Thanks to raevyn1 for reporting to us that computer security experts Steve Gibson (http://www.grc.com/) and Leo Laporte (http://leoville.com/) are both proud new owners of the Sony Reader, which they discuss in their latest podcasts.

Links: Episode 85 (http://www.twit.tv/sn85) (transcript (http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-085.htm)), Episode 86 (http://www.twit.tv/sn86) (transcript (http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-086.htm))

Some interesting topics were raised, including how the Reader helps visually impaired people, how it solves the problem of carrying heavy books during trips, the annoyance of DRM, how battery life plays an important part, and how E Ink is still new technology waiting to be explored.

Highly recommended listen even if you already know your Reader inside-out.

Steve Gibson is one of the old guard greats. He has a great knack of seeing the trees where others can't even quite make out the forest. His insights were years early. His program SpinRite solved hard disk problems few knew they had until it was too late.

His insights are always worth the effort. After six months with my Reader I learned something new.

Agreed! SN is one of the most useful and informative podcasts out there amid a sea of podcasts that are mostly just blather.

Haha! They're refering to Leo Laporte as a "security expert?" I wouldn't go that far, he does have a funny/geeky TV personality about him, but doesn't rate at what I'd consider a IA expert (which, coincidentally, was my area of concentration during my college years).

On the other hand, it is good to see the positive publicity of the device being promoted. :)

It was interesting that they mentioned Michael McCollum. He was one of my favorite authors. I had purchased his Antaries series in DRM format several years ago but had since lost the ability to read the files. When I heard that they were available in non DRM format for the Sony, I naturally went out and bought them again, plus his new series. The PDF format looks surprisingly (for me, at least) good on the prs-500.

Haha! They're refering to Leo Laporte as a "security expert?" Forgive Alex that one. He is not a regular listener of Security Now. I agree that calling Leo Laporte a security expert is a huge stretch. I would say that Leo is an well-rounded geek with the rare ability to translate "geek" for the "non-geek." Leo also has the knack of attracting the real experts from diverse areas (even biotech and law) to be on his podcasts, radio, and tv shows.
I agree it was nice to see the Sony Reader and the ebook concept being discussed and even promoted. I hope Steve Gibson's correct that the PRS-500 is first-gen and Sony will continue to improve it.

he PDF format looks surprisingly (for me, at least) good on the prs-500.

Indeed it does look as good or better than .rtf - very nice and good to know about another author - I just bought the Gibraltar and Antares books.

Leo is not a security expert but sure as heck Steve Gibson is. Leo does have a very good overall PC knowledge, however. It is the interaction between them on the SN podcasts that makes it so good for folks that are just low level geeks like myself.

Actually as a long time security person (and I don't call myself an expert, even though I was a enterprise firewall architect back in the days when firewalls were bleeding edge, and take some credit for early anti-spam blocking techniques, and have several patents in cryptography) I've always considered SG to be a shameless self-promoter and defenitely not a security expert (anyone remember how he virtually predicted armageddon because Windows XP added support for raw sockets? I still get a good laugh out of that).

I have much more respect for Laporte (not as a security expert either, obviously, but as a tech media worker).

Forgive Alex that one. He is not a regular listener of Security Now.
That's true ;) But it's probably going to chance as I found the last two podcast quite interesting.

I hope Steve Gibson's correct that the PRS-500 is first-gen and Sony will continue to improve it.
That's what Howard Stringer implied at once point in an interview, so there is hope indeed.

Well, it's obviously first-gen. Whether Sony continues to improve it remains to be seen. There have been other eReaders from different makers which have been first-gen which haven't made it to second-gen status.

What we need to do (all of us, not just the members of this group) is to convince content providers to provide more content for the Reader (i.e. current releases of books) so that more people will be tempted to buy the Reader and the content so that Sony will have economic incentive to move to second-gen status with it, which in turn should get more people buying it and the content, which should convince more content providers to expand their offerings.

It's essentially computer hardware so the age old hardware-drives-software/software-drives-hardware see-saw is as true with the Reader as with the Pentium chips.

I have contacted all of my favorite authors who aren't represented at Connect yet to try to convince them to negotiate epublication rights and get into the ebook marketplace.

I urge everybody who reads this to do the same. More current authors will mean more desirability factor to entice new buyers.

