Kindle Keyboard and Touch Updates

If you've been reading a while, you have probably seen me mention the "reboot bug" on the Kindle Keyboards (Kindle3) that occurs when your archives get "too large". If you've picked up larges numbers of the free books on Kindle, you may have experienced it for yourself: when wireless is on, the Kindle will reboot at the end of it's "sync" cycle; apparently in an attempt to allocate more space to hold the list of archived books in memory. A second part of the same bug (since it never gets enough space to hold the entire list) is that the archive is truncated, only showing roughly the first 3200-2500 items (including personal docs and audible books). This is an issue on most of the Kindle devices and apps, in fact, and is related to a choice the developers made when designing it (after all, "no one" would ever have over 3,000 books, right?).

On the Kindle Touch, I haven't seen the rebooting issue (although you still can't see the entire archive), but it has a more insidious issue: if your archives are extremely large, the device will brick when wireless is left on (the magic number seems to be around 16,000 items or so). When this happens, the only choice has been to return the unit to Amazon and get a new one (and keep wireless off at all times).

Amazon has (finally) released an update for both of these devices that should both cure the reboot/bricking issues and change the way your archive is loaded: the newest 4,000 or so items are loaded into the device's archive list, rather than the oldest. Sadly, you still can't sort the archive by date (a feature that the original Kindle had and which I wish the would bring back, as it was extremely useful for families that have more than one Kindle on their account) and are forced to page thru the list sorted by author or title (doing a search is still very slow, as there are so many items to check), which means you have to know someone bought a new book or a pre-order was delivered or you'll never find it. Hopefully they'll update the Kindle Apps with this new ordering (but older Kindles are out of luck - owners of a K2, DX and K1 will have to deal with the problems of having a large archive or just keep wireless off).

The updates also have a number of other features, including a long awaited implementation of parental controls on the Kindle Keyboard (but not Touch), letting you block kids (or irresponsible adults) from using the web browser, Kindle store and/or archives. Blocking the archives should also speed the device up even more, since it won't download the list into memory and index it.

KF8 support has been added to both devices with this update (not that it gives you much other than bloated file sizes, for most books; others will look worse, if the custom fonts included are not as well optimized as the built-in Kindle fonts). The Touch received KF8 with the 5.1 update (which had never downloaded to my device) and 5.1.2 should have the bricking and archive fix (you have to install 5.1 first). The only possibly exciting option I see for KF8 (for the reader; not for those who insist Amazon has to 'do EPUB' to 'survive', an argument that is hard to make when Amazon dominates the ebook market) is Pan and Zoom for Images and Tables: once you click on a table or image, you can use the 5-way controller to move around in the image/table and click again to choose the viewing size.

For the Kindle Keyboard only, you also get support for Children's Picture Books with Kindle Text Pop-Up and Panel View has been added for Kindle Comic Books. Last, some basic support for WhisperSync for Voice has been added to the Kindle Keyboard. If you listen to the audiobook on the K3, then Sync (this is an important step), then all other devices will be able to "GoTo" the Last Page Read and sync to the last part of the book listened to. The audible app on the K3 doesn't have a sync feature though, so it's pretty much a one-way update to pick up reading where you left off listening. Hopefully we'll see the audiobook app on the new Kindle Fires be able to pick up where you left off reading in the ebook edition.

One nice touch - the "Turn Wireless Off/On" menu choice remains on both devices (for the baby Kindle, you now have to go into the Settings menu and choose Airplane Mode to turn off WiFi, which a lot of people do to extend their battery life). Also, for those using Text-to-Speech, this feature still works on both devices.

Get the firmware updates for the Kindle Keyboard or the firmware updates for the Kindle Touch from the Amazon site and follow the instructions there to transfer them to your Kindle via USB. The updates will probably download automatically, eventually, but those who have a reboot problem or are close to the bricking number should not attempt to get the update wirelessly.

