Posts Tagged ‘Kindle’

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Using the Kindle for Bible Study

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Since posting about OSNOVA’s work on the use interface (UI) for Kindle-formatted bibles, we’ve seen some increasing activity on the site in regards to Bibles, religious apps, and best usages of religious apps on the Kindle, Nook, and other eReader devices. Certanely, the acquisition and use of eReaders and tablets is growing, and we would do well to chart and observe some means of using these devices similar to, and as an enhancement from, how we have used print books and smaller mobile devices for study and reflection. And as This Lamp’s review of the Kindle Touch 3G reveals, there is something to be gained from understanding the benefits and limitations of eInk devices, which are different from tablet computers.

The Biblical Learning Blog posted 25 ways in which the Kindle is useful for bible study. These are grouped, but certainly point to the wealth of content that can be found for Kindle devices. Here’s a snippet:

  • Bible Options: This search leads to various options to the traditional Bible, including a Bible in contemporary language, the Apologetics Study Bible, a complete Jewish Bible, the Jefferson Bible and much more.
  • Bible Study: This link leads to the Bible Study option at the Amazon Kindle Store. You can search for Bible study books by title, customer review or by price.
  • Bible Study Guides: Amazon makes a wide variety of Bible study guides available to many markets, from an equally wide variety of writers.
  • Bible Translations: Use the menu to the left of this search page to discover Biblical translations for a wide variety of Bibles.
    Christian Books: From fiction to theology and from how-to books to music, this search reveals thousands of books available to Kindle readers.

Read the rest of 25 Ways the Kindle is Useful for Bible Study at the Biblical Learning Blog.

Back in October, we talked about some of the effects that the Kindle opens up to those folks who might have previously considered electronic texts, or even those who have, but might have creative pursuits which better translate into that domain. Wisdom is the skillful application of knowledge and understanding (Proverbs 4:7). Let’s continue to collect wisdom in using all electronic texts by identifying both their strengths and weaknesses, and then making a concerted effort to esteem one another as the reading and publishing environment evolves.

View a listing of bibles and other religious apps for the Kindle and other mobile computing devices.

 

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[Guest Post] iBooks Author: It’s Place in an eBook Production Workflow

Friday, January 27th, 2012

This is a guest post submitted by Craig Button (@TheProdSon)

Introduction, Quick Summary

Since most of you have no idea who I am, I suppose I should introduce myself. First and foremost I am a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. After that I’m a geek. I’ve owned just about every type of computer ever made and today work on both Mac and PCs depending on what I’m doing. I use both Pages and MS Word, prefer Excel to Numbers, and either PowerPoint or Keynote depending on what I’m doing. I’m a health care provider by profession, an educator by avocation, I’ve been clergy, (church offices on weekdays weren’t what I was expecting) and am now a grad student. I’m always looking for ways to package and present information.

I was excited when Apple announced iBook 2.0 and iBooks Author. I’m in the process of producing a couple of books/ebooks and was looking for something that would make it easier. I was hoping that iBA was going to be it.

After spending a few days playing with it (and I have to be honest and admit it was playing, not a focused systematic study/evaluation of the program) There are some conclusions that I’ve come to regarding iBooks Author which might not match your needs, but hopefully shines some light towards its strengths and weaknesses at this juncture of the application.

Summarizing the Positives and Negatives

There will be projects I’ll use iBA for. However, I won’t be using it for everyday kind of work. Not because, I don’t like it, or it’s a bad program, or even because of the EULA that says you can only sell product from iBA thought Apple. I’m accustomed to a bit more control and flexibility when creating publications, and iBA doesn’t quite meet those spot on – though its not far off.

Positives about iBA: It works, it looks good, it’s easy and it produces what it says it’s going to.

Negatives about iBA: it produces HUGE files. A test file went from 800K .txt file to 27MB (~1000K = 1MB) with a couple of pictures added. The second, and in my case the biggest thing against iBA, is it only produces a product that can be viewed on iOS devices. That means not on the Kindle, not on a Nook, not on an Android phone, not on anything unless it has been made by Apple. I’m a Mac fan boy. But, I’m about communication. Therefore, limiting my target audience isn’t good for me. My first product is to be a textbook on Critical Care for Emergency Room nurses. The second book will be first aid and health for photographers. Both topics I’m pretty passionate about (hence my issues with file sizes and limited devices).

