Ways to Convert a Web Page into Kindle 3 Format

When it comes to converting a web page for reading on Kindle 3, PDF is not always desirable. Though in general web content is reflowable and resizable, images and tables are not the case. For example, a typical Wikipedia page containing mathematical formulas and tables would get trimmed if the output page size is set for Kindle 3. That's why it's wise to choose MOBI instead of PDF as the output format since the images and tables could retain their size while their detail could be viewed by zooming out locally.

There are several ways for conversion from a web page into Kindle 3 format. However, none of them are perfect so far.

1. Instapaper is capable of converting all the articles for you to read later into a single Kindle 3 periodical. It's useful for reading casual passages but not desirable for referring to and organizing specific articles on the Kindle 3 since every periodical has the same title so that you need to open it to find where the article is.
   UPDATE: Calibre has a built-in recipe to fetch the unread list in text view with images retained. which seems like the most favorable solution so far for converting general web pages.
2. Calibre does this job almost perfectly in terms of image quality and table structures compared to Kindlepedia and Instapaper even if some scientific notations like nested superscripts and subscripts are not well-converted. It's better to save the printable version of the web page for import.
   UPDATE1: nested superscripts conversion has been fixed in the latest release.
   UPDATE2: saving web pages with built-in web2disk can convert html anchors to relative links.
3. dotEPUB is easy to use as a browser extension, plugin or bookmark. They would preprocess the web page into a readable form using Readablility and then transform the intermediate into an epub file for downloading. Unfortunately, the readable form may unexpectedly eliminate the desirable images and tables. Besides, you had better download kindlegen by Amazon to convert the epub into mobi for Kindle to avoid the limitations of Calibre above.
4. The perfect way is to copy the web page into a word processor like Google docs which is able to send the manually edited and formatted content as an RTF attachment to your Kindle email account for conversion while the scientific notations are retained but extra effort is required.

Overall, there seems no perfect and efficient method for converting web pages so far. The key is whether it could make the content readable without losing necessary information while getting the conversion done accurately. Maybe a future color Kindle with a full-featured browser and modern note-taking extensions could simply blow away the obstacles.

Convert absolute HTML anchors to relative ones for the Kindle

If you've ever tried to save and convert an entry from Wikipedia to the format MOBI for the Kindle, you would find the links of the table of content still point to internet addresses so that the web browser would be invoked to open the specified page on click. This is circuitous! Fortunately, a command-line tool "web2disk" bundled with Calibre does the conversion.

prompt:~$> web2disk -r 0 [-d DIR] http://example.url

You can optionally specify the argument DIR for the base directory to save the downloaded materials. Anyway, the saved web page should have the absolute anchors converted. Subsequently, invoke Calibre to convert it to the desired output format as usual. That's all.

Kindle 3 Replacement

Due to unexpected pressure, the screen of my kindle 3 got broken. Well, to be specific, I just heard something behind the screen crack and then the screen never displays appropriately.

Alternative book light for Amazon Kindle

meets!?

While Kindle 3 has a significant price cut, the Kindle Lighted Leather Cover appears to cost an arm and a leg. There are many book lights designed for the Kindle family with the idea of attaching the device. However, a more decent light source and flexibility could be achieved if the attachment is not forced. Take the above tripod flashlight for example, it accepts three, six or nine batteries of size AA depending the needed continuous run time which ranges from 50 to 200 hours. Thanks to the tripod, a desirable position is no longer hard to find for the light source to lodge and the Kindle can keep lightweight gracefully. Nonetheless, the most amazing news is its dirty cheapness compared to the official lighted leather cover. What's more, there is no excuse leaving Kindle absent in outdoor activities like camping.

Unfavorable issues for Kindle 3 to Browse Chinese Web Pages and Documents

After using Kindle 3 for several weeks, I found some annoying issues when browsing Chinese web pages and converting Chinese documents.

First, some Chinese characters are displayed as boxes under particular circumstances. I mean, the same Chinese character is shown correctly somewhere while as a box somewhere else.

Amazon Kindles my Life (3rd generation)

Taiwan time at 12:27 on August 27, 2010, while my cell phone was ringing due to a short message informing the credit card was charged NT. 7300 dollars or so, and I knew Amazon was ready to kick off the shipment.

Then less than 12 hours, my Kindle 3 was submitted to the hands of DHL, indicating the launch of the official shipment.

