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Barnes and Noble Drops Ebooks
computx writes "I just recieved an email from Barnes and Noble that they will no longer sell ebooks and I have 1 month to download the books I have purchased. Wow!"
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With my Palm, yes! Must've read four books w/ it in locations ranging from subway to bed to toilet.
I recall my one experience purchasing ebooks. It seemed like a fantastic idea. I saved on shipping, and would get it right away.
The DRM management in both the Microsoft and Adobe Readers made it so annoying that it took days for me to be able to read what I purchased. A combination of buggy software and lousy online support ended my enthusiasm. In the end, I decided to go back to good, old-fashioned books.
I wonder what's really going on at Barnes and Noble. My roomie is a manager there and she said they were reducing the size of the computer section big time. Now they're dropping eBooks. Is this just an odd coincidence or is B & N moving more toward a "traditional" bookstore and coffeeshop mix (meaning does management think computer related stuff isn't "traditional")? Does anyone know?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Go to http://www.blackmask.com.
Thousands of *free* ebooks.
Who cares if B&N drops 'em? Blackmask has the good stuff, everything's free, and they're in six (at least) different formats for nearly every device under the sun. Plus no stupid DRM.
I know some people that talk about the allure of paper, and the sentimentality they have for holding a book with paper, but personally if I could buy eBooks and download them into a nice sized reader that had acceptable battery life and a nice, easy to read screen
The "nice, easy to read screen" cannot be emphasized enough.
Most portable electronics have tiny screens with low resolutions, horrible DPI, and glare issues. And they suck down batteries.
Newspaper print is generally the worst in terms of DPI for printed material, and even it exceeds 2400 DPI. I distinctly recall talking to a friend of my father who was in the newspaper business. He was wondering when I thought traditional printed newspapers would be in significant danger from portable devices, home printing, etc. I, as a know-it-all geeky CS student, said it'd probably be about 10 years before the display technologies got there.
Well, it's roughly 10 years later and we're really no closer than we were. Printing has certainly improved, but not as dramatically as I expected. Display technologies have gone more or less nowhere -- LCD has come down in price and power consumption, but the resolutions haven't gone up dramatically and there's been no really new technologies in that time period. Sure, OLED and similar are on the horizon now, but they don't promise a solution to the resolution issues. Printed circuits, electronic paper, and other technologies are also closer, but still probably a decade or more away.
Paper is here to stay for quite some time.
I also use a "Palm" device (Sony Clie). I have over 90 books stored on one memory stick, including a full dictionary and NIV Bible, and the chip is just over half full.
Having the ability to read the unabridged text of these books without having to drag a bookcase around is VERY COOL.
-- This space for rent.
Naturally, I whipped out my Zire 71, did a full text NASB search and found and quoted the verse. In about 10 seconds. While we were walking. In the dark.
I'm sure people resisted the move away from rolled-up animal skins, too...
I agree, white is not the best color for reading on a computer, but black is not the solution.
Try this out: 255 255 240 or #FFFFF0
It's close enough to white that it looks "normal" but doesn't cause as much strain. Also, with the way our eye work, when it's the closest color to white on the screen our eyes fool us into thinking it's acctually white.
Try it sometime. Works best to make your document editor paper this color and then place a white picture farther into the doc. On a blank page let your eyes get used to the color then scroll down to the white pic. You'll be amazed at how the colors seem to shift though you know they didn't change.
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