An odd thing happened on my Kindle2 this morning

[NormHart]

When I woke up my Kindle this morning a book that I've been reading on and off was marked, in the left hand column, with "keep". How did that happen? I've seen "new" there, although that appears and disappears with little rhythm or reason, but never "keep". Is there a way to mark the books that way, are there any other comments that can be put there?

What is the meaning of it all?

[pilotbob]

Interesting... I thought that was reserved for periodicals as a way for you to flag that you don't want the item deleted... since they are deleted automatically when 14 days (I think) old.

Perhaps you pressed the "keep" keystroke by accident on that book.

BOb

[NormHart]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Interesting... I thought that was reserved for periodicals as a way for you to flag that you don't want the item deleted... since they are deleted automatically when 14 days (I think) old.

Perhaps you pressed the "keep" keystroke by accident on that book.

BOb

And what, oh wise and beneficent one, is the "keep" keystroke?

Are there other marking type keystrokes?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by NormHart

And what, oh wise and beneficent one, is the "keep" keystroke?

Are there other marking type keystrokes?

I don't have a Kindle 2 (Daffy HELP!)... so I'm not sure. But, I do remember talk of the "keep" functionality.

From the Kindle2 user quide:

Amazon also stores the seven most recent issues of your newspapers and magazines. If you’d like to keep a copy of an issue indefnitely, open the issue, press the Menu button, and select “Keep this Issue”; you will then see the word “keep” to the left of the issue title in Home.

BOb

[poohbear_nc]

The "keep" function is a menu option - I've only seen it with periodicals - not books. When your highlight line is on the item, push the menu button and one of the options is "keep".

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I don't have a Kindle 2 (Daffy HELP!)... so I'm not sure. But, I do remember talk of the "keep" functionality.

From the Kindle2 iuser quide:


BOb

That's my understanding. I no longer subscribe to periodicals, so I've never tried this feature. Poobear seems to have the inside track.

[NormHart]

Well this is not a periodical, it is the book "The Spider: The Robot Titans of Gotham" from Baen books.

It was not marked "keep" when I loaded it onto the Kindle2 three days ago, was not marked last night before I, and the Kindle, went to sleep. I, no doubt, hit some button combination at some point.

Edit; The Kindle was not on wi-fi.

Huh.

[daffy4u]

I wonder, if there is something in the metadata from Baen that is flagging it as a periodical. This book is part of a series and maybe the Kindle thinks it's like a magazine or newspaper.

I'm just guessing and don't know how to follow-up on my theory. Sorry.

BTW, this sound like an interesting book. I'd be interested in your review after you've read it.

[detayls]

The file that you placed on the Kindle is locked.

To make "keep" disappear connect your Kindle and remove the file lock.

[NormHart]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

I wonder, if there is something in the metadata from Baen that is flagging it as a periodical. This book is part of a series and maybe the Kindle thinks it's like a magazine or newspaper.

I'm just guessing and don't know how to follow-up on my theory. Sorry.

BTW, this sound like an interesting book. I'd be interested in your review after you've read it.

Originally Posted by detayls

The file that you placed on the Kindle is locked.

To make "keep" disappear connect your Kindle and remove the file lock.

So I woke up this morning to face a huge mound of dishes that I had managed to convince myself could wait until this morning last night. Naturally I immediately decided to see if my suspicion that the "keep" was part of the meta data was right. (It appears that great minds do think alike since I see that Daffy also arrived at that possibility.) I jacked the Kindle into my PC and moved the ebook (prc) and it's associated mbp file to a backup folder on the Kindle and copied a fresh version of the prc from my PC to the documents folder on the Kindle.

Sure enough the new ebook was marked "keep" but, oddly, the Kindle had remembered where I was in the ebook, which I had thought was a function of the mbp file. So I went back into the Kindle and removed the old prc, the new prc, and mbp files. Went back out of the Kindle and verified that there was no indication of the ebook in the Kindle's ebook list. I then recopied the prc onto the Kindle again and, again the ebook was marked "keep" and this time the Kindle did not remember where I had been in the ebook. I not sure what all this remembering and disremembering means but it seemed clear that the "keep" was in the meta data.

Sooo... came on line to tell you all about that and discovered detayls post. (Ha another reason to put off those dishes!) Ok... I had noticed that the ebooks prc file had been a read only file, sounded as likely as meta data. I went into the Kindle from my computer again, went into the properties and removed the read only tag. Disconnected the Kindle and checked the file, it was still marked "keep". So it appears that the "keep" is indeed part of the meta data.

But, what about all that remembering and disremembering my place in the book? I copied the mbp file back in and sure enough the Kindle re-remembered where I had been again. Then I remembered that the Kindle seems to have some lag while it re-indexes books.

(Those dishes are starting to look not so bad.)

More experiments to come. If marking the files read only will create a "keep" tag that would help me to keep the files organized a bit better on the Kindle but I remain uncertain, need to do some more tests.

[NormHart]

A brief note on The Spider - The Robot Titans of Gotham by Norvell W. Page

I acquired this ebook via one of the Baen Books CD's available at The 5th Imperium, it sat around on my hard drive until I purchased his second book, The Spider: City of Doom, which was included with this month's Webscription.

I had started to read the book a couple of times but had not been able to get into it. Basically these stories hearken back to the old radio series, The Shadow and etc and reading something like that requires that I be in that type of mood. The Robot Titans contains three longish short stories; Satan's Murder Machines, Death Reign of the Vampire King, and The Octopus: The City Condemned to Hell. Nothing gaudy or anything. I've completed the first and am halfway through the second. EDIT removed really silly comments.

Cover, as I said nothing particularly gaudy.

[AnemicOak]

I had some David Weber books show the same "keep" flag.

[NormHart]

Good Heavens, it just occured to me to look up Norvell W. Page.

These stories were written between 1933-1943.

Please disregard my editorial comments.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by NormHart

Good Heavens, it just occured to me to look up Norvell W. Page.

These stories were written between 1933-1943.

Please disregard my editorial comments.

So noted! Thanks for your insight anyway, I may check out the series.

Good investigative effort as well. I look forward to reading the end of your mystery.

[NormHart]

Well it is confirmed, if a file is marked as read only on your computer and copied to the Kindle it will have a "keep" tag.

I tested this by opening the properties for a ebook I had not had on my Kindle and changing it to read only and then copying it to the Kindle. It did have the "keep" tag. I deleted the ebook from the Kindle, removed the read only flag from the ebook on the PC and then renamed the file and copied it to the Kindle again. No "keep" tag. (I renamed the file to insure that there were no lingering records on the Kindle that I didn't know about.)

I am not sure why changing the properties on a ebook already on the Kindle didn't remove the "keep" and an attempt to change an ebook already on the Kindle to read only did not add the "keep". It may when next the Kindle re-indexes. I'll let you know.

So if you would like to have specific ebooks on your Kindle2 marked "keep" you can change them to read only on your PC and transfer them to your Kindle. Not sure how useful this will be. (And there seems to be some confusion about changing the read only flag on books already on the Kindle)