When you open the box for your brand-new Kindle Fire, you’ll find the hottest 7-inch tablet to hit the market, a power adapter, and a “Quick Start Guide” that tells you how to turn it on. But to really take advantage of all the content and features the device has to offer, you’ll need a little more. Kindle Fire: Out of the Box gets you up and running beyond the first “Slide to unlock” screen to unlock all of your media from the cloud in the palm of your hand.
Whether your media library lives in Amazon Cloud Drive or on your device, the Fire gives you immediate access to all of it, wherever you are, as long as you know where to find it and how to consume it. With Kindle Fire: Out of the Box, you’ll jump right in to reading full-color magazines, newspapers, newly enhanced ebooks, and your own personal documents. Quickly download music from your Amazon Cloud Drive or new music from the Amazon MP3 store to listen offline, and get instant, unlimited access to streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows. And go beyond your own media to experience integrated email, games, Android apps from the Amazon App Store, and ultra-fast web browsing with the revolutionary, cloud-accelerated Silk browser.

This intuitive, easy-to-follow ebook opens the world of possibilities made possible by the Kindle Fire, right out of the box.

Next up: NOOK Tablet: Out of the Box.

After I tweeted the previous paragraph yesterday, in a couple parts, Erica Naone asked me to share a few more thoughts on the subject for her article on Amazon’s Cloud Reader, I thought the rest of my comments, phrased as responses to her questions, were worth posting in full.

Amazon has worked hard to create apps specific to pretty much every platform available, which is one of the biggest reasons I read Kindle books almost exclusively. But it becomes a huge burden, and a losing game, to put this much development effort into every new operating system, especially ones whose user base and outlook is questionable. I bought a BlackBerry PlayBook the week it came out, largely on Amazon’s promise of a Kindle app on the way. Now, months later, it’s still not here. I have a feeling Amazon put their resources behind the HTML5 solution, which would keep them from having to develop for webOS, the PlayBook, and any other new OS that comes along in the future. Interestingly, though Amazon’s Cloud Reader doesn’t officially support the PlayBook browser, it does work for me, which makes the tablet so much more useful to me now.

Rather than look at Cloud Reader as a direct response to Apple’s enforcement of its ban on in-app purchases, I’m actually surprised it took Amazon this long to release the browser version of their Kindle reading experience (which probably has more to do with HTML5 than anything else). When I worked so hard to hack my PlayBook into a way that would let me read Kindle titles, I actually wondered why the browser solution wasn’t available yet. I’d already hacked my Nook to run Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), primarily so that I could read my Kindle books on it, but it shouldn’t be that hard, and the average consumer won’t be able to do it. Now, they don’t have to. Amazon’s done the work for them and made their entire Kindle library available, on any device (soon, once they work out the kinks, I imagine), and everywhere.

In the near term, this move does appear, on the surface, to be an end run around the in-app purchase exclusion in the iBookstore, but that’s a red herring that seems appropriate only because, at the moment, the only supported browsers are iPad’s Safari and browsers for the desktop (Chrome and Safari). I don’t think people want to read in the browser from a desktop, but that’s hardly the point, because there already are desktop apps for that. I do think that having a browser-based solution will allow most users to read “in a browser” without even thinking about it. When you put a shortcut to the Cloud Reader on your PlayBook desktop, it just behaves and feels very much like an app.

This move puts Apple and other formats far behind them. The first ebooks I bought were on my iPad from the iBookstore, but I had an Android phone at the time, so I couldn’t sync. Since then, I’ve been sold on the Kindle platform, because I can read it on any device, anywhere, and sync automatically. I read on my iPad before bed, on my PlayBook or Nook when I’m traveling, and on my iPhone when I’m standing in line at the grocery store, and I’m always on the page where I last put the book down. Amazon’s Kindle platform is indeed becoming the de facto standard for consumer books. I do wish they would support EPUB, as it’s a much more open and flexible format (and that’s what I read my own company’s books on, because we can update them much easier and always be current with the technology, which we can’t do through Amazon), but for the general consumer, I think Amazon has won the war, while Apple has focused on battles that weren’t really worth fighting in the big picture.

