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Bought a PW2 some time ago. Never connected it to the internet, hacked it on basically day one, and after a while found a way to patch the font/margin sizes to be less crap. Still, stuck with only ~6 fonts since I've got a version past where you could just add fonts. Still, overall it's a rather nice device and I've read a lot more from getting it (got it to read through a bunch of ebooks (and some comics*) I got through Humble Bundles).

Best part? Gargoyle to view IF. Second best is just having a lot of books, even if it's limited to 2GB.

*If interested, your best bet is to use Calibre and convert to mobi after you alter "ebooks/mobi/utils.py". IMAGE_MAX_SIZE by default is 10MB which is absolute ridiculous for a 1024x768 screen (obviously the actual size rarely (ever?) hits that, but even down to 150K should be quite acceptable for BW images). Of course if there were SD support... Instead, you're basically not going to have your whole comic collection on your Kindle. :~(

The Kindle format (.azw) is proprietary because major publishers of non-free books are unwilling to publish in a free format. But Kindle e-readers also accept .mobi, which is free, and Kindle format is just a digital restrictions management wrapper around .mobi.

http://www.mobileread.com/ --- forum for books where the members create nicely formatted books, and are willing to fix errors when reported
http://www.gutenberg.org/ --- mass-produced books by the masses --- getting errors fixed is a bit more difficult, but can be made to happen

http://onlinebooks.library.upe... --- The Online Books Page, John Mark Ockerbloom's attempt to list all freely available electronic versions of printed texts.

It may have been an old version I tried, but I was singularly unimpressed by Calibre.

It silently failed to convert some files, plus it insisted on copying every file I opened with it to its own directory.

For its intended purpose (ebook library management for use with your reading devices), calibre is simply the best software out there IMNSHO, paid or not. There are things for which it is not as good, but for my library of epub/kindle ebooks I haven't found anything that comes close. It might not be for you after all, but I'd advice you to give it another try, keeping the following in mind:

The "copying files" thing can be counterintuitive if you're used to micromanage files and folders yourself, but it can be viewed from another perspective: calibre doesn't manage files, it manages *books*. It keeps them in its internal database, of which the folder structure and data files is essentially just the bulk storage part. The files are a subset of all the information that makes up a book record, and the paths are not even used for metadata storage, although it reflects them. I keep a copy of my original files for backup purposes, but they are effectively obsoleted as soon as I clean up metadata and formatting in calibre. After that calibre is the absolutely best way to manage and access my books, and I'm happy to keep them in the calibre "db". After all, a file path is not a good place to store metadata. A db with proper fields, tags and so on is far better suited. Work with it, not against it :)

If you find that it doesn't suit you after some time, the export functionality is excellent. You also have all metadata stored in a well-structured SQLite db to extract and do with as you please.

The conversion error, BTW, is unfamiliar to me. If it simply omitted converting without throwing an error, that's a strange bug I haven't encountered or even heard of. If the results are not satisfactory: be aware that automatic document conversion between some formats, for instance from PDF to a flowing format, is *hard* to perfect, if not impossible. Most of my conversions are between flowing formats, and calibre does an admirable job with those. It even works around limitations in the different formats (by generating a html TOC for formats that don't support proper metadata TOCs, for instance).

It is extremely flexible and extensible. Incidentally the custom column system has a surprisingly powerful template language written by Charles Haley, one of the original authors of ex (which became vi) :)

calibre has a lot of "power user" features built in, a great plugin system with lots of available plugins, and it is very mature at this point. The relevant sub-forum at MobileRead is an excellent resource, any questions you might have are most likely already answered there.

I did a quick Google. It looks like Moon+ is an Android App. I was specifically looking for a solution compatible with an e-ink reader. Simply due to the long time spent reading straight text, the screen is superior for what I am doing.

FWIW, the Sony PRS-T1 (probably later devices as well) is an easily rooted Android e-Ink reader. Mine's running Android 2.2, the Kindle, Nook, etc., apps, etc. :)

There are other Android eInk devices; PocketBook has 'em up to 13.3". There's the Boox R65, ... The Nook Simple Touch is also an easily rooted Android eInk device (2.1 IIRC, which made it a lot less useful than the Sony, so I upgraded).

What part of "E-Ink Kindle" do you not fucking understand? It's not a Kindle Fire. It doesn't run Android. The only alternate readers are for epub and pdf.

This is a 9.7 (1200x825 px) inch e-ink reader. Supports most PDFs perfectly. It allows you to hightlight text and to scribble on them. You can then save the annotated version to a standard PDF that can be opened with the annotations and all on a PC with Adobe Reader or similar.
The hardware is somewhat old at this point and there's supossedly going to be a refresh in the near future (m96) with Android. They're supossedly even sponsoring a contest to develop e-ink optimized Android applications.
Warning: This is a exclusively reading device: It does have wifi and a browser but it's rubbish and many websites do not work well. They're also a bit fragile (specially the screen) so they must be treated carefully.
More info: http://www.mobileread.com/foru....
Official website (the chinese version has much more info than the English one): http://www.onyx-international....

Is there a meaningful number of ebook consumers that don't fall into one of those categories?

