| Amazon has quite a number of Kindle Fire Android tablets out there, with the HDX 7 and 8.9 being the latest generation. No matter what device you have, it is impossible to watch or play any online Flash content. This obviously is quite limiting because most of the old web is mostly done with Adobe Flash. Today, we look at some of the options users can employ to get Flash on their Kindles. If you have the Amazon Kindle Fire 7 HDX or the 8.9 HDX you can enable it so you can at least watch Flash videos using the SILK web-browser. The name of the feature is the The Experimental Streaming Viewer, and it is fairly easy to turn on. Go to the Web tab > Menu > Settings > Accelerated page loading > turn on. When you turn this feature on, it will enable two other features, Enable Flash Forward and Prompt for experimental streaming viewer. Further instructions on how to use the viewer are HERE. The internet is full of interactive Flash games and websites that were coded in it. The Silk browser does not actually allow you to run Flash content in this fashion and you basically have to install a Flash supported browser, such as Dolphin HD. In order to get Flash on your older Kindle Fire Tablet or even one of the new ones there are a few steps. Swipe down from the top > More > Device > Allow Installation of Applications. This will turn on the ability to install apps not available in the Amazon App Market. Next, use your web-browser and enter http://apps.goodereader.com/android-apps/internet-and-communication/?did=5049. This will download a new version of Dolphin Browser, which supports Flash. The next thing you need to do is actually stall Flash now. http://apps.goodereader.com/android-apps/essential-android-tablet-applications/?did=24 The two main sections above are basically all you need to do to get Flash content running on the Kindle. If you have any questions or concerns about any of this, kindly let me know. How to Enable Flash on the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Thursday, February 27, 2014
How to Enable Flash on the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX
Amazon Developing a Prime Streaming Music Service
| Amazon Prime has a number of compelling features that makes people glad to spend $79.99 per year. There is free shipping, a free eBook every single month and access to Amazon Instant Video. The Seattle based company announced during a recent earnings call that they were talking about increasing the Prime membership by $40.00. They cited rising shipping costs as being a prime motivator, but the price increase may also pave the way for a new Amazon Streaming Music Service. Amazon is reportedly in talks with major music labels with the aim of releasing a music service of the future, hoping for low rates much as Apple did when negotiating for iTunes Radio. Amazon is hoping to go head to head with Beats, Spotify, Pandora, and Apple. According to Re/Code “Amazon has been beefing up its roster of executives with digital music experience in the last few years. In October 2012, it hired Michael Paull, a Sony music executive, to head up its digital music operations. At the same time, it brought in Drew Denbo, who had handled business development at streaming services Rhapsody and MOG, to do the same job at the e-commerce site. And last year it hired Adam Parness, who handled licensing for Rhapsody.” The industry standard for a streaming music service is currently six cents per 100 songs streamed. Apple ended up agreeing to pay 13 cents for each song played, along with 15% of net advertising revenue. Likely, Amazon is looking for the same deal, or cheaper. Amazon Developing a Prime Streaming Music Service is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New PocketBook Aqua Might be a Good Vacation e-Reader
| Pocketbook recognizes that many people take their e-readers to the pool, beach or on vacation. Standard e-readers have lots of open ports, that water or sand can easily destroy the reader. In order to remedy this situation the Ukrainian based company will be releasing the Pocketbook Aqua this March. The PocketBook Aqua is protected by IP57 certification, which means that the device is protected against dust and for 30 minutes at one meter of water is dense. This will basically allow you to read it in the bathtub or scuba diving! The device itself features a six inch e-Ink Pearl Display with a resolution of 800×600. Underneath the hood is a 1 GHz single core processor and memory is relegated to 4 GB of storage. In order to make it waterproof Pocketbook had to forgo the SD card and also eliminated all buttons. Many phones and tablets are increasingly billing themselves as waterproof as a marketing ploy. Sony has done this with a number of their devices and smaller niche companies are also offering products. My question, is how viable is a waterproof e-reader? It might make a solid vacation one, that you can read in any environment, although its dubious if this will ever be your primary one. New PocketBook Aqua Might be a Good Vacation e-Reader is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Learnist Unveils iOS App, Premium Content
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Today, Learnist announced its new app for iPhone and iPod, two devices that have a high level of penetration among consumers and are therefore readily available in classroom settings, even at the public school grade levels. This app has been unveiled in conjunction with Learnist’s news that it is now offering premium Learnboards to its 10 million registered users worldwide, with most content from highly recognized names being made available for as little as 99cents with an in-app purchase. Good e-Reader spoke to Learnist’s founder and chief product officer Farb Nivi about the launch of both the app and the exciting new content, as well as discussed the importance of enabling this level of fingertip access to educational material that is both relevant and affordable. “Learnist is basically about people sharing what they know directly with each other. Everything you want to know is available now online, and we couldn’t make that statement even five years ago. We went from nothing on the internet to basically everything we know on the internet, so we came up with the idea for Learnist by letting them share what they know.” The company’s Learnerboards are fully enhancement-capable stand-alone offerings that can be user created and collaborated, then made available for other learners to use. This has become an especially important tool for classroom teachers and has seen a dedicated following