I wasn't listing the final specifications for a device in detail. Yes, it would have HTML support, and CSS would be useful to have as well. With HTML, people are going to want images supported, that means a few different libraries there as well.
Ok I'm gonna tone myself down a little... this should be a little less of a rant so hang on. The point I was trying to make is that I think HTML should be the one technology an ebook reader should be able to support unlike even standard desktop browsers. I'm not sure it would be such a strech to see the "web browser" condensed into a hardware-streamlined product. SGML support would be great but to implement SGML we must first master HTML, and if we can't deliver an machine dedicated to rendering HTML then how much chance would we have in implementing a technology with less sample-base? It's hard to match HTML in terms of demographic penetration at least in so far as actual text-based content... contrast with postscript, pdf, and the like which (for the most part) do not have human-readable source -- essential for "debugging" our ebooks.
Yeah and the pdf reader for WinCE needs, uhh, "work". It is by no means comparable to its desktop cousins... a cheap knock-off from a huge company complaining about the limitations of PDAs. IMHO, avantgo is a considerably better "ebook reader" that's easier to code for and is far more compatible. HTML 3.2, that's it... can't go wrong. Visit my site and you'll know what I'm talking about: popnt.com Keep in mind my work is still beta, but anyways.
And about permanent media.. well.. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and suggest that print cannot truely be compared with your examples.. although I do in all seriousness appreciate your debate. Just for the sake of argument, what distinguishes print from (at least) the three examples you listed (and please I hope this does not escalate) are the following:
Stone tables were never mass-produced in the same way as books (or paper media) were: sure there were sandscript, but specifically what distinguishes print as breakthrough was its potential for industrial mass-production via inventions like the printing press.. ubiquity made the press permanent in many ways.
Music (and movies): due to the very recent inventions of the gramophone and that which makes up a motion picture (the camera, film, etc), I'm not sure these can be compared to print media, specifically because of their very recent introductions to society.. note that I am not saying music is a new introduction, rather recorded music.. so in that light, and given the whole MP3 hoopla we're having with the RIAA et al, I think the music/movie industries would have a lot to learn from the print industry -- not the other way around. Also, the music and movie industries themselves use a concept very closely tied in with books in that they are given data to process. I'm not sure music/movies can really compare, in all seriousness to books.. in all honesty, I'm not sure there is much out there that even CAN compare to the print industry. These are secondary industries which require processing that print-media does not. Print is unique in that respect and is therefore again really tough to beat! Even braille is a form of print which requires nothing whatsoever, not even a light-source! What makes print so permanent is its ubiquity -- the sheer volume of static copies whose content and information cannot and will not change over time. No other industry has this power.
I am talking about a very low-end computer here... Give it TEXT and PDF software, and there is plenty of content to be had. I think it wolud be a good idea to give this device a CompactFlash port to hold the content, and to make transfers from PCs easy.
By "text" I suppose you mean, in particular, HTML -- seeing as anything put out on the market that cannot read HTML (v2.0, 3.2, or wow even 4.0) would simply be a total and utter waste of like a zillion web-pages.
And wait, while we're on the subject of PDF, why would you want a document reader when what you're reading are long and lengthy texts? Have you seen the PDF reader for WinCE? Ugh.
IMHO priority should be on HTML and relatives.. besides, we [as ebook readers and writers] don't have to battle with companies like adobe about patents and copyrights and whatnot to get in the way of delivering what we all really want -- something to read AND something we can all easily write with! Where are the freeware versions of distiller, everyone?! Geez.. HTML is perfectly fine for a vast majority of ebook implementations.
Oh and given that you consider printing too error-prone and expensive, does that mean there are no e-texts you would consider worth printing and/or the expense? Anything that is not in print is quite frankly NOT permanent. What, I need batteries to jot down my bus schedule?! yeah.. RIGHT!
The second reason is that monitors are all backlit... That means, reading on a computer screen is like reading text on a floursent lightbulb. It's possible for a while, but your eyes are quickly fatigued.
Acually, we need e-books (or e-resources in general) that can easily be printed because if you like the book that much then you sure as heck would want a hard copy for your archives, no?
Someone needs to create a non-backlit LCD screen, approx 6" (about the size of a book page) that is small, light, silent, compatible with everything, and most importantly, it needs to have good software that makes reading less work than it normally is on a computer
And the content, who in their right might would code content for such a generic device? Unless of course someone were to code something that were ubiquitous, except who has that kinda time on their hands, and better, what resource would merrit that kind of application? There's nothing really that would need that level of compatibility, except, well, Nanotechnology...ahem.
