With the ability to store thousands of books on one miniature machine, you don’t need to buy magazines, books, or newspapers made from paper anymore.

Not only is this handy for a prolific reader who loves having an assortment of reading material readily available, but it’s the “green” way to go, because everyone who uses a digital eBook reader positively impacts their carbon footprint and our environment.

However, what many people do not know is that eBook readers do more than just permit you to read books.  Some electronic readers have special added features that allow you to do so much more.  Here are 3 additional features you might not know about:1.  Many individuals choose to get their daily paper through their eBook reader.  Another terrific way to save time and diminish your carbon footprint. Now you can rest assured that your paper will be delivered to you each and every day.  Never again do you need to be concerned about it getting wet, lost, or undelivered.  2.  Some e-readers like the Kindle 2 and Nook also have an mp3 option.  Some individuals enjoy listening to music as they read, and with this feature, you don’t need to use a separate mp3 player.  Furthermore, you can plug your headphones into most eBook readers, so as not to disturb anyone.3.  Your electronic reader can actually read your book aloud to you–fantastic idea.  Because of its new “Read-to-Me” ability, the Kindle 2 can now read every book, blog, paper, or magazine to you out loud, unless the book’s rights holder made the feature unavailable.  Image cooking or driving and having your latest book actually read to you.  What a terrific way to spend your time commuting!These are just a few of the many features found on most new electronic readers.

But with so many to choose from, it can be difficult to select the one that’s just right for you.

What I have learned is that the simplest thing to do is to read product reviews from both laypeople and professionals.  This will give you both technical and actual user information. Then I look at the specs of the various electronic readers.

Armed with this information, you can now make the best informed decision possible.  In today’s economy, you want to get the most for your money, so do your homework and see which reader will give you the benefits you’re looking for.For more information, detailed reviews, and a comprehensive comparison chart of the top 3 e-readers available today, please visit DigitaleBookReader.org.

The Amazon Kindle is one of the high points of the 2008 holiday selling season for retailers. The Kindle wireless reading device for reading e-books sold-out before the holidays and at this writing is on a 8 to 10 week backorder. There are some great reasons for the popularity of this device:

It holds a LOT of e-books:

The internal memory of the Kindle can hold up-to 200 text-based books so you can take a virtual library with you wherever you go. Whether you are on an airplane, in the train on your way to work, or at home your favorite books are available to read at the flick of a switch.

The quality of the text is great:

Amazon has designed the reader and the “e-ink” used in the Kindle’s display to handle books. While this does mean that images display less than optimally, text is crisp and easily read. You also can adjust the size of the text on the display letting those of us with less than great vision keep reading without our glasses or contacts.

Amazon offers a “try before you buy” feature:

Like browsing at a bookstore, Amazon will instantly deliver a sample of any book you might be interested in purchasing to your Kindle so you can see if you’d like to make a purchase. This is a great feature that makes the whole experience more enjoyable. 

Many e-books are available for the Kindle:

At this writing Amazon offered over 215,000 titles for the Kindle

The Kindle is lightweight and easy to carry:

You can carry around 200 books in the same space as a typical paperback book

The Kindle also plays audiobooks:

If you’re a fan of Audible.com or have some .mp3 e-books you can put them on your Kindle and listen as you would on an mp3 player or iPod.

Adding more memory to your Kindle –

As mentioned above, the internal memory of the Kindle holds about 200 e-books that are primarily text-based. Books containing images take more memory so the total number of books your Kindle can hold may be more or less than 200. To increase the number of e-books you can store on your Kindle e-book reader do the following:

1. Choose an SD memory card for your Kindle – typically you’ll want a 4mb or 8mb card

2. Turn your Kindle OFF

3. Disconnect your Kindle from the charger

4. Turn your Kindle face-down on a hard surface – remember to protect your screen!

5. Remove the back cover of the Kindle – this is the dark gray embossed cover

6. Locate the SD card memory slot on the inside edge of the Kindle

7. Insert your SD card into the slot until it “clicks”

8. Replace the cover

For more complete instructions with photos visit www.guidetokindle.com.

To help you handle your growing collection of e-books and audio books, the you can add extra memory to your Kindle in the form of an SD memory card. You can purchase these cards in many sizes from 1 GB up-to 16 GB. At the time you read this 32 GB cards may readily be available and affordable. Installing SD memory in your Kindle is straightforward. You can find complete instructions in our Kindle How-To Series available in the web-site listed below.

Once you have your memory card installed it’s time to move some of the e-books or audio books stored in your Kindle’s main memory to your new SD Card. There are a few things you should consider first before “making the move.”

