40Tech

I don’t think I’ve ever downloaded a free Kindle book from Amazon, but I’ve seen some of my Facebook friends mention that they regularly read free Kindle books. I recently received a tip through my contact form, suggesting a site that lists over 33,000 free Kindle books.

After a long love affair with Bioware games, I’ve found myself smitten with Skryim, by Bethesda. As with the other two games in the Elder Scrolls series that I’ve played, Morrowind and Oblivion, Skyrim features a huge, do-anything world for you to explore. Unlike those two earlier games, Skryim has me completely addicted. If you’re not playing it, you’re missing out on one of the best games in years. Skyrim’s world is tremendously immersive. The number of books that you’ll find all over Skryim adds to that immersion. The drawback with the number of books that you can find is that reading them takes some time. I have limited time, so I wanted a way to read the books when I wasn’t in front of the computer. Thanks to an enterprising gamer, you can do just that.

Traditional newspapers are struggling. We’ve all heard this, time and again, and know that they are having the same problem that the music and other “olde world” industries have: namely, that the people in charge don’t truly understand the medium of the internet, and are too wrapped up in either complaining about it, trying to figure out how to control it, and suing people to recoup their perceived losses to take advantage of it. Some newspapers have embraced the web, openly or behind paywalls, and some of these websites and mobile apps are actually good, presenting their content well, and occasionally adding a bell or whistle here and there.

What if you have simpler tastes, though? What if, all you want to do is read your favourite newspapers, in their full, original, cover-to-cover glory, from the comfort of your iOS or Android device? How about from your Blackberry? If this is a dream of yours, then Newspaper Direct’s PressReader is your new best friend. Hell, you and your new buddy might even save a tree or 10.

Borrowing eBooks is a great way to get your free on in Kindle-land, but if you want to actually own the books — and not be subject to time limits — then check out eReaderIQ. Sure, you probably won’t find the latest best sellers, but you will find a lot more than just public domain. The price drop notifications don’t hurt, either.

Calibre is, hands down, the best eBook manager out there. It can help you organize your entire library across devices, convert books from one format to another as needed or desired, and even use the built in server for over-the-air access to your books, from anywhere. In theory, anyway. In practise, there are many things that will get in the way of the “anywhere” part. Software and router firewalls, for example, may prove too complicated to overcome easily, leaving over-the-air book transfer dreams confined within the walls of home networks.

An easy way to mitigate these problems is to set up your Calibre library to be accessible from multiple computers — and the best way to do that is with Dropbox.

One of the great features of the Amazon Kindle is the ability for users to loan books to each other. Eligible Kindle books can be loaned once for a 14 day period. The borrower doesn’t even need to own a Kindle, as long as he or she has a device that supports the Kindle app. This includes PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, and Android devices. If you don’t have enough friends with Kindle eBooks to make borrowing worthwhile, you’re in luck, as the Kindle Lending Club is an online service where you can lend and borrow Kindle eBooks to and from complete strangers.

The Kindle and other eReaders are great for reading books, but you don’t have to stop there. With a bit of initial work, you can turn your Kindle or Nook into a competent reader of your RSS feeds from Google Reader. G:RSS-Web is a service that allows you to access your Google Reader feeds in your eReader’s web browser, in a format designed for your device.

One of the great features of Amazon’s Kindle eReader is Whispersync, which will sync your reading progress across multiple devices.  For example, you can stop reading in the Kindle for iPad app, and pick up where you left off in the Kindle app on your Android device.  A problem arises, though, when you want to reread a book that either you or someone else has already read.  Whispersync will remember the end of the book as the “furthest read location,” defeating your ability to pick up where you left off.  It takes a one-time workaround, but you can reset the Kindle’s “furthest read location.”