Reading comics on the Kindle

As a Kindle fan, I thought I'd post my thoughts on reading comics on the Kindle

A recent article on Life Hacker Australia's web site got me interested in digital comics again.  I say 'again' as I have dabbled in the past - just never really got hooked.  However, we're now in the age of the tablet.  There are so many more options for reading digital media.

I'll say it upfront - the iPad is perfect for comic reading.  It's got it all - screen size, perfect panning, bright colours.  The Kindle cannot compete for comic reading, and I won't pretend it does.  However, I'm must say, it's not that bad.

HOW GET YOUR COMICS ON THE KINDLE

(1) First find your comic.  Comics are either stored as *.cbr or *.cbz format (where * represents the comic's name).  The former is a compressed folder in RAR format.  The latter is a ZIP folder.  Basically, it's just a collection of sequentially named jpg files which can be read by a comic reader.  Check the lifehacker article for more info.

(2) You can either rename the respective file as a *.RAR or *.ZIP or simply open the files using WinRAR or WinZIP.  I'm not a Mac man but I think RAR files can be handled by the native OS just as Zip files can be handled natively by Windows XP onwards.  Anyway, choose an extracting tool appropriate for the compressed format you have, and extract the sequentially named comic jpg files into their own, uniquely named folder.

(3) Connect your Kindle to your PC and open up the Kindle's root folder.  If you can't see a folder called 'pictures' create one and copy your new comic folder (full of the comic images) into this that.  Just to clarify: you should have K:\pictures\new_comic_folder\comic0.jpg

(4) Eject and unplug your Kindle. Press ALT and Z together on the keyboard (this shortcut refreshes your library).  Your comic should appear.

I suggest you create an appropriate 'COLLECTION' on the Kindle and store it in there.

VIEWING THE COMIC

The illustrations below are taken from a Marvel comic I have legally purchased.  I don't think these screen shots infringe on any copyright laws and I'm sure there's not enough of the comic here to give any of the plot away.  If I become aware of any copyright infringements I will immediately withdraw the images with apologies to the artists.  I just wanted to illustrate the blog with a comic I actually read.

The viewing experience was, for me, surprisingly good.  Of course you need to switch to landscape mode.  But most of the text is legible and the colour comic translated well to gray scale.

View Size

I'm using my faithful Kindle 2 which doesn't have a zoom option for image viewing.  Well not really.  You can press the 'AA' hard button and switch the flag 'ACTUAL SIZE'.  The result is the screen capture below.

For me, I found this clumsy on the Kindle.  It's too easy to get lost while panning around the page with the slow eink refresh.  Besides, comics these days rarely follow a pattern with regard to frame layout.  You're lucky to get a complete frame in a window - even in landscape mode.  And the Kindle does not pan in fine increments - it jumps to the next viewing window.  Meaning you often have to flick back and forth on a frame just to read a bubble.

So your best option is to select 'NO' to the ACTUAL SIZE option, select 'FIT WIDTH' to the SCALE option, and select the landscape mode that brings the toggle joystick to the bottom of the Kindle (for me it was the second option in SCREEN ROTATION).

Menu Options

Now you've got the the Kindle in landscape and fit-to-width mode.  Hit the MENU hard button and select: ENABLE FULL SCREEN MODE, and ENABLE PAN TO NEXT PAGE.  The first option is obvious, the second allows you to use the toggle joystick to advance to the next page.  This way you can disregard the NEXT/PREV page hard buttons entirely.  The screen shot above shows you your menu options.  Don't disable dithering - you won't like the result.

Navigation is now quite slick.... well... considering the refresh rate of the Kindle.  Panning down the entire page requires 3 clicks of the joystick.  Half a page is almost entirely visible on the Kindle screen... almost.  The second click will show you almost all of the bottom half.  The third click only exposes the very bottom of the page you're reading.  The forth will take you to the top half of the next page.

A major limitation is you can't skip to the cover.  You have to cycle through each page (ie each image file) to get to where you want.  Mercifully it remembers where you left and when you get to the end, it will cycle back to the first page (image file).  But this is a limitation when combined with Kindle's slow image handling.

ALTERNATIVELY USE A PDF
The Kindle has better navigation facilities for pdf files.  It gives you a number of zoom options.  You have the 'GO TO' option that allows to to skip to the page you want.  So if you prefer, you can print all your images to a pdf file for a similar result.  But to be honest, it's not worth the trouble.  Viewing a comic as a collection of images is the best comic experience on the Kindle by far.