1. Audio books are a good candidate for moving from your Kindle’s main memory to the SD card. Audio book files can be large – some are up-to 90 mb or more. Audio books will quickly consumer your Kindle’s main memory leaving less space for your e-books.

2. If you’ve purchased books that are on the Amazon digital site and have yet to be sent to your Kindle these also might be good candidates to load onto your SD memory card. This will keep all of your e-books and audio books in one place in-case you run into a situation where you do not have wireless access.

3. Pictures, music files, and digital files other than e-books also consume a lot of space in the Kindle’s main memory. Again, this makes them good choices to move to the new SD card you’ve installed in your Kindle.

Now – let’s take a look at your Kindle and get ready to save some files to your SD memory card. Here are the steps you can follow to do this –

A. Turn on your Kindle

B. Move the scroll wheel to “Menu” and press to select the Main Menu

C. Scroll to “Content Manager” on the Main Menu the press to select the Content Manager

D. Once the Content Manager screen opens take a look at your list of audio books and e-books – pay specific attention to the storage location of the book listed directly under the first word of the title –

a. “Kindle” – the book is stored in your Kindle’s main memory

b. “SD Card” – any books you’ve moved to your SD Card will have this location

c. “Amazon” – books you’ve purchased but that have not been downloaded to your Kindle will have this location

E. Choose a book now located on your Kindle by scrolling to the location of the book and pressing the scroll wheel to “select” the book. When you do this you will notice an “x” in the box immediately to the right of the book’s title.

F. Next scroll back down to “Menu” at the bottom of the Kindle screen and press the scroll wheel to select.

G. When the Menu opens, scroll to “Move to SD Card” and press the scroll wheel to select.

H. Once you do this you will notice the location icon will show the book is being transferred to your Kindle’s SD memory card. For example you will see an arrow pointing from the “Kindle” location to the SD Card location.

I. When the move is complete the location icon below the title will change from “Kindle” to “SD Card” – this is how you know the transfer process is complete.

That’s all there is to it! You’ve now learned how-to quickly save books from your Kindle’s main memory to the SD Card you’ve installed in your Kindle.

Complete instructions with photos can be found at the web site in the resource box below.

NOTE- the features discussed here are for the Amazon Kindle 1 device. The Kindle 2 device available after February 24, 2009 likely will have different keyboard accessible features.

To access these features you will use a combination of keys on your Kindle’s keyboard. Most all of the features begin by pressing the key which is the at the lower left-hand side of your Kindle keyboard. You also may have to press the key which is directly above the key and has an upright arrow symbol. Here are a few of the special features you can access:

1. Play a game of Minesweeper on your Kindle – From the Home Screen press the key and the key and then the key to access a basic Minesweeper game.  The Minesweeper menu lets you control the grid size and the number of mines you have to find.

2. Find-out the time – From the Kindle Home Screen press the key and the key. The page number display (i.e. 1 of 3) at the bottom left of your Kindle screen will change to a time display. 

3. Find-out the time – From the Kindle Reader Screen (i.e. while reading and e-book) press the key and the key. The “Locations” display at the bottom left of your Kindle screen will change to a time that is in text vs. numeric format. For example 1:31 is “Twenty-nine till two”.

4. Take a “screen shot” of your Kindle screen – From any screen press the and key, then the key. You won’t get any notification that a screen-shot has been taken but you will find the screen shot on your Kindle’s SD card. The Kindle won’t save screen shots to its internal memory.

5. Find your current location – Open the Kindle’s browser – Menu > Experimental > Basic Web then press the key and the key. Google Maps will open with your location shown. Your location is “triangulated” from the WhisperNet wireless access built into the Kindle so it’s not entirely accurate. But you can zoom in and out on the map to get a better idea of where you are – this gets you in the ball park.

6. View your e-book as a slide show – From the Kindle’s e-book reader press the key and key to turn on the slide show capability. Then press the key and key to start the slide show. Press the key and the key to turn the slide show off. Press the key and the key again to disable the slide show capability.

7. Control the Kindle audio player – Press the key and

key to play or stop the audio player. Press the key and the key to advance to the next track.

8. Reboot your Kindle – If you Kindle has been acting a bit “flakey” you can do a soft reboot by pressing the key and the key then the key.

The eight features listed above should give you an idea of the capabilities that are “hidden away” in your Kindle. Some of them will make your Kindle experience a bit better, and some will help you when you’re trying to trouble shoot problems with your Kindle. Keep this list handy so when you get tired of reading your favorite e-book or listening to your favorite audio book you can give them a try.