Added – Genealogy eBooks through Amazon’s Kindle

Just a few minutes ago, I finished adding another page to the site, this one is a new page (I’m still behind on updating some of the old pages), and it covers a topic that I’ve been very interested in lately – genealogy-related eBooks. Specifically it covers genealogy ebooks through Amazon’s Kindle – it’s only covering eBooks you can download for Amazon’s Kindle platform – the actual Kindle eBook readers, the Kindle software for Mac or PC, or for Kindle on iPhone or BlackBerry. I’ll be expanding it to cover other eBook readers (Barnes and Noble Nook, etc.) and getting third-party materials on the Kindle in later articles/entries.

One thing that surprised me – no genealogy magazines in the Kindle format. That’s one area I’d like to see a few publications try out – perhaps Family Tree Magazine or some of the others. I know that some magazines are either stopping publication, or have already stopped publication of their print editions (these past few years have been hard on a lot of companies), but there are still some genealogy-related magazines around.

I’d also like to see back issues somehow made available through services like the Kindle – don’t ask me how that would work. I just know I have a stack of older magazines that would make for great light reading if I had all of them on an eBook reader (or an iPad for that matter). You name it, I’ve got it – Everton’s, Family Tree Magazine, Ancestry, plus some of the smaller publications not to mention some of the UK publications I’ve bought over the years. While some of those have ceased publication, some companies have made their back-issues available in digital formats and you can easily (in my view) get the PDF-formatted files over to the Kindle, but I’d like to see it expanded. I think there is a market if they were reasonably priced. A lot of magazines had a lot of quality writing and interesting/unique articles. Given how tough things have been, I would think that more companies would be looking into trying to make more money from their older materials.
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Site Update and Some Notes (March 16, 2010)

Notes on site re-design
As you can see, there is a new design. It should load a little faster, but more importantly should allow for easier navigation in finding what you need. If you have any problems or questions, please contact us. For the first time since the site went live in 2004, there are now mobile-friendly options for those users who are browsing through a mobile device (iPhone, Windows Mobile, etc.) and using a mobile/cell phone connection (whether it be EDGE or 3G).

I’ll be making some tweaks over the next few days – if anything looks weird, do a browser refresh. If it still looks weird contact us.

Internet Explorer 6 (and 7)
We’re aware that the new site design doesn’t look too good under Internet Explorer 6 (a few things are offset) along with one image that’s offset in Internet Explorer 7, however less than 10% of the visitors are running IE 6, and from a technical and genealogist point of view – I would say upgrade to a newer version of Internet Explorer, or Apple’s Safari, or Google Chrome. You’re liable to come across other genealogy-related websites these days that don’t work too well under IE 6 as it is, along with potential security risks that may crop up with running an older browser (nearly 10 years old). I understand however, that many cannot upgrade for one reason or another, so we will work to try and iron out any bugs with IE 6 and will definitely be taking care of the IE 7 image problem very shortly.

What’s next?
We are now at the point where we will be adding several genealogy applications and genealogy-related software entries that we don’t already list, so bear with us. Once we are finished with that (should be less than a day or two), we’ve got a few other little things to add (that we’ll talk about later) and then we can start in on normal blogging/writing about genealogy and mobile devices. I personally have a good dozen or so articles and commentaries I’ve been walking around with in my head that I’m looking forward to writing and posting, among other things. Mobile computing is a big deal to me, and I’m happy to share my own experiences and hopefully help others out.

And then?
Some cool things. First and foremost, to help people out with solutions to genealogy research while trying to stay “light and portable” with your equipment. Nobody likes dragging around a lot of electronic gear to various locations such as cemeteries and libraries unless it’s going to be 100% useful in your genealogy/family history research.

Finally
While I’m still adding to it, please check the about page to get a sense of what MobileGenealogy.com is about. Also know this: All platforms are welcome here. It may seem like the iPhone dominates, but it does so only through the sheer number of applications available for it. Disclaimer: I have and use an iPhone, but this site originally started out covering Palm and Windows CE/Windows Mobile devices. For all we know, a year from now Google’s Android platform may have grown by leaps and bounds in the genealogy software arena, and we’ve still got the highly-anticipated Windows Mobile 7 release later this year (hopefully).