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NOTEPAD BULLETIN! Important Free Update/Upgrade Available for Owners of the 99-Cent NOTEPAD for Kindle App!

Many citizens of Kindle Nation are already aware of the great 99-cent NOTEPAD app for the Kindle, and there is some especially good news this week: The app developers at Seven Dragons have just come out with a free update/upgrade for the app that adds some very cool features in a seamless update that, let me say again, does not cost a dime.

If you have previously purchased the app for 99 cents, just go to the NOTEPAD product page and you’ll see a green update box like that above at right. Just click the Go button for the right Kindle (among your many Kindles 🙂 and the transfer will begin automatically. And transfer charges will be paid by Seven Dragons.

If you haven’t purchased NOTEPAD yet, I do heartily recommend it, and when you go to the NOTEPAD product page you will see a green box like the regular buy box in the upper right corner of any product page (screenshot at right). Either way, you’re in for a treat in terms of app usefulness and user-friendliness.

Here in great detail is the scoop on the update from Abhi Singh at the app development ream for Seven Dragons:

We are super happy to bring you Notepad V1.1. It has a lot of really good stuff. First, please take 5 minutes to read the details on how to do a backup and make sure you do a backup of your Notes. Then, read up on how to do the upgrade and go ahead and upgrade to Notepad V1.1. Please Read – A Very Important Note on the Notepad Update
Firstly, PLEASE make a backup of your notes and your backups folder on your PC or Mac before doing the upgrade.
The upgrade works seamlessly and does not cause any problems. Plus we’ve tested it a lot on our end. However, it’s best to have a copy of your Notes in the rare chance something goes wrong. Please read this post for how to transfer files from Notepad to your PC – Kindle Notepad to PC file transfers. And then make sure you do a backup of your notes on your PC before doing the upgrade.
Secondly, if you have WiFi or 3G then do the wireless update. The wireless update works automatically and flawlessly.
If you have to do a manual transfer via your computer -> Please make sure it’s an overwrite. You should not move the existing Notepad.azw2 file (it might have a longer name) from your Kindle to your PC until the new Notepad.azw2 file is in the documents folder and working.
Note: If you are doing a manual transfer it’s 10 times more important to do a backup of your notes before doing the upgrade.
How the Upgrade is supposed to work
It’s a good idea to exit the Notepad app before starting the upgrade.
1) Go to the Notepad Product Page. There you will see:

At the right top of the page where the Buy button normally is:
Update Available
Version 1.1 (Released Mar 16, 2011)  (**The date is wrong – it should be today but it might show as Mar 16 instead of June 21)
Send wirelessly to:
[Your Kindle Names (dropdown)]    [Go Button (yellow button)]
–  OR – (this is text, it’s literally — OR —)
Transfer via computer (button)

2) In the dropdown with your Kindle’s name (or your various Kindles’ names) –  Choose the Kindle you have Notepad on. Then press the Go Button.
Note: If you have Notepad on multiple Kindles then you will have to repeat the entire process (not just this step) for each Kindle separately.
3) The new file downloads to your Kindle via WhisperNet and overwrites the existing file. This happens automatically.
Please Note: You should not delete anything yourself. This is very, very important. Please do not delete anything on your end – let the automatic overwrite happen automatically behind the scenes.
4) Run Notepad – You should see a Welcome Dialog. It looks like this:

