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I never really understood the eBook business model, or how it was expected to work.

I have a good friend -- Rie Sheridan -- who has found some success as an independent author by selling short stories for a $1 a pop through Echelon Press. But an entire novel? Even with a Palm, I have trouble reading eBooks I've downloaded from Gutenberg.

I think that the way the internet will help change writing is the way that it has changed Comics. The successful webcomics provide regular content for free, and are basically funded through sales of related merchandise -- T-shirts and the like. I think writers will start writing stories as serials... distributing the content regularly for free, and making money off of merchandise.

I'm not just mouthing off, either. I'm going to do that. I'm working on converting my web site, Rimbosity (please be gentle, she's just a P-233 running Linux!), so that I'll be able to provide new music each month and a regular part of a serial each week. It should be up in about a month (conservative estimate; ought to be sooner).

The content will be free; the merchandise will be pay. Meanwhile, I have a day job.

This way, people can use AvantGo or Plucker to download the stories off of the web and keep up with them each week, or just check in once a week when they need a break from work. And I think it will work, for the same reasons it works for webcomics.

So I may be wrong, but I'm putting my money where my mouth is here, and we all will learn soon enough if I'm right!

Ehrm... that is... provided I still remember how to write... ;)

... that plain old ASCII is one constant that hasn't needed changing.

I think you're a little unclear as to what ASCII is. As the "A" in "ASCII" indicates, it's oriented towards American applications. And it consists of a mere 127 characters, which includes 32 control characters that you don't use in text.

In point of fact, Project Gutenberg has long outgrown the 96 graphic characters in ASCII, though I think they themselves are ignorant of the fact. The seem to have experimented with characters until they found a set that displays the same on "normal" Windows, Macs and Unix/Linux. The result is something they call "extended ASCII" but that's actually subset of both ISO's Latin1 character set and Microsoft's Latin1 code page.

When is this an issue? Well, I'm a DP volunteer, and I'm concentrating on the Britannica 11th edition. Lots of geographic entries, all of which contain degree symbols. This symbol is not in ASCII! If you follow the DP instructions, you end up entering byte 186 (decimal). If you're using the ISO or Microsoft Latin1 set (and if your computer is localized for the U.S., Canada, or Western Europe, you probably are) then 186 does in fact display as a degree symbol. But if your system is localized for Eastern Europe, you're probably using Latin2, and this byte stands for an S with a cedilla accent!

In short, "ASCII" is actually less universal than well-formed HTML. In which you represent the degree symbol with a character entity (°) that's the same everywhere.

Indeed, you can open up the original Declaration of Independence document with your standard web browser, and you can still read it just fine.

Hardly a representative example. The Declaration of Independence was hand-written, and thus doesn't include a lot of fancy fonts or formatting. A better example is a contemporary novel, such as 1984.

As it happens I just finished re-reading this one. I read a Plucker file that somebody had transformed from an HTML version, which in turn came from the Project Gutenberg "ASCII" version. Readable enough. But all the typographic nicities -- italics, boldface, etc. -- were reduced to ALL CAPS in the text version, and that was retained in the HTML version. Pretty distracting -- made me feel like somebody was shouting at me. Double Plus Ungood! Thoughtcrime!

...once the data is put into ASCII text format, projects like this [XML] can and are being done.

You make it sound easy. A lot of information is lost when your primary version is "ASCII". It all has to be put back by hand. There's no avoiding this for the large body of existing Gutenberg texts. And of course as recently as 5 years ago, there wasn't a real choice anyway. Even HTML had issues, and serious XML tools didn't exist.

But now XML technology is pretty mature. It makes sense to store new Gutenberg texts in XML. If people still want "ASCII" copies, the XML is easily transformed into that. Though I a lot more people will want the HTML version -- a format which is actually accessible to more people than "ASCII".

There are two reasons this won't happen soon.

The first is that somebody will have to design and implement the necessary XML apps for inputing and proofreading the texts. (Which would alsio elminate a lot of the errors proofreaders make, like entering [Greek: Tau] when they mean [Greek: T].) A huge project. As it stands, the people who maintain the DP web site have their work cut out just to keep the existing software working. That's a vali

About three years ago I got to check out the Nuvomedia and their "Rocket eBook" (as it was known then) at the BookExpo America. Sure the screen had above-average resolution, but the device itself was about the weight (and size/shape) of a brick.

