How to Sideload Apps to your Kindle Fire HDX

This is an update to my articles; Android Apps for Kindle Fire and How to Sideload Apps onto the Kindle Fire. 

In 2011, I bought my first Kindle Fire. Today I have graduated to the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 Tablet and I still love the Kindle system. The only challenge is that three of my must have apps are not available in the Amazon app store, including Dropbox, Roboform and Zinio. 

This tutorial will show you how to sideload almost any app available as a .apk file onto your Kindle Fire, HD or HDX. 

Step 1 : download the .apk file to your computer

• go to the software maker's website and look for an android or Kindle Fire download
• try the Good e-Reader app store or 1Mobile Market
• if you have an android based phone, you can copy the app file from it to your computer and from your computer to your Kindle Fire
• be creative, search Google for ("Kindle Fire" AND "name of app")

Step 2 : approve apps from unknown sources

• from top of Kindle screen swipe down
• tap the settings gear icon
• tap Applications
• at the top of the screen, find 'Apps from Unknown Sources' and to the right tap On

Step 3 : copy the .apk file to your kindle

• connect Kindle to computer via usb
• copy .apk app file from computer Download folder 
• navigate to Kindle download folder
• paste file

Step 4 : from Amazon App store, install Easy Installer

• do this step directly in the app store from your Kindle

Step 5 : install app on Kindle Fire HDX

• open Easy Installer
• check the box next to the app you wish to Install
• click Install at the bottom of the screen
• if the app does not appear; 1. Tap the icon which appears in the top right corner of the screen. It looks like a column of 3 boxes. 2. Tap Scan Apps 3. The app file should appear. 3. If it does not, make sure you have followed the directions and that your Kindle was plugged into your computer during transfer of the .apx file. 

I hope this made the Kindle Fire sideloading process a little bit easier for you. Let me know if you have any questions. What other apps do you wish the Amazon app store offered? I am off to see if I can find an Instagram app download. 

Jennifer Shoer aka Scrappy Gen

Reconnecting Relatives, LLC

Let's Remember!

Final Tablet Verdict - Nook, Fire or Streak - Tech Tuesday

Right up front, I will tell you that my mood is low. We have entered the gloomy season in New Hampshire and it is scheduled to rain for the next five days. So, take everything that follows with that in mind. I have my Happy Lite on, but it doesn't work immediately and certainly not in time to stop this rant. 


Is anyone else as annoyed as I am at the hype surrounding tablets this year? There are hundreds of new posts each day touting the pros and cons of the Kindle Fire, the Color Nook and Nook Tablet and of course the IPad. Enough already. I never should have set up that Google Alert for Nook Color and Kindle Fire. I. Am. Tired. Of. The. Noise. Let's just stop. Who cares if the Kindle Fire owns the world, or that the IPad groupies are building a moat. There are lots of good tablets, each of which will be happily used by some consumer somewhere. 


I have been promising you my 'final' decision on which device I prefer; the Nook, the Fire or the Dell Streak. Well, guess what, I like them all. Yes, you heard me right. They all work great, and I think you will be happy with any of them for reading, checking email and social media and surfing the web. Done. Go buy one and live happily ever after, but first if you need to read just a little bit more about this subject, below are my last few cents on why you shouldn't buy each device. Then figure out if you can live with the limitations and whip out your credit card (or better yet log in to Pay Pal) and click Buy Now. 


My Last Few Cents:

• Kindle Fire power button is in a dumb place. Really dumb. Or I am. I hit it constantly.
• Getting the home icon to appear on the Kindle Fire is a challenge for me, not so much for my twelve year old son. Go figure. 
• Kindle Fire has no camera, forward or rear. So you can watch, but you can't participate. So don't try. 
• Daughter bought text books through Barnes and Noble and they will not work on the Nook. That makes sense! 
• How does B&N think they will ever keep up in the app department. Yes, the Nooks are nice and everything, but they have 1500 apps. Compare that to Amazon's 19000 apps. Does Google or Apple even know how many apps they have now? Why would anyone buy the Nook Color or Tablet? 
• The Dell Streak has terrible battery life. Actually really, really bad. You will need to get the car charger and keep this baby plugged in all of the time. It lasts a few hours, tops. Other than that it is perfect. Does everything I want.
• *Update 2:54 PM 6 Dec 2011 Dell Kills 7" Streak.  