It’s About Workflow

It’s about workflow. The term workflow is one that you hear in the digital photography world. It is the term that defines the flow of data from the camera to the final print. I think the term works well for the ePub/ebook industry as well.

My Workflow: I use a program called Scrivener. This is a Mac application, (Windows and Linux also available) that I use to produce the text of my work. It’s a combination text editor and research organizer. This is probably were 80+% of my work is done. I do all my writing within Scrivener. It also produces ePub files which can be read by nearly all computing platforms. It does have some drawbacks, with one of them being that its not easy to place tables and graphics into the output. From there, I use Adobe InDesign for layout that needs formatting and graphics. I don’t own this program; I rent it as needed since I only use it maybe 1-2 months out of the year. Using InDesign I produce a ePub, witch is a zip file that includes all the information needed for the ebook reader to read your file. It only takes a little modification for it to work on any of the readers.

How could iBA fit into this workflow? Well in my next publication, it might work for me. These books I’m publishing on health care and first aid directed at travel photographers whom are likely to have iOS devices. But, in using iBooks with plans on selling it, I’m sure the iPad market will be a bit too limiting. I will however give it a try. iBA is very easy, and I’m hoping it will allow me to easily produce the product I want. However, for anything that is text-based, or contains just a few graphics, the files produced by iBA are way to big and to limiting.

The workflow I have fits my use case, and allows me the broadest target audience. While I’m a geek, and still have a copy of the original PageMaker running on a Mac Classic, I’d like to have more control than what iBA offers. On the other hand, for someone who has never produced an ebook, iBA might be the perfect tool.

Conclusions

After writing the first few paragraphs, and sleeping on it, I came up with a few other thoughts. The first is that I’ve been through this kind of transition before. I remember when PageMaker first came out and people had lots of different fonts to use. I remember when Photoshop first came out and it was affordable to anyone to buy. People produced some horrendous publications and photos. And you’ve all probably sat through some pretty long, boring PowerPoint presentations. Just because the tools are there, doesn’t mean that everyone should use them.

I’m a Tim Taylor, not a Bob Villa, when it comes to using those hammers and screwdrivers. Like any task which needs to be done, it deserves to be done right. Use the right tool, have the right people use the tool, and spread the word.

For more information and to download (free), see the iBooks Author page on the Apple website. Note: content created with iBooks Author can only be read on devices with iBooks2 on the iOS device.

Craig is @TheProdSon on Twitter.

 

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This Lamp Reviews Amazon Kindle Touch 3G

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Just in time for your last minute shopping, This Lamp has posted a review of the new Kindle Touch 3G. Here’s a snippet:

…The Kindle didn’t cause me to give up my iPad; in fact, because there’s a Kindle app on the iPad, and because I depend on my iPad now for so many other things, if I had to choose between the two, I’d reluctantly give up the Kindle and keep my iPad. Yet I’m glad that I don’t have to make that kind of choice. For periods of reading longer than 10 minutes, I find the E Ink screen of my Kindle highly preferable to reading on the iPad. Reading the Kindle instead is like reading paper vs. reading a computer screen—it’s simply easier on the eyes for extended sessions.

In the time I’ve had my Kindle, I’ve observed a very interesting phenomenon when I hand it to the uninitiated for examination. Almost without fail, anyone who handles my Kindle immediately touches the screen or tries to swipe it to turn the page. I think we can safely call this “the iPad effect” because Apple’s tablet has definitely changed our expectations for the way we interact with our devices…

Read the rest of the Amazon Kindle Touch 3G review at This Lamp

 

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OSNOVA and Designing Effective In-Bible Interfaces

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

Of the few complaints that you tend to hear from those using Kindles/Nooks/Kobos and similar eInk-based reading devices, the primary ones have to do with the speed of navigating while inside of a book. Getting around to different materials isn’t so much the problem for some. Its when they want to get around inside of the materials that there’s a challenge, and sometimes a disappointment.

