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

Hee. Yeah, my mum's seen my sister playing with her iPhone, and thought 
maybe the Kindle could do the same. (I, of course, realise that its 
display technology can't update that fast, and it would waste huge 
amounts of power if it tried.)

I'm somewhat puzzled has to how the iPhone can actually work. Why the 
screen isn't scratched to pieces yet, or covered in a 4-inch thick layer 
of skin oils. (Or how my sister can afford to own one, for that matter...)

> 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.

That would be disturbing indeed. O_O

>> 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.

Well, with most devices, either there's a bunch of status lights and 
stuff lit up, or it's all blank. The Kindle is /never/ blank. And the 
power light only comes on momentarily, so you can't use that as an 
indication either... It takes some getting used to.

>> 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.

Do all books provide a free sample? I thought it was only a tiny 
minority of them. (In particular, I don't recall seeing a button for it 
anywhere on the website...)

>> 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.

Like I say, I clicked the big yellow "1-click order" button, and waded 
through a dozen screens to make the purchase. I assumed that would be 
just the first time, but... no. /Every/ purchase was the same.

> 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.

As I say, that only works if every book has a sample chapter.

>> 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". ;-)

Yes. And it's intractably expensive to build one. And virtually 
impossible to build one with good coverage. So....... how?

>> 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.

Well, given that I'd already linked the Kindle to the account and I was 
logged into Amazon with that account, I had expected "1-click order" to 
immediately order the thing... but no.

>> 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.

I presume I'm not the only person to appreciate the sheer irony.

>> 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.

Well, as soon as it came out of the box, everybody [except me] seemed to 
be pouring over the quick-start sheet, trying to figure out the meaning 
of every individual sentence and memorise each individual feature. We 
switched it on, bought some books and got the pages to turn, and people 
are still asking me "so how do you work it then?"

(In particular, apparently it has a web browser. Why you'd want that, I 
don't know. But I'm being urged to find out how it works - I'm guessing 
"badly". :-P )

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