CONCLUSION

I have an iPad at my disposal. So the iPad will be my preferred option for reading comics.  However, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Kindle performed for this media.  If there is a use for the image viewing capabilities of the Kindle, this would be it.  I imagine Kindle 3 would do even better.

Anyway, have a try and see what you think.

Using dropbox to wirelessly transfer files to your Kindle 2 for FREE

That's right. I said Kindle 2 (two). Want to wirelessly transfer files to your Kindle without paying amazon? Here's how.

(NOTE if you have a Kindle 3 you have more options including free wireless transfer for the wifi version.)

(NOTE 2 :  Skip to step 7 if you are an advanced user and just want to cut to the chase)

CREATE A DROPBOX USER AND A FOLDER CALLED 'EBOOKS'
1. Set up a drop box account (go to www.dropbox.com on your pc and check their help screen if you don't know how)

Dropbox creates a little folder (appropriately named) in your 'My Documents' folder. This folder syncs with the cloud and you can access it from pretty much anything. You can share items in your dropbox folder with other users too...but I digress...

2. Make a folder inside Dropbox called, say, "ebooks".

2a. Add a .mobi file you want toto this folder now

LOG ON TO DROPBOX ON YOUR KINDLE
3. Go to the experimental browser on your Kindle
[MENU] hard button,  toggle down to [experimental] then just choose [launch browser]

4. Go to m.dropbox.com and log on (this is the mobile vrs of Dropbox - we're just using it to log on and that's it).  IMPORTANT: If you don't want it to keep asking for your password, make sure you tick the 'Remember Me' checkbox. NOTE:  Don't bother trying to find your files yet cause you can't download in the mobile version.

5. Now toggle down and select "View in standard" (or just go to www.dropbox.com instead of mobile version in previous step)

6.  Look at the screen capture above.  See where I've arrowed 'ADVANCED' at the top of the web page?  Well that means Kindle is having an attempt to render the page as a complete page.  You have to switch to BASIC MODE for it to be much use.  (select [MENU] hard button and toggle down to the last item

THE TRICK (JUST SKIP TO THIS STEP IF YOU'RE AN ADVANCED USER)
7. Screen should now look something like above (with 'BASIC MODE' at the top of the page).  Try refreshing the page if it still shows ADVANCED MODE.

7(b) Now toggle down and select 'EVENTS' just down below the Dropbox logo in the screen capture above
NOTE YOU MUST GO TO EVENTS.  I can't see any other way the Kindle 2 can access dropbox content.

8.  Bookmark this page (hardbutton [MENU] and select 'Bookmark This Page'.

8(b).  Go to the next page using the appropriate hard button.  You will see a list of the most recent events.  The top most item will be the files you have just added to dropbox.  Toggle down and select this item and it will download to your Kindle!   THAT'S IT.  You've just wirelessly added a book to your Kindle

NEXT TIME YOU DO THIS

You should now just be able to open your Kindle browser, go to the bookmark you created for dropbox events, go to the next page, and select any recently added books.

LIMITATIONS OF THIS METHOD

Aside from the ugly interface, there are some limitations.  For example, if you are a heavy user of Dropbox you will have quite a few items in your events list.  Your newly added book may get lost if you don't immediately log on via your Kindle after you've added it.  If this is the case, you may consider creating a totally separate Dropbox account just for your Kindle and share the folder with your main dropbox account.  Log on to your special Kindle account on your Kindle and it will obviously only show ebook related activity in the events.

I love this.  I often get (legal) Kindle readable documents emailed to me by a friend.  I'd prefer to read these documents on my Kindle but often don't have the device on me (or can't be bothered finding the cable and plugging it in to my laptop).  Rather than lament about my early adoption of the platform (no WiFi - crappy browser <sob>), I can now just drop the file into the ebook dropbox folder and download to my Kindle at my leisure from anywhere in the world.  And believe me, the wireless network does work all over the world. Much better than expensive mobile roaming charges.  My cousin took her Kindle around Europe - so good sitting in a foreign hotel at night emailing home and reading a book after a day of sight seeing - nothing worse than looking for a friendly internet cafe and wasting precious holiday hours in front of a computer.

Imagine an ebook folder shared to a network of Kindle users.  I'd be like a virtual bookclub.

Hope you can follow my babble and enjoy

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The Brisbane Flood Media Coverage

My first rant will be on news at hand - The Queensland (Australia) Floods.  Specifically the flooding that occurred in the capital - Brisbane.  Too soon?  Well Tony Abbott is having a go at the Prime Minister's dodgy tax to cover the event.  So I guess as an over-opinionated blogger, my misinformed views are well overdue.