Also, about the same time I was getting into AvantGo on my Visor (which I still use btw) so I asked the eBook rep what the Rocket eBook had that my Palm didn't. She couldn't give me a solid answer, besides "the screen is bigger" and "you can download books to it over the phone" (whoop-dee-doo). Then she would change the subject by playing goofy "South Park" sounds on the eBook's speaker (books need speakers). I saw her use the "SouthPark" technique, so there wasn't much there.

Interesting sidenote - it turned out the NYC ooffices of Nuvomedia / Rocket eBook were just two doors down from my (then) employer - so I was able to con them into loaning me one of the ebooks for a week (we were "thinking" about putting our web site's content on the eBook - but had no such plans because it turned out Nuvomedia was making its money by charging an arm and a leg to convert content to eBook format). Long story short - the device sat on my cubicle shelf for a week.

Later that year they released the eBook for sale nationwide - complete with a promient point-of-sale display at Barnes and Noble stores...but several months later sales were so low that they didn't even release the figures to the public.

Later, when Gemstar (TV Guide?) inexplicably bought Nuvomedia / Rocket eBook my only thought was "are they crazy." Obviously, some TV Guide bigwig decided that they need to get "in" on the digital media revolution, and the eBook was their ticket.

I still don't see a market for the eBook reader...not when we've got AvantGo and Plucker to fill up our Palms' memory. And now most Palm devices can play goofy South Park sounds too!

General-purpose PDAs (like Palm PDAs) may not have quite the resolution of the specialized readers, but single-purpose units are a bad idea when you have to carry them around (who's going to carry 50 devices around?). Even sillier is the locked format; do they really expect us to buy 12 ebook readers, and pay again to download freely-available content on it? I routinely download documents and websites, and read them at my leisure.

It may not be news per se, but I don't think that the purpose of Slashdot is news alone(despite the subtitle). Slashdot serves a useful purpose in the geek community as a kind of central area for distributing useful bits of information.

Personally, I can think of many times that I have seen something in a story or comment on Slashdot that, while not news, was still extremely useful to me. For example, I found out about Plucker and WindowMaker through some random comments in stories like this.

I have a Palm Vx at the moment, but I'm finding that I use Plucker more and more, which I figure would really benefit from a color screen. So, if you happen to be selling your (color) Palm, drop me a line :). (Plucker is a free offline web browser for the Palm)

I already subscribe to Reason, but you can give it a try with a free sample issue (as usual, if you don't like it, just write "cancel" on the bill). Their archive also has the full text from all issues up to Jan 2003, in case you're undecided about subscribing.

Now if only their page (or their staff blog) were more Plucker friendly ;). (Plucker is a free offline web browser for Palm)

Plucker is a viewer for PalmOS, but I believe they were working on a viewer for X as well.

You can actually get real .PDF readers for Symbian, Palm and PocketPC, provided you have access to a Win desktop to do the conversion/stripdown of the PDFs on.

Or you can use this nifty new tool to generate HTML sets, then read away on any number of devices - Plucker optimized for the Handera330 is a personal favorite, but...

See title.

And that is not only for this.

I recently got a cheap Handspring Visor and found this site for reading books with the cool Plucker browser.

It's old stuff, but it's free.

What kind of content? You could start here. (If you do, please help catagorize the links.)

• Plucker has three forms of compression (Zlib, DOC, and none), AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports 14 languages, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not
• Plucker is an 100k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, AvantGo does not
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh)
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content or slap them with fines for misusing it, AvantGo does
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, 7 on Sony devices and 9 on Handera devices, AvantGo offers 2 fonts, with one being built-into the PalmOS itself
• Plucker has full support for Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OSX operating systems, AvantGo supports.. well, one.
• Plucker includes full tools in Python, Java, Perl, C, C++, GUI desktop options, commandline options, and parsers, including viewers for Linux-based PDA devices. AvantGo has none of these
• Plucker supports an email-only interface, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports Bookmarks, AvantGo does not
• Plucker does not force advertisements on you, AvantGo does
• Plucker does not use an insecure proxy server to "broker" requests from the client, AvantGo does
• Plucker does not support "hiding" of PDA-sized content urls, AvantGo does, and restricts by license, what content providers can and can't do with their own content
• ..and many other features I didn't mention

Have a look at our project at www.plkr.org and try it out for yourself. If you want to help us out, please do. We believe we have the superior product, for dozens of reasons. We're smaller, faster, more feature-rich, secure, and we put the user and content provider back in control of their own content.