I believe you forgot the category "Power users who don't care about DRM as long as they can remove it". The crowd over at MobileRead may not be representative of the majority of customers, but amongst them it is common to deDRM everything as SOP. In the linked thread there are a lot of people who *do* care indeed :)

I remove DRM as well. I have never bought a book with DRM I can't remove, and I never will. I suspect that this new scheme will be broken soon, but if it isn't I will not buy another Adept-encrypted book.

I know that the "correct" thing to do would have been to boycott DRM-infested stuff completely, but that would limit my choice of books severely. I have absolutely no problem paying a fair price for a good product. In fact, the publishers who have abandoned DRM altogether (for instance Tor, O'Reilly) find that only their support requests and negative feedback decline, not their sales, so there must be many like me. Not that DRM will ever stop pirates from providing a superior product.

Ultimately I hope that the publishing industry will realise their insanity and drop DRM. The only ones they're hurting are their legitimate customers, the pirates will not even slow down because of any type of DRM.

There's something about sitting down with a book that just doesn't work as well with a digital device, at least not yet.

It isn't the device, it is your familiarity and comfort with it.

Pocketwatches lost the battle even though they could be more easily read when a generation got used to the wristwatch. Wristwatches are currently losing their battle, despite being really convenient to look at quickly and having batteries that last for a year or more without maintenance, to the cell phone that has the time displayed on the front. A cell phone has to be pulled out of a pocket to look at, a button or two pressed, and their batteries need repeated recharging on a regular nearly daily basis. You can't "butt dial" your BFF when you sit on your wristwatch, either. Wristwatches are clearly superior devices.

I wear one because I grew up wearing one and I'm more comfortable looking at my wrist to see what time it is than pulling the new-fangled phone out of my pocket. You read dead-paper books for fun because you grew up reading dead-paper books for fun and haven't grown up having more books that you could read in your lifetime available online for free on your ebook reader.

My first Sony reader came with my selection of 100 free classics. If I could manage two books a week, it would take a year to read them all. Then I could get another 1000 for free from a lot of places (MobiRead is one of my favorites.) That's 9 years more at two a week. Project Gutenberg has an uncountable (in the sense of "one, two, three, infinity") number of free books, including the entire series of Tom Swift (just one example.)

Your children pick up computers more easily than you, on average, because they have grown up with them. They'll pick up on ebooks that way, too.

Just installed Calibre so I'll see how it works in regards to the number of files I have (380k+).

I think that might be quite taxing for calibre, in particular the import process *will* take a good many hours. I just tested importing 3930 books (novel length), it took about half an hour, so it seems that you look at at least two days of unsupervised imports. Then again, doing *anything* with 380k files is bound to take time :)

Look at partitioning your library into several libraries if you have logical ways of dividing your collection. calibre also supports something called virtual libraries which I haven't used myself, but it might speed up handling a very large library. As mentioned there are huge performance improvements in the last versions of calibre, but you will surely benefit from an SSD disk and a largish amount of ram in any case.

I hope you have reasonably good metadata, either in the files themselves or in your naming structure, or you will probably face insurmountable problems tidying up your collection afterwards (this is not particular to calibre - GIGO applies here as everywhere else). Reading metadata from path info will probably be faster, as calibre won't have to parse the file on import. Check out the "Control the adding of books" in the Add books dropdown menu, in particular the regular expressions for parsing paths and file names, in that case disable file parsing. Do a few test runs on small subsets to make sure that calibre catches at least author and title correctly. Do your imports in batches (you can use the tag on import feature to connect a book to a particular batch), verify that metadata is sensible as you go along. Some things, like correcting different variations of author names, can be done efficiently after import (if your library is at all usable).

I (and likely others) would very much like to hear about your experiences, feel free to make a thread on the calibre subforum of mobileread. Note that such a large library might seem suspicious to some users, as pirating is frowned upon. In any case, the devs are tuning the performance of the new and more efficient db code (one of the new features in the 1.0 release), and your library will be a good test subject :)

Calibre is extremely configurable

Some people think that's an excuse for having an appalling UI. "Hey, it might be a pile of shit, but you can choose the details of which bits of shit are displayed."

OK, we get it, you hate the look and feel of calibre. On the other hand I hate the recent trend of giving everything a Web 2.0 look and removing easy access to as much functionality as possible. Let me know if you find some ebook management software which has half the functionality of calibre, half the stability, *and* a beautiful interface, while maintaining usability. I won't hold my breath.

I don't really get what in particular you complain about; if it is "waaaaah ugly" then I frankly can't be bothered to scrounge up a lot of sympathy, if there are tasks you really can't figure out how to do after trying for a few minutes feel free to ask over at the calibre forums. This is not intended facetiously, "simple" (and not so simple) questions crop up all the time from the millions of calibre users, and there are a lot of helpful people to answer them. It is very likely that your particular use case is already covered by calibre.

Furthermore, while the GUI is not beautiful I find it very effective. I'm definitely a "function over form" guy, and calibre is nothing short of brilliant when it comes to ease of doing complicated stuff. calibre is a tool which aims to cater to both power users and casual ones, and few of them seem to have significant difficulties with the GUI. There are a lot of users with little to no technical experience who benefit daily from calibre when managing their book collections.

