Amazon's Kindle

[Griffin NoName]

Looks like I have to hold the power key in for 30 seconds for cold restart.

But having hit the forums, looks like there are many people experiencing these issues with Kindle Touch. Some arer eturning them, Amazon replace, but some are just soldiering on.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I'm sorry you're having troubles with it. 

[Griffin NoName]

Yes, after all the planning and working out if I really wanted it and then finding I totally adore it, and hvaing cancelled my hard copy newspapers in favour of a Kindle subscription (at 1/4 price) ------ bummer.

Has been ok since cold reboot but too early to tell probably.

[Sibling DavidH]

My version went wobbly a few times, but in each case a hard reset cured it for a good while.  In the end the USB socket went intermittent, so I returned it to Amazon for a replacement which has given no trouble at all.  However I think the battery life is noticeably shorter in the new one.

On that evidence, there are good ones and bad ones - luck of the draw.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Luck of the draw seems to be the order of the day, with these things.

I have an Asus TF101 and the keyboard dock (with extra battery) and mine works about as well as an Android tablet on Ice Cream Sandwich does; which is to say, pretty good.

But according to various forums, there are about 20% or so that have gone horribly, horribly wrong under Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.x).

Luck of the draw seems to be the culprit-- or perhaps which shift the device was assembled on....

[Griffin NoName]

So am all ready now to start creating some categories. But I think I shall find it all very irritating. At present the home page displays (All) - so each book (2) and my daily newspaper, very convenient. But if I start filtering, I can only have "Periodicals" OR "Books" OR "New Category" when what I want is "Periodicals AND Books" and NOT New Category - for example. ie. I think the filter is too simple. Also, if books are in Books - what's the point of having them in a New Category? I don't quite get all this.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

So am all ready now to start creating some categories. But I think I shall find it all very irritating. At present the home page displays (All) - so each book (2) and my daily newspaper, very convenient. But if I start filtering, I can only have "Periodicals" OR "Books" OR "New Category" when what I want is "Periodicals AND Books" and NOT New Category - for example. ie. I think the filter is too simple. Also, if books are in Books - what's the point of having them in a New Category? I don't quite get all this.

Here's a tip:  begin all your categories with a special character, such as ! or > or even _

Then?

Sort everything by the titles-- and magically, all the categories will "float" to the beginning of the sorted list (because of the special character is seen as "less" than A, and sorts first).

It's how I keep things going--

-- and I'm also anal retentive with these things, so I created a category of every author I have on the Kindle, last name first of course, but all beginning with > and a space, then the last name, comma, first name.  And I put under that author's category, all his books, short stories and so on.

Luckily, you can put books into multiple categories, so double or triple author books will appear under each author's category.

Finally, I think Calibre will even manage your categories now, but I've never messed with that-- I enabled "backup categories and bookmarks to Amazon's servers", so they are preserved in case of Zombie Attack in which my Kindles are eaten...

[Griffin NoName]

Still confused. Not by the > _ etc - been doing that since the 70's  -- I know all that -- it is not what I am asking

There are two preset catagories "Periodicals" and "Books",

These can be used as a filter on the Home page. (either of them)

I have bought two books and a newspaper subscription. The filter will show the book titles if Book filter is used.

Currently my Home page lists

Book A
Todays Newspaper
User Guide
Book B
Welcome
Dictionaries
Periodicals: back issues
Archived Items

I want it to list:

Todays Newspaper
Books
User Guide
Welcome
Dictionaries
Periodicals: back issues
Archived Items

ie. I want the Home page to not display the two books individually, I want the Home page to display the preset category "Books". (and I don't mind where in the Home page list the item "Books" appears).


EDIT EDIT EDIT

Found out how to do it. Added a "collection" called "Novels". added Book A and Book B into "Novels"
then
-> Home Page -> Sort by "collection"
Get exactly what have listed above (except it's "Novels" in the Home Page list instead of "Books".... no way of getting "Books" there).

