Your legs are tired and you can’t help but think of the camping chair that lays forgotten beside the garage door. It’s been three hours since you stepped in line, but the store doesn’t open for another five. To make things worse, you never actually saw the beginning of this stationary parade. How many people could there be in front you? Fifty? Two hundred?

All imagery (and tired legs) aside, this is quite similar to the situation prospective Kindle DX owners are experiencing. Once again, the Kindle DX has been sold out and will resume shipping in about four weeks.

While anxious buyers may be a little disappointed by the limited availability and extended waiting period, this is sure sign that the Kindle continues to grow in popularity. While we’re thinking positively, we should also consider this as another demonstration of how the Amazon Kindle is a solid purchase. The more Kindles sold, the greater the user base, which means Amazon is going to continue to pump time and energy into the product.

If you’d like to grab a Kindle DX yourself, I recommend that you go ahead and place your order. Amazon fills their orders on a “first come, first served” basis. So when you place your order, you’re actually grabbing a place in line… thus, my line metaphor.

If you’re looking to spend less and want to receive your Kindle in a more timely fashion, you can always pickup the second generation Kindle (referred to as “the Kindle” on Amazon.com, but as “K2″ by affectionate users). If your budget is a little tighter than usual and you don’t mind using second-hand items, maybe a used kindle is right for you.

If you’re set on getting a DX, then the question is, do you jump in line or wait a few months until you can “walk in” and pull one off the shelf? If you’re already placed your order, would you mind leaving a comment? I’m curious to know how long people are actually waiting for their shipment.

I just noticed on the main Kindle DX page at Amazon.com that the release date of June 10 has been set. This is much sooner than I thought!

The Amazon Kindle DX is the third version of the popular e-reader device. The Kindle 2 was just released a few months ago. This quick turn-around will allow Amazon to cook something else up for the e-reader market just before big Christmas spending.

The Kindle DX is still available for pre-order. All orders give you a “place in line” and will be shipped on a first come, first served basis. For those of you who jumped on board early in the game, you may be able to have the new Kindle DX in your hands before Father’s Day!

I came across a humorous parody of the Kindle DX this morning. The funny guys at Atom.com have a brief video of the currently unreleased Kindle 9XXXD, the world’s largest and most powerful e-reader.

There’s no doubt they’re playing on the somewhat unconventional move that Amazon made with their newest reader, the Kindle DX. Most gadgets and devices get smaller and feature rich. The Kindle DX, while offering a few new features, is larger than its predecessors.

Its increase in size really isn’t worthy of much debate. When you consider how Amazon is planning to sell the Kindle DX to schools and students, the larger screen size and native PDF support make an ideal product for the academic market. This helps to explain why I’m hearing of so many Kindle DX Pre-Orders.

I’ve been reading with my Kindle 2 almost every night for the past two months and I must admit that I’m hooked. I don’t know if I can justify moving to the DX when it is released, but I would love to check one out when they become available.

According to an article at msnbc.com, several schools will be running a Kindle Pilot Program, putting a number of Kindle DX units in students’ hands for academic use. The Kindles are to be sold to the schools at a 50% discount, and the students will be allowed to use the Kindles free of charge.

The five other schools launching DX trials this fall — Case Western Reserve University, Pace University, Princeton University, Reed College, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia — said they plan to offer the Kindle edition of selected texts from three publishers: Cengage Learning, Pearson Education and Wiley, together representing more than 60 percent of the U.S. higher-education textbook market.

Pace said it will get Kindles at a 50 percent discount from Amazon for the 50 students in its pilot program, and then provide them to the students at no charge.

Another section of the article continues to hope for lower electronic textbook prices. Arizona State is hoping for the price to be cut in half. I think that’s a little drastic considering that Amazon is currently losing money with most Kindle version purchases. Though, anyone who’s been to college knows that the price of textbooks is the result of obscene markup. So it’s possible students could see a significant drop in price. We will just have to wait and see, though, as Amazon has yet to comment on how the Kindle textbooks will be priced.

I’m really interested to see how students and teaches feel about the Kindle once the pilot programs have been completed. I still hold to the opinion that many students will be very willing to adopt the Kindle once they have used one. So much so that I wrote an article about Students Using Kindle Textbooks.

An interesting point I’d like to explore is that I haven’t heard of any of the competition going as far as running pilot programs at schools. On top of that, I haven’t heard of any negotiations between Amazon’s competitors and publishers. Amazon is has targeted schools and students and is going after them quite aggressively. If they can secure the academic market, you can bet the Kindle will be around for years to come.