The rebooting issue seems to be entirely fixed - I've had my Kindle K's wireless on for several hours now and it hasn't rebooted once. One odd side effect: on my Kindle with Special Offers, it no longer shows the Special Offers menu, after I did a System Reset (the option originally moved to just below the Archive menu option, but is now missing entirely). I also now have the original screensavers; normally this would be a $20 option, to remove the offers, so some may think this is a major improvement. But, with Special Offers starting back up again, I want them on my Kindle, so I don't miss out on any of them.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Goddess of Fried Okra ($1.99), by Jean Brashear. This has been free in various stores a couple of times, although the most recent was close to a year ago.

Book Description
Grief. Hope. Love. Sword fights. And the crisp glory of fried okra. Ex-cocktail waitress and "convenience store professional" Eudora "Pea" O'Brien is filled with grief and regret, low on cash and all alone. Headed down the hot, dusty back roads of central Texas, Pea is convinced she'll find a sign leading her to the reincarnated soul of the sister who raised her. A sign that she's found her place in the world of the living again. At least that's what the psychic promised. In an unforgettably funny and poignant journey, Pea collects an unlikely family of strays-a starving kitten, a pregnant teenager, a sexy con man trying to go straight, and a ferocious gun dealer named Glory, who introduces Pea to the amazing, sword-wielding warrior goddesses of Texas author Robert E. Howard-creator of the Conan the Barbarian novels-and celebrated in festival every year. Six foot tall, red-headed Pea looks good with a sword in her hand. Glory, the goddesses, and a grandmotherly café owner become Pea's unlikely gurus as she struggles to learn swordplay and the art of perfect fried okra. She'll have to master both if she's going to find what matters most-her own lost soul.

Sweeping Up Glass ($1.58 / £0.99 UK), by Carolyn D. Wall, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $11.99, with a $4.95 companion audiobook).

Book Description
Olivia Harker grew up in 1930s Kentucky during a time of racial segregation and Depression. The spirited daughter of an adored father and a difficult mother, she shocked the locals by choosing the children of her black neighbours as friends and playmates. Now Olivia runs a ramshackle grocery store with her beloved grandson and her increasingly awkward widowed mother. She has little idea of the long shadow cast by events of her past, until she stumbles on a forty-year-old mystery that rewrites her childhood and turns her world upside down. As long-buried secrets explode along the valley, Olivia must get to grips with past betrayals if she is to gain a second chance at love, redemption, and long-overdue justice.

Bewitching ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Jill Barnett, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
What's a Duke to do when a carefully selected bride rejects him rather than marry without love? He salvages his pride by marrying the next woman who falls into his arms! Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie bewitched Alec, the Duke of Belmore, the moment she appeared from nowhere and tumbled into his lap. Joy, a witch whose powers of white magic are not always well controlled, turns the life of the most serious and snobbish Duke in England upside down when he decides to marry the beautiful Scottish pixie who has aroused his desire. Even though he knows next to nothing about her or her background. Alec could have forgiven Joy for upending his life and the lives of all at Belmore Park if not for the truth she hid from him. He'd married a witch, who turns him to fire when he kisses her, charms everyone around her, and threatens to destroy both their lives as scandal looms over her. Too late, Joy discovers she's desperately in love and has no idea how to be a proper duchess, control her magic or change what may come. Passion holds them spellbound in an irresistible tale of two enchanted heart

Live from the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the Twentieth Century and How They Shaped Modern America ($2.51 Kindle, $0.99 B&N), by Michael A Cohen, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012. Don't expect to read thru this one in just a day or two - the paper edition has 574 pages.

Book Description
As the country wades into the hotly contested 2008 presidential election season, we look to the candidates' public pronouncements to gain an understanding of their platforms and to get a sense of the political direction our country might take over the course of the next four years. Presidential campaign oratory has always inspired and incited voters. In this collection of 27 pivotal campaign speeches, Michael Cohen helps bring to life the speeches that defined and dramatized American politics over the last century. From FDR's pledge for a "New Deal" to Nixon's legendary "Checkers" speech, from Dan Quayle's attack on Murphy Brown to select speeches from this year's presidential race, the "stump" speech has been the primary vehicle for candidates to share their political ambitions and ideals with the American people. With supporting essays that set the scene and provide the appropriate context for understanding what was said, how it was said, and why, Live from the Campaign Trail illustrates how campaign speeches have fundamentally shaped the way we think about American politics.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Mary Poppins ($1.99), by {P. L. Travers. The Kindle edition description copies the current paperback edition, claiming to be a "revised edition introduces some delightful new characters."