Because it’s not as fun to see everyone’s answers in the comments, I’m going to conduct the contest on Twitter, though I’ll use this post for the questions, because it gives me a little more room to breathe. Here’s how it will work: for each question I ask (in a tweet) the first person to follow me on Twitter (so I can DM you) and reply (on Twitter, not on this post) with the correct answer gets a free copy of the book. Make sense?

Stay tuned. The first question will be revealed presently …

We’ll start off with a simple one:

Rank unit sales by population density (city, suburb, rural), from highest to lowest:

Congrats to Daniel for getting this one right first. I’ll DM you for your address.

Second question:

Identify the geographical region that produced the most book sales (at 25%):

Congrats to Elaine, and I hope your gift recipient likes the book. And thanks to everyone who has entered, many of whom got this one right. I’m going to need to make the next one harder…

I hope this one is a little harder to answer.

Of the 99 cities tracked, the top 5 account for 35% of total sales. Name them, in any order.

I’m going to give this one to gendalia, who identified three of the five, as well as answering both other questions correctly.

Okay, last one:

Explain, to my satisfaction, the three peaks in this sales graph for the past 52 weeks (click to see the dates more clearly):

I’m so gratified to learn that people remembered Jeff Potter’s appearance on Science Friday with Ira Flatow, which indeed did give a bump for the book. My two winners came close enough to capturing the peaks (as close as they could have come), without knowing what I know, so here are the winning responses:

@arballusc: Q: release date; NPR interview, Christmas

@jonovate Augu 8 week = Release & NPR, Sep 8 week = Slashdot, December 12-ish = Geekmom contest?

The part of the story these responses miss is that Jeff’s appearance on Science Friday occurred during the first week of the book’s release, which did give a good initial bump for the book. It gave such a big bump, in fact, that we ran out of stock and couldn’t fulfill all of our orders. So, that explains the drop immediately following the first bump: we didn’t print enough copies to satisfy the demand. The second bump merely represents the time we reprinted the book and it became available again, at which point all of the back orders were fulfilled. The third big bump was aided by Slashdot and Geekmom, but it really shows the Christmas bump: Cooking for Geeks made a great stocking stuffer.

I’m actually not sure if I’m going to keep the content up on this site forever, because I like the finished ebook so much, but I also want people to use it, even if they don’t want to pay for it. I’m going to put off that decision indefinitely, but in the meantime, the same content lives here on my blog. If you want a more professional-looking version, something to print and bind yourself, or just a way to show me how much you’ve enjoyed it, you can drop five bucks in the tip jar and download away.

Of course, like any label, “geek” is an oversimplification, a useful convention for titling books, but one which still carries a hint of the pejorative for people who have not yet appropriated its positive meaning. Even with a broader definition, you still might not want to call yourself a “geek.” and that’s okay. Though each of my selections in this bundle includes the word “geek” in the title, I hope the subtitles make it clear that the content is interesting for any thinking person, even if you don’t consider yourself a “geek.” Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food. 128 Places Where Science & Technology Come Alive. The Software Developer’s Career Handbook. If you’re interested in the areas where cooking, travel, history, and your own career meet with science and technology, you’ll find plenty to keep you fascinated in this bundle.

I selected these books because each of them have made me “geek out” and change my thinking about a topic I’d previously never found particularly interesting. I’m not much of a cook and usually need to follow a recipe by the book if I have any hope of preparing a dinner anyone else will eat, but Cooking for Geeks taught me more about the science behind what happens to my food when it cooks than I’d ever considered before. I had the unfortunate curse of dry history teachers, who taught by reading textbooks out loud (or having students do so), so it never really came alive for me in ways I know it does with others (like my dad, for instance). But Geek Atlas made me want to travel and learn everything there is to know about what happened in the destinations where breakthroughs in science, mathematics, or technology occurred (or are happening now). And I’m no software developer by any means, but don’t let the subtitle of Being Geek fool you any more than the title: there’s plenty in this book to help anyone navigate their career, either in technology or in another field.