The Welcome Dialog when you update Kindle Notepad to V1.1

Kindle Notepad V1.1

5) Read the Help Pages by pressing ‘Go To Help’ button in the Welcome Dialog (Or, in Notepad, press Menu and then choose Help in the Menu). Pages 5, 9, and 16 detail what’s added in Notepad V1.1.
6) Read the new welcome Note – It’s titled `Welcome Note.
7) If you like you can enter your contact information into the `If Found, Return To note.
Just to be absolutely clear: You should not delete the Notepad file yourself (since that also deletes the associated data). It has to be a file overwrite and the update process does that for you. All you have to do is click the ‘Go’ button on the Amazon product page for Notepad.
If you do the download wirelessly then you can skip to the Notepad V1.1 Update (An Introduction) section lower down in the post.
What if you don’t have 3G or WiFi?
Then you have to be extra careful when doing the upgrade. In fact, if you can get access to 3G or WiFi it’s strongly recommended to do a wireless update.
1) Make sure you are not in the Notepad App. Plug your Kindle via USB into your Computer. It will show up as a disk drive (named something like Kindle (K:) or Kindle (D:)).
2) On the Notepad Product Page click the ‘Transfer via Computer’ button. This is right below the yellow Go button.
3) A ‘Select a Device’ dialog will show up. In the ‘Select a Device’ dialog choose the Kindle you have Notepad on. Then click the ‘Transfer via computer’ button in the ‘Select a Device’ dialog.
Please Note: If you have Notepad on multiple Kindles, you have to get a separate file for each Kindle.
4) You will get a file download dialog with options (options such as Open and Save). Choose Save.
5) This will give you a Save File dialog. In that dialog choose your Kindle (which you should have plugged in, in Step 1) and then choose the documents folder of your Kindle. Press Save.
6) You will get a dialog that asks you to confirm an overwrite of the existing Notepad File. Confirm the overwrite.
Please Note: In some cases you will simply see a Notepad.azw2 file as the new file, while the existing Notepad file will be named something like Notepad_ASIN_B004LSLN0I.azw2. In that case, just copy the new file to your Documents folder. Make sure not to delete the older file.
After the download of the new file is done – Unplug your Kindle and open the new Notepad. You might have to try both ‘Notepad’ files listed. The new one is the one which gives you a Welcome Dialog. Once you have opened up the new Notepad and gotten the Welcome Dialog (shown above) – Then you can plug the Kindle back via USB into your PC or Mac. Then you can move the older Notepad file (the one with ASIN etc. in its name) to a folder on your Kindle. Do not delete it from the Kindle itself (i.e. do not delete it when unplugged from your PC) – just move it to a folder on your PC when you have your Kindle plugged into USB.
Very Important: Please do not move the older Notepad azw2 file out of the Documents Folder (and off of the Kindle) until the newer one is in place. Please do a backup of your notes BEFORE doing the upgrade.
What if you don’t get a File Save Dialog?
If the new Notepad.azw2 file gets saved to a Downloads folder (without giving you the option to save it to your Kindle’s documents folder) – then please copy the downloaded file and paste it yourself into the Kindle’s documents folder. At no point should you delete anything on your Kindle. Do an overwrite of the existing file – that is the correct way to do it. If the older file has a different name – then move it only AFTER the newer file is added to your documents folder and you have confirmed that you get the welcome dialog.
What not to do: Do NOT Delete the existing Notepad file in documents folder. First move the downloaded Notepad.azw2 file to the documents folder and make sure it’s working – Then move the older file (if it hasn’t been overwritten) to some folder on your PC or Mac. Please do NOT plug and unplug the Kindle while file download or overwriting is happening.
***This is a very good reason why it’s best to first do a backup of your notes before doing the upgrade.
Correct thing to do: Backup your Notes on your PC or Mac. Plug in your Kindle to your PC or Mac. Copy new Notepad file you get from Amazon into Documents Folder of your Kindle. When it asks if you want to overwrite the existing file – Choose Yes. If overwrite doesn’t happen, check that the new file works and you get Welcome Dialog – Then move the older file to a folder on your PC or Mac.
If you have doubts or questions please email me at booksummit@ymail.com.
Anyways, that brings us to the actual Notepad V1.1 Update.
Notepad V1.1 Update (An Introduction)
Notepad V1.1 has the following improvements:

  1. Persistent Shift. To get capitals you can now press Shift, let go, type ‘a’, and get ‘A’.
  2. The largest font size is now bigger. Earlier it was 30 and now it’s 33. Note: Your current font size doesn’t change unless you go into Aa menu (by pressing Aa key) and change it.
  3. Anti-aliasing option on newer Kindles. On Kindle 3 and Kindle WiFi you can turn on anti-aliasing.
  4. Speed Improvements. With Notepad V1.0 once you crossed 100 notes you’d see slowness and would also see things slow down quite a bit once you got to 200+ notes. With Notepad V1.1 even 300-400 notes work relatively fast and everything is faster to use. More on speed improvements at the end of this post.
  5. Word wrap. Now words don’t get cut at the end of a line.
  6. Smart Note Save Notification. Now the note save notification doesn’t take focus and doesn’t stop you from continuing to type. Press Alt+S and the note save notification appears at the top and you can just continue typing.
  7. New Movement Shortcuts. Move around quicker using handy shortcuts:

    Shift+Next Page: Goes to the End of the Note
    Shift+Prev Page: Goes to the Beginning of the Note
    Shift+Right on the 5-way: Goes to the end of the Line
    Shift+Left on the 5-way: Goes to the beginning of the Line
    You can press Shift and Up to scroll up quickly.
    You can press Shift and Down to scroll down quickly.
    Next Page goes to Next Page of the Note (Page Size = amount of the note you see on the screen at one time).
    Prev Page goes to Previous Page of the Note.

