Invisible wrote:
> 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.

It is if you turn it all the way off.  Hold the power switch until the 
screen goes blank, and it turns off the radio and everything else.

> And the 
> power light only comes on momentarily, so you can't use that as an 
> indication either... It takes some getting used to.

I'm not sure how hard it can be. If you want to read a book, and it's not 
showing text, hit the switch.  If you're done reading the book and you want 
to put the kindle somewhere the buttons might get pressed, hit the switch.

> Do all books provide a free sample?

I've not seen any that don't. I just checked 10 of 10 do, so I assume they 
all do.

> 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...)

On the right, right under "buy" and "add to wish list".

> 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.

You didn't turn on one-click ordering. It's a separate step. And one-click 
from the web site can be off even tho one-click from the kindle is on. 
Security, remember?

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

Find me one that doesn't.

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

There's a cell phone modem inside the device. I thought you already knew 
this. You pay for the coverage as part of the books you purchase. Amazon 
buys minutes in bulk from whatever service provider, and give them to you.

> 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 does, on the kindle. It does, if you turn it on on the web site.

You have to actually read the instructions, perhaps, to turn it on.

> are still asking me "so how do you work it then?"

They *expect* it to be difficult.

> (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 )

It's under the "experimental" menu on the home page. It works fine for 
static pages like google or wikipedia. You're not going to be playing flash 
games on it.  I use it to get to gmail when I'm traveling abroad where I 
don't have other internet connectivity.

It works OK if you use it for *browsing*. It's not that good if you try to 
use it as an application interface.

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

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