Slashdot Mirror

You can see my work so far at the following links:

Wikipedia in Plucker format
Wikiquote in Plucker format
Wikitionary in Plucker format

..and of course, my beautiful anti-alias fonts for Plucker, made with PalmFontConv by Alexander Pruss.

I've also converted the Creating XPCOM Components book by Doug Turner and Ian Oeschger to Plucker format as well as the FreeBSD Handbook.

I have literally hundreds of similar-quality works I'll be releasing over the next few months to the community on an ongoing basis.

If there's something you'd like to see, just let me know

You can see my work so far at the following links:

Wikipedia in Plucker format
Wikiquote in Plucker format
Wikitionary in Plucker format

..and of course, my beautiful anti-alias fonts for Plucker, made with PalmFontConv by Alexander Pruss.

I've also converted the Creating XPCOM Components book by Doug Turner and Ian Oeschger to Plucker format as well as the FreeBSD Handbook.

I have literally hundreds of similar-quality works I'll be releasing over the next few months to the community on an ongoing basis.

If there's something you'd like to see, just let me know

You can see my work so far at the following links:

Wikipedia in Plucker format
Wikiquote in Plucker format
Wikitionary in Plucker format

..and of course, my beautiful anti-alias fonts for Plucker, made with PalmFontConv by Alexander Pruss.

I've also converted the Creating XPCOM Components book by Doug Turner and Ian Oeschger to Plucker format as well as the FreeBSD Handbook.

I have literally hundreds of similar-quality works I'll be releasing over the next few months to the community on an ongoing basis.

If there's something you'd like to see, just let me know

You can see my work so far at the following links:

Wikipedia in Plucker format
Wikiquote in Plucker format
Wikitionary in Plucker format

..and of course, my beautiful anti-alias fonts for Plucker, made with PalmFontConv by Alexander Pruss.

I've also converted the Creating XPCOM Components book by Doug Turner and Ian Oeschger to Plucker format as well as the FreeBSD Handbook.

I have literally hundreds of similar-quality works I'll be releasing over the next few months to the community on an ongoing basis.

If there's something you'd like to see, just let me know

You can see my work so far at the following links:

Wikipedia in Plucker format
Wikiquote in Plucker format
Wikitionary in Plucker format

..and of course, my beautiful anti-alias fonts for Plucker, made with PalmFontConv by Alexander Pruss.

I've also converted the Creating XPCOM Components book by Doug Turner and Ian Oeschger to Plucker format as well as the FreeBSD Handbook.

I have literally hundreds of similar-quality works I'll be releasing over the next few months to the community on an ongoing basis.

If there's something you'd like to see, just let me know

You can see my work so far at the following links:

Wikipedia in Plucker format
Wikiquote in Plucker format
Wikitionary in Plucker format

..and of course, my beautiful anti-alias fonts for Plucker, made with PalmFontConv by Alexander Pruss.

I've also converted the Creating XPCOM Components book by Doug Turner and Ian Oeschger to Plucker format as well as the FreeBSD Handbook.

I have literally hundreds of similar-quality works I'll be releasing over the next few months to the community on an ongoing basis.

If there's something you'd like to see, just let me know

You can see my work so far at the following links:

Wikipedia in Plucker format
Wikiquote in Plucker format
Wikitionary in Plucker format

..and of course, my beautiful anti-alias fonts for Plucker, made with PalmFontConv by Alexander Pruss.

I've also converted the Creating XPCOM Components book by Doug Turner and Ian Oeschger to Plucker format as well as the FreeBSD Handbook.

I have literally hundreds of similar-quality works I'll be releasing over the next few months to the community on an ongoing basis.

If there's something you'd like to see, just let me know

As you can see, I've been busy ;)

As you can see, I've been busy ;)

As you can see, I've been busy ;)

As you can see, I've been busy ;)

As you can see, I've been busy ;)

The last seven or eight books I've read have been e-books on my phone (Treo 650). And I didn't have to pay per page for it, either: Plucker plus Project Gutenberg plus stuff like the Baen Free Library for more recent titles equals a big bookshelf's worth of free-of-charge books in my pocket wherever I go.

If a notebook or tablet PC is too big, then a Palm or Handspring might be about right. It'll run for ages on rechargeable batteries and it'll should be cheap enough not to worry about losing.

For e-book reading software, try:
http://www.plkr.org/

Any PalmOS device, plus Plucker for HTML and Weasel for text. Weasel's screen-wrap autoscroll is hands-down the best way I've ever found to read e-texts. Plucker's autoscroll isn't as pretty IMO.

