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I still love my Clie NX70 as an ebook reader. For software I really like iSilo. It only reads its own format (and plain vanilla Palm DOC format) on the device, but the PC-side converter software does an amazingly good job with HTML and CSS. I pull down a number of websites and RSS feeds to read when I'm offline, and I have a large collection of fiction in electronic format (mostly from Baen Books). The converter software comes in GUI flavors for Windows and Mac, and command-line flavors for Windows, Mac, FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris.

No PDF support, unfortunately, which is probably a killer for a lot of people.

I'm hoping that Santa will be good to me and put a Nokia n810 in my stocking. One of my co-workers has one and it looks like it'd make a double-plus good ebook reader. It's almost exactly the same size as my Clie (the n810 is just a hair shorter), which works well for something to carry with me all the time.

How about using a regular Palm (or any other PDA)?

I use iSilo on my Palm and I read already around 50 regular books on it and it felt great (partly due to how awesome iSilo and partly to the nice, even if small, Zire71 screen). It can accept anything you can convert to HTML or plain text. That means .doc, .pdf and pretty much anything else I can think of.

The only other device I'd consider to read my books:
1) Treo-like device - Because then it is PDA, books, video, music AND cellphone.
2) DRM-less eBook reader that's written on elastic e-paper that I can bend.

I saw a few comments requesting SSH clients and Text Readers so I thought I point some out.

First some free stuff:

plucker - Ebook reader. Really only supports it's own format but is very robust. iSilo is a non-free ebook reader that supports other formats including txt, but with the plucker tools you can convert almost any document into plucker format.
pssh - There are other SSH clients for palmos, but this one doesn't crash my treo.
palmvnc - Very neat, but less than practical on my low-res, low-speed treo.
soundrec - Simple sound recording application, export to wav (usefull with Bhajis Loops) designed for the treo 600 but may work with other palm devices

Now some non-free stuff:

Pocket Tunes - Turn your palm device into an ipod only better with ogg and wma support. Worth the price.
Bhajis Loops - Turn your palm device into a music studio. Also worth the price

Not too mention the countless games, calculators, calendars, and other knick-knacks.

There are limitations in hardware obviously. There's only so much stuff you can fit in such a tiny device. But I must say that my treo 600 does way more than I ever expected when I bought it.

Well it's not cheap considering the hardware you have to buy but iSilo works well for this. It runs on Palms, Pocket PCs and Windows. You convert the articles you want whether it's txt or html. It takes a little bit of time to get up to speed with the free converter iSiloX if you need to convert complex docs but it works pretty well. The reader itself is not free but does have a trial period.

iSilo is by far the best reader I've found. It has the best functionality I've seen and on my Clie the resolution is perfectly acceptable. The way I get my books is to buy them from Amazon, or Simon Says at MS Reader format and use that ConvertLIT program to render them as HTML. iSiloX then converts them into the appropriate format form the Clie and I'm good to go. Plus I've then got the book in HTML format so I'm assured that I can convert it into a different format if a better one comes along. I know I'm violating the DMCA buy removing the encryption from the original LIT file, but I have to go with what works.

iSilo is by far the best reader I've found. It has the best functionality I've seen and on my Clie the resolution is perfectly acceptable. The way I get my books is to buy them from Amazon, or Simon Says at MS Reader format and use that ConvertLIT program to render them as HTML. iSiloX then converts them into the appropriate format form the Clie and I'm good to go. Plus I've then got the book in HTML format so I'm assured that I can convert it into a different format if a better one comes along. I know I'm violating the DMCA buy removing the encryption from the original LIT file, but I have to go with what works.

I have read dozens of books with my Palm 505. The backlight is VERY important. I have a palm V that worked ok but you needed good lighting. I like the ability to use SD cards I have one card with 30 or so books waiting to be read. Gives me a choice on my next read that way. iSilo has a has a windows based program that creates files for its reader than compresses up to 20 percent better that standard doc files. More books!!!

Any document that can be displayed as a web page (pretty much any document that exists) can be read as an e-book.

