The Winner of Nobel Prize in Literature 2013 - Alice Munro Books Download

The Nobel Prize is announcing these days, about 20 hours ago, the Nobel Prize in Literature 2013 went to Alice Munro.

The Swedish Academy said it picked the 82-year-old author—known for her easy-to-read writing style charting the struggles and moral conflicts of everyday characters in rural Ontario—because she is the "master of the contemporary short story."

Below is a giveaway plugin, click the "Connect" button to login with your Facebook account and like our page, then your facebook account will be recorded in our dashboard. I will send the download link of the Alice Munro collection to everyone of you.

How to make Kindle Paperwhite battery last longer?

One important reason we purchased a Kindle is for the super long battery life, in this age we have already used to charge our gadget everyday. Therefore, when I see Kindle's product page says it lasts at least one month with only one charging, that's pretty impressing.

But about 6 months later, I find my Kindle can hardly lasts for one week, that's pretty far from 4-8 weeks. Is my Kindle encountering some hardware issue? Maybe yes, but I prefer NO. It is how you are using your Kindle decides how long your Kindle's battery life is.

1, Always deactive the Kindle screen when you are not using it

For Kindle Paperwhite, this is the most important way to save battery life, as the light sources are running out power faster than then screen.

And even if your Kindle has not the backlight, you also need to do this because make your Kindle sleep can turn off the wifi connection , as WiFi module is another big power consumer.

2, Turn off the backlights in bright place

In my personal experience, I would not notice that the Kindle Paperwhite's backlights are opened when I am in sunshine or I turn on my room's light. If we still turn on the backlights in occasions like this, the power is running off without any sense.

3, Turn down the backlights in dark place

Many people would read books on Kindle Paperwhite before falling asleep and without any lamp opening. And even in this situation I still don’t recommend turn up the back light because when you are surrounded by total dark, too much back light will make your eyes uncomfortable just like reading on iPad in dark.

For me I always turn down the back light to 2-3, that’s pretty comfortable for my eyes, and some of my friends even would turn to 1.

5 Must-Have Desktop Applications for Kindle Users

1. Send to Kindle

Every Kindle user should use this application to send personal documents to Kindle. Now the send to Kindle family has extended pretty large. It contains the plugin for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, individual application for PC and Mac, Android application, and the buttons for websites.

 2. Kindle Cloud Reader

The simplest way to read Kindle books on desktop, no need to install the swollen Kindle for PC/Mac software.

 3. Inkmesh

The best eBook search engine in my opinion. With it I can always buy a book with the lowest price.

 4. PDF Shrink

Scanned PDF is always pretty large in size, the PDF Shrink software can compress the PDF while keeping the quality as much as possible. Pretty helpful for Kindle users to save the storage space.

 5. Briss

The killer software to crop PDF books edges, the simple user interface lets you define exactly the crop-region by fitting a rectangle on the visually overlaid pages. 

3 Highlights of new Kindle Paperwhite You Can't Ignore

Amazon quietly announced new generation of Kindle Paperwhite on their website, and the new Kindle Paperwhite will be shipped on September 30.

At the first look we can hardly find an exciting new feature on the list, but at least 3 of them you cannot ignore.

The biggest defect on the old Kindle Paperwhite is the delay in response. When I filp the page, I need to wait for about 1 second, if I need to check the definition of a stange word, it might take me 3 seconds. If I need to take a short note, it takes me at least 60 seconds. If I need to flip many pages back find some clues, it takes... Alright, it stucks.

But in the new Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon has already begun to solve this issue from 3 angles: a 25% faster processor, the improved touch screen, and flip through without losing your place.

All the three points are directly focusing on improving user's reading experience, and I like the 3rd point most.

In the past, the most terrible experience when reading on Kindle is flipping back to check who is the guy, as I don't know the exact page I can get the clue, so I can only flip back one page by one page. Now the new flipping technology perfectly solve this problem.

