Also, in the previous blog, I outlined the steps to get to Google Maps. But after using the application a few times myself, I discovered some shortcuts to getting to Google Maps more quickly.

Shortcut #1

1. At the Home Screen, start typing a URL. When you do this, a text-input box will appear at the bottom of the screen.

2. Type in – maps.google.com/m/directions.

3. Use the 5-way to the right until you reach “Goto”.

4. After you press down on the “Goto” selection, you’ll be at the Google Maps text-direction page.

Shortcut #2

Heading to the main Google Mobile Maps text page, the URL is maps.google.com/m, which is very similar to the URL mentioned above. You will need to use the SYM key which is located at the bottom right of the Kindle keyboard to get characters like the @ sign.

1. At the Home Screen, press the enter key which is located below the DEL key. The text-input box will appear at the bottom.

2. Type in @url maps.google.com/m

3. Press the Enter key located below the DEL key to choose “Search My Items”.

4. From here, you will land on the Google Maps main information page.

This method makes you use the SYM key for the “@” sign, but you’ll avoid having to use the 5-way several times.

Shortcut #3

If you are reading a book, you can type in the URL.

1. If the cursor is not on the screen, type a character to bring up the search box.

2. Delete the character from the search bar and type @url maps.google.com/m

3. Use the 5-way to the right once to “My Items” and click.

4. After you are done with your browsing, you can press the “Back” key to return to the book you were reading.

You never know when you’ll need directions, and if you are like most reading enthusiasts, your Kindle (and Google Maps) is with you at all times. Utilizing one of these shortcuts is a great way to access Google Maps on your Amazon Kindle, so you can get to your next destination.

As you know, ereaders have different capabilities, so let’s take a closer look at the top ereaders, The Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle, and how they handle Google Maps.

Barnes and Noble Nook

The Barnes & Noble Nook does allow you to use Google Maps, but only when you are in a WiFi area. The Nook can only browse the internet through WiFi and not 3G. Although, WiFi hotspots are becoming the norm, you obviously still have limitations.

Amazon Kindle

In comparison to the Nook, the Kindle is much better at handling a browse through Google Maps because, well, it’s free and accessible while driving around. Here is the step-by-step method on how to use the pseudo Kindle GPS feature to get Google Maps:

1. Press the Menu button on the Kindle, select the “Experimental” option and the click on “Basic Web”. The basic web mode is perfect for text-only directions, and if you’re in a hurry it will be faster than using the “Advanced” or “Desktop Mode”.

2. You may want to “Clear Cache”, so you have more memory readily available for the web-browsing section.

3. Press the MENU button to pick “Go to Top” or “Enter URL”.

4. Next, type maps.google.com/m/directions.

5. Five-way to the right until you reach “Go To”. This should take you to the Google Maps text directions.

6. This is a good time to press the menu button to bookmark the page, so you don’t have to type the URL again.

7. Use the 5-way button to navigate through the “To” and “From” fields.

8. Use the 5-way button to choose one of these options: “By car”, “By transit”, “Walking” and “Bicycling”.

It is true that the ereader has changed the way we view books. It has made purchasing books fast and easy. Additionally, ereader manufacturers are coming up with other great advantages, and utilizing your ereader, such as the Kindle, to use Google Maps as a pseudo Kindle GPS unit is yet another.

In order to perform searches, all you need to do is type an abbreviated book name which is detailed in the table of contents in this version, type period, chapter number, period again, and then the verse number. Lastly, press find twice and the requested version will be able for viewing in seconds. If you only need to open the first verse of a chapter, then you can skip the verse number when performing your search.

There are two other ways you can move between books and chapters in the Bible using your Kindle.

1. Use a hyperlinked table of contents; or
2. Press the joystick right or left to move between books of the Bible.

This is definitely the best version of King James available for the Kindle, but there are a few improvements that Osnova and Amazon could make.

• It would be helpful if you could search for keywords within a single book of the Bible without having to scroll through pages and pages of hits on a single word. Imagine searching for the word “spirit”. The amount of hits is overwhelming.

• The book, chapter, and verse need to be listed in each hit on a keyword. It doesn’t help the reader to see just Kindle’s location number.

• It is great that you can make and save notes, but if you could customize the way that you number, categorize and save the notes, studying would be much easier.

