Yesterday I received a message from S2R’s user, her name is Melinda, about a way of using Sendtoreader on Kindle. I think the way of sending web pages from Kindle browser she’s describing is quite simple and useful at the same time, so you should definately read the full text of the message.

I’m writing to let you know about something I’m doing with the “SENDtoREADER” web app. I’ve been using it nearly every day for the last few weeks to send articles from my computer to my Kindle. I have very much wanted to also be able to send an article FROM my Kindle TO my Kindle; that is, when I use the K3 web browser and find an article that would be more easily read in a nice Kindle book format (or if my internet access is temperamental or slow), I’d love to be able to instantly format and send it, without having to go to my computer to do it. I understand the developer is working on such a facility, but until it’s available, I’ve found a pretty simple way to do it.

You need to have an account with SENDtoREADER, and register it as an allowed email address on the “Manage Your Kindle” page. You’ll also need to be logged into your SENDtoREADER account on your Kindle. Then, when you’ve browsed to a webpage that you’d like to send, press MENU and then the “Enter URL” option. Click the left arrow on the 5-way controller to take the cursor to the beginning of the page address, and type in:

sendtoreader.com/bm/send.php?&u=

This string will now be at the beginning of your web address. Press the ENTER key, and voila! You should get the “Sending…SENT!” message, and a few minutes later the document will appear on your Kindle!

I’ve used a similar little text string to quickly assign a tinyurl to a web page from my Kindle. I found that string in a post on the MobileRead forums. I tried similar strings with SENDtoREADER with no success, until I found something like the one above in the instructions for setting up Google Reader to send articles. I’m not a programmer at all, so I don’t actually know exactly what I’m doing here; I just kept fiddling until I got something that worked and seemed to be as short as it could be!

I haven’t read about other people wishing for this function, which puzzles me because for the way I use the Kindle it will be absolutely invaluable. I use Google Reader to gather about 50 news feeds every day (sorted into folders), then have Calibre retrieve them early every morning and send them to me as a nicely formatted “book.” I read through new entries in this “book” every day and often go to websites from links in the articles contained therein. If I want to save something I find in this way, or just read it later, now I can just immediately send it, instead of having to bookmark it and look it up later on my computer. I expect I’ll use this technique several times a day, making it one of the most useful things I can do with my Kindle! Of course, if a handy utility comes along for doing this without having to remember and type in the little text string, that would be great, but until then I’m happy doing it this way.

Melinda