Invisible wrote:
> decreeing "John, don't you touch it. I don't want you to bugger it up!" 

My wife constantly finger-prints up my screen, thinking it's a touch screen. 
Kind of funny, really.

> Unfortunately, now when we turn it off it just displays a boring picture 
> of a famous author, selected at random. No amount of power cycles will 
> make it display the beautiful bird image again, to my grandparents' 
> utter despair.

It will be back after half a dozen authors, then some architecture, history, 
and mathematics. There's even something that I would guess is an Enigma 
machine in the list or something.

I find it disturbing to fall asleep reading and wake up the next morning 
with Agatha Christie staring at me from the next pillow over.

> It's also not especially easy to determine whether the device is 
> actually switched on or off; 

Not sure what you mean. If it's showing the screen saver or nothing, it's 
turned off. If it's showing a book or a menu, it's on.

Hit the switch hard once, count to five, see if you have a book showing.

> As you'd expect, purchasing books for it from Amazon is... actually a 
> total PITA! Which surprised me. For reasons beyond my comprehension, you 
> *cannot* add Kindle books to your shopping basket. You can *only* 
> purchase them immediately, right then and there. 

Add the free samples as you see them. Let them go to the Kindle. Once you 
have looked at them on the kindle and you want it, push the "buy" button on 
the kindle.

 > And for every single
> individual purchase, you have to go through a dozen order processing 
> screens. 

No you don't. You just turn on one-click for kindle books.

No, you can't put them in your cart. You can use the kindle as your cart. If 
there's something you see interesting, send the sample chapter to the 
kindle.  Then delete it or buy it at your leisure.

> On the other hand, it's surprising (indeed, perplexing) how almost 
> anything you do on the Amazon website somehow affects the Kindle 
> /instantly/. I don't know how that's possible, but still. 

It's called a "network". ;-) Seriously, it's somewhat slower in the USA I 
think. At least around my house. It takes maybe five to ten seconds between 
buying a book and the Kindle starting to download it.

> Apparently it's supposed to be possible to make purchases from the 
> Kindle itself. I haven't tried this. (God only knows how you repeatedly 
> type in your credit card number on a device with keys significantly 
> smaller than a human finger...)

Don't be silly.  You link it to your account once (which they do for you 
when you buy it) and you just buy books by asking for them.

> It's certainly a nifty little toy. And it's /almost/ trivial enough to 
> operate that my grandparents might actually figure it out eventually. 

Yeah, I like how the new electronics are getting sophisticated enough they 
can be easy.

> Unfortunately, like all electronic devices, it has to scream "I can also 
> do X! And Y! And Z! And J, L, R, F, Q and I!" just to confuse people. 

I didn't see that at all, really. It's totally out of your face.  You turn 
it on, you get a list of all your books. You cursor to a book and click, and 
you're reading the book where you last stopped.

There's a lot of functionality, but it's not on screen. Indeed, it can be 
difficult to find sometimes.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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