of educators among registered users. “Learnist is like a crowdsourced collection of the world’s knowledge. And with this update–a completely new app, really–one of the things that we’re very excited about is that we’ll be offering premium content for sale for 99cents from really notable experts.” These so-called “celebrity” experts who’ve already signed on to contribute content include names like director Gus Van Sant, actress and activist Olivia Wilde, designer Danny Forster, MythBusters TV host Kari Byron, former NFL star Dhani Jones, author Brad Meltzer, and more. Nivi went on to make the point that the speed with which an expert signs on to create a new Learnerboard and then Learnist makes that content available is almost unheard of, sometimes taking place within only a matter of four to six weeks. This helps ensure that the topics available to Learnist users are both timely, and up-to-date in terms of accuracy. One of the most exciting features of Learnerboards is the dynamic of the content itself. Where consumers initially needed to purchase an entire book or textbook, this content allows users to focus only on the content they need at a far more affordable price point for the content. This premium content, when coupled with the high volume of free content that is also available, enables Learnist to meet the public’s information needs via reliable and practical application sources. The app is available today for iOS.
Learnist Unveils iOS App, Premium Content is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Audible and ACX Lower Self-Published Audiobook Commission Rates
| Amazon launched ACX in 2011 to connect up publishers, authors and producers for unsold audiobook rights. Indie authors have begun to use the program more than the publishing companies and Amazon has tweaked their program a number of times to be more appealing. Today, the company announced they were adjusting the royalties it pays on audiobooks. When the ACX program first launched, companies like HarperCollins and Random House primarily used it to compliment their eBook strategies with audiobooks. Lots of famous actors loaned out their voice to read novels and producers were earning extra income. A year later self-published authors started to take over the platform and Audible adjusted their strategy to have a wider appeal. Until now, the royalties paid on audiobooks have been really solid. If you wanted to market it exclusively through Audible you would get paid around 50–90%, if you wanted to sell it outside of Audible you would earn 25–70%. Amazon has now lowered the exclusive rate to 40% and the non-exclusive version to 25%. Further, a bounty of $50 will be awarded to the royalty earner every time your book is the first purchase of a new AudibleListener. Under the previous program, a $25 bounty was awarded every time your book was one of the first three purchases by a new AudibleListener. In Royalty Share deals, the Rights Holder and Producer will now split the $50 bounty equally. If you have produced an audiobook in the past, the royalty structure will not change. Authors and Producers will still earn the old amount for audiobooks published before March 11, 2014. The commission adjustment is only applicable for new titles being published, although the bounty rate will change across the board. Amazon, Audible and ACX have continued to make their platform less appealing to authors as time as gone on. It was not too long ago that the company paid authors an additional $1.00 everytime their book was purchased or downloaded. They did this to draw attention to their platform as a viable way to distribute audiobooks to the masses. This new adjustment to royalties is the latest decrease to revenue earning potential. But really, where else are you going to sell it? Audible and ACX Lower Self-Published Audiobook Commission Rates is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Gameboy cosplay (Pi-powered, naturally)
| We have no details about this other than the video below. (A picture appeared on Reddit last August, but there’s been absolutely no other information: we do not know who these people are, what the event they’re at is, how many worked on the outfit, or where they’re from.) But it’s magnificent, so we had to share. Great job, shady-looking guy! Get in touch with us if you see this: we’d like to know who you are, and what other superpowers you have. Thanks to Recantha for the spot! |
Adobe Combines Tools to Create Unified Publishing Process
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Known for its Digital Publishing Suite that is used by a variety of publishers to create digital content for device consumption, Adobe announced today that it’s merging the capabilities of DPS with another of its popular publishing tools, the Adobe Experience Manager. This combination will allow content developers to enjoy an even more streamlined workflow with an ease of use factor that reduce the need for graphic artists to generate all of the layout. Adobe’s Lynly Schambers Lennox and Colin Fleming spoke with Good e-Reader about the implications of how this level of product integration can be a game changer for companies who are investigating or even currently utilizing Adobe’s tools for content publication. “With these two solutions combined, we’re offering a really powerful multi-channel publishing solution for rapidly publishing content to mobile devices,” explained Schambers Lennox. “Adobe Experience Manager allows users to organize, create, and manage the delivery creative assets from a single location and push them out to website, mobile websites, email campaigns, social sites, and of course, mobile applications using Digital Publishing Suite.” This integration will not only save time and money for the content developers as they work to reach their consumer audiences, but more importantly, companies using the combined workflow of DPS and Experience Manager can maintain a strong sense of unity within their brands and their materials. By simply moving content through both tools, that brand recognition can easily be kept consistent. Of course, these tools and this integration of the features is not limited to digital publishers, but is easy enough to use that companies without a dedicated graphic art department can still produce eye-catching publications for their customers’ email, their apps, or mobile devices. Coupled with the added integration of Adobe Analytics through the Adobe Marketing Cloud, this new offering allows content developers to measure the impact of their publications in terms of user engagement.
