Light My Kindle

While the Kindle automatically saves your place in your reading material, sometimes you might want to bookmark a page for other reasons - if two people are reading the same book, for example. I’ve talked about bookmarks before, but this shortcut is the easiest way to add a bookmark.

On any page, simply press ALT and B at the same time. You’ll see the little corner of the page change to look like it’s folded down.

To remove the bookmark, you can press ALT and B again, or use the select wheel to click on the folded down corner and it will unfold.

If you’re not happy with a full-justification screen (where the words spread out to fill the width of the page) and would prefer left-justification, it’s easy for you to change it. In any piece of reading material, click the text button (the one with a big A and a little A on it. A menu will appear (which also allows you to change the font size) in which you can change to left-justification by using the scroll wheel.

You can always change it back if you change your mind, or decide to share your Kindle with a friend.

Last week we covered a shortcut to search Wikipedia from your Kindle. This week, we have a shortcut to search Google. While Wikipedia is wonderfully informative, sometimes you just need the Big G.

Press Search on your Kindle keyboard. Type @web followed by your keyword. Your Kindle will search Google and return the results as if you had opened up the web browser, navigated to Google, and then entered your search terms. Of course, you need to make sure your wireless switch is turned on first.

Do you find yourself searching Wikipedia frequently from your Kindle? There’s a quicker way to do it than manually going to the Experimental Browser and then navigating to the Wikipedia bookmark.

First check to make sure your wireless switch is turned on. Then press the Search key on the Kindle’s keyboard. Enter in “@wiki” using the keyboard, followed by your search term. Use the select wheel to press Go and the Kindle will open the Experimental Browser and navigate to the correct Wikipedia page for your search term.

The Kindle is useful for all sorts of tools other than reading. This might be one of the coolest, however. You can use the cell towers that power your Kindle’s wireless internet to locate your position.

Go to the web browser (for more on how to do that, click here) and hit Alt and 1. The Kindle will open up Google Maps and will use the cell towers to triangulate your approximate position.

Even more helpful, you can press Alt + 2 to find nearby gas stations, Alt + 3 for nearby restaurants, and Alt + 5 to search for a keyword nearby.

Sources: LaptopMag.com; Teaching With Technology

Remember The Milk is a useful web-based productivity tool that allows you to create to do lists. The real benefit of Remember The Milk (or RTM, as it’s lovingly referred to by users) is being able to access it just about anywhere - on the website, in your email inbox (it has a flawless integration with Gmail), on your phone, on your instant messenger, in your calendar, etc. You can also access it from your Kindle.

Using the Experimental Web Browser (for instructions on that, click here), click on Enter URL using the scroll wheel. Enter in the URL for the mobile version of RTM: http://m.rememberthemilk.com and click Submit.

It will ask for your username and password for Remember The Milk (you’ll need to set this up on their website from your computer first). Navigate the scroll wheel to the area next to Username and click to bring up the data entry box. Input your username and click Done; then repeat to enter your password. The “Remember Me” box is checked by default. You can change this if you would like by navigating the scroll wheel next to the box and clicking it. Then move the scroll wheel next to Login and click.

From here you can add tasks, view task lists, search your tags, and more. All of your changes will automatically sync with your online RTM account.

Have you found any other productivity tricks for the Kindle? If you’d like to share them with my readers, email them to me at cj@lightmykindle.com.

When you put your Kindle in sleep mode, a screensaver appears that can be anything from a Kindle tip or a picture of a classic author. Some Kindle users figured out how to add your own pictures to use as screensavers. The process is explained in great detail here and seems fairly simple. Just copy the files to your Kindle and then follow the simple steps for activating them as screensavers.

The writer of that blog (who incidentally has the last name Kindel) went one step further and added his name and contact information on top of the pictures before transferring them to the Kindle. That way, if his Kindle were ever lost and some kind person found it, they would be able to contact him to return it.

Now that we’ve covered putting music on your Kindle, here are a couple of tips for navigating around the music.

First, volume control: On the bottom of the Kindle there are two small buttons with a plus and a minus on them and “volume” written next to them.

While the Kindle only plays songs on random, you can skip a song if you don’t want to listen to it right then. Just press ALT+F.

You can pause the music by entering the Experimental menu and clicking on the pause button that appears while music is playing. However, if you’re in the middle of reading something the quickest way to pause is by pressing ALT+P. When you want to listen to the music again, just go back into the Experimental menu or press ALT+P again.

The Kindle can be used as a rudimentary music player (with your only listening mode being random), or you can load background music to listen to while reading or browsing the Kindle store. Either way, the process is very easy.

First, connect your Kindle to your computer using the white USB to mini USB cable that came with your Kindle. You should see a screen that says “Your Kindle is in USB drive mode.” and has a USB symbol on it.

Next, open up the Kindle’s music folder on your computer by following these steps:
1. Click on Start.
2. Click on My Computer.
3. Double-click on your Kindle [on my computer it shows as Removable Disk (G:)]. You should see three folders: documents, music, and Audible.
4. Double-click on music.

Now, open your My Music folder (or whatever folder you store your music in on your computer) and choose some files to copy over. Highlight the music files you’d like to move to your Kindle and press Ctrl+C. Go back to the music folder from the Kindle and press Ctrl+V. The files should only take a minute or so to copy over.

Once they have copied and you have disconnected your Kindle from the computer, navigate to the Experimental section by choosing Menu and clicking on Experimental from the home screen. Under Play Music the little play button should now be bold (as opposed to a light grey color when you don’t have any music files on the Kindle). Click on the Play button and your music will start.

To stop the music just hit the Pause button that replaced the Play button when you started the music, or choose Stop Music from the Menu.

Next week I’ll cover all sorts of tips and tricks for maximizing your usage of the music player on your Kindle.

As someone who has owned a Kindle for about six months now, my Home Screen is no longer just one page of books, magazines, and other content. Currently I only have a few pages, but I can imagine that navigating through more than ten pages or so might get cumbersome.

Amazon has just the trick. If your Home Screen is sorted by newest to oldest (for example, the book you’re currently reading is at the top), you can press any one of the number keys on the keyboard to skip to a page. If your Home Screen is sorted alphabetically, you can press any one of the letter keys on the keyboard to skip to a page.

Of course, you’ll still have to guess which page you need, but it’s at least quicker than turning page by page to get to a certain item.