The Plucker Desktop application can be found at desktop.plkr.org. It is written in wxWindows, and works on Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

The High-resolution viewer application for Sony and Handera high-resolution devices can be found at hires.plkr.org.

We also have an irc channel, so feel free to join and talk to other Plucker users and developers. Point your irc client to irc.plkr.org and join #plucker to chat with us.

If you wish to help out with PDA-sized websites, take a look at OpenURLS and help us out maintaining the list. I've done all of the work so far to fetch these urls (600+), but we need some help sorting them and categorizing them.

We have a lot of other things going on, and we are quite active. Jump aboard and help us out!

• Plucker has three forms of compression (Zlib, DOC, and none), AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports 14 languages, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not
• Plucker is an 100k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, AvantGo does not
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh)
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content or slap them with fines for misusing it, AvantGo does
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, 7 on Sony devices and 9 on Handera devices, AvantGo offers 2 fonts, with one being built-into the PalmOS itself
• Plucker has full support for Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OSX operating systems, AvantGo supports.. well, one.
• Plucker includes full tools in Python, Java, Perl, C, C++, GUI desktop options, commandline options, and parsers, including viewers for Linux-based PDA devices. AvantGo has none of these
• Plucker supports an email-only interface, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports Bookmarks, AvantGo does not
• Plucker does not force advertisements on you, AvantGo does
• Plucker does not use an insecure proxy server to "broker" requests from the client, AvantGo does
• Plucker does not support "hiding" of PDA-sized content urls, AvantGo does, and restricts by license, what content providers can and can't do with their own content
• ..and many other features I didn't mention

Have a look at our project at www.plkr.org and try it out for yourself. If you want to help us out, please do. We believe we have the superior product, for dozens of reasons. We're smaller, faster, more feature-rich, secure, and we put the user and content provider back in control of their own content.

The Plucker Desktop application can be found at desktop.plkr.org. It is written in wxWindows, and works on Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

The High-resolution viewer application for Sony and Handera high-resolution devices can be found at hires.plkr.org.

We also have an irc channel, so feel free to join and talk to other Plucker users and developers. Point your irc client to irc.plkr.org and join #plucker to chat with us.

If you wish to help out with PDA-sized websites, take a look at OpenURLS and help us out maintaining the list. I've done all of the work so far to fetch these urls (600+), but we need some help sorting them and categorizing them.

We have a lot of other things going on, and we are quite active. Jump aboard and help us out!

• Plucker has three forms of compression (Zlib, DOC, and none), AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports 14 languages, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not
• Plucker is an 100k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, AvantGo does not
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh)
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content or slap them with fines for misusing it, AvantGo does
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, 7 on Sony devices and 9 on Handera devices, AvantGo offers 2 fonts, with one being built-into the PalmOS itself
• Plucker has full support for Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OSX operating systems, AvantGo supports.. well, one.
• Plucker includes full tools in Python, Java, Perl, C, C++, GUI desktop options, commandline options, and parsers, including viewers for Linux-based PDA devices. AvantGo has none of these
• Plucker supports an email-only interface, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports Bookmarks, AvantGo does not
• Plucker does not force advertisements on you, AvantGo does
• Plucker does not use an insecure proxy server to "broker" requests from the client, AvantGo does
• Plucker does not support "hiding" of PDA-sized content urls, AvantGo does, and restricts by license, what content providers can and can't do with their own content
• ..and many other features I didn't mention

Have a look at our project at www.plkr.org and try it out for yourself. If you want to help us out, please do. We believe we have the superior product, for dozens of reasons. We're smaller, faster, more feature-rich, secure, and we put the user and content provider back in control of their own content.

