06-15-2003, 03:30 AM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Barnes & Noble's Worst Nightmare - Wirelessly Enabled eBook Enthusiasts
I was in the local Barnes & Noble tonight perusing. I love the atmosphere in there, plus ours has a Starbucks in it and lots of cushy chairs. I picked up Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and started flipping pages and reading the inside cover. Someone walked by and said he'd just finished it and highly recommended it.
I decided to purchase it right then and there. From Palm Digital Media. 8O It took less than 5 minutes to connect to Hotmail, grab this weeks discount code from their weekly emails, connect to their site, search for "Da Vinci" add it to my cart and make the purchase. I downloaded it right there and unzipped it using Resco's File Explorer 2003's built in zip support. Total cost - $10.75 after using the 10% discount code. Barnes & Noble's price was $14.97 for the hardback version, which I had no interest in anyway. Hardbacks are just too large. I'll wait for the paperback any day. Or, I could buy the DRM5 encrypted .LIT from bn.com for $12... Nah. I'll stick with Palm Digital Media's user friendly protection scheme, but that is another rant. :wink:
I am just wondering how many of you have become addicted to reading on your Pocket PC? The ebooks at Palm Digital Media encompass an incredible spectrum. You can get the California Civil Code, Hillary Clinton's new "Living History," just about every Star Trek book written, including many out of paper print, westerns, etc. There are also dozens of other sites to get ebooks from, and yes, there are alternative ways to obtain ebooks too, ways I only resort to after 1) verifying there is no ebook legally available and 2) purchasing the paperback book so the author gets a few pennies out of it.
I asked this question a bit over a year ago and I wanted to see if the trend was the same or if more and more are reading ebooks.
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06-15-2003, 03:39 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 101
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A little off topic, nut I just finished The DaVinci Code and really liked it. Another recomendation for the book. 
Justin
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06-15-2003, 03:42 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 91
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I just subscribed to Pocket PC Magazine, and I ordered the .lit version. A lot of my family critisized me for doing it, but it's amazing! I can carry 3 years of back issues with me, and it takes up no more space than my iPAQ. I would consider buy entire novels/books in .lit format. I actually enjoy curling up with my iPAQ to read a good book or magazine. A lot of people have said they prefer phyiscally having a magazine, but I would rather (in some cases) have a digital version than a hard copy...
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06-15-2003, 03:50 AM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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I now try to avoid buying print media. ebooks are just so much more convenient! I try to make everything electronic -- I'll also avoid printing webpages, and will instead RepliGo them to my Pocket PC.
--janak
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06-15-2003, 03:53 AM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Janak Parekh
I'll also avoid printing webpages, and will instead RepliGo them to my Pocket PC.
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:way to go: I have 33 .RGO files in my Pocket PC's My Documents folder right now of various manuals, online articles, etc. that I want to read. Man that is one flat killer application!
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06-15-2003, 04:04 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 40
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What about audible.com?
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06-15-2003, 04:13 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 437
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Books are great for reading in electronic format, because you can almost never go wrong with text. I don't know how much I'd enjoy reading magines in that format though since people do different things with images when changing formats that may ruin the original presentation that the original author was trying to achieve.
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06-15-2003, 04:22 AM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Re: What about audible.com?
Quote:
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Originally Posted by achille
* Actual research has prooven that hearing audiobooks helps adult brains develop, concentrate or understand beter.
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But doesn't do much for their spelling capabilities, eh? :wink: :lol:
I listen to Audible Mon-Fri but it is the daily issue of the Wall Street Journal. I only get 2-3 abooks a year, usually for trips.
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06-15-2003, 04:24 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 19
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I got my pocket pc mainly to use as an e-book reader. Seems like whenever I had a few minutes to kill, I would by a magazine. At three or four newstand magazines a week, the math in my head said I could breakeven on the cost in six months. I have had my pocket pc a little over six months and my magazine consumption has actually fallen almost to zero, which has surprised me a little.
What really has surprised me is that I have only purchased about 5 e-books in that time. My current addiction is a free website: fanfiction.net
I admit I am sort of a TV junkie. My favorites being Buffy, Highlander and Smallville. Anyway, this website has thousands of stories by fans. The writing quality varies all over the map, but the cool part is there are no requirements to conform to the 'canon' of the series. I mean, you buy an official e-book of 'Buffy' and you know before you start that the story is going to end exactly where it started, none of the main characters are going to have life changing events. But in fan fiction, anything goes. So you never know what is going to happen, which can be a lot more fun.
Duane
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06-15-2003, 04:28 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 779
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There wasn't an option for "I buy about 25% of my books as ebooks, and would buy 50 to 75% of all my books as ebooks if only they were available". 
My husband bought the Da Vinci Code at Palm Digital Media a while back. They were having a special where for the same 10.75 I think, you also got one of the author's earlier books thrown in for free.
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Linear Mode