Then there's of course the proprietary readers for DocBook and MobiPocket and I would guess PDF, although I haven't bothered with that.

I can carry about ten books on my 8MB Visor, which keeps me busy for quite awhile. Only problem is what to do during takeoff/landing--I usually carry a single dead tree while I'm at it. One book+one palm is reading material for a couple of weeks.

I do this for quite a few other pieces of work (the Gentoo handbook, PHP Documentation (in 21 languages, it looks spectacular in color), the Creating XPCOM book is even available in Plucker format, as well as many others.

These are not straight conversions, they require actual human eyes to look over them, test them, add navigation and other elements. For example, look at the Plucker version of the 9/11 Report that I did. I added a LOT of functionality that wasn't there in the original version. (I also put my pristine HTML source version online for anyone to read. You can see the additional features I've added in that copy).

I'll be making a lot more of my stealth works public soon.

When they're finished with the Slackware Handbook, I'd be more than happy to look it over, do the conversion, and provide it in a mobile format for our user community.

I do this for quite a few other pieces of work (the Gentoo handbook, PHP Documentation (in 21 languages, it looks spectacular in color), the Creating XPCOM book is even available in Plucker format, as well as many others.

These are not straight conversions, they require actual human eyes to look over them, test them, add navigation and other elements. For example, look at the Plucker version of the 9/11 Report that I did. I added a LOT of functionality that wasn't there in the original version. (I also put my pristine HTML source version online for anyone to read. You can see the additional features I've added in that copy).

I'll be making a lot more of my stealth works public soon.

When they're finished with the Slackware Handbook, I'd be more than happy to look it over, do the conversion, and provide it in a mobile format for our user community.

I do this for quite a few other pieces of work (the Gentoo handbook, PHP Documentation (in 21 languages, it looks spectacular in color), the Creating XPCOM book is even available in Plucker format, as well as many others.

These are not straight conversions, they require actual human eyes to look over them, test them, add navigation and other elements. For example, look at the Plucker version of the 9/11 Report that I did. I added a LOT of functionality that wasn't there in the original version. (I also put my pristine HTML source version online for anyone to read. You can see the additional features I've added in that copy).

I'll be making a lot more of my stealth works public soon.

When they're finished with the Slackware Handbook, I'd be more than happy to look it over, do the conversion, and provide it in a mobile format for our user community.

I do this for quite a few other pieces of work (the Gentoo handbook, PHP Documentation (in 21 languages, it looks spectacular in color), the Creating XPCOM book is even available in Plucker format, as well as many others.

These are not straight conversions, they require actual human eyes to look over them, test them, add navigation and other elements. For example, look at the Plucker version of the 9/11 Report that I did. I added a LOT of functionality that wasn't there in the original version. (I also put my pristine HTML source version online for anyone to read. You can see the additional features I've added in that copy).

I'll be making a lot more of my stealth works public soon.

When they're finished with the Slackware Handbook, I'd be more than happy to look it over, do the conversion, and provide it in a mobile format for our user community.

Copy and paste? Bleh.

First thing I did when I got a palm was to find technical solutions to exactly these problems.

Par can convert any kind of file into the associated Palm database format. If the program you've got can read it, you're good to go.

For text formats, another approach, and the one I take is to convert everything to html. This is always possible because both OOo Writer and Word can export html. I recommend the latter; it produces better looking code. From html you can store it compressed using plucker.

If you have a small-minded program that won't read anyone else's formats, but you want to be able to use a file on multiple programs, you can change the database information using Filez to switch to other formats - exactly like you could with par.

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.

Yes or no. The standard 300 page 6"x4" novel is about 800KB uncompressed. Some ebook formats, most notably Microsoft's can actually double that. On the other hand, there are formats that compress it. So you'd only be able to fit a few books on a Visor if you used the standard readers.

As I stated in my previous post, plucker can compress anything written in html (or plaintext). So if you can convert your e-book to that format somehow, you're set.

I even took the time to write a Plucker BitTorrent mini-FAQ for the users who are misinformed about the technology itself. We've had great success overall, but it has definately tapered off. When we make our next release, it'll spike to 3-5GiB/day served up as before.

You can see some of our snazzy usage graphs of the BitTorrent traffic as well.

I also modified our tracker so you could sort and click to download the files directly from the tracker webpage itself, instead of using the normal download page from our site. Thanks to some helpful http and rsync mirrors, the load is spread out nicely, and the mirror links are randomized to make sure it spreads evenly.

