Listening to Audible Books
Gallery
Pandora
ES File Explorer
9 Reading and Sending Email
Email Accounts
Adding a Basic Account
Adding an Additional Email Account
Adding a POP3 or IMAP Account
Configuring a POP3 Account
Configuring an IMAP Account
Removing an Account
Managing Your Email Inbox
Choosing an Inbox
Choosing a Folder
Sorting Email
Searching Email
Synchronizing Email
Selecting and Managing Multiple Messages
Accessing Email Settings
Emptying the Trash
Flagging a Message
Reading Mail
Reading a Message
Choosing When Images Are Displayed
Viewing Attachments
Sending Messages
Composing a New Email Message
Sending Replies or Forwards
Creating a Signature
Sending Messages in Plain Text
Changing Whether Original Message Is Quoted
Working with Contacts
Viewing Contacts
Adding a Contact
Editing a Contact
Changing Contact Sort Order and Name Display
Importing Contacts
Exporting Contacts
Browsing the Web
Browsing to a Website
Navigating a Page
Sharing Pages on Facebook
Sharing Pages with Email
Copying a Link to the Current Page
Copying a Hyperlink on a Page
Searching in the Current Page
Searching the Web
Working with Tabs
Opening Links in a New Tab
Adding a New Tab and Closing Tabs
Navigating Many Tabs
Using Bookmarks
Bookmarking the Current Page
Bookmarking a Hyperlink
Viewing and Following Bookmarks
Editing a Bookmark
Deleting a Bookmark
Using History
Viewing History
Searching History
Deleting a Single History Item
Downloading Files
Starting and Monitoring Downloads
Canceling a Download
Opening Downloaded Files
Deleting Downloaded Files
Configuring Silk Settings
Setting Your Search Engine
Changing Text Size
Controlling Cookies
Clearing the Cache
Clearing History
Controlling Form and Password Data
Accelerating Page Loading
Setting Your Silk View
Index
Jim Cheshire is a technology expert with a passion for gadgets. He’s written about a dozen books and many online articles on technology, and is the author of the best-selling Kindle guide, Using Kindle.
Jim has a unique way of explaining technical concepts without being technical, a talent that has helped make his books and websites a leading resource for people who want to learn about technology in a fun and exciting way.
You can contact Jim through his website at www.MyAmazonKindleFire.com.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to everyone who has experienced the thrill of discovering the magic of the Kindle Fire. The excitement of the Kindle Fire community is truly an inspiration to me.
I’d also like to dedicate this book to my wife, Becky, and to my kids. You’ve been immensely supportive during this project and I love you for that.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible were it not for the small army of people at Que Publishing who work tirelessly to support me. I owe a great deal of gratitude to Loretta Yates who always makes me feel like I’m the only author she has to deal with. Thanks also go to Todd Brakke and Charlotte Kughen, both of whom did a great job of editing my work and offering creative ideas for additional content, and thanks to Kathleen Anderson for reviewing the technical content for accuracy. Thanks also go to Mandie Frank and others who worked so hard to turn the hundreds of screenshots into the high-quality work you now hold in your hands.
We Want to Hear from You!
As the reader of this book, you are our most important critic and commentator. We value your opinion and want to know what we’re doing right, what we could do better, what areas you’d like to see us publish in, and any other words of wisdom you’re willing to pass our way.
As an editor-in-chief for Que Publishing, I welcome your comments. You can email or write me directly to let me know what you did or didn’t like about this book—as well as what we can do to make our books better.
Please note that I cannot help you with technical problems related to the topic of this book. We do have a User Services group, however, where I will forward specific technical questions related to the book.
When you write, please be sure to include this book’s title and author as well as your name, email address, and phone number. I will carefully review your comments and share them with the author and editors who worked on the book.
Email: feedback@quepublishing.com
Mail: Greg Wiegand
Editor-in-Chief
Que Publishing
800 East 96th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46240 USA
Reader Services
Visit our website and register this book at quepublishing.com/register for convenient access to any updates, downloads, or errata that might be available for this book.
Introduction
Your Kindle Fire is an amazing device. When you first power it on, it’s a bit impersonal, but after you’ve connected to the Internet and registered the Kindle Fire with your Amazon.com account, something magical happens. All of a sudden, it begins to fill with your books and your music, and it becomes uniquely yours.
The fun doesn’t stop there. You can look at your pictures, watch videos, play games, browse the Web, and get apps that enhance the capabilities of your Kindle Fire. Oh, and let’s not forget that it’s a Kindle, so you can read books, magazines, and newspapers as well.
At its heart, the Kindle Fire is all about consuming content in the cloud, content that is stored at Amazon. You access that content over a Wi-Fi connection. You can download content to your device, at which point it becomes device content, but a copy remains in the cloud as well. Does that sound confusing? Don’t worry. It won’t be after you read this book.
A Kindle Fire Overview
There’s a lot packed into your Kindle Fire. Other Kindles are designed to be ereaders and don’t really do anything else particularly well. Your Kindle Fire, on the other hand, is not just an e-reader. It’s also an entertainment device, a content-consumption device, and a handheld computer. In fact, you’ll find that many of the things that you typically do on your computer are more conveniently done on your Kindle Fire.
Here are just some of the things you can do with your Kindle Fire.
• Read newspapers and magazines in full-color.
• Read books from your Kindle library and from your local library as well.
• Listen to your music, discover new music, and buy music.
• Watch movies and TV shows, many of which are free to Amazon Prime members.
• Read personal documents in many formats, including Microsoft Word, PDF, and more.
• Enhance and add to the functionality of your Kindle Fire with apps from Amazon’s app store.
