Kindle Oasis 2017 Tips, Part 1: Making the Home Screen More Homey

I own an original Kindle.  It is an awkward, yet suprizingly powerful beast.  It didn't take much to form it into a tool of self-expression.  I've not used that device in a long time.  This isn't because I grew tired of it.  Rather, it got put into storage somewhere and I only have a vague idea of where it's at.  In the time its been in storage, it has become an archaic device.  The interface and shape was always very clumsy, even by 2008 standards.

So, I jumped on the Kindle Oasis bandwagon, finally.

The design of the Kindle Oasis 2017 (or is that Kindle Oasis 2, or II or 7", or 9th Generation)...   ...you know, I'm going interrupt myself right here to mention that the Kindle Oasis edition from 2017 has an Amazon page name that reads like a bad Craigslist ad.  The official name for the specific edition I purchased is supposedly just "Kindle Oasis".  The Amazon page is titled "Kindle Oasis E-reader – Champagne Gold, 7" High-Resolution Display (300 ppi), Waterproof, Built-In Audible, 32 GB, Wi-Fi - with Special Offers".

However, the problem with that is you cannot differentiate my Kindle Oasis from the first "Kindle Oasis" of the 8th Generation, which is also just called "Kindle Oasis".  Also, if the generation is such an important factor, why isn't that included in the name?  Very confusion in a very unnecessary way.

Anyway, back to the design of the 7", 9th Generation Kindle Oasis 2017 2/II (whatever it's called).  The design is mostly streamlined.  It is odd in one way.  It has two thicknesses, which makes it easier to hold in your right hand, but makes it a bit awkward for some accessories, such as cases.

OK, enough of the unintentional review.  On to the tip.

Changing your home screen

The original Kindle didn't have ads.  It didn't try to sell me anything directly.  It was easy to buy stuff, but it wasn't in your face.  The Kindle Oasis is constantly trying to sell you books.  The lock screen is an ad.  The home screen has several ads of various subtleties.

Well, there's a way to change your home screen so that it is not ad focused.  Instead, your library is the center, and the ads are mostly out of the way.

It is important to note that Kindle Oasis menus have changed a bit.  Some other online guides for this have never been updated.  This is why I've made this guide.  My guide is current up to January 2019.

My original home:

Touch the vertical ellipsis button (the three vertical dots icon) in the upper right corner of the screen to bring up your More Options menu:

Select Settings.  This brings up the Settings page:

Select Device Options.  This brings up the Device Options page:

Select Advanced Options.  This brings up the Advanced Options page:

Select Home & Library.  This brings up the Home & Library page:

Select Home Screen View to turn off the setting:

Select home button in upper left.  This will bring you to your newly minted home page.  The new home page just displays your library...with a small ad at the bottom.  I'll cover more about that little ad in a future article.

Note to self, "apparently, Amazon really really wants me to read that Shadows of the Stone Benders series."

Kindle Oasis 2017 Tips
Making the Home Screen More Homey
Screenshots

OK, Coke got me...

[UPDATE: Unfortunately, Coca-Cola Life was discontinued completely in 2020 as an underperforming brand. It is possible that the 2016 change in formula to reduce sugar content might have contributed its decline in sales.]

Coca-Cola is always coming out with new products.  Sometimes they make mistakes that turn out to be brilliant blunders.  Sometimes, they just make duds.  Sometimes you don't know it's Coke at all.  And, sometimes they make a winner.

Coca-Cola Life could be a winner.  I only found the new beverage by accident at a nearby Target.  The odd color caught my attention, so I got a 2L bottle to try it out.  It is a drink that about matches the taste of Coke, but having only 63% of the original caleries (90 vs. 143 calories of Coke Classic).  They acheive this improvement by using cane sugar and Stevia instead of corn syrup.  Some people claim cane sugar has a better taste than corn syrup.  (I'm one of those people.)

I think the timing for this improvement is very important, as medical field is just now beginning to understand that sugar is the real culprit in heart disease.  Even though there is still substantial sugar in Coca-Cola Life, there is less than Coke Classic.  Not only that, Stevia has been showing promising results that suggest it might help lower blood pressure.  (If someone is taking blood pressure medication, this may have unintentional compounding effects with their medication.  Moderate risk of interaction between Stevia and a few mediations has been asserted.)

For myself, although I find the name a little awkward, I like Coca-Cola Life.  It pretty much tastes like Coke Classic.  There is a slight difference, but certainly much less difference seen from diet drinks.  It certainly doesn't have the annoying aftertaste that I experience with every other sugar substitute. I'm on the lookout for more packaging options, such as those tiny cans that seem to popular these days.

It finally happened

Its Trouble blog is 13 years old.  It had one major facelift in 2002, just before Blogger.com's buyout by Google (2003).  Its Trouble has had a subtle renaming; I had to remove the apostrophe in "It's" because it was bad for linking.  As a result, the name looks fine, but has a drastic typo that should bug me more than it really does.

The 2002 facelift for Its Trouble was created by Jennifer Szabo, who has since renounced all things webdesign.  The design of pretty cool for its time.  It was certainly unique, with the curled parchment theme.  I had my website loaded up with services, custom pages, and moderately useful functionality.  Everything worked nicely.  However, as time went on, stuff stopped working as old services went away and external websites died off.  For example, there are a lot of really good comments on my early posts which are lost due to the original comment service going away.  I was not able to maintain the overall website because Google shutdown FTP access for blogspot accounts, only allowing me to edit my home page.  As a result, I have several dead pages which I will never be able to change or remove.  Images, services, and weblinks stopped working on these pages many years ago.  Its Trouble has been on a slow decline in terms of presentation, all the while having new content with 1000+ posts.

