Author: D. Brent Miller

Writer, photographer, fly fisher and motorcyclist. Mostly retired.
Posted on

New Feature: Share to your Kindle

The technology of sharing just amazes me, and it seems like there is so much more to sort through to make the content better and easier for you to read. Well, here’s a new one that works just perfect … almost.

Amazon has developed a plugin for WordPress users that allows creators to share the content of a post or page to a reader’s Kindle device or app. So, I thought I’d give it a whirl. This is how it looks at the bottom of my posts.

Share-buttons

When you click on the “Send to Kindle” share button, a pop up window will appear that asks you to sign into your Amazon Kindle account, and which device you want to send it to. It’s that easy. Open your device and sync your Kindle application and the post will appear. You will have the option of archiving in your Kindle Library.

Each share is for that one item only. The plugin will not start sending you all the posts. That’s a nice feature and may just save the blogger from losing readers. Secondly, RSS Feeds and e-mail subscriptions are better suited for delivering all the posts.

I have tested this with my Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0, and it works perfectly … almost. Articles are reproduced with very crisp pages complete with photos. However, You Tube videos do not display, nor do audio/podcast files. Links are embedded to take you to the web sites that will play that content. I tested the “Send to Kindle” with my Samsung Galaxy phone with the same results.

For articles with photos, it works very well. For other media content from the likes of Google … well … it must be an Amazon Kindle vs. the rest of the world thing.

Want to test it? Click on the Send to Kindle button below. Tell me what you think.

Thanks for following and reading.

Brent

Posted on

Subscription changes for the RSS Feed

What the heck is an RSS Feed? Well, that’s the feature of all blogs that pushes content to your computer. It is anonymous, and totally in your control to subscribe or unsubscribe. You can even have the RSS Feed delivered by e-mail if you use the Feedburner option. That is sound and secure, but not so anonymous because your e-mail address is captured for delivery of content.

Most readers of this web site learn of or actually read the content through the RSS Feed first. Then they come to the web site for the full story or more stories. So the RSS Feed is important to subscribers and followers.

Okay, what does all this mean?

Recently, Google announced they are going to discontinue the number one RSS Feed reader—Google Reader. I have been using it for years to follow all the web sites I am interested in. So with the discontinuance of Google Reader in July, I wanted to find another reader, and I think I have found a good one to recommend.

I use Chrome for my internet browsing, and have found Feedly to be a very good application for reading RSS Feeds. In fact, I like the layout much better than Google Reader. You can find the Feedly app in the Chrome Web Store.

If you are using other browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari, you can search for RSS Feed readers for those applications. Google Reader may pop up on the search list, but just ignore that one. It’s going away.

Thank you for following and reading.

Brent