[JMC08]

Hi all,

I got a Kindle Keyboard about two months ago, and I have been reading up on different aspects of working with your Kindle over this time. I'm pretty computer and forum literate, so I've been able to set up Calibre and get a bunch of epubs on my kindle for reading.

There are a few issues though that, even though I have spent time browsing through and reading on, I am overwhelmed on what to do. I see so many options and so much computer code which I don't understand (and don't have an interest in understanding if I don't need to). I was hoping someone could help me out on a few key sticking points I'm having...

1. The best PDF converter for the non-coder: I understand that no converter will be perfect. I have tried numerous clean PDFs in calibre but there are always header/footer/page number and sometimes chopped off sentences and three word lines and such. I have read that Mobipocket Creator does a really good job tackling these problems. Is it the best converter, and do I have to do something special to get it to recognize the aforementioned pitfalls? If it isn't the best, what is?

2. Highlights and Annotations/Metadata: Is there a quick way to back up all of my highlights,notes, and metadata so that it is stored somewhere besides my Kindle? Better yet, can this data be viewed nicely on my computer?

3. Amazon says they back up everything to the cloud, but I've gotten the sense that this is only for books purchased through them. True?

4. I have an iPhone, and when trying to view pdfs I have to zoom in and out and such, and its pretty messy. Is there an app that converts pdfs on the fly into a nice readable format? Or do I have to do it all on the computer first?

5. Is there a way to include pictures in articles sent to the kindle through instapaper?

I realized this is a very lengthy post, so I do appreciate any amount of input given to help. Thanks a lot.