We all check the weather conditions in our local area before getting out of our homes. You don’t need a TV or an expensive tablet to check the weather forecasts in your area. Thanks to Kindlews, you can check this information in your area on your e-ink Kindle reader. Just go to the Experimental section on your Kindle and type http://kindlews.com/ in its browser. This is what showed up when I did this on my Kindle.

The information is up-to-date and shows you what kind of weather you can expect to see in your area. You can also test this service on your computer. It covers over 50k places around the world. The date/time is independent from your Kindle’s internal time.  This gives you a pretty simple way to look up the weather forecast in your area using your Kindle.

The rest of the process is pretty straight forward. You should start Dalvik Debut Monitor to get started with your screenshots. Once your Kindle Fire is selected, you can create new screenshots by using the CTRL+S command on your PC. The shots will be uploaded to your PC automatically.

Credit: Review Horizon

If you have trouble connecting your Kindle Fire to your computer or navigating your way through the CMD terminal, you are going to find CNET’s comprehensive guide on this topic pretty useful. The process is not intuitive but does not require you to be a tech genius either.

Did you follow the same process to take screenshots on Kindle or are you relying on third party software to do the job?

NovelRank displays your current and previous months’ sales on Amazon. It also displays your current rank. Not sure when you sold your last book? That information is made available through this service. To gain access to more details, you should download the data in CSV format.

NovelRank shows you the attention your book has received on Twitter and in the blog world. It even tells you your best day and hour based on your sales information. Its iPhone application is very handy too. Users can take advantage of it to track their sales rank for printed and Kindle version of their books. Just like its online version, NovelRank for iOS displays data from Amazon’s stores in the U.S., U.K, France, Germany, Japan, and Canada. The chart feature is very nice.

If you are looking for a productive way to keep track of your book sales on Amazon, you can’t go wrong with NovelRank.

ReadMore: a perfect training tool for those of you who have trouble motivating yourself to finish up all the books you have bought. It breaks down books in smaller, more manageable chunks. It keeps track of your progress all the way to help you read more.

Quick Reader: reading faster is one of the best ways to get more reading done everyday. This app pushes you to make you a faster reader. It gives you access to 2 million e-books. You can always import your own books.

Acceleread: this cool iPad application enables you to test yourself and tackle a variety of exercises to improve your focus and reading skills.

iScroll for iPhone: research has shown that reading and listening to your books can improve your level of comprehension.  This tool provides you with books in both formats for that very purpose.

If you find yourself reading less everyday and want to change that trend, the above iPhone and iPad apps should help.

• Sell it on eBay: Kindle 2 still has some value. You just do not want to give it up for cheap. eBay is a great place to check prices to see how much you can sell your old Kindle for. Considering that Amazon Kindle 3 costs only $189 (or $139 depending on your model), you should not expect to get too much of your original Kindle 2 investment back.
• Donate it to a good cause: if you don’t need your Kindle, why not donate it to someone who might. Ebooks for Troops and http://worldreader.org/ are two places you can donate your Kindle to. Do your research before donating your Kindle.
• Hack your Kindle: it is never too late to get started with Kindle hacking. If you are interested in the technical side of things, your Kindle 2 can make a great test subject. Plenty of information is available on Kindle hacks all over the Internet.
• Keep it as a backup: if you are lucky, your Kindle 3 will last you for years. Unfortunately, there is no way to be sure about it. Having your old Kindle around as a backup is just smart, especially if you have not been offered the right price to sell it.
• Gift it to family members: Kindle makes a great gift, especially for seniors in your family. It has plenty of features to make reading more convenient for people of all ages. As long as you have not abused your Kindle too much, there is no reason not to give it away to a family member who may have a use for it.

Just upgraded to Kindle 3 from Kindle 2 (or Kindle 1)? What did you do to your old Kindle?

Project Gutenberg: a very exciting project that gives you access to all kinds of works (human and machine read audiobooks too). Great place to get started with your search.

LibriVox: has a huge selection of audiobooks from the public domain. Just download the audio files to your computer, and you are all set.

Books Should Be Free: well, they are free here. Books in multiple genres and languages are available through this website. You can download your files in multiple formats.

Audible: Audible is a very good source of paid books, but it does actually have free audio-books and sample content. You can’t go wrong with Amazon.

Open Culture: a decent source of culture and educational audio-books. Technology, science, music, and travel audio-books are available for download through this website (includes pod-casts and lectures too).

Podiobooks.com: if you are interested in receiving your audio-books over a period of time (like a pod-cast), this is a site worth checking out.

Thought Audio: Thought Audio is not the largest source of free audio-books, but it does have a decent selection of classical works.

Learn Out Loud: it has a huge library of educational audio books, pod-casts, and even videos. It has a pretty to navigate interface. It has both paid and free works.

Where do you get your audio-books from?

