Kurt's Thoughts

Y’know, recently I’ve been reading a lot about LG Electronic’s comments regarding Windows Phone 7.

• LG:  “Windows Phone 7 hasn’t performed as well as expected”
  http://windowsphonesecrets.com/2011/01/14/lg-windows-phone-7-hasnt-performed-as-well-as-expected/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The quote that’s getting a lot of airplay is this one in particular:

“From an industry perspective we had a high expectation, but from a consumer point of view the visibility is less than we expected”, James Choi, marketing strategy and planning team director of LG Electronics global said.

When I first read this, something about it bothered me because I just got back from CES 2011 in Las Vegas and in perusing their booth  – which incidentally, was one of the top 5 largest in the Central Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center (it took a couple minutes to walk across it at a steady pace) – and despite allocating about 25% of their booth space to their mobile phone offerings, they had almost no floor space dedicated for their lone US entry into the Windows Phone 7 space as far as I could see.

REALLY?
To put this into perspective, the following photo is the only place that the LG Quantum was even on-display, much less available to the public to touch, try, use:

Youi’ll notice that the device on display is BEHIND GLASS.  It’s also not even on.  There’s no literature available and had no one near it from LG representing the device to talk to anyone about what it does.  In fact, the only indicator that it RAN Windows Phone 7 as an operating system was the Windows logo on the glass and the TV ad that ran in the white screen below the logo.  Naturally, there was no one interested in the phone at all since they didn’t know what it was.

To put this imbalance at CES into perspective, imagine your entire house being covered with Android phone marketing & representatives from LG talking about Android.  The walls, the coffee table, the shelves, the cabinets, the windows, etc. would be covered with demos & booth staffers holding LG Vortex devices & other Android phones. Now imagine all of your family members talking to people that come through your house about the Vortex or another Android offering LG has.

Now at the same time, imagine the bathroom sink console in the guest bathroom having a Windows Phone 7 on it, but behind glass with no one around it.  That’s about the extent of LG’s marketing for the device, yet they go and say, “…the visibility is less than we expected.”

Understand why I’m a little tweaked?

I HEART LG QUANTUM
Now, for the record:  I LOVE THE LG QUANTUM.  I have one, and it’s the first Windows Phone 7 device that I’ve owned and I don’t regret it one bit at all. 

For anyone reading this, here’s why:

1. KEYBOARD
   It’s the only Windows Phone 7 device on AT&T with a keyboard.  Done.
2. BATTERY LIFE
   The battery life is clocked at being at/near the best of all Windows Phone 7 devices offered in any market – US or International – and on any network – AT&T or T-Mobile.
3. SOLID CONSTRUCTION
   Despite providing a slide-out keyboard, the unit feels good in your hand with a good weight and interestingly enough, a cold, brushed metal plate protecting the battery.  If the capacitive screen had Gorilla Glass like it’s bigger brother the LG Optimus 7, I’d be in hog heaven because it’d be near-indestructible.
4. DESIGN TOUCHES
   USB connection on side, brushed metal plate on the back, large landscape keys on the keyboard, physical Windows/Start Page button.
5. DLNA SUPPORT
   This is the unique ability to transmit stereo audio wirelessly over 802.11g to my Xbox 360 and play the music over my Bose home theatre stereo system.  My new phone is a “Zune” and is now fully connected to my living room’s home audio.
6. EXCLUSIVE SOFTWARE
   There’s one application that comes exclusively with the LG Quantum that I want to highlight and that’s “Voice-to-Text”.  It’s a simple tool that allows you to speak into your phone and translate your voice to text for immediate use in a SMS Text Message, Email, Memo-to-yourself, Twitter Tweet, or Facebook Status.  Yeah.  Awesome.  And only on the Quantum.

So LG?  Amongst all the SmartTV stuff, vacuums, washing machines, prototype closet organizers, all of which had a lot more people & floor space dedicated to them… next time, y’think you might be able to spare at least ONE table for your Windows Phone 7 device with a staffer that knows something about it?

Please?  Just a thought.

So I’ve talked about the inequity that exists between physical books and Amazon Kindle’s eBooks.

YEAH, SO WHY ARE YOU BITCHING ABOUT WHAT’S ESSENTIALLY A FREE FEATURE?
Because I WANT book publishers to be successful.  I don’t want to see what happened to the music industry happen to the eBook industry.  Very simply, the plodding & unfriendly manner in which book publishers seem to be adopting digital technology is symbolic of other media industry leaders that just… don’t… get it.

