Kindle DX issue #1 25 October, 2009

I was in that first wave of people to get a Kindle DX. My main reason for hoppin' on the digital reader bandwagon was the ability to display pdfs. Professors, at least at Clemson and NYU,  like to be nice and give students select chapters and readings in pdf format so they don't have to purchase the entire book, but this can quickly get out of hand, making you print several hundred pages a week.

Environmental debates aside ,this is just too much paper to keep track with over the course of the semester. Packets are usually too large to staple and you can't just stack them on your desk. Even though I would try and print double sided it would just take up too much space in my backpack (where they would more than likely be bent). If we are constantly referencing old material I can't keep bringing it back to class along with all the new hundreds of pages. . . if only there was some magical device that could display all these and wasn't cumbersome like a laptop.

The Kindle DX's only selling point for me was being able to consolidate all my pdfs into one very easy to carry device. I have well over 200 pdfs on my DX and they hardly take up any room. I use Acrobat professional to scale them and shrink the file size, which is relatively easy. Adding meta-data also helps me find things quicker, and they are always with me! Literally thousands of pages of reading from various graduate and undergraduate courses at my fingertips! ( I also have all seven Harry Potters, which is reason enough. . . and Braudy and Cohen for those of you that had to lug that around)

Gushing over.

Amazon has seen fit to make pdf viewing a little difficult especially for those who aren't tech savvy or have the time, but trust me, it's still worth getting the DX. You've probably heard about the inability to add notes, but this is the least of my worries. It comes down to navigation. This goes for the azw files as well.

It would be great to

• Have keyboard shortcuts to goto next bookmark
• Have keyboard shortcuts to goto page _____
• Be able to highlight words in pdf and get dictionary definitions
  
• Support hyperlinks built into pdfs (Would do wonders for table of contents)
• Skip through pages very quickly, or a few at a time, similar to flipping through a book 
  

I get some of these draw backs from Amazon's perspective. I've basically just listed features that would make my pdfs more like Kindle Books, but Amazon would see no revenue from these features. I'm basically turning my personal content into something Amazon would rather me buy from them.

Hopefully software updates will start coming up since the Kindle has competition now in the Nook, Sony Reader, and all the other soon to come out ereaders. 


Some numbers for this semester:

# of pdf handouts from class: 42 . . . haven't added pages up, but it is probably depressing
# of full length electronic books: 8 or 3,072 pages of text
# personal research articles: 28 or 487 pages of text

And they are always with me! They just need to be more convenient to use to be truly revolutionary! More issues/findings to follow