If anyone out there has information about Amazon’s competitors targeting students and schools, please leave a comment below.

Ah, the grand days I spent on campus… the half-mile walks between classes, the knee-buckling weight of my backpack, folders overflowing with loose notes. Ok, so I’m being a little sarcastic, but would you believe that there’s a new product on the horizon that has the potential to eliminate some of our college woes?

Even though the college life is generally a high point in our lives, most of us will never forget the years of academic drudge. Amazon’s recently announced Kindle DX quite possibly can give students a well-deserved break.

If you set aside college tuition, the next large expense for the average student is textbooks. Weighing up to a few pounds and often costing over $100 each, college textbooks are a burden to students in multiple ways. To make things worse, students have to buy these books every semester. As the semester goes by, publishers are pumping out the next version of their textbooks, forcing students to buy the latest versions instead of catching a break on used books.

So why is the Kindle DX a good choice for students? There are several reasons:

• Pay less for books. Traditionally, Kindle books have been for sale at a reasonable discount compared to their paperback and hardback counterparts. If the textbooks offered for the kindle follow suit, students should expect to easily save a $100 per semester.
• Greater availability and convenience. One of the things I never looked forward to was going to the campus bookstore. List in hand, I would wonder about the store looking for the books I’ve been told to purchase. Then, I stand in the checkout line with twenty pounds of books in my arms. Purchases made with the Kindle are done via Amazon’s wireless “Whispernet” connection. Kindle owners can potentially purchase their book in class, from home, where ever is most convenient.
• Less bulk to carry across campus. Finally there’s an alternative to carrying several pounds of books on our shoulders. Personally, I think having a Kindle to store just one the required texts would be justification enough, but can you image if your entire semester’s worth of books were tucked away in a single, slim, ultra-light device?
• Generate study notes easily. One of the features I really enjoy using with my Kindle is the notes and highlights feature. Whenever I come across something worth noting in a book, I can highlight and save a clip of the text with just a few clicks. I can then take that collection of clips and use them to find important parts of a book, or simply skim through them to refresh my memory. I think this could be a huge benefit to students.
• It’s a Kindle. – Remember, guys, we’re still talking about the same Kindle that everyone loves to use for their everyday reading. With the DX you’ll enjoy a larger screen, built-in PDF support, an auto-rotating screen, and more available internal storage than ever!

I’m looking forward to seeing how well the new Kindle DX does in the academic market. I’m not sure if I will jump over to the new, larger format (I’m just now rocking the Kindle 2). Though, students who don’t already own a Kindle should definitely consider pre-ordering a Kindle DX, which is due out this summer. If you can’t wait that long, the popular Kindle 2 is available for immediate shipment.

Just discovered that manybooks.net now has kindle formated books available. If you have wondered, “what can I get to try my kindle out with that won’t cost me anything,” search no longer. Many (Ha, that’s part of their name) of the books I read when I was younger and would consider great books for your own library are available at the site. I downloaded Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and, although it has about 7 pages of pretext explaining that the text came from the Gutenbug project and how you can contribute if you want to, there is a coverpage picture and the text is all there. So in my mind, score one for FREE!

There is a large number of books at manybooks.net that I wouldn’t bother with, but I plan on grabbing many of the classics that I haven’t read or haven’t read since I was much younger. “Frankenstien” by Mary Shelly or Bram Stokers “Dracula” were a few that I have never read the book but have obviously seen ton of retread movies related to them. One I do want to get is Treasure Island and Gulliver’s Travels, which I haven’t read since I was 10, but there are really too many to list here. A large number of Shakespere’s works, Poe, well far more than I had expected. So Kudos to ManyBooks.net for hopping on the bandwagon early and getting their collection converted so quickly. Go check it out, I can’t image you won’t find at least one book you’ll download.

Free Books at Amazon

As a commenter mentioned, there are lots of free books available at Amazon.com. The link I provided lists all available Kindle books sorted by price. All of the free books should appear first, even if you click on a category on the left of the page. I’ve used this technique many times to find new books for zero cash.

Not Free, but Used

While we’re focusing on tightening the purse strings, you should know that there are lots of used Kindles and accessories available on the web. So, if you’re looking to upgrade or pick up some accessories, a used Kindle should be a strong consideration.