Adobe Combines Tools to Create Unified Publishing Process is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Coming soon to Roku: Library audiobooks and Streaming Videos!
| OverDrive is launching a Roku channel, which will enable your patrons and students to listen to audiobooks and watch Streaming Videos from your collection directly on their home television set. Librarians attending the Public Library Association (PLA) Conference in Indianapolis March 11-15 will be able to see a demonstration of the OverDrive Roku channel in booth #721. Roku is a popular and inexpensive streaming audio and video device that can be connected to most TVs. The OverDrive Roku channel will provide consumers another way to access their local library digital audiobook and video catalog, making it easy to watch a movie or listen to MP3 audiobooks in just seconds. Roku comes preinstalled with popular channels including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Pandora and others. Once launched, the OverDrive channel will be a free, no subscription service that all Roku users can easily select and then locate titles to borrow from their library. "Today's public libraries already offer tens of thousands of best-selling digital audiobooks and videos in every category," said Karen Estrovich, OverDrive's Director of Collection Development. "Roku extends the value of the OverDrive libraries' digital media collections to TVs in millions of living rooms, kitchens, dens – anywhere the WiFi reaches." OverDrive provides the largest collection of digital audiobooks from every major publishing house, including best-selling authors John Grisham, Janet Evanovich, Nicholas Sparks, Gillian Flynn, Neil Gaiman and many more. Early this year, the company launched its Streaming Video service for public libraries and has already added more than 4,000 feature films, educational, children's, spiritual, and self-help titles from Criterion Pictures, Revolver Entertainment, and Cinedigm, among others. Visit Los Angeles Public Library's digital collection to see some of these titles at lapl.lib.overdrive.com. Libraries and schools that have MP3 audiobooks and Streaming Video through OverDrive will have their library's available titles in the new Roku channel. After registering their library card number in the initial visit, users simply choose the OverDrive channel from the Roku menu, select their library, and borrow Streaming Videos and audiobooks that their library has available for checkout. The OverDrive Roku channel will be available for use later this year. Visit OverDrive's booth # 721 at PLA Conference March 11-15 to learn more, and visit http://blogs.overdrive.com for updates.  |
5 most common mobile device support issues
| We in OverDrive Support Services are committed to providing quality solutions to common support questions. Over the course of the next several months, we're going to present blogs highlighting the solutions to the most common types of issues. For this month, we're looking at mobile device issues (Android, iOS, and Windows Phone).
As always, if the help articles linked above do not immediately resolve the issues, OverDrive's Support Services team is available to assist through the support form found in Marketplace. If you are an end user, please visit the help pages on your library site by clicking on Help (question mark) so that you can research the help articles for your issue or contact your library with specific questions.
Justin Noszek is a Support Services Specialist at OverDrive.
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Weekly eHighlights: Your Guide to What’s New at OverDrive – Australia and New Zealand Edition
| Greetings, readers! This week's installment of eHighlights brings fiction and nonfiction audiobooks from some of our bestselling and most buzzed-about titles. Check out our selections below, or you can find similar titles by performing an advanced search in Marketplace. Simply log in and click on "Advanced Search." Set "Format" to "Audiobook" and "Language" to "English." Next, make the "Street Date" range from January 1 to March 31, and set "Rank" to "Popularity Across Libraries." Did you know you could make this a saved search option, too? Try it out to get the most popular content every time you search. As always, we invite you to contact your Collection Development Specialist with any requests or questions. We are here to help! Happy Reading!