... Until then, relectronic reading isn't going to really be feasable. Screw electronic paper, just give me a screen that doesn't hurt my eyes, and I'm set to go.
Make the e-book easily printed and your distribution, archival, and compatibility problems are all solved... anyone notice that little function in the IE [and only in IE, what's up with that?!] print dialog called "Print all linked documents"? One click and your ebook is printed from Title to Index.
Ok all you Gutenberg fans.. here's a good one for y'all... I know this person who is trying to author a site that's right in line with exactly what Project Gutenberg stands for: making texts available to the electronic world.
So what could we suggest to someone who is donating their blood sweat and tears to an ubiquitous online resource so everyone, from Lynx, IE, Palm/Wince, WAP, and even print/fax "users" can have access to this ubiquitous resource?
And what if I said that resource was about Nanotechnology and that it beats Nanodot in terms of potential audience, readership, and just plain usability?
And what if I said that person was me, and that site was popnt.com, also called "Popular Nanotechnology"...? Would that tweak anyone's "interest"? Anyone...?
Please don't flame me folks, I'm doing this literally out of the kindness of my heart and need any help I can get.
All I ask is you check it out.. start at Volume 0 if anyone has a chance.
How does the current state of OpenContent and Creative Content licenses affect site like popnt.com which do not clearly fall into either "program" nor "ebook" categories? Should POPNT look to (somehow) qualify as both? Was there something that OpenContent did not offer that Creative Content now can due to OpenContent having closed its doors?
There are a plethora of date formats out there.. if Y2K has taught us anything it's that the format itself is irrelevant and what is important is the relativity of dates.
Given believing that either a) what happened regarding 9/11 was a perfect "surgical" operation, or b) it was not perfectly planned and there is in fact much more than a shred of integrity to the American public (contrary to what those responsible for 9/11 would have us believe), I'd personally opt for the later, thanks.
Ok so if 911 has no association outside the US, then how could our aggressors have been so sure to strike on the 11th of sept and not rather on the 9th of nov? how'd they decide (and I return to my original point) which date format to use as reference for the attack? are they so sure the majority of the US uses yyyy-mm-dd? there's TONES of reference to dd-mm-yy out there throughout the United States... I'd say they based their attack on our work remediating Y2K, being to use ISO-standard dates.
What makes them think we haven't come around 180-degrees and now the majority of our date references are in the form dd-mm-yyyy hence trivializing their choice of september as what could argued as being a shortsighted decision... heck what makes them think ISO-standard dates are the way to go? we're only year-three into Y2K.. could be ISO-standard dates might turn out to have some limitation of sorts which might force us to adopt a parallel date system in the form of dd-mm-yyyy to compensate.. at which point, why, AGAIN, did they choose SEPT over NOV if their intent was domestic upheaval?
Ok so to sum this up, you think what happened on Sept 11th was coincidentally on a day which the public at large could associate with an emergency number, and that it (being the actual date 9/11) was not MEANT to be part of their attack? You think they chose the date at random?
Listen, just because (with all due respect) you sir do not believe 9/11 happened on that particular day because of the arrangement of the number of the date does not mean that it happened on that particular day for no particular reason. IMHO, what happened on 9/11 happened that day in order to associate that day's events with what North Americans generally consider as being "emergency", or "crisis".. to think otherwise would mean you agree with my argument that if the attack were really meant to inflict harm on the people of the United States of America (and not just to inflict psychological terror), then the attack "should" have occured during a harsher time of the year.. so now that beggs yet another question, did our attackers have some kind of twisted "mercy" on us to chose a more mild time of the year when it would be ever-so-slightly less chaotic to recover?
What? no.. 9/11 under certain date formats refers to November 9th. If those responsible for the attack on 9/11 was to use 9/11 as some kind of psychological "incentive" for fear, then why not have made the "attack" occur during a time of the year that is environmentally more difficult?
Why is this so hard to understand? Why'd they chose 9/11 to be September 11th and not 9/11 to be November 9th? Do you honestly believe ISO standard dates are the only ones used throughout the industrialized world?
ok, why did what happend on Sept. 11th not happen on Nov. 9th? There are/were arguably just as many references to non-ISO dates (when the attack took place) as there were to non-ISO dates...
So I ask the question again, why Sept. 11 and not Nov 9th? if what was intended was psychological terror, why not have made the attack on Nov. 9th and compound the attack with bitter cold?
It was only up until very recently that the US has been using YYYYMMDD formats, most notably with the whole Y2K fiasco.. prior to that, 09-11-01 might very well be interpreted by many systems as november 9th. Actually in a lot of the world, 9/11 MEANS november 9th as not everyone uses ISO standard dates (and nor does a lot of our current documents like RFCs, ahem.)