Book Description
Mary Poppins is like no other nanny the four Banks children have ever seen. She whirls into their home and "spit-spot", she works her inimitable brand of magic to make even the bland seem extraordinary. An endless source of fascinating adventure, she slides up the banister, produces an endless array of tricks from her empty carpetbag, and ensures their lives will never be the same.

Grade Level: 3 and up

Today's Deals

Amazon is having another gift card sweepstakes over on Facebook: Like the page, enter your info and try to win $25,000 in Amazon.com Gift Cards.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Collision of Evil ($1.99), by John J. Le Beau. That's a pretty good price, for those who missed it during the free promotion last February. The next in the series, Collision of Lies, is also available, but a bit tricky to find, due to the lack of a space in the author's last name in it's listing.

Book Description
As evening falls against the majestic backdrop of the Bavarian Alps, Charles Hirter, an American tourist, is savagely murdered. In the peace, quiet and pastoral splendor of this magnificent setting, Charles Hirter draws his last breath. Was Charles simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?Kommissar Franz Waldbaer, the German detective in charge of the case, faces an investigation that yields neither clues nor suspects nor motives. A gruff, go-it alone detective, Waldbaer is dismayed by the arrival of Robert Hirter, the victim's brother, who insists on joining the investigation. But there is more to Robert than meets the eye.As Robert and the Kommissar uncover a nefarious nexus of evil past and evil present, they find themselves probing dark, long-forgotten episodes from the Third Reich in order to identify the present threat.Thrust into a violent world of fanatic passions, malevolent intentions and excruciating urgency, Robert Hirter and Kommissar Waldbaer must race against the clock to stop a sophisticated, covert, and deadly plot.

Perfect Rigour: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of a Lifetime ($1.58 / £0.99 UK), by Masha Gessen, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $12.99).

Book Description
A thrilling account of an utterly brilliant and utterly eccentric Russian mathematician which sheds a rare light on the unique burden of genius In 2006, an eccentric Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman solved one of the world's greatest intellectual puzzles. The Poincare conjecture is an extremely complex topological problem that had eluded the best minds for over a century. In 1998, the Clay Institute in Boston named it one of seven great unsolved mathematical problems, and promised a million dollars to anyone who could find a solution. Perelman will likely be awarded the prize this fall, and he will likely decline it. Fascinated by his story, journalist Masha Gessen was determined to find out why. Drawing on interviews with Perelman's teachers, classmates, coaches, teammates, and colleagues in Russia and the US - and informed by her own background as a math whiz raised in Russia - she set out to uncover the nature of Perelman's genius. What she found was a mind of unrivalled computational power, one that enabled Perelman to pursue mathematical concepts to their logical (sometimes distant) end. But she also discovered that this very strength has turned out to be his undoing: such a mind is unable to cope with the messy reality of human affairs. When the jealousies, rivalries, and passions of life intruded on his Platonic ideal, Perelman began to withdraw--first from the world of mathematics and then, increasingly, from the world in general. In telling his story, Masha Gessen has constructed a gripping and tragic tale that sheds rare light on the unique burden of genius out to uncover the nature of Perelman's genius.

Awkward ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), a young adult novel by Marni Bates, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
I'm Mackenzie Wellesley, and I've spent my life avoiding the spotlight. But that was four million hits ago. . .

Blame it on that grade school ballet recital, when I tripped and pulled the curtain down, only to reveal my father kissing my dance instructor. At Smith High, I'm doing a pretty good job of being the awkward freshman people only notice when they need help with homework. Until I send a burly football player flying with my massive backpack, and make a disastrous--not to mention unwelcome--attempt at CPR. Just when I think it's time for home schooling, the whole fiasco explodes on Youtube. And then the strangest thing happens. Suddenly, I'm the latest sensation, sucked into a whirlwind of rock stars, paparazzi, and free designer clothes. I even catch the eye of the most popular guy at school. That's when life gets really interesting. . ..

