Get Your Mug Shot on a Kindle
Yesterday on FriendFeed, one of our readers was joking with me that I stole a picture of her Kindle 2. She posted a pic of her Amazon Kindle that looked extremely similar to mine in the way we were both holding the device. Then I realized that all those Kindles out there look identical. Without turning the device on or using a case, you really can’t tell them apart. Seems rather impersonal for a personal reading device, no? That’s why my Kindle now has my cartoon head on it!
This little hack comes courtesy of a MobileRead forum member who offers a small file to make the magic happen. You have to supply the picture(s) of course and I recommend making them 800×600, which is the Kindle’s native resolution. The hack also provides a method to restore the original screensaver pics if you want to view famous authors. It took me all of three minutes to do this and it’s simple to do; there’s an included ReadMe file that explains the process. My Kindle (see my first impressions of the device) really is my Kindle now.
screensaver on a e-ink display?
I probably should have explained this better in the post. When the Kindle is turned off, the eInk display typically shows one of several famous authors. It uses no power to do this once the pixels are arranged: that’s the benefit of eInk. I simply wanted to personalize the screen for times when the device is powered down. Maybe “screensaver” isn’t the best description for this.
e-Ink displays do burn in. The ink capsules driven to solid black or solid white do migrate beyond the reach of the electrophoresis electrodes and thus over time you have less and less ink to draw with. This degrades the contrast of the display.
Every e-ink user other than Amazon pushes the e-ink capsules into a safe state when the unit is sleeping. The Kindle can be powered all the way off and it will put the display into a safe state as well. But it takes seemingly forever to come back out of that state.
I was quite distressed by the difference in contrast I noticed recently when my launch day Kindle 1 died due to a firmware update bug. The brand new unit Amazon sent me was much more like what I suddenly recalled the unit looking like when it was brand new.
The other issue is the hack can be annoying the next time Amazon pushes out an update. The hack caused the 2.0.2 update to cause sleep apnea when it was pushed out over the air last week. The unit would download the 2.0.2 update, install it, fail, reboot and then repeat the cycle the next time it fell asleep.
Once the hack was removed the 2.0.2 update installed correctly and all was fine.
I’ve chosen to leave the hack off this time as I’d hate to have it brick when 2.0.3 comes out. As I mentioned above, at least with gen 1’s, if the firmware update fails the wrong way: you have to send the unit back to Amazon. I suspect a hacked unit isn’t covered by the warranty under those circumstances.
Heh, good way to differentiate the Kindle from others. Now if it ever gets stolen or lost, there’s even a way to positively identify yourself as the owner.
P.S. I think you meant to link to FriendFeed in the first link. Currently both links point to the MobileRead forum post.
You are correct: link is fixed. Thanks again for the post inspiration!
Hey Kevin,
Your Kindle screen makes me wonder — have you ever noticed the resemblance between your picture and the son on American Dad?
Maybe this was you as a boy?
kal