading it on your computer? Try out the free two-week subscription!  Click here for the Amazon page for Free Kindle Books Plus a Few Other Tips.

Don’t have a Kindle?  Click Here  to learn more!

The following is a post I originally did in the beginning of May.  The number of people reading this blog has grown a couple of thousand since then, primarily due to the influx of new Kindles out in the world due to the price decrease a few weeks ago (and I hope some of that is attributable to folks thinking there is some value to the blog, too), and I thought it appropriate to repeat it:  I’ve got a big jar of coins at home I will be applying this tip to Saturday!

I still think we’re in a recession, and looking at what the global stock market has been doing this week makes me think it’s going to last a little longer – we did see a brief rebound – although I hope I am wrong.

Kindles and other eBook readers have some costs to them: $225 or more for a Kindle and related accessories (cover to protect it, maybe an extra charger, etc.) add up.  However, you’ve made your initial investment in the Kindle hardware, and there is enough free content out there for you to read the rest of your life without buying another book.  Forever.

Forever is a long time.

While I do read a lot of the free books I talk about here in the blog (and the “to be read” pile is increasing, thank goodness for storage on the Kindle) I still enjoy certain authors and will purchase a lot of books.  Some of them are inexpensive offerings from independent authors and some are from your mainstream “big name” authors, and I don’t care what the price is – I’ve gottagetitnow.  Well, I do care what the price is but I may just wait until it gets below $10 unless it’s a new one by Harlan Coben .  I’m sure there are offerings you want to buy, too.

So, what’s my point with this post?  Great question because, as in real life, I am getting long-winded in this post.

You have a source of “free” money you can spend in the Amazon store and you probably don’t realize it as it is right under your nose.  I’m talking about your loose change.

Most of you have seen the change conversion machines in grocery and other stores, and a lot of you have used them: you take in your coffee can of loose change, dump it in the hopper, the machine counts it and then spits out a receipt you take to the cash register to redeem for paper currency or a credit in the store.  The one main drawback to these machines, to me, is a lot of them take an 8% commission / cut of whatever you brought in as their profit.  For example, you would need to bring in $10.87 worth of change to receive a $10 bill.  Some people will say “so what” and accept that as a cost of doing business vs. rolling the money yourself and either turning it in to a bank (if they accept the change these days) or taking it to a convenience store who needs it.

If you were following along and did the math to see what the effective annual interest rate is, great.  If you didn’t, I’ve  it for you: assuming the vendor collects the change from the machine every three days and takes it to their bank, that 8% rate for a three day holding period converts to a 266.7% annual interest rate.  The grocery store usually splits the fee earned 50-50 with the owner of the equipment, but even if the grocery store is providing a three day loan to the equipment maker until they are reimbursed, that is one heck of a money maker (why didn’t I think of that?)!

I’m sure some of you are still wondering what my point is with this post.  I’ll get to it, I just had to set the stage.

Coinstar is one of the largest providers in the USA of this equipment to stores (they are also the parent company behind the Redbox DVD rental machines that is kicking Movie Gallery, Hollywood Video, and Blockbuster into the ground).  They have partnered with Amazon to not charge you a fee for the change you bring in, but they will give you a gift card eligible for 100% of the change you bring in to be used at the Amazon website; I am assuming Amazon is paying their fee as a customer acquisition cost.

That’s actually a huge benefit for you and me as we feed our Kindle book addiction.

Using my earlier example, if you brought in $10.87 worth of change and selected the Amazon gift card option, you would get a $10.87 Amazon gift card as your receipt.  You would then enter the gift card details on your Amazon account on your computer (or Kindle, if the wireless feature is on with the browser pointed to the Amazon website).  You can then use those funds now applied to your account and buy Kindle books or anything else in the Kindle store.

You also don’t have to roll the coins yourself or, if your house is like mine, have a couple of containers here and there full of spare change.  You’re also not giving up any of your money as a commission just for someone to accept your spare change.  That’s change I can believe in (pun intended).

Coinstar has partnered with other companies to offer gift cards with no fee to you – you turn in $10.87 worth of coins, you get a $10.87 gift card to the Amazon store.  While Coinstar is one of the largest providers of this equipment to stores in the USA, they aren’t the only one so don’t assume your local grocery store is a Coinstar machine.  You can point your web browser to http://www.coinstar.com/us/html/A1-0-3-1 and do two things from this page: (1) enter your zip code to find a Coinstar machine near you, and (2) see a list of companies that have signed up for the gift card promotion.

I think I am going to go grab my old Mason Jar I use to hold my change and find me a Coinstar machine…

Have a great weekend-

Michael

Want to have this blog sent wirelessly to your Kindle vs. reading it on your computer? Try out the free two-week subscription!  Click here for the Amazon page for Free Kindle Books Plus a Few Other Tips.

Don’t have a Kindle?  Click Here  to learn more!