Before I shamelessly promote myself as a big fan of Kindle Apps, I better tell you that I am also a big fan of Kindle eBook reader. I really love the Kindle Apps as it works very well in tablets like iPad (I think people just use the term “iPad” instead of tablet anyway). Therefore when I know Amazon released the Kindle Cloud Reader, I have to review it …I set up the Cloud Reader without any problem, but it’s not that intuitive to set up your library for offline reading … anyway, here is the full details (with photos by the end of that blog post) of that new offering from Amazon.

1. First of all, go to the homepage of Kindle Cloud Reader. Click the “Sign in to get started”, then sign in with your Amazon account credential in the next screen. That step will then kick start the Kindle Cloud Reader web application, and show you all the eBooks you have purchased for your Kindle.
2. Next step is to increase the local database storage size (up to 50 MBytes) so that the application can save your books to your iPad (or other devices) for offline reading. And here is the tricky part, the application will also try to save the apps for offline use, and you will see that message “Saving app for offline use” in the bottom of the screen.
3. In many cases, that step will return an error message stating “Error saving app. Tap here to try again“. If you encounter this, go to your iPad setting page and clear the cache of Safari and repeat the steps above again. The saving shall then be successful.
4. Then add the apps to home screen. Change name to whatever you like and add to home screen
5. Other than the Book grid view, you can also see the Book list view. You can toggle the views from the lower right corner selection buttons.
6. Same as the Kindle for iPad apps, you can change the settings like font size, color mode.
7. Click any book and you can start reading, and it works pretty much like Kindle for iPads.
8. Now, try exit the apps and start the cloud reader again.
9. If you have not saved the app for offline use successfully (see step 2 and 3 above), you will be greeted with that error message “Cloud Reader could not be opened because it is not connected to the internet“.
10. To really read the books offline, you need to press and hold any book cover in your library, then select “Download & Pin Book.”
11. After the download, you will see the books are “Pinned” with a green color pin icon underneath the downloaded book and ready for offline reading !!
12. And lastly, there is the Kindle shop such that you can buy books directly within the web apps (if you’re online).

After all these set up, you can read the book as any Kindle apps … with three exceptions:

• You cannot currently create new notes and highlights using Kindle Cloud Reader – but notes and highlights you create while reading the book on your Kindle or another Kindle app will be displayed.
• There is no built-in dictionary (I missed it a lot !!).
• It still feels a bit slower than Kindle reader and Kindle apps.

Hope you find this review useful !!

If you search “Kindle vs iPad” in Google and you will probably find over 6 millions results, in other words this topic has been discussed to death. And of course, Amazon thinks there are many good reasons why Kindle is a better ebook reader and I also blogged before that with certain settings, one can use iPad to read ebooks.

But still, to really find out which device is the better ebook reader, I decided to do an experiment – read the first half of an ebook (“I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted“) with Kindle 2, and then the second half of the same ebook with iPad 2. And here are my findings:

iPad

1. I like the fact that you can check mail, news, tweets, Facebook walls etc. easily while you’re reading your ebook
2. I hate the fact that you can check mail, news, tweets, Facebook walls etc. easily while you’re reading your ebook
3. It’s the faster device of the two
4. The battery lasts only 10 hours, and I don’t like the battery indicator (in percentage) in the upper right corner … it makes me worry about the battery all the time
5. Without a keyboard, the touch gesture can turn the page, highlight a word / sentence, toggle the menu system etc. etc. – in one word, “confusing”
6. I like all the colorful book covers in the home screen. It’s pretty much like the album library in iPod is great, but I still like to see all the CD covers.

Kindle

1. I like the fact that you cannot check mail, news, tweets, Facebook walls etc. easily while you’re reading your ebook
2. I hate the fact that you cannot check mail, news, tweets, Facebook walls etc. easily while you’re reading your ebook
3. The e-ink screen is much much better than iPad (for any serious long form reading), your eyes will never get tired, strained and drained;
4. Battery life of two weeks is good, you can easily finish a book without a recharge;
5. With the keyboard and buttons to go to next / previous page, it is a lot easier to use.
6. You can buy ebook easily with the Kindle shop.

Summary

Without a doubt, Kindle is a much better ebook reader if you like focused long form reading. However, if you can only take one device with you and reading is not your primary purpose, get an iPad. You won’t regret it.

I have to admit I did not pay much attention to Kindle for iPad as the tool to read eBooks, even the application “looks” good with iPad and iPad 2. Reason is simply that I have a Kindle and it’s a much better device for reading. However, in most trips I will bring both my Kindle and iPad 2 along – the Kindle for eBooks, and the iPad 2 for emails, Facebook, RSS, and eMagazines like Bloomberg Businessweek.