The real problem is that there aren't any DRM-like controls on the documents. That's a good thing, but obviously it's going to take about a decade before book publishers finally agree to that.

Like other people suggested, I use a Palm. I've been using iSilo since it's been out; this is great for all kinds of stuff, including gutenbooks. I do a little work on 'em before hand to actually convert them to HTML (I don't understand why Gutenberg doesn't do this, but ... whatever).

I used to use a Palm Vx (160x160 4-bit grayscale), but have since moved on a 320x320 Sony Clie. When you get into a beat on the reading, turn on the autoscroll, and you don't even have to touch the PDA. The new Clie-with-a-keyboard's have 320x480 displays, and it sounds like from the description at iSilo that they support that mode. It's really a nice, inexpensive, well-supported program.

Be careful in looking at PDAs for displays that smear or bleed display contents when scrolling. For some reason, a lot of b&w Palms do this, and the color ones don't (at least the Sony Clie's don't seem to). I'd go nuts if I had to put up with a crappy display while reading. Bonus for reading off a PDA, if you can stand it, is that you don't need a light source. In fact, I have read my kids gutenbooks at night, and we turn off all the lights: my book becomes the light source.

I was also briefly thinking about getting a Rocketbook. I think this would probably be another good way to go if the screen is nice and big, doesn't have tracers when scrolling, and I can put anything I want on it.

Sounds like a job for iSilo. Sweet little piece of software, IMO.

Size: It has a smaller footprint. The documents are reduced too. Want graphics: you can choose page per page, greyscale, bw, color, or none at all. Same with Link Depth, as deep as you want.

Easy Automation: iSilo for Windows to set up the channels, iSiloXC to have them update nightly. It's not as dead simple as AvantGo, but it sure is easier than Plucker (for now, we'll see what I think when I'm not running a windows box)

Channel Customization: Each channel becomes its own document. No homepage to configure. You can
delete channels when you're done reading them.

Navigation: iSilo has back, forward, page up, page down, and % of a page navigation.
Scrolling: the Autoscroll is still not as clear as CSpotRun's (nothing is, IMO, and I can't say why..), butclear enough and handy. You can also customize the behavoir of scroll buttons, jog dials, screen scroll buttons...

Custom Views: Whatever you want, from straight BW up to the max your PDA can handle, be it Handera or Sony's monster-color. like the scrollbar, keep it. hate it? ditch it. Same with the top and bottom toolbars.

Speed: yep. She's fast.

Expansion: Ok, this doesn't apply to me since I use a Treo. But iSilo can install directly to expansion cards (though I don't know about visors... may not be there...).

Categories: Put your channels in categories.

One App for both Documents and Web sites.
Copying: easily copy text, whatever portion you want.

Button Customization: Set up all your buttons (including Handera/Sony's jog push and back.. and hopefully soon also for the Treo) to do what you want, scroll, next page, autoscroll toggle, bookmarks, back, forward, etc.

Bookmarks: Insert bookmarks in any document on the fly. You can also just "mark" a location for faster
returns.

Screen Regions: The screen is split into 4ths, each region can be set to dragging scroll, page scroll, line
scroll, etc.

...phew! That about does it.

The not-so-good

Custom content: AvantGo hides their channel links and some are just unavailable to others. I can't find the NYT frontpage or bookreviews. I had to sign up for Salon Premium and do their daily download to get it.

Link Depth: Somehow, even channels designed for avantgo get screwy. Slashdot, for example, gets hella-big when I set link depth to 3. when i set it to 2, no comments, so no point.

Not a Browser: well, this is a plus for me, b/c I've got a browser in ROM and therefore I don't need another. but still...

Easy Channels: Hunting for channels is a PITA, especially when you discover that you're just not going to find them. Your only friend in this endeavor is the site: tag on google.

...there ya go, get iSilo

What exactly is everyone doing with their handhelds that makes "color" and "multimedia" top priorities (other than using them as expensive toys that is)?

