Hack Your Kindle

Terence Eden — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 12:48:04 +0000

I gave a quick talk at BarCamp Brigton about how to hack the Amazon Kindle 3G. These hacks come in two flavours - easy and very easy.

Very Easy - Pictures

Wouldn't it be great to view pictures on your Kindle? Well? OK - pictures, perhaps not so much - but comics? Yes please!

For best results, image files should be the same resolution as the Kindle. 600px * 800px - and grey-scale.

Let's use the XKCD comics - mostly because they're already the right size and mostly in black and white. And they're awesome.

This hack can be done in under 30 seconds.

Plug you Kindle into your computer using the USB cable.
In the root folder, create a new folder called "pictures"
In the new folder, create another folder called "XKCD"
Copy the pictures into the XKCD folder.
Eject the Kindle & unplug it.
From the Kindle home screen, press ALT and Z at the same time.
The screen will now show an XKCD book. You can scroll through the pages using the normal page scroll buttons.
You can also change the size of the pictures.

Very Easy - Screenshots

Hold down ALT, SHIFT, G, at the same time. Done. The .gif files are stored in your documents folder.

Very Easy - Diagnostic Information

To get this diagnostic information do the following.

Turn the Kindle on and unlock it.
Press Menu
Press Settings
Hold down the Alt key
While holding down Alt, type Y Q Q
Ta da!

You can also type R Q Q to get this screen.

Easy - Jail Breaking and Screensavers

These are fairly easy hacks. Copy a file onto your Kindle and hit update. For up todate files and instructions, visit the MobileRead Wiki on Kindle Jailbreaking.

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