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Maybe I'm just a gadget freak but, frankly, I've never understood the problem. I read paper books and a few magazines as well, but don't much care how the words get in front of my eyeballs.

To catch on, e-books will need to be neutral as to the medium they are read on, like MP3's. They should be readable on a PC, Mac, Laptop, PDA, Phone, e-book reader, or whatever you have handy. Right now the "official" e-book schemes tie text to hardware in a way that ensures the market stays fragmented. But if you look at the amount of free or paid books available for the PDA / PC, it becomes clear that e-books aren't a failure, e-book hardware is.

• Mission of Gravity
• Humans
• Ilium
• Paladin of Souls
• Blind Lake

• Mission of Gravity
• Humans
• Ilium
• Paladin of Souls
• Blind Lake

• Mission of Gravity
• Humans
• Ilium
• Paladin of Souls
• Blind Lake

• Mission of Gravity
• Humans
• Ilium
• Paladin of Souls
• Blind Lake

• Mission of Gravity
• Humans
• Ilium
• Paladin of Souls
• Blind Lake

I did this just the other day and now I have a copy of the manual for MySQL readable on my PDA complete with a table of contents. Sweet.

I did this just the other day and now I have a copy of the manual for MySQL readable on my PDA complete with a table of contents. Sweet.

I read my eBooks on my PDA. This reader, in some sense, was free -- I bought it for other purposes, and only later thought about using it for eBooks, so I paid a grand total of $0 specifically to be able to read eBooks.

You can also read them on a laptop (or even a desktop), which most of you have, and that would also fall under the "free in a sense" category.

If you're looking for eBooks to use on non-dedicated devices such as computers and PDAs, check out Palm Digital Media.

You are correct, but give an old man a break. I simply recalled incorrectly.
It was the University of Texas that rejected his application.

I do appreciate you making me take the time to realize my mistake :)

As was pointed out, the KJV version is PD. Others may or may not be. In addition, I wanted to correct something mistated by another poster. They stated the other versions could not be downloaded. If you make that, "Downloaded for FREE," I'd go along with that.

While not free (as in beer), the New International Version (NIV) is available as an e-book for Palm and PocketPC. I have a Palm device, and have the NIV Bible on my PDA (Along with about 80 other titles). Makes a great study reference. Check out Palm Digital Media for more information on the very powerful readers available for Palm, Pocket PC, Windows, and Mac users. Also check out the thousands of titles available; some free, some not.

Here it is! Suitable for reading on Windows, MacOS X, PalmOS and Pocket PC.

Check out Palm Digital Media at http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com - they've got readers for the Pocket PC, Palm, Mac, and Windows, and the DRM scheme is completely unobtrusive (enter the credit card number you used to purchase the book with to unlock it). It's the only eBooks I buy. (the prices are pretty good too)

It's very handy to be able to read in boring meetings, or while I'm waiting for a server to reboot or something similar. I get to extract value out of time that's otherwise wasted. If I pulled out a regular book, people would realize I was goofing off, but this way it looks like I'm 'working' on my Palm Pilot.

I get them from Peanut Press and the price is reasonable -- cheaper than the dead-tree edition. Check out Sherlock homes as an ebook versus hard cover. The only DRM is that my credit card number is the decryption key, so I can't go posting the thing all over the place, but I can back them all up to a CD and load or unload them as I please. I keep my screen set on large print, so I have to "turn the page" (i.e., touch the bottom of the screen) more often, but I think it's a good deal.

I guess that's good news for others, like PeanutPress and Baen.
Yes, I occasionally buy (or bought) ebooks, even though they're a pain in many ways (no first sale, can't lend them to others, don't work well in the bathtub), because it is convenient to always have a book or three I haven't read yet on my PDA, which I carry with me anyhow.
I've only purchased about 50-60 ebooks so far, which is way less than the number of paper books I've bought in the same period. Still, they're a nice supplement.
Now if only there was a convenient mean of converting between the two (apart from a scanner and a printer, I mean). "Pay $5 and we'll send you a hardcopy of the ebook you bought from us" would be a nice addition to ebook sites, I think.

Regards,
--
*Art

All in all, these days my iBook is my preferred reading device for most kinds of text. The main exception would be PDFs that are page images of print books, where the text can't be reflowed, especially when the original is in multi-column layout. But before too long (or maybe they exist already?) it should be standard for notebook computers to have screens that can snap out and be reoriented from landscape to portrait mode; that will make reading "legacy" e-text more comfortable.

FYI, Palm Digital Media has Ms. Ullman's tome available for the Palm Reader.

Joke if you want, but I can fill in 2 for you:
1. free books
2. free books act as gateway drug for non-free ebooks.
3. PROFIT!!!

It happened to me. When paperbacks started costing > 9 dollars, I stopped buying them. It hurt to decrease my favorite entertainment, but with my scifi/fantasy appetite of 2-4 paperbacks a weekend, I just couldn't afford it.

Then I heard fictionwise was giving away hugo and nebula award nominees. How could I resist? I downloaded them all. After spending a happy hour tweaking Weasel Reader, I settled in with my Palm to devour some words.

I was like the recovered junky, who, having one hit, falls deep into addiction again. But I still wasn't going to pay 9 bucks for a paperback, or worse, the same amount for an ebook. I trolled Project Gutenberg, Baen, OReilly look for a good read. That held off the monkey on my back for a little while. Still I needed more. So I went back to fictionwise, credit card in hand, looking for my fix. I discovered that unlike some ebookstores (cough,cough Peanut Press) not all ebooks were overpriced, DRM'd e-versions of last years NYT bestseller list. fictionwise has TONS of great novels cheap. Real cheap. In text format. Did I mention cheap? And even better: novellas, short stories, serials, all manner of quickie escapism that fit perfectly into the time it takes to ride the bus, or watch your clothes dry.

So now I'm hooked on cheapie short stories from fictionwise. On Friday nights I used to go down to the Blockbuster and rent 9 dollars worth of DVDs for my weekend entertainment. Now I spend a fun hour browsing an ebookstore, and for 4 dollars (0.30 - 1.50 each) I download a half-dozen good stories to fill my free time.

hmmm... submit his research using the "unbreakable encryption"; ever read Digital Fortress by Dan Brown?