On a side note: offering "simple" and "advanced" interface options has been brought up several times on the calibre forums, but has been rejected for two main reasons: partly because no-one seems to agree on which subset of the functionality merits inclusion in the simple interface, and partly because maintaining two interfaces adds additional complexity to the development process which no-one wants to take on the responsibility for.

I have been using this along with the fanfic downloader plugin. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163261. Combined with my ASUS transformer as an e-book reading platform and I have almost given up on paper books.

Till last week, I had never heard of Kobo. Now there is a story everyday about Kobo.

They've been around for a few years, but since their main revenue driver seems to be their bookstore they don't get as much attention as the more flashy iTunes or Amazon. I've only bought one book from them because I don't like the idea that their content is not in a standard epub format (I don't buy the argument that standard epubs without DRM aren't a valid business model... O'Reilly uses them... JK Rowling's "Pottermore" store uses them...). They've had licensing arrangements to be the bookstore that is tied to some dirt-cheap ebook readers you've never heard of, but they first came to my attention when Target gave them the boot last year in favor of a closer relationship with Barnes and Noble.

Target was carrying two models of their e-ink e-readers (the WiFi and the Touch), and suddenly put them on clearance for 30% off, then 50% off. At that point I didn't have an e-ink e-reader so I figured I'd try it for 50% off.I can only read books on my iPad for so long before the weight and the backlit screen get to me. The "pearl" e-ink screen Kobo was using made all the difference. I was spending less time watching TV and more time reading books. Then they went down to 70% off as Target tried to clear the last units from their supply chain, and I spent an afternoon driving around to different locations buying them up to give to friends and co-workers as gifts. A friend of mine who is over 65 and an avid book reader (but definitely not a gadget guy... he still doesn't even own a cell phone) has been devouring books on the Kobo WiFi I gave him. His employees tell me he's sitting in his car reading it before work, and sitting in his office reading it while he eats lunch. A friend in her 20s who is a physical book "purist" has taken to the one I gave her in a similar fashion, despite the fact that she told me she'd never read e-books. I'm sure they'd get the same enjoyment out of a Kindle (until Amazon remotely deleted their books one day), but it was cheap enough and usable enough that it turned some pretty staunch anti-e-book people into devotees.

Beyond that, their software is open source. The devices run a stripped down Linux distro and there is a community dedicated to rooting and hacking the device... and as far as I can tell they're not fighting it. It was pretty simple to SSH into the device and play around in the shell. A little Googling turns up instructions on how to do it, and videos of people running Python games on the Kobos. This alone should make Kobos a more attractive choice for the Slashdot crowd.

But their offerings weren't really all that different from the Nook and Kindle until Kobo announced earlier this week that it was selling the "limited edition" Kobo Aura with the high-resolution screen. At 256ppi, it's pretty close to the resolution of the current generation "retina screen" iPad, which is listed as 264ppi. Plus the interface looks more usable than the Kobo I'm already spending a few hours a day reading. Totally worth it to me, but YMMV.

Would your Kindle allow you to run remote X sessions?

Yes.

E-ink is only black white or gre

That's not true and hasn't been true for a number of years. You can get colour e-ink readers, just not in the US which is, as has become depressingly common for many consumer portable electronics gadgets, running several years behind Asia for newest tech.

E-ink is only black white or gre

That's not true and hasn't been true for a number of years. You can get colour e-ink readers, just not in the US which is, as has become depressingly common for many consumer portable electronics gadgets, running several years behind Asia for newest tech.

I'm jailbreaking my Paperwhite so I can read ePubs!

And what program are you using for that?

I started the HackedUpReader project (based on the Coolreader code) for reading epubs on the Kindle Touch.

We know now the Kindle Paperwhite is quite similar to the Kindle Touch (also shown by the internal firmware version 5.1.2 for the Touch and 5.2.0 for the PW) and the latest release of HackedUpReader has possible support for the PW but I don't have heard any report so far.

"The primary use for an e-ink reader is to read novels."

Maybe for you. For me, the primary purpose of my tablet is reading stuff, mainly in PDF format. Some of my reading time with my iPad is indeed spent with novels. It's perfectly suitable for reading novels in PDF format. I suppose you have an off-brand tablet, because nothing actually beats the iPad for technical reference. That's too bad, but I'm sure you learned your lesson about off-brand tablets.

Ok, I saw this reply after addressing another of your replies to my post, where I tried to be nice. Off-brand tablets, seriously? Are you thirteen years old? Ok, I can play that game :)

I use an iPad supplied by my employer for the explicit purpose of QA of digital editions (I work at a publishing house, part of my job description is "ebook producer". I produce epub, pdf, mobi, indexed html, lrf, whatever is necessary). Yes, in my opinion the iPad is inferior to other tablets, but we need to assure that our books look nice on all major devices. I've actually tried it for reading a novel in the dark, and found that at its brightest setting it's very good as a night light for my E-Ink reader (the brightness on the iPad is fucking amazing).

Ebooks nowadays aren't released in pdf unless they're extremely reliant on the ancient "page layout" paradigm, or the customer explicitly wants a "perfect copy" of the paper version. PDF is very well suited for sending a file to the printing house for reproduction, and not much else. Publishers prefer flowable formats for digital books as they're not tying the customer to a specific screen size or reading device in order to make them readable. This is pretty much accepted in the community, check the forums at Mobileread for confirmation.

