Kindle Fire HD

0 comments on "Ereading; Kindles; Amazon"

There’s talk that the purchase of dedicated ereaders is down, and as the owner of several kindles, I can see why. They’re such excellent devices that it’s like they never go bad.

I’ve got a second gen kindle and it’s still my go-to ereader. Why? Well, it’s got side buttons for easy page turns, and it’s incredibly easy to read on. I have no idea what I’m going to do when it eventually breaks down, but I’ll probably lose my mind because it’s still my baby.

I also have a 8.9″ Kindle Fire HD that I received for Christmas 4-5 years ago, and it’s still going strong. I use it to check my email, watch Netflix and Hulu, and read fanfiction at AO3 or FFN. It may be an older model, but it still works great and I love it. It’s probably the best Christmas present that I’ve ever gotten, including the laptop that barely lasted 2 years before becoming so slow it’s now obsolete.

I think the “problem” with Amazon is that their kindles are too good. You don’t really have to worry about them falling apart or giving you the dreaded half-black screen of frozen death (I’m looking at you Sony). And considering the number of times I’ve dropped my little kindle with only a tiny dent as a result, it’s a miracle it’s lasted in my klutzy hands (unlike the poor Ebookwise back in the day, of which I had three, two of them ending with a cracked screen and the last one deciding not to turn on one day. And don’t even get me started on the Jetbook I once had for a week, which someone decided to put under my seat in the car where it got murdered when the seat moved back. $250 dead and gone. My niece is lucky to still be alive).

Also in my family, my brother has a first gen Kindle Fire that’s still alive, the Kid has a Kindle Fire HD, and my dad has a 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX. Every single kindle is in working order and shows no signs of glitching or falling apart.

So what does it all mean? Well, Amazon has made some excellent products in their Kindles. From dedicated ereaders to tablets, they’re affordable and they work and if you buy one you pretty much never have to buy another unless you’re looking to upgrade. Unlike other companies, whose products either quickly become obsolete or turn to garbage in your hands.

Say what you will about the “evils” of Amazon, they actually seem to care about their customers. And I guess I like being cared about, even if it just involves awesome return policies and the ability to get ahold of a customer care representative in the rare times when I need one.

And the nice thing about a kindle as a dedicated ereader — Kindle, Paperwhite, Voyage — is that you can pass it around and feel like you’re on Star Trek. The text is always clear and readable. You can flick from book to book and never lose your place. And once you load a kindle full of reading material, you can shut off the wireless to save battery power and read for weeks at a time.

With the use of Fanfiction Downloader, Calibre, and a USB cable, you can be reading free on your little kindle with no concerns of Apple, Microsoft, or whoever peeking over your shoulder like a nosy goon. And to me, that’s pretty nice.

So I’m a kindle fan. I think you probably should be one too. They’re awesome, affordable, and they last a ridiculously wonderful long time.

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Oh, by the way, with Christmas coming up and my birthday in January… I would like to say that a Kindle Paperwhite or a Kindle Voyage would make a great gift. Just saying.

Oh yeah, and I’ve got a store at Teepublic: LeCheese Haut. So if you buy any shirts from there, they’re supposed to kick some money my way. I handpicked all the designs, though they’re all in the order that they were added and I have no control over rearranging them. Still, there’s some nice stuff —

From Hannibal to Dune to Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to Invader Zim. There’s a little something for everyone.

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Keep in mind —
Patreon: Patreon.com/HarperKingsley
Paypal: Paypal.me/HarperKingsley
FictionPress: FictionPress.com/~harperkingsley

0 comments on "Kindle Fire HD 7 is $119-139 right now"

I bought the Kid a 16GB Kindle Fire HD 7 for $139 (the 8GB is $119). It’s a limited time offer — the Fire was $159 when I added it to my cart two week ago — and with the sudden price drop, I didn’t want to wait.

So the Kid is getting his Christmas present a month early, and he’s super excited. To be honest, I’m getting a little excited myself. It’s great to see him so enthused. (Games he’s dying for: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 [$2.99]; Stupid Zombies 2 [free]; SAS: Zombie Assault 3 [free]; Zombies Ate My Friends [free];

I have to play them all now to check out whether they’re appropriate or not. Ah, the hardship that is my life 😛 )

I plan on using Kindle FreeTime (which comes pre-installed) to force him to do his half hour of daily reading before he can play any of the games of movies.

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About Kindle FreeTime: blog posts of interest —
How to Setup a Kindle Fire for Kids with Kindle FreeTime — http://www.lovemyfire.com/kindle-freetime.html.

