The Morning Coffee – 21 November 2012

Here are a few stories to read this morning.

  • Amazon’s the devil — and I love it (Salon.com)
  • Book Etiquette: eReader edition (Tim Hortons Fangirl)
  • Half of UK Internet users can’t say for sure if they have accessed illegal content (TNW)
  • Sourcebooks Launches the ‘Put Me in a Story’ App (GalleyCat)
  • Why you should never, ever steal an image off the internet (copydesk.org)
  • Working Backwards (All Things Distributed)

That last link was written by Amazon's CTO and explains how they develop the Kindle.

About Nate Hoffelder (11480 Articles)
Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader: "I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."

10 Comments on The Morning Coffee – 21 November 2012

  1. “Why you should never, ever steal an image off the internet”
    That is just too funny. Beware of the intern! ha ha ha

  2. Do you realize that the Working backwards article is 6 years old?

    I wonder if this beautifully methodology is how they designed Kindle readers where people can’t change margins to something really small(*), where one font size is too big and next too small, where you can’t set justification(**) or load your own font, where you can’t load more than a few hundred books, where you can’t have folders ?

    Thinking about the user. Pcha!!!

    (*) tell me, can you imagine an use-case where anybody would choose those ridiculously wide margins?
    (**) full justification, combined with wide margins and non-existent hyphenation results in very un-even spaces between words.

    • In 2007 it was a spectacularly wonderful ereader. And you can turn off the full justification. And you can set better margins when you make the ebook.

      I did know that that article is old. I think it was still worth reading.

      • The fact is that even six years later most of Amazon’s competitors and detractors *still* don’t get it.

        • The competitors could get it, but the reality is Amazon is planning 3 years ahead. They launched the Kindle in 2007 and bought Mobipocket in 2005. That means they must have put the original design team together in 2004.

          This also means that Amazon actually has a 5 year lead on developing their platform, not the 2 years which some might assume based on the launch dates. No wonder no one can catch up.

      • > And you can turn off the full justification.
        Please tell me how can I switch off full justification in Kindle PaperWhite, firmware 5.3.0
        For standard book purchased at Kindle Store.

        I know it was possible to switch off full justification and even set saner margins in older generation Kindle (now called Kindle Keyboard, I think) and I did this for a few of my friends. It was necessary to create some text file in system directory with specific contents, then restart the reader. Very user friendly.

        With 5.3.0 firmware they very helpfully patched all the holes used for installing all the good stuff, such as custom screensavers, user fonts …

        Thinking about the user …
        Sigh …

        • It’s not fair to specify the model only after I say that the option exists.

          • I agree. It is not fair.
            I would *still* like to know how to do that. You see, I just picked one up here in Staples in Roanoke, VA.
            A blogger that I am not going name here, gave me a tip a few days ago 😉
            You see, I am leaving states before December 15th, so I had no chance to get one from Amazon.

            Besides, there never was *user friendly* way of setting justification, was there?
            Just a hole that developers overlooked and that got patched in later models.

          • The original Kindle had a simple keyboard shortcut and I’m pretty sure it was still there in the K3.

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