If anyone is interested in seeding for us, or being an http or rsync mirror for Plucker, please contact me.

I even took the time to write a Plucker BitTorrent mini-FAQ for the users who are misinformed about the technology itself. We've had great success overall, but it has definately tapered off. When we make our next release, it'll spike to 3-5GiB/day served up as before.

You can see some of our snazzy usage graphs of the BitTorrent traffic as well.

I also modified our tracker so you could sort and click to download the files directly from the tracker webpage itself, instead of using the normal download page from our site. Thanks to some helpful http and rsync mirrors, the load is spread out nicely, and the mirror links are randomized to make sure it spreads evenly.

If anyone is interested in seeding for us, or being an http or rsync mirror for Plucker, please contact me.

I even took the time to write a Plucker BitTorrent mini-FAQ for the users who are misinformed about the technology itself. We've had great success overall, but it has definately tapered off. When we make our next release, it'll spike to 3-5GiB/day served up as before.

You can see some of our snazzy usage graphs of the BitTorrent traffic as well.

I also modified our tracker so you could sort and click to download the files directly from the tracker webpage itself, instead of using the normal download page from our site. Thanks to some helpful http and rsync mirrors, the load is spread out nicely, and the mirror links are randomized to make sure it spreads evenly.

If anyone is interested in seeding for us, or being an http or rsync mirror for Plucker, please contact me.

I even took the time to write a Plucker BitTorrent mini-FAQ for the users who are misinformed about the technology itself. We've had great success overall, but it has definately tapered off. When we make our next release, it'll spike to 3-5GiB/day served up as before.

You can see some of our snazzy usage graphs of the BitTorrent traffic as well.

I also modified our tracker so you could sort and click to download the files directly from the tracker webpage itself, instead of using the normal download page from our site. Thanks to some helpful http and rsync mirrors, the load is spread out nicely, and the mirror links are randomized to make sure it spreads evenly.

If anyone is interested in seeding for us, or being an http or rsync mirror for Plucker, please contact me.

I even took the time to write a Plucker BitTorrent mini-FAQ for the users who are misinformed about the technology itself. We've had great success overall, but it has definately tapered off. When we make our next release, it'll spike to 3-5GiB/day served up as before.

You can see some of our snazzy usage graphs of the BitTorrent traffic as well.

I also modified our tracker so you could sort and click to download the files directly from the tracker webpage itself, instead of using the normal download page from our site. Thanks to some helpful http and rsync mirrors, the load is spread out nicely, and the mirror links are randomized to make sure it spreads evenly.

If anyone is interested in seeding for us, or being an http or rsync mirror for Plucker, please contact me.

"Does he think that cheaper hardware will make copying software harder to do?"

No, but it will allow Microsoft to penetrate these markets even deeper by providing those $100.00 PCs with a slimmed-down version of the Windows operating system, of course. (Granted, those $100.00 PCs will also be used to run Linux, if they get to be that cheap, which furthers Microsoft's own assertion that Linux on PCs allow people to pirate Windows).

It also falls in line with their previously-stated goals to populate third-world countries with these PCs as well. Those countries can't afford it in their budgets, but if you make the cost of the PC $100.00 or "near-free", at some level, you can get more copies of Microsoft Windows into more people's hands.

--
Support Plucker, buy some gear!

Please please please, in the future when posting articles that link to innocent users' blogs, personal sites, sites hosted on DSL connections, and so on... do not link to them directly! Use the Coral'ized link syntax as below:

http://www.desktopos.com.nyud.net:8090/reviews.p hp?op=showcontent&id=19

This link was purposely not left clickable, because the 'nyud.net' at the end, would cause Slashdot to add the [nyud.net] to the link text, which would stop people from clicking on it (thinking it was a pr0n site).

Here is some more information about the Coral Distribution Network.

Seriously, use it. It helps a LOT.

--
Have you Plucked the Web today?

For me the T3 and Linux combination is perfect.

Why?

Because it's the best platform for running Plucker and Jpluck. For those who don't know, Plucker is without doubt the best offline reader for any PDA platform. Features include:

Anti aliased custom fonts.
DIA support on T3.
Newsfeed support via Jpluck.
Easy to use one handed operation.

Jpluck pulls down whatever I want every morning and the T3 syncs it before I commute to work. All I have to do is remember to remove it from the cradle. Of course the other good reason to use Plucker is because it's free.

One word... Plucker.