What I don't quite understand from what you say is if you have a category for every author, isn't your Home screen hugely long? Or can you create categories withing categories?

I assume "collection" is the same as "category"?

I could swear last time I looked it was called categories when I looked and also in the online user guide.......... but they have done an upgrade........ oh joy oh rapture they are trialling a full web browser instead of restricting us to wiki.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

*sigh*

I haven't actually cracked my hardware Kindle in weeks, so I'm not at all surprised they changed the name... yet again.  (This will be the 3rd or maybe 4th name-change from the original "groups", as I recall...)

And yes, I would also presume "collection" is the same as "category".

And yes, my home screen is very long-- I have in excess of 400 books on there.  But I'm very used to perusing sorted lists by hand, provided they are sorted correctly -- not always the case with Kindle's buggy software (or maybe it's the book-tags that are buggy?) I dunno.

But by forcing all my books into at a minimum of one category/collection/association <snerk> and making sure that item is named as I wish it to be sorted?  I essentially ignore the individual books themselves, outside of an individual author's list-- and whenever I open a collection (which then only shows what's in that), I simply sort by title, which seems to work moderately well, and even if unsorted, the lists are typically short enough, to do a once-over by hand to find what I'm seeking.

But, as I said, I now read nearly exclusively on my TF101 (an Android tablet/notebook). 

I was on the verge of stripping out all the DRM's of all my books, so I could read on my TF using an app called "Cool Reader" (which is completely customizable), when the newest Kindle for Android came over the airwaves the other day-- and they, finally, fixed most of the major issues I had with it:  two-page layout in landscape, mildly adjustable margins, adjustable inter-line spacing. 

The only things still missing:  smaller fonts, and collections within the app.

I can live with the current smallest font, but I've given up on collections-- I now use search to find the book I want.   It does make browsing harder* as the books can appear in a near random placement, regardless of which sort method I choose (by date-installed, by author, by title).

Alas, if only the Kindle app was 1/2 as feature-rich as the actual Kindle ....










___________________________

*  the sort engine on that app is all but totally busted-- it appears to sort by some randomized factor that is unknown--
-- for example, I have maybe 20 books by Alan Dean Foster-- and if I sort by Author?  A couple sort to the front of the list with the "A", a couple sort to middle, with the "D" and the rest sort to the "F" where you'd expect them to be... idiots... sorting is not rocket science...

[Griffin NoName]

So, at present I have everything how I want it. The progression to <many> books may disturb my contentment. But I'm not in a hurry to download more than I can read.

Re. the "category" -> "collection" - I was logged on  to amazon uk at 8 ish in the morning and the user guide referred to "categories". When I returned there at around lunch time, it had changed to "collections". Nothing wrong with "group". Nothing wrong with "category". Personally I think it is a bit amateur to constantly fiddle with namings.

If they progress the web browser and sort the current issues with it I will be extra happy.  Useful to have a unit I could order my groceries on if my laptop or broadband go down. (My Kindle has wi-fi and 3G). My ipod touch is just to teeny weeny for me.

[Roland Deschain]

I'm sorry to hear of your problems, Griffin. A 20% failure rate is pretty bad, and something Amazon should have long ago fixed, but then they're selling so many of them, why should they worry about doing so quickly? I've not had the issues you've had with the menu system, but then I own a Sony eReader, so its issues will be different (none so far). With a failure rate that high, they go side-by-side with Microsoft on ridiculously faulty goods (Xbox 360).

[Griffin NoName]

Actually it has performed fine since I did the cold reboot.

[Sibling DavidH]

After you've switched it off, if it just turns back on normally, it wasn't a cold reboot.  If it starts up with a picture of a gnome under a tree, then visibly repopulates its lists, it was.

[Griffin NoName]

You have to press the on/off button for 30 seconds to get the gnome. I did.

Is he supposed to be the Gnome of Zurich?

[Roland Deschain]

I'm glad to hear that it's all working well for you now. I hope it stays fine for many years to come!