On the other hand, there are trips that bringing two devices is a bit too heavy; and I have to decide – Kindle or iPad 2 ? For me, sometimes it is Kindle (when I have a book to finish …) and sometimes it is the iPad 2 (say, when there is a new issue of Businessweek to read). So when there is only the iPad 2 with me, and I want to read a few chapters of an eBook, I need to use Kindle for iPad apps. And to make this “reading experience” a more pleasant one, I applied the following settings to the application …

Pick the right books

All your purchased ebooks are stored in the Amazon archive, you can transfer all the books from the archive to your iPad but my recommendations is to only transfer the ebook(s) you are reading to your iPad, that save space in your iPad and also the synchronization time every time you start up the application.

Change the settings

From the lower left corner of the home page, click the “info” icon to start up the Settings menu. There are only three options but I highly recommend to turn on the “Basic reading mode”. It means it will not use the page turning effect when you touch the left / right hand side margin, but just sliding the pages.

Download the dictionary

By installing the Kindle for iPad application, the dictionary is not downloaded (it is however come as a standard in Kindle). All you need to do is to “touch” any one word from any eBook, and hold it for a while, then a dialogue will be popped up and ask you to confirm to download the dictionary.

Change the view options

It’s probably the most important part of this mini survival guide. One of the key problems to use iPad as eBook reader is the fact your eyes will get tired easily just by viewing the beautiful screen continuously, so we need to tune the screen to make it pleasant to look at.

In any page of your eBook, touch screen, and select “Aa” in the bottom menu to start up the View Options menu. What I did is changed all the four options – set the right character size and brightness that fit your reading environment. Set the background to black color, and lastly set it to single column reading (it’s better than two columns when you use your iPad 2 sideways, since you’re probably using the Smart Cover).

Hope the above helps a bit to your reading with Kindle for iPad. Enjoy !

About 10 days ago, Amazon announced a new version of Kindle 3 – the same look, the same specification but US$ 25 cheaper (i.e. the new low price is US$ 114). But there is one catch – you can buy one at this low price as long as you allow Amazon to place “Special Offers” (read “Ad”) on to your Kindle.

When I scanned this news, several questions popped up in my mind …

1. How this going to work ? If I bought this Kindle and never turn on the WiFi / 3G, how can they download the “Special offers” to my eReader ? So is it mean I can enjoy a new device with low low price without any Ads ?
2. When will the price slashing stop ? I bought my Kindle 2 over US$ 300 two years ago and now you can get a brand new Kindle 3 for one third of the price.
3. Why is it not US$ 99 ? I mean the psychological barrier is US$ 100, so why not another 15 dollars cut ? My view is there may be another wave of price cut in near future (say, after summer holiday).
4. When will the next Kindle (if there is one) be announced ? The current pricing strategy makes me think that a new model will arrive very soon – may be one with color screen ?

I have no good answers … but looks like at this price point, every book lover shall get one.

According to the Hynek’s scale, first encounter is an event about sighting one or more unidentified flying objects (UFOs). And in my case, I encountered an unidentified computing objects (UCOs, i.e. computers) 30 years ago and it’s unidentified because those computers are housed in a large room, behind a thick wall and we could use it only through an “operator window” and with a deck of punch-cards.

Then for the second encounter – it’s an observation of UFOs, associated with physical effects like heat, interference with TV / radio reception and lost time. So obviously, my second encounter of computers were the desktop (in mid 1980s) and laptop computers (early 1990s). I could feel the heats, noises generated from the computers and of course I lost thousands of hours with these devices.

Fast forward to year 2011, third encounter is about some “intelligent communication” with “extraterrestrials” and “aliens”. I guess it is pretty clear, the smartphones, eBook readers and tablet computers are aliens to many and those all require intelligent communications if one wants to master one of these.

So, what’s the latest aliens ? It’s the iPad 2 … thinner, lighter, faster, last longer than the original iPad, and it even come in white color. But how is it compare to Kindle as a reading device ? In my view, iPad 2 is the best all-purpose tablet device in the market. It is so good that you will spend all the time (i.e. lost more hours) with the wonderful apps from the iTunes store, and therefore … you won’t spend quality time at all to READ.

So … for book reading, go for Kindle, no matter you like to read it under bright sun or not.

Yes I was asked many times why I use Kindle to read eBooks but not iPad (even though I have both). I guess each of us has different reasons on why we pick one over the other, but apparently Amazon particularly likes to emphasize one point – One can read easily in bright sunlight.