  8. Quick Delete feature – Press down on DEL and hold it. After around a second it starts deleting 4-5 characters per second.
  9. Undo Feature – Press Alt+Z to undo your last few moves one by one. If you delete something by mistake or want to undo typing you can press Alt+Z to Undo.
  10. Copy-Paste (Please Read the Details – This may or may not be your ‘perfect’ version of Copy Delete). Yes, Notepad now has Copy and Paste and Delete. It is a specific, limited implementation of Copy-Paste – which may or may not meet your expectations. There’s an entire section on copy paste below.

Some Help documents for Notepad V1.1 (thanks to Maurine for writing these):

  1. Notepad V1.1 PDF –  Notepad V1.1 Changes (PDF).
  2. Notepad V1.1 Word – Notepad V1.1 Changes (Word).
  3. Kindle compatible (PDF will also work on Kindle) – Notepad V1.1 Improvements in Kindle format (mobi).

Copy Paste in Notepad V1.1
Perhaps the coolest feature in Notepad V1.1 is Copy-Paste.
A few clarifications to set expectations:

  • We don’t have access to anything outside the app. Copy-Paste only works within the app.
  • There are no shortcuts. You have to use a tiny pop-up menu. Note: We had to keep things simple and we weren’t going to rework existing shortcuts. That’s why there’s no Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.
  • Copy Paste works across notes within Notepad.
  • Copy Paste works in all fields.
  • Copy Paste is persistent. So if you exit app and re-enter – that copied text will still be there.
  • You can only copy one thing at a time.
  • This is the first version of the feature. There might be bugs and there might be some obvious way to make it better – let us know your suggestions.

How Copy-Paste works is very similar to how Highlighting works in Kindle Books.
To Copy Something:
Move the cursor to the beginning of the section you want to copy. Press down on the 5-way. The cursor will become slanted (italic). Now move the cursor up, down, left or right and select whatever text you like. Text will be highlighted based on where/how you move the cursor.
Once you have highlighted the text you want to copy – press on the 5-way again to get 4 options.

  1. Copy – This will copy the highlighted text.
  2. Paste – This will paste whatever text is currently in memory over the selected text.
  3. Delete – This will delete the highlighted text.
  4. Cancel – This will cancel the highlighting.

Please note that all the movement shortcuts work while you are in Copy-Paste mode. So you can press on the 5-way at the beginning of a line and then press Shift+Right on 5-way to highlight the entire line.
To Paste Something:
You must have something copied in memory.
Move the cursor to wherever you want to do the Paste. Click on the 5-way twice. You get the Copy-Paste Menu. Click on Paste to paste the copied text (whatever is the last text copied into memory) at that spot.
To Delete a Block of Text:
Go to the beginning of a block of text. Press on the 5-way to go into Copy-Paste mode. Move the cursor to select/highlight the portion of text you want to delete. Press on the 5-way again and from the Copy-Paste popup Menu choose ‘Delete’.
If you delete something by mistake – you can get it back by pressing Alt+Z for Undo.
What else is in Notepad V1.1?
Mostly fixes and tweaks.
There will be a Note created automatically called `If Found, Return To. This is a note where you can add your personal information. In case someone finds your Kindle and opens the Notepad app they might run into this Note and know how to contact you.
There are several fixes including:

  1. When you press Alt+S and then press Home: There is no longer an extra, redundant copy of the Note created. Note: If you don’t press Alt+S and press Home by mistake – the copy will still be saved.
  2. There was a bug where renaming a note from TestNote to Testnote (N to n) caused the Note to disappear. That’s now fixed.
  3. A few other bug fixes.

