The Original Beginner's Guide to Kindle Content

Nate the great · 01-26-2008, 11:51 PM

UPDATE:The Amazon Kindle has been out for over a year. Now is a good time to update this beginner's guide to content.

First things first: Kindle Edition e-books are only slightly different from DRM'ed Mobipocket e-books. If not for the DRM, the Kindle would be just another Mobipocket e-reader. You need to know this, otherwise you might be puzzled by the following.
Mobipocket Desktop 6.0 will recognize the Kindle as a reading device, and synchronize your e-books and RSS feeds correctly. This is important because Mobipocket disabled this feature in next version of the Desktop software (6.1), where the Kindle is no longer recognized as a reader device but only as a USB drive. You can download Mobipocket Desktop 6.0 here. A note of caution: If you already have a later version of Mobipocket Desktop, you will need to uninstall it first. Be careful though. If you are using the current installation to support your existing DRM'ed Mobipocket e-books, you will need to re-download them after you reinstall the older Mobipocket software. If you can't download your e-books again for whatever reason, you perhaps shouldn't uninstall the existing software.

EDIT: You can also use calibre to support your Kindle. Calibre runs natively on XP, OSX, and Linux. It is better than MobiDesktop in every way. You can download it here.
There are over 34k newsfeeds available through Mobipocket Desktop. The process is simple to set up; you select the feeds, and set them to be downloaded onto your device. Downloading the feeds to your Kindle is automatic. Click here for a partial list of feeds that have full articles attached.

EDIT: Calibre can also download newsfeeds, as well as an entire day's content of a news website like the NY Times.
Because the Kindle and Mobipocket e-book formats are basically identical, it is possible to buy an e-book in Mobipocket and (with some work) load it onto your Kindle. However, I currently know of only two retailers where you can officially do this (if you want to know why, click here). These are Fictionwise and BooksOnBoard. It may also work at your local library, if it offers Mobipocket e-books.

There are several steps required. The first is to tell the retailer the PID of your Kindle. If you have Mobipocket Desktop 6.0 installed, you can find the Kindle's PID under the reading devices menu. Next, you need to download igorsk's hack (<<direct download link removed>>, and a python interpreter. For more information, click here. If you have trouble, ask for help here.
One neat feature of the Kindle is its ability to download e-books from the Internet directly onto your device. Feedbooks has an e-book guide full of links to free e-books. Personally I think it's one of the best sites on the Internet. You can download the guide here and learn more here. Munsey's is another site with excellent quality content. They also have a mobile version of their site here.

EDIT: At the beginning of February, Amazon added around 7k free public domain ebooks to the Kindle store.The ebooks you will find through the links I provided above are much better quality.
This last part is about my preferred e-book format, Microsoft .LIT (Microsoft Reader). I prefer this format because it lets me protect my e-book investment. While I certainly won't explain how to strip DRM, I will say that to convert your purchased .LIT e-books, you need to download and install two components: ConvertLIT and Mobipocket Creator. When you run ConvertLIT, it will explode the .LIT file into its single parts. After this you need to click on the OPF file; Mobipocket Creator should open automatically. Then all you have to do is click on "make the book". The output will be a nearly perfect conversion.

P.S. There are a few things I left out, like the Kindle Easter Eggs. But I think I included enough to get a beginner off to a good start!

lovebeta · 01-27-2008, 06:26 PM

You are a great man. I wish you wrote it earlier. You basically summarized all the tricked I learned in the past two weeks since I got my kindle...

Highly recommend for the newbie.

TadW · 01-27-2008, 06:30 PM

*extra karma points for Nate* ... you can do it too if you like his tutorial

slm · 01-27-2008, 07:02 PM

If all you want is the RSS feeds, you may want to look into installing the OLD "Mobipocket Web Companion". It was part of the Reader install before 5.0,which is still available on the Mobipocket site. It will do RSS feeds nicely, as well as a lot of very nice newspapers snarfed directly. It can be configured to email this result to the Kindle. (Or you can run a batch script to move the stuff to the Kindle as a hard drive.)