And while Sony does have some creative imagination for new products, the bottom line is that it is a megacorporation and what matters most is the corporate bottom line. No matter how wonderful we might know our readers are, if we don't work hard to expand the marketplace for the devices and the content, in another 5 years there will be no Sony Readers to replace our first-gen models. And those authors/publishers who didn't enter the ebook marketplace will have felt justified in remaining out of a dead-end experiment.

Getting these things mentioned on such podcasts as Gibson and Laporte is great -- now to get more such mentions!

What we need to do (all of us, not just the members of this group) is to convince content providers to provide more content for the Reader (i.e. current releases of books) so that more people will be tempted to buy the Reader and the content so that Sony will have economic incentive to move to second-gen status with it, which in turn should get more people buying it and the content, which should convince more content providers to expand their offerings.

I have contacted all of my favorite authors who aren't represented at Connect yet to try to convince them to negotiate epublication rights and get into the ebook marketplace.

I urge everybody who reads this to do the same. More current authors will mean more desirability factor to entice new buyers.

How can I convince someone to use Connect if I loath the idea myself?
If there are 2 shops, one sells DRM lrfs and another RTFs, I will buy RTF. Connect will not get a penny from me because of the DRM. Sorry about it.

Speaking as an author who contacted Connect, and whose queries were never returned, it might be a good idea for authors to simply make their own reader-compatible files. That way they can sell them directly to the consumer, not through the Connect Store (which also means you can ignore DRM issues that Sony might foist upon you), at the price you set, and make your full profit. I'm working on this right now, for the general not-to-technical consumers, although I still sell RTF files that the more savvy consumers can convert for themselves.

Well, it's obviously first-gen. Whether Sony continues to improve it remains to be seen. There have been other eReaders from different makers which have been first-gen which haven't made it to second-gen status.


Surely the Reader is Sony's second generation book reader, is it not? The Librie being the first?

I'd agree with that assessment, HarryT. I'd also tend to think that while the Reader has some ... room for improvement, shall we say? While it has some room for improvement, it's actually a fair advancement over the Librié, in my opinion, of course.

Was the Librie ever sold in the US? If so, I totally missed that. Oops. Was the librie using eInk technology? If not, then the Sony Reader would, in my opinion, still be first-generation. It doesn't really matter, though because there really wasn't any sort of marketing hype along the lines that computer makers go through when they put a new chip in their next generation of computes.

As for getting authors to sell through Sony Connect, I can agree that if authors/will format or publish their books for the Reader, I really don't care where it's sold. I was of the impression, however, that the publishers want DRM or they're not interested in epublication. That's why I suggested going through Connect.

In the meantime, I've heard back from several of the authors I contacted. One told me that she prefers to remain at least 20 years behind the curve, so there won't be any ebooks from her anytime soon. Another one told me that publishers are now wrapping epublication rights into their contracts, so she was surprised that one of her books was available for sale a Sony Connect because that's entirely between the publisher and Sony. She wasn't even consulted. But she was happy I had purchased it.

Very interesting.

I don't care where the content comes from (as long as it's legal) just as long as it is there for the average reader to stop and consider buying the Sony Reader.

Speaking as an author who contacted Connect, and whose queries were never returned, it might be a good idea for authors to simply make their own reader-compatible files. That way they can sell them directly to the consumer, not through the Connect Store (which also means you can ignore DRM issues that Sony might foist upon you), at the price you set, and make your full profit. I'm working on this right now, for the general not-to-technical consumers, although I still sell RTF files that the more savvy consumers can convert for themselves. I have purchased Steve's books and formatted them to LRF for my own use through BookDesigner. The LRF files are about one-third the size of the RTF files I got from Steve and they also display the cover page that the RTF files do not. The conversion was quick & easy and took around 60 seconds per book.

