Tomes Of Knowledge In Your Pocket [Archive]

View Full Version : Tomes Of Knowledge In Your Pocket

Jordan Rosenwald

05-20-2005, 05:00 PM

<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-mar05-tomeraider-1.gif" /> Product Category: Software Manufacturer: <a href="http://www.tomeraider.com">TomeRaider</a> Where to Buy: <a href="http://www.proporta.com/F02/PPF02P05.php?t_id=139&t_mode=des">TomeRaider</a> [Affiliate] Price: $22.50 USD System Requirements: 489.8KB Pros:<li>Great organization; <li>Incredible compression of data; <li>Quick access to data.Cons:<li>Limited number of files that use the latest feature set; <li>No copy/paste capabilities.Summary: TomeRaider isn’t a new product, in fact the oldest TomeRaider file I could find dates back to early 1997! However, with its newest offering, TomeRaider delivers reference material to the mobile platform in volume and design not seen before. Read on for the full review!<!> <PAGEBREAK> What is TomeRaider? For those that might have not heard of TomeRaider, despite its long history in the handheld world, TomeRaider is a document reader unlike any out there. Over its history, TomeRaider has made large reference-style documents its focal purpose. Sure, you can use it for normal ebook reading, but large reference documents are clearly TomeRaider's forté. From the TomeRaider website, here are the features to be found in the product.<li>HTML support; <li>Image support; <li>Built-in custom filter builder; <li>Faster searches than ever; <li>Better compression than previous versions; <li>Over 3000 TomeRaider files available online; <li>Ability to write your own TomeRaider files (desktop version required).Getting Started Upon launching the application you’re prompted with a list of all TomeRaider files on your Pocket PC. While it easily finds files located in built-in memory, main memory or storage cards, I was a little surprised to find that it could only find them on my storage card if I placed them in the root of the card or in a My Documents folder in the root; any deeper than that and it would not list the files. On launching a TomeRaider file, a table of contents is displayed. Clicking any entry obviously takes you to that heading/chapter/subject. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-mar05-tomeraider-1.gif" /> Figure 1: The main interface. Options The options for TomeRaider are pretty straightforward. You can pick the font to be any installed font. Tahoma is the default. You can also select the size of the font, from miniscule to exceedingly large. You can enable horizontal scrolling, display a progress bar for how far you’ve read and change where or if the Categories show up. The font color, background color and the ability to enable or disable ClearType is also on the option screen. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-mar05-tomeraider-2.gif" /> Figure 2: The options screen. Finding What You’re Looking For Once you click on a topic in the table of contents, the screen displays the content, which can now even include images. From here, you can go back a screen, much like a web browser, move up and down through topics, search and even bookmark topics of interest. There is also a button for viewing in full screen which works in both landscape and portrait views. All of this is quickly accessible through buttons at the bottom of the screen. There are no menus through almost the entire application. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-mar05-tomeraider-3.gif" /> Figure 3: Navigating topics. The search screen is largely what you’d expect, but they do include the ability to perform compound searches by adding two additional criteria boxes which can be qualified by “And/Or.” <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/jordan-mar05-tomeraider-4.gif" /> Figure 4: Incredible search possibilities. <PAGEBREAK> What Kind Of Files Are Out There? The application is pretty straightforward and easy to use, but what kind of files are out there? What kind of data can be viewed? A quick jump over to <a href="http://www.memoware.com">MemoWare</a> reveals over 3300 TomeRaider files and nearly 50 TomeRaider 3 specific files that can be freely downloaded. Some choice items I found were:<li> CIA World Factbook (TR3); <li>Internet Movie Database (your choice of various years to present); <li>The Encyclopedia of Modern Music; <li>SQL Primer; <li>US Constitution and Ammendments.Also, remember that if you have the desktop version of TomeRaider, you can create your own documents easily using no greater skill than basic HTML coding. Conclusions What this program does it does incredibly well. I can’t tell you the number of times a question has been asked about when a movie came out, and I’ve been able to pull out my PDA and answer that question. Or the number of times there’s been a conversation at a party about the size, location or geography of a country and the CIA World Factbook has been able to answer it. In all, the only serious limitation I’d like to see removed from the software is the ability to copy data from a file. I suppose they omitted that feature to protect copyrights, but I’d still prefer if some copy functionality were included. Jordan Rosenwald is an information protection analyst in the Philadelphia area.

applejosh

05-20-2005, 05:20 PM

For the truly brave, don't forget about the wikipedia files for TomeRaider.

http://download.wikimedia.org/tomeraider/current_tr3/

foebea

05-20-2005, 05:22 PM

I have been using Tomeraider for over a year. It is not something I use daily, or even weekly sometimes, but whenever I hard reset, it is the among the first things I put back on.

I don't use this for reading books, thats ubooks job.

There are only 2 files you need to get to make this package worthwhile.
First is Wikipedia from http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/. They have a text only version at about 500 megs, and in about 2 weeks they will have a version with all the images weighing in at about 1.8 gigs.
Second is Wordnet Dictionary.

Both of these things are completely free.