If you don’t make it easy & desirable to buy digital versions of your content and make it flexible enough to use in place of the prior/legacy format, individuals will STEAL YOUR CONTENT.

The book publishing industry is on the precipice of a booming industry – possibly even a revitalization of reading.  I myself rediscovered the joy of reading through my Kindle.  And I will readily spend a LOT of money to acquire eBooks legally and properly.  (I’m up to 22 books & 2 periodical subscriptions)

But I won’t respect anyone that tells me that I have to pay the same amount of cash for an eBook as a physical paperback, yet I can’t loan that book to my friends (one at a time) without restriction. 

Meanwhile it is TRIVIAL to disable the copy protections used to protect Amazon Kindle books from being freely copied.  Add to the fact that each book is generally only about 1MB in size, and you can see how incredibly easy it would be for piracy to occur.

Sure sounds to me like the same situation the music industry was in & how they got decimated by MP3 piracy because they refused to bring parity between digital media & CDs.

ISSUES WITH KINDLE EBOOK LENDING
Now that being said, here’s some things to know about the new Amazon Kindle eBook lending feature:

• Loans are limited to 14-days
  People that accept loaned Kindle books are limited to 14-day loans after which, the book is disabled on the recipients device and is accessible again on the loaner’s device.  This might be a bit harsh a time limit considering real books have no time limit on them.  Also – what if the book is War & Peace?  14-days just doesn’t seem to cut it, does it?
• Book unreadable until returned
  The book gets disabled on your Kindle or eReader while the it is on loan.  This is completely fair.  The book is being loaned out to someone else.  You shouldn’t be able to read/use it while someone else is in possession of the book right?  I eBook per person.
• Only SOME books are loanable
  The book to be loaned as to be listed at Amazon as “Lending enabled”.  This is completely up to the publisher to enable – and most DO NOT, so the actual books this “lending feature” works on is negligible.  For most Kindle owners, they will find that their books are NOT loanable, (none of my books appear to be loanable) which of course ultimately makes this feature completely useless.  But that’s not the biggest problem in my mind.  The next bit is the galactically stupid deal breaker…
• One single ‘loan’ allowed per book purchase
  Let me repeat that:  You can loan a book out once and only once in your lifetime.  Once the loaned book is returned to you, you will find that you can’t loan it out any more to anyone, period.  Ever.  As if the book were now super glued to you and couldn’t be lent out to anyone ever again.

CONCLUSION
Put simply:  Get to parity soon, book industry.  Really soon.  Because if you don’t, prepare to be looking at losing 90% of your revenues today because the book pirates are going to eat your lunch. 

The music industry took their sweet ol’ time with getting to a customer-friendly means of distributing their product electronically and eventually, they had to resort to unrestricted MP3 because their no one would use their old ultra-restrictive DRM-based systems.  I’m not saying DRM-based systems can’t work – to the contrary, I think they can and should.  But you can’t limit usage unreasonably to the extent that people can’t see the parallels between physical media & e-Media. 

And no value-add that you put on the e-Media versions of your product will compel people to choose it over print.  They’ll simply illegally pirate the e-Media version and purchase the physical version.  If they purchase the physical version at all that is.

eBooks are inevitable.  And the good news is that it’s ultraeasy to get people to buy eBooks if they’re available for purchase in a consumer-friendly medium.  The question will be, “How much money are book publishers going to make off of them?”

————-

References:

• Amazon Kindle users can now lend e-books to friends
  http://www.betanews.com/article/Amazon-Kindle-users-can-now-lend-ebooks-to-friends/1293733373
• Lending Kindle Books
  http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_rel_topic?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200549320&tag=533633855-20
• Is there a number of times that you can loan a book out?
  http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdPage=1&cdThread=Tx27HGXOV2GPMZC
• Amazon Kindle Now Lets You Loan Your E-Books (Sorta)
  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/amazon_kindle_now_lets_you_loan_your_e-books_sorta.php
• BARNES & NOBLE BULLETIN BOARD:  It’s official — You can only loan a book out once.
  http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60148

Yup.  Amazon now has a feature for Kindle book buyers that allows some Kindle books to be temporarily shared with other people.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I strip the DRM off any Kindle eBook I buy not for the purposes of file sharing or piracy but to enable me to privately read the eBook on my Windows Mobile 6.5 device – a Verizon TouchPro 2 which lacks a Kindle client.  My TouchPro 2 is a phenomenal eBook reading device and I’ve plowed through a lot of Kindle content on it.