In addition to the six backup slots (which you can use to do in-app backups), there is now an Auto Save slot. This saves a backup every week – automatically. It’s important to backup yourself too and it’s especially important to backup your Notes to your PC or Mac. However, this Auto Save slot adds a bit of security.
A Quick Clarification: If you try to open an external imported Note (text file created outside Kindle Notepad app) that is larger than Notepad’s Largest Note Size then it is not deleted or lost. It is simply left untouched. Instead a copy is created and that is truncated to fit within the size limit. So, if you try to open TooBig.txt then Notepad makes a copy, truncates it to fit the limit, and opens that. The original TooBig.txt file is left pure and untouched and there is no data lost at all.
There is now a ‘More from 7 Dragons’ link in the Main Page Menu of Notepad which takes you to the Kindle Store and shows a list of our apps.
Speed Improvements
You should see faster performance everywhere –

  1. Faster page turns.
  2. Faster font changes.
  3. Faster search.
  4. Ability to handle 200 to 300 notes quickly and gracefully. We’ve tested up to 400 notes on Kindle DX 1 and Kindle 3. Beyond that you’ll probably see slowness in some things such as changing font type. We haven’t really tested it with anything above 400 or so notes
  5. You might notice faster typing too – it was pretty fast to begin with and we don’t know how to quantify the improvement.

It’s just much faster to use overall – do let us know if it still isn’t fast enough for you. If possible, we’ll look at further speed improvements in future updates.
Keep letting us know your suggestions
Every item on the Notepad V1.1 improvements list is a customer suggestion.
Let us know what else you would like to see in Notepad. There are some things that are not possible or interfere with the simplicity of the app and therefore will probably not make it. Copy-Paste was a borderline feature and things more complicated than it probably aren’t a good fit for Notepad.
Everything else (that affects and/or helps at least 5% of Notepad users) we’ll try to get in (at some unknown point of time in the future).

From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: Larger Font Sizes, and Text-to-Speech, for Easy Reading on the Kindle

Thanks to Marilyn for writing in with a question that may be important for many readers:
I have an amazon kindle and I want to know how to change the size of the type to larger as I just had eye surgery and I would like to read without reading glasses Please help
Thanks
Marilyn Burstin
Marilyn, just to the right of the space bar, on the bottom row of your Kindle keyboard, there is a font key marked “Aa.” Press that key from within any Kindle book or text document and you should see a display like the one in the screenshot at the right. Across the top, in this screen shot from my Kindle 3, are 8 font sizes including a couple of very large options that should suit many visually impaired readers.
You can select the font size that is right for you by using the 5-way controller at the right of the Kindle keyboard, and your setting will remain in place for all Kindle documents that you read. Kindle apps for computers and mobile devices also offer similar font sizing.
Unfortunately, Amazon has not figured out a way to increase the font sizes in the way our Kindles display the inbuilt Kindle Store, our Home screens, and other pages like the Kindle’s settings page. Given how useful the Kindle can be for visually impaired readers, such an enhancement would be terrific.
Meanwhile, on that same font-size page on the Kindle 2, Kindle 3, and Kindle DX, you’ll also see a line that allows you to turn on Text-to-Speech, which will really give your eyes a rest if you can get used to the slightly robotic voice and the fact that some publishers continue to opt out of the program so that Amazon is forced to block visually impaired readers from being able to enjoy their books. As you can see from the post linked just below, I’ve found it possible to get used to that voice….

How do I love thee, Kindle Text-to-Speech? Let me count the ways.

Tip: How to Set Up a Text "Slideshow" to Allow Automatic Page Turns and Hands-Free Reading with the Kindle

Want to read a book on your Kindle without having to use your hands to turn the pages?

This feature exists with a straightforward “slideshow” command or shortcut on the Kindle 1: you just press ALT+0 to enable the slideshow, then press ALT+1 to start it and ALT+2 to stop it.

The feature was abandoned for the latest-generation Kindle (Kindle 2) and the Kindle DX, but there’s an easy work-around involving the Text-to-Speech feature. Since text-to-speech is involved, this will work only on books and documents for which Text-to-Speech is enabled, but here are the steps:

  1. Open the book or document for which you want to enable hands-free reading.
  2. Press the font key marked “Aa” just to the right of the spacebar on your Kindle keyboard.
  3. Select “turn on” Text-to-Speech, and after a few seconds the book’s pages will begin turning to keep up with the Text-to-Speech feature.
  4. Use the volume control on the upper right edge of the Kindle to turn the volume all the way down, unless you prefer to listen to Text-to-Speech as you read.
  5. Press the font key marked “Aa” again and use the “Speech Rate” control to control the speed of the page turns.
  6. When you are ready to stop the automatic page turns, just press the font key marked “Aa” again and select “turn off” Text-to-Speech.

This feature works especially well with a bookstand such as the M-Edge Platform series.

Please note: regardless of volume level, the Text-to-Speech feature and other audio features make intensive use of Kindle battery power, so be prepared to recharge your Kindle battery more frequently if you are using such features.

