Get More Out of Your Kindle Fire Tablet: Five Tips

Five months after Amazon debuted its $200 "game-changing" tablet, the Kindle Fire is feeling more like a McDonald's hamburger next to Apple's prime-rib, third-generation iPad. But it doesn't have to be that way. Since PCWorld's first roundup of recommended Kindle Fire apps, a cavalcade of new apps, tips, and hacks that breathe new life into the tablet have surfaced.
Now you can tweak the user interface, no rooting required. You can also view full desktop versions of websites, instead of the default--and minimalist--mobile versions that the Kindle Fire normally delivers. And you can add several gigabytes' worth of music to your device without hogging valuable storage.
Here are five tips to rev up your Kindle Fire and put a bit of that tablet swagger back into your investment.

View Full Websites, Not the Cruddy Mobile Versions

The mobile version of Facebook is fine when you're on your iPhone or Android handset, but the stripped-down version seems inadequate on the Kindle Fire. Other badly stripped-down sites include CNN, ESPN, and Gmail. For me, the Kindle Fire has more than enough screen real estate to support full websites.
To configure the browser to serve up the full desktop versions of websites, open the Kindle Fire Browser app, go to the bottom of the screen and enter the browser settings, and choose Desktop or mobile view. Select the Desktop: Optimize for desktop view option.

Get Apps Amazon Doesn't Want You to Have

Kindle Fire viewing the mobile GetJar app store.Amazon's Kindle Fire app store is a far cry from the Google Play app store when it comes to selection. And good luck downloading apps from Play to your Kindle Fire--you can't, unless you're prepared to do some serious tinkering. Pay a visit to GetJar, Only Android, Opera's app store, or SlideMe on your Kindle Fire, however, and you can download and install hundreds of non-Amazon-approved apps.
To get started with these app stores, you must first configure your Kindle Fire to be able to download and install apps from third-party app stores. To do this, go to Settings, Device and turn on Allow Installation of Applications. Afterward you can start downloading great apps such as Grooveshark or HD Dolphin Browser, both of which are unavailable from Amazon.

Add 5GB of Music Without Taking up 1MB or Spending a Dime

Amazon offers 5GB of free storage with its Amazon Cloud Player, which means you can upload a decent amount of music for streaming playback to your Kindle Fire without consuming any of the tablet's physical storage space. Songs you purchase via Amazon MP3 don't count toward your 5GB limit, and you can buy more space starting at $20 for 20GB (up to $1000 for 1000GB).
To access the music you store on Amazon's Cloud Player, simply launch the Music app and select Cloud.

Add Your Own Music, Movies, and Documents

Using a Mini-USB cable, you can transfer movies, music, and documents from your desktop to your Kindle Fire. You will need to familiarize yourself with the Kindle Fire's file-management system. For navigating folders on your Kindle Fire, I suggest the free file-navigating Android app AndroXplorer.
Documents: To put .pdf, .txt, and .prc documents on the Kindle Fire, plug your tablet into your PC. Now open the Kindle Fire folder on your desktop, find the Documents folder within, and drag and drop the files to the folder. Next time you open the Docs app, they will be available. (You can also send files to your device via the dedicated email address listed in your Docs app.)
Video: You must first convert video files to a format that the Kindle Fire can play, such as MPEG-4. I use the free transcoding program Any Video Converter, which does an excellent job. After you've converted your video files, dump the files into your Kindle Fire's Video folder. To enjoy them, navigate to the Video folder on your Kindle Fire using AndroXplorer, select a video, and tap to play.
Make sure that each video conforms to the size best suited for the Kindle Fire. The specs that worked best for me: MPEG-4, a 624-by-252-pixel frame width, a 757-kbps data rate, and 24 frames per second (admittedly, not high-def).
Music: Simply drag and drop MP3 tracks to the Kindle Fire's Music folder while it's connected to your desktop. Next time you open the Kindle Fire's Music app, they will be listed.