International Kindle may not be available until October 19th, but it has generated quite a buzz around the world. Amazon has not only reduced its Kindle prices but has given the gift of Kindle to people who travel internationally or reside outside the U.S. The introduction of the new gadget has brought up a lot of questions among current Kindle owners. Many want to know how to upgrade their Kindle to Kindle international, while others are interested in knowing the possible release date of Kindle DX international. Here are a few Kindle International FAQs you need to know the answer to (don’t forget to send in or comment your question at the end of this post):

• Is my country covered by Amazon Whispernet? Amazon is using AT&T’s global wireless network to provide you access to the Internet around the world. Not all countries are covered. But you can always check Whispernet’s global coverage map to find out whether your country is covered.
• Can I hack my Kindle 2.0 and turn it into a Kindle international? there is no easy way to get this done at this point. The new Kindles use a different hardware, so you are better off picking a new one at this point.
• Can I read books in my native language on Kindle? unfortunately, that is not possible at this point unless you are talking about English. Amazon is planning to offer more support in the future.
• Can I share content between my Kindle 2.0 international and Kindle 2 U.S.? you can. However, you can only share your e-books on 6 Kindle readers. You can’t share periodicals and newspapers among your Kindles.
• I just ordered a Kindle. Can I upgrade it to Kindle International? yes and no. Amazon doesn’t have an official policy on this, but as long as you bought your Kindle within the past 30 days, you should be able to convince Amazon’s customer service to let you make the change. But don’t expect Amazon to magically turn your Kindle 2 (U.S.) to Kindle 2 international. You will have to return your old device. If you have owned your Kindle 2 U.S. for a while, you can always sell it for a bit less on eBay.
• I paid $299 for my Kindle just a few days ago. How do I take advantage of the latest Kindle price drop? Amazon doesn’t have any obligation to refund you the difference no matter when you bought your device. But you can always return your old Kindle and get a new one with the lower price. That’s why the company’s customer service may be ready to save you and itself some headache by giving you a partial refund. It never hurts to ask.
• I want a Kindle DX international. What do I do? if you can wait till early 2010, then you should be good to go. Kindle DX international is coming. It’s a matter of when at this point.
• Are they any additional fees associated with Kindle 2.0 international? yes. Take a look:
  • Kindle International Books: $1.99 per book from Amazon’s store or your archived books.
  • Kindle International Subscriptions: newspaper, magazine, and blog subscription content via Whispernet will cost you a weekly fee of $4.99.
  • Current Issue Service: Download issues of newspapers and magazines from the Kindle store via Whispernet for $1.99 per issue.
  • Personal Document Service: $.99 per megabyte
• Do I need a special adapter to charge my Kindle in a foreign country? if you are charging it with your USB cable, you should be good to go. Otherwise, look out.
• What constitutes a U.S. based customer (as far as fees are concerned)? a U.S. customer is one that has linked her Kindle with her U.S. address.
• Are there any wireless fees associated with using Amazon Kindle? no. But Amazon does reserve the right to give you warning or terminate your contract if you hack your Kindle.
• Can I pay for my Kindle in 3 or 4 installments? you can’t at this point. Amazon may offer the option in the future (with its store card). But that is not an option at this point.
• How long should I wait to get my Kindle? the sooner you order it, the better. The wait is not expected to be long this time around, but you never know.

There you have it: Answers to a few questions that people are asking about the Kindle international edition. Please share your questions if they are not answered above. You can also check Amazon Kindle’s frequently asked questions page for more information.

It’s finally here. We complained and Amazon has listened. Now, you can make your blog available on Kindle using Kindle Publishing. If you own a blog, you can now make it available to other Kindle owners and make some cash in the process. In order to do that, you’ll need to set up an account on Kindle Publishing and provide Amazon with your financial information so it can pay you when someone signs up for your blog.

Adding a blog to Kindle platform is not that hard to do. All you have to do is provide Amazon with your blog’s RSS feed URL as well as your blog’s name and tag line.

I do encourage you to provide a good screen shot and banner for your blog so you can attract more visitors. You also want to make sure you list your blog under the proper categories.

Amazon has finally realized that Kindle owners have very different tastes, and they are not just looking to read super blogs. As long as you have decent content on your blog, there is no reason you can’t make a few bucks using Kindle Publishing platform. And at worst, you let your loyal readers another way to enjoy your blog on the go. It’s a win win situation.

P.S. it took me 5 minutes to add K.indled using the steps above. Here is how it looks:

I have been meaning to write a series on how you can publish your own content on Amazon Kindle. In truth, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to publish your own content on Kindle. Many folks are already doing it, and you can find a lot of junk content available for Kindle already. So if you have a decent e-book or valuable content to share, you just can’t afford to not publish it on Kindle.

Amazon Kindle platform may be in its infancy, but early-movers are going to get a big leg up those of us who want to wait a little longer. There is no question that there is value in learning the ins and outs of Digital Text Platform. For starters, it teaches you how to easily publish your own book on Amazon. You also learn how to format your books properly to make your content more presentable on Kindle. But here is the biggest advantage of them all. The sooner you get started with the platform, the faster you can get your book published, and once you are there, you don’t want to stop writing.

Digital Text platform is not that hard to get a handle of. Once you log on to your Amazon account, you are going to see the following menu:

As you can probably, guess, My Shelf is where you will be adding your content to. You will have the chance to set your own price, submit an image for your book, and even preview it all. My Account is about your personal information. Here you can enter your bank information as well as your social security number. You will need to complete this page to get paid by Amazon!

My Reports helps you keep track of your monthly sales and progress. Here you get a chance to run MTD and previous months report. You should keep running these reports to make sure your book is on the right track. If you are not making any sales and you believe you have great content, you may want to take your promotions to the next level.

As you can see, publishing a book on Kindle is not rocket science. If you have written a book, you have already done the tough part. As you will find out in the next parts of this series, putting your content in Kindle store is the easy part.

Stay tuned!

As long as this feature is kept intact on your Kindle (Amazon may remove it), you’ve got a chance to access the Kindle store where Whispernet is not available. People have complained in the past about Sprint not providing coverage in their area. With this hack, you can get around the issue fast. But don’t get cute and just follow the instructions. You wouldn’t want to brick your Kindle, now would you?