If you are challenged by the need to keep your Kindle purchases on 
a monthly budget (or to do the same for a family member), why not try a Kindle Gift Certificate each month? Just click here to purchase your Kindle Gift Certificate in whatever amount suits your monthly budget amount, and you’ll know how much you have left to spend just by checking the amount that is open on your gift certificate account at any time during the month. And be sure to reward your frugality by allowing yourself roll-over Kindle dollars!
Kindle 2
The Genius of Instapaper: for ParisLemon, a reason to buy the Kindle
Ordinarily when I find something like the usefulness of Instapaper with the Kindle, I worry that Amazon may be moved to take steps to block the feature based on the reasonable notion that it could cannibalize K-content revenues. But here’s a guy who was already using Instapaper, had been anti-Kindle, but when he learned that the Kindle and Instapaper played nice together it was the tipping point in persuading him to buy a Kindle 2. I agree with him that Instapaper rocks, with or without a Kindle.
Here’s my March 30 Kindle Nation post about the genius of Instapaper for Kindle owners.
Just released in the Kindle Store: The Complete User’s Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2
(The Complete User’s Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2: A Kindle Owner’s Toolkit Of Over 500 Tips, Tricks, and Links To Help You Get the Most Out of Amazon’s Revolutionary e-Book Reader & Free Wireless Web Browser has been live in Amazon’s Kindle Store since Sunday afternoon and has already cracked the top 25 bestsellers there, although the book’s bibliographic metadata, product description, and sort categories are not yet live on the Amazon site. So, just to make it a little easier for you to get a sense of what the book provides while it is still being offered at a very low promotional price, I am posting the content of the Amazon product description here).
Here’s the beta version of the definitive new guide to the vastly improved Kindle 2, by the author of the 2008 Kindle 1 guide that outsold all other first-generation Kindle guides combined. Find out why the Kindle is still king among e-book readers with an astonishing array of new hardware and software features that make it a delightful snap to read anything from bestsellers to classics to your daily papers or a memo from a colleague. And with a treasure trove of more than 500 tips, tricks, resources and links Windwalker’s Kindle 2 guide will make you wonder if Amazon has evolved the e-reader that does not need a computer (Kindle 1) into the e-reader that *is* a remarkably versatile mobile computer (Kindle 2) with totally free “anywhere” wireless service paid for by Amazon.
In addition to scores of hacks and resources to help you make the most of the Kindle 2 reading experience and easily acquire fully-formatted free content for your Kindle, Windwalker also goes far beyond the user’s manual w tells you what you need to know, with updated links, so that you can use the Kindle 2’s surprisingly powerful and user-friendly free wireless web to check email, news, scores, stocks, bank accounts, favorite blogs, movie listings, book reviews, shopping choices, travel information, and even the local weather!
Written for serious readers as well as early adopters and “gadget heads,” Windwalker’s book-length guide — 40,000 words in this inexpensive beta edition — comes elegantly formatted for the Kindle with a fully interactive table of contents that make for user-friendly navigation and hundreds of links through which you can access resources directly with your Kindle browser or, if you take advantage of Windwalker’s free offer, download to your desktop or notebook computer. If you own the first-generation Kindle and you are trying to decide whether to upgrade to the Kindle 2, this book will help you with the due diligence necessary to make an informed decision, and even provides helpful information on how to help harvest some of the funds for an upgrade from the process of disposing of your Kindle 1.
Chapter Headings also include:
Great Websites for Free Content – What’s New with the Kindle 2 – Up and Running: Getting Started with Your Amazon Kindle 2 – Getting and Reading Books With Your Kindle – Sampling Books – Saving Items for Later – Getting and Reading Periodicals and Blogs with Your Kindle – Using Google Reader to Read Your Favorite Blogs on the Kindle – Using the Kindle’s Audio Features – Connecting with the World With Your Kindle – Read and Answer Email Anywhere*, Anytime on the Kindle, Without Monthly Charges – Troubleshooting if You Have Difficulty Accessing Gmail or Other Web Pages – Traveling with Your Kindle – Using the Kindle to Translate Foreign or Technical Words and Phrases – Making the Most of Your Kindle Connections Overseas – Using the Kindle as a Travel Guide – The Kindle and GPS – Checking Sprint Wireless Coverage for the Kindle 2 – Downloading Kindle Editions via USB Cable – Other Tips and Tricks to Help You Get the Most out of Your Kindle 2 – Optimizing the Powers of Kindle Search – Returning a Kindle Store Purchase – Using Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, and Promotional Certificates to Give or Purchase Kindle Content – Recover Deleted Content at No Charge – Sign Up for an HTML File of the Links Contained in This Book – Writing and Publishing Kindle Content: 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 – Improved Content Management and Sorting – Opening, Deleting, and Restoring Kindle Content – Let Your Kindle Read to You with a New “Read-to-Me” Feature – Hands-Free Reading Options – Improved Periodical Navigation – Improved Reading and Web Navigation with the Joystick and the Back Button – and much, much more!