Well, I finally bit the bullet.  I embraced the new Blogger.com stuff and updated my website with the biggest facelift in over a decade.  The problem with Blogger.com is that everything is canned.  You have only so many layout styles, and only so many templates, and only so many useful widgets.  It is way more limited than Wordpress.

Even still, the new design is cleaner.  There's noting broken.  Its functionality is limited to the bare basics allowed by Blogger.com. I was able to keep a similar color scheme and background image as before. It's not half bad.    I'm fairly happy with the result, if not a little disappointed that I cannot do much more.

Use in good health!

Awesome hall of shame devices - Interesting link

There's a cool article with ten hall of shame automotive devices that are/were supposed to do something or another to improve your vehicle's gas mileage, performance, and even ectoplasm removal (because I guess ghosts are slowing your car down؟). Popular Mechanic Gas Saving Gadgets (backup link) covers it all.  My favorite is the magnets used to "straighten" fuel molecules to improve ignition efficiency. (If anything, the magnets would add more weight to your car, thus reducing fuel efficiency).

epinions.com is soon to end as we know it

I wrote a highly critical article about epinions.com in September 2013 where I stated they have made themselves irrelevant in 2013.  epinions.com used to be a great site where anyone could go to get high quality and unbiased user reviews of just about any type of product.  It wasn't polluted with shills and ads.  

Then, it did started getting polluted with ads. Soon, it became hard to tell links to ads from genuine content.  Then, it became hard to find genuine content at all.  Ads ruled.  (Though, shills never really seemed to be able to take hold.)

Even still, I used epinions.com frequently enough until 2012.  Thru no conscious action, I just stopped using the site.  Eventually, I realized this and wrote my critical review as to why.

Well, today, epinions has announced they will be ending its community and reviews system.  This is no surprize to me.  They lost their way, and eventually people just stopped using the site.  The site fell into the trap of trying to sell ads to generate funding rather than offering a superior product that people flock to.  Their focus became monetization without understanding how to generate income from their product without losing its soul.

Their email to members stated,

After a challenging 2013, Epinions will no longer maintain community related operations of its website. We are proud that we were able to serve as a facilitator of shared experiences and thoughtful dialogue over the past 15 years. However, several obstacles, such as declining participation, have deeply affected our business and forced us to make this difficult decision. 

Yeah, 2013 is when I stopped using the site, so this makes perfect sense.  The site stopped being a repository for high quality reviews, and just became a poor quality online mall.

Community submissions ended today.  Reviews can no longer be added.  Last payments to reviewers will be issued on March 6, 2014.  Access to online accounts and message boards will end on March 25,2014.  The suddenness of this suggests a poorly planned shutdown, which means they prolly just ran out of money.

Farewell, epinions!  Whatever form you eventually take, I'm sure I will not be apart of it.

Yahoo's Blunder with unnecessary changes to their services is well explained on slashdot.org

Yahoo's blunder with unnecessary changes to their services such as Yahoo! Groups is well explained on slashdot.org by anonymous poster.

If you have no userbase, the Agile concept of ship (garbage) early and ship (garbage) often even before you really have an MVP actually makes some sense. If you have a 6-month runway of capital before you go belly-up and start over (oh, I'm sorry, "pivot"), there's no point in wasting another month to get it right.

But if you already have a userbase, the developer-centric attitude of leaving what, to users, is core functionality in the backlog while you release half-assed stuff that merely shows off how good you are with AJAX, or how quickly your UX people can change the design from one week to the next, doesn't work. It's bad for your customer base, it alienates them, and it eventually drives them to your competitors.

More of this person's comment can be found here. If you are interested in exploring the topics brought up by this person, click on the links I added to their quote above.  That will take you to Wikipedia articles that will explain each of the terms.  

Opinion about epinions.com decline

epinions.com used to be a great resource to get real world, vetted and high quality customer reviews for all sorts of products from books to cars.  Contributing to epinions.com was actually minimally lucrative, as you got compensated for your product reviews.  Fellow members of the website would critique submitted reviews to help others improve the quality and review writing skills.  The higher quality reviews earned a larger share of whatever earnings were made.

I was never really sure just how the compensation worked, but over the years, I made less than $100 total from my nine posted product reviews.  My first review was posted in 2002 about my old Acura TL Type-S, for which I earned the coveted "Very Helpful" rating.  Over a period of one decade, that review has earned me a whopping total $20.

In the past, I've endorsed and recommended the use of epinions.com.  I frequently went there for reviews of products in which I was interested.  Then something starting changing in 2012.  I stopped using epinions.com.  I didn't really know why at the time.  It just happened.  Looking back, I believe it may have been because reviews were getting harder to find.  It was not that there was less of them, but rather the structure of the website had started changing for the worse.

Sometime this summer of 2013, I was writing a review for another product on Amazon.com and figured it was good enough to add to epinions.com.  I thought I might as well make my 3¢ a year. So, I went back to the epinions.com website and searched for the product.  It was a book.

I searched for the book and found a webpage that listed a bunch of sites that sold the book.  There was no product page.  In the past, the product page would come up as the search result.  This is where one would go to add a review.  But now, there was just a listing of other websites.  Sure, older products still had product pages, though you'd have to surf through the myriad of links to other websites in order to find them.  Much to my dismay, epinions.com had become an inferior online mall.  There isn't even a rewards program, like with higher quality online malls such as MyPoints.com.  epinions.com made itself completely irrelevant.

I guess some areas on the website are still maintained, such as electronics, where it appears to be a little easier to find the product pages for newer products.  It's just not enough to justify giving the website a second thought anymore.