So I got myself a Kindle late last year, just before they announced the new ones (no keyboard? Piss off. Limited tablet functionality? No thanks. Colour screen and plays video? The best thing about the old one was the screen. Go away) and I absolutely love it. Being a bit of a fiddler with things like this, I finally got around to investigating the jailbreak possibilities this week, and while they are very limited, there is one rather nice thing you can do, which is install the “screensaver hack” and then have it display your own images, rather than just those default ones.

The images themselves – variously called “screensavers” and “wallpapers”, though they’re not really either – are 600px * 800px (unless you have a DX, in which case they’re… um… bigger) greyscale PNGs or JPGs, and a quick Google will reveal loads of them to you. You could do worse than check out this site, for instance.

Anyway, having done this, I decided to make a load of new ones featuring authors whose work I read, and now I’m sharing them with you in case you also have a jailbroked Kindle.

Featured are:

• Luke Rhinehart
• Iain M. Banks
• Hugh Laurie
• Ian Fleming
• Stephen King
• Stephen Fry
• Steig Larsson
• Aldous Huxley
• Douglas Adams
• Terry Pratchett
• Dave Gorman
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Neil Gaiman
• Warren Ellis
• Philip K. Dick
• J.K. Rowling
• George Orwell
• Danny Wallace
• Len Deighton
• Clive Barker

Download the 5.8Mb zipfile here, then apply any or all of them to your device as you see fit.

DISCLAIMER: I have grabbed these images from various websites using Google, and have no copyright claim to any of them. If that sort of thing bothers you, then move along. This isn’t the royalty-free option you’re looking for.

–c.

NB: Applying the screensaver hack and supplying your own images precludes using the default supplied images that came on your device. If you would like to include those, you can obtain them here and then add them back into the rotation alongside your custom images.

• Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
• Crooked Little Vein, by Internet Jesus
• The Stainless Steel Rat, by Harry Harrison

Books under current assault:

• The Gun Seller, by Hugh Laurie
• And Another Thing…, by Jeremy Clarkson

Books in waiting:

• Moab is My Washpot, by Stephen Fry
• The Book of General Ignorance
• Hellgate London pt.1: Exodus, by Mel Odom

Which is nice. I do like a read, you know.

–c.

It has lent me a certain interest in Googlewhacking when a quiet period at work hoves into view. The one thing about the nature of Googlewhacks is that I can’t post any successful ‘Whacks here, as Google will then index this page and nullify the ‘Whack.

Still, I’m not sure what happens if I just post a link to them… I’ll try it with today’s ‘Whack and see what happens, eh?