Think that logic through a tad, you'll see what I mean.
and we can milk that bombing to our advantage just like 9/11!
Let's not forget that what happened on September eleventh centered around what could easily be described as a date format. What if we did a census and found out that 50%+1 of America uses the yyyy-mm-dd date... wouldn't that possibly mean that there could be people who believe what happened should/could/might have happened on November 9th? And why chose Sept. 11th over Nov 9th if november is the colder month?
With breakthrough fields like Nanotechnology needing mind-boggling degrees of organization for the field to take root, how does anyone propose we take advantage of the breakthroughs the Internet offers us if we're constantly second-guessing ourselves as to the effectiveness of stuff like standards-based publishing and the simple availability of information?
The fact is, V.92 is one of the biggest advertising frauds ever pulled off. I can't believe how many different modems we purchased over 2 years trying to get that working. Where is the class action lawsuit ? It definitely turned me off to the products of all the big modem manufacturers, I just don't trust those companies anymore, I probably never should have.
My guess is that v.92 was released as a true standard but was very possibly half-baked.. or worse ignored as a standard in favour of hopeful vapourware "would-be" world-class standards like 3G, WiFi, and arguably bluetooth.
By "world-class standard" I mean a standard which can be relied upon without the need for gateway products and/or services: if I want to call anyone in the world from my POTS, I can. Conversely, if I want to use a 3G phone anywhere outside of say North America, Japan, Europe, etc., chances are I will not be able to due to compatibility limitations we are perpetually frustrated by. POTS is far...far more reliable, and the very mention of v.92 (and its attempted implementation) is evidence to that fact.
All this to say that analog telecomm needs a standard on-ramp that dial-up users and ISPs can depend on that compares to the general stability enjoyed by voice telecommunications users. MODEMs are that standard, and v.92 is the logical progression therein.
So are we destined to dialing ATDT*70W?..or hoping some upcoming wireless "standard" doesn't go toe-to-toe with some other industry like, say, radio?...Is that "it" for POTS in general? Are all our COs to be replaced with wireless stations with uplinks to geostationary satellites or something? WTF? Erm.. someone? Where's the something-for-everyone philosophy here? I mean I can live with the upgrade-or-die philosophy, but it that really necessary? Why not just standardise v.92 (the same way we did it with v.90) and get on with our lives?
Looks like someone finally found a use for PPPoE! I've wanted that damned protocol to die for quite a while, but I can see it being useful in this situation. DSL, on the other hand, is where it deserves to die a painful death,
along with whatever suits decided that "emulating the dial-up experience" is better than an always-on connection.
This might be the only chance I get to remind everyone that v.92 is probably the most undersold networking standard any of us have seen in years.
The v.92 standard (not to be confused with the simple v.90 standard) was released by Conexant (formerly Rockwell International Corporation, the dudes who helped pioneer MODEMs together with folks like USRobotics, Hayes, etc.) can interpret call-waiting signals and issue "modem-on-hold" command(s) to the remote modem.
This new feature is "pretty darn" useful as it re-establishes POTS as a viable networking channel as users will no longer feel like they are being forced to choose between: a) receiving telephone calls, b) being connected to the Internet, c) ordering, installing, rewiring, securing, and budgeting an additional POTS line, or d) subscribing to "overkill-type" high-speed services just to send someone an email.
Due to the sheer demographic penetration of POTS versus other newer high-speed and wireless technologies, ISPs might want to consider upgrading their modem pools to support the new standard (and market support for the new standard as the no-more-busy-signals-ever-again (and-we-mean-it-this-time) godsend it, well, is!). 'Nuf said.
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Ok I'm gonna tone myself down a little... this should be a little less of a rant so hang on. The point I was trying to make is that I think HTML should be the one technology an ebook reader should be able to support unlike even standard desktop browsers. I'm not sure it would be such a strech to see the "web browser" condensed into a hardware-streamlined product. SGML support would be great but to implement SGML we must first master HTML, and if we can't deliver an machine dedicated to rendering HTML then how much chance would we have in implementing a technology with less sample-base? It's hard to match HTML in terms of demographic penetration at least in so far as actual text-based content... contrast with postscript, pdf, and the like which (for the most part) do not have human-readable source -- essential for "debugging" our ebooks.
Yeah and the pdf reader for WinCE needs, uhh, "work". It is by no means comparable to its desktop cousins... a cheap knock-off from a huge company complaining about the limitations of PDAs. IMHO, avantgo is a considerably better "ebook reader" that's easier to code for and is far more compatible. HTML 3.2, that's it... can't go wrong. Visit my site and you'll know what I'm talking about: popnt.com Keep in mind my work is still beta, but anyways.