The product description reads that you can tell where you are in the Bible. It is true that each verse does have the chapter and verse number listed, but no where does it tell you what book you are in.

All in all the King James Version by Osnova is a perfect addition to the Amazon Kindle. For those who study the Bible, using the Direct Verse Jump navigation tool is perfect for getting right to the point.

So for example, if you are in the middle of a book, and come across a word you don’t understand, you can use the 5-way controller to look up the word. Here is how you do this beneficial and simple task.

• Use the 5-way to scroll up/down, left/right until you get to the word that you’d like information on. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see the word and the definition.

• If you want more details, hit the “Enter” button. It will take you to the page in the dictionary.

• Now you will be able to read all of the definitions of the word. After you are finished, you can click on the “Back” button to return to the ebook you were reading.

If you decide that you want more information, you can use the current place within the dictionary to further your investigation or even search elsewhere.

• The word that led you to the initial search is still available at the bottom of the screen. Move the 5-way to the right where it reads “Search Dictionary“. The dictionary will open and take you to an index to find relevant entries, and you can scroll through them.

• To get more selections, you can move the 5-way controller to find the following: My Items (books, blogs, magazines or newspapers), Store, Google and Wikipedia.

• If you want to access Store, Google, and/or Wikipedia, you need to turn Whispernet on. You can simply click “Menu” and turn it on.

• After Whispernet is up and running, just simply click the option you want and wait for it to open.

Just a reminder, if at any time you’d like to get back to reading, you can click the “Back” button.

This is a great Kindle feature, and can encourage any reader to take the time to look up a word because it is so easy. With a hardback or paperback book, most don’t bother to get the dictionary off the shelf because it can slow the reading down. With the Kindle 5-way controller, looking up a word is easy.

A screensaver is a fun way to truly personalize your Kindle. Here are the steps to resize and recolor your image in GIMP to make it work for your Kindle. So in order to get going with this project, download GIMP, and have an image ready.

Width:600
Height: 800
Color space: Grayscale (you can find the “color” space” choice under “advanced options”)
Fill with: Foreground color (the black will create the screensaver’s border.)

You may discover that your picture needs to be cropped. If this is the case, here are the steps to crop in GIMP.

1. Select the alignment tool from the toolbox
2. Click your image to select it
3. At the toolbox-make it relative to: image
4. Select “align center of target”
5. Select “align middle of target”

The picture should now be cropped and centered on the GIMP canvas. In order to resize your picture, simply:

1. Click on “layer”
2. Choose scale layer

When resizing your picture while keeping its proportion, GIMP is a great tool. All you have to do is adjust either the height or width, change it and GIMP automatically adjusts the other measurement. After you are done with your image, save it as a .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG file extension.

Perfect! Your image is now ready to be loaded into your Kindle.

Of course, you won’t expect to see the latest bestsellers on that free book list but you can really find some good choices if you take the time and effort to browse through. So if you’re looking to save on your reading material after having splurged a lot on your ebook reading device, these tips on how to find free books for the Kindle will help you.

Free ebooks from Amazon

What better source of ebooks specially formatted for the Kindle than the maker of the device itself? Amazon may not be heavily promoting free books but you’d be surprised at the number of free stuff that you can find there.

1. Go to Amazon.com, then choose Books, then Kindle Books.

2. Scroll down to the middle of the page to the link that says “See all Kindle books” or choose a category on the left side of the page, e.g. Fiction or Humor.

3. On the upper right hand of the page, you can find a drop down tool bar that lets you sort the books by different categories. Choose Price: Low to High.

4. The first books to appear on the list will then be those which are priced at $0.00.

5. When you click the Buy button, Kindle will then send the book wirelessly to your Kindle.

Other Sites That Offer Free eBooks

1. Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) has over a hundred thousand ebook titles to choose from – all for free. You do however, have the option to make a donation to the site through Paypal.

2. Munsey’s (www.munsey.com) has a good selection of books in Kindle format, although you won’t find descriptions for many of these.

3. Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com), is a good source of bestsellers, discounted books, and yes, even free ebooks. There are more than 15,000 books in the Kindle format.