THE EBOOK PIRACY DILEMMA
In theory, I could hand the DRM-free file over to whomever I wanted to “share” the book, but I don’t – that’s piracy & theft.  But the files are .MOBI files (a popular eBook format acquired by Amazon) that are usually anywhere from 500k to 3Mb in size.  Note that this means, most eBooks aren’t even the length of a typical .MP3.

My point is:

While I think this “eBook lending” feature is a good step in the right direction, it doesn’t look like this is going to be very useful any time in the near future.

And when I say it’s a step in the right direction, I don’t mean by Amazon:  I mean by Book Publishers like Harper Collins.   However if they don’t get serious about moving more aggressively in this direction they’re going to find themselves losing 90% of their revenues… just like certain other media publishers.

TRUE or FALSE?:  MUSIC CDS : MP3s :: PAPER BOOKS : eBOOKS
Remember your SAT relational questions?  If so, the above statement should make the issue abundantly clear.  Music publishers, slow – nay GLACIAL – to accept electronic distribution of music as a means of selling music, desperately clinging to old, user unfriendly methods of controlling distribution.

To be clear:  I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT (DRM).

I’m not one of these anti-IP protection psychos that rage on DRM 24/7.  I think it’s a perfectly good way to control the distribution of one’s intellectual property whether is music or eBooks.  The problem I have is that legacy physical mediums such as CDs or Paperback books are usable in a variety of contexts that aren’t available in their digital forms and vice versa… yet charges the exact same amount of money for the digital version:  That’s very sketchy.

WHY ARE EBOOKS AS OR MORE EXPENSIVE THAN TRADITIONAL BOOKS?
The claim of course is that there is added value for digital versions that paper books lack such as:

• scalable fonts w/ word wrapping on pages
• multi-device installation
• searchable content
• text-to-voice on publisher-permitted eBooks
• last-read-page sync with Amazon
• tweeting/Facebooking highlighted paragraphs
• digital just-in-time delivery services
• downloadable book samples i.e. try before you buy
• etc.

And on top of all of this, there are the claims that the publishing process of eBooks has costs associated with them above and beyond the engineered costs of the book’s original formatting.  It’s these ‘additional costs’ that negate the cost savings associated with no longer needing physical distribution of paper books.

IT’S JUST NOT VALUE PARITY
Sorry.  I just don’t buy it.  The electronic processing of existing digital master content to create an eBook does NOT cost the same thing as physical book cost-of-goods, creation, distribution, marketing, and warehousing.  There is just no way – I reject that notion completely.  It’s been my understanding that the actual production & distribution of physical product is always the most expensive aspect of producing a book.  Going digital should simply reduce the costs of books – but the publishers control the advertised cost of the book as it’s priced on Amazon.

Additionally, the capabilities are purportedly the value you trade for book sharing, aftermarket reselling, etc. but I just don’t think the value is on par with physical books.  When you buy an eBook from Amazon, there’s a couple of serious ‘gotchas’ you need to know:

1. IT COSTS THE SAME AS PAPER BOOKS… OR MORE.
   It’s weird but electronic versions of books cost the same OR MORE than their paper counterparts.  Despite the fact that no physical material is involved, the eBook can sometimes cost more than buying a physical book.
2. NO LOANING TO FRIENDS
   You really can’t loan the book to friends.  Contrary to this announcement, this newly announced functionality is so  doesn’t really exist for all intents and purposes.  (I’ll go over why in Part 2)
3. NO TRADING BOOKS
   Once you’re done with a book… what good is it?  Reference?  Really?  Like you’re gonna refer back to that copy of Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol over and over?  No.  You want to be able to trade that book or give it away so that it gets a new home and that the investment you made continues to see growth… in the happiness of others that get to read the book on your dime.  But without the ability to gift the book to someone else once you’ve read it?  No dice.
4. NO RESELLING
   The used book market is LOADED with books that people read and want to sell for pennies on the dollar.  But because the process of stocking and distributing used books is so laborious, it’s difficult to accomplish – even by Powell’s and other large resellers/overstock sellers.  The digital market is perfect for reselling value.  And heck – there could even get a ‘vig’ (tax) on each resale that would be redistributed to both the publisher and Amazon.  Maybe if there’d be a 20% vig on the resale of a $5 book (originally $10 book) that would amount to $1 extra for the publisher/Amazon.  And that resale could maybe limit the capabilities of the used book – no lending.  No bookmarking.  I dunno.  Something to exhibit ‘wear and tear’ on the digital property.