Over at This Lamp, a commentary on the user interface (UI) refinements made with OSNOVA have been published. This gets me excited because of my personal history with mobile Bible interfaces (Palm Bible+ and Katana specifically) and the amount of work that needs to go into making just getting around as efficient and productive as possible. Here’s a snippet of This Lamp’s observations:

…So, if a Kindle user wants to go directly to a verse, in many non-OSNOVA Kindle Bibles, he or she would have to go to the menu on the Kindle, then table of contents, then scroll through the pages until the book of the Bible sought after appears. Some ebook Bibles have chapter numbers listed, but I’ve seen other Bibles in which the Contents merely takes one to the first chapter in the selected book. With OSNOVA’s DVJ, a specific verse can be accessed directly by typing in an abbreviated form that works with the Kindle. So, if I want to go to Romans 1:17, I’d type ro 1 17 and the Kindle immediately jumps to that location in the Bible…

Read the rest of This Lamp’s experiences with OSNOVA. Also, check out the OSNOVA website for optimized documents for Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and other eInk devices. There are also several tutorial videos on this interface at the OSNOVA blog.

The Efficient Interface Is the One That’s Transforms Lives

One of the best selling features for a Bible/reading application is the efficiency of the user interface. In talking with friends about my iPad during Thanksgiving meals, one of the comments against the iPad was that people couldn’t see how a device like a tablet would be conductive to annotation behaviors such as writing on margins, highlighting, proofreading, and cut-pasting-mashing up more than just lines of text. In that conversation, I demonstrated the abilities of Good Reader (an iPad document reader with many of those features). Upon using it for themselves, the viability of eReaders and tablets became more relevant.

Hence the challenge for user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) folks:design into content pleasurable experiences which take advantage of the technology, not simply repeat the behaviors of less capable media.

 

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Looking at the Perspective Amazon’s Kindle Gives

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

When I am at a coffeeshop, I usually have my mobile to the side of me and my iPad in front of me -occasionally with my wireless keyboard. At times, at least when I’m typing on the keyboard, I’m stopped to ask if I like my iPad, or how I get along with the keyboard. On one particular day, a woman asked me my opinions on the iPad as she was considering one. It just so happened that less than an hour before she asked me that, Amazon announced its new slate of Kindle reading devices (Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G, and the (color/Android) Kindle Fire). I mentioned to her that she might want to consider the Kindle – and it was apparent that she had. And then showed her the image seen on this post – her expression and the conversation that ensued afterwards got me thinking about how leaders, technologists, and then everyone else tends to consider technologies like what is exposed with Amazon Kindle.

For instance, the woman asked me what it is that I do with my iPad (reading, drawing, then everything else was my response). I showed her my artwork, and then the notes that I’d written at a recent church visit. The notes impressed not just because they were handwritten, but because she could see the point in not just having an electronic bible, but an ability to write notes, highlight, and then have those available on any computing device she owned. It sounds almost normal to many of us, but the perception that you can disconnect content from the devices you read it on is still a new idea to many.

She asked about saving the data on my iPad and how much space it takes. I explained to her how I don’t save a lot on the device itself as I use the entire Internet as my hard drive. We talked about how Amazon, Dropbox, Microsoft, and others essnentially give you their servers to use as the hard drive. In that case, its not always a limitation of the space that you worry about, but how you are able to control access, security, and what you are comfortable with storing on another company’s hard drives (servers). She noticed that on the pages for the new Kindles that there was no mention of the size of the internal storage and asked why that could be. I told her how Amazon is positioning their servers to be your hard drive – essentially making the Internet your hard drive. Her expression again amazed at not considering before that you could take what seems to be a normal computer function and turn it on its head.

So what becomes of how we talk and demonstrate Biblical texts? Could we have moments where instead of simply telling people to turn to such and such a passage that we could have shared that bookmark via YouVersion or another Biblical service. Or, maybe as a minister who is an aspiring author, do we learn and utilize services like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and Lulu to disseminate our locally-created materials instead of or in addition to the traditional publisher route? Obciously, there isn’t a need to do these kinds of things all the time, but devices like the Kindle will mean that we do have to consider that our use of the technologies available will endorse the purcahsees that many are already making.