So, whether you consider yourself a geek or not, I’m sure you’ll find each of these books interesting. You might even find yourself “geeking out” over something completely new, which is a wonderful new feeling to discover.

• “New Frontier for Geeks: The Kitchen” on Science Friday with Ira Flatow, August 6, 2010

My wife is a running coach. Because I get her services for free, I thought I’d give something back by creating something that might make her job a little easier for her work with paying clients. One of the tools she uses is as useful to her as it is cumbersome to handle. It’s a collection of running data that begins with men’s world record times at the following distances:

• 2 miles
• 5 kilometers
• 5 miles
• 10 kilometers
• 15 kilometers
• 10 miles
• 20 kilometers
• Half marathon (13.1 miles)
• 25 kilometers
• 30 kilometers
• Marathon (26.2 miles)

With this data forming one column in a spreadsheet (along with a corresponding mile pace and 400m split for each pace), she has 49 more columns of data for other times for each distance, beginning with the world record and each column decreasing in speed by 2%. Here’s a snapshot of the raw data she takes with her to the track, which continues across several pages:

She uses this data to train runners for a variety of different time goals for a variety of distances. Based on a given distance and time (such as a race or time trial a runner has already completed), she looks down the appropriate column for an appropriate time goal and corresponding pace for a different distance. For example, if a runner has completed a 10k in 30:04, a good 10-mile goal is 50:02, which translates into a (very fast) 5:00 mile pace and 1:15 400m splits (a quarter mile, or one lap around the track).

Of course, stretched across a number of pages, you can see how difficult this can be to use (especially in the rain!). Wouldn’t it be great if she could have an app on her Android phone that would take the given input and give her the appropriate pacing data for a specified distance? And while we’re at it, why not include the 1200m, 1000m, 800m, and 200m splits as well?

I’ve been fooling around with Google’s Android App Inventor and thought I could handle this on my own, but when it became obvious that I was in over my head, I consulted Paul Barry, the author of O’Reilly Media’s forthcoming (soon!) Head First Python, to see if he had any tips (he’d been working on other Android examples for the book at the time).

As it turns out, he was looking for a sufficiently complicated project for the last chapter of the book, so this request provided a particularly juicy challenge for him. In the end, he got a great chapter to end the book, and I got an app for my wife and her coaching friends to use, so everybody wins (especially the Python learners who buy the book). Here’s a quick demo of the new Android app in action:

It’s just about ready for primetime, and I’m also planning to release it as a web app soon, for those who are unfortunate enough to not have an Android phone. Stay tuned to the new Split Hitter website for the official release, and follow me on Twitter for the announcement and updates.

I’m not a programmer, by any means, so my first step was to try out Google’s App Inventor, which makes it pretty easy for amateurs like me to get started creating our own apps. Following one of the tutorials, my first app ended up looking something like this (you can download the app to try it out yourself, but just make sure you’ve gone to Menu -> Settings -> Applications and checked “Unknown sources (Allow installation of non-Market applications)”):

That was fun, and a pretty cool proof of concept, but it wasn’t very original (see full tutorial for the app here). So, I wondered what I could do with my limited skill set that actually was original. After starting to fool around with Tiny WebDB and Google App Engine, what I really needed was some good content, so I dug deep into some preexisting stuff I could mine.

I’ve been a longtime fan of the Devil’s Publishing Dictionary, posted in two parts at the Paperback Writer blog (see Part I and Part II), so I asked the author if she’d give me permission to use her content to develop my app, and she graciously agreed. I’ve since mocked up a prototype. At the moment, the results look something like this:

Anyway, I’m hoping readers with Android phones will be interested in helping me beta test the app, so I’m offering it as a free download. What do you think? Does it work on your phone? Any feedback on the interface or other aspects you’d like to see improved? I’d love to hear whatever thoughts you might have, and I’d frankly just be pleased to know you’ve taken it for a test drive.