The Plucker Desktop application can be found at desktop.plkr.org. It is written in wxWindows, and works on Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

The High-resolution viewer application for Sony and Handera high-resolution devices can be found at hires.plkr.org.

We also have an irc channel, so feel free to join and talk to other Plucker users and developers. Point your irc client to irc.plkr.org and join #plucker to chat with us.

If you wish to help out with PDA-sized websites, take a look at OpenURLS and help us out maintaining the list. I've done all of the work so far to fetch these urls (600+), but we need some help sorting them and categorizing them.

We have a lot of other things going on, and we are quite active. Jump aboard and help us out!

• Plucker has three forms of compression (Zlib, DOC, and none), AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports 14 languages, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not
• Plucker is an 100k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, AvantGo does not
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh)
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content or slap them with fines for misusing it, AvantGo does
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, 7 on Sony devices and 9 on Handera devices, AvantGo offers 2 fonts, with one being built-into the PalmOS itself
• Plucker has full support for Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OSX operating systems, AvantGo supports.. well, one.
• Plucker includes full tools in Python, Java, Perl, C, C++, GUI desktop options, commandline options, and parsers, including viewers for Linux-based PDA devices. AvantGo has none of these
• Plucker supports an email-only interface, AvantGo does not
• Plucker supports Bookmarks, AvantGo does not
• Plucker does not force advertisements on you, AvantGo does
• Plucker does not use an insecure proxy server to "broker" requests from the client, AvantGo does
• Plucker does not support "hiding" of PDA-sized content urls, AvantGo does, and restricts by license, what content providers can and can't do with their own content
• ..and many other features I didn't mention

Have a look at our project at www.plkr.org and try it out for yourself. If you want to help us out, please do. We believe we have the superior product, for dozens of reasons. We're smaller, faster, more feature-rich, secure, and we put the user and content provider back in control of their own content.

The Plucker Desktop application can be found at desktop.plkr.org. It is written in wxWindows, and works on Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

The High-resolution viewer application for Sony and Handera high-resolution devices can be found at hires.plkr.org.

We also have an irc channel, so feel free to join and talk to other Plucker users and developers. Point your irc client to irc.plkr.org and join #plucker to chat with us.

If you wish to help out with PDA-sized websites, take a look at OpenURLS and help us out maintaining the list. I've done all of the work so far to fetch these urls (600+), but we need some help sorting them and categorizing them.

We have a lot of other things going on, and we are quite active. Jump aboard and help us out!

Check out Plucker. It's better than AvantGo in nearly every way.

There's a great option to Opera Small-Screen rendering - Plucker. While not yet ported to cell phones (and designed for offline browsing), the screen width is similar to a palm pilot, which Plucker is designed for, and the backend could be compiled to run on a phone. Plus the source is open and the license is GPL2! All it would take is some porting of the renderer, and you'd have an open-sourced small screen browser.

Visit the Plucker web site.

Tony

8mb isn't a waste if you're using, say, Mapopolis with a few county maps, have a few HanDB databases cataloging your media collection, you like to have a wide variety of web sites available on the go via AvantGo or Plucker, not to mention the Kyle's Quest levels and Planetarium star DBs.

Jeez, why carry around a little computer if you're hardly going to use it?

Yeah, that's what I thought too, until I discoveded Plucker.

Laptops are nice moble phones are too. However I have yet to find a REAL use for a pda. Is it just me?

I track mileage with mine. I also use it to read e-books, and I can use Plucker to grab certain websites and carry them around for reference. It also has a few games loaded up for killing time, and I used to read/reply to email on the go with it back when I used Lookout Express on the desktop (anybody know how to sync Palm's mail app to a mail spool directory or (maybe) an IMAP server directly?).

It's also good for note-taking (took all my class notes with it one semester...and I used Grafitti for that, though a keyboard would've been nice to have), and it's easier to store and look up phone numbers and addresses in my Palm than in a cellphone.

I've never seen anyone check their schedule on a Palm (after the first week -- when the novelty of it wears off)

I have a Visor, and I do, all the time.

