managing a kindle touch

just taken ownership of one of those bad boys PSA’d on here the other day, and would just like a bit of an overview on using it please.

my wife uses an older one and thought she was looking at its content through the ‘manage your kindle’ on amazon website, but i disagree with her. to me it looks like the site just shows the amazon ‘library’, so books bought through amazon. the fact that theyre the same as whats on her kindle is just a result of the fact that she bought them all from there. am i right?

ive now downloaded a load of george orwell books from other sources than amazon, and cut and pasted to my kindle touch. all looks ok. i assume that they will never show in the kindle library? and that i cant connect to my amazon account and look at the content on first my kindle, and separately, my wifes?

yes i can see every book in the library, and i can send to whichever device i select, but i cant actually see each devices content? i can only look at whats on my kindle by looking at my kindle. that sound right?

ive also read scare stories of amazon suspending accounts for mispractice, therefore losing all material ‘bought’, as theyre not really bought at all, just ‘loaned’ for the term of your account. if this is right, whats malpractice? what are you not sposed to do?

thanks a lot. i want to get some books loaded ready for me holibobs at end of the month 🙂

bumpity bump?

cant believe nobodys answered me yet. this is singletrackworld isnt it??

bump again 😀

You’re right. Only the books you buy from Amazon will be visible in the ‘Manage your Kindle’ area on your Amazon account. These will also be visible to any kindle using that account.

Anything you loaded directly on to your kindle from another source will only be visible on that one and not though your Amazon account..

Yeah.

ive also read scare stories of amazon suspending accounts for mispractice

First I’ve heard of that. I wonder if they’re just that, scare stories?

ok thanks for that chaps. next question that comes to mind……whats the point of kindle email addresses, and ‘cloud storage’ that apparently comes with my kindle touch?

who would ever send anything to a kindle address that only amazon know, and secondly, arent all the books in my library ‘in the cloud’ anyway, as theyre on amazons servers?

what am i missing here?

thanks a lot

who would ever send anything to a kindle address

It’s quite handy actually. You can use your Kindle address to email content to your Kindle. For example on my last holiday I emailed my PDF insurance documents to my Kindle email et voila they’re on the device.

As for the cloud storage, that’s where all your books are stored and then you can cherry pick which ones you download locally to your device. I can’t imagine many people getting anywhere near filling a Kindle though.

It’s quite handy actually. You can use your Kindle address to email content to your Kindle. For example on my last holiday I emailed my PDF insurance documents to my Kindle email et voila they’re on the device.

I never realised you could do that. That’s pretty handy.

It’s quite handy actually. You can use your Kindle address to email content to your Kindle. For example on my last holiday I emailed my PDF insurance documents to my Kindle email et voila they’re on the device.

ah right. normally id just download to my pc and print em off. so this is just a quicker way of getting them yes? forward the ins email to @kindle and theyre automatically on my kindle, or do i need to download from kindle library?

As for the cloud storage, that’s where all your books are stored and then you can cherry pick which ones you download locally to your device.

isnt that the same for any kindle tho, even the very first ones? theyre all on amazons servers (library) and you then download what you want to your kindle?
just wondering why i have some cloud storage with the touch, yet my wife doesnt have cloud storage with her earlier version. yet all books are ‘up there on the servers/in the cloud’ waiting to be downloaded to any device registered.

spose im asking what the difference is between the cloud storage and amazons servers.

It’s probably just Amazon trying to jump on the Cloud back wagon. calling something cloud is not unlike a bike company calling something enduro 😉

As for email, all you need to do is email the PDF or whatever it is as an attachment to your Kindle email address. It will then appear auto-magically on your device with nothing else for you to do.

It’s probably just Amazon trying to jump on the Cloud back wagon. calling something cloud is not unlike a bike company calling something enduro

Er, you do realise the biggest cloud service provider is Amazon, right?

I use a free app called Calibre to manage the books on my Kindle (from all sources) as well as upload PDFs, etc, to it.

Er, you do realise the biggest cloud service provider is Amazon, right?

