Update on our Kindles
I wrote recently about having foolishly accidentally left my Kindle Fire alone for less than five minutes in a public place (on Friday 12/30), and that it was gone after I ran back.
I’ve had a couple of people ask me about it, and I wanted to update you on that one…and on my replacement Kindle Touch, Wi-Fi only.
I contacted Kindle Support
http://www.amazon.com/kindlesupport
on Tuesday (two days ago).
That was about my Kindle Touch. I’m used to listening to text-to-speech (TTS) for hours a week in the car. Yes, I’ve been listening to an audiobook (that’s a recording by an actor/author, as opposed to the on-the-fly, software-generated text-to-speech) on my Fire…but I don’t like that as well. The problem was that my first Kindle Touch wouldn’t work with a 3.5mm audio plug, the way it was supposed to work. I tried more than one, but I was most concerned about my Coby CA-745 Wireless FM Car Transmitter. That’s what runs my Kindle through the sound system in my car.
It’s always worked for me, but the plug just didn’t seem to go in far enough. A Kindle isn’t loud enough for me when driving without that.
I got a rep with what I would presume was an Indian accent. I see a lot of…disrespectful remarks about that in the community. This rep was great! The rep got a Kindle Keyboard and a Kindle Touch while we were on the phone, to test it out…for that person, the plug seemed to work in both. No matter: I was given a replacement, and a pre-paid shipping label was e-mailedl to me.
Two days later, I have the replacement, and I’ve tested it. It works with by Coby! That’s going to make my drives a lot nicer…look out, Katniss, you aren’t safe from me when I’m in the car! 🙂 Yep, among other things, I’m reading The Hunger Games.
So, that’s gone fine.
Oh, and I think some of you will wonder…the new Touch is named “Roen” (pronounced “Ren” or “Wren”). The one that’s going back was Curie, and those are both because of the X-Ray feature. I learned the name of the discover of X-Rays as “Wilhelm Roentgen”. It turns out that’s was just an easier way to writeh Wilhelm Röntgen. I don’t know if the Kindle’s name could have had that ö, so I went with Roen.
Now, in terms of the Fire…
I bought a new one on Tuesday. I figured that if the other one comes back, my Significant Other really wants one anyway. I was missing owning one…and it was making answering some questions more complicated. One of the weird things: I couldn’t tell if an app was available for the Kindle Fire or not. If you don’t have one registered, the product page in the Amazon Appstore doesn’t say.
I also really missed the Pulse app, which I use to keep up on Kindle news, amont other things.
However, I still did (and do) hold out hope that the other one will come back.
I’d been waiting for somebody who could review the security footage of where I left the Kindle to be in the office.
I did get to talk to that person today…and yes, they can see somebody take the Kindle Fire! However, that person is not an employee, so they can’t identify them. They suggested I make a police report, and I did. That was interesting: the officer was nice and seemed genuinely interested. The officer didn’t really know what a Kindle Fire was…I described it as a “tablet computer” and explained it. Kindle Support had sent me the serial number. That was helpful…the officer explained that it would allow them to check a device during, say, a parole check. That hadn’t occurred to me.
Are we going to get that one back?
Hard to say…it’s not worth much the way it is. It’s possible somebody will dump it instead of getting caught with it.
The new Fire also arrived today. I’m amazed at how easy they are to set up. I just needed my wi-fi password and i was off to the races. There have been a few things that were…a bit of a challenge.
First, there was downloading the apps…that took a while.
Second, it won’t let me download a TV episode I bought…The Girl Who Waited, a Doctor Who episode. I do think that’s a great TV episode, by the way. I recommend it.
Why not?
It’s downloaded on Wheeler, the missing Fire. It’s only letting me have it on one device at a time. I can probably call Amazon and have them release the license…I’m going to wait a bit on that, though.
It also didn’t know where I was in my audiobook from Audible. No surprise there…I had listened to it in the car, and hadn’t been in wi-fi range since.
The new Fire’s name? Coventry. That one is a bit obscure…the Coventry Rotary was a very popular 19th Century tricycle (used by adults as transportation…not a kid’s toy). My first Fire was Wheeler, named after the fire-manipulating character in Captain Planet. That one had a scratched screen, so it was replaced by Schwinn (a “two-wheeler”). This is the “third Wheeler”…
I’ve also gotten a different Fire case and a Touch case…I’ll wait until I’ve been using those for a few days to write about them.
So, there you go…for those of you who wondered. 😉
Since that didn’t tell you a whole lot, I thought I’d throw in some
Random Tips
- Kindle Touch: you can “pinch and spread” when you are reading a book to increase the text size: put your fingers together in the middle of the screen and keeping the in contact with the screen, spread them out
- You can see to which address you sent a Kindle book gift (and resend it) by going to Your Account from any Amazon page and choosing View Your Digital Orders
- Baen (a great source of legal free under copyright science fiction books) has made some significant changes. You’ll need to change your authorized e-mail address, for example. For more information, see http://www.baenebooks.com/t-ereaderinstructions.aspx#kindle
- Mindle (that’s what I call the $79/$109 model): you can write a book review while you are reading the book: Menu-Book Description, next page after it connects wirelessly to the product page)
- The most useful Kindle utility site on the web, http://www.ereaderiq.com/, has recently added new features. The free books now filter out erotica by default (but you can change), you can now choose genres to view for the free books, and you now different ways to view the listings
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog
So, this time, I’m just going to give you little random tips. After all, you can search the blog to find things…even if they are in a patchwork quilt post. This is the second in a series…thanks for letting me know you liked the first one!
I Love My Kindle 