When I got my Visor, I was in high school, and didn't have so much "scheduling" to do, and then I worked at salaried positions where my schedule didn't so much matter, and I worked mostly the same shifts anyway. I started putting meetings and such in there, though, as well as due dates for various projects. (So fun to move them around with schedule slip... :P)

Now I'm working retail, and with the immense schedule variation that I have, my Visor is indispensible. As soon as the schedule goes up, it goes in my Visor, and from then on I can plan stuff with no problem, as I always have it with me. I'm especially fond of the weekly view, as it shows me time bars and gives me a good idea at a glance of what's going on.

I often call my Visor my prosthetic brain, and although people laugh, it's true. I have the VisorPhone too, so I can call a friend without their number ever even passing through my mind. Not sure if that's a good thing though...

You're right though, it's great for killing time. This morning I synced up Plucker, and during the boring bits of the meeting I had the Register, the Onion, and Slashdot.

it's probably one of the most prevalent libraries around, it's even on my handheld for plucker, the palm-based offline browser; webservers or proxy accelerators using gzip compression could even be at risk.

So, I'm trying to switch over to Plucker (and SiteSweeper).

There's a lot of new things in Plucker's future, including a new http://my.plkr.org website I'm putting together that will allow you to create, organized, manage, and deal with your Plucker content (you still will not be able to sync "to" the server, however, which is one of the great advantages of Plucker. Your Palm isn't bound to the cradle at content creation time like AvantGo and other alternatives).

There's still quite a bit of things we're toying around with for features, code, and other functionality in the viewer, the parser, the desktop tools, a desktop gui, and other projects.

Join the mailing lists, throw out ideas, patches, and see if anyone bites into them. We're already dozens of features ahead of any of the alternatives (see my previous post that compares two of them.

The content provider websites aren't always "hidden", if you're creative enough to locate them, email the providers, or find other methods.

If you find the sites you want, just email me directly, and I'll add them to the database I have here (I only have about 562 sites currently, but I can't publish them all because I would put the content providers in violation of their own agreements with AvantGo, however).

The content belongs to the content providers. It's their content, not AvantGo's, so you can simply ask nicely for a url to fetch it. I've had much success with this. Just be nice, and promote the distribution of the content, not the undercutting of other content distributors like AvantGo.

So, I'm trying to switch over to Plucker (and SiteSweeper).

There's a lot of new things in Plucker's future, including a new http://my.plkr.org website I'm putting together that will allow you to create, organized, manage, and deal with your Plucker content (you still will not be able to sync "to" the server, however, which is one of the great advantages of Plucker. Your Palm isn't bound to the cradle at content creation time like AvantGo and other alternatives).

There's still quite a bit of things we're toying around with for features, code, and other functionality in the viewer, the parser, the desktop tools, a desktop gui, and other projects.

Join the mailing lists, throw out ideas, patches, and see if anyone bites into them. We're already dozens of features ahead of any of the alternatives (see my previous post that compares two of them.

The content provider websites aren't always "hidden", if you're creative enough to locate them, email the providers, or find other methods.

If you find the sites you want, just email me directly, and I'll add them to the database I have here (I only have about 562 sites currently, but I can't publish them all because I would put the content providers in violation of their own agreements with AvantGo, however).

The content belongs to the content providers. It's their content, not AvantGo's, so you can simply ask nicely for a url to fetch it. I've had much success with this. Just be nice, and promote the distribution of the content, not the undercutting of other content distributors like AvantGo.

This is already happening. For example, the Linux Documentation Project (LDP) recently added support for Plucker; the LDP now automatically generates Plucker format for all HOWTO, mini-HOWTO, and FAQ documents. The LDP also automatically regenerates the files when the documents are updated. Pluckerbooks has over a thousand pregenerated books and they have links to other sources of Plucker documents.

In fact, I've recently added support for Plucker to my own website. My paper Why Open Source Software / Free Software? Look at the Numbers! also has a Plucker version available. I also generate a Plucker version of my book on writing secure programs. So I'm speaking from experience here.. Plucker works well for at least some content providers!