4. Freetechbooks (www.freetechbooks.com) specializes in tech books that, as the site’s name implies, come for free.

5. Feedbooks (www.feedbooks.com) offers not only free ebooks but also the opportunity to have your own books published.

Many potential buyers of the Kindle are sometimes discouraged with the thought of having to always spend for additional ebooks. After all, what good is having a Kindle when you can’t have it updated with new content if your budget doesn’t allow you to?

But now you know better. Once you buy the device, you don’t actually have to keep on spending as long as you know how to find free books for your Amazon Kindle.

Users of these devices can now automatically read PDF files, use the landscape mode for wide-format viewing, and add bookmarks. While these features were inherent with the Kindle DX, the early version of the Kindle 2 did not have these capabilities then. But thanks to a software update, PDF reading is no longer an issue with the Kindle 2.

This would leave Kindle 1 owners to deal with the problem of PDF support. Although Amazon does offer a way to convert PDF and DOCX files to AZW (Amazon’s proprietary format) for the 1st generation Kindle, Kindle PDF conversion is still labeled as an experimental feature and there are no guarantees that the file will be formatted correctly.

That said, here are the ways on how to read PDF files on the Kindle 1.

Send the file to Amazon for conversion.

These are the steps to follow to have your PDF file converted as outlined in the Help page of Amazon.com. The same process applies for personal documents you want converted.

1. Open a new e-mail message in your e-mail client.

2. Check to make sure the “From” address is on your approved e-mail address list.

3. Enter the desired Kindle e-mail address in the “To” field. Use the “name”@kindle.com address for wireless delivery, or “name”@free.kindle.com for free delivery to the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account.

4. Attach your document or documents to the e-mail message. If you are sending multiple files, you can compress them into a .ZIP file.

5. Send the e-mail with attachments. A subject line is not needed.

6. Personal documents below 5 MB in officially supported file formats are typically delivered to the “name”@free.kindle.com e-mail address within 5 minutes (per document). Personal documents above 5 MB may take longer.

7. Personal documents below 5 MB in officially supported file formats are typically ready for wireless auto-delivery to your Kindle within 5 minutes (per document), not including actual wireless download time, which will vary with file size. Personal documents above 5 MB may take longer.

There are a couple of things to remember here: First, Kindle PDF conversion may take more than 5 minutes (unlike other docs); and secondly, fees – 15 cents per MB – apply for wireless delivery to your Kindle 1.

To have your PDF file converted for free, just send it to “name”@freekindle.com and the converted file will be sent to the email address linked to the Amazon account. From there, you can download the file to your Kindle via USB connection.

Do the Kindle PDF conversion yourself.

Here’s a step-by-step process if you want a do it yourself approach.

For a PC user – MobiPocket Creator

1. You can convert your PDF and Word files using the Mobi Pocket Creator which is a free software. You need to choose the MobiPocker Creator Publisher edition.

2. When you run the MobiPocket Creator, you should see on the right side of the main page an option to Import From Existing File. Among the file types included are Adobe PDF and Microsoft Word Documents.

3. Choose a file from your computer and then click Import. This process should be done in a matter of seconds.

4. MobiPocket Creator will then take you to the next page where you can Build the document as an ebook.

5. Once the Build process is done, you are given the option to preview the file. Or you can directly choose to Open folder containing ebook.

6. You will find a .prc file of your PDF or word document in the folder and this is what you should copy to your Kindle’s document folder via USB.

Here’s a video for this:

For a MAC user – Stanza

1. Open your PDF document using Stanza.

2. Then attach your Kindle to your MAC using the USB connector that comes with the device.

3. Select File, then Export Book As, then Amazon Kindle.

4. On the Save File dialog, browse to the Kindle. Note that the Kindle will appear under the name you gave it when you first registered.

As mentioned above, Kindle PDF conversion, whether through Amazon or any other software, could be a hit or miss. If you intend to do a lot of PDF reading on your Kindle, then upgrading to a Kindle 2, Kindle 3, or Kindle DXis worth considering.

When downloading books directly to your Kindle, here are the steps to take:

1. Power on your Kindle. The first thing that you will see on the screen is your home page. If the screen is not defaulted to the homepage, just click on the Home button located on the Kindle’s right side.