The 100 Most Popular Audiobooks Jeaniene Frost (read by Tavia Gilbert) – Up From the Grave Night Huntress series, Book 7. Lately, life has been unnaturally calm for vampires Cat Crawfield and her husband, Bones. They should have known better than to relax their guard, because a shocking revelation sends them back into action to stop an all-out war. A rogue CIA agent is involved in horrifying secret activities that threaten to raise tensions between humans and the undead to dangerous heights. Now Cat and Bones are in a race against time to save their friends from a fate worse than death because the more secrets they unravel, the deadlier the consequences. And if they fail, their lives–and those of everyone they hold dear–will be hovering on the edge of the grave.
Indiana Jackson is thirty-three years old and works in San Francisco at an alternative medicine clinic that attracts all sorts of characters. Her teenage daughter, Amanda, likes noir literature and hopes to attend MIT. In her free time, she plays Ripper, an online role playing game that involves solving real-life mysteries and crimes using information collected by Amanda’s father, the Chief Inspector of the San Francisco police. When Ripper’s latest murder mystery–the case of the misplaced bat–begins to touch their real-world lives, Amanda and her friends know they must find the murderer before he can strike again. At the age of 35, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne has left her philandering husband in San Francisco to set sail for Belgium–with her three children and nanny in tow–to study art. It is a chance for this adventurous woman to start over, to make a better life for all of them, and to pursue her own desires. Not long after her arrival, however, tragedy strikes, and Fanny and her children repair to a quiet artists’ colony in France where she can recuperate. Emerging from a deep sorrow, she meets a lively Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, ten years her junior, who falls instantly in love with the earthy, independent, and opinionated “belle Americaine.” By the author of the bestselling Loving Frank. After hunting down murderer and bandito Captain Alejandro Vasquez, Territorial Marshal Virgil Cole and Deputy Everett Hitch return him to Citadel to stand trial. No sooner do they remand Vasquez into custody when a major bank robbery occurs and the lawmen quickly find themselves tasked with a new job: investigate the robbery of Comstock Bank, recover the loot, and bring the criminals to justice. In the latest mystery from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd, Inspector Ian Rutledge is summoned to the quiet, isolated Fen country to solve a series of seemingly unconnected murders before the killer strikes again. Despite his experience, Inspector Ian Rutledge can find no connection between the two deaths. One victim was an Army officer, the other a solicitor standing for Parliament; their paths have never crossed. What links these two murders? Is it something from the past? Or is it only in the mind of a clever killer? They meet in a clash of swords, drenched in the moonlight of Britain’s rugged eastern coast: Captain Jack, his handsome features etched in silver and shadow, his powerful physique compelling “Kit” Cranmer to surrender. Suddenly Kit finds she’s only too delighted to explore with Jack the pleasures conventionally reserved for married ladies—little knowing what dangerous forces she’s unleashing, for even as Kit revels in midnight gallops and cottage rendezvous, Captain Jack is laying a gentle trap that will curtail her freedom and bind her to him with a ring, a promise—and ties of devotion and desire. A number of bodies are discovered on the United States’ border with Mexico, each carved with a bizarre symbol: a hummingbird. Detective Cecilia Garza arrives at the scene and recognizes the image immediately; it is the calling card of a killer called Chuparosa, a man both feared and celebrated for his cunning and brutality. Meanwhile, It’s United Nations Week in Manhattan and Jeremy Fisk can’t let his grief over a devastating loss keep him from his duty to safeguard the city and the world’s most powerful leaders. Complicating matters is the startling news of a mass murder on the beach in nearby Rockaway and the arrival of a beautiful and assertive Mexican detective determined to do things her way.
Dance of the Reptiles collects the best of Hiaasen’s Miami Herald columns, which lay bare the stories large and small that demonstrate anew that truth is far stranger than fiction. Hiaasen offers his commentary, indignant, disbelieving, sometimes righteously angry, and frequently hilarious on burning issues like animal welfare, polluted rivers, and the broken criminal justice system as well as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Bernie Madoff’s trial, and the shenanigans of the recent presidential elections. Whether or not you have read Carl Hiaasen before, you are in for a wild ride.