I’m no genius when it comes to hardware.  And I should probably state up front that I don’t work in the Windows product group nor do I have any insight as to their roadmap. 

That being said, I’m getting a little tired of folks with few technical credentials declaring “Windows on ARM” a non-starter… that it’s a strike against Intel & that the Wintel monopoly is crumbling… that it’s too late and that Microsoft is irrelevant in the mobile or tablet space.

I gotta laugh at the pundits that casually declare that “Microsoft doesn’t get it”.  I think these armchair experts really do believe in their minds that:

• Microsoft doesn’t understand that the finger/touch interface is important
• Microsoft doesn’t realize that the online app store model is important
• Microsoft doesn’t see the value of consumer friendly hardware
• Microsoft doesn’t comprehend how relevant the user interface experience is
• Microsoft doesn’t get how important weight, thinness, and portability are

How about we all just consider that this is all blatantly obvious?  No – it’s more than obvious:  IT’S OLD.  It’s something that’s been known by Microsoft and naturally the “industry experts” for a good while now.  This is not new and should we all just take it for granted that it’s being worked on?  You’d think these folks that live in “media time” (Media time = “Gotta get my copy in by my editor’s deadline”) would just assume that instead of droning on about “why is it taking so long” & “Microsoft doesn’t get it”.

KINECT VS WIIMOTE & “GOING WHERE THE PUCK IS HEADED”
Consider another apparently ‘obvious’ market space for Microsoft to engage:  The Motion Gaming industry – i.e. the space previously uniquely occupied by the Wii & the Wii Controller.  What did Microsoft do to compete in this space?  Like Gordie Howe used to say, “I don’t skate to where the puck is now; I skate to where the puck is going to be next.”  Microsoft didn’t just copy the Wiimote like Sony did with the Playstation 3:  It deliberated, made careful decisions, & foresaw the next generation of motion gaming by releasing the Kinect, which has become the fastest selling consumer electronics product in history.

Now it’s commonly held that the Wii is on a severe downward trend.  Xbox 360 for the first time ever outsold the Wii every month starting back in August 2010, I believe.  While maintaining its leadership as the premier platform for advanced console gaming, it usurped the mantle of motion gaming from the previously unbeatable Wii with a single, well-calculated move.

WANNA HINT ABOUT TABLET INNOVATION?  IT’S IN YOUR XBOX.
What does all of this this have to do with Tablet innovation?  Simple.  We know that hardware gets commoditized – it gets cheaper as long as there’s competition.  The future lies in commoditized devices where larger production results in cheaper costs.

Take the Xbox:  The Xbox Classic tried to leverage commoditized parts like off the shelf Intel P3 processors, off the shelf Nvidia GPUs, off the shelf hard drives, off the shelf PC components, etc.  The original tact was to use highly commoditized parts to leverage economies of scale and a reduction of cost through volumes.  This turned out to not be so good because there was a ceiling at which volume discounting could reduce the cost of the box’s manufacture.

Everything changed dramatically with the Xbox 360 where the processor was a custom Microsoft design, the GPU was a custom Microsoft design, and all the rights to the processors were licensed from their respective licenses – in this case, IBM and ATI. 

This last point is incredibly important:  What this did was provide Microsoft with the ability to gradually shrink the size of the CPU & GPU.  This has the benefit of:

1. Increasing the quantity of chips created per plate of silicon, cutting the price by nearly 50% over time. 
2. Decreasing the power consumption of each chip, reducing the heat dissipation of the processors and simultaneously making the console more power efficient & minimizing the cost of cooling components.
3. Ultimately, converging both processors into a single piece of silicon (i.e. 1 chip with CPU/GPU), reducing system support requirements and overall materials costs associated with the most expensive component of the Xbox by another 50%.

This process was essentially borrowed from Sony and the PS2, which is so successful, it’s sold to this day.  Imagine applying the same fundamental “license/cost reduce/converge” concept to Windows tablet hardware.  Imagine:

1. Licensing the rights to a CPU & GPU design
2. Producing a custom designed CPU/GPU that’s optimized for power, portability
3. Integrating additional tablet components into the optimized chip design

DON’T FORGET THAT ARM HAS INHERENT OPTIMIZATIONS
Note that this is all putting aside the inherent benefits of the ARM processor platform itself – being generally better optimized for mobile scenarios.