Nate the great · 01-27-2008, 11:29 PM

It's not part of 4.9. If you have a copy, I'd appreciate it if you'd post it here.

lovebeta · 01-28-2008, 12:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slm

If all you want is the RSS feeds, you may want to look into installing the OLD "Mobipocket Web Companion". It was part of the Reader install before 5.0,which is still available on the Mobipocket site. It will do RSS feeds nicely, as well as a lot of very nice newspapers snarfed directly. It can be configured to email this result to the Kindle. (Or you can run a batch script to move the stuff to the Kindle as a hard drive.)

I don't get the advantage of "Mobipocket Web Companion" over the currently eNews... Isn't eNews based on RSS as well?

Nate the great · 01-28-2008, 07:25 AM

There would be an advantage if it could indeed email the file. It doesn't seem to be capable of emailing the file generated by the news feeds. Anyway, it's old and does less than
the current software.

If anyone wants to mess with it, I found it here:
http://www.tucows.com/preview/76800

P.S. For a 6 year old piece of software, it's not bad.

Hadrien · 01-28-2008, 07:57 AM

You can also use the mobile version of Feedbooks on your Kindle: http://feedbooks.mobi

Not as convenient as the guide, but you can access some other features this way. For example, you can list the top downloaded books for a genre.

I'll add the possibility to sign in on the mobile version this week: this way you'll be able to leave comments about a book, or get a customized list of recommended books.

lovebeta · 01-28-2008, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hadrien

You can also use the mobile version of Feedbooks on your Kindle: http://feedbooks.mobi

Not as convenient as the guide, but you can access some other features this way. For example, you can list the top downloaded books for a genre.

I'll add the possibility to sign in on the mobile version this week: this way you'll be able to leave comments about a book, or get a customized list of recommended books.

I just realized that you have the RSS->enewspaper service. Could you add mobipocket format? It would be a plus to provide auto email service to kindle too...

Hadrien · 01-28-2008, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lovebeta

I just realized that you have the RSS->enewspaper service. Could you add mobipocket format? It would be a plus to provide auto email service to kindle too...

Yes we will add Mobipocket support, but I don't think we'll add email service. Instead it'll work like our guide/mobile website. Just open the file listing your RSS subscriptions, click on the link and you get the file on your Kindle.

Nate the great · 01-29-2008, 11:04 AM

I just wanted to say that I've been informed of another source of Mobipocket format ebooks for the Kindle: Ebooks.com. It just checked myself; it accepts a Kindle PID. Also, we have at least one member who has loaded Mobipocket ebooks from his public library on to his Kindle.

TallMomof2 · 01-29-2008, 06:22 PM

My public library uses the OverDrive servers and I've successfully loaded books and opened them on my Kindle.

Li Po · 01-29-2008, 07:28 PM

I was buying a book from booksonboard.com. As I was trying to put in my PID in my account, it said that I had a invalid PID because of that *. Would anyone please let me know what did I do wrong? Or booksonboard simply stop accepting Kindle PID. I was buying a secure mobi(FR) type file, and was trying to setup a device in the FR device catagory. After downloading, I tried kindlefix on the file and got the message that the PID didn't match, that how I found out my PID was not allowed to be entered with the * character by booksonboard.

Nate the great · 01-29-2008, 07:34 PM

Delete the FR one, and try to register it as OD. It's the OD servers that allow the *.

gladiator · 01-31-2008, 01:02 PM

Hi Nate,

Thanks for your pointers. I havent got the kindle yet but Ill most probably have it in my hand by next week, so I am researching about stuff ...

I wanted to ask you guys,

Is it possible to convert stuff I have bought from amazon into pdfs? I want to have them in my digital book archive next to my PDF files.

