Light My Kindle

One of the Kindle features that everyone keeps talking about is the free internet browser. The Kindle has a browser similar to that of a mobile phone. You can browse certain sites (including Google Reader and Gmail) and even make purchases at Amazon.com.

Ensure that your wireless switch is turned on. Click the scroll wheel on Menu and choose Experimental. Navigate the scroll wheel to Basic Web and click. Your homepage will be a list of bookmarks compiled by the Kindle team - Wikipedia, BBC News, Yellow Pages, etc. You can also add items to these bookmarks.

To navigate to a web page, click the scroll wheel in the upper right corner where it says “Enter URL.” a box will appear where you can type the URL using the keyboard. Use the scroll wheel to click Submit, and you’re on your way.

Keep in mind that not every site will work on the Kindle. Image-heavy sites will take a very long time to load. Sites without mobile versions may also cause you some trouble. However, for basic web usage on the go, it’s definitely nice to use the Kindle’s nice large screen compared to the tiny screen on my BlackBerry Pearl.

I’m always wary of cleaning electronic products, fearing a spill naturally. Unfortunately for my Kindle, I frequently read while eating. Often I’ll find little spots on my Kindle screen (and on my laptop) from splashed foods (Cheerios falling back into the milk are the most frequent culprit). While on the train recently I realized the little spots had taken over and I needed to clean the Kindle. But how to do so?

I took the tactic I use with cleaning my laptop screen, my television screen, and my cell phone screen - spray some Windex on a paper towel (NOT on the device - you don’t want the liquid to drip into crevices) and simply wipe clean. It does no damage to the device and gets those little spots (as well as fingerprints and general dust) out without any problems.

Accessing the Kindle Store from your Kindle is probably one of the easiest tasks you can do, which is what makes using the Kindle such a joy.

First, ensure your wireless switch is turned on. From your Kindle home page, click the scroll wheel on the Menu at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Scroll down to Shop in Kindle Store and click the scroll wheel. Tada! You’ve arrived at the Kindle Store. From here you can browse, search, sample, and more.

One of my absolute favorite things about the Kindle is that it automatically bookmarks your page for you when you stop reading. Anytime you leave a book or other content by hitting the home button or opening a new page from the menu, the Kindle remembers where you were and opens to it the next time you read that content.

What if you want to bookmark another page? For example, if you and your significant other are both reading the same book. Bookmarking a page on the Kindle is as easy as bookmarking a page in a paper book by folding the corner down. On any content page, use the scroll wheel to select the small triangle in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Click the scroll wheel and you’ll see the small triangle now looks like it was folded down.

If you decide you don’t want that page bookmarked anymore, just follow the same process and the triangle will turn back to how it was.

You can view all your bookmarks by clicking the scroll wheel on Menu and choosing “Go to Bookmark…” This is a great way to mark entire pages that you’d like to reference later. There are other ways to bookmark or highlight smaller passages as well, but we’ll get to those later.

This one is almost too easy. If you bought your Kindle using your own Amazon account, you’re done. It’s already linked. Turn on your Kindle and you’ll see “[Your Name]’s Kindle” in the upper left hand.

If you were lucky enough to receive your Kindle as a gift, as I was, connecting your Kindle to your Amazon account is very simple. On your Kindle, scroll to the Menu button on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and click the scroll wheel to select. Then select Settings from the menu that pops up. Under Account Name, you should see the name of the person who purchased the Kindle for you, with the word “Deregister” next to it (check to make sure your wireless switch is on first).

Select Deregister. (It also might say “My Kindle” if the person already disconnected the Kindle from their account.) Select “Register” and you can enter your Amazon account information. The password is the same as it would be if you were signing in to Amazon.com.

You could also go through the Manage Your Kindle Page on Amazon at amazon.com/manageyourkindle.