[gui-talk] Kindle: think it's worth a try

[Beth Wright]

Hi, listers.

Just got a Kindle from Amazon.com and think it's worth a try, even though the menus are totally inaccessible and I hope their next version is more user-friendly for the blind.  If you want to get your hands on a book, it's available from the Kindle online store, and the powers that be haven't disabled the text-to-speech function, don't let those silent menus spook you.  You can shop from your computer and then, with a few simple commands, get the book loaded onto the Kindle in a few seconds.  In fact, that's just about the easiest part of the process, and be done without sighted help.  As far as learning how to operate the thing and get it reading, I did need sighted help, and probably will again, since I'm just getting started.  It's not that hard, though, and the buttons are pretty easy to use, because it's much bigger than a lot of electronic devices such as cell phones and music players.  I bought it mainly for cookbooks because they're notoriously hard to scan, not too many are available in Braille and, they're not well suited to the audiobook format, I figured that many would be available with text-to-speech enabled.  The one minor drawback is that the cookbooks, for whatever reason, aren't as heavily discounted as some of their titles but, as I say, that's only minor.  After all, as we never get tired of saying, we want equal access, which doesn't necessarily mean free acess.

Since I'm getting started with this, I don't feel terribly equipped to answer questions, but just thought I'd put in my two cents' worth.  Maybe the more technically savvy Kindle owners can fill in some of the blanks, so to speak.

Beth