Sunday, July 5, 2009

Getting Day, Date & Time with the Kindle 2 / DX (and more)

Originally posted 6/15/09 - 10:18 PM
UPDATE - Some of these don't work with latest software updates to Kindle 2, DX and Kindle 3 - See the portion for date that does still work in a later updated post.

ARCHIVES - Ignore the @t below, outdated as of July 2010

UPDATED 6/28/09 to add info (in green) from trying out new DX
UPDATED 7/5/09 to add info (in orange, at bottom), from another experiment.
UPDATED 1/2/10 FINAL one to show the actual message and to make this more coherent.
    It's called Tip for the absent-minded: checking what day it is.

ORIGINAL posting below. (I'd use the January 2, 2010 one though.)

I forgot about this feature until I was participating in a blog comment area, and I've decided to post the tip here too.

Typing '@t' from the HOME screen
will get you Day, Date & Time in a pop-up box.  No, it doesn't look like the quick image which I just grabbed, too lazy to do a printscreen right now.
At the Home page, press Enter key (below the ‘Del’ key) to bring up the search box.
Enter '@' by pressing SYM key and going one-up and one-right
    and then pressing 5-way down to choose that '@'
Type 't'
Press Enter key.
And you'll get the pop-up box.


This works with the DX also.
Also, both the Kindle 2 and the DX are able to use the @key shortcuts
  within books (exception: "@url") by:
. pressing spacebar to bring up the typing/search box
      when reading books/articles AND cursor is not in text body
        (otherwise start a 'search' through the Menu instead)
. keying in the @item and then
. doing a 5-way to the right to get to "My Items"
. and pressing down on the 5-way on that option
      instead of pressing the Enter key for default option "Find"...


Typing '@h' at the Home screen gets you a pop-up box saying
" Supported shortcuts: @dict, @help, @print [?] @store, @time, @url, @web, @wiki, @wikipedia "
We know that a one-letter abbreviation works for @time and @help...

(Interesting that the @print is there, looking ahead?)

UPDATE 6/15/09 - 10:18 PM.   Originally posted 6/15/09 4:45 PM - Added new find(s)


@store [searchterm] - reported by Elmo Glick
    Brings up the Kindle store with all books containing the search term in the title.

@p and @print - reported by Elmo Glick
Takes you to the Amazon Store of all places and shows you books with the work "print" in the title.   Gee, Amazon, that makes sense.

@url [www.website.xxx]
Don't type the "http://"
  Type just:
    &url [xxx.website.xxx]

      Then 5-way to right to "...my items" and press down.
That takes you to the website. - reported by Elmo Glick
A useful shortcut.

UPDATED 7/5/09 - ON THE OTHER HAND,
  You can also just type in the actual URL itself (and, again, Omit the 'http://') part -- because you can use the option to the right to "GOTO" a URL.
  That's the EASIEST way to use a URL from the home screen.  No SYM key is needed because you don't use '@'

  The difference? @url [website] uses the option at right: "search my items"
  And the URL-only (no "@url") uses the option: "goto"

UPDATED 7/25/09 - AND ANOTHER WAY:
  You can type in the URL while reading a book or article
    if your cursor is NOT on the screen.

      Then start typing in the website url (with NO http://) and then
      5-way to "go to" and press down.

  After finishing with website, press 'Back' key to return to book page.



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2 comments:

  1. Ok, now you got me going... Here's a few results to add to your collection.

    @store searchterm

    Brings up the Kindle store with all books containing the word 'searchterm' in the title.

    @web searchterm

    Googles 'searchterm'

    @url www.website.com

    Takes you to www.website.com

    and interestingly...

    @p

    Brings up the Kindle store with all books containing the word 'print' in the title. ;>

    El

    ReplyDelete
  2. Elmo,
    Yes, I tried a-z and found the second one (p) too!

    They'll get you to the company store one way or another. Alt-Home was not enough for them.

    Either 'p or 'print' gets you looking for a book about that to help Amazon find a way to print from the Kindle maybe ?

    :-) I liked @web until I rememberd that I could just put in the word and 5-way right to 'google' !

    Thanks !

    I would bet they've some 'secret woids' to uncover there.

    ReplyDelete

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