2. Then you will need to access the Kindle Store at Amazon.com. To do this, first click on the Menu button on your Kindle 2 found on the lower right side corner of your device.

3. Once a screen pops out on the right side, first choose Turn Wireless On. Then scroll down to Shop in Kindle Store.

4. As soon as you are connected to the Kindle store, you will find a wide variety of options for your reading content that you can download to your Kindle 2 – Books, Blogs, Magazines, and Newspapers. You can even access the latest New York Times Best Sellers.

5. If you click on Books, for instance, you will then be asked to choose from additional categories. Choose a category, then scroll through the list of books until you find the book of your choice. Alternatively, you may also enter the name of the book you are looking for.

6. If you’re not sure about a certain book, you have the option to try a sample, usually the first chapter of a book, which can be downloaded to your Kindle 2 in seconds.

7. When you’ve made your choice, use the 5-way controller on the Kindle’s right side to click the Buy button, and then just wait for the ebook to be delivered to your Kindle 2. This would only take about a minute.

8. You can go back to browsing for more titles, or just go and enjoy reading your new book.

As you can see knowing how to download books directly to your Amazon Kindle 2 is simple and easy.

So, are you one of those new to Kindle and living overseas? No problem. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use the Amazon Kindle 2 outside the US:

1. First of all you would need to have a US credit card and US address to be able to set up an Amazon account, purchase a Kindle, the new Kindle to that account, and buy ebooks using that Amazon account too.

2. As soon as you get your Kindle, go to the Books section of the Amazon Kindle page, where there are thousands of books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs to choose from.

3. Click the Buy button, and you automatically get an email from Amazon notifying you of your purchase.

4. Go to the media library and find a header marked Download. You can either go to the All page where you can find all the content you can download, or choose the particular type of content you are downloading, e.g. book, newspaper, or magazine.

5. You are given two choices there: Download to Computer or Download to Kindle. You would want to opt for Download to Computer.

6. Download all your files to your computer via your Media Library.

7. Then transfer all downloaded files to your Kindle. Make sure your Kindle is turned on and awake before doing so.

8. If you have already registered your Kindle and have files stored in your Amazon account but then transferred overseas or in an area where Whispernet is unavailable, you can still access your account through your computer and go to http://www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle. Again, just download your books to your computer and transfer to the Kindle via USB.

For some easy tips on using your Amazon Kindle 2, check out our Kindle 2 shortcuts.

Before trying out this Kindle How To, be aware that there is a potential risk to this process and that you are doing this of your own volition. Installing custom screensavers however, does not necessarily mean voiding your warranty (Source: Amazon.com). That said, it would also be good for you to know that several people have tried doing this and have been successful in their efforts.

So now here are the steps to a whole new set of custom screen savers:

1. Make sure that you are using the latest version of the Kindle software on your device. If not, it is best that you upgrade your software first.

2. Download the Kindle screensaver file to your computer and unzip it.

3. Via USB, connect your Kindle 2 to the computer and locate the Kindle directory usually K:\.

4. Then go to the \system folder in the Kindle directory and create a new screen_saver subfolder there.

5. Put in all custom pictures that you want your Kindle screensaver to display one after the other. You may use both PNG and JPEG files but don’t use the 10-megapixel photos from your digicam as these would take too long to load.

6. Remember to resize images to a dimension of 600 x 800 before copying to the folder.

7. In the screensaver hack that you’ve downloaded and unzipped in step #2, you will find a file there named Update_kindle2_user_screen_savers.bin. Copy this to the root directory of your Kindle 2.

8. Disconnect your Kindle from the computer by unplugging the USB.

9. In your Kindle 2, select “Menu” then press “Settings.” Under this, press “Menu” and choose “Update Your Kindle”.

10. If your installation was done right, it shouldn’t take a minute to update your Kindle and do a reboot.

11. To check if your new Kindle screensaver was successfully set, you should see this line in the bottom portion of your display:

Version: Kindle 2.0.1 (303870012) + Screen Saver Hack 0.3

If you haven’t upgraded to the latest software yet, just wait for our next Kindle How To which will cover How To Update Your Kindle Software. In the meantime, enjoy your new screensavers! Also, if you want to know about other ebook reading devices available, check out the Sony Reader PRS-700.

Resource: blogkindle.com