The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World ($9.39 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Paul Gilding, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012. It isn't price matched at Amazon, but there is a companion audiobook available for $4.95 if you get the Kindle edition.

Book Description
It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. We need instead to brace for impact because global crisis is no longer avoidable. This Great Disruption started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and dramatic ecological changes, such as the melting ice caps. It is not simply about fossil fuels and carbon footprints. We have come to the end of Economic Growth, Version 1.0, a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we lived beyond the means of our planet's ecosystems and resources.

The Great Disruption offers a stark and unflinching look at the challenge humanity faces-yet also a deeply optimistic message. The coming decades will see loss, suffering, and conflict as our planetary overdraft is paid; however, they will also bring out the best humanity can offer: compassion, innovation, resilience, and adaptability. Gilding tells us how to fight-and win-what he calls The One Degree War to prevent catastrophic warming of the earth, and how to start today.

The crisis represents a rare chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability, and it's already happening. It's also an unmatched business opportunity: Old industries will collapse while new companies will literally reshape our economy. In the aftermath of the Great Disruption, we will measure "growth" in a new way. It will mean not quantity of stuff but quality and happiness of life. Yes, there is life after shopping.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Corduroy ($3.99), a children's picture book by Don Freeman.

Book Description
Don Freeman's classic character, Corduroy, is even more popular today then he was when he first came on the scene over thirty years ago. These favorite titles are ready for another generation of children to love.

Age Level: 2 and up

$10 Amazon Gift Card from Discover (KSO)

This offer is for Kindle with Special Offers owners only.

Get a $10 Amazon Gift Card from Discover

To take advantage of this offer:

1. First, turn on your Kindle with Special Offers, click Menu, then View Special Offers.
2. Find the offer: Get $2 off any one of 50 MP3 jazz albums. Click on it, then on the link to Email Me This Offer.
3. You will get an email from Amazon with directions (essentially the next two steps, below).
4. Set your default Kindle 1-Click Payment Method to your Discover card in the Manage Your Kindle section on Amazon.com, here.
5. Purchase one or more digital products such as Kindle content, Audible Audiobooks, MP3s, Amazon Instant Videos, Digital Games & Software, and Apps from the Amazon Appstore for Android. Gift Cards and physical goods are excluded.
6. A $10 Amazon.com Gift Card will be applied to your Amazon account within 10 business days, but in no event later than November 30, 2012.

Limit one per customer and only available from September 11, 2012 12:01 a.m. (PT) through November 11, 2012 11:59 p.m. (PT).

If you have multiple accounts, I suspect you can only get this on one account per Discover Card account (you would have to have two Discover accounts and two Amazon accounts to get two gift cards). Since the Terms and Conditions link in the email Amazon sent out doesn't go anywhere pertinent, though, that is just a guess on my part.

Today's Deals

Warren Adler is repeating his The Children of the Roses giveaway.

Amazon and BooksonBoard have started discounting some HarperCollins imprints this week and all the Agency pricing should be gone in a week, except for the two holdouts on the settlement (Penguin, alas, is one of them; they are also the ones holding out their titles from libraries). To celebrate, BooksonBoard claims they have a 24% discount on all Harpercollins titles this week; you still don't get rewards for their titles, but it is a start. Since Amazon's discounts aren't for all the imprints, yet (some titles still have a 'price set by publisher' that I checked), BoB's prices were than Amazon's on every title I checked. Their books are not Kindle compatible (the Kindle links there just lead back to Amazon), but for those with an EPUB ereader from B&N, Sony, Kobo, etc, it's a pretty good sale. If you are new to the company and want a referral email, drop me a comment with your name and email and I'll get one out to you.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is the bestselling epic Winter's Tale ($1.99), by Mark Helprin.

Book Description
New York City is subsumed in arctic winds, dark nights, and white lights, its life unfolds, for it is an extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built, and nothing exists that can check its vitality. One night in winter, Peter Lake--orphan and master-mechanic, attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side.

Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the love between Peter Lake, a middle-aged Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young girl, who is dying.

Peter Lake, a simple, uneducated man, because of a love that, at first he does not fully understand, is driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and beseiged by unprecedented winters, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature.