Date	Time	Location	Event Details
August 30, 2010	10:59:00 AM	TAIPEI Ta	Delivered
August 30, 2010	09:04:00 AM	Taipei TW	Out for delivery
August 30, 2010	07:49:00 AM	Taipei TW	Arrival Scan
August 30, 2010	12:51:00 AM	Taipei TW	Departure Scan
August 30, 2010	12:47:00 AM	Taipei TW	Arrival Scan
August 29, 2010	11:37:00 PM	Taipei TW	Completed customs clearance process
August 29, 2010	11:12:00 PM	Taipei TW	Arrival Scan
August 29, 2010	05:52:00 PM	Hong Kong HK	Departure Scan
August 29, 2010	05:28:00 PM	Hong Kong HK	Arrival Scan
August 29, 2010	04:45:00 PM	Hong Kong HK	Completed customs clearance process
August 29, 2010	04:41:00 PM	Hong Kong HK	Arrival Scan
August 28, 2010	05:57:00 AM	Cincinnati Hub OH US	Departure Scan
August 28, 2010	05:42:00 AM	Cincinnati Hub OH US	Arrival Scan
August 27, 2010	08:42:00 PM	San Francisco Gateway	Departure Scan
August 27, 2010	07:59:00 PM	San Francisco Gateway	Arrival Scan
August 27, 2010	04:56:00 PM	Sparks NV US	Departure Scan
August 27, 2010	04:56:00 PM	Sparks NV US	Arrival Scan
August 27, 2010	11:20:00 AM	Sparks NV US	Shipment received by carrier

Tossing and turning not too long, on August 30, sooner after running into a Kindle 2 in the morning during the mass rapid transportation, the Kindle 3 had been delivered to my house. I had no chance of witnessing and even signing the alleged affidavit for importing goods. Moreover, as for the tariff, as long as the original order was placed with the Import Fees Deposit prepaid, there’s no need to worry about it. If the tariff is not actually charged, the fees will be returned. No one needs to compensate even if the duty charges more than expected. That’s the courteous treatment a consumer buying a Kindle 3 deserves.

Response to Amazon's Jeff Bezos about Kindle 3

USA TODAY Personal Technology columnist Edward C. Baig visited Bezos in Seattle to discuss Kindle, tablets and e-books in general. Excerpts, edited for space and clarity:

Q: Why not add multimedia to e-books?

A: You want to enter the author's world, the great novel or engaging non-fiction narrative. In the case of a physical book, you're not noticing the stitching and the glue and the paper and the ink. That all disappears. We're always trying to make Kindle get out of the way. 

If it's a book about music history, having music people can play at certain points in the book can be useful. Maybe biology textbooks can benefit from certain animations. You're not going to make Hemingway better by adding animations.

But readers aren't always enjoying literary classics, right? For wizards and witches, it's a shame that Kindle 3 fails to display the Daily Prophet all the time.

Q: Why didn't you add a touch-screen?

A: It'd be very easy to add a touch-screen; in fact, Sony has done it. We don't want to compromise the reading experience. Today's capacitive touch-screen technology is an extra layer on top of the display surface, and it increases glare.

There are a variety of touchscreen technologies, not just capacitive. At least, infrared and dispersive signal make no sacrifices of the optical clarity. Moreover, why not learn something from Samsung Super AMOLED which integrates the layer that detects touch into the screen rather than overlays it on top.

Lots of fun of reading comes from touching the book and pages. However, Amazon chooses to kill the delight instead of kindling it.

Q: Why doesn't Amazon support the popular "e-pub" standard used by your competitors and many libraries?

A: We are innovating so rapidly that having our own standard allows us to incorporate new things at a very rapid rate. For example: Whispersync (which uses wireless connections to sync your place in a book across devices) and changing font sizes.

Other standards over time may incorporate some of these things. But we're moving very quickly to improve the state of the art. It's very helpful not to have to wait for some third-party standard to catch up.

Q: Are you concerned about growing competition?

A: All we can see is our sales are accelerating. When you think about things like tablet computers (and) the iPad, at Amazon we're excited because it's likely to be a driver of mobile commerce. We have this retail business, so we like it when people are connected to the Internet as often as possible.

There are going to be a lot of tablet computers — the Android ones are coming. Kindle works on BlackBerry, Android, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, PC and Mac. Our approach is: Buy once, read everywhere. We want you to be able to read your Kindle book on any device, then we want separately to make the very best uncompromised e-reader.

Sounds like fun to read a Kindle book on any device. However, it only holds on the premise that the reader can always obtain the book in Amazon's proprietary format. Needless to say, the dream hardly comes true in our lifetime unless iPad or Nook dies tomorrow. In the long run, Amazon's approach just spoils the freedom and comfort of reading as many books as possible on Kindle.

Q: How about a Kindle with a color screen?

A: If you could add color without compromising readability, great. But color is not ready for prime time.

An LCD (color) display (such as the one on the iPad) has many compromises: All of a sudden, you can't read outside; people like to read outside. All of a sudden, you have to worry about your battery. For many people, extended reading sessions on an LCD display cause eyestrain. There's a whole bunch of reasons you want a display like Kindle.

Most iPad users hardly worry about the battery life. Besides, people are smart enough to find a cafe to sit comfortably reading. Anyway, just let us know that the next generation display technologies such as Pixel Qi's 3Qi, Mirasol, QR-LPD and LiquavistaColor are being evaluated in Amazon's lab, OK?