Great Websites for Free Content – What’s New with the Kindle 2 – Up and Running: Getting Started with Your Amazon Kindle 2 – Getting and Reading Books With Your Kindle – Sampling Books – Saving Items for Later – Getting and Reading Periodicals and Blogs with Your Kindle – Using Google Reader to Read Your Favorite Blogs on the Kindle – Using the Kindle’s Audio Features – Connecting with the World With Your Kindle – Read and Answer Email Anywhere*, Anytime on the Kindle, Without Monthly Charges – Troubleshooting if You Have Difficulty Accessing Gmail or Other Web Pages – Traveling with Your Kindle – Using the Kindle to Translate Foreign or Technical Words and Phrases – Making the Most of Your Kindle Connections Overseas – Using the Kindle as a Travel Guide – The Kindle and GPS – Checking Sprint Wireless Coverage for the Kindle 2 – Downloading Kindle Editions via USB Cable – Other Tips and Tricks to Help You Get the Most out of Your Kindle 2 – Optimizing the Powers of Kindle Search – Returning a Kindle Store Purchase – Using Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, and Promotional Certificates to Give or Purchase Kindle Content – Recover Deleted Content at No Charge – Sign Up for an HTML File of the Links Contained in This Book – Writing and Publishing Kindle Content: 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 – Improved Content Management and Sorting – Opening, Deleting, and Restoring Kindle Content – Let Your Kindle Read to You with a New “Read-to-Me” Feature – Hands-Free Reading Options – Improved Periodical Navigation – Improved Reading and Web Navigation with the Joystick and the Back Button – and much, much more!
How Many, How Many I Wonder, But They Really Don’t Want to Tell
(Weekly blog post at TeleRead.com)
By Stephen Windwalker, with apologies to songwriters Don Robertson and Howard Barnes and artists Elvis Presley, Eddy Arnold, Les Paul and Mary Ford for the title of this post
Even if I had never been a guest on the show, I’m sure I would make a regular weekly routine of listening to Len Edgerly’s Friday Kindle Chronicles podcast. Today Len deserves kudos for landing and conducting an interview with Ian Freed, Amazon’s vice-president for Kindle, and for utilizing the wisdom of crowds….
Order these free books for your Kindle 2 before they disappear
Here’s a money-saving tip for new Kindlers who are awaiting for the arrival of their Kindle 2. Amazon, publishers, and authors often get together to offer temporary “zero-price promotions” on popular books in the Kindle Store, in addition to the thousands of free public-domain titles that are now available.
Naturally, these books do not remain free forever, but you do not have to wait for the arrival of your Kindle 2 to place your order. You can order these free books today and they will be delivered wirelessly to your Kindle 2 when you power it up for the first time. Just make sure that you place the order through the Amazon account that will be linked to your Kindle.
Eight of these books are being offered free by Random House through the end of February, and many are by authors who are publishing new work in 2009.
The ninth is a real treat, a major new Kindle exclusive cookbook from Cook’s Illustrated, and it alone may help you to expand the ways you have considered using your Kindle. The promotion allows Amazon to show off how the Kindle 2’s new, crisper display, zoom feature, and better hands-free functionality are more cookbook-compatible than its predecessor.
Finally, the tenth link here isn’t free, but it’s for an accessory that I highly recommend, especially if you think you might use the Kindle 2 either as cookbook repository or as a read-aloud companion while you are in the kitchen. M-Edge, which has emerged as a leading supplier of attractive Kindle covers for the original Kindle, has come out with a great selection of Kindle 2 covers that double as stand-up hands-free Kindle platforms. They range in price from faux-leather models at the same $29.99 price that Amazon is now charging for its branded cover to $54.99 (currently discounted to $44.99) for very attractive genuine leather models in several colors. Just visit the Kindle 2 Accessories page and scroll down (if you can!) past those dreamy three-figure designer covers from Cole-Haan.
Murder List by Julie Garwood
The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst
The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro
Prague by Arthur Phillips
Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston
Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston
Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich
A Dangerous Man by Charlie Huston