The Wife Who Ran Away ($1.58 / £0.99 UK), by Tess Stimson, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).

Book Description
Kate Forrest is invisible… Ned, the husband she adores, doesn’t seem to know she’s alive, and her two charming children have grown into stroppy adolescents. Her boss is suddenly shunting her towards career Siberia, and her demanding mother is never off the phone. With her fortieth birthday fast approaching, all Kate wants to do is run away from the lot of them. And so she does. On impulse, Kate walks out of her job, her family and her life, and gets on a plane to Italy. With no ties and no responsibilities, she soon finds herself deliriously caught up in La Dolce Vita – and the arms of a man barely half her age. But when the unthinkable threatens her family, Kate is brutally forced to choose between her past and the future.

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Gretchen Rubin, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

In this lively and compelling account of that year, Rubin carves out her place alongside the authors of bestselling memoirs such as Julie and Julia, The Year of Living Biblically, and Eat, Pray, Love. With humor and insight, she chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.

Rubin didn't have the option to uproot herself, nor did she really want to; instead she focused on improving her life as it was. Each month she tackled a new set of resolutions: give proofs of love, ask for help, find more fun, keep a gratitude notebook, forget about results. She immersed herself in principles set forth by all manner of experts, from Epicurus to Thoreau to Oprah to Martin Seligman to the Dalai Lama to see what worked for her—and what didn't.

Her conclusions are sometimes surprising—she finds that money can buy happiness, when spent wisely; that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that "treating" yourself can make you feel worse; that venting bad feelings doesn't relieve them; that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference—and they range from the practical to the profound.

Written with charm and wit, The Happiness Project is illuminating yet entertaining, thought-provoking yet compulsively readable. Gretchen Rubin's passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire you to start your own happiness project.

The Command: Deep Inside the President's Secret Army ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Marc Ambinder and D. B. Grady, is the Nook Daily Find for Families, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
The U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) has proven to be the most lethal weapon in the president's arsenal. Shrouded in secrecy, the Command has done more to degrade the capacity of terrorists to attack the United States than any other single entity. And counter-terrorism is only one of its many missions. Because of such high profile missions as Operation Neptune's Spear, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, JSOC has attracted the public's attention. But Americans only know a fraction of the real story.

In The Command, Ambinder and Grady provide readers with a concise and comprehensive recent history of the special missions units that comprise the most effective weapon against terrorism ever conceived. For the first time, they reveal JSOC's organizational chart and describe some of the secret technologies and methods that catalyze their intelligence and kinetic activities. They describe how JSOC migrated to the center of U.S. military operations, and how they fused intelligence and operations in such a way that proved crucial to beating back the Iraq insurgency. They also disclose previously unreported instances where JSOC's activities may have skirted the law, and question the ability of Congress to oversee units that, by design, must operate with minimum interference.

With unprecedented access to senior commanders and team leaders, the authors also:

• Put the bin Laden raid in the larger context of a transformed secret organization at its operational best.
• Explore other secret missions ordered by the president (and the surprising countries in which JSOC operates).
• Trace the growth of JSOC's operational and support branches and chronicle the command's mastery of the Washington inter-agency bureaucracy.
• By Marc Ambinder, a contributing editor at the Atlantic, who has has covered politics for CBS News and ABC News, and D.B. Grady, a correspondent for the Atlantic, and former U.S. Army paratrooper and a veteran of Afghanistan.

Today's Kindle Young Adult Daily Deal is Catcher, Caught ($1.99), by Sarah Collins Honenberger.

Book Description
After an earth-shattering diagnosis of leukemia, 15-year-old Daniel Landon sees a reflection of himself in the words of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Inspired by Holden Caulfield, Daniel begins to question the intentions and authority of those around him in his own search for identity as he faces death. Tired of his cramped surroundings and hippie parents’ alternative approaches to his treatment, he follows the footsteps of Caulfield to New York City in search of the same eternal truths, only to discover the importance of home when death looms. A coming of age story, a love story, and a new classic, Catcher, Caught will engage the imagination of more than one generation, searching for lasting values.