• POWER EFFICIENCY – Low power utilization means longer battery life for mobiles
• HEAT DISSIPATION – ARM processors don’t generally need cooling systems
• CUSTOMIZATION – Designs can be licensed
• CHOICE – Numerous ARM vendors means competitive innovation

HOW IS THIS COMPELLING TO MANUFACTURER’S & CONSUMERS?
Easy.  Imagine ARM CPUs… with Windows Embedded in the firmware.  Heck – imagine Windows shipping in the same strike as the CPU.  “Windows Processors” designed by Microsoft, produced by OEMs in the same way that the Microsoft-designed Tri-Core IBM PowerPC processor is for the Xbox 360.  Windows Processors that get firmware based updates that simply override components on chip.  Imagine pricing that’s extremely low since piracy issues are controlled, the license is hardwire-tied to the processor, and the profit from the CPU co-funds the Windows license.  Going a step further, imagine the cost of the OS being completely engineered into the cost of the CPU itself.

Imagine Office ported to Windows on ARM – a specific version for mobile class machines.  Because it’s a new port it can be scaled down for the processing limitations of ARM while being optimized for things like touch, always-connected devices, etc.  Because it’s a different SKU it can be priced differently & attractively without diluting the existing market for Office on desktops/laptops/netbooks.

Imagine the .NET framework being implemented in hardware.  Abstraction is suddenly not a bottleneck and managed code can be run on devices that are specifically designed for managed code – running at breakneck speeds.

Think about the cost advantages.  The development advantages.  The multi-platform code usage advantages.  The market advantages for application developers that have access to ARM & x86/x64 customers.

All in all – the Windows on ARM announcement had much greater implications in my mind that I think much of the media have inferred. 

I’ve always wondered why it is that when I bid on certain items, I see other bidders with bidding against me with names like x***x or 1***1 or j***3.  I mean, I used to bid against individuals. 

Now I was getting the feeling that I was bidding against robots or automated auction snipers or something… what’s up with that?

IT’S A POLICY THING
Well, after doing some digging the answer apparently lies in a policy change eBay made a ways back around displaying eBay identities during auctions.  In an effort to protect legitimate bidders from other shady individuals who might violate their privacy as a way of influencing the auction process, they started anonymizing people’s eBay IDs during auctions in the auction history after the bid goes above a certain level.

At the top of the bid history page for an auction, it reads:

“To help keep the eBay community safe, enhance bidder privacy, and protect our members from fraudulent emails, eBay has changed how User IDs display on the bid history page. Only you and the seller of the item can view your User ID, all other members will see anonymous user IDs, such as x***y."

In other words, these individuals with x***y have real IDs but they’re just masked.  Not really a big deal.

INTERESTING?  OR UGLY?
The more I read on this topic on the Internet however, the deeper the rabbit hole seemed to go. 

It seems that professional eBay bidders used to study their competition and look at their past histories for what they bought – particularly for determining just how far another person would be willing to pay and whether they really needed the item.  Kinda like a poker game.

Other participants might retaliate against bidders when the get angry over legitimate auction competition resulting griefing, online threats, etc.  Some people sounded like they were actually hunted down by competitors on auctions because they outbid them.

Some sellers specifically list their auction as “private” however the auction is still discoverable during eBay searches.  When people bid on “private” auctions no bidder’s identity is ever revealed, even after the auction is over.

Apparently all this caused a huge uproar a year or so ago – so much so that some people started writing petitions, organizing eBay strikes, etc.

Me?  I just wanted to buy a stupid Tron DVD and just stumbled on all this drama.  Sheesh.

UPDATE 12/16/11:
I was looking to take my Kindle eBooks on the road, so I also wrote a post on how I took a given chapter of an eBook and printed it for reading on the road.  It’s useful for when I’m reading in environments where the reading material could get damaged – like at the pool, on the beach, or in lousy weather conditions. https://kurtsthoughts.com/2011/01/31/how-i-printed-a-chapter-from-a-kindle-ebook/

———————

ORIGINAL POST:
I love my Kindle.  It’s so easy to read and it rarely requires charging.  It provides me with my newspaper every morning and it’s the first eBook reader in maybe 10 years that I read an entire book on.  (And I have!  Lightweight, easy to read in direct sun, ridiculous battery life… suck on that iPad.)

But the statement above implies that I once read an entire book on ANOTHER eBook reader… which in fact I did.  In 2001, I read the entirety of several eBooks on my Windows Mobile device using the Microsoft Reader .LIT format.  The first book I read was Michael Crichton’s Timeline, which I still have to this day in .LIT format… along with a laundry list of Star Trek books.

