Accessing an E-book (K2, #47)

Question of the Week 
My friend from the USA gifted me a Kindle e-book from Amazon.com, but I cannot read it since I don't have the Kindle tablet. Please help.
-- Rinzin, Changangkha, Thimphu

Answer
Dear Rinzin,

Books makes wonderful gifts, and “a book is a gift you can open again and again”. Luckily, the same applies to e-books! So keep on reading, and you'll find out how you can open your e-book (again and again) even without a Kindle tablet. But first, what are e-books? An e-book - short for electronic book - is a file that contains text, and sometimes other media, such as photos and videos. There are various e-book formats. To read an e-book, you need an e-book reader that supports the format of your e-book. An example of an e-book format that you might be familiar with is PDF. Reading a PDF e-book is easy - you just use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader (downloadable at get.adobe.com/reader) to open the file and view its contents.

E-books purchased (or gifted) on Amazon.com use the Kindle format. These files usually have the extension .azw. Amazon sells special tablets that can read Kindle e-books. Reading e-books on these devices is often a pleasant experience due to their special technology, and in particular a technology called electronic paper, which is a special display designed to mimic real paper. Electronic paper can be read in direct sunlight and is less strenuous on the eyes compared to a computer monitor.

Now for the good news: it’s not mandatory to own one of these devices to read your gifted Kindle book. Amazon avails free Kindle applications for PCs running Windows or Mac, as well as other devices such as iPhones and Android phones. These apps enable you to read Kindle books. Go to amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc to find these apps. You can even read Kindle books using a web browser using the Kindle Cloud Reader (go to read.amazon.com).

In addition to books available on Amazon and other retailers, tens of thousands of e-books are downloadable for free (and legally) on sites such as gutenberg.org and - my favourite - ManyBooks.net. You'll find all the classics there - from Jules Vernes to Shakespeare to Dickens. And the e-books are downloadable in various formats, including PDF and Kindle.

So while some people - including yours truly - still enjoy the whiff of a moldy hardcover, there is no denying that e-books have a few advantages: they don’t take space, they are instantly available, and they save plenty of trees. Like it or not, e-books are here to stay. Enjoy your new e-book!

---

Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com

"Chronicles of Love and Death": From Amazon.com to Bhutan

I recently got the following question for my K2 column. Since it is not really technical in nature, but still can be quite relevant to many people, I'm publishing it here.

Hi Boaz,  

I have been reading your blog for sometime and I find it very interesting every time I get to go through. I have a question to ask you here:

I want a copy of this book very much "Chronicles of Love & Death: My Years with the Lost Spiritual King of Bhutan". I searched whole of New Delhi and Kathmandu, but couldn't find one. Lastly when I checked Amazon I found it is available there. So I was telling a friend of mine who lives in Canada to send a copy for me. He wonders if his VISA card be used to purchase the book? More so I am still not clear about gift Card. He is telling me that he will give me a gift card of $30. Can I buy the book (cost $25) from Amazon using his gift card? And here is my query again, even if I could buy using the card from Amazon, how can the delivery happen to me in Bhutan? Is it to my mailing address?
Please let me know...
T.G.

Thanks for following our blog T.G.! And now, to answer your question:

Amazon.com will ship media (books, CDs, DVDs etc) internationally to Bhutan. Just put your mailing address, and the book will - with high probability - be delivered. Here are the shipping rates for Asia. As can be seen, the standard shipping costs for books are currently US$4.99 per shipment, plus US$4.99 per item. If you're shipping a single book, the shipping cost will thus be US$9.98. Together with the book (currently $21.50), the total would be $31.48. Now we come to the payment issue. Indeed, you friend can pay by a credit card and have the book shipped over here. Or s/he can send you a gift certificate (an electronic one would do) for the total amount.

But here's another option: get the e-book! I've noticed that a Kindle version of the book is available, and the cost is only US$9.99. Now here are three important pieces of information:

• First, you don't need a Kindle device to read the book. You can download a Kindle application for your PC, Mac, iPhone, etc., and use it to read the Kindle book.
• Second, you can download a sample of the book for free to your Kindle application. This is a good way to see if you find the book interesting before buying it. On the book page, look for this button .
• Third, your friend in Canada can buy you the e-book as a gift. This is probably the simplest and quickest method to get hold of the book. Look for this button .

For more information, take a look at the Reading Lolita in Thimphu post. It has relevant information as well as some good comments.

Reading Lolita in Thimphu

Married to the Kindle

There's recently been an explosion of Bhutan-focused travelogues and memoirs. Or at least so it seems. Three of the newer works are currently not available for sale in Bhutan: Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli, Married to Bhutan by Linda Leaming, and Beneath Blossom Rain by Kevin Grange.

So what do you do if you're here in the Kingdom and desperate to get a copy? The public library would be a natural place to find such books, but as far as I know, copies are still not available for loan. Eventually a few will end up there. Another option is to find a local friend who has a copy. If that didn't work, keep on reading.

Dzongkha on Amazon Kindle E-Book Reader

An e-book reader is an electronic gadget that is used to read digital books. The most popular e-book reader is the Amazon Kindle. Here's an example of reading Dzongkha on the Kindle. The Kindle uses "electronic ink", which means the content can be viewed in direct sunlight, much like a real book.

Choosing an email provider

(Posted by Galit)

Many people opt for a free webmail account with Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, etc. A webmail account allows you to access your email from any computer that is connected to the Internet. Although Hotmail was the first to offer free webmail accounts, these days the real competition is between Gmail and Yahoo!. Before making your choice, and aside from the look-and-feel which you should check out yourself, here are a few features to consider:

• Mailbox size (storage): Gmail currently gives a huge space (7GB), and this increases over time. Yahoo! responded by offering "unlimited storage". Hence, you will most likely never reach the limit in either.
  
• Ability to forward to another address: Yahoo! requires a paid subscription in order to forward your email to a new address. This means that once you have an email account with them you are "trapped". In contrast, Gmail does allow free forwarding.
  
• Mobile phone interface: Gmail has a neat interface for mobile phones. Similarly, Yahoo! has Yahoo! Mobile Services.
  
• Attachment type and size limit: If you plan to attach large files, this is something to consider. In Yahoo! the limit is 10MB. In Gmail it is 20MB. Also, Gmail does not allow attaching executable files (such as .exe), to avoid viruses. Both providers scan attachments for viruses.
  
• Searching your mailbox: Both providers have search functions to search your email. I've found the Google search to be quite powerful. Yahoo! had a glitch in 2008 where searches were not retrieving any email or only a small subset (this can be fixed by emailing their support -- see this thread)
  
• Dormant account: If you will not have any activity in your account for long periods, you should consider the duration before the account will be deleted. In Gmail the duration is around 9 months. Yahoo! (and Hotmail) delete dormant accounts after 4 months.
  
• Building up your address book: Gmail automaticlly adds the email addresses of those who you reply to. Yahoo! requires you to enter them yourself.
  
• Organizing your emails: Yahoo! uses folders, where you can file an email to a folder. Gmail uses a different system called "labels". You can give an email one or more labels, thereby "filing" it into one or more "folders". These are not really folders although the operation is similar but more flexible.