Kindle tips: Kindle Fire book download glitch; disappearing books; newly-free popular Read It Later app

When a newly-purchased book won't download

  Earlier I wrote about the solution two forumners found for a situation in which Kindle books seemed to disappear in both the Kindle Fire listings and in the "Cloud" (server) listings as well.

  Today's Kindle Fire tip is how to correct a glitch that causes a currently-purchased Kindle book to NOT download to the Kindle Fire, whether the attempted download is done via the Kindle Fire itself or from the Amazon ManageYourKindle page.

  The solution comes from forum member Josh -- and that is to:
  .  Lightly touch the gear or wheel icon at the top right
  .  Then select "+" or "More" to get Settings menu
  .  Select "My Account" (2nd on the settings list)
  .  Select "Deregister"

Once that's done, you can "Reregister" right away and all your info is there for you -- no need to retype it.

A mere deregister-register action saves a lot of time over the last-ditch "Reset to Factory Defaults" which I (and some senior Kindle support staff) feel should be a LAST choice, as a Factory-Default reset requires you to re-enter your basic Amazon and Kindle information and to select books and other media all over again (to re-populate the device) and to re-set up things the way you've wanted them, which can take an hour for most situations.

  Ashley seconds Josh's recommendation after his own experience based on the advice of a lone Kindle Fire specialist (among a few others who did not know a solution to this) who suggested he de-register and re-register the KFire.  Ashley wrote:

"This worked and it only took 10 sec. In addition I lost none of my settings/apps/content."

Popular Read It Later Android app renamed to "Pocket" and now free

paidContent's Laura Hazard Owen reports that Read It Later will no longer have a $2.99 Pro version and will be known as Pocket, as it makes it "simple "to take any content users discover, with them no matter where they go."

  The founder, Nate Weiner, told Owen that the app was profitable right away and has been the "number-one paid news app on Android and Kindle Fire."  He says he's after a different business model now, which he'll explain this summer.

  The app already has 4.5 million users and its most popular source of content to take to enjoy "later" is Youtube and its videos.

' Forty percent of items saved aren’t articles but content like videos, images, things to buy, travel tips and recipes. '

  Owen adds that the new version of the app "makes it easier to filter content by type and to tag and organize it."

  If you already own Read It Later Pro, you'll just need to update the app.
"Users of the free version have to download Pocket separately."

  The Amazon product page emphasizes the new user-interface and the Content-Type filter -- "Pocket automatically filters your content so that you can quickly switch between articles, videos, and images."


Reminder: Today's Kindle Daily Deal



Kindle Touch 3G, US-only   Kindle Touch WiFi (US)   Kindle Touch WiFi-Only, outside US    Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

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  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
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    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

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New Kindle App: "7 Dragons' Tips for Kindle" - UPDATE

See UPDATE added late afternoon (Original post 8:53 a.m. 9/10/11)

7 Dragons, maker of the popular Notepad, Calendar (which handles recurring events), Converter, and Calculator apps, just released their very useful Tips for Kindle, with over 100 tips you can browse through.  Here is their description:

' Did you know that your Kindle can play music, read text to you, and display your own pictures?  7 Dragons' Tips for Kindle shows you how to do these things and more.

Tips for Kindle has over 100 useful tips, and every time you open Tips for Kindle you are shown a Featured Tip.  You can browse through the Tips at your own pace, or use a slideshow mode that circles through the Tips for you.  You can add the Tips you like most to a Favorites List so they're easy to look up quickly if you forget one.  If you find a tip for Kindle elsewhere, you can type it in to Tips to become part of your Tips library... '

Many of my friends have Kindles, several of them having bought theirs before I got mine in 2008, and I know that they don't know about the many things you can do with the Kindle, described here.   They mainly want to read on it, and the Kindle (UK: K3) allows them do that very conveniently -- and that's the extent of the interest in exploring.

  However, for those who are more curious about other Kindle capabilities and who want to browse a guide to features (including undocumented ones) at their leisure -- a tip or two at a time -- this app is recommended.

  I've long recommended an interesting Amazon Kindle Forum thread on unique or creative uses of the Kindle, and that recommendation is one of the tips.

  The app opened, in my case, with information on the How to Manage your Kindle page, which has been expanded by Amazon from one page to several now.

You can export favorite tips in order to view and/or print them.  The Tips for Kindle app creates a text file for you, with the title and text of each of your favorites, and each time you use the Export feature it overwrites the previous text file of favorite tips.

TIP for using the app
The Menu's "Slideshow" option seems to function in the same way as "All Tips" selection on the Menu, but the "All Tips" doesn't move to the next tip as quickly.
  I wanted a Pause button for both and later found it in the Help area.  At the top right, there's an indication that you are in Play or Pause mode, something I hadn't noticed. Alt-M starts or pauses/stops a slideshow (which 'All Tips' is also).   You can change the speed of the slideshow with Alt-N.

What I'd like to see in the next version
I'd like to choose from categories of tips or be able to Search the tips for a keyword.

The purpose of the app
I noticed that a customer reviewed the app with expectations that it would be for very advanced users who want to "hack" (as she said) the Kindle.  But the app is for people who want to know what they can do with the Kindle as it is, with the many given features you won't find on other e-readers.

I just saw a customer review mentioning that even as an experienced user, the person found useful tips.  The customer also mentions a glitch with adding one's own tip.  I tried adding a tip on my own Kindle 3 and it added the tip and allowed me to edit it later also, so the customer should contact 7 Dragons.

UPDATE - After being gone for the day, I just got back and checked to see if the problem had been resolved and saw that the customer added this update to the review:

' It was a problem with my Kindle and not the app.  Kindle Customer Service solved my Kindle problem in minutes.  The app developer also followed up to make sure and I was able to tell them that it was not the app.  After fixing the Kindle problem the app works flawlessly when adding my own tips '

Summary
As I go through the app, I saw several items that many even-experienced users on the forums wouldn't tend to know.  I learned some of these from others in the forums, but not everyone gets to those places or has time to hang out in them.  The answers are concise and the tips are very useful for the non-hacker Kindle owner.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's)   K3 Special ($114)   K3-3G Special ($139)   DX Graphite

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Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

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