More than just pleasure reading-other uses for Kindle

[Martel47]

So, I'm wondering how many people here use their Kindles for more than just pleasure reading.

Do you use it for school?  For Work?  Do you homeschool with it?  Do you use it as a paperweight? Whatever you might use it for, I want to know!

I'm particularly interested if anyone has used a Kindle for use in homeschooling their children.  I use it myself to read for my school, so I am wondering how the kids might benefit from it.

[Shastastan]

I've got a beginners guitar book and also a guitar chords book on mine.  I bought a cheap stand and can look at chords while I attempt to play.  I like a few blogs, too.  I've got the Popular Science one on now.  The dictionary is handy and I've also put a few .pdf manuals on my K2.  I read bits from the manuals during tv commercials.  Forces me to make it through the manuals in small doses.

[ZsuZsu]

Pretty much exclusively for pleasure- although occasionally, I DO try to learn things in a pleasurable manner (on my kindle!).... but I do not use it for work documents, and I am not a student....
I DO occasionally check the Yankees score, but really I just read, read, read whatever makes me happy!

[Martel47]

I've got a beginners guitar book and also a guitar chords book on mine.  I bought a cheap stand and can look at chords while I attempt to play.  I like a few blogs, too.  I've got the Popular Science one on now.  The dictionary is handy and I've also put a few .pdf manuals on my K2.  I read bits from the manuals during tv commercials.  Forces me to make it through the manuals in small doses.

That is awesome.  With my DX, I had thought music would display nicely.  Maybe I'll have to take-up trombone again.  Or something. 

Kindles would be good for storing all those user's manuals that can be found in PDF.

[Prazzie]

I use my Kindle for leisure reading EVERYWHERE.  I've read in a store at the cash register while they sorted out a problem with my store card.  Without my Kindle, I would've been standing there, shifting my weight, getting annoyed, gritting my teeth and losing my mind.

I read as many of my university books on the Kindle as possible.  I'm lucky in that my past two English courses covered material already out of copyright, so I could get the books for free online.  I also bought a Kindle textbook for my statistics course, which worked out great, because of the Kindle's keyword search function.  I find the highlight and note taking functions extremely useful for university work, as well.

My partner and I go on holiday to a beach house in the middle of nowhere as often as we can.  No internet (or even a computer) there, so whenever a discussion leads to a question, I whip out my Kindle to look it up on Wikipedia.  DailyLit has some great Wikipedia Tours.  I'm a psychology student, so what I did was bookmark all the Wikipedia entries in the Psychology Tour on my Kindle's browser.  Whenever I have a short moment to spare, but don't feel like getting lost in a story, I read about the history of psychology.

My Kindle also doubles up as an audiobook regularly.  I listen to all my Audible books on Kindle, because I like the menu format.  Another thing I like to do is download a poetry reading from Librivox and play the MP3 in the background while I read the poem on Kindle.  The most important use for me is the ability to read while walking.  I use earphones for privacy and either use an audiobook or text-to-speech.  I used to read while walking before Kindle, but it was very hazardous!

I use Instapaper to create lengthy "magazines" to read when I have time.  I save interesting articles and I also have an Instapaper folder for recipes I want to try out.

Kindle is also my preferred news reader now.  I use the text-to-speech function to listen to the news while I drive in the car and I have to say, you start missing that robotic voice reading the news when you listen to regular news! 

Like others here, I also store PDF instruction manuals on my Kindle.  I don't use my Kindle as a doorstop, nor do I play games on it.   

[Martel47]

I'm really hoping the doorstop choice remains at 0%, but I suppose there are some disillusioned Kindle owners out there that don't use their reader any more.

[Prazzie]

Yes, maybe you'll get more hits if you try adding the option "I use my Kindle to balance my wobbly washing machine", lol!

[Martel47]

Hmmm, washing machine or dining room table balancing device.  Either would work, I suppose.  I like my Kindle too much for either of those uses.

[Tuttle]

I use(d) my kindle for school. I put pdfs of papers I needed to read onto it. I also put writing of mine onto the kindle as I was editing. Reading off of a computer screen was useful for editing, but I found it wasn't necessary to mark up the hard copy as I usually do, as long as I was reading on something that wasn't a computer screen.

If I had work I'd probably use my kindle for work...but that involves having work .

Other people I know also use their kindles for reading for school as well as for music (that one is a DX) for directing.

Homeschooling on a kindle seems entirely reasonable to me.

[JaneD]

The main reason I bought a kindle was to be able to read the mountains of docs I get at work without throwing out my back, lugging them back & forth from work to home.  However, now that I have it, I do find I've loaded it up with much more pleasure-reading than anything else! 

[mom2karen]

I homeschool and have books on my kindle for Karen to read, but that means I have to let it out of my hands so it doesn't happen often.  The dictionary is great for her, and the ability to increase the size of the font is good.  She was an early reader so was reading chapter books at 6 but the small type was hard on her eyes.  If the Kindle had been cheaper 4 years ago I would have gotten one for her.  With the new price drops, she might find one in her stocking for X-mas. 

[bulbboy]

I just got mine last Saturday and already have over 100 books on it and have read 2.  I'm forcing myself to read all the classics.

I want to use it for more in the future.  How do you put pdf.'s on it without cost?

[Martel47]

I just got mine last Saturday and already have over 100 books on it and have read 2.  I'm forcing myself to read all the classics.