I've owned a few PDAs now for some time and have come to see a few things about them. Many of these same points have been made here allready but I'd like to chip in my 2cents about the list of things that I feel are most important.

1. Cost -- I simply can not justify dropping much more than $150 for a device that can be so easily be broken/lost/stolden that does not strap onto my body. (The reason I say strapped on is watches. And even then I'm pretty frugal with that.) When you get past $150 to around $500 your talking about something that may do a lot of neat things but that just makes it all the more ripe of a target for theft. And anywhere past $500 you might just be better off getting a low-cost/referbed laptop that will do way more anyway.

2. Useability -- Do I really need to be able to watch movies on a PDA? I suppose it would be neat but to do so I'd have to drop a ton of cash for one that has the CPU/Memory and then we get back to that cost/theft issue. I've found that some of the best things that I do with my palm on a regular basis are the simplest things. Being able to have notes, a few pictures, read books/webpages, and play a few simple games. Anything else that gets too complicated means that I either have to a) work with some sort of annoying handwriting recognition system or b) break out my keyboard. (Not always a bad thing but kind of defeats the purpose of having it in your "palm".)

3. Screen size -- Here comes the argument against cellphone PDAs. I simply don't want some tiny ass screen! Having the palm just big enough so it fits in my hand with as much screen as you can fit on to that is just about right. Anything less means less overall useability and since they have to intigrate a cell phone into it your talking higher cost.

Myself, I don't really like reading off a static CRT, but I guess sitting on the couch with a notebook could work. If you have a notebook, you may want to try yBook.

PDAs usually come with their own readers, or reader programs are easy to get for them. I prefer Weasel on my Palm Zire, but also have the Plucker HTML viewer installed, for content that more or less requires it.

What kinf of PDA is yours? A PalmOS-based one? I'm using JPluck and Plucker to download Slashdot (among other sites) and read it offline on my Tungsten E. It works perfectly and they both are free software.

pdf is an waful format to make derivative works from. for example, I would like to bake a plucker-ebook for my palm from it, but with acrobats text export function as the only available export tool, it screws footnotes and page numbers etc.

DON'T use pdf for book distribution!

Yeah, that was a shame, I had hoped the HWG project would take off too. But then again, it always seemed to me there were very few civic-minded amongst the HWG when I was a member; probably due to the fact that you really didn't have to do anything to "join" and a lot of people saw it as a quick way to load up their resume when web jobs were hot.

But, there is still vindication. Pluckerbooks, in addition to making ready-made pdb files for Plucker, also provides you with the full HTML for their books, which are often Gutenberg conversions. I always read them in Plucker, but the HTML is also useful for non-Palmers.

1. Project Sites

   1. gnu-designs, inc.
      Plucker
      Plucker Wiki
      OpenURLs PDA Portal
      pilot-link
      pilot-link Portal
      J-Pilot
      J-Pilot Wiki
      

   HOWTO Documents

   1. Syncronize your PalmOS(R) Handheld with Evolution
      Synchronize your PalmOS(R) Handheld over Bluetooth in Linux
      Syncronizing your PalmOS(R) handheld device over Infrared (IrDA)
      Connecting your PalmOS(R) handheld device to the Internet via PPP
      

1. Project Sites

   1. gnu-designs, inc.
      Plucker
      Plucker Wiki
      OpenURLs PDA Portal
      pilot-link
      pilot-link Portal
      J-Pilot
      J-Pilot Wiki
      

   HOWTO Documents

   1. Syncronize your PalmOS(R) Handheld with Evolution
      Synchronize your PalmOS(R) Handheld over Bluetooth in Linux
      Syncronizing your PalmOS(R) handheld device over Infrared (IrDA)
      Connecting your PalmOS(R) handheld device to the Internet via PPP
      

1. Project Sites

   1. gnu-designs, inc.
      Plucker
      Plucker Wiki
      OpenURLs PDA Portal
      pilot-link
      pilot-link Portal
      J-Pilot
      J-Pilot Wiki
      

   HOWTO Documents

   1. Syncronize your PalmOS(R) Handheld with Evolution
      Synchronize your PalmOS(R) Handheld over Bluetooth in Linux
      Syncronizing your PalmOS(R) handheld device over Infrared (IrDA)
      Connecting your PalmOS(R) handheld device to the Internet via PPP
      

The extensive Data Format is public, well-documented, and used in dozens of other projects. Lots of companies, commercial and non-profit, have adopted the Plucker format for their content delivery. Out of the other "free" options out there, Plucker reigns supreme (it is also the ONLY one out there that is publically documented, and "Free" to use).