I bought my Sony Clié 710 specifically for the screen. I love reading books on my Palm, but my old Palm III's screen was just way too low contrast. The Clié's screen is bright and very high-contrast. The front light makes it extremely easy to see in any lighting condition. And the hi-res display gives me great text. (It's even better now that iSilo supports the hi-res screen directly!)

The other "multimedia" features can go jump in a lake as far as I'm concerned. I would have gladly bought the 610 (same specs, minus the MP3 hardware) if it had been available at the time. I watched the demo movies that came with it, then deleted them. I do like to keep photos in there; it's a good way to carry around the output of my digital camera. Actually, right now I have a large chunk of the Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet comics installed.

I also considered the HandEra 330, but I didn't like the 240x320 display. (Although the virtual silkscreen area rocks!) That makes a scaling factor of 1.5x to fit apps on the screen, which makes a lot of bitmaps look just plain wrong. The Clié's 320x320 display is double the Palm's 160x160, so anything that doesn't play nice with the hi-res display can just be viewed in 2x mode.

BTW, I'll do my karma-whoring for the day and give a plug to Baen Webscriptions. Baen books is making all their new paperback releases available electronically concurrent with the dead-tree release. (Actually earlier, if you want to read incomplete galleys.) The releases are done in HTML. No "digital rights management", no bizarro proprietary format, just the book in bog-standard HTML. (Available in other formats too, but I think the HTML is the most portable and most useful.) They also have a free library of complete books so you can try before you buy. Kudos to Baen for being a major dead-tree publisher that actually seems to grok electronic publishing as well!

AFAICT, there are only two features that e-books have over regular books:

1) You can use the same physical device for multiple content. Unless you are on the space shuttle, who cares?

2) You can download books from the Internet. Great, except has anybody here tried to use Napster/Gnutella recently? From the moment you first start looking to the moment you are able to use the (correct) file how much time elapses?

Gutenberg or Gnutella'd titles take a little longer, as I have to unwrap the text before running it through a converter--but even then, emacs makes it easy enough that it just takes a couple of minutes and a few Meta-X commands before I'm done. And if it's a Gutenberg book or otherwise freely available, I can even donate it to the Memoware free e-book library when I finish. (Search under "Meadows" there for all the titles I've donated so far.)

For me, reading books on my Visor is fast, convenient, and a sure-fire boredom fighter. But to each his own.

I use Palm Reader (umm just kidding) (formerly Peanut Reader) for books I purchase from them and iSilo for plain text, html, or web site downloading. Some also use AvantGo for web, but it is too slow syncing for me.

Complaints about BLOCKQUOTE? I wonder why? That's a fundamental tag... Using UL as it is being used (i.e. without a LI item) is more likely to break browsers than BLOCKQUOTE...

If it's the distance BLOCKQUOTE indents the text, that's why God and Tim gave us CSS.

For wireless... I dunno. I don't have a WAP phone. I use iSilo to grab slashdot.org/palm/, which works wonders. I wish it was a bit more configurable, but then I wish the same thing for ALL of the Web. Come on, XML, make all my dreams come true!
"Beware by whom you are called sane."

I just haven't seen anything that beats the PalmOS yet in terms of ease of use, ease of programming, and breadth of applications.

No, the Palm doesn't do MP3s -- so? I've got a Rio for that. No it won't play movies -- so? You're going to watch movies on a handheld? Why? What kind of batteries do you have in there?

The vision of PalmOS devices is that it isn't neccessarily a platform that stands alone -- it's a mediation between a desktop and a completely mobile device.

Actually, the PalmOS is probably the living incarnation of Allan Kay's Dynabook -- it's cheap, so it's not super painful if you lose one a year. It's complete, in that you can use it as a serial terminal, a web browser (tho iSilo is better than online-browsing), a note pad, a sketch pad, address book... and all this is pretty well integrated.

Other than the nerd factor of running X or Qt on a handheld, what do you hope to gain from these other platforms?