And about permanent media.. well.. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and suggest that print cannot truely be compared with your examples.. although I do in all seriousness appreciate your debate. Just for the sake of argument, what distinguishes print from (at least) the three examples you listed (and please I hope this does not escalate) are the following:
By "text" I suppose you mean, in particular, HTML -- seeing as anything put out on the market that cannot read HTML (v2.0, 3.2, or wow even 4.0) would simply be a total and utter waste of like a zillion web-pages.
And wait, while we're on the subject of PDF, why would you want a document reader when what you're reading are long and lengthy texts? Have you seen the PDF reader for WinCE? Ugh.
IMHO priority should be on HTML and relatives.. besides, we [as ebook readers and writers] don't have to battle with companies like adobe about patents and copyrights and whatnot to get in the way of delivering what we all really want -- something to read AND something we can all easily write with! Where are the freeware versions of distiller, everyone?! Geez.. HTML is perfectly fine for a vast majority of ebook implementations.
Oh and given that you consider printing too error-prone and expensive, does that mean there are no e-texts you would consider worth printing and/or the expense? Anything that is not in print is quite frankly NOT permanent. What, I need batteries to jot down my bus schedule?! yeah.. RIGHT!
And the content, who in their right might would code content for such a generic device? Unless of course someone were to code something that were ubiquitous, except who has that kinda time on their hands, and better, what resource would merrit that kind of application? There's nothing really that would need that level of compatibility, except, well, Nanotechnology...ahem.
Make the e-book easily printed and your distribution, archival, and compatibility problems are all solved... anyone notice that little function in the IE [and only in IE, what's up with that?!] print dialog called "Print all linked documents"? One click and your ebook is printed from Title to Index.
Ok I'll quit ranting now.
Ok all you Gutenberg fans.. here's a good one for y'all... I know this person who is trying to author a site that's right in line with exactly what Project Gutenberg stands for: making texts available to the electronic world.
So what could we suggest to someone who is donating their blood sweat and tears to an ubiquitous online resource so everyone, from Lynx, IE, Palm/Wince, WAP, and even print/fax "users" can have access to this ubiquitous resource?
And what if I said that resource was about Nanotechnology and that it beats Nanodot in terms of potential audience, readership, and just plain usability?
And what if I said that person was me, and that site was popnt.com, also called "Popular Nanotechnology"...? Would that tweak anyone's "interest"? Anyone...?
Please don't flame me folks, I'm doing this literally out of the kindness of my heart and need any help I can get.
All I ask is you check it out.. start at Volume 0 if anyone has a chance.
How does the current state of OpenContent and Creative Content licenses affect site like popnt.com which do not clearly fall into either "program" nor "ebook" categories? Should POPNT look to (somehow) qualify as both? Was there something that OpenContent did not offer that Creative Content now can due to OpenContent having closed its doors?
There are a plethora of date formats out there.. if Y2K has taught us anything it's that the format itself is irrelevant and what is important is the relativity of dates.
Given believing that either a) what happened regarding 9/11 was a perfect "surgical" operation, or b) it was not perfectly planned and there is in fact much more than a shred of integrity to the American public (contrary to what those responsible for 9/11 would have us believe), I'd personally opt for the later, thanks.
Ok so if 911 has no association outside the US, then how could our aggressors have been so sure to strike on the 11th of sept and not rather on the 9th of nov? how'd they decide (and I return to my original point) which date format to use as reference for the attack? are they so sure the majority of the US uses yyyy-mm-dd? there's TONES of reference to dd-mm-yy out there throughout the United States... I'd say they based their attack on our work remediating Y2K, being to use ISO-standard dates.
What makes them think we haven't come around 180-degrees and now the majority of our date references are in the form dd-mm-yyyy hence trivializing their choice of september as what could argued as being a shortsighted decision... heck what makes them think ISO-standard dates are the way to go? we're only year-three into Y2K.. could be ISO-standard dates might turn out to have some limitation of sorts which might force us to adopt a parallel date system in the form of dd-mm-yyyy to compensate.. at which point, why, AGAIN, did they choose SEPT over NOV if their intent was domestic upheaval?
Thanks... I figured as much.
Ok so to sum this up, you think what happened on Sept 11th was coincidentally on a day which the public at large could associate with an emergency number, and that it (being the actual date 9/11) was not MEANT to be part of their attack? You think they chose the date at random?