Navy SEAL Ian Dunn went rogue in a big way when he turned his talents to a lawless life of jewel heists and con job. In reality, the former Special Ops warrior is still fighting for good, leading a small band of freelance covert operatives who take care of high-stakes business in highly unofficial ways. That makes Ian the hands-down choice when the US government must breach a heavily guarded embassy and rescue a pair of children kidnapped by their own father, a sinister foreign national willing to turn his kids into casualties. Shockingly, Ian passes on the mission for reasons he will not or cannot reveal. But saying no is not an option especially not for Phoebe Kruger, Ian’s beautiful and unexpectedly brash new attorney.
The United States Congress in 1929 passed legislation to fund travel for mothers of the fallen soldiers of World War I to visit their sons’ graves in France. Over the next three years, 6,693 Gold Star Mothers made the trip. In this emotionally charged, brilliantly realized novel, April Smith breathes life into a unique moment in American history, imagining the experience of five of these women.
Like what you've seen here? There's 90 more to go! To easily access a list of the top 100 titles, click here: Top 100 Audiobooks for the Australian Market
*Geographical rights may vary by title.
Kate Seivertson is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.
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How to Block Ads in Your Web Browser
Tired of banners, pop-ups, and other annoying ads? Find out how to get rid of them using a simple (free!) browser extension. |
Reddit Enables Users to Create Open-Source Journalism
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While Reddit is experimenting with the “open source journalism” that lets users create and update blog-style feeds in real time, not all of the experimental modes are so life changing as sharing the news of disasters worldwide. But one arm of this project does have the power to foster upheaval of growth by keeping users informed of the invents unfolding in the Ukraine, as they happen. Unlike typical posts where users simply comment on a thread, Reddit’s new Liveupdate threads–while not exactly pretty, in much the same way that Reddit is a no-frills info swapping site–allow the established users to update the information in a bloglike way while followers see the updates in real-time and can access alerts that new information has been added. It’s like watching the news coverage of an event without waiting for the network to decide to air it, and without commercial interruption. As for these open-source journalists themselves, one of the most exciting possibilities for a low-end platform like Reddit is the removal of network sponsors who will dictate their own slant on the coverage. A simple look at the headlines involving last night’s announcement that Governor Jan Brewer (AZ) vetoed a bill that allowed businesses within the state to refuse to serve homosexuals was simultaneously referred to as the “Anti Discrimination Veto” and the “Anti Religious Freedom Veto,” depending on which news source ran the headline. Reddit users are nothing if not completely candid, as other threads have shown, and will ideally be able to cover events as they see them, not as corporate sponsors require it. While the new feature is in beta at the moment, Reddit does foresee this tool being open and accessible to all users. And while yes, there may be some live updates to cat memes, there will potentially be some world changing news.
Reddit Enables Users to Create Open-Source Journalism is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The Creoir Ibis Smartwatch Makes a Bold Style Statement at the MWC
| The Creoir Ibis is a smartwatch unlike any other that we’ve seen so far. Launched at the MWC, the Ibis brings a much needed infusion of style in the genre with high end features but are pretty bland looks wise. A unique aspect of the device is that it incorporates an analog watch with an OLED display beneath it that adds the smart aspect to the watch. Fortunately, the Ibis does not attempt to pull off a lot of tasks but is instead rooted in the basics in the most elegant manner. Adding to the style is the stainless steel and crystal that goes into it. The device is based on a simplified version of Android but is compatible with iOS as well. The OLED display is touch enabled and is designed to keep the user connected to notifications from the phone. The Ibis also offers Bluetooth 4.0, USB, and Wi-Fi connectivity options. The Ibis comes with a built-in accelerometer, e-compass, and an ambient light sensor. “We believe the demand for smart watches will be driven by fashion and sport brands, and the Ibis exemplifies the type of product that we create for fashion brands,” said Pekka Väyrynen, CEO of the Creoir, the Finland based design studio. “Every brand has its own design language, so with each client we start from scratch to develop a product that specifically matches the brand and their audience. With our expertise, we can provide consumer brand owners with everything they need to have a real advantage when entering the smart device space,” the CEO further added. However, no matter how much the Ibis might appeal to our senses, the Ibis is just a concept right now. The smartwatch was put on display at the Creoir booth and as such, we aren't sure of a launch date or cost. In any case, it’s refreshing to see someone come out with a device that impresses with its style and functionality rather than tries to overwhelm us with an absurd list of features.
The Creoir Ibis Smartwatch Makes a Bold Style Statement at the MWC is a post from: Good e-Reader |