UPDATE (9/23/2010): More than one beta tester has pointed out that the text box next to “Choose a term” doesn’t actually accept user input, which I admit makes things confusing. The way I created the app, the button triggers the text to fill the box, which then calls the correct definition (the button doesn’t itself perform the action). But that should happen behind the scenes, so the text box really should be just a label. I’ve made this change and set the text box to invisible (download the update here), which I hope is less confusing:

Thanks to all who have tested the app so far, and keep the great feedback coming!

When I read Infinite Jest, the 1,100-page book required two bookmarks to read: one for the body text and one for the 100+ pages of end notes, which actually advanced the plot and were not considered supplemental to the text. I would have loved to have a more convenient way to access these endnotes where they occurred in the main narrative, popping them open to read them and collapsing back to the main text when finished. And the end notes were in a tiny font, which I would have loved to increase to read more easily. And the book weighed more than an iPad, so reduced weight would also be a feature, not to mention an easier form factor (have you ever tried to hold open a 1,100-page book for reading over an extended period of time)?

With regard to the endnotes, I could see many different ways of handling the content in ways much in the spirit of DFW’s intent. Here’s one approach that The Atlantic took for an online version “Host,” a print story by DFW that included heavy footnotes (linked as pop-ups on the page).

As a comparison, here’s what the story looked like in print:

What will it look like on the iPad? I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet that I’d read the whole book again to find out.

UPDATE 4/15: Here’s what the sample looks like in iBooks, but selecting the endnote takes me outside the scope of the preview, so I’m not sure how it’s actually integrated into the experience:

Does it just shoot you to a page in the back? If so, is it easy to get back to the page you were on before clicking the link? I don’t see any “Back” button in the iBooks interface.

UPDATE 5/19: I’m reading Outliers now, and I like how it handles endnotes:

Note: I’ve coauthored a book on Best Android Apps. I’m running this post simultaneously on my support blog for the book and at O’Reilly’s Answers site.

Last night, I needed my Garmin to get somewhere important, but when I reached for it in the glove box, I remembered I’d loaned it out to the other car in our family and hadn’t gotten it back yet. What to do?

No Garmin in the glove box, but I did have my G1 on me, and the directions on Google Maps had saved me on numerous occasions, so I fired it up and plugged in my destination:

That Navigate option was new to me. I’d remembered hearing about Google Navigation coming to phones running versions of Android below 2.0 (my G1 is running Android 1.6, but note that Navigation is still not available for my Motorola Cliq, which is still back on Android 1.5), but I hadn’t had the chance to look into it yet. So, here was my chance. I pressed Navigate …

Turns out I wasn’t quite ready to roll yet, because Navigation required an additional (free) text-to-speech download to work. The download process was a little buggy, which forced me to install it a couple times, but I after I closed Maps and started back up again it seemed to work. I pressed Navigate again …

Here’s what my new turn-by-turn directions and route map now looked with Google Navigation turned on:

Ready to get driving, I switched over to the turn-by-turn map screen, but I could have used Street View if I’d wanted (it’s neat to look at but not as usable for actually driving, especially since I actually had a real-time street view right in front of me):

I also could have turned on a selection of layers to show gas stations, banks, traffic, and parking along my route:

All of these bells and whistles are great, interesting, and good fun, but for my phone to actually serve as a viable replacement for my Gamin GPS, it would need to speak to me, telling me when to turn. Well, it does, and in my experience, it worked just as well as my Garmin, and all for free. If you’re looking to buy a GPS unit for your car but already have a phone running Android 1.6 or higher, at least give Google Navigation a try first. You might just save yourself a few hundred dollars.

But what does Google Navigation Lady sound like? Take a listen: