Amazon Kindle 3 In Singapore

1) Updates

2) Preamble

3) How to buy a Kindle in Singapore

4) How to buy Kindle e-books in Singapore

5) Kindle pictures and shipment info

6) Calibre eBook management

7) PDF documents

8) Magazines

9) Usage in strong sunlight

10) Proof of residency email

11) Kindle 3 with Special Offers (NEW!)

12) Past newspaper mentions



Updated 13 November 2011: This post will no longer be updated. I'll continue the discussion at the new Kindle Touch entry.




Updated 28 September 2011: New Kindles! Starting US$79! This will really shake things up. I just preordered the Touch!

Updated 14 May 2011: I've just received the new Kindle with Special Offers. It's only USD$114; pictures below. I've also got a second Kate Spade Kindle case to go along with it.





Updated 24 February 2011: New Kindle advertisement, "The Book Lives On."







Updated 25 January 2011: My Kindle lighted cover has stopped working. Click here to read the refund story.

Updated 19 January 2011: Digital Life has a cover story on e-readers and the Kindle. There's just one thing. Hotspot Shield VPN is mentioned but I don't recommend it for the time being. (click = big)

Updated 17 September  2010: I'm getting reports from folks who are having problems with the Hotspot Shield VPN; it's not working for some reason. Do consider an alternate VPN. Amended buying procedure.




Updated 6 September: I received my Kindle 3! Updated price and took some new pictures with comments.

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The book is one of the most ingenious inventions of all time. However, the book wasn't something that was created in one day. It has evolved continually starting with papyrus in Egypt then to Chinese scrolls then to movable type with the Gutenberg press. And it's now digitalised in the form of portable reading devices that allow you to read e-books. The best selling reading device now is the Amazon Kindle.



Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos just announced that sales of Kindle e-books have overtaken hardcover sales, and will overtake sales of paperbacks in 12 months. I just find that really astonishing. It's one of those things that you've heard about: things happen so fast in Internet time, and we're right in the middle of this revolution.

The next iteration of the Kindle is the new Third Generation device which is now USD139. (I bought the Kindle 2 for USD359 in May last year. What a price drop!) I've just pre-ordered the WiFi-only Kindle 3 after it's first shipment was sold out even before the product is released at the end of this month. I am now queuing in the second wave and will update this post when that happens.



Here are some reasons I've chosen the Kindle 3 instead of other reading devices:

Best online shopping company in the world: Even before the arrival of the Kindle, I've always bought books from Amazon. They are always reliable, have a great selection and website with lots of customer reviews.



Excellent support: Amazon's customer service support is legendary in the industry. I've called them a few times myself and have consistently received the highest level of service. It offers 30-day money back and price drop guarantee and I believe e-books are returnable too.



Best reading device: The Kindle is meant to 'disappear', a design philosophy that is very rarely adopted by product designers and suggests a sublime understanding of how it should be made and positioned. The user interface is intuitive and easy to use. The latest generation has eInk that improves contrast by 50%; very close to real paper, so they say. It's also probably the most user-friendly e-Ink reader.



Largest selection of books: The Kindle store doesn't claim to have every book there is, but my impression is that it does have the largest selection. I recently bought The HP Phenomenon and it could only be found in the Kindle store.



Best Laugh: One of the main reasons why Amazon is my top choice is due to CEO Jeff Bezos. (Just like how Steve Jobs is god to the fanbois lol) Jeff has one of the heartiest laughs I've ever heard. Most reports also suggest that's one of the most down to earth billionaires ever. I am happy to do business with folks like him.



In the meantime, if you're interested to see what the fuss is about, Bezos has a wonderful interview with Charlie Rose and it's really worth a look to see what makes Amazon tick and where the book market is going in the near future. The full 40-minute interview is here.







How to buy a Kindle in Singapore

Here are the steps I use. Do note that Amazon doesn't officially support Kindles in Singapore. There are instances where buyers were found to be not from 'authorised countries' and their accounts were disabled. Your mileage may vary. Caveat Emptor. Other than that, things have worked really well for many local Kindle users.

• Create an Amazon account if you don't already have one.


• Go to the Kindle page and buy yourself a Kindle. It will be automatically linked to your Amazon account. I prefer the WiFi-only version rather than the 3G+WiFi version. The added 3G isn't really necessary because worldwide surfing isn't guaranteed. Also, additional costs will be incurred for the transfer of documents if 3G (AT&T roaming) is used when there is no WiFi.


• Ship it to a third party mail forwarder. I use Borderlinx who will then ship it to Singapore. Comgateway seems fine too though I've not tried them myself.


• When you get your Kindle, you need to register it if it hasn't already been registered. After connecting to wifi at home>settings, register it by filling in your Amazon username and password at home>settings>register.

Some preparatory steps to take before buying books from the Amazon US store

• Firstly, do NOT buy books using your Kindle's Whispernet/3G/WiFi. Don't buy from Kindle apps too.


• You need to buy books using your Internet browser on your computer with a VPN installed. Use a VPN such as AlwaysVPN to make yourself situated in the US, in spirit. You may turn it off later when you're done purchasing. I can share my AlwaysVPN account with local Kindle users. Do not use Hotspot Shield; it's known not to work sometimes.


• Exit your Internet browser.


• Switch on your VPN. Open your browser.


• Go to Manage your Kindle at the Kindle product page.


• Go to 'your country'. Change your country to US if it's showing another country. Use any US address.


• Buy a gift card with your local credit card, say USD50. Email the gift card to your email address. When you re/ceive it in the mail, apply the gift amount to your Amazon account. 


• Go to your account, 'manage payment options', and erase your credit card info if you have any credit cards associated with Amazon.com . (Do this also whenever you buy something at Amazon using your local credit card.)

How to buy e-books from the Amazon US store

• Again, do NOT buy e-books (even if the books are free) using the Kindle's Whispernet/3G/WiFi.


• Ensure that you have sufficient funds in your account. If not, buy more gift cards and apply them to your account.


• Exit your Internet browser


• Switch on your VPN, open your Internet browser and go Amazon. Find your book and click 'buy now with 1-click', 'deliver to your Kindle'. If you choose
  to wirelessly send it to your Kindle, you should receive the book in
  less than a minute. You can also choose to download the file and
  transfer it to your Kindle using USB. If asked for the billing address,
  use any US address. Not that this address will not be used because funds
  will originate from your gift card balance.


• Switch off the VPN

6 September update: I've received my Wi-Fi Kindle 3! The cost is USD139 (Kindle 3 WiFi) + USD60 (Kindle Lighted Leather Cover) + SGD 24 (Borderlinx shipping) = around SGD 300. The screen is just totally unbelievable; I can't see the difference between a printed page and the new E-Ink Pearl screen. More pictures below with additional comments. (click = big)

Free Amazon shipping (5-9 days). The shipment arrived at Borderlinx in 4 days, way sooner than Amazon's conservative figure.

  The fee charged by Borderlinx was SGD23.42. There were no additional GST, import fees etc. DHL's tracking system is GOOD!

This is quite interesting. First time users of E-Ink will try to peel the instructions sticker from the screen. Problem is: it's not a sticker; it's the screen!

The Kindle Lighted Burnt Orange Leather Cover is a thing of beauty; very well constructed and the light is just fantastic! The price (USD59) is also...uh... quite fantastic!

 The browser is fast. Obviously it's meant for casual browsing but it does work quite well.

A comparison  between Kindle 2 and 3. There is no contest: the black of the K3 is really much blacker.

11 September 2010 update

Having used the new Kindle 3 for a few days, I must say that it's wonderful device. Because my first Kindle was a Kindle 2 with no wireless (it's a CDMA device for the US market), the addition of WiFi is making a huge difference.



Firstly, I only need to use the VPN to buy books and the book get transferred wirelessly to the device. Also, if you looking for the 'classics' and wish to use sites like Gutenberg, you don't even need to go to the Amazon store. Just use the browser and directly download the .mobi file into the Kindle and immediately read it on your device.



A reader commented on the use of Calibre which allows you to manage your ebooks and to convert them to the Kindle format. The increase in functionality when one pairs up the Kindle with Calibre is astonishing. Calibre (a bit like the old Palm Avantgo) allows you to push rss feeds into the Kindle magazine format and this can be done wirelessly. It works really well!



23 September 2010 update

A reader sent me two PDF documents for me to try out. My impression of the Kindle reading was that yes, it's technically possible to read PDFs, but in reality, due to the size of the screen, it's not very feasible. After my investigation today, I've come to a rather surprising conclusion.



The screen of the Kindle 3 is so much better than the Kindle 2 that even the tiny words show up very well. Reading PDFs is very possible now! All pictures, click=big. The words are a little fuzzy as I wasn't using a tripod when I took these pictures and the lighting wasn't so good. While standard 'text pages' like these look good, magazine pdfs may not because the pages are bigger. YMMV.

 

At the bottom of this page, there are some 'missing words' which will appear when we magnify the screen or rotate the screen to landscape mode. 

 

 

Here we see that the dictionary works on an unconverted PDF document. 

 

Here is annotation in action. Highlight the words, then add your own comment.

28 September 2010update

I've managed to buy a magazine sold at the Kindle store just to test it out. The New Yorker costs USD3 a month so it's quite all right. I believe we cannot use gift cards to buy magazines so a workaround is to use yet another (!) credit card called Entropay. This is a 'virtual prepaid' credit card and the commission fee to 'load money' into it is 5%.



If you're not keen on paying for magazines, an alternative is to use Calibre and download magazines/news websites. So far I'm able to download Reader's Digest for free. Anything that is available for free on the Internet can technically be downloaded as an ebook using Calibre. It's very powerful.



3 October 2010 update

Here are more pictures of the Kindle in strong sunlight (click = big). There used to be a 'page-turn lag' issue but it has largely been resolved with the 3.0.2 software update.

 The content here are downloaded using Calibre which is pretty versatile in using RSS feeds and turning the content into 'magazine format'.

 Scrabble is a new Kindle game that is a joy to play.

This is Nikon PDF directly loaded onto the Kindle without modification.

1 December 2010 update

Some readers have asked for advice on how to proceed if they bought ebooks without using a VPN and are asked by Amazon to provide proof of residency. You can ignore the email. Going forward, you need to use a VPN and then go to www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle to change your country to US. Please use a VPN when buying anything, free or otherwise, at the Kindle Store. If you don't have one, email me, I can share mine with you.



14 May 2001 update:

Amazon has released a cheaper version of the Kindle 3 with Special Offers. It now comes with advertisements. The good thing is that the ads are completely unobtrusive. The screensavers (example below) are also ads now, and they are interesting because they keep changing! It's the Kindle I'd recommend now.

On the main index screen, some space is used for the advertisments. This replaces the space used by 1 book listing.

If you want to see the advertisement, you'll be brought to another page.



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Previous related entries: Kindle 2 in Singapore (historical information on how to get the Kindle 2 here)



Unitasking and the Kindle (the concept that's opposite to multitasking, and mentions of Kindle in the local press)



Digital Life article:

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The Longest Day

Every year on this day, Charles M. Schulz's comic strip is dedicated to the veterans of D-Day when 160,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel and invaded Nazi-occupied France. Seeing Snoopy going off to war gives me the shivers. There were those who needed to fight for freedom.. Even if it took the longest day to do it.

Saving Private Ryan Normany invasion Youtube video



Source: Here, here, here

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Scarlet Sky Shots

We were taking a post-dinner stroll at Marina Barrage last Saturday when we saw a portion of the sky light up. The sky literally brightened with a reddish hue and I guess we must have been pretty transfixed by it because we decided to go on mission to find out what was causing the sky to light up every few minutes or so.

We followed the reddish patch in the sky and finally stopped at Labrador Park, where we saw this:







We've never seen a flame this big and bright! It was really quite a pretty sight (:

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2010

Hello!

It's been a while since anything was posted here so the purpose of this entry is to revive this relatively dormant blog.

Happy New Year to all who read this blog! =) May 2010 be a year filled with exciting experiences and wonderful memories for everyone.

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Calling All Dawns / Baba Yetu x 12!

Baba Yetu is the name of the song that is played when one first starts the popular computer game Civilization IV. The music was so good that I wrote to its composer Christopher Tin 4 years ago and actually got a detailed reply. He was the first 'famous' musician who had replied to my queries so I promised myself that I would buy all his future albums from then on.



Well last month, Christopher released his first album called Calling All Dawns which was four years in the making. I preordered it; the autographed limited edition 'CD jacket' even has a serial number!

Anyway, if we say that Baba Yetu has been an epic achievement, then Dawns is Baba Yetu x 12! (There are 12 tracks.) From Chris' website:

Calling All Dawns is a song-cycle in three movements: day, night and dawn. Each movement corresponds to a different phase of life--life, death, and rebirth. In short, it's 5 songs about life, 3 songs about death, and 4 songs about rebirth. There are songs of joy, mystery, and hardship, reflecting the complexity of our mortal selves. There are songs of the deepest, darkest sorrow to accompany us through death. And finally, there are songs of triumph and exultation that bring us roaring back to life, beginning the cycle anew.

The songs are sung in 12 languages. It starts off with Baba Yetu in Swahili, continued by the Japanese 窓から見える (Mado Kara Mieru, Through The Window I See) adapted from a haiku. I'll bet my shirt that this second track is the most majestic piece of haiku ever set to music. It's just incredible.



This is followed by a Chinese piece based on Chapter 40 of the Tao Te Ching. The rest of the album consists of music in Portuguese, French, Latin, Irish, Polish, Hebrew, Farsi, Sanskrit and Maori. My feeling is that the producers of Civilization V already have their soundtrack all ready to go, and they need only to package the game with this CD. It goes so well together with the United Nations wonder in the game.



If you haven't heard Baba Yetu before, here's a video of what you'll see in the game. I really like this version with the percussion. Each time thousands of Civilization IV players start the game, there's nothing much to do except to look at the starting menu and enjoy the moving clouds and awesome music.

Here's a new official video that's released a few days ago. The animation from the game is so good!

There are lots of samples at the website. The most exciting parts are often right at the end so you'll need to buy the CD or MP3 tracks. I hope Chris doesn't need to take four years to come up with another album. But I've a feeling it'll take that long to produce such a powerful and classy album. More epic please! LOL

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More Baba Yetu goodness

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ScanGauge II Automative Computer On A Yaris / Fuel Economy

Normally in any car, you'll be able to see how the car is doing by looking at the dashboard. For example, you can see the speed of the car, the engine RPM, the distance travelled and the approximate amount of fuel left. Now, what happens if you wish to know more about how well the car is performing? Is there any way to obtain additional information such as amount and cost of fuel used, horsepower of the engine and other information? Now why would anyone need this information anyway?! In case you're such a person, (I am), the ScanGuage II car computer is the gadget for you! I bought one from Amazon on 29 August and was delivered by vPost on 16 September. It cost US$140 and vPOST charges were around S$24. This is really a fun gadget to have.

Now, you need to make sure that your car supports the OBD2 protocol. According to the documentation, most cars have it, but please confirm this first. There's a port that can be seen around your steering wheel. On a Toyota Yaris, it looks like this. (Click photos to expand.)

This is the cable that's included in the box. It connects the OBD2 port with the ScanGauge.

After you're done with the connection, switch on the car engine and the computer will start to display information. It's updated around once every second. You can see 4 measurements on the screen. It's customisable so you can pick and choose what it displays.

On my device, KPH is 'speed in km/h', FUT is 'fuel in litres used so far on this trip'. 'TFE' is 'average fuel economy on this particular trip, in litres per hundred kilometres'. LPH is 'instantaneous TFE; what's going on now'. Sometimes I swap FUT with CST which is 'cost of fuel used on this trip'. This is very useful when I drive friends around and I need them to pay up for the fuel used. You can become an instant taxi driver this way, great! Unfortunately, my friends invariably refuse to pay when I tell them the fare. They seem to think I'm joking. Usually the cost is around fifty cents or less. Some people are really stingy with their money.

There is also other interesting information such as how long it'll take before the car runs out of petrol.

Usually people who buy this device are part of this 'secret brotherhood' who independently come to the conclusion that they can play a game while driving called 'Save As Much Fuel As Possible Disregarding Reactions From Passengers'. I've played this game ever since I started driving. It's fun and remarkably challenging and engaging. Usually, people look at the typical fuel consumption of their vehicles, say from the US Department of Energy, and try to beat the numbers.



So the numbers say that my Yaris typically does:

• 29 miles per gallon of fuel (8.1 litres per hundred kilometres or 12.33km/l) in the city


• 35 mpg (6.7 l/100km or 14.88km/l) on the expressway. 

Here are some conversions for my benefit. I've used km/litre for the past few years but it seems litres/100km is the new standard that people use.

The standard ways to improve fuel economy include not accelerating too quickly, planning your route so that you hit as few traffic lights as possible (starting a car from a complete stop uses a lot of fuel) and not driving too fast. Of course there are other considerations and the experienced player will be aware of lots more 'tricks' to save fuel. I usually get 13-14km/l and I'm interested in data which will help me answer a few questions. The ScanGauge is useful in that it can provide information that will help disprove some of my assumptions about driving and saving fuel.



Hypothesis: Try to get to 4th gear as soon as possible from a stop even if it involves braking very soon because you want to make a turn.

Busted: Not necessarily. It's very possible to avoid speeding up the car to 4th gear (60km/h) and still use less fuel. The important thing is to maintain a constant lower speed.



Hypothesis: From Wikipedia, 'the power needed to push an object through a fluid increases as the cube of the velocity. A car cruising on a highway at 50 mph (80 km/h) may require only 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) to overcome air drag, but that same car at 100 mph (160 km/h) requires 80 hp (60 kW).' There is a sweet spot that is optimum. This sweet spot is most likely close to the point where the 4th gear engages, which is around 60-70km/h .

Busted: This is a surprising finding. The sweet spot seems to be at much higher speeds than 60km/h. In fact, while maintaining 90-93km./h, it is able to give me 4 to 5 litres/100km, better than what I get at lower speeds!



Hypothesis: The point is to try to reach optimum speeds for fuel economy.

Quite true: But there's more; the point is not only that, it's also to maintain the speed when I can see that the fuel economy is good. Increasing and decreasing speeds use more fuel that if the car is maintained at the same speed.



I'll continue to monitor the readings and see if I can be more certain of my findings. One additional benefit is that the ScanGauge constantly reminds me to be light on my feet, to imagine that I have a balloon between my foot and the accelerator pedal, to break gently, if not at all (by planning when to slow down or not to.) It makes driving more fun because sometimes I use less than 6l/100km of fuel on the expressway and that is way better than the published numbers. So if you're interested in playing the same game and me and irritating the hell out of your passengers, get the ScanGauge II now! :)

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Unitasking and the Kindle

Click here for my previous Kindle 2 entry to find out how you can own one in Singapore.

24 Feb 2010 Update: Today's Digital Life has another article on the use of Whispernet in Singapore. I do not recommend users to do this. Please read the other entry for more information.

5 Nov 2009 Update: There are field reports of users using wireless Whispernet in Singapore! It's apparent that the telcos are beta testing this. Check the comments section from this other post.

4 Nov Update: Hello people from Digital Life!

Many are comparing the Barnes & Noble Nook with the Kindle. Actually the Nook is the best thing that has ever happened because it ensures that Amazon will innovate much quicker now that it has more competitors. My feeling is that the Nook is quite unusable if you're thinking of buying ebooks in Singapore. B&N requires a US based credit card to purchase books, which we don't have. (It remains to be seen whether they can allow books from the excellent NLB digital library.) They also don't allow the use of gift cards to buy e-books. The screen is exactly the same as the Kindle's. The much touted 'lending feature' can just be ignored because it just doesn't work as we expect it will. You can lend a book to one person only, and that book is unloanable to anyone else forever.

The other thing is about EPUB. The Kindle is able to read the one million free EPUB public domain books at Google Books using a converter called Calibre. 30,000 Project Gutenberg books are also available for the Kindle without conversion. Just download the Mobipocket version of the files. We live in interesting e-book times. :)

28 Oct Update: Here is another newspaper article that appeared in the Sunday Times. Click to enlarge.

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Fantastic news today! Amazon.com announces the new Kindle 2 for international markets. Unfortunately, Singapore is not one of the many countries that the device will be available officially so I still prefer the 'old' version.

A while ago, I had an interview with a Digital Life reporter who was writing on a story about the Kindle. (Click picture to enlarge.)

Today's Digital Life has another short article that resulted from the same conversation I had with reporter Tan Chong Yaw's for his first Kindle article.

This article is about the interesting idea called unitasking which I first came across from articles such as this. Unitasking, as opposed to multitasking, refers to doing one thing at a time.Reading in the Kindle is so appealing because it is able to let us unitask, and this takes away many of the distractions we have when we read. I have come across many accounts of people reading a lot more since they have gotten their Kindles and I reckon one reason this happens is that people are far more focused reading a Kindle than a paper book.

But one may ask: don't we unitask when we read traditional books as well? Yes we do. However, the big difference is that the Kindle manages to take away almost all the possible distractions we have while reading. For me, one such distraction may be the way I hold a paper book. My fingers need 'to do work' to balance the book and to keep the words on the page as equidistant from my eyes as possible. They also need to be able to grasp the thickness of the book properly. When I use a Kindle, that 'hard work' disappears, which is what Bezos meant by the Kindle 'disappearing'. Forget the book; the words are the only things that are left.

Of course, when you add the superb screen and the portability factor, we hit the sweet spot known as the Kindle. Things are really moving quite fast. Hopefully the price of the Kindle DX falls by Christmas!

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