My Kindle app notes
Getting PDF's, ebooks (not purchased through Amazon) and Documents into Kindle or Kindle app
Note that I do not own an actual Amazon Kindle device (hardware). That I actually use the Kindle application (software only) on primarily my Apple iPad (Generation 3) and sometimes on my Macbook while I am programming.
Updated: 2015-01-03
I have changed my philosophy on this a bit. First I still buy ebooks from Amazon but when it comes to buying programming books I have been buying from O'Reilly Books especially when they have those 50-60% off sales at various times through out the year.
Access to Kindle storage
Learn more about "Send to Kindle" at http://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle. You can learn more about transferring personal documents to your Kindle in our help pages: http://www.amazon.com/kindlepersonaldocuments/
See also Send to Kindle for Mac app
Visit Manage my Kindle to change or get settings.
Also visit Manage Your Content and Devices
See also Transferring, Downloading, and Sending Files to Kindle 2nd Generation
For more information about archiving personal documents, visit http://www.amazon.com/kindlepersonaldocuments/
You can learn more about transferring personal documents to your Kindle in our help pages: http://www.amazon.com/kindlepersonaldocuments/
Documents (and books bought else where) are stored in Amazon's CloudDrive.
There is a cost associated with this.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/pricing
Currently 5 GB for free and 20 GB for $10 / year.
Under Manage your account it shows I am on the 10GB plan which is no longer offered. So it is unclear if I am grandfathered in or not.
Amazon customer support at +1-866-321-8851 (US customers).
I can send personal documents directly to the Kindle devices via email:
Kevin's 3rd Gen iPad: amazon_<blanked out>@kindle.com
Make sure the sending email is in the list of approved emails in the "Approved Personal Document E-mail List".
Reading O'Reilly purchased books on the Mac
To see your digital orders: https://members.oreilly.com/account/emedia/index
https://www.dropbox.com/home/Apps/O%27Reilly%20Media is where O'Reilly stores by books to Dropbox
O'Reilly is setup to send ebooks I purchase to my iPad 3 via the email address: amazon.com_<blanked out>@free.kindle.com
Change O'Reilly settings at https://members.oreilly.com/cs/members/emedia_settings
This works great for my iPad but as I mentioned above I also use my Mac and sometimes Linux for programming and often wish to refer some of my O'Reilly books on my laptops (Linux and Mac). The problem here is that the Mac Kindle app only will download purchased books and not private documents, PDF's or ebooks purchased else where (like O'Reilly). Even worse there is no native Kindle app for Linux. There are also some alternatives:
First Amazon CloudReader is a web based reader which has access to all of your documents in the Amazon CloudDrive (mentioned above). This application being web based is fairly ubiquitous across all larger screen devices: desktops, laptops and tablets. The link is https://read.amazon.com/. While CloudReader is a viable alternative to the native Kindle app it lack collections which I have become accustomed to in the native Mac Kindle app.
The good news is there are much better e-reader software then the Amazon Kindle app.
First there is Calibre which is really an ebook manager. Calibre can make conversions into other ebook formats and can also sync them ont your table or other eboom readers. It's been around for a very long time and is available for Mac, Linux and windows. It also comes with it's own ebook-viewer app you can use on the Mac. This is generally a good free solution to my problem of reading ebooks that were not purchased on Amazon on my Mac. See more on the issues around Amazon and Calibre on this blog entry: http://ariaprime.com/blog/linux-and-technology/kindle-linux-read-kindle-books-linux-system/258/
But then I discovered Stanza. However sadly it was bought by Amazon and has completely been removed from the Apple app store. Although I could still download it for Mac I have decided it is now a dead product since 2013.
So In the end I have decided to use Kindle App for Mac to read Amazon obtained ebooks and Calibre to read the rest. On the iPad I can use the Kindle app to read just about everything but epub books but again I can use Calibre to convert those to mobi format if I want. I am however considering Marvin for the iPad.
I also have begun using GoodReader on the iPad to read PDF files.