From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: Changing Kindles and Keeping Your Content

Thanks to transitional Kindle Nation citizen Crystal, who posted this question on my Facebook wall:
“Hello Steve…. Question, I have the Kindle 1st generation but I want to get an newer one. Would you recommend it and if so which one would you recommend and will I be able to transfer my stuff on the old one to the new one?”
Hi Crystal, and I appreciate the great questions!

First, actually I think it’s a great time to get a Kindle 2. They’re going for $259 on Amazon, and there are nearly half a million books in the Kindle Store with about a thousand a day being added! Despite the efforts of publishers to raise ebook prices, over 75% of all the books in the Kindle Store are still priced at $9.99 and below, and a third of those are less than a dollar. The Kindle is the easiest environment for downloading and reading free books from the internet, and with the growing list of free Kindle Apps it’s easy to read your Kindle content just about anywhere if you also happen to have a a PC, Mac, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

I’ve had a Kindle 1, a Kindle 2, and a Kindle DX, and I sold the Kindle 1 and the DX and kept the Kindle 2, but that’s just me.

I hope you will use my link to make the purchase, because that way you’ll get Amazon to send a small commission that helps support Kindle Nation Daily and defray our costs, and not a dime of it comes out of your pocket. Here’s a link


About transferring your stuff from an old Kindle to a new, it’s a two-part answer:
  • All of the books that you bought in the Kindle Store will transfer easily to your new Kindle once you register the new Kindle to the same Amazon account. They will automatically go to your “archived items” folder, and you can then go to your Manage Your Kindle page to send any books wirelessly to the new Kindle. That will also be a good time to double check your Kindle subscriptions to periodicals and blogs like Kindle Nation Daily to activate them to your new Kindle. 
  • Then there’s the content that you may have acquired from sources other than from the Kindle Store. If you’re anything like me you’ve got plenty of free content, personal documents, music, podcasts, audiobooks, and pictures on your current Kindle, and what I would recommend is that you create a file on your computer called something like “Offload from Kindle 1” and use your USB cable to drag and drop (or copy and paste) all your existing files from your Kindle to it, with subfolders that mirror the subfolders on your Kindle such as “documents,” “audible,” etc. Then, once your new Kindle is up and running, it will be a snap to use the USB connection to drag and drop the files that you want to keep back from the computer to the appropriate folders on your Kindle 2.
Hope that helps, Crystal!

From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: How to Make Sure You Are Receiving Your Kindle Nation Daily Subscription

Thanks to Kindle Nation subscriber Ruth R for writing in about this problem:

Hi Stephen,
Would you please let me know why I have not received any daily updates in my kindle? Is it something I am doing or not doing?
Thank you,
Ruth
Ruth, unfortunately there is a recurring problem that Amazon has promised to fix through a firmware update. Although the problem can affect any Kindle blog, Kindle Nation Daily may be more vulnerable to it because of the frequency of our posts, which average about three a day.  (One way to determine for sure if you’ve been missing posts on your Kindle is to have Amazon send the blog to your Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac App following the instructions located here, and compare notes).
We’re still waiting for the Amazon fix, but meanwhile, here’s a do-it-yourself solution that should only take a couple of moments:

From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: Make Sure You Are Receiving Your Kindle Nation Daily Subscription

If you are a subscriber and you ever notice you’ve gone a couple of days without receiving your Kindle Nation Daily posts on your Kindle, I suggest following these steps:

  1. Try a system restart using the steps below (rather than holding the Kindle power switch to the right). In many cases this will resolve some minor issue that is blocking new blog content from downloading wirelessly to your Kindle. (Here’s a previous post on this subject). Then use the Home screen menu to select “Sync & Check for Items.” If all is well, you should see the blog on your Kindle home screen within an hour or two.
  2. If that doesn’t work, go to your Manage Your Kindle Subscriptions page and make sure that Kindle Nation Daily shows up in the listing of Your Active Kindle Subscriptions. If Kindle Nation Daily shows up under Your Inactive Kindle Subscriptions, click the “reactivate subscription” link to the right of the listing. You may have to update credit card information.
  3. If another hour passes and you still haven’t received fresh Kindle Nation Daily posts on your Kindle, contact Kindle Support via the web or by calling 1-866-321-8851. To ensure that the support personnel on the other end aren’t confused, I suggest giving them the exact name and ASIN number of the blog (Kindle Nation Daily – B0029U1A08), and insisting that you know other customers — like me, for instance — who are receiving new posts.
I hope this helps, and please let me know if you’re still having problems afterward!

