cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/13221450

This is a of a post made during a time where outgoing federation for lemmy.ml was broken. I hope lemmy.ml readers will forgive me for shoving my filthy little words under the shining gaze of their precious and observant eyes for a second time.

I have a Kindle Paperwhite (7th generation). (Stallman weeps) It appears people generally customize their kindle beyond Amazon's original design by jailbreaking it. But I was wondering if I could replace the entire system on the kindle by a new one, for even more hacking fun.

It appears Kindle Paperwhites run on ARM processors, so there should be plenty of compatible software. However, it appears flashing the ROM of kindle only appears in the context of something called the Kindle Fire. Why is that? Is there any reason ROM flashing for the paperwhite kindles isn't common? The only reasons I could think of is that disassembling and reassembling the kindle paperwhite is kinda annoying (especially with the glue holding the case together) and that maybe not everyone has a board to externally flash ROMs. I've also thought that maybe the ROM is write-protected or that the software is signed and that the Kindle will refuse to boot off of anything that hasn't received Jeff's blessing. Is there any existing guide on flashing a custom ROM? Have any ROMs been created already?

Maybe my foolish self has not searched good enough and hasn't found the discussions on ROM flashing of other kindle models, but in any case I think it's good to have this discussion on here on Lemmy too even if it potentially already exists somewhere else on the internet, so that other fools like me may come across your wisdom and be enlightened.

If this is complete and utter nonsense what I'm babbling about, can I at least somehow download the firmware and software running on the kindle from the device, so that I may poke and probe it with my disgusting, dirty little fingers, defiling Amazon's intellectual property?

I hope that you have a good day and that the following days be good too. If I am stupid for even mentioning the idea of a good day, I wish that some day our suffering may end and that a good day be something we all can look forward to.

City of Mirrors by J Cronin.

For most books, the usual recommended fonts like Bookerly work well, but I also have some technical books and light novels, and that old, serious flair of most traditional book fonts just looks… off. Do you have any recommendations for nice modern-looking fonts that work well with e-ink screens?

There's a Kindle Rewards bonus offer going on currently.

Spend $20 on Kindle books between July 28 and Aug 1 and earn 400 bonus points. Activation required.

Those $20 you need to spend to get the bonus points gives you another 60 points, so this event nets you at least 460 points. That's enough to redeem $3 credits and you are left with 160 points out of 300 needed for another $3 credits. Just remember that points expires in 3 months and you only get 3 points for every dollar you spend on Kindle books.

Kindle Rewards beta

For those who don't know yet, Kindle Rewards is a rewards program on amazon.com that rewards you for buying books. It's for both US and international customers, but you can only get into the beta if Amazon chooses you. It was launched last year.

Initially you got 5 points for every dollar you spent on Kindle e-books and 2 points for every dollar spent on print books. The points expired in 6 months. You need 300 points to redeem $3 worth of credits you can use when purchasing Kindle e-books. Credits expires in 1 month.

Changes to Kindle Rewards on June 1, 2023

After June 1, you now get only 3 points for every dollar spent on Kindle e-books and 1 point for every dollar spent on print books. On top of that those points now expires in 3 months (points earned before June 1 still expires in 6 months). So, you still need 300 points for the credits, but you need to spend more to get enough points. And you only have 3 months to earn those points before they start expiring.

What do you think about the program? Have you participated in it, or ignored it? What about these new changes?

I have only participated on those spend-X-dollars-get-Y-points events (for example, spend $10 get 300 points). I maintain a wish list of books that I'm interested of. When one of those events comes along, I look through the list and buy the minimum amount required by the event. Preferably books that are on sale. That gives me plenty of books for little money, and free credits for next purchase.

After these changes, I think the points you get from buying books outside of events are meaningless. You earn so little, and have so little time to earn enough, that those points will just end up expiring. I think the rewards program gives little to no benefit for customers, except during those spend-X-dollars-get-Y-points events. Even then, only if the event gives you those 300 points required for the credits.

I don't read to often but found out that it's cheaper to buy the books I do read on Kindle, is the app on phones good as I don't really think paying out for Kindle is worth it for me at the moment.

Kindle's are currently about 30% off on Amazon's websites. Seems to be every model in all colors and variations. The deals are for Prime members only, but you might be eligible to try Prime for free.

The deals are at least on amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and amazon.de.

There's a new firmware for Kindles from 7th gen Paperwhite to the newest Kindle basic. Newest firmware for Scribe is 5.16.2 (May 2023).

Release notes are very short and very generic:

Version 5.16.2.1 – June 2023

Here's what's new:

Performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements.

Not listed in release notes, but there is now a button for annotations, that I don't think were there before.

Have you noticed any other changes or improvements?

When I had the previous version of the Paperwhite Amazon sold a version of the leather case that was a soft leather. With the new Paperwhite 11 the Amazon leather case is a hard plastic. Is there anything on the market for the Paperwhite 11 that's like that previous version?

When do the Prime Day deals start for Kindle?

Got my new-to-me-refurbished 11th gen Kindle Paperwhite today! Took advantage of an early Prime Day deal, excited to finally upgrade from my very very laggy 6th gen version.

Say a 4-yr-old who likes to mess with things saw my kindle lying on a table, because I like being able to pick it up and read whenever without having to dig it out of a drawer or high shelf out of reach. Before anybody saw she had the kindle, she had lost my spot in my book, changed the font size, and purchased two books from the Amazon store. Annoying, but could have been worse.

I got the books refunded and found my page again. Also turned off one-click purchases, which was infuriatingly on by default on the kindle even though I had already disabled it on my phone and computer previously - I don't use the store from my kindle, so had never had reason to suspect it was an issue.

No harm done though. She could have deleted stuff. So I put a passcode on it too. But it occurred to me after some research that the kindle offers to factory reset itself after five unsuccessful passcode attempts. Which means if the little devil gets up to her shenanigans again, there's a decent chance she'll end up just wiping my kindle. That's even worse than just leaving it unlocked and risking her messing things up.

It kind of sucks that there's no real third option, aside from just keeping the thing out of her reach at all times. Anybody else have this admittedly niche problem, and how did you deal with it?

For those looking for a deal the Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite are currently on sale.

Hey anyone, If you are like me you didnt see any communities for kindles so I made one and you ended up here. That being the case.

Welcome!

Until any type of growth happens going to keep things pretty loose. So weather it be news about devices, what books you are reading or just excitement that you got a new device feel free to share it all.