WHAT ABOUT TODAY?
Today, the Windows Mobile platform isn’t very useful for using any media that is DRM protected.  There just aren’t readers written for content that has DRM on it.  So the question becomes, “How do I disable the DRM on a given Kindle eBook so that I can read my eBooks on my Windows Mobile device?”  I shouldn’t have to worry about what device I read the eBook on as long as I PAY for the eBook and don’t distribute it to others.

It turns out this is relatively trivial to do for Amazon eBooks for the Kindle.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?
First you want to start by downloading a set of tools:

1. Kindle for PC/Windows 1.01 Beta
   Using the early versions of Kindle for PC makes this possible.  Newer versions are more difficult to deal with apparently – hence the reason I use the 1.01 Beta which is freely downloadable from FileHippo.
   http://www.filehippo.com/download_kindle_for_pc/
   download/2e24d3f4e48ab7ad69d1e21f46a54700
2. ActiveState’s ActivePython 32-BIT Runtime
   This needs to be 32-bit by the way even if you have 64-bit Windows 7.  The 32-bit runtime can be installed without a problem – any attempt to try the decryption tools on x64 will result in errors that say, “Could not read from memory…”
   http://downloads.activestate.com/ActivePython/releases/2.6.6.15/ActivePython-2.6.6.15-win32-x86.msi
3. Apprentice Alf’s decryption tools
   These tools are stored in an archive called “tools_v2.2a” and contain Python scripts that strip the DRM off of .MOBI formatted eBooks that Amazon distributes.  Unpack the contents to a directory called “\tools_v2.2a” – including the directory hierarchy.  I have to admit that despite knowing very little about Python, the power of these scripts that are run in an interpreter is very impressive.  There is no binary code involved in the DRM stripping process outside of the Python runtime engine which should have been previously downloaded.
   http://www.mediafire.com/?8mzrezba1bvmuqd
4. Mobipocket for Windows Mobile 6.x
   This is a free .MOBI file reader, the format that Amazon uses to publish their eBooks in… except that Amazon’s books are for the most part DRM protected to prevent people from moving content to other platform, which is essentially what we’re doing here but for our own personal use only.
   http://www.mobipocket.com/en/DownloadSoft/application.asp?device=WindowsMobile

Install all 3 tools and then install the Mobipocket software on your Windows Mobile phone.  (Again, as a reminder, the decryption tools should simply be unzipped to “\tools_v2.2a” while MAINTAINING THE FOLDER HIERARCHY IN THE ARCHIVE so that you get the right files files grouped into the right folders)

You’ll want to do a little bit of preparation with the apps configuration before you proceed:

• KINDLE FOR PC
  Once you’ve installed Kindle for PC, sign in and download the books you have access to.  Test that you can read the books within the desktop reader:  If you can’t read the books on the PC, you won’t be able to decrypt them.
• ACTIVEPYTHON 32-BIT
  Be sure, again, to run the 32-bit version regardless of whether or not you’re running a x64 version of Windows.  64-bit Python won’t run the scripts properly.
• APPRENTICE ALF’S DECRYPTION TOOLS
  The directory you’re looking for is called:
  \tools_v2.2a\tools\Kindle_Mobi_Tools\Kindle_4_PC_Unswindle

DECRYPTING YOUR FIRST EBOOK
The “Unswindle” script is called “unswindle_v7.pyw”.  It is a little slow but it will automatically open the Kindle for PC application, then wait for you to open an eBook.  Once you do this, close the Kindle for PC application.  The script will continue.

In the background, the Unswindle script has captured the key necessary to decrypt the entire eBook.  Now that it has that in memory, it can process the eBook, decrypt it’s contents, and write a DRM-free version to your hard drive.  The script will open a dialog box that will ask for the name of the file to assign to your newly DRM-free .MOBI eBook.  Type it in and it’ll save the eBook to disk without any DRM.

That’s it.  The file can now be copied to your Windows Mobile device for reading on Mobipocket.  The Mobipocket software will not necessarily recognize the new .MOBI file on your device so in order to READ the new eBook, simply go to File Manager and click on the .MOBI file.  It will register with Mobipocket and you’ll be reading it in seconds.

