Kindle 3 gripes

[Tiersten]

Originally Posted by jayne80

my main gripe is when reading 'The Help' it comes up with (Press "return Key" to show number of highlighters) i don't want to see other peoples highlights or the possibility of other peoples highlights i find it distracting and can't work out how (if it can be) to switch it off.
I assume that this is something that could turn up on any book downloaded from Amazon and will definitely put me off buying from them.

Page 2 of Settings. Turn off Popular Highlights.

[carld]

Originally Posted by jayne80

my main gripe is when reading 'The Help' it comes up with (Press "return Key" to show number of highlighters) i don't want to see other peoples highlights or the possibility of other peoples highlights i find it distracting and can't work out how (if it can be) to switch it off.

Edited
found out how to switch it off, it's on the second page of the menu, I am now a happy camper

Yes, turning that off was one of the very first things I did with my K3.

[DThor]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Try the following.

Push the AA button
Change orientation 180 deg,

How is that working out for'ya?

Portrait to landscape only changes about 100 other ergonomic issues, and actually still doesn't really address ease of page turn, I'd be holding it at a side with *no* page turn button. It's a bit like saying 'I can't seem to learn how to properly marinate meat so it's nice and tender' and offering 'have you tried fish?'.


DT

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by DThor

Portrait to landscape only changes about 100 other ergonomic issues, and actually still doesn't really address ease of page turn, I'd be holding it at a side with *no* page turn button. It's a bit like saying 'I can't seem to learn how to properly marinate meat so it's nice and tender' and offering 'have you tried fish?'.


DT

Ehh, I wrote 180 deg, not 90.
You turn it upside down, not from portrait to landscape.

I am sorely tempted to write something sniffy here about realizing why Asian economies are gaining ground on Western countries, but I'm a kind lass so I won't.

[mrsquash]

ʇı pɐǝɹ puɐ puɐɥ ʎq ǝןpuıʞ ǝɥʇ ǝʇɐʇoɹ ʇsnɾ osןɐ pןnoɔ noʎ
ʎןʞɔınb ʎʇʇǝɹd ʇı oʇ pǝsn ʇǝƃ noʎ -- uʍop ǝpısdn

[Tanzaku]

Odd as it sounds, my favorite was of listening to audio books is to read along with them. Good readers become more like a performance than a simple reading.

Unfortunately, K3 does not allow me to play an Audible audio book and also access the text. I can only read or listen, but not both at the same time.

If I load up the audio book as MP3 files, I can listen and read at the same time, but with limited software controls I can't rewind or skip ahead 30 seconds like the Audible player does.

Worse, I can't even save my place. If I'm interrupted in mid-chapter and turn off the Kindle, the next time I start up again it plays from the beginning of the MP3 file with no way to skip ahead. K3 simply is not the device for this type of audio/reading together. Back to the K3 for text and my Olympus DM-520 for the audio. Too bad. Seems like a bit of software work by Amazon could solve this, if only . . .

Brooks

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

My only other gripe isn't really (mostly) Amazon's fault - it's the old gripe about sloppy formatting from publishers. The justification is also patchy (which is their fault) - a long word leaves a ragged right rather than increasing the kerning within the words.

I believe the first release of the 2.5 update forced justification by allowing space between words to grow as much as necessary, but it reverted to the current behavior after that. Given that neither mode involved any kerning, that was probably the right decision.

Both Condensed and Sans Serif are better in this respect, since they can fit more words per line, so the space-between-words technique is more likely to result in a fully justified line of text. And landscape is better still since the lines can be longer.

But if they could add some kerning as well it would be helpful, even if it meant page turn is .01s slower.

Full justification at larger text sizes is never going to look very good, since the lines are not long enough.

[bob coxner]

Some people seem to be casual about the current problems and their advice is simply to call CS to get a replacement.

That works well in the US, but what about international buyers? Some countries, such as Brazil, charge 100% custom duties on electronic items. That $189 3G-WiFi turns out to be $398. Now, if you need to replace it...does Amazon pay return shipping on international orders? Customs is going to hit you again for $189 on the *replacement* unit! Does Amazon pick up the tab for the 2nd customs charge (100% unlikely) or deal with your customs department to avoid the charge?

In many countries, an international buyer has to be nervous about any reported problems.

[Tiersten]

Originally Posted by bob coxner

That works well in the US, but what about international buyers? Some countries, such as Brazil, charge 100% custom duties on electronic items. That $189 3G-WiFi turns out to be $398. Now, if you need to replace it...does Amazon pay return shipping on international orders? Customs is going to hit you again for $189 on the *replacement* unit! Does Amazon pick up the tab for the 2nd customs charge (100% unlikely) or deal with your customs department to avoid the charge?

In most countries, if you've got all the paperwork then you should be able to avoid the fees on the replacement but it will involve a large amount of paper work to document it sufficiently.

I do see your point though but there really isn't much you can do about it. If it really does require a replacement then you have to get it replaced.

[dwallbaum]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Full justification at larger text sizes is never going to look very good, since the lines are not long enough.

I haven't read this complete thread, but have they brought back justification options that were available in the K1?

I truly, TRULY don't understand the lack of justification options in the K2.

[shanghaichica]

Originally Posted by bob coxner

Some people seem to be casual about the current problems and their advice is simply to call CS to get a replacement.

That works well in the US, but what about international buyers? Some countries, such as Brazil, charge 100% custom duties on electronic items. That $189 3G-WiFi turns out to be $398. Now, if you need to replace it...does Amazon pay return shipping on international orders? Customs is going to hit you again for $189 on the *replacement* unit! Does Amazon pick up the tab for the 2nd customs charge (100% unlikely) or deal with your customs department to avoid the charge?

In many countries, an international buyer has to be nervous about any reported problems.

This would be a big problem for me, not just the cost of sending it back but the hassle of waiting for it to go back to the US and then for another unit to be sent out. This is one of the reasons why I didnt buy a kindle when they were only sold by amazon.com

[mrsquash]

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

I haven't read this complete thread, but have they brought back justification options that were available in the K1?

You can change the justification by editing a file on your Kindle 3. I've done it and it works very well on those books that do not have the justification hard-coded in the book file itself (and even on those you can edit the justification to your liking if you've removed DRM). Details are in this thread, which started out about changing the margins but veered into justification after a couple of pages:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94129

[dwallbaum]

Originally Posted by mrsquash

You can change the justification by editing a file on your Kindle 3. I've done it and it works very well on those books that do not have the justification hard-coded in the book file itself (and even on those you can edit the justification to your liking if you've removed DRM). Details are in this thread, which started out about changing the margins but veered into justification after a couple of pages:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94129

Thanks, mrsquash; will give it a shot on my K2. NOW...if they would just make this an OPTION instead of forcing us to hack a pref file... <sigh>

BTW: how are the screenshots on the Kindles done?

[mrsquash]

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

BTW: how are the screenshots on the Kindles done?

Alt+Shift+G

Here's some more nifty shortcuts and hidden features:
http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/201...dden-features/

[Godzil]

I don't know if someone have this problem, but I have a K3 Wifi near me, and I never saw such a buggy Kindle... It constantly crash, lock doesn't want to reboot etc... Especially when it goes to wifi, this is really really annoying...