Being a resident who was out of town on holidays while the whole floods unfolded, I was totally reliant on the extensive news coverage to be informed whether any of my properties (or my friends properties) were being affected by the flood.  "Why didn't you pick up the phone and call someone?" you might ask.  Well THE MEDIA TOLD ME NOT TO USE THE PHONE OR TRAVEL TO BRISBANE!  So I decided to take their word for it and thus placed myself entirely in their hands.  Big mistake.  (I think that's a line from Pretty Woman.  Very disturbing start to my blogging career)

When I did dare an SMS or two I did find out I my property had escaped - but absolutely NO thanks to the media.

Over and over we were forced to view the same footage of the same unidentified houses under water.  By the end of any one sitting, the images all blurred into one mass of water, roofs and ignorant kids on boogie boards.

IRRESPONSIBLE STUFF
Why the media loves the image of kids floating around in flood muck is beyond me.  Like Charlie Sheen to a house of disrepute, the camera is drawn to some unsupervised delinquent clinging to a inflatable bed.  (1) If the water is above 600mm high in a house, it is in the toilet dude.  You're surfing in poo poo and wee wee dude.  Not so cool now?  (2) No disrespect to victims but there have been fatalities.  And the media is irresponsible enough to film one of the major causes.

Example: I remember one reporter who was chatting away with the camera angled such that a kid on a boogie board could be seen floating behind her.  The banter seemed to ignore the activity behind her as the network flashed back to the news desk.  When they returned to the reporter, a tinny full of police could be seen following the recreational flood surfer.  Still no mention from the reporting staff.  Are they blind or did they put the kid up to it in the first place?  Wouldn't surprise me.  Hang on - I almost forgot the point of this blog.  What I mean is OF COURSE IT WAS STAGED


UNINFORMATIVE STUFF
All I wanted to know is if the water had reached my house.  But no, no.  The media wanted to show us some spectacular and heart wrenching footage so to hell with reporting the facts.  On some occasions, all they needed to do is sweep the camera to the right or left of the reporter conducting an interview.  But no, no.  They wanted to hear some random person tell us what was happening.  It was like watching a 5 year old play Super Mario Galaxy.  You know the mind numbing experience of watching him run the little avatar off the cliff over and over and over.  I kept leaning in an attempt to will the camera man to zoom out a little.  But no, no.

The most painful was when they had footage from a chopper.  The chopper was moving but the camera man managed to keep the camera poised on a solitary image or street in the city centre.  Skillful cameraman -yes.  Spectacular shot -yes.  Tell me where the water was? No.  For all I new the entire city had been covered in water - not the <5% that actually was (Brisbane is quite sprawling so the actual percentage of land covered with water was probably quite low.  But in keeping with the theme of my blog I pulled a number out of my ....)

Now we didn't need this level of detail (as beautiful/tragic as these images are)
http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.495786,152.996292&z=14&t=k&nmd=20110113
That map came a week after the event.  And is great for retrospective analysis.

All we wanted was a dude with a fluro pen and a map of brisbane.  That's all.  Or a screen capture of google maps and photoshop.  Or copy of the UBD and a niko pen.  What we got was a news reporter standing in front of a cityscape reading a bit of paper "...water is getting in to West End...." and cut to a shot of country town under water - at first I thought it WAS a shot of West End.  But when they used the same footage for another suburb I had my doubts.


IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN
Ahhh yes.  Spurred on by the ratings success of the last disaster, news.com.au leaps to action when they hear of an impending Cyclone.  http://www.news.com.au/national/north-queensland-braces-for-cyclone-anthony-as-cyclone-yasi-brews-behind-it/story-e6frfkvr-1225996801970  If the video is still active when you view this link you will notice that it starts with footage of a roof being blown off.  The cyclone hasn't even hit shore.  It's not even category 2.  So all I can assume is they're showing people who have never heard the term "cyclone" or "damaging wind" - this is what it looks like.

Well one thing's for sure, if the cyclone doesn't end up being big, news.com.au will find some footage of one that was...

First blog

I have an opinion on just about everything.   Just like news.com.au, I intend to give you hard hitting unjustifiable and unreferenced "facts".  If there's something happening in the world and I disagree with it - you can bet I'll do everything in my power to prevent that event - even if that means posting a second blog and capitalising it.  The power of the interweb is now in my hands.  My voice will be heard by tens.  Stay tuned

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