Revamp the Kindle Fire's Ugly Interface With Go Launcher EX

Three different customized versions of the Kindle Fire running the Go Launcher EX program.
One of my biggest issues with Amazon's forked version of the Android operating system is that the user interface isn't easily customizable. You might want to consider installing the handy program called Go Launcher EX, which allows you to customize your Kindle Fire user interface without having to root the device. Go Launcher is one of several launcher programs that allow you to customize the Kindle Fire in the same way you can trick out an Android phone or tablet with shortcuts, widgets, multiple screens of tablet icons, and personalized themes.
Once you install Go Launcher EX, familiarizing yourself with its workings takes a little time. The change is dramatic, so it's important to know how to revert to Amazon's user interface if you need to.
First, enable third-party app installations by going to Settings, Device, and turning on Allow Installation of Applications. Now launch your Kindle Fire browser and point it to the Go Launcher website. Download the newest version of Go Launcher EX.
Once Go Launcher is downloaded, tap the upper-left notification bar, and then tap the file to install. Now you'll have the option of using Go Launcher EX as your default user interface. To add widgets and features, swipe up on your Kindle Fire home screen, and you'll see a link to the Go Store, where you can add clocks, weather, and texting widgets, along with tablet themes.
The next time you start your Kindle Fire, it will ask you to designate either the Kindle Fire interface or Go Launcher EX as your default launcher. Choose the latter. Your Kindle Fire bookshelf interface doesn't go away--instead, it becomes an app that you can choose to launch.
To revert to the familiar Kindle Fire interface, go to Settings, Applications. Now go to the top of the screen and filter by all applications. Scroll down and find Go Launcher EX, and select it. Within that menu select clear default. Now, when you press the home button, a dialog box will ask you whether to use Go Launcher EX or the Kindle Fire launcher as the default. Choose the Kindle Fire launcher to get the old look back.

Rekindling a Relationship

Honestly, I've been neglecting my Kindle Fire ever since my honeymoon with the device ended about three months after I bought it. But with these handy tips, I've gotten a lot more value out of my $200 investment--and you will too.

pcworld.com

Amazon Kindle Fire 2; what are expected

Amazon Kindle Fire 2 is going to be a reality pretty soon. Here Abdul Vahid V discusses some great features that Kindle Fire fans want to see in their next gen tablet.
Amazon, the most successful tablet vendor after Apple last year, is rumored to launch an upgrade to its famous Kindle Fire tablet. Well, we are rumored to get a Kindle Fire 2 sometime this year. What things are we really expecting Amazon to add on new Kindle Fire? Let us go through some important features Kindle Fire owners wish to see on the device’s second edition.
Kindle Fire has become one of the most successful tablets in the market, not because it is a premium device like iPad. The 7-inch tablet from Amazon dominates the market mainly with its low price factor and its reader-friendly features. Here are a few rumored features expected to appear on the new Kindle Fire anyway.
Two versions: There is a strong rumor that Amazon will launch two versions of its new Kindle Fire; a 7-inch and a large 10-inch. One of web’s top tech rumor sites, the DigiTimes has firstly reported that Amazon was working on two models of Kindle Fire. To an extent it is a rational guesswork. Amazon planned a low-priced Kindle Fire when Apple iPad was the ruthless dominator of market. Right now, the situation has changed. Though Apple continues its supremacy, 10.1-inch tablet like Samsung Galaxy Tab, Asus Transformer Prime and other are the shining stars of stores today. So we can’t tell Amazon won’t go ahead to launch a 10.1-inch cheap Kindle Fire.
Ice Cream Sandwich: Yes, it should be there. Amazon should launch its new Kindle Fire with the Ice Cream Sandwich. The current version of Kindle Fire runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The ICS is making rounds in tech markets today. Customers are passionately waiting for more tablets with ICS. A low-priced 7-inch or 10-inch ICS tablet from Amazon will again make the tablet market tumultuous.
More connectivity features: One of the biggest shortcomings of the Kindle Fire is that the device lacks enough connectivity features that a typical tablet should have. See, the Kindle doesn’t feature GPRS, EDGE and Bluetooth. For connectivity, users depend only on the integrated Wi-Fi.
Camera and multimedia: As well, Amazon skipped both front and rear cameras on Kindle Fire. Of course, it is a tablet with major focus on reading and content consumption. It rocks a rich load of content from Amazon or other sources. But, the device should at least have a front camera, which will help users make video chats with their friends. A back camera is almost useless on a tablet like Kindle Fire, because most people who buy the device are avid readers.
Anyway, we know that Kindle Fire hasn’t been anything like Amazon’s Kindle eReaders. It is a semi-tablet with access to some multimedia features. However, it is not a complete tablet like an iPad or others. When upgrading the device, Amazon should consider adding even more multimedia features to the pack, though. It will make the device more rich and competitive device in shelves.
More memory: The original Kindle Fire has only 8GB of internal memory and no microSD slot. But, users can store much more data on Amazon’s cloud services. It is a nice thing; however, Amazon should either add more memory or put a microSD slot on the new Kindle Fire.
Quad core processor: Boy Genius Report sometime back reported that Kindle Fire is to mount a quad core processor. Amazon was “planning on releasing at least two before the end of the year… the big boy? That’s codenamed ‘Hollywood’ and will be based on the Nvidia Tegra 3 which will bring a screaming quad-core processor with a 500 percent performance increase,” BGR wrote. Sure the current Kindle Fire is a bit slow with its dual core 1GHz Cortex-A9 processor. If Amazon to mount a quad core processor, it would be a great thing. But, chance is less; because, Amazon more looks to sell its Kindle Fire for a small price.
Conclusion
It looks like that it is the right time for Amazon to launch a new version for its reader-friendly Kindle Fire. Amazon could sell 3.98 million units of the device in the last quarter of 2011 and the sales still goes on hot. With a new upgrade for the same affordable price, Amazon can again stand out in the tablet market, which has become more crowded with a huge variety of products from various tech makers

