Porting and managing your E-Books on Kindle

If you have a lot of books in electronic form and want to port them to Kindle and then manage them well, here are a few tools you will find very useful.

Use caliber or mobipocket creator to convert books from their current formats to Kindle format. In fact caliber can even transfer them properly to the Kindle for you. I know that a similar conversion can easily be achieved by sending the file to your Amazon Kindle email id and then receiving it when you are connected to Wi-Fi. However, I personally prefer to be in control of this process and I like to use caliber.

Then use Kindle Collection Manager to create collections of books and organize your books in them. As the books get organized in collection which are nothing but a form of folders, the list of books you see in the home screen of Kindle becomes a bit smaller and more logically organized.

Your Android/iOS phone may have rootkit (Carrier IQ)

It was recently discovered that many Android, iOS, Nokia and RIM phones may have Carrier IQ mobile diagnostics rootkit software embedded deep into the software. The implication of this is that it is possible to track a lot more than just your problems with the phone without your even getting a whiff of it! Read more about this rootkit on website of Trevor Eckhart who is credited with finding this.

You can download the android app written by him to check whether your phone has Carrier IQ running behind your back.

To remove it, you can get the key for the Pro version for $1 from the android market but there are no guaranties that it will work for sure. Surest solution is to root your phone and go in for custom roms like CyanogenMod.

If you are on iOS5, it is simpler to disable this by going into Settings > General > About > Diagnostics & Usage, and click "Don’t Send.". For older versions of iOS running on jailbroken devices, go to chpwn blog.

10 Android apps from Google for 10 cents each

Google is providing 10 Android apps for 10 cents each for 10 days to celebrate 10 billion downloads of Android. Check out if any of the offered apps appeal to you for a dime...
Linky

Kindle Import "Operation Failed" on TouchPad

I was trying to import a few books into Kindle on TouchPad using Calibre + Kindle Import but was getting the error "Operation Failed". Here's how I resolved this problem

1. Uninstalled Kindle & Kindle Import 
2. Deregistered this Kindle instance from the Amazon account (it may even work if this step is skipped)
3. Restart TouchPad
4. Reinstall Kindle and Kindle Import
5. Reregister this Kindle instance
6. Convert & Push the books from PC to TouchPad using Calibre
7. Run Kindle Import on TouchPad to select & import these books

That should solve your problem!

Updates to HomeBrew patches on TP

Updates to the patches listed in my previous post on Installing HomeBrew on TouchPad are now available for webOs3.0.4! Go ahead and update the patches and enjoy your TP. Note that I had to update each patch individually as the option to update all did not work.

Make PDF Reader intelligent on HP TouchPad

The PDF reader on the HP TouchPad currently just reads pdfs  :) It would be great if it could remember the last page that I had read on a particular pdf and it would be great if it allowed me to bookmark specific pages on pdfs.

Well, it seems that this particular wish is now granted and works well according to this thread on preCentral forums. It is a simple as downloading and installing this ipk - that's all one needs to do to get this awesome feature!

Note that this is just the beginning and there's lots of work still to be done.

WebOS 3.0.4 Update released

Ari Jaaksi, the head of webOS & services and HP announced on his blog here that they are releasing a new software update (3.0.4 - 77) for the HO TouchPad. It is an OTA update and has lots of perforamce improvements, better support for camera, UI updates & tweaks, and more apps!

So go ahead and update your TPs, but if you have HomeBrew and custom kernel & patches, then worry not. According to this forum post and this one, and this wiki page, updating your home-brewed TP is harmless and you do not need to do anything special. The patches may just stop working for some time till the latest updates of those patches are available and get updated. Also, some of the issues being addressed by the patches may also be taken care of by the new update.

So, as Ari says - enjoy the new update - no strings attached  ;)

Google gets a Patent for Doodles

Was checking out today's Google Home Page Doodle "Gumby" and stumbled upon the fact that Google's Sergey Brin got a Patent (7,912,915) for it! The application was filed more than 10 years ago on April 30, 2001 and is described as "Systems and methods for enticing users to access a web site"
To quote the text of the Patent:
[Quote]
A system provides a periodically changing story line and/or a special event company logo to entice users to access a web page. For the story line, the system may receive objects that tell a story according to the story line and successively provide the objects on the web page for predetermined or random amounts of time. For the special event company logo, the system may modify a standard company logo for a special event to create a special event logo, associate one or more search terms with the special event logo, and upload the special event logo to the web page. The system may then receive a user selection of the special event logo and provide search results relating to the special event.
[/Quote]

Use FoxIt for filling in forms in PDFs

Needed to fill in a form in a PDF which had not been made originally in such a way that Adobe Reader could understand there were fields in it. Most probably it was a scan & print to pdf of a word document.

In such a scenario, FoxIt Reader came to the rescue! It has a tool called the Typewriter which allows you to click anywhere on the PDF and type in text in desired font, size & color - viola! Used that to fill in the form and print it out. Only problem is if you save this PDF, free version of FoxIt reader adds a watermark so better print it before saving the changes.

You can get the portable version of FoxIt Reader from here or if you prefer the full version, you can get it from here.

Entrepreneurship is the "in thing" in India

The Entrepreneurial spirit is very high in India these days with tons of very good companies and products coming jostling for attention. Many of the ideas are adaptations / localization of successful ones across other parts of the globe and some are very unique to the unique needs/demographics of the country. Here are a few that I cam across - not necessarily listed in any order of relevance or importance but more for my own future reference.

• Revu - a twitter style instant review from via SMS
• Paytm - instant recharge of your phone, data or tv card and get free coupons
• freecharge.in - instant recharge of your phone, data or tv card and get free coupons
• roopit - localized craigslist / sulekha for Bangalore only
• mobisy - consulting to create apps for mobile platforms
• Kreeo - platform to manage content, knowledge and social networking inside enterprises
• CraftsVilla - online market for Indian handicrafts (on the lines of Etsy except that artisan cannot interact directly?)
• Craftila - another online market for Indian handicrafts (on the lines of Etsy except that artisan cannot interact directly?)
• goibibo - domestic flight, hotel, holiday & travel booking
• kidloo - online toy store carrying all major brands
• firstcry - online store for branded infant and baby products
• timtara - fast growing online store
• buyTHEprice - online electronics store
• pluggd.in - Indian version of TechCrunch?
• flipkart - India's very own version of Amazon?
• mime360 - secure digital media distribution platform
• mYusic - streaming legal bollywood music

Let me know if you see any more sites....