Thanks in advance

01-26-2008, 11:51 PM	#1
Nate the great Sir Penguin of Edinburgh Posts: 12,359 Karma: 23555235 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: DC Metro area Device: Shake a stick plus 1	The Original Beginner's Guide to Kindle Content UPDATE:The Amazon Kindle has been out for over a year. Now is a good time to update this beginner's guide to content. First things first: Kindle Edition e-books are only slightly different from DRM'ed Mobipocket e-books. If not for the DRM, the Kindle would be just another Mobipocket e-reader. You need to know this, otherwise you might be puzzled by the following. Mobipocket Desktop 6.0 will recognize the Kindle as a reading device, and synchronize your e-books and RSS feeds correctly. This is important because Mobipocket disabled this feature in next version of the Desktop software (6.1), where the Kindle is no longer recognized as a reader device but only as a USB drive. You can download Mobipocket Desktop 6.0 here. A note of caution: If you already have a later version of Mobipocket Desktop, you will need to uninstall it first. Be careful though. If you are using the current installation to support your existing DRM'ed Mobipocket e-books, you will need to re-download them after you reinstall the older Mobipocket software. If you can't download your e-books again for whatever reason, you perhaps shouldn't uninstall the existing software. EDIT: You can also use calibre to support your Kindle. Calibre runs natively on XP, OSX, and Linux. It is better than MobiDesktop in every way. You can download it here. There are over 34k newsfeeds available through Mobipocket Desktop. The process is simple to set up; you select the feeds, and set them to be downloaded onto your device. Downloading the feeds to your Kindle is automatic. Click here for a partial list of feeds that have full articles attached. EDIT: Calibre can also download newsfeeds, as well as an entire day's content of a news website like the NY Times. Because the Kindle and Mobipocket e-book formats are basically identical, it is possible to buy an e-book in Mobipocket and (with some work) load it onto your Kindle. However, I currently know of only two retailers where you can officially do this (if you want to know why, click here). These are Fictionwise and BooksOnBoard. It may also work at your local library, if it offers Mobipocket e-books. There are several steps required. The first is to tell the retailer the PID of your Kindle. If you have Mobipocket Desktop 6.0 installed, you can find the Kindle's PID under the reading devices menu. Next, you need to download igorsk's hack (<<direct download link removed>>, and a python interpreter. For more information, click here. If you have trouble, ask for help here. One neat feature of the Kindle is its ability to download e-books from the Internet directly onto your device. Feedbooks has an e-book guide full of links to free e-books. Personally I think it's one of the best sites on the Internet. You can download the guide here and learn more here. Munsey's is another site with excellent quality content. They also have a mobile version of their site here. EDIT: At the beginning of February, Amazon added around 7k free public domain ebooks to the Kindle store.The ebooks you will find through the links I provided above are much better quality. This last part is about my preferred e-book format, Microsoft .LIT (Microsoft Reader). I prefer this format because it lets me protect my e-book investment. While I certainly won't explain how to strip DRM, I will say that to convert your purchased .LIT e-books, you need to download and install two components: ConvertLIT and Mobipocket Creator. When you run ConvertLIT, it will explode the .LIT file into its single parts. After this you need to click on the OPF file; Mobipocket Creator should open automatically. Then all you have to do is click on "make the book". The output will be a nearly perfect conversion. P.S. There are a few things I left out, like the Kindle Easter Eggs. But I think I included enough to get a beginner off to a good start! Last edited by Alexander Turcic; 03-10-2009 at 06:44 PM. Reason: direct download link removed

01-29-2008, 11:04 AM	#11
Nate the great Sir Penguin of Edinburgh Posts: 12,359 Karma: 23555235 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: DC Metro area Device: Shake a stick plus 1	Update I just wanted to say that I've been informed of another source of Mobipocket format ebooks for the Kindle: Ebooks.com. It just checked myself; it accepts a Kindle PID. Also, we have at least one member who has loaded Mobipocket ebooks from his public library on to his Kindle.