Ok, enough of this. It seems that you have an axe to grind, but please take it somewhere else. It's annoying to the adults trying to have a rational conversation.

Certainly there's a market for a reasonably priced larger format e-reader.

There is, but just not in the US (which is as behind on high-end e-ink readers as it is on high-end tablets and smartphones). For example, Asian consumers have had *colour* e-ink readers for a couple of years now, but US companies keep pushing the antiquated monochrome screens into what is effectively a quite protectionist and patent-encumbered marketplace that retards development. You can import the Hanvon colour e-ink reader through something like Alibaba. Here's a list of some DX-size alternatives.

Certainly there's a market for a reasonably priced larger format e-reader.

There is, but just not in the US (which is as behind on high-end e-ink readers as it is on high-end tablets and smartphones). For example, Asian consumers have had *colour* e-ink readers for a couple of years now, but US companies keep pushing the antiquated monochrome screens into what is effectively a quite protectionist and patent-encumbered marketplace that retards development. You can import the Hanvon colour e-ink reader through something like Alibaba. Here's a list of some DX-size alternatives.

Ask the enthusiasts at MobileRead. The Pocketbook 360 Plus has a nifty snap-on cover, good battery life, and survives ocean spray and bathtubs (not sure about underwater though). Or get a reader app for your phone as backup, which you've probably already toughened. Better yet, forget the ereader and visit with whoever's around, explore the surroundings, step away from the digital blue pill and into full spectrum analog life.

Erk, I mean, I live in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and I prefer the Sony Reader PRS-T1. ( http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/PRST1 ) It's the slimmest one on the market, and is easily hacked to handle the Amazon, B&N, and other online stores, as well as your local library. It has a microSD slot, and you can easily convert your e-books with the Calibre software. I picked mine up for $100 at Best Buy. It's worked well in the sand, dust, and heat here in Saudi, and the Reader and other eInk devices hold a charge for around a month. It definitely beats having to recharge every day or two with LCD devices.

I used to think that way too. But there are a number of lesser known open-source tools to convert AA size PDFs to fit 6" screens without resorting to vanilla reflow.

http://code.google.com/p/sopdf/ (had to compile)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/briss/
http://code.google.com/p/papercrop/

There are also plain image based converters like this one.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13135

Together, they could handle (crop and clip) all the PDFs I tried them with so far. The trouble with them is that they have individual strengths and one needs to pick and choose by PDF type. By the time we get polished do-it-all tools, we will likely have cheap AA sized eReaders.

There are other manufacturers of big eInk screen readers. It was just more easy/convenient for me to get a Kindle DX here, but the others should provide similar functionality.

Google the "Smoked by Windows Phone" vidoes on YouTube.

You mean this clever little failed marketing exercise?

Thanks for mentioning that. Since you've staked your credibility on that misbegotten biased-loaded shill-fest, we know how to assess the rest of your breathless excitement.

"You totally didn't even understand the comment you made about the difference between feel good PR statements, and actual cold hard action did you? That's quite strange as it's not that difficult a concept to grasp. Still here's a link demonstrating EMI being the first to dabble in DRM free music:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/26/emi_drm_talks_breakup/"

And they were the first to dabble "after" Apple's "Thoughts on Music" in January 2007. The article was published in "February 2007". So how is it evidence that EMI led the initiative by showing an article that came after Apple made the offer?

"Another fallacy. You're making the implication that selling a relatively small fraction of their library DRM free at a higher cost point is in some way comparable to offering all major label's music DRM free at a standard low price point"

So how could Apple offer all major labels music DRM free without the label's permission? Why would *Apple* choose to offer one labels music DRM free but not the others if they had the (legal) ability to?

""So there are a lot of places that sell books DRM Free books from the major publishers where?"

Well what sort of books are you gunning for exactly? Perhaps this list can get you started?

http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores#Dealers_and_Publishers_without_DRM

Or this one?

http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2011/02/07/where-to-get-drm-free-ebooks-for-kindle-sony-nook-and-other-ereaders/

Or is this another of your arbitrary definition tricks with your use of the term "mainstream" where you'll claim the likes of Pearson aren't "mainstream" enough?"

There are six major publishing houses. Again, you seem to think that Apple can arbitrarily allow media to be sold without DRM without the publishers permissions. It's no secret that there are six major publishers -- the ones being sued by the DOJ.

"Bwahahaha, lol yeah, that was a good one. It's like you actually believe your own bullshit. Yep, Apple was really welcoming to Flash, it didn't change it's terms to prevent use of interpreters and so forth in apps at all. Nope, none of that ever actually happened. So how are the fairies today? Going for dinner with Santa Claus tonight?"

So why did Adobe abandon Flash on non-Apple mobile platforms when it was fully embraced by Google?

"Yes, try using all of the new HTML5 form elements and let me know how you get on. I'm sure use of ogg/theora and ogg/vorbis will work great for you on Safari, "

Right because there is just so much ogg content out there. I'm sure that's on the top of most people's wish list....

"Yes, try using all of the new HTML5 form elements and let me know how you get on. I'm sure use of ogg/theora and ogg/vorbis will work great for you on Safari,"

So ogg is part of the HTML5 spec?

  and the autocomplete attribute work wonders. How about the file API,

"and meter and progress elements? I'm sure you could create a great looking site for Safari with them too!"

http://caniuse.com/progressmeter

And you also can't use them with the Android browser....