nvonews.com

Readerdock's Kindle Fire and Nook Color speaker docks go up for pre-order

Last week, Grace Digital announced the forthcoming release of its FireDock charging speaker dock specifically designed for Amazon's Kindle Fire. We said that this was one of the first to reach the market. Well, here's one of the others. The FireStation from Readerdock is not only going to hit the marketplace well before July, but it's a good deal cheaper too. The company has also created a dedicated speaker dock for Nook Color users called the N-Station, that's due for release at the same time.

Readerdock's FireStation and N-Station are essentially the same dock, the only difference being the device connections on the cradle. The FireStation features a dual connector and the Kindle Fire is powered on or off via a button the front of the cradle. There's a 3.5mm audio jack next to the USB charging port at the rear which acts as a headphone output.
As the audio-out jack on the Nook Color is at the opposite end to the USB charging port, the N-Station runs an audio patch cable between an input on the base and the output of the docked Nook, which also means that the N-Station can be fed audio from any 3.5mm audio source (such as an MP3 player). The Nook is switched on using the power button on the device itself.

As soon as the tablet device is placed in the appropriate dock, charging begins – confirmed by a yellow light on the front of the cradle that turns green when the docked device is fully charged. A button on the base at the back turns the 3W/4 ohm stereo speakers on or off, and there's a volume control at the front. Both speaker docks have an audio frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz and a signal-to-noise ratio of -80dB.
Users can choose whatever viewing angle suits thanks to a cradle that can be rotated left or right, or up and down. There's an adjustment screw to lock the cradle in the desired viewing orientation.
The FireStation and the N-Station both carry a recommended retail price of US$59.99 but Readerdock is currently knocking $5 off the ticket price to those who pre-order, with free shipping as an added incentive. The first Readerdock charging speaker docks are expected to be shipped out at the end of April 2012.

gizmag.com

Kindle Fire Review – Top Six Features Of The Fire

This article talks about the top six features of the Kindle Fire. It enables user to surf the internet, listen to music, watch movie, read books and etc. Here are the top five features of the Kindle Fire that i am going to share with you:

Dual core processor

The Kindle Fire utilizes the dual core processor for fast, powerful performance. Stream music while browsing the web or read books while downloading videos. It can handle multitasking smoothly.

E-reading

Millions of books can be found in the library. You can borrow books from the library. Besides that, you also can download the sample and read the reviews. If you are looking for an e-reader with amazing color display, The Fire is a right e-reader for you.

Free one month membership of Amazon Prime

You will be able to stream unlimited of TV shows and movies. There are thousands of movies in the library that are available to stream, download, purchase or rent. You can stream and watch it anytime, anywhere you want as long as your Fire gets connected to the wireless. With the membership, you get to access to the Lending Library where you can stream thousand of movies from there.

Free cloud storage service

Stop worrying about memory. Amazon gives you a 5GB free storage for all your Amazon digital contents. You get to download and stream all your movies and apps instantly with a touch of your finger.

Amazon’s Apps Store

You can download apps from Amazon’s apps store. It has a wide range of apps you can download. Besides that, it offers a paid app for FREE everyday! You can play Angry Bird on your Kindle!

Kindle owner’s Lending Library

There are over a hundred thousand books in the Lending Library. With an Amazon Prime membership, Kindle owners can choose a book to borrow for free.

Fire is a good choice among all the tablets. It features amazing color display, wide range of apps, streaming music and movies that is compatible with Adobe’s Flash. In term of price, it costs only $199. It is very cheap for a tablet. It allows you to get virtually 5GB free storage with Amazon’s Cloud storage. Besides that, none of any users complain about the Kindle Fire’s battery life. Start asking yourself, what are you actually looking for? If you just want to read some books, surf the internet, listen to some musics, why not going for this great device?

Thanks for reading the top six features of the Kindle Fire.

