05-20-2005, 05:00 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 82
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Tomes Of Knowledge In Your Pocket
Product Category: Software
Manufacturer: TomeRaider
Where to Buy: TomeRaider [Affiliate]
Price: $22.50 USD
System Requirements: 489.8KB
Pros:- Great organization;
- Incredible compression of data;
- Quick access to data.
Cons:- Limited number of files that use the latest feature set;
- 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!
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 fort�. From the TomeRaider website, here are the features to be found in the product.- HTML support;
- Image support;
- Built-in custom filter builder;
- Faster searches than ever;
- Better compression than previous versions;
- Over 3000 TomeRaider files available online;
- 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.
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.
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.
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.�
Figure 4: Incredible search possibilities.
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 MemoWare reveals over 3300 TomeRaider files and nearly 50 TomeRaider 3 specific files that can be freely downloaded. Some choice items I found were:- CIA World Factbook (TR3);
- Internet Movie Database (your choice of various years to present);
- The Encyclopedia of Modern Music;
- SQL Primer;
- 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.
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05-20-2005, 05:20 PM
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05-20-2005, 05:22 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 241
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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.
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05-20-2005, 05:40 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 254
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BTW, the Widipedia with images is available right now. It's not free, however.
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05-20-2005, 05:51 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 241
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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/Wi...cedureTR3.html
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05-20-2005, 06:59 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 7
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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:
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05-20-2005, 07:00 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 29
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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.
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05-20-2005, 08:13 PM
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05-20-2005, 08:17 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 82
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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?
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05-20-2005, 10:47 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 18
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Bangdando
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:
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The latest version does have a copy feature.
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Linear Mode