Completely. They’ve been doing it for yonks which is kind of my point. The OP was confused as to the new trendy name for something that has always gone on.

Completely. They’ve been doing it for yonks which is kind of my point. The OP was confused as to the new trendy name for something that has always gone on.

Ah, gotcha. Did wonder, it’s not immediately obvious that an online book seller should also be a huge service provider…

Back to the OP:

ive also read scare stories of amazon suspending accounts for mispractice, therefore losing all material ‘bought’, as theyre not really bought at all, just ‘loaned’ for the term of your account. if this is right, whats malpractice? what are you not sposed to do?

Not sure about the malpractice thing, but you are certainly at the mercy of Amazon when you sync the device. There was a case where (somewhat ironically) they deleted legitimately obtained copies of Orwell’s novels off users’ Kindles – they backtracked a bit when the thing blew up in the press, but the fact remains that Amazon has 100% control over the books you have bought from them.

Another thing I’m not sure about is what control Amazon has over the Kindle itself – if you use Calibre[/url] to load books onto the device, can Amazon detect and/or delete them?

Another thing I’m not sure about is what control Amazon has over the Kindle itself – if you use Calibre to load books onto the device, can Amazon detect and/or delete them?

My Kindle does firmware updates automatically so it’s obviously connecting itself to the Amazon servers periodically although I haven’t connected manually for quite some time. Don’t know if they can detect non-Kindle books but all mine are still intact!

If you were bothered you could always disable the wi-fi and connect only to your computer via USB. That way Amazon would have no control/interaction with the device at all.

If you were bothered you could always disable the wi-fi and connect only to your computer via USB. That way Amazon would have no control/interaction with the device at all.

But then of course you wouldn’t be able to buy books from the Amazon store – not ideal!

The Calibre thing is a minor point, really: I can always reload the books if they are deleted. A more important concern is how the cloud is taking away our control of our possessions, who actually owns that film you bought from the iTunes and only have on your iPad? Or the book from Amazon?

Kindle?

You need one of these bad boys for travelling:

A more important concern is how the cloud is taking away our control of our possessions, who actually owns that film you bought from the iTunes and only have on your iPad? Or the book from Amazon?

That in itself is not a huge concern for me and I suspect many others who have a stack of CDs, books and DVDs gathering dust in the corner of the room. It’s just a move to service provision rather than selling tangible and physical goods. I’m happy to pay a tenner a month for Spotify and if that service ever goes pop I’m sure someone will step in to take its place.

If we get to the stage where the method of distributing cloud service – i.e. the internet – fails, we’ll probably have bigger concerns than not having the latest One Direction album to listen to

But then of course you wouldn’t be able to buy books from the Amazon store – not ideal!

Of course you can – just purchase them on your PC or Mac, download them as a file, and upload them to the Kindle via USB.

who actually owns that film you bought from the iTunes and only have on your iPad? Or the book from Amazon?

Not you! But it’s always been like that, even with records/CDs/physical books. You never have “owned” that content in the sense that you can do whatever you like with it!

Of course you can – just purchase them on your PC or Mac, download them as a file, and upload them to the Kindle via USB.

Learn something new every day! (Still nothing like as convenient, but it does overcome the remote wipe problem if you’re paranoid…)

Not you! But it’s always been like that, even with records/CDs/physical books. You never have “owned” that content in the sense that you can do whatever you like with it!

Of course not, but the physical book or vhs tape was definitely mine, and didn’t belong to the publisher.

<tag so i can read when i get home as I’ve just got one>

I use a free app called Calibre to manage the books on my Kindle (from all sources) as well as upload PDFs, etc, to it.

ive just been using that to convert an epub to a mobi. dont know my way around it enough to actually manage my kindle tho. the way i see myself using it is that when i buy books from amazon, theyll go into library and then onto kindle, most of the books tho will be from elsewhere. those will be saved to my downloads folder naturally, and i connect kindle by usb and drag and drop onto kindle folder.

that sound about right or am i missing something with calibre?

thanks a lot