If nothing else ever comes out for Tomeraider format, I will still consider it money well spent.

dlangton

05-20-2005, 05:40 PM

BTW, the Widipedia with images is available right now. It's not free, however.

foebea

05-20-2005, 05:51 PM

To purchase a cd and have it sent out to you costs money, but the sql dumps from wikipedia are free and if you can leave your computer processing for a day or so you can create your own up to date version any time you want. check it out here -> http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/ProcedureTR3.html

Bangdando

05-20-2005, 06:59 PM

AndyH

05-20-2005, 07:00 PM

I love the wikipedia. My friends are always amazed with the amount of info I have in my pocket with this. Now all I need is a 2GB sd card for the version with images.

blini

05-20-2005, 08:13 PM

Does TR3 have a tree view like http://www.trancreative.com/quicklookup.aspx QUickLook up did ?

How can one build his own TR3 file with images and all ?

Jordan Rosenwald

05-20-2005, 08:17 PM

I started writing this review a while back, and oddly JUST saw all the other forums where people were talking about Wikipedia on their PPC. I immediately ran home and loaded it up.
It's now been a week with Wikipedia on my Axim X30 and I am simply loving life. I cannot tell you how many times a topic has come up, or a word is used that I've been able to simply look it up.
I've been a fan of Wikipedia for some time. Now that it's available on my Pocket PC, I'm ecstatic. TomeRaider just got even better for me.

What else are some of you using TomeRaider for? Anyone written their own custom TR files?

Jonathan_w

05-20-2005, 10:47 PM

185driver

05-20-2005, 11:39 PM

A 'reference' product that has no copy/paste is just ridiculous.

I see this over and over in the pocket pc application world - developers just don’t get it.

Folks we need the SAME user capabilities as our PC applications, not limited user functionality.

:evil:

Actually, TR3 does have the ability to copy and paste text. It's not a menu or button option, but the feature is there. Simply highlight the text with the stylus, touch and hold in the highlighted area, and select 'copy' from the pop-up menu. The old TR2 did NOT have this feature, so I am very glad to see it included in TR3.

Qwikly

05-21-2005, 12:41 AM

Those of you who are so-to-speak "rolling your own" may be interested in a website I have recently launched called Qwikly (http://www.qwikly.com/index.html). I have completely automated the process of creating these files in several languages for several platforms including PPC.

Very soon I'll put up some full-text files with ~90,000 images that will fit on your 1GB SD cards.

FWIW, I first found out about Wikipedia on your pocket pc in this very forum.

Myrddin

05-21-2005, 01:28 AM

Good job Qwikly! I have paid for the English Wikipedia with Pay Pal just then. How do I download it?

Qwikly

05-21-2005, 01:33 AM

Here's how it works: After you pay you will get an e-mail from us with a link to the login page where you enter your e-mail address. After you do that you will be shown a link to download the file.

I sent you a personal e-mail, by the way. Thanks :D

Myrddin

05-21-2005, 01:42 AM

Wow! Thankyou very much! I was getting impatient waiting to try it out :)
I just received my link then and the email from Brian. Downloading now! I will report back when I've loaded it :)

EDIT Additional: Sorry, I didn't mean to divert the TR review topic off track.

I've used TomeRaider for a while and I think it's a fantastic product for use with reference material. I couldn't live without it.

Jonathon Watkins

05-22-2005, 10:41 PM

Actually, TR3 does have the ability to copy and paste text. It's not a menu or button option, but the feature is there. Simply highlight the text with the stylus, touch and hold in the highlighted area, and select 'copy' from the pop-up menu. The old TR2 did NOT have this feature, so I am very glad to see it included in TR3.

Great! :D Don't know how I missed it. It's very handy to have that. Wikipedia just rocks and I really like the way you can 'home in' on words as you type them in. In a dictionary that's really handy, as how can you look up a word if you don't know exactly how it is spelled? :wink: TR3 just earned it's place on my PPC. Now I just need to get one of those 2 Gb SD cards to keep it well fed. :wink:

badbob001

05-23-2005, 02:06 PM

Too bad there isn't a microsoft smartphone version of tomeraider.

Aitch

06-15-2005, 05:45 PM

jlp

11-17-2005, 06:02 AM

The Qwikly site is an excellent idea - but only wish it was a free download (like Wiki itself) !!

I appreciate the time, effort, expense it takes, so a few dollars is not the end of the world - but I think its only a matter of time before somebody else (maybe even Wiki themselves) offers the same service for free .... ?!

On August 11 of the Qwickly page (http://www.qwikly.com/index.html) it says:

"...a big change will be made to the Pocket Encyclopedia - namely that I will upload image versions and they will all be free. ..."

But another blog entry links to http://www.qwikly.com/encyclopedia.html wich ends in a 404.

Soi what gives Qwickly?!

k1darkknight

08-01-2006, 06:24 AM

Unless someone has an online coupon or something, Tomeraider has raised the price to $30.

jlp

08-02-2006, 04:29 AM

That's what happens when someone has a monopoly :evil:. They can charge whatever price they want (provided they feel customers will pay for it) and raise it whenever they feel like it.

TR is not the only e-book reader, however, as you know, it's the only one able to read their proprietary *.tr and *.tr3 files.

I bet you that if other program could read their proprietary format they would keep the price to what it was a year ago when this thread started; ie.e $ 22.5. That's almot 50% increase 8O

jlp

08-08-2006, 02:08 AM

Holy #@*%& these #@*%& raised the price to almost $40 now!!! (http://www.tomeraider.com/#showStaticPage:download_select.html)

Considering you DO need TR for Windows to be able to read the older TR2 formatted files (the mobile version of TR3 can NOT open the older files, one need to run it thru the Windows app to update the format) it costs almost $80 to use TR3 fully.

The price has almost DOUBLED now WITHOUT any major enhancement since a year ago !!!