Or, we can choose to not see efforts like the Kindle as being useful or beneficial for our respective audiences. Which is ok. But, if you are in the business of content creation or teaching, what kind of perspective will that lend to those whom you say you lead?

~ picture via Gizmodo

 

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Implications of Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Many of you might have seen the news last week, and for those of you who didn’t, please consider this a really small summary – Amazon released a web-based version of its Kindle application last week. Unlike the previously existing effort where you would be able to read your Kindle books in a PC/Mac web browser (Chrome, IE, Opera, or Firefox), Kindle Cloud (accessed by going to the URL https://read.amazon.com/) is designed so that mobile devices with HTML5-compatible web browsers – currently the iPhone and iPad Safari Mobile browsers – are able to essentially work similar to the Kindle application.

In a very simple sense, you don’t need an application to read your Kindle books. And outside of the initial connection, you don’t even need to be online as you can utilize the feature of HTML5 local storage to read selected books when offline.

Sound great right? Well, its a jump ahead for sure, and with many analysts predicting that there could be over 2 billion mobile devices with HTML5 browsers by 2016, it would seem to speak more relevance to the days being numbered for native applications.

Now, I’ve moved to using Kindle Cloud Reader and have to say that with the exception of page animations and copy/paste, I really don’t miss the native app much at all. Its good enough for my needs, and considering that I normally am using my iPad in a connected setting (I have a WiFi-only iPad), its not a bad idea to use for this kind of application.

So here’s the question, and the implication that people are going to ask if more applications go this route – what Bible readers are conductive to this approach? Are Bible readers conductive to this approached?

Many Bible applications have taken the approach to having a native application that has some Internet connected pieces (Facebook/Twitter sharing, downloading on-demand, backup, etc.). Would it make sense at some point in the near future for them to go the route of HTML5-like web apps like Amazon’s Kindle, Financial Times, etc. are not simply niche publications that are trying this, they have considerable followings and in many cases people willing to pay for increased access to greater depth of content and coverage – its literally a similar palette.

If this begins to happen in critical mass – given Apple’s rules for subscriptions with iTunes, Android’s fragmentation concerns across device types, and increasingly cheaper connectivity options for some mobile users – will your mobile Bible/religious publication approach stay with a native approach, or go this route? Will your users care and stay with you or move to someone else, even if it means they lose your support or content offerings?

 

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Kindle Bibles Added to Bible Apps Page

Sunday, July 17th, 2011

A few weeks back, we saw a listing of Bibles for Kindle devices over at Biblical Studies and Technological Tools and we’ve since added these to our larger page of Bible Apps for Mobile/Web Devices.

In contrast to some of the other items listed on that page, the Bibles for Kindle devices usually have some cost attached to them. Please be wary of the costs and terms of use before downloading these to your mobile device. Note also, Kindle Bibles can only be used within the Kindle application – so if you move to a platform that doesn’t have the Kindle application available for it, you will need to purchase that Bible again through another service/store.

Though lists like the one we’ve collected are less helpful since some platforms have only the ability to download Bibles and Biblical applications from a single application store, this listing is maintained to give you – and those publishing these works – a clearer view of the amount of options that people have at their fingertips towards getting these materials on electronic devices.

If anyone has a listing of Bibles for Nook, Kobo, and other devices, do point that to us and we’ll just add those lists to this page as well.

 

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Apps for Pastors

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

What kinds of mobile(-friendly) applications and services work best for pastors getting up to speed with mobile and social apps?

Though there are several, and a lot of preferred ones depending on the mobile platform you choose, we’re going to highlight a few we’d recommend for certain use cases:

Reading and Studying

Communication and Fellowship

Budgeting and Administration

Those are a few we like. Pastors, what are some apps that you prefer to use on your mobile?

Bonus question: do accountability apps factor into your recommended apps?

 

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