The extensive Data Format is public, well-documented, and used in dozens of other projects. Lots of companies, commercial and non-profit, have adopted the Plucker format for their content delivery. Out of the other "free" options out there, Plucker reigns supreme (it is also the ONLY one out there that is publically documented, and "Free" to use).

"It does NOT support W3 better or worse, since it uses exactly the same Gecko engine."

Actually, the HTML rendering in 1.6 changed in very ugly (i.e. broken) ways. I can have 1.5 and 1.6 running against a site, such as our bugtracker for Plucker, and the way it renders the tabled HTML changes. colspan is broken and appears to be "reversed" (adding a colspan incrementor, shrinks the width of colums spanned).

There are a few places where it completely ignores CSS values for coloring as well, leaving pages which contain a named class in one place colored, while that SAME CLASS in another place on the SAME PAGE is left white.

So far, 1.5a is the best I've tried. Fast, lean, and properly handles validated HTML and CSS constructs.

"It does NOT support W3 better or worse, since it uses exactly the same Gecko engine."

Actually, the HTML rendering in 1.6 changed in very ugly (i.e. broken) ways. I can have 1.5 and 1.6 running against a site, such as our bugtracker for Plucker, and the way it renders the tabled HTML changes. colspan is broken and appears to be "reversed" (adding a colspan incrementor, shrinks the width of colums spanned).

There are a few places where it completely ignores CSS values for coloring as well, leaving pages which contain a named class in one place colored, while that SAME CLASS in another place on the SAME PAGE is left white.

So far, 1.5a is the best I've tried. Fast, lean, and properly handles validated HTML and CSS constructs.

Spread the word, not the FUD.

Spread the word, not the FUD.

You forgot the trailing forwardslash

try:

http://slashdot.org/palm/

Incidentally, I had to remove slashdot from my AvantGo list because slashdot has "banned" either my ip or the AvantGo servers IP (I've read its the later).

Eventually, I will set up Plucker for a daily download...

You should use Plucker books on your Palm. Only 2000 books so far, but no random line breaks (apart from those enforced by 160 pixel screen). And a new version (1.6) of Plucker is just out.

I don't have any of the problems of "incompatible formats" - if it's in HTML (or ASCII text), which is true for a lot of documents, then I can read it. And unlike these here today, gone tomorrow formats, I expect HTML to be around next year too.

It is true that you can read paper much faster and more comfortably than today's computer screens (even full monitors, never mind puny PDA screens). But when standing in line, etc., I can pull out my PDA in places where I probably wouldn't have been carrying the book around. So for casual reading, there's a trade-off: paper books are easier to read, but not as easy to carry. For reference material there's no contest: ebooks are much lighter and permit searching.

True, I can't get the latest top-ten book this way, since they're not available as HTML. But they're usually not available in any electronic format either, so it's generally no loss. Even in the rare cases where a major book I want to read is available electronically, it's usually only available in some almost-as-expensive non-standard format that will disappear next year. Why should I invest in a book when I can't be certain I can read it years from now? (Any book purchase is an investment - a book is a far safer investment, since there's no worry that its "format" will become impossible to use). And I can't even give or sell the electronic version to someone else - something I can do with a book.

This article was really talking about the "nonstandard, special-purpose" readers and formats - and yes, they're dying. That's not surprising. They're dying because they not only fail to be competitive with books; they also fail to be competitive with the sweet simplicity of HTML readers on ordinary PDAs.

My source for public domain-sourced ebooks. Now, they are missing some stuff I'd like to see, but they really do have a ton of goods there. And, even if your reader of choice isn't plucker, all of the books are available in very simple HTML markup for conversion to your format of choice.

And there's always the venerable Project Gutenberg; most of their stuff is in plain, portable, ASCII. They also have a CD of some of the best stuff available.

The best method for books on a palm device (yay clies, 480x320 = more text per screen) is via html'izing all books and running 'em through a parser conversant in plucker format. Uses zlib for compression, retains most simple html formatting, the cvs snaps do anti-aliased fonts (unf twice), can do true full screen, etc, etc - OSS, as well, has parsers for the OS of your choice - and extra bonus, saves space (media wise & app wise) over doc, txt, pdf, and their respective palm os viewers. Can't praise it enough.

I've been trying to fill a 512mb CF card (w/ a single pdb plucker file - pdb size isn't an issue to the app), so far I'm over 400 full length novels and still have room to spare...