Listen, just because (with all due respect) you sir do not believe 9/11 happened on that particular day because of the arrangement of the number of the date does not mean that it happened on that particular day for no particular reason. IMHO, what happened on 9/11 happened that day in order to associate that day's events with what North Americans generally consider as being "emergency", or "crisis".. to think otherwise would mean you agree with my argument that if the attack were really meant to inflict harm on the people of the United States of America (and not just to inflict psychological terror), then the attack "should" have occured during a harsher time of the year.. so now that beggs yet another question, did our attackers have some kind of twisted "mercy" on us to chose a more mild time of the year when it would be ever-so-slightly less chaotic to recover?
What? no.. 9/11 under certain date formats refers to November 9th. If those responsible for the attack on 9/11 was to use 9/11 as some kind of psychological "incentive" for fear, then why not have made the "attack" occur during a time of the year that is environmentally more difficult?
Why is this so hard to understand? Why'd they chose 9/11 to be September 11th and not 9/11 to be November 9th? Do you honestly believe ISO standard dates are the only ones used throughout the industrialized world?
ok, why did what happend on Sept. 11th not happen on Nov. 9th? There are/were arguably just as many references to non-ISO dates (when the attack took place) as there were to non-ISO dates...
So I ask the question again, why Sept. 11 and not Nov 9th? if what was intended was psychological terror, why not have made the attack on Nov. 9th and compound the attack with bitter cold?
It was only up until very recently that the US has been using YYYYMMDD formats, most notably with the whole Y2K fiasco.. prior to that, 09-11-01 might very well be interpreted by many systems as november 9th. Actually in a lot of the world, 9/11 MEANS november 9th as not everyone uses ISO standard dates (and nor does a lot of our current documents like RFCs, ahem.)
Think that logic through a tad, you'll see what I mean.
Let's not forget that what happened on September eleventh centered around what could easily be described as a date format. What if we did a census and found out that 50%+1 of America uses the yyyy-mm-dd date... wouldn't that possibly mean that there could be people who believe what happened should/could/might have happened on November 9th? And why chose Sept. 11th over Nov 9th if november is the colder month?
With breakthrough fields like Nanotechnology needing mind-boggling degrees of organization for the field to take root, how does anyone propose we take advantage of the breakthroughs the Internet offers us if we're constantly second-guessing ourselves as to the effectiveness of stuff like standards-based publishing and the simple availability of information?
My guess is that v.92 was released as a true standard but was very possibly half-baked.. or worse ignored as a standard in favour of hopeful vapourware "would-be" world-class standards like 3G, WiFi, and arguably bluetooth.
By "world-class standard" I mean a standard which can be relied upon without the need for gateway products and/or services: if I want to call anyone in the world from my POTS, I can. Conversely, if I want to use a 3G phone anywhere outside of say North America, Japan, Europe, etc., chances are I will not be able to due to compatibility limitations we are perpetually frustrated by. POTS is far...far more reliable, and the very mention of v.92 (and its attempted implementation) is evidence to that fact.
All this to say that analog telecomm needs a standard on-ramp that dial-up users and ISPs can depend on that compares to the general stability enjoyed by voice telecommunications users. MODEMs are that standard, and v.92 is the logical progression therein.
So are we destined to dialing ATDT*70W? ..or hoping some upcoming wireless "standard" doesn't go toe-to-toe with some other industry like, say, radio? ...Is that "it" for POTS in general? Are all our COs to be replaced with wireless stations with uplinks to geostationary satellites or something? WTF? Erm.. someone? Where's the something-for-everyone philosophy here? I mean I can live with the upgrade-or-die philosophy, but it that really necessary? Why not just standardise v.92 (the same way we did it with v.90) and get on with our lives?
The v.92 standard (not to be confused with the simple v.90 standard) was released by Conexant (formerly Rockwell International Corporation, the dudes who helped pioneer MODEMs together with folks like USRobotics, Hayes, etc.) can interpret call-waiting signals and issue "modem-on-hold" command(s) to the remote modem.
This new feature is "pretty darn" useful as it re-establishes POTS as a viable networking channel as users will no longer feel like they are being forced to choose between: a) receiving telephone calls, b) being connected to the Internet, c) ordering, installing, rewiring, securing, and budgeting an additional POTS line, or d) subscribing to "overkill-type" high-speed services just to send someone an email.
Due to the sheer demographic penetration of POTS versus other newer high-speed and wireless technologies, ISPs might want to consider upgrading their modem pools to support the new standard (and market support for the new standard as the no-more-busy-signals-ever-again (and-we-mean-it-this-time) godsend it, well, is!). 'Nuf said.
Greets.