eBook story looking up

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53699,00.html">http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53699,00.html</a><br /><br />This is an interesting article on what is happening in the ebook world. Encouraging to see McGraw-Hill report a 55% increase in ebook sales and PerfectBound sold more ebooks in January-May than they did in all of 2001. Palm Digital Media, formerly <a href="http://www.peanutpress.com">Peanut Press</a>, sold 180,000 ebooks in 2001, nearly 500 per day.<br /><br />In my opinion, the software is here. Between Microsoft Reader, Palm Reader <i>(personal favorite)</i>, MobiPocket Reader and several others, users have a wide choice of quality readers on a variety of platforms. Now we need the big names to be epublished. Clancy, Grisham and other mega-sellers for example. Or those from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller/index.html">the New York Times' Best Seller list</a>. Precious few of those are available in an ebook. I am much more optimistic about the future of ebooks than I was in 2000 when pickings were slim and our Pocket PC's couldn't read most ebooks from Amazon or Barnes &amp; Noble.

[heyday]

Ever since I installed Haali Reader, I can finaly read ebooks. Everyone should really look at this free program. It has a ton of features that no other reader has. The best feature is that you can rotate the text in landscape mode and use the entire screen to read..... no menu bars or anything that gets in the way.

The only problem is that it only reads .txt files and .xml formated books which I don't know where to get.

Anyways.... try it out....

http://haali.cs.msu.ru/pocketpc/

[MobiliT]

I just wish I could switch from one software reader to another and read the same eBooks. Especially since the feature sets change periodically. Once you start purchasing ebooks from a specific supplier, you are somewhat committed. :roll:

[JonnoB]

I just wish I could switch from one software reader to another and read the same eBooks. Especially since the feature sets change periodically. Once you start purchasing ebooks from a specific supplier, you are somewhat committed. :roll:

I now have Yanceware reader, Microsoft Reader, Peanut, Palm, EZReader, and one more I can't think of. None of them do all that I need and few read compatible formats. I am glad to see ebooks succeeding somewhat, but until there are some more generic OPEN standards adopted by most, these problems are going to coninue.

I would like to see a list of what readers others use and what they like/don't like about each. I would really like to go down to 1 or 2 only.

[Janak Parekh]

MobiliT, I agree totally. In the meantime, that's why I like places like fictionwise.com: they support multi-format download (nearly all of the major ones excepting Palm Reader, though).

We are rapidly approaching the need to have a standard format, but I don't see it coming. Until Microsoft dominates the PDA marketplace they can't do the de-facto standard with .LIT... unless they release a Palm reader (and I don't see that happening, unfortunately); and there appears to be no consortium on this issue. Imagine the volume they would have if they could all collaborate and get a good standard format & a reference reader installed on all handhelds!

--bdj

[Dave Beauvais]

I would like to see a list of what readers others use and what they like/don't like about each. I would really like to go down to 1 or 2 only.All I use is Palm Reader. I detest Microsoft's method of Digital Rights Management. If I have to hard reset my PPC? Well, there went one of my "activations." I think I read that they upped it to four, but I used up two of mine two years ago with Reader for Windows. I haven't gone back since; it's just too much of a PITA. :mad:

Palm, on the other hand, does its DRM in the e-book file, itself. Instead of being linked to something ominous like MS Passport, all that's needed is your name and credit card number. I don't know about you all, but I'm not likely to give that info out, so the risk of piracy is quite low. If you change the credit card on file with Palm Digital Media, you can click one button in your account screen and reset all your previous purchases to the new credit card number.

Palm Reader is available for both Palm and Pocket PC platforms, and both can also read standard Palm Doc files. If you are a former Palm user who'd built up a large collection of Doc files, you can now read them on your PPC using Palm Reader.

Palm Digital Media also updates their Palm Reader software frequently, adding features, fixing bugs, and actually responding to customer input. I've even reported typos and other small problems in a couple books and corrected versions were available for download within a couple days. I just went back to my account and downloaded the book again.

My only major complaint with Palm Reader is its poor support for images. Since the books must maintain compatability with the low-res 160x160 screens of most Palm devices, you can't have images in your e-books that are wider than about 140 pixels. MS Reader excels in that department.

--Dave

[pt]

I detest Microsoft's method of Digital Rights Management. If I have to hard reset my PPC? Well, there went one of my "activations." I think I read that they upped it to four, but I used up two of mine two years ago with Reader for Windows. I haven't gone back since; it's just too much of a PITA. :mad:

if the ebooks (ms reader ones) were not drm5'd would you be willing to purchase those more often?

cheers,
pt

[Dave Beauvais]

if the ebooks (ms reader ones) were not drm5'd would you be willing to purchase those more often?

Maybe, but I doubt it. I don't really care for the MS Reader software itself. If I could turn off the stupid pop-up nag screen telling me to activate it, that would be nice, since I have no intention of doing so. I don't like navigating books in Reader, either, and there seems to be a lot of wasted screen space in many books. (i.e., lots of white space that could be used to allow more words to fit on a "page.")

I wish Palm Digital Media would give away their eBook Studio software instead of charging $30 for it. ($40 starting in August) Maybe then you'd see more people creating content for Palm Reader. As it is, the only free way is to add the Palm Markup Language tags by hand in a text editor and use their free "DropBook" software to make the final e-book. That's how I started creating them, but I did by the Palm eBook Studio software when it came out. It's alalogous to FrontPage for HTML, since it gives a nice Windows- or Mac-based GUI interface for creating Palm Reader books.

--Dave

[Ed Hansberry]

I would like to see a list of what readers others use and what they like/don't like about each. I would really like to go down to 1 or 2 only.All I use is Palm Reader. I detest Microsoft's method of Digital Rights Management. If I have to hard reset my PPC?
I dislike it as well, but the activation is on the a number in the processor, so a hard reset has no effect. You just reactivate it and all your content works.

Now, if you get a new device (swap units for repair or just change) then you have to call MS and explain the issue to get your content transferred to the new device. PITA. Much prefer Palm Media.

[Dave Beauvais]

I dislike it as well, but the activation is on the a number in the processor, so a hard reset has no effect. You just reactivate it and all your content works.
I wasn't aware of that. I thought activation was linked to the user's Microsoft Passport, not the device itself. Either way, I still don't like Reader. Thanks for clearing that up, Ed, even though it didn't change my opinion. :)

--Dave