• http://www.OliveTree.com Bible-In-Pocket
• http://www.landware.com
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• http://www.standalone.com
• http://www.halcyon.com/ipscone/apcalc/overview.htm l
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• http://www.evolutionary.net/
• http://www.arslexis.com
• http://www.pocketsensei.com
• http://www.orbworks.com/
• http://www.netplus.freeserve.co.uk
• http://www.mobilegeographics.com/
• http://pdabusiness.com
• http://216.91.254.26/palm/
• http://www.tealpoint.com
• http://www.note-smart.com
• http://www.iSilo.com
• http://palmdepot.dir.bg
• http://www.mobilegeographics.com/
• http://www.ellams.force9.co.uk
• http://members.xoom.com/PPilot/
• http://www.beiks.com
• http://www.tobelstudio.com/
• http://cnr-oxy.cnr.pmf.hr/~kdekanic
• http://www.ecamm.com
• http://www.fortunecity.com/underworld/rpg/22/
• http://www.mti-mimir.com
• http://www.micoks.net/~dbennett
• http://aws.com/
• http://www.cityinyourpalm.com
• http://zerodefect.net/danreed
• http://www.dogpatch.org/etext.html
• http://palm.dahm.com
• http://www.firepad.com
• http://www.vindigo.com
• http://www.innogear.com
• http://www.cue.net
• http://www.avantgo.com
• http://www.hz.com
• http://www.geodiscovery.com
• http://www.laridian.com
• http://www.eyemodule.com
• http://www.atelier.tm/palm/scc.html
• http://www.tealpoint.com
• http://www.purepalm.com
• http://www.pdatoolbox.com

1 - iSilo
This app is great at converting HTML pages to load in a nice compact format. The registered copy has hyperlink support. This will also read standard Palm document. I use this for keeping my favorite http://www.linuxdoc.org HOWTOs handy.

2 - HandyShopper (found at PilotGear)
This is a very well designed shopping list manager. It allows you to maintain items across several stores (e.g. soap can be bought at the grocery store and the drugstore), and it allows you to sort the list by aisle. Best of all it's Freeware.

3 - AvantGo
You'll always have some bathroom reading handy with this one.

However, quite a few of us have already ditched AvantGo in favour of Sitescooper, which is a web-clipping engine oriented towards packaging up news sites for view offline on a PDA, using a DOC or HTML-based viewer. It's a lot smarter and more configurable than AG, and it's GPLed.

Among the hundreds of sites supported is Slashdot, which is displayed showing all stories with a comment filter at level 3. Check it out. If you have a Palm with a DOC reader or iSilo installed, you can pick up the previous day's news scooped into iSilo and DOC formats.

(Disclaimer: I'm the main author of sitescooper, and myself and Kornelis Sietsma came up with the site file for slashdot.)

A little off topic, but it's about news reading on PDAs nonetheless. I prefer iSilo. My Visor is really low on memory, and AvantGo takes up WAY too much room (iSilo is 47k). Although I haven't tried AvantGo(wouldn't fit) I think iSilo works pretty well. Most pages end up looking pretty nice(Slashdot included)

Handspring Visor (TM) + iSilo (TM) + The Perl CD Bookshelf = Perl Hacker's Reference Nirvana

I carry 6 books with me on Perl, along with the whole bundle of Perl docs that come with Perl itself, on my Handspring Visor with a memory expansion module. It's nice, fairly readable and usable, and searchable. I even read the XS tutorial while in the can. It took some ponderance and reflection, and what a better place to do it? :)

As for the search engine on the CD-- it's in Java, and I've gotten it working under Linux. IIRC, there are directions in the kit on how to get it working.

As for books in general, I'm working on getting more and more of them into my Visor, but I still tend to need a physical papery copy of it lying around. Electronic books (at least on the Visor) still haven't gotten the correct user interface details down to replace paper.

My current companion is DocBook: The Definitive Guide, so that I can be a DocBook XML expert while composing the massive body of documentation for my Open Source project. Try learning a new set of XML tags without flipping rapidly back and forth to see what's valid within what, what attributes are legal where, and what the hell is this?