By Ket Phin Wong

Ket Phin Wong is a Kindle Fire enthusiast.
cmvlive.com

Refurbished Kindle Fire $139 Today: Firmware Update Available Now

For today only, Amazon's Kindle Fire is cheaper than ever, with refurbished models on sale for $139.
The refurbished Kindle Fire is Amazon's Gold Box deal of the day, valid on March 29 or while supplies last. Normally, refurbished models cost $169.
(See Related: Get More Out of Your Kindle Fire Tablet: Five Tips)

Firmware Update

If you've already got a Kindle Fire, there's still some good news: The latest firmware update, being delivered over the year this week, adds new features and improvements to the tablet.
The update includes a reading view for Amazon's Silk browser, which renders the body of a Website in an easy-to-read format. It also has some new book features, such as the ability to share passages on social networks and with other Kindle users.
With the version 6.3 firmware, personal documents can be stored on Amazon Cloud servers and re-downloaded at any time. For movie rentals, the rental period now begins when the user starts watching the movie, instead of immediately after initiating a download.
The firmware also includes general performance enhancements, such as faster reconnect to Wi-Fi after the Kindle Fire has been asleep. This update, combined with a major update pushed out last December, should help correct some of the general sloppiness that the Kindle Fire suffered at launch.

Kindle Fire 2.0?

As for new hardware, Amazon hasn't announced anything yet, but rumors about a larger tablet have persisted since the original 7-inch Kindle Fire launched last November. A recent report by Taiwanese news source SENS claimed that Amazon will launch two new Kindle Fires this year, including a 7-inch tablet with 1280-by-800 and an 8.9-inch model with 1920-by-1200 resolution.
Amazon hasn't disclosed sales figures for the Kindle Fire, but has said that it sold millions of them during the holiday season. Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente estimates that Amazon sold 5.5. million Kindle Fires last year.

pcworld.com

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is a little … odd

Summary: While it’s nice to be able to “borrow” books on the Kindle, our impressions are that the service is a little early for prime time, and — frankly — a little odd.