"I'm guessing you've not actually ever had any involvement with an HTML5 project have you"

Yes plenty.

"If EMI was dabbling in selling DRM free music before Apple's "Thoughts on Music" , you should be able to find a link somewhere."

You totally didn't even understand the comment you made about the difference between feel good PR statements, and actual cold hard action did you? That's quite strange as it's not that difficult a concept to grasp. Still here's a link demonstrating EMI being the first to dabble in DRM free music:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/26/emi_drm_talks_breakup/

"But that's neither here nor there. You were wrong. Apple didn't start selling DRM free music in response to Amazon et. al. How could they? They were doing it first - with mainstream music."

Another fallacy. You're making the implication that selling a relatively small fraction of their library DRM free at a higher cost point is in some way comparable to offering all major label's music DRM free at a standard low price point. This is clearly false and exposes a fundamental flaw in your argument - you previously talked down eMusic's earlier offering stating it didn't offer enough mainstream tracks to count, but suddenly a handful of tracks from EMI at a higher price point is enough to count? Really? You're creating a painfully arbitrary definition there to try and make your case, that's pretty weak ground to build a case on.

"So there are a lot of places that sell books DRM Free books from the major publishers where?"

Well what sort of books are you gunning for exactly? Perhaps this list can get you started?

http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_stores#Dealers_and_Publishers_without_DRM

Or this one?

http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2011/02/07/where-to-get-drm-free-ebooks-for-kindle-sony-nook-and-other-ereaders/

Or is this another of your arbitrary definition tricks with your use of the term "mainstream" where you'll claim the likes of Pearson aren't "mainstream" enough?

"As far as Flash, you really think its Apple's fault that Adobe abandoned Flash on mobile and not because it was slow and buggy."

Bwahahaha, lol yeah, that was a good one. It's like you actually believe your own bullshit. Yep, Apple was really welcoming to Flash, it didn't change it's terms to prevent use of interpreters and so forth in apps at all. Nope, none of that ever actually happened. So how are the fairies today? Going for dinner with Santa Claus tonight?

"And you are free to download and number of Webkit browsers for IOS. But do you have any evidence showing that Chrome and Opera have better compliance than Safari?"

Yes, try using all of the new HTML5 form elements and let me know how you get on. I'm sure use of ogg/theora and ogg/vorbis will work great for you on Safari, and the autocomplete attribute work wonders. How about the file API, and meter and progress elements? I'm sure you could create a great looking site for Safari with them too!

I'm guessing you've not actually ever had any involvement with an HTML5 project have you?

e-ink.

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=619831&postcount=11

The vast majority of trees which are cut for paper pulp are quick-growing loblolly pines which will be re-planted almost immediately, larger, older, nicer trees are usually cut for lumber, so one should be able to let the 8.85 pounds of CO_2 for per book figure stand for paper products w/o concern for deforestation.

Here's a page which indicates most CO_2 production is for energy:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html

And here's a page which indicates that CO_2 production is a much larger problem for the manufacturing of electronics:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49730
w/ a ratio of 12 to 1 for energy usage to weight, so my PRS-505 weighs roughly 9 ozs., so presumably required 108 ounces of fuel to manufacture (on-going energy usage is discounted as being negligible so is not considered)
http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm
gives us a figure of 19.4 pounds of CO_2 per gallon of gasoline which equals roughly 16.36875 pounds of CO_2 to make the ebook reader.

So getting two books for the Sony should make it roughly break even, and each printed book beyond that which is not purchased should result in a net reduction of CO_2 emissions, since the energybulletin.net page indicates that the embodied energy usage for electronics is much greater than the lifetime usage.

The problem w/ HTML is that one is at the mercy of how the viewing program re-flows the text and breaks the lines.

One winds up w/ a presentation which is rife w/ widows, orphans, stacks and other bad breaks, and in which no effort is made to keep tables or figures viewable from where the original reference is made in the text.

Comparison of a text set in both (plain) TeX ( http://mysite.verizon.net/william_franklin_adams/portfolio/typography/thebookoftea.pdf ) and as viewed as an ePub ( http://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57721&d=1283733557 ) in a nicely made version: ... the sort of typographic infelicities which even in the best ePub version can't be controlled for (when viewed in Sony's ebook viewing program) ---

  - one word last lines (too many to count)
  - # of lines on a page constantly changing to prevent widows / orphans
  - overly loose line on the middle of pg. 20
  - 3 word stack on pg. 21 (meditation/Meditation)
  - 2 word stack on pg. 32 (black)
  - 2 word stack on pg. 37 (the) Twice!
  - six word river on pg. 40 (the/their/the/the/its/we)
  - 2 word stacks on pg. 40 (a & We)
  - 3 word stack on pg. 46 (the/the/The)
  - 2 word stack on pg. 47 (a), awkward break at the bottom of the first page of Chapter VII where the poem is referred to, but appears on the following page

In the .pdf I believe there were only one or two places where I let two word stacks stand (because they were intractable) --- will have to try again using xetex and margin protrusion and character expansion (I'd used DEK's macro for hanging punctuation from _The TeXbook_).