For the detail list of the improvements and news about the new Kindle Paperwhite, please visit the product page: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AWH595M

Why Amazon Stops Announcing New Big Screen Kindle?

When I asked this question first time, I thought the answer is: Amazon is not a company earning money by selling hardware, its revenue comes from the digital contents, therefore Amazon need not to devote itself into developing new devices all the time.

But now I think the answer is wrong. Yes, Amazon doesn't reply on selling devices to make money, but it doesn't mean Amazon will not release new device, or why they upgrade the Kindle and Kindle Fire?

First let's talk about the difference between eBook reader and tablet:

1. eBook reader provides the reading experience more like reading a paper books;
2. eBook reader makes people focus on reading.

The 6-inch Kindle has already covered these two characteristics "almost perfectly", a further step is not happening under today's technology. Look at the new generation of Kindle Paperwhite, all the improvements are focus on the minor details. There is no highlight which makes me exiting on this device.

Therefore, here is the point: There is not much space for Kindle to upgrade, so does a big screen Kindle.

The primary problem for a big Kindle is the weight: Kindle DX 535g, new iPad WiFi 680g. It is not a nice experience to hold a 535g device to read for a long time. I can carry an iPad and a Kindle Paperwhite when I am out, but it's no way to carry an iPad and a Kindle DX.

The only advantage for a big Kindle is people can use it to read scanned PDF more comfortably than a 6-inch Kindle. But this advantage is fading away with the quality of epub and mobi files rising. In my own experience, I'd rather reading a scanned PDF on my iPad, but not on the Kindle DX.

That's why there is no upgrade on big screen Kindle since Kindle DX.

How to remove thumbnails and search box from Chrome new tab page

Recently Google Chrome had updated to another new version, and in this version's "new tab page", we sees a giant Google logo, a search box, and the thumbnails of the web pages you have browsed.

It's OK if you are the only one use this computer. But if not, your privacy might be leaked because anyone who open the Chrome would see your browsing history.

So how to remove the thumbnails of your browsing history and revert the new tab page to the normal? Here is the solution.

1. Input chrome://flags in the Chrome's address bar then press "Enter";
2. Find the term "Enable Instant Extended API Mac, Windows, Chrome OS";
3. Change the status to "Disable";
4. Re-launch the Chrome and check the result.

4 simple steps, we can turn off the thumbnails in Chrome start up new tab page.

Rebirth of Meego - The first Sailfish phone has announced

Meego is a mobile phone operating system created by Nokia and Intel. It was onced considered to have huge potential and be Nokia’s powerful weapon against Android. But Nokia and Intel both gave up Meego in 2011. Luckily Meego doesn’t disappear from our eyesight therefore. In the May of this year, the Finland cellphone maker Jolla claimed that they would launch the first Sailfish phone – a smartphone based on Meego OS. This news made Jolla quickly got people’s attention. And recently, a more excited new has come out – Jolla has announced the technical specification and price of its first Sailfish phone officailly.

 According to Jolla’s announcement, the Sailfish phone has a 4.5 inch display with a 960*540 resolution (245 ppi). It adopts a 1.4 GHz dual-core Qualcomm chipset with 1GB RAM and 16GB flash memory (supports MicroSD card). In addition, this phone has 8MP rear camera and 2MP front-facing camera. The battery capacity is 2100 mAh.

 As you can see here, the configuration of Sailfish phone is so ordinary, or rather say, lower-end. But it has a high price of 399 € - about 539 $.  Low configuration with high price, maybe the prospect of Sailfish phone is not so optimistic. At least for general people, they have other options in this price class.

Perhaps there are two bright spots of Sailfish phone you may be interested in. One is that Sailfish is compatible with Android apps. This sounds great - at least it’s better than Windows Phone which is lack of apps. The other is that it supports replaceable rear cover. The theme color of the phone will adjust automatically as the rear cover’s color. But these can’t be the main motivation of people choosing a new phone.