Reading the New York Times

It's convenient. It's readable. You can change the type size at will. But it's not perfect. I'm noticing two things about my New York Times subscription:

• If you don't download the paper a particular day, you just don't get it. Suppose someone mentions a story that occurred on Friday, and you never turned on your Kindle that day. You're out of luck. This doesn't seem right to me.
  
• There are very few photos. One article contained the words Chris Brown, right. But there was no photo of Chris Brown. The words didn't make any sense.

It seems to me that if you pay a monthly fee for a paper, you should be able to at least look at it a day or two after the fact, even if you didn't download it that day. In the real world, printed papers pile up on your doorstep if you're out of town. Why can't they pile up on your Kindle?Am I missing something?

Audible.com: Why so hard?

I loved being read to as a kid, and as an adult, I still love it. Audiobooks are great on the Kindle. So why is it so darn difficult to get them from Audible.com? And why are they so incredibly expensive? Since Amazon owns Audible, you would think they would have an interest in encouraging people to download to the Kindle. Instead, you have to:

1. Sign up for an Audible.com account, if necessary.
2. Click Device Center near the top of the Audible.com home page.
3. Near the top of the Device Center page, after MP3, PDA, and Mobile Phones, click Other.
4. Next to Amazon Kindle, click the link Click here to download your software.
5. On the next page, click Download Software under the operating system you are using on your computer (Windows or Mac).
6. On the next page, you are asked to click Select under the method you’ll use to listen to files. Don’t choose any of these. Click Other Software Options instead.
7. Click the download link under Audible Manager.
8. A dialog box appears prompting you to save the file.

Are you still with me?

9. When the AudibleManager Setup screen appears, choose Amazon Kindle from the drop-down list.

When AudibleManager window opens, connect your Kindle to your USB port on your computer.

Your Kindle shows up in the bottom of the AudibleManager window. Your Audible.com library appears in the top. Move files from the top to the bottom to get them on your Kindle.

One nice thing about the AudibleManager window is that it lets you see how much room you have left on your Kindle, and gives you the chance to move files to an external SD card if you prefer. This is advisable because audio books are huge in terms of file size and will quickly eat up your Kindle's internal memory. You get a nice pie chart that tells you how much memory is being used and what's left:

My Daughters Hate This Thing

I am working on a book called Kindle for Dummies. I love this thing. My daughters hate it. Why? You would think it would be the other way around: the 14 and 16-year-old girls typing madly on every electronic device they can get their hands on, while I, the 50-something luddite, surrounded by musty old books. Instead, I spend ten or more hours a day typing, and they lug around backpacks weighing 30 or 40 lbs. They adore printed books. They love turning and folding printed newspapers. Maybe they have too much common sense for all these gadgets. They are afraid a whole culture of reading is fading away. I think there's room for both of us. The Kindle is re-kindling (sorry) my enthusiasm for reading. I am reading the newspaper more these days than I have in the past ten years. I hope this thing will replace their bulky textbooks one day. They can still read their tattered copies of The Fellowship of the Ring. The Kindle will give them quick and easy access to more perishable content. Like this blog.