Granted, it is one important selling point for many, but as an IT bug I actually don’t have the luxury to see many daylights … but again your mileages may vary and that’s why I am not that surprised when Amazon release another video on this great feature with a new tagline – “The book lives on”.

Yes right, “the book lives on”, but please release a better ebook reader than Kindle 3 with touch screen, and Unicode support.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The original video of Kindle about that “one-can-read-easily-in-bright-sunlight” feature.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Amazon just announced the details of their latest Kindle software update, but I have to say I am very disappointed about that release as all the promised great features are made available to Kindle (Latest Generation) only, in other words, Kindle 3 only.

According to the web page, the new software update will be made available soon thru Whispernet. However, if you want to manaually download and install it, you can do it now. The new features are:

• Public Notes – now you can share your notes to public and even view the public notes of people you “follow”. (Previously, you can share some lines in the book you’re reading to Twitter and Facebook).
• Real Page Numbers – Now there are real page numbers to match the page numbers in printed books. This feature is very important if you want to reference and cite passages.
• Before you go – now you can rate a book, share a message etc. when you reach the end of the book.
• New Newspaper and Magazine Layout – There will be an improved layout … but I doubt how it can match iPad based newspapers and magazines.

Anyway, for those Kindle 3 users … enjoy.

After I threw away about “two feet of books” (in other words, I don’t know how many) and an hour’s hard work, I have made my travel bookshelf back in shape. After this “shake-up”, now I have “only” 200 travel books, about half of them are in English, and others in Chinese. Compare to my other IT / photography / web design / usability reference books, business books, comic books and novels, it is still quite a lot.

The reason I bought so many travel books is because, believe it or not, I like to “study” travel books … in other words, understand how they were written, how the information is categorized, presented, cross-referenced etc. etc. In Internet’s term, I like to study the information arhitecture of travel books. However, seriously, after studied so many travel books, I still have not found my ideal book.

All along I believe the best way to plan a trip is not to go to Internet to research, as there are too many information in the Internet and you have no way to tell which one is correct and which one is useful for your style of travel. Searching thru travel books and guides are not necessary the better way as well, mainly because it’s hard to search the details in the physical book. In addition, most books are just a long list of attractions but doesn’t tell you how to connect the attractions together.

Out of the 200 books from that mini-library, the best ones so far are the Daytrips series from Hastings House. All these books let you plan your trip day by day with all the attractions, transportation and dining details.

Therefore I think … will it be great if I can go to one single website and plan my all trips, with all the information I need in a day by day fashion (just like the Daytrips series) ? That idea has been planted in my mind for almost 10 years now, and about 3 and a half year ago I wrote this blog post to illustrate the possible database design …

Not sure you have the same trouble / idea like this or not but if you believe you cannot buy the best travel book from bookstores or Amazon, and you think you have to make your own travel guides – let me know. May be it is about time to develop the best travel site on earth.

I think for those who care about eBooks, especially for those using Kindle to read ebooks, you probably know that you can read the ebook from Amazon in many platforms such as PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry. However, you will probably wonder how you can read / preview an ebook within a browser, or a blog.

Wait no further, Amazon.com today introduced the beta version of “Kindle for the Web”, which enables people to read and share digital book samples in their browsers without the need to install or download anything.

I found it is the perfect way to recommend the books I like, instead of just a name or a book cover image … for example, the first chapter of the one I recently finished – Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.

“What’s the best ebook reader in the market ?”, “What’s the best ebook reader for me ?”, “Is iPad better than Kindle ?” … I asked myself these questions many many times in recent months, and I found the answer today.

As you can see from the photo below, I can read an ebook with Kindle, or applications of Kindle for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Windows. I found the Kindle for iPhone is great, just the screen is too small. The Kindle for iPad is also great, just it is too heavy, and you cannot read it under direct sunlight. iPad is perfect for reading eMagazine and casual reading, but to read a good and lengthy book ? No thanks.

And what about the Kindle applications for Mac, Windows, or even Blackberry and Android ? All these are good, but I know I will not take my Mac and my Windows laptop with me all the time; and I don’t have a Blackberry and Android phones (yet). So back to the questions … and there is only one answer:

“The best ebook reader is the one that’s with me.”

In other word the best ebook reader, to me, is the Kindle – as it is always travel with me. May be I will get a new one to replace the Kindle 2 (say, Kindle 4 when they support touch screen or Unicode), but for now, really it is the best. However, if iPad is the one device that always with you … good, it is the best eReader for you – just don’t let other people sell you the Kindle story.

By the way, how did I find the answer today ? I looked at the Shanghai photos I made recently, with my trusty Olympus E-P1 camera and then I reckon …

“The best camera is the one that’s with you.”.