Downloading the tools and then generating the Plucker format is easy if you can use a command line interface. Plucker's format is essentially compressed HTML, so for most websites it's easy to support. Plucker is GPL'ed, so its components (the generator and reader) can't be "taken away"... and they are free for any use. This combination of free reader, free creator, and no risk (because it can't be taken away) makes Plucker much more appropriate for many content providers. The Plucker viewer itself is quite capable, for example, it supports larger fonts for headings, bold text, italics, hypertext links, images, horizontal rules, and tables (formatted as one cell per line). If you click on a hypertext link to a page not included in the file, Plucker will show you the URL so you can look it up later.

Installing just the viewer is actually quite easy for end-users; you can download just the viewer from the Plucker website, and Plucker users can beam the program to other users of Palm-compatible PDAs. Generating Plucker files is pretty easy from the command line, but I do agree that currently grandma may have trouble generating documents on her own. It's also true that getting "new" versions of Plucker documents isn't automatic; you have to do something to get an update. The Plucker folks are actively working on solving these problems, e.g., creating GUI interfaces. Since Plucker is already a really nice viewer, and other work is already ongoing, I think that the Plucker developers will quickly succeed in making it easier for naive users to generate their own documents.

AvantGo is weeding out what they call "Custom channel abuse". Basically its 8 or more people creating a custom channel to a site that doesn't pay up for a licence. See the Register article here and the AvantGo announcement here.

This means that things like Slashdots own palm friendly version and my AvantSlash (along with thousands of other non-profit making sites who provide an ability to view their content for free) are going to be left a little out in the cold.

I've been recommended Plucker for the Palm and Mazingo for the PPC - not tried either though.

Plucker uses a completely different, server-independant solution to gather content. It is de-centralized, and does not rely on a single point of failure. It is client-driven, not server driven. Here's some other reasons why Plucker exceeds AvantGo:

• Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
• Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
• Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
• Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.

Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

• Fling-It (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
• BrowserG!
• streetbeam (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
• And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

Plucker uses a completely different, server-independant solution to gather content. It is de-centralized, and does not rely on a single point of failure. It is client-driven, not server driven. Here's some other reasons why Plucker exceeds AvantGo:

• Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
• Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
• Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
• Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.

Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

• Fling-It (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
• BrowserG!
• streetbeam (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
• And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

Plucker uses a completely different, server-independant solution to gather content. It is de-centralized, and does not rely on a single point of failure. It is client-driven, not server driven. Here's some other reasons why Plucker exceeds AvantGo:

• Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
• Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
• Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
• Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.

Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

• Fling-It (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
• BrowserG!
• streetbeam (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
• And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

Plucker uses a completely different, server-independant solution to gather content. It is de-centralized, and does not rely on a single point of failure. It is client-driven, not server driven. Here's some other reasons why Plucker exceeds AvantGo:

• Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
• Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
• Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
• Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.

Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

• Fling-It (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
• BrowserG!
• streetbeam (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
• And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

• Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
• Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
• Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
• Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.

Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

• Fling-It (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
• BrowserG!
• streetbeam (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
• And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

• Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
• Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
• Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
• Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.

Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

• Fling-It (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
• BrowserG!
• streetbeam (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
• And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

• Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
• Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
• Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
• Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.

Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

• Fling-It (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
• BrowserG!
• streetbeam (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
• And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

• Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
• Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
• Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
• Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
• Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
• Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
• Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
• Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
• You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
• Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
• Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
• Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
• Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.

Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

• Fling-It (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
• BrowserG!
• streetbeam (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
• And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

. . . they'll get a patent on annoying interstital ads on a handheld device. Get Plucker and dump AvantGo. Choose what you want to read on your Palm without having to tell a third party that's going to stuff your handheld with ads and sell your reading habits to direct marketers.

that they don't leverage this to try to quash their competition, the most excellent Plucker

Joel Spolsky, another engineer-turned-architect writes thoughtful, entertaining, straightforward essays on these topics and other elements of software management based on his experiences at MSFT (regardless of your opinion of their business practices, they are certainly successful at orchestrating large, complex software projects) and, more recently, at his own company.

This stuff is such good reading that I've converted most of it into Plucker format for browsing on my PalmOS device. You never know when you'll need it for reference or inspiration.

Some personal favorites: The Joel Test of effective s/w development processes, painless software schedules, writing effective (read: convincing) functional specifications, and plenty of other gems.