So that's it. I hope Santa or Captain Chanukah brings you a tablet this year. Make sure you behave yourself!


The End.


Scrappy Gen
Let's Remember!

   

My First Guest Blog Post!

My first guest blog post! It's over at Caroline Pointer's blog, For Your Family Story. It's about an app. That's all I'm going to say. Go read it and let me know what you think! 

Happy Tuesday!

Scrappy Gen

Let's Remember!

How to Sideload Apps onto the Kindle Fire - Dropbox

Are you thinking of getting the new Kindle Fire? Are you wondering if you can run all of your apps on it? Follow along as I learn how to side load Android apps from my phone to the Kindle Fire, no rooting or jail-breaking required!

Several apps I want are either unavailable from Amazon or incompatible with the new Kindle Fire. One incompatible app is Zinio.com, which you can download directly from the Zinio site. One app unavailable in the Amazon store is Dropbox. Today I am going to follow directions given by Sascha Segan in "How to run almost any android app on the Kindle Fire" to copy these apps to the Kindle Fire. He is very techie, but me, not so much. Because I am a visual learner, I have added pictures.

Step 1: Back up apps to Android phone SD Card

1. Download, install and open the free ASTRO File Manager for your Android phone.

  

2. Click on File Manager.

3. From the menu button, click on preferences.

Preferences is bottom left

4. Click on Backup Directory and choose your SD card. My backup for the SD card is /mnt/sdcard/backups. See Sascha Segan's instructions for more technical details.

5. Go back to the main ASTRO screen and click on Application Backup.

6.  Click on the app you want to download and choose backup.

I clicked on Dropbox

Step 2: Copy apps from Android phone SD card to PC

Step 3: Copy apps from PC to Kindle Fire

Step 4: Download Easy Installer to Kindle Fire, open and use to install apps. The nice thing about Easy Installer is it's easy! When you open the program, the apps available for install appear immediately. No need to search for where you might have put the app. Not that that ever happens to me. 


If I can sideload an app, you can too. Next up: Nook


Let me know if you have any questions or comments. 


2:10 PM Update: No Sideloading Google Apps - Do you know how many Google apps there are? Why doesn't Google offer apps for either the Color Nook or the Kindle Fire? I am betting it is because both use proprietary software, but to me it seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Does Google prefer me to buy a non proprietary device? What's in it for them? Why don't I go to www.google.com to find out. Or, will they filter the results to only show me what they want me to know. Do you know? 


Greg Knieriemen writes in Kindle Fire, An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos that Amazon is blocking Google. Really? So is Amazon blocking or Google not sharing? Could everyone just play nice please so that I can have my cake and eat it too?

Scrappy Gen
Let's Remember!

Color Nook, Dell Streak, Kindle Fire, Oh My - Tech Tuesday

First Stop - Nook Color

Books are like food for me, necessary to my existence. I can't imagine a day when I am not surrounded by their lovely spines. But then I read Dick Eastman's Plus Edition article (If you are not a member, you must sign up for this valuable newsletter.) about the Nook Color and was hooked. My family obliged and gifted me with one for Mother's Day. I was hoping to use it not only as an e-reader, but also as a small tablet. I like that the Nook Color can be used to surf the web, check email and keep up with social media, but I quickly became frustrated with a few things.

• limited number of apps (back in May there were just over a hundred)
• lack of apps I really wanted; Hootsuite, Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, GedStarPro, Genealogy Gems and others (They did just add Dropbox on 10/20/2011)
• platform did not support zinio.com, which offers easy to navigate digital versions of Your Family Tree, Who Do You Think You Are? and Irish Roots.
• inadequate search interface with the Barnes & Noble Nook store

It turns out that while I enjoyed reading books on the Nook, I wanted more than it was capable of providing. I didn't really want an e-reader, I wanted a tablet. My daughter was more than happy to take the Nook Color off my hands. As a college student, she is able to purchase many of her textbooks digitally and the Nook would allow her to carry her books independently of her laptop.