WHEATON’S LAW APPLIES
I originally wasn’t going to say this but upon further thought, it warrants reminding people that just because you have the ability to now use eBook content on the platforms of your choice, doesn’t mean you should ever deprive hardworking authors of their livelihoods.  This process is obviously for personal use only & Wheaton’s Law most definitely applies.

So this is the continuing saga of the things I’ve discovered that are interesting about the Kindle that the average person probably has no idea about because they don’t really talk a about these things openly. 

Y’kind of have to dig through the docs to see some of this stuff so instead, I’m writing about the stuff that I personally would have never been able to find out about the device had I not gone out and bought one.   Some of it is good… some of it is bad.  But all of it is hopefully helpful to someone that is curious a bout the device’s capabilities and the policies Amazon has on it.

1. Microphone
   There’s a microphone on the Kindle.  It’s on there… but it’s totally unused.  I assume some future firmware update will enable it to work with things and make it a recording device orBut as of right now, despite no one knowing it’s there, it’s on there but totally useless.  I wonder what they’re waiting for:  It’s not like a recorder would  be all that difficult to write.
2. Visible as a USB-connected hard drive
   While this might not seem like a surprising thing, considering the difficulty with which many Media Player devices handle USB I/O – iPod & Zune for example – I was surprised to find that the Kindle is just USB storage to my Windows 7 computer.  It makes copying media files, documents and PDF files for reading/playback on the device simple and easy.And since it has Audible playback capability, I can really see using this as my “all-literature-all-the-time” device.  Periodicals, eBooks & audiobooks – all on one device.  And speaking of periodicals…
3. Autodelivered periodicals & magazine
   It was never my intention to subscribe to the likes of the Los Angeles Times.  I actually don’t like the paper much and think their writers are liberal-biased hacks that mostly originate from USC’s School of Journalism mainly because of USC’s nepotistic network of elbow-rubbing employers & prospective graduates.[ks – The aforementioned paragraph was written in jest and designed to see if a certain individual was reading this post.  Although, it’s true that I don’t really like the LA Times Kindle edition – see below.]

   But dammit, if it’s not easy to LOVE the fact that the newspaper is automatically delivered to my device in the morning for me to read with my coffee.  There’s no paper to go get on the porch.  There’s no worry about missing sections or the paper getting wet when it rains.  There’s no paper piling up waiting to be taken downstairs for recycling.  It’s just there.  And you can bookmark it, have it read to you via the Kindle’s text-to-speech thingy, etc.  Good stuff.

   Now there are TWO big complaints however.  One is that some lame subscriptions like the LA Times don’t include ANY photos of pictures whatsoever however they charge you more than the actual paper subscription price for the Kindle delivery.  And the second is that cost.  The price of a Kindle subscription is TWICE that of paper delivery if you use your typical coupons and discounts.  No such discounts exist for the Kindle version which sucks. 

4. Blogs Delivered to your Kindle…
   …but only the ones they support…
   …for a fee.
   Yeah… this was a classic moment where I transitioned from “OMG! How cool is that?!” to  “What. The. F-ck.”The Kindle is capable of receiving blog/website content and it looks like they simply scrape the RSS.  Alright, that’s cool.  I’m thinking that I can read my OPML list of RSS feeds on my Kindle with its highly readable, easy-on-the-eyes screen and have it auto-delivered, just like my Windows Phone does using Ilium Software’s RSS reader, Newsbreak.

   Oh, but not so fast.  You can only read blogs they publish off of Amazon.com.  I sh-t you not.  They only let you subscribe to well-known blogs listed at: http://www.amazon.com/Blogs-Kindle-Sports-Industry-Internet-Technology/b?node=401358011

   Yeah, okay.   So that blows.  But still, it’s a cool feature.  I mean, I read TechCrunch.  And Ars Technica.  And crap like that that are in fact published on the Amazon list above.  So why not take advantage of the feature, right?

   Again, a showstopper:  Each blog COSTS MONEY monthly to get on your Kindle.  TechCrunch for instance costs $1.99/mo to get on your Kindle.  Slashdot is $1.99/mo.  Ars Technica is .99/mo. etc.   All to receive content that is otherwise FREELY AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET.  And it doesn’t matter if you get this stuff over WiFi or over Whispernet/3G:  You’re gonna get charged.  Uh… that’s just DUMB.  No thanks, Amazon.