(originally posted to http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97542)

The problem w/ HTML is that one is at the mercy of how the viewing program re-flows the text and breaks the lines.

One winds up w/ a presentation which is rife w/ widows, orphans, stacks and other bad breaks, and in which no effort is made to keep tables or figures viewable from where the original reference is made in the text.

Comparison of a text set in both (plain) TeX ( http://mysite.verizon.net/william_franklin_adams/portfolio/typography/thebookoftea.pdf ) and as viewed as an ePub ( http://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57721&d=1283733557 ) in a nicely made version: ... the sort of typographic infelicities which even in the best ePub version can't be controlled for (when viewed in Sony's ebook viewing program) ---

  - one word last lines (too many to count)
  - # of lines on a page constantly changing to prevent widows / orphans
  - overly loose line on the middle of pg. 20
  - 3 word stack on pg. 21 (meditation/Meditation)
  - 2 word stack on pg. 32 (black)
  - 2 word stack on pg. 37 (the) Twice!
  - six word river on pg. 40 (the/their/the/the/its/we)
  - 2 word stacks on pg. 40 (a & We)
  - 3 word stack on pg. 46 (the/the/The)
  - 2 word stack on pg. 47 (a), awkward break at the bottom of the first page of Chapter VII where the poem is referred to, but appears on the following page

In the .pdf I believe there were only one or two places where I let two word stacks stand (because they were intractable) --- will have to try again using xetex and margin protrusion and character expansion (I'd used DEK's macro for hanging punctuation from _The TeXbook_).

(originally posted to http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97542)

I normally prefer to read on my Nook, and am unaware of how easy it is to convert files. Does Amazon put any pressure on you to keep it in a Kindle format?

Amazon ebooks are typically obfuscated with some amazon-specific DRM. The specific flavor depends on how you download it; deriving the key for a download linked to a physical Kindle device requires a different method from deriving it for a K4PC download, for instance. Many of these algorithms are publicly known by now, and accordingly there is generally available software to strip the DRM.
One set of programs that works is DeDRM (related information and followup links); you'll probably need to do a little reading to figure out how to make it work best in your situation.

Aside from the DRM, most of the Amazon ebooks are in mobi format; a very small number of them use TPZ instead. Dedrm will give you plain unobfuscated mobi for the former and htmlz for the latter; either of these can then be converted into epub (for instance using calibre) and read on a Nook without a problem.

Similarly, calibre will allow you to convert into many other formats (for other dedicated devices or indeed software in general), though note that the to-PDF conversion functionality sucks at this time.

I normally prefer to read on my Nook, and am unaware of how easy it is to convert files. Does Amazon put any pressure on you to keep it in a Kindle format?

Amazon ebooks are typically obfuscated with some amazon-specific DRM. The specific flavor depends on how you download it; deriving the key for a download linked to a physical Kindle device requires a different method from deriving it for a K4PC download, for instance. Many of these algorithms are publicly known by now, and accordingly there is generally available software to strip the DRM.
One set of programs that works is DeDRM (related information and followup links); you'll probably need to do a little reading to figure out how to make it work best in your situation.

Aside from the DRM, most of the Amazon ebooks are in mobi format; a very small number of them use TPZ instead. Dedrm will give you plain unobfuscated mobi for the former and htmlz for the latter; either of these can then be converted into epub (for instance using calibre) and read on a Nook without a problem.

Similarly, calibre will allow you to convert into many other formats (for other dedicated devices or indeed software in general), though note that the to-PDF conversion functionality sucks at this time.

I submit for your consideration "The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" as the future target, and evidence of this direction may be found in V-Readers and similar devices (of which my nieces refuse to put down in spite the need for food and sleep, or attempts of bribery).

Years ago, I managed to convince my friend to get an X41 Tablet (http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X41_Tablet) when it first came out, thinking that she could use it to jot down notes using OneNote in classes. In the end she kept on using paper and pen instead.

She did find the tablet functionality useful - To draw with ArtRage.

There are some reasons why she didn't use it to jot notes - The machine was too heavy (4lbs) and large (10" x 10") for her to carry around together with the printed textbooks and other stuff; The performance was not very good (4,200RPM 1.8" HDD); She's not that into technology and felt more comfortable to shift through notebooks......

Few years later, I got an X61 Tablet myself. These days, I mainly use the tablet functionality to jot down notes with OneNote when I read the Bible, and occasionally to write the diary.

The ability of OneNote to recognize my hasty handwriting is surprisingly good. But the machine is still too heavy to hold in hand for long periods.

There are slate-only models which are lighter, but I need a keyboard and have no interest (and money) in buying and switching between 2 machines.

I think one of the blocking issues for my friend to utilize the tablet functionality more was that, e-textbooks were in most cases just not available back then. She would have to carry the book AND the machine all the time.

The above comments are about Tablet PC running full-fledged Windows.

With regard to the newer tablet market out there (e.g. iPad, Xoom, Galaxy Tabs...), most of them use capacitive screens which are not accurate enough for handwritten notes (there's a stylus called Jot from Adonit who seemed to give excellent accruacy, but I have no actual experience myself so cannot vouch for it).

A few of them have an active stylus (which I mentioned here http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1819164#post1819164), but then software support is an issue - They all have their proprietary and incompatible ways to utilize the stylus and store the drawings/notes, which could prove to be problematic down the road.