Step-by-Step: Kindle System Restart
  1. Make sure your Kindle is on.*
  2. Disconnect the Kindle from the USB or Power Adapter cable.
  3. Press the Home button on the right edge of the Kindle.
  4. From the Home screen, press the Menu button on the right edge of the Kindle.
  5. Select “Settings” from the Home Menu.
  6. From the Settings page, press the Menu button again.
  7. Select “Restart” from the Setting Menu.
  8. Wait a couple of minutes for your Kindle to Restart, then give your Kindle another few minutes to update files, blog posts, etc.

*If your Kindle does not come on, or seems frozen, connect it via its Power Adapter to a wall outlet and give it an hour to re-energize itself.

Kindle System Restart: A Quick Fix if, for Example, You’re Not Getting New Kindle Subscription Content


Tip: A Fix of First Resort for a Multitude of Kindle Problems

I subscribe to the Kindle editions of several Kindle periodicals and blogs including, just so I can keep an eye on it to make sure Kindle subscribers are getting what I post, this one.

Several times over the past year I have noticed that new posts of mine or another blog or newspaper were not updating in a timely fashion to my Kindle, and I have occasionally received emails from subscribers if they experienced something similar. Since I generally deliver 15 to 20 posts a week to the citizens of Kindle Nation, it’s usually a Kindle problem if Kindle Nation Daily does not appear on my Home screen when when I sort by “Most Recent.”

So here’s one of those little “fix” things that seems to work without my really having any idea why it is working. Frankly, it’s one of the first fixes that I go to — before I contact Kindle Support via the web or by calling 1-866-321-8851 (1-206-266-0927 outside the US) — with almost anything I suspect is not working properly on my Kindle. Sort of like turning the computer off and on.

Step-by-Step: Kindle System Restart
  1. Make sure your Kindle is on.*
  2. Disconnect the Kindle from the USB or Power Adapter cable.
  3. Press the Home button on the right edge of the Kindle.
  4. From the Home screen, press the Menu button on the right edge of the Kindle.
  5. Select “Settings” from the Home Menu.
  6. From the Settings page, press the Menu button again.
  7. Select “Restart” from the Setting Menu.
  8. Wait a couple of minutes for your Kindle to Restart, then give your Kindle another few minutes to update files, blog posts, etc.

*If your Kindle does not come on, or seems frozen, connect it via its Power Adapter to a wall outlet and give it an hour to re-energize itself.


If you’re still hvaing problems, contact Kindle Support via the web or by calling 1-866-321-8851 (1-206-266-0927 outside the US).

How to Keep Specific Issues or Articles Among Your Kindle Subscriptions

Tip: How to Save Content from Kindle Periodicals and Blogs

One of the things that can take some getting used to for new Kindle owners, or even for those of us who’ve been reading on our Kindles for a couple of years, is the fact that newspapers and magazines that we’ve subscribed to only remain on our Kindles for a limited period of time before they are automatically deleted. In the case of a daily newspaper, that can be a convenience. In the case of a magazine that has an article, short story, poem, or data to which you would like to return in the future, it can be kind of a pain.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to deal with this and to hold on to such content for as long as you want.

Whenever you are reading a newspaper or magazine article or issue that you want to keep indefinitely, just press the “Menu” button on the right edge of your Kindle and select “Keep this issue” at the bottom of the pop-up menu. (See screen shot at right, where I’m in the process of “keeping” the last two issues of The New Yorker so that I can finish reading the John Mackey and Grace Kelly articles and get more yuks out of listening to my Kindle’s text-to-speech read aloud to me from Roger Angell’s annual “Greeting, Friends” delight a few more times before I begin getting really strange looks from my s.o.)

The process for blogs is not quite so user-friendly.

You can’t keep a blog post to read again in quite the same way on the Kindle, but the Kindle does allow you to clip an article.

Whenever you are reading a blog post that you want to clip and save indefinitely, just press the “Menu” button on the right edge of your Kindle and select “Clip this article” at the bottom of the pop-up menu. (See screen shot at left.)

You’ll then find the article in the My Clippings file on your Kindle home screen, saved chronologically with any other clippings at the end of the file. You can also transfer it from your Kindle to your computer via your Kindle’s USB cable.

If the post you want to keep is from Kindle Nation Daily, like the post being clipped in the screen shot above left) you will probably also be able to find it in the archives of my Kindle Nation weekly email digests, herehttp://bit.ly/KindleNationArchive.