01-29-2008, 07:28 PM	#13
Li Po Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2008 Device: KIndle	Did booksonboard forbade the Kindle PID? I was buying a book from booksonboard.com. As I was trying to put in my PID in my account, it said that I had a invalid PID because of that . Would anyone please let me know what did I do wrong? Or booksonboard simply stop accepting Kindle PID. I was buying a secure mobi(FR) type file, and was trying to setup a device in the FR device catagory. After downloading, I tried kindlefix on the file and got the message that the PID didn't match, that how I found out my PID was not allowed to be entered with the character by booksonboard.

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01-27-2008, 06:26 PM	#2
lovebeta Groupie Posts: 176 Karma: 406 Join Date: Jan 2008 Device: Amazon Kindle 2, Amazon Kindle, Sony PRS-505	You are a great man. I wish you wrote it earlier. You basically summarized all the tricked I learned in the past two weeks since I got my kindle... Highly recommend for the newbie.

01-27-2008, 06:30 PM	#3
TadW Uebermensch Posts: 2,583 Karma: 1094606 Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Italy Device: Kindle	extra karma points for Nate ... you can do it too if you like his tutorial

01-27-2008, 07:02 PM	#4
slm Useless Posts: 307 Karma: 3555706 Join Date: Feb 2003 Device: Kindle Voyage, Kindle PW1, Kobo Glo HD, Nook Glowlight Plus ...	If all you want is the RSS feeds, you may want to look into installing the OLD "Mobipocket Web Companion". It was part of the Reader install before 5.0,which is still available on the Mobipocket site. It will do RSS feeds nicely, as well as a lot of very nice newspapers snarfed directly. It can be configured to email this result to the Kindle. (Or you can run a batch script to move the stuff to the Kindle as a hard drive.)

01-27-2008, 11:29 PM	#5
Nate the great Sir Penguin of Edinburgh Posts: 12,359 Karma: 23555235 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: DC Metro area Device: Shake a stick plus 1	It's not part of 4.9. If you have a copy, I'd appreciate it if you'd post it here.

01-28-2008, 07:25 AM	#7
Nate the great Sir Penguin of Edinburgh Posts: 12,359 Karma: 23555235 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: DC Metro area Device: Shake a stick plus 1	There would be an advantage if it could indeed email the file. It doesn't seem to be capable of emailing the file generated by the news feeds. Anyway, it's old and does less than the current software. If anyone wants to mess with it, I found it here: http://www.tucows.com/preview/76800 P.S. For a 6 year old piece of software, it's not bad.

01-28-2008, 07:57 AM	#8
Hadrien Feedbooks.com Co-Founder Posts: 2,263 Karma: 145123 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Paris, France Device: Sony PRS-t-1/350/300/500/505/600/700, Nexus S, iPad	You can also use the mobile version of Feedbooks on your Kindle: http://feedbooks.mobi Not as convenient as the guide, but you can access some other features this way. For example, you can list the top downloaded books for a genre. I'll add the possibility to sign in on the mobile version this week: this way you'll be able to leave comments about a book, or get a customized list of recommended books.

01-29-2008, 06:22 PM	#12
TallMomof2 Kindlephilia Posts: 2,017 Karma: 1139255 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Snowpacolypse 2010 Device: Too many to count	My public library uses the OverDrive servers and I've successfully loaded books and opened them on my Kindle.

01-29-2008, 07:34 PM	#14
Nate the great Sir Penguin of Edinburgh Posts: 12,359 Karma: 23555235 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: DC Metro area Device: Shake a stick plus 1	Delete the FR one, and try to register it as OD. It's the OD servers that allow the *.

01-31-2008, 01:02 PM	#15
gladiator Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2008 Device: kindle	Hi Nate, Thanks for your pointers. I havent got the kindle yet but Ill most probably have it in my hand by next week, so I am researching about stuff ... I wanted to ask you guys, Is it possible to convert stuff I have bought from amazon into pdfs? I want to have them in my digital book archive next to my PDF files. Thanks in advance

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