I can go on for many paragraphs, but not knowing more about what your wife expects, it's difficult to give more useful comments. But feel free to let me know if you have any specific question in mind.

Cheers.

Homepage for the EPUB standard.

Why do I recommend EPUB so highly? Besides the fact that it's an open standard, that is? ;) Well, Wikipedia has a good comparison chart of e-book formats versus the e-book readers that are covered. It shows that the only format with a broader range is straight text. (Yes, it even beats out PDF and HTML.)

There is a plug-in available for OO.o and LO called Writer2ePub that will save directly to EPUB, btw. The main support channel is through a MobileRead forum.

May I suggest that you spend some time browsing MobileRead before making any final decisions? In particular, I would like to call your attention to the Calibre, Sigil, and OpenInkpot forums.

Next, there is a package called eLyXer which does a pretty good job of converting LyX files to XHTML. EPUB relies heavily on a subset of XHTML as part of its specification so I've been experimenting with a new toolchain.

I write my documents in LyX to get good looking PDFs, then use eLyXer to get XHTML, then use the import/convert function of Calibre to get a good looking EPUB, then use Sigil to fine tune the final output. Since both eLyXer and the e-book conversion utility packaged as part of Calibre can be called from the command line, it would be possible to automate some of that work pretty easily. I haven't bothered with that as my needs are only for occasional use at the moment.

Another alternative would be to just write the journal in Sigil. That would probably mean abandoning PDFs and paper output entirely, though.

P.S. How come you didn't have an article focussing on Arduino in your initial issue??

Homepage for the EPUB standard.

Why do I recommend EPUB so highly? Besides the fact that it's an open standard, that is? ;) Well, Wikipedia has a good comparison chart of e-book formats versus the e-book readers that are covered. It shows that the only format with a broader range is straight text. (Yes, it even beats out PDF and HTML.)

There is a plug-in available for OO.o and LO called Writer2ePub that will save directly to EPUB, btw. The main support channel is through a MobileRead forum.

May I suggest that you spend some time browsing MobileRead before making any final decisions? In particular, I would like to call your attention to the Calibre, Sigil, and OpenInkpot forums.

Next, there is a package called eLyXer which does a pretty good job of converting LyX files to XHTML. EPUB relies heavily on a subset of XHTML as part of its specification so I've been experimenting with a new toolchain.

I write my documents in LyX to get good looking PDFs, then use eLyXer to get XHTML, then use the import/convert function of Calibre to get a good looking EPUB, then use Sigil to fine tune the final output. Since both eLyXer and the e-book conversion utility packaged as part of Calibre can be called from the command line, it would be possible to automate some of that work pretty easily. I haven't bothered with that as my needs are only for occasional use at the moment.

Another alternative would be to just write the journal in Sigil. That would probably mean abandoning PDFs and paper output entirely, though.

P.S. How come you didn't have an article focussing on Arduino in your initial issue??

I was going to post something like this. I hope Sony or other big name ebook manufacturer makes a 9 inch device but, for the moment, the M90 seems to be the best eink reader for PDFs. Note that I said eink-based, maybe the LCD tablets are better for PDFs, I don't know, I haven't tried them.
This is the mobileread M90 thread. There you'll find lots of info about it.

Of course, and on a much more personal topic: I am interested in making the book available in an open format (most likely .mobi, which is most compatible among readers).

I have some experience with this as I have produced ~50 professional quality ebooks. I would strongly recommend that you first generate a well-formatted epub. This is an easy format to work with, as it's basically zipped xhtml, and it will also work out-of-the-box with most devices. It's also one of the richest formats when it comes to layout, making it a good basis for converting to other formats.

When you have a proberly formatted epub you can generate a TOC, add metadata and convert to a host of other formats (including mobi/prc) by using the excellent open source library program Calibre. Calibre is also practical for working with epubs, as it can automatically unzip/zip the files for you. For initial epub conversion your best option is probably to generate html + images and then import into Calibre.

If you're stuck or have questions I can also recommend asking the friendly people at Mobileread's epub section, they have lots of experience and share readily: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=179.

Good luck with your book!

Just buy DRM free ebooks. There are plenty to choose from. I especially like Baen Books. They specialize in Sci-Fi/Fantasy and have a free library where you can get selected full books from authors for free so you can find out which ones you like the best. Smashwords is also good. Their focus is self publishing authors and they sell every genre.

There are also message threads over at the MobileRead where people have posted older public-domain books, properly formatted for eReaders.

Not to mention Baen's WebScription which has very good prices and zero DRM.

I'm not a DRM lovely either, but I did hear a fairly convincing argument for DRM encumbered ebooks from libraries. With the move to ebooks in the future and the eventual demise of paper books how are libraries to function? DRM provides a mechanism whereby libraries could electronically lend a document for a limited amount of time. I'm guessing it would be pretty hard to convince a publisher to agree to place their book in a library which simply gave away DRM free versions of their ebooks.

Saying that, I've already jailbroken my Kindle (although that was only to get rid of the awful default screensavers).

I crunched the numbers on this a while ago ( http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=619831&postcount=11 ).

