MobileRead Kindle Download Guide

[daffy4u]

For anyone interested I have created a slideshow of the guide in action during testing.

[Alexander Turcic]

Thank you daffy. If you don't mind, could you (or someone else) make some screenshots for us (Alt-shift-g shortcut) of various parts of the guide, so that I can use it as a introduction reference?

Hadrien, thanks for the pointer. Some testers noted that it took the Kindle quite some time to fully index the guide for search. Something to keep in mind.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Thank you daffy. If you don't mind, could you (or someone else) make some screenshots for us (Alt-shift-g shortcut) of various parts of the guide, so that I can use it as a introduction reference?

I can have some posted tomorrow unless someone else can get to it sooner.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Oh, Feedbooks has been named in our guide under attributions, btw.

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Sure, Alex, I saw the last page where it is mentioned

i've just seen the page where it is mentioned as well.

[Nate the great]

Alex, will this do?

[Alexander Turcic]

Thanks, Nate. Looks good!

Is it just the screenshot or is the logo really that pixely on the Kindle?

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by Elsi

Which leads to a question whether the Guide would be useful in other formats. How about a Guide for Sony-format books? Even if there is no direct download from the Guide to a Sony device or workstation emulator (calibre?) I can see the same value in having the catalog on your device as I do to reading it on my Kindle.

It's something definitely worth considering.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Thanks, Nate. Looks good!

Is it just the screenshot or is the logo really that pixely on the Kindle?

It is that pixelated, but it still looks good. Seriously, that's an excellent cover.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

It is that pixelated, but it still looks good. Seriously, that's an excellent cover.

I remember there was a thread here discussing how to optimize images for the Kindle. Perhaps there is a hint or two that could help to reduce the pixelation somewhat.

[kindlekorner]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

As a result of the ruckus a few weeks back, Alex decided to push forward with a download guide for the Mobipocket format ebooks here on MobileRead. It needs some polishing, but this early version is very good.

Nicely done and my sincere thanks to Alex.

I have removed my version from the web.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

I decided against including the descriptions in my guide for a fairly good reason: once we'll have dozens of thousands of books, this would make the guide way too heavy. The Kindle can choke on such files very easily due to the nature of the indexing process. I haven't added the description on the mobile website yet (I'm focusing on RSS for Mobipocket/ePub, and a similar download facility for RSS on the Kindle), but I'd rather redirect the user to a mobile page for the description (I already do this on the type field, if you select "Science Fiction" on the Feedbook's guide, you get to the mobile website)

Some Kindle users -- or users of some other network-connected readers -- may be happy with a pointer to a mobile page. Although I love the convenience of getting a book directly to my Kindle from Amazon, Feedbooks, or MobileRead, I do not want to turn the Kindle into a general Internet appliance. I will use it for downloading a book, but that's really it.

I really like having info available offline for reading. I've complimented the Feedbooks Guide for providing the "lists" which I have not been able to access directly on the web site. Each time I stumble over a list with my browser, I "favorite" it so I can access it later. But they're included in their entirety in the Kindle Guide. So when I saw that Alexander had included the book descriptions, I thought that was very good.

I often create simple text files with book information and transfer these to the Kindle so I have them with me even if I'm not connected to the Whispernet.

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Concerning the guide, I'm simply giving my advice: I've had several e-mails of people who had troubles with their Kindle (slowed down, hanged up) after adding the guide on Feedbooks. Since your file is almost twice as large, I'd rather point out this issue pretty quickly. It's a shortcoming of the Kindle itself rather than our guides, but it's a common issue that I have to deal with.

I've never had a problem opening a large book file on my Kindle. Now, I don't have the Kindle's main storage filled up with books, either. My Kindle settings show that I have 143M free in the main Kindle storage. I also have a 2G SD card inserted with 1.8G free. Perhaps the person complaining about opening the book had downloaded *lots* of books and didn't have an SD card so they were all in the main storage of the device. It's possible that there needs to be a certain "cushion" free in main storage when a book is open -- and that cushion is more when opening a big book as opposed to a smaller one. It's worth investigating.

[Strether]

I tested it out and it worked fine for me. It did take a while for the Kindle to index the guide -- it was slow turning pages for a while. But that seems to have disappeared now and the pages turn normally.

I did expect something to happen after you'd downloaded a book -- either take you to Home Page or give you some sort of message. But you just get a blank page that sits there, so I pressed the Home Page key and all was well.

Thanks for this, folks.

Jim

[Over]

Good job

[desertgrandma]

great feature. Downloaded with no problem, books seem to download a little slower than feedbooks. Downloaded two and they look good. Thanks!

[daffy4u]

Link to thread posted on Amazon's Discussion boards about the new guide.