My wife and I have been poking around the new Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, trying to get a feel for what it offers and how to use it. While it’s nice to be able to “borrow” books on the Kindle, our impressions are that the service is a little early for prime time, and — frankly — a little odd.
First up are the book choices themselves. Because participation by publishers in the Lending Library means giving up some revenue in return for what is, essentially, promotional benefit, most mainstream publishers have chosen not to participate. There are a few notable exceptions like Scholastic. They’ve made “The Hunger Games” available on the Lending Library.
Update: I got this wrong initially and thanks to the folks who pointed out the error. Actually, it turns out Amazon has reached agreements with publishers to include titles for a fixed fee. In other cases, Amazon is purchasing a title each time it is borrowed by a reader under standard wholesale terms as a no-risk trial to demonstrate to publishers the incremental growth and revenue opportunity that this service presents. Amazon recently published a press release highlighting further details of this program.
Even with this compensation model, the vast majority of books available for lending are self-published books. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with independently-published books (I’m a big supporter of the creative process), self-published books often suffer from somewhat less formal editing than books published by traditional publishing companies.
I’ve spent more than 25 years as the head of a publishing company (my day job) and I can tell you, publishing is a tough business with a lot of work. Publishing a traditional book often requires teams of people doing everything from making sure there’s a big enough market for a probable return on investment, acquisitions editors to do the deals, content editors who read, edit, re-read, and re-edit to make sure the books are crisp, and the entire sales and marketing challenge, making sure readers can find the books wherever they shop.
Kindle distribution disintermediates all that — for both good and bad. The good is that great stories and great authors can reach readers without having to pass the “will it make it in the mass market?” test that all traditional publishers require. This means — like with indy music — you’re getting access to funky, fascinating, fabulous stuff that otherwise just wouldn’t be available.
On the other hand, there is the spam problem. I’m going to address the spam problem on Kindle in a future article, but let’s just use one book as an example. There’s a guy out there listing a book entitled “Only Rich People May Buy This Story.” It’s free in the Lending Library, but if you want to buy it, it’s $200. There are hundreds of these artificially high-priced books out there, just trolling for the inattentive buyer to hit “Buy now with 1-Click.”
The enormous prevalence of indy books in the Lending Library means that the entire service could probably be renamed the Kindle Indy Book Library and it’d be just as accurate. There are amazing books available in the Lending Library, but it’s quite difficult to tell what’s brilliant and what’s mislabeled spam.
While we’re on the subject of hard to find, Amazon needs to improve its browsing interface.
Even finding a selection of lend-enabled books for a particular genre is a challenge. You can’t do it easily from the menu. Instead, you have to do so by setting the Search box drop-down to Books and hitting Go. Then you have to select the Kindle Edition tab. Then, from the menu on the left, check Prime Eligible. Only now are you able to see lend-enabled books.
Once you’ve found lend-enabled books, navigating genres is particularly wonky. For example, there are 12,468 lend-eligible books in the “Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense” genre.
While you can further narrow the field to Mystery (3,913 books), Police Procedural (476 books), or Thrillers (7,692 books), that’s about as far as you can get. The Sort drop-down menu lets you sort by popularity, price, and publication date, but there’s no easy way to browse by, say, author or even book title.
Worse, although there are 12,468 results shown, you can only browse 12 books at a time, and only select up to three pages out. If you want to see what’s available, you’d actually have to hit “Next” something like a thousand times.
Here, too, we have spam. There are books posted in categories where they don’t belong and books posted in numerous categories (somehow gaming the system), which also brings down the quality of the overall service and selection.
Then there’s the way you borrow books. You know how you can go onto Amazon with your browser using any ol’ computer and send a book to your Kindle? Well, you can’t do that with borrowed books. You have to borrow the book directly from your Kindle device, using the device’s rather convoluted mechanism for finding books.
My wife has taken to searching for the book she wants to read on her computer, then going to her Kindle Fire to download it. She actually owns two Kindles, both registered in her name: a third generation e-ink Kindle and her Kindle Fire.
Weirdly enough, though, while you can borrow books only from the device, if you want to have a borrowed book sent to another Kindle that you own (and is registered to the same account), you have to go to the “Manage Your Kindle” page from a browser and send it down to the device from there. If you try to download it directly onto the second Kindle, you will see a message that you’ve hit your limit for the month.
We’ve also found that it’s easiest to return books from the “Manage Your Kindle” Web interface, rather than the devices themselves. By default, when you “check out” a new book, you’re prompted to return the previous borrow (and if you don’t, you don’t get the new loaner). But if you just want to return a book without borrowing a new one, you can’t do that from the device. You have to go online. It’s not difficult, just a little … odd.
Finally, the lend-enabled books are only available to be read on actual Kindle devices.
This doesn’t really make all that much sense. Let’s use my wife as an example again. In addition to her two Kindle devices, she’s also got the Kindle Reader app registered on her desktop computer, her netbook, her iPad and her iPhone. It would seem to me that as long as she’s got a Kindle registered (meaning she’s actually a Kindle owner), she should be able to read the borrowed book on any of the Kindles or Kindle readers — just like with all the other Kindle books.
After all, once she’s paid into Amazon both for the devices and for the $79/yr Prime membership, it would seem a no-brainer to let her use the service for lend-worthy books just like all the other Kindle books she’s purchased. It’s not like Amazon doesn’t know she owns Kindle devices.
The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is a nifty idea, and I applaud Amazon for thinking outside the straight-jacket constraints of traditional book publishers, but I do wish they’d make the interface a little more consistent.
This article may seem like it’s full of criticisms, but Amazon deserves kudos for experimenting with new business models. There is a lesson all businesses — small and large — can take away from this. Sometimes it’s okay to offer a new service or a new product that’s not yet perfect. Sometimes it’s okay to get it out there, see how it works, and tweak it over time to make it better and better.
After all, the Amazon we first met in 1995 is nothing like the Amazon we rely on today. They’ve constantly evolved, upgraded, experimented, and innovated — and suffered criticism for most of their changes. But the result of all those experiments is an amazing company that provides a marketplace and infrastructure that millions rely on.
So, go ahead. Take a chance. Offer a service that starts out a little … odd. Who knows where that outside-the-box thinking will take you.

zdnet.com

Unfriendly skies for a Kindle owner

I am happy that Jennifer Clardy Chalmers got her teddy bear back after she left it on a flight from Texas to Louisiana [“iPad, come home,” Travel, April 8]. I was not as fortunate when I left my Kindle Fire in Seat 2F on United/Continental Flight 1080 on Feb. 12, from Newark to San Jose, Costa Rica. It was left where no one but an airline employee could have found it. There is no doubt in my mind that my loss was one of the unfortunate realities of “the staff member with sticky fingers”mentioned in the article.  The Kindle was labeled with my name and all my pertinent information. The airline, on which I am a frequent flier, had all my contact information. I filled out two claims forms and went twice to United’s lost-and-found, and yet United and Continental dismissed my claim, stating it was my responsibility to check to see if I had everything before deplaning. I was offered no remuneration or apology.

washingtonpost.com