How-To Geek: How to Turn Your Kindle Fire Into a Totally Kid-Friendly Tablet — http://www.howtogeek.com/178303/how-to-turn-your-kindle-fire-into-a-totally-kid-friendly-tablet-with-freetime/.

Kindle FreeTime: Parental controls and kid-friendly content — http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2014/0108/Kindle-FreeTime-Parental-controls-and-kid-friendly-content.

Amazon Kindle Freetime review — http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/reviews/amazon-kindle-freetime-review-469809.

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Basically, FreeTime comes with the Kindle and you can add different profiles for multiple kids on a single device. You can decide what your kid is allowed to use and how long they can use it for. (Kindle FreeTime Unlimited is a different thing that you pay for, so don’t be confused.)

The Kid is too old for some of the controls, but at the same time I don’t trust him not to go app crazy and download a bunch of stuff or in-app purchase a bunch of stuff that will appear on my card. He gets a little too into his games, and sometimes he doesn’t think about consequences or much of anything else when he wants to play something. Plus I have a lot of content I don’t want him to have access to, yet he’s too young to have his own Amazon account.

So I’ll be sharing some of my apps, games, and books with him, and I won’t have to worry that he’s spending his college fund on some silly game or other. Very nice deal.

0 comments on "Using A Tablet to Write (a Novel)"

I guess I’m a member of the tablet family.

I just got my Kindle Fire HD 8.9 and I’ve completely fallen in love with the ease of use. The minute I took it out of the box I was incredibly happy.

Then like four hours into my having it, Amazon did an update and wow, completely changed my world.

Swype.

The new keyboard allows sweeping from one letter to another to write words with your stylus. It’s so easy to do. It’s like drawing and it bypasses the need for an external keyboard at all. And with how quickly it learns your draw patterns, you could be drawing up your novel in less than five minutes.

I can already see people unable to write or type because of disability being given a voice of their own. And it’s at an amazingly affordable price.

Don’t believe me that the new sweep writing is awesome? Well, I wrote this whole thing with ColorNote Notepad and it was shockingly easy. Even more so than regular handwriting. I didn’t even have to hit the space bar–I just flowed from one word to the next and I barely had to touch the screen. So if you have a weak grip, all you have to do is just touch the screen with your stylus in a swirling pattern and you’re writing. Just make sure you catch the first and last letters and maybe a letter in the middle.

Having a tablet is great for me and my budding writing career because I don’t let myself get as distracted as I do when I use my laptop. Switching between apps means I don’t have my browser open as a window I can jump to. I have no self control and I would immediately spend
seven hours screwing around on the internet.

With my Kindle I have done an amazing amount in a short amount of time:

I have played games — I will admit that this might be a bit of a problem for me, since I’ll probably want to play all the time.Still, great fun, lots of free games if you’re cheap (like me.)

I have read books — Okay, this is where the Kindle won me over. Not only did I load my Kindle books, I also put on a bunch of downloaded books with Calibre (you might have to update your version of Calibre.) Still, I was able to download stories from Tthfanfic and AO3, then
move them to where I wanted with ES File Manager. So I now have a portable fanfic machine. Makes me so happy.

I have Tweeted — I got the Twitter app and I’ve been sending tweets and it was pretty easy, so that’s nice. I do like keeping you apprised of my still being alive.

I have watched Netflix and Hulu movies — Netflix needs to learn how to buffer, or maybe I just need to change up my settings, but Hulu was beautiful. I also checked out Viki, which worked great, I just wish DramaFever would come out with a Kindle capable app. Still, love watching what I want when I want.

I chose the Kindle Fire HD even though my brother tried to talk me out of it because I was hoping to write with it. Since I didn’t get a separate keyboard,I was starting to think I might have made a mistake because I had to tap hard to get the stylus to work. The Swype update
is a big step forward for writers using tablets. The words just seem to flow.

My big request is for the keyboard to be moved up the screen. It’s hard trying to see what I’m doing. My hand gets in the way of seeing the Amazon keyboard.

Anyways, love the Kindle Fire HD. Does what I want and didn’t cost ridiculous amounts of money.

My advice though, if you’re going to use one to write on, you can write what you want on a free notepad app, then email your writing to yourself as a backup. Then it’s simple to select and copy from your email and paste the writing into your word processing program. Backs
everything up easily and doesn’t cost anything. And yes, I am incredibly frugal, but what I really like is being able to write in bed without the heavy weight of a laptop over-heating on my legs. Very very nice.

I totally recommend the Kindle Fire HD as a winning Christmas or birthday gift. Now that I’ve got mine I have no problem with them being sold to the point of selling out of stock. Enjoy. Happy holiday shopping.