I want to use it for more in the future.  How do you put pdf.'s on it without cost?

You have to use the USB connection. 

[Martel47]

I homeschool and have books on my kindle for Karen to read, but that means I have to let it out of my hands so it doesn't happen often.  The dictionary is great for her, and the ability to increase the size of the font is good.  She was an early reader so was reading chapter books at 6 but the small type was hard on her eyes.  If the Kindle had been cheaper 4 years ago I would have gotten one for her.  With the new price drops, she might find one in her stocking for X-mas. 

That's great.  My daughter has used it to read a book and likes the adjustable font, too.  I have not shown her the dictionary, but I'm sure she'd use it.  Now, if only curriculum makers would sell e-books to me, I'd be happy.

[Shastastan]

I just got mine last Saturday and already have over 100 books on it and have read 2.  I'm forcing myself to read all the classics.

I want to use it for more in the future.  How do you put pdf.'s on it without cost?

I just researched this issue yesterday.  I wanted to put a Panasonic camera manual on in .pdf format.  This didn't work though.  It looks like the drm is in place so conversion doesn't work.  Oh well, I can still read it on the laptop with Adobe Reader.

[caracara]

I love it when my English teacher would be passing out books, and I could refuse because I got it for free on my Kindle.  I don't find it so helpful that I'll buy a school required reading when I can borrow one for free, but I usually still have my Kindle close by to use the dictionary.  DTDictionaries are so cumbersome and time consuming.

[Martel47]

I love it when my English teacher would be passing out books, and I could refuse because I got it for free on my Kindle.  I don't find it so helpful that I'll buy a school required reading when I can borrow one for free, but I usually still have my Kindle close by to use the dictionary.  DTDictionaries are so cumbersome and time consuming.

Well, I don't know about time consuming, but they would certainly be more cumbersome than carrying a kindle.

[Shastastan]

IMHO, most textbooks could easily be on a DX.  However, anyone who has ever been a teacher, college student, or had any job in education knows that there is a textbook "racket".  The publishers have virtually complete control over textbooks.  I have taught at the community college level and in some subjects there has been no need to change textbooks every year.  This is a hardship on the students and instructors and borders on fraud.  Each year there are more and more errors (errata).  It is very sad.

[Martel47]

IMHO, most textbooks could easily be on a DX.  However, anyone who has ever been a teacher, college student, or had any job in education knows that there is a textbook "racket".  The publishers have virtually complete control over textbooks.  I have taught at the community college level and in some subjects there has been no need to change textbooks every year.  This is a hardship on the students and instructors and borders on fraud.  Each year there are more and more errors (errata).  It is very sad.

On one hand, I certainly agree with you, but on the other, I know some folks in the world of academic publishing who specialize in books particular to certain niche markets.  Those new editions keep them in business so that they can publish other, newer works.  Sure, it's a racket, but selling used books isn't?  It might not hurt the large publishers, but it certainly hurts small publishers.  This is where e-publishing might work to their advantage.  As much as we hate DRM, it might encourage those publishers to stop with senseless updating.  This might not save the students much, but it would keep instructors from having to learn new editions each year.  And won't happier instructors make happier students?

Okay, now that's just wishful thinking, and it's getting off topic.

I agree, DX would be great for many textbooks.  I just bought some, and got one for my DX.  Most of the others qualified for free SuperSaver shipping.  One didn't and I had to go off-Amazon to get the best price, and what I saved on the e-book paid for its shipping.

I made sure to click on "I'd like to read this book on Kindle."

[Kathy]

For me the Kindle is just for pleasure reading. I use it exactly like I would a book. I really don't care about trying to put anything from work on it. 

[padawan0620]

I hope this will fit under the broad spectrum of "other uses for Kindle."  Next to my bed is my phone and kindle chargers. I must have been really tired the other night be cause I plugged what I thought was the charger for my phone and it was actually the kindle charger. The strange thing is it fit in the phone and started charging it! It only did it for less than a minute until I noticed it.

 Since it was charging the phone I followed the logic and plugged the kindle charger into the phone and it started charging the phone. I definitely did not leave it plugged in, just wanted to see if it worked.

[NessaBug]

I recently added PDFs of the spelling lists I'm studying for a corporate spelling bee I'm in for work (I'm a professional copy editor) and the media kit for an article I'm writing about Phoenix to my new-this-week Kindle 2. It was great for that.

But my dream is having the Associated Press Stylebook on it. I could search with a few keystrokes. How awesome would that be?

[Martel47]

I recently added PDFs of the spelling lists I'm studying for a corporate spelling bee I'm in for work (I'm a professional copy editor) and the media kit for an article I'm writing about Phoenix to my new-this-week Kindle 2. It was great for that.

But my dream is having the Associated Press Stylebook on it. I could search with a few keystrokes. How awesome would that be?

Yeah.  I could use Turabian.  I might have to look it up.  Sweet!  I was thinking of the latest edition and there it is for $9.99.

[Martel47]

That also reminds me...it was pointed out that citing a books Kindle edition is different from its print edition--makes sense.  Now I have to figure that out!  It would be nice if e-books would automatically update to the latest edition, maybe for a small fee.

[Luvmy4brats]

I homeschool and I get as many books on the Kindle as I can. Not all the books I need are Kindlized, but the selection has gotten much better over the last 2 years.

I don't use textbooks for the younger BRATs, and I haven't found any that the older one uses available for the Kindle, but many of their "required" reading books are there.