• Browse the Web and even view Flash animations and video.
All of this functionality is provided in a nicely sized tablet that you can easily hold in one hand. Your Kindle Fire is, indeed, a great computer for sitting on the couch or in your favorite eas
y chair.
Why You’ll Love My Kindle Fire
The Kindle Fire is a tablet computer for the rest of us. It’s designed for people who aren’t computer geeks and who just want to be entertained, read a good book, or have fun. My Kindle Fire was written with that same mindset. Of course, if you are a computer geek, this book can help you as well.
The book covers all of the capabilities of your Kindle Fire. I show you how to get the most out of each feature using a step-by-step approach, complete with figures that correspond to each step. You never have to wonder what or where to tap. Each task shows you how to interact with your Kindle Fire using simple symbols that illustrate what you should do.
This icon means that you should tap and hold an object on the screen.
This icon means that you should drag an item on the screen.
This icon indicates that you should pinch on the screen.
This icon means that you should “reverse pinch.”
This icon indicates that you need to swipe on the screen.
Along the way, I add plenty of tips that help you better understand a feature or a task. I also warn you with It’s Not All Good sidebars when you need to be careful with a particular task or when there are pitfalls that you need to know about. If you’re the kind of person who likes to dig a little deeper, you’ll enjoy the Go Further sidebars that provide a more in-depth look at particular topics.
Finally, for those of you with the paperback version of this book, you might notice that it isn’t a big and bulky book. It’s a handy size for taking with you when you go places with your Kindle Fire. That way, you can always find the steps necessary to do what you want to do. Of course, if you’d prefer not to carry the book with you, you can always purchase the Kindle Edition and read it on your Kindle Fire.
What You’ll Find in the Book
Your Kindle Fire is full of surprises. The major functions are easy to discover, but some of the neater features are hidden away. As you read through this book, you’ll find yourself saying, “Wow, I didn’t know I could do that!” This book is designed to invoke just that kind of reaction.
Here are the things we’ll cover in this book.
• Chapter 1, “Getting Started with the Kindle Fire”, walks you through the initial setup of your device and how you can access some of the common settings. You’ll also learn how to use touch to operate your Kindle Fire and how to use the onscreen keyboard.
• Chapter 2, “Amazon’s Cloud Services”, takes you on a tour of the online services that Amazon offers. Because these are the services that drive a lot of the Kindle Fire’s functionality, you’ll benefit from learning how they work and what they offer.
• Chapter 3, “Reading on the Kindle Fire”, describes how you can get reading material for your Kindle Fire and how to take advantage of the Kindle Fire’s powerful features for reading books, newspapers, magazines, and more.
• Chapter 4, “Using Amazon’s Manage Your Kindle Page”, shows you how to access the Manage Your Kindle page where you can look at your Kindle library, rename your Kindle Fire, manage your Kindle Fire and other Kindle devices, and much more.
• Chapter 5, “Managing Content with Calibre”, introduces you to Calibre, a free application that makes managing your eBook library a breeze. Calibre allows you to manage third-party eBooks (ones you get from places other than Amazon) and even convert and transfer them to your Kindle Fire.
• Chapter 6, “Accessing and Listening to Music”, shows you how you can use your Kindle Fire to play music in your music library (both music on your device and in the cloud) and how you can use Amazon’s MP3 store to add to your music collection. You’ll also learn about using playlists and other more advanced features.
• Chapter 7, “Watching Video”, covers using your Kindle Fire to stream and download videos from Amazon’s video store. You’ll also learn how you can convert your own videos so that you can play them on your Kindle Fire.
• Chapter 8, “Installing and Using Apps”, introduces you to the world of apps that dramatically increase the functionality of your Kindle Fire. You’ll find out how to shop for apps, how to install apps, how to deal with apps that misbehave and cause problems, and you’ll learn about some of the apps that you should definitely install on your Kindle Fire.
• Chapter 9, “Reading and Sending Email”, will show you how to use your Kindle Fire to read and send email. You’ll also learn about how to handle attachments in email and how you can add and manage contacts.
• Chapter 10, “Browsing the Web with Silk”, walks you through using Silk, the web browser that comes with your Kindle Fire. You’ll learn how to access websites, how to use bookmarks, how to use tabs, and how you can control Silk’s behavior.
Let’s Light This Fire
If you’ve already gone through the initial stages of setting up your Kindle Fire, you might be tempted to skip ahead to Chapter 2 at this point. I urge you not to. There are some hidden gems in Chapter 1 that you won’t want to miss.
Now that the stage is set, let’s light this fire. (Sorry. I couldn’t resist.)
1. Getting Started with the Kindle Fire
In this chapter, you connect your Kindle Fire to your Wi-Fi network, register it with Amazon (if it’s not already registered), and discover the basics of navigating and using your tablet. Topics include the following:
• The Hardware
• Initial Setup
• Basic Usage of the Kindle Fire
• The Home Screen
• Notifications and Options
• Settings
• Searches
• The Kindle Fire Keyboard
The Kindle Fire is unassuming at first glance. However, after you power it on, you soon realize that it opens up a new world of entertainment and information. Couple it with Amazon’s wide range of services, and the Kindle Fire becomes a truly extraordinary device. In fact, it’s likely that in addition to being a great reading device, your Kindle Fire might replace your computer for many of the things you do on the Internet.
The Kindle Fire is not difficult to use. Many of its features are intuitive and you can easily discover many of the great things it can do. However, if this is your first tablet, there are some essentials that you should be familiar with to get the most from the device. This chapter starts you off on the right foot by teaching you about the basic operation of the Kindle Fire.