http://www.techradar.com/news/portable- ... oks-632468

I take it users will have to add in their notes all over again though

Looks like they won't have to re-write those notes.

That's what I'm curious about though, is the Kindle likely to have kept all those details if the e-book itself was removed? More to the point, did the p1ssed-off user keep them even if it does have that function?

Yes.

That was the whole point of the class action suite. The students had made notes in their copy of the book. The notes are stored as a separate XML document on the device, which isn't deleted when the book is removed.

The students ended up with a useless list:

Explain this paragraph

This is key to the characters motivation

etc.

Without being able to link those comments back to actual text, it was totally useless and meant that the hours of research and note making the student had done were totally useless. They were missing deadlines and having to redo all of the research again...

I have to say that these are the perils of being machine dependant, especially when the content is out of your control. Trusting this kind of tech for anything important, such as academic study, is clearly a disaster waiting to happen. Writing notes on a hard copy for research is still the best way forward, it seems.

I for one did not realise that the content was out of control, until this story first came to my attention.

Of course, I neither own a Kindle nor study literature. I do however take important notes in electronic form. I'm sick to death of insecure paper notes which become disorganised, lost or unavailable due to location.

I find a properly maintained database to be essential to efficient everyday working. This might be in the form of personal emails, or a proper database on the server. Both are securely backed up and available online in a way paper notes can never be. If the dog eats my laptop, nothing of value is lost.

Until Amazon took the book back, nobody realised they had the power to do that.

And Universities are working with Amazon to use Kindles to provide all of the text books for students. It saves them a large chunk of cash over the duration of their course and means they don't have to lug around huge piles of text books... But it also brings in a single point of failure - although if you have multiple Kindles, they synch with each other (all books appear on all devices and your notes and the point you were at on one device is synched to the other devices, so you can carry on reading from the point you left off on another device...

Steve Gibson (GRC.com) found that out, because he has a Kindle 1, Kindle 2 and a Kindle DX. The DX was so large, it wasn't practical for carrying around, so he strapped it to the console of his climber exercise machine. He was reading a book in Starbucks, came home and got on the exercise machine and the DX asked if he wanted to continue where he left off in Starbucks...

I don't agree.

A book is easily left on a train or damaged when you spill your tea over it. With an electronic format you can back your notes up.

Or leave the Kindle on a plane!

Leo Laporte is on his third one, I think, he left his previous one on the plane on his flight back from China! He realised while he was waiting for his luggage, by the time he got to the desk adn they phoned through to the plane, it was gone.

Yeah, but surely you can backup your books and notes?

If not then I agree with Paul, it's not a very bright idea.

That was the beauty of what happened. The notes were still on the Kindle. The text wasn’t.

You can equally leave your Kindle on a train, spill tea on it, or (because it’s a bit of tempting kit) have it pinched by “the kids”.


from here: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wi ... B00154JDAI

They DO back up your books, but given the control over the content that they have, I’d be suspicious of it. I’m not sure that there is a way of backing up the KIndle to a separate drive on my computer.

True, but I'd rather spend £100 or however much the device costs, than hours and hours rewriting my work.

All his purchases automatically appeared on the new device - not sure about notes, he didn't mention. Maybe you can back them up... But it only accepts books over its own network connection, you can't sync with a computer and get the books - one of the reasons that it isn't available in Europe (or anywhere outside the USA), because Whispernet is unique, currently, the the USA.