Given that each hardcover book releases ~8.85 pounds of CO_2 ( http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/emeraldcity/2008/06/paper-vs-paperl.html )

And a Sony ebook reader (I used the weight of my old Sony PRS-505, 9 ozs.) requires ~16 pounds of CO_2 to manufacture (CO_2 footprint for energy: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html role in manufacturing: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49730 and ratio of 12 to 1 for energy usage to weight: http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm )

Reading 3 books on an ebook reader (which otherwise would have been purchased as printed books) puts one ahead (of course in a library situation this is ameliorated by the sharing out of the book among many readers).

That said, I mostly read public domain classics which I get from sites like www.mobileread.com

William

The numbers of GNU/Linux on the desktop are still low. But in other areas it looks quite different. See for example

• supercomputers (click on the OS tab of the article): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10187248.stm
• e-book readers: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix

Innovation mostly happens where there is freedom to innovate. On the long-term what really matters is the developer mind share. GNU/Linux on the desktop has been better in terms of robustness, speed, and security since the beginning. With the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrFz7IxXppU it also looks better these days ;)

I agree that current eBook reader resolution is not optimal to display a full page PDF. However there is this neat program called soPDF which makes it very very easy to trim the white spaces around a page (the margins) and also allows you to cut each page in two (vertically) so that you see half page every time.

Even though I do not yet have an eBook reader, I use it to prepare some long pdf for print, I can print 3 pages per page in good size (6 pages per sheet). That's how I print long text like R manuals.

It is also quite useful to prepare PDFs for reading in small screen in general.

You missed the fact that many people already have an ebook reader and don't even know it. Do you have an iPhone or iPod Touch? Then you have access to multiple e-readers, from commercial one-store-only readers like Amazon's Kindle, B&N's eReader (reskinned and restricted version of Fictionwise's eReader), or Kobo to open readers like Stanza (the best reader on iDevices by far, though for best iPad support you need to jailbreak and install FullForce). Don't have an iDevice? That's okay. There are e-readers for Android, Windows Mobile, and even Blackberry. If you have a PDA or smartphone, in all likelihood you already have an e-reader.

I also don't think your price discussion is right. Go visit forums like MobileRead and you'll see that many of the posters are actually very price conscious. The current ebook market is in its infancy at the moment and still hasn't come to the realization that DRM-free product will still sell. Until then, the limitations imposed (can't "lend" an ebook like you can a paper book, for example) are pretty obvious to end users and most people are unwilling to pay anywhere close to the price of a paper book for a restricted ebook. (that most ebook DRM has been cracked does not change that fact -- to get the industry to change you have to vote with your wallet, and if you buy DRMed ebooks only to rip off the DRM yourself later the sellers don't see the second half. They just see that they offered DRMed books and you bought them, so obviously people will buy DRMed books).

I first started reading ebooks on a Windows CE device back in 2000, and continued reading on my iPhone since 2007. I got my first eInk reader just this past Friday, and that was only $110 (yay for Woot!). Most of my reading has been free or classic books, with the occasional purchase from Kindle's store. At this point I've pretty much stopped buying paper books.

I found myself turned on by the thought of an almost pocket sized, dirt cheap portable so I head over to the Cherrypal site... Being almost immediately struck by the illogic of the site's setup & functionality I used the Google machine to look up anything on Cherrypal there was... This is what I kept running into: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69600 For what its worth it changed my mind & I thought it couldn't hurt to share...

There are still logs that report device coordinates, cell tower coordinates, titles of books read, etc to Amazon. Supposedly it's all for 'diagnostic' purposes but who knows.

Of course you can just keep your wireless turned off and that information never gets reported and there are also some hacks out there to disable the logging (as shown here).

though. Many of the people into ereaders are excited about it:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=170

I already know it's not a notebook computer. But a similiar sized Kindle DX casts $489. Yeah, it has a e-ink screen, but the contrast (dark gray on light gray) is awful. But the battery life is fabulous. This has pretty good battery life but tell me how the screen is for reading. Please.

I address e-ink before (basically for me the contrast sucks) but most people hot on ereaders seem to like it:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=170

It is the same with big labels and movie studios. Digital media costs essentially zero, yet they rise the costs instead of going down. They also add artificial means of control on what we can do with this data, and expect us to cover that expense. Well, no thanks.

The hypocrites do sell movies in China for 3$, where bootlegs cost cents. The same bootlegs cost the same in most parts of the world, but they don't get the 3$ choice, and its usually countries with much worse economies, where ppl don't have the luxury of spending 30$ for a DVD or music CD.

Also, Amazon sells mp3s without DRM, why not do the same with books? Authors could use online retailers as publishers, instead of letting yet another parasite in the middle to dictate terms for them.
Books, just like songs, should stick to unencumbered unrestricted formats, something like pdf which can be read by any decent ebook reader such as the Hanlin, which imo is the best.

So if Hollywood is capable of selling a movie for 3$ in China, using physical media (DVD), why would the publishers of eBooks, charge 15$ in intangible form? Of course we won't buy it, we'd go "elsewhere" online and get it, in a decent format at zero charge. If an author puts a donation button in his/her page, that the best chance to get some sort of money compensation, because I'm not giving anything to publishers who didn't provide me anything.

I'm sure if a publisher sets up an ad supported site for free downloading of all their book collection, they would make profit, as they are making money from nothing, which is the cost of replicating a book in the digital domain.