5. Device-to-device synchronization to share booknotes/highlights
   This is again an interesting feature.  Basically you can synchronize booknotes and highlights between two different Kindles over Whispernet/WiFi by synching with the cloud and then replicating those notes down to other Kindles. So let’s say you want to collaborate on a book report.  Or you want to share your thoughts with another reader before they read the book themselves on their Kindle.  Or maybe you all belong to a book club.  This is a great way to share thoughts about a book amongst multiple people.
   https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/manage/sync?ie=UTF8&ref_=kinw_myk_sl_01

I just bought a Kindle.  And for the most part, I like the experience.  I also like geeking out on new crap like this so I suppose it would make sense that I’d be excited about a a new gadget seeing that I haven’t had any new gadgets in a long time. 

THE READER THAT’S VIEWABLE IN DAYLIGHT… BLAH BLAH BLAH.
Amazon likes to evangelize the fact that the screen is clearly viewable in daylight.  And they’re absolutely right:  The screen is virtually the same experience as reading paper.  As a matter of fact, when I first opened the box, I’ll admit I’d never seen a 3rd gen Kindle and thought the pictures on the screen were an actual “peel away sticker”:  It’s THAT legible.

But I’ve found that the Kindle has a lot of interesting surprises that aren’t advertised – some bad, but most good.  They may be obvious to some but I wasn’t aware of them before having bought the Kindle. 

So here’s the 1st part of my list of “Things that have surprised me about the 3rd gen Kindle”:

1. Document conversion & delivery via eMail 
   Again, I didn’t know about this but each Kindle is given it’s own private email address.  (With restrictions on who mail is accepted from)  Mailing documents to this email address will automatically get the document onto your Kindle in a Kindle-readable format.  If it requires conversion so that it’s in a format that the Kindle can understand, it will do so so that it is viewable on your device. (.DOC, .XLS, .PPT all need to be converted, PDFs do not)
2. $CHARGES$ for document delivery of Whispernet/3G
   This was a BIG surprise:  If your device receives a document over Whispernet (3G Cellular connection) Amazon will charge you’re a service fee at 15 cents per MB for the document.  If the device receives the document over 802.11b WiFi however, there is no charge.

   By default, every device will receive documents over Whispernet for charges up to $2.50 per document.  You can see how this would add up if you’re not careful and let the document get transferred over 3G.  There is no feature that restricts document delivery to just using free WiFi-based delivery, thus eliminating the possibility of getting charged. 

   PRO TIP:  If you go into the following link and set the maximum monetary charge allowable for documents delivered to your Kindle to $0.00, you can effectively prevent documents from ever being sent over Whispernet, while still allowing your Kindle to receive documents over WiFi for free.
   http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200505520&#fees

3. Automatic dictionary definitions
   Perhaps I never paid attention but if you move your cursor in front of any given word, the word’s definition appears at the bottom of the screen care of the Oxford Dictionary, or any other dictionary you ‘plug in’ to your Kindle.  (It comes with two dictionaries by default.)

   Color me surprised, but this could make the Kindle the greatest learning tool ever for kids K-12.  I used to carry around a 100,000 word electronic dictionary when I was younger just to help me learn vocabulary when I didn’t know the definition of a word.  Now… it’s automatic.  Fantastic.

4. Games & applications 
   I haven’t seen a LOT of these but the Kindle actually supports independent apps that Amazon sells on their web site and delivers via Whispernet just like a purchased eBook.  Here’s a list of some of the one’s I’ve downloaded to my Kindle.
   • Scrabble http://www.amazon.com/SCRABBLE/dp/B003P2QCE8/ref=kinw_tu_ts_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
   • Every Word (FREE)
     http://www.amazon.com/Every-Word/dp/B003P37FW0/ref=kinw_tu_ts_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
   • Shuffled Row (FREE)
     http://www.amazon.com/Shuffled-Row/dp/B003P38AAG/ref=pd_sim_kinc_1
5. Post book quotes & links to pages via Facebook/Twitter
   If you set up your Facebook account or your Twitter account, Kindle will automatically post your bookmarks or specifically highlighted content to Facebook/Twitter.  If it’s a book, it will even point users to the part in the book ONLINE that the quote is taken from or the page you’ve bookmarked.

   For people who read the same book at the same time, that’s pretty f’ing neat.  The level of reading collaboration that this provides is cool because while it might not be useful for you if you’re not reading a book with someone else (or know others that are interested in the book you’re reading)…

   …this is REALLY important for kids doing school work.  Imagine reading a book that a class of 40 other kids are reading and being able to tweet to your school mates specific paragraphs for others to note.  I remember breezing through books and missing huge chunks of information that other’s with better comprehension might have gotten.