Second Stop - Dell Streak

In July, Staples had a great deal and I bought the Dell Streak 7 for $199. This is a seven inch tablet, about the same size, but slightly heavier than the Nook Color. It is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled. Because it is Android based, it can access the Android Market and a seemingly endless number of apps. Here are some of the ways I use the tablet.

1. Write blog posts.

2. Read e-books from both the Kindle and Nook stores.

3. Listening to Genealogy Gems podcasts.

4. Communicate via Skype

5. View documents from Dropbox via Adobe Reader

6. Access my passwords and user names through Roboform

7. Keep up with social media via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Hootsuite. 

8. Save items in Evernote. 

9. Read genealogy magazines via zinio.

10. Read blogs in Google Reader.

A tablet has definitely been a better fit for me. There are lots of inexpensive ones out there, including the Dell Streak 7 Wi-Fi Tablet at Amazon. Except for its battery life, I thought I would be satisfied with the Streak indefinitely as I am not one to go out right away and buy the newest thing. Well, I was satisfied until I heard about the new Kindle Fire.

Third Stop - Kindle Fire

Yup, I pre-ordered one. I had to. There's a line. It's first come, first served. And I want to get it first. The Kindle Fire will be released on November 15th. Will it outshine the Nook Color? I'll let you know. 

Happy Tech Tuesday!

Scrappy Gen
Let's Remember!

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More reading about e-readers and tablets:

Kindle Fire -- no threat to Apple's iPad by Genealogy's Star 

The End of the Printed Book (coming soon, but not yet) by Blood and Frogs 

Android Wars by The Ginger Jewish Genealogist 

Amazon Kindle is on Fire and Turn Your Nook Color into a full Android Tablet by Dick Eastman 

That's An App Thursday: App Store App and Genealogy on Fire by 4yourfamilystore.com

 

Tech Tuesday: Organizing and Packing Slides for Shipment - FotoBridge

This is an informative blogpost from FotoBridge about how to sort, label and pack your slides for shipping. If your slides are already organized or labeled, it would certainly make sense to send that labeling along with your order. FotoBridge will then label your digital files accordingly.

The slides I sent were in separate groups according to decade, but if I had known FotoBridge would provide this level of organization, I would have included a bit more description to each group. Read this blogpost for more detail and don't forget that FotoBridge is offering readers of The Scrappy Genealogist a ten percent discount. Just use the code "scrappy10" when you place your order.

Organizing and Packing Slides for Shipment FotoBridge Blog

Happy Tuesday!

Scrappy Gen

Let's Remember!

Tech Tuesday - Scanning Slides

"Eat That Frog" says Brian Tracy. "Get a grip and just do it" says Elyse Doerflinger here. I have finally done it; I have eaten the frog, I have gotten a grip and I have taught myself how to scan slides with my trusty old Espon 4490 scanner.  Just don't ask me how long I have owned this technology. I have always loved it, but now I love it even more!

This picture was developed in slide format in October 1967: 

Here are the settings I used to scan it today:

Settings in Epson Scan 
Professional Mode:

Document Type: Film 

Film Type: Positive

Image Type: 24-bit color 

Scanning Quality: Best 

Resolution: 800 dpi 

Document Size: This is the actual size of the slide. 

Target Size: 11x17 is the closest dimension to that of the slide and is also the largest size I would most likely print it. 

Unsharp Mask: Level: Medium

Then I rescanned it with Digital Ice checked off at the bottom and it removed most of the markings on the film. 

Here I must make a confession. It is 2:31 in the afternoon. Time elapsed since I scanned this image is about four hours. Except for a quick grocery trip (when I got really frustrated) and lunch, I have been trying to figure out how in the world to get this image to upload to Blogger. 
                                 
Problem #1: The image was huge - 342 MB!

Problem#2: No matter how small I made the image, Blogger kept rejecting it. 

Solution (after much angst and pulling of hair): Opened the image in Photoshop Elements 8 and chose Image, Resize Image. See settings below:

Now I am headed back to the drawing board. Although I love the quality of my scanned image, it is far bigger than necessary and the process has slowed my computer down to a snail’s pace. With some more tweaking of settings I should be able to find the magic formula for creating a good printable image that won’t create a humungous file. Humungous my computer does NOT like!

Let me know if you have any formula suggestions.

Happy Scanning!

Scrappy Gen