If you are looking for some good scifi or a great noir novel, check out Steve's work. They are good and the price is unbelievable. I went back for more. :D

Was the Librie ever sold in the US? If so, I totally missed that.Officially it was "Japan Only", but a lot of "Not Japan" folks imported it, like is happening currently with the Reader for "Not U.S." folks.Was the librie using eInk technology? If not, then the Sony Reader would, in my opinion, still be first-generation.Oh, yes, indeedy deed it was -- same panel as the Reader, apparently. :yes:It doesn't really matter, though because there really wasn't any sort of marketing hype along the lines that computer makers go through when they put a new chip in their next generation of computes.Aside from a few magazine spots, and spots in airports, etc., and, of course, the actual brick & mortar retail outlets, there hasn't been much marketing hype on the Reader ... besides the blogosphere, and we've mostly done that to ourselves. :grin:

Thanks, Wood! (I swear, he is not a paid spokesperson!) :D

I do still plan (hope) to be able to put my e-books out in LRF... after all, not everyone wants to have to convert the books they buy. Without my own reader, however, the process is proving... delicate. Stay tuned.

Perhaps RWood or HarryT could help you with the conversion .... :wink:

In fact, RWood and I have discussed the issue! But let's face it, being able to see the result on the reader in front of you is a lot more practical than e-mailing samples back and forth, and relying on subjective descriptions of your results.

Which is not to say that I won't create LRF content until I own a reader of my own... but that it would be a huge help. As I suggested in another thread, I may make it a "business expense" one of these days...

You can get a pretty good idea of how it'll look using the "Full Screen Preview" mode in the Connect software (which you don't need to have a Reader in order to install). When I'm doing my book conversions, I rarely load them onto the "real" Reader; I use Connect to see how they look.

The only real difference between the Connect preview and the "real" Reader is that the "Table of Contents" in Connect (the "pop-out tab" on the right side of the screen) shows a lot more text than the real "Table of Contents" on the Reader does. The actual text pages themselves, though, are an excellent match in Connect and the Reader.

The only problem I, personally run into with the full page preview is that it's hard to get a feel for how big the font is really going to be on the Reader itself. Of course, once you know what size you should set it to for the results you want, that's not a problem you just set and forget.

Otherwise I find the full page preview really nice when I'm generating a book and want a look at the results. I'm glad Sony added it -- it saves a lot of loading to the Reader to check results that I'd otherwise have to do.

You can get a pretty good idea of how it'll look using the "Full Screen Preview" mode in the Connect software (which you don't need to have a Reader in order to install).

True... but I discovered that you do need Windows XP or Vista to install the Connect software. I'm still running Win2K because, well, I've never needed to upgrade it! That's probably a valuable tip for me, as I will clearly need to upgrade my PC if I buy the reader and want to use Connect.

I've had mixed luck with BookDesigner so far, but I may keep working on that for now, at least until I reach the point where I have to upgrade.

Well, you might be interested in this (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10115&highlight=connect+2000) then. :nice:

I do still plan (hope) to be able to put my e-books out in LRF... after all, not everyone wants to have to convert the books they buy. Without my own reader, however, the process is proving... delicate. Stay tuned.

I totally agree with the statement about making your own Reader-friendly books for distro, while it would be nice to have Sony host them through the Connect store, you're essentially cutting out the middle-man and saving profits by not having to share the profits with the likes of $ony. Word-of-mouth helps in garnering new readers, not to mention self-promotion and excerpts, so I wish you the best of luck. I'm sure you'll find a happy medium that suites the best.

Well, you might be interested in this (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10115&highlight=connect+2000) then. :nice:

Mmm... uh... what's an -a switch?

You know, I'm not sure of that myself. I assumed that you added "-a" to the end of the command line when running the installer. :shrug:

By Jove, man... that did it! (Added -a to the Start-Run dialog box after the installer name.)

Now I can see what I get without actually having a reader! Cool beans!

Excellent! Just remember the font is going to look a (whole) lot bigger on the screen than it will on the Reader's display.... :nice:

So I've noticed... fonts are all large and bold. It's kinda scary! But at least this allows me to edit the text as needed to create a decent LRF file.

Stay staying tuned... this is looking pretty good so far!

Excellent! Just remember the font is going to look a (whole) lot bigger on the screen than it will on the Reader's display.... :nice:

Something I recommend, being a "younger person." Many people converting books to LRF have been choosing, IMO, very large fonts for the base setting, because that is what they prefer (and they may be a little far-sighted); something to consider is that fact that the Reader has a text size changing button that can grow the font for them, unfortunately there isn't a text-shrink button for those of us that don't need size 18-pitch fonts. I swear, on the the largest setting I can read some of the books across the room. Not that you may consider this a big deal, but I prefer more time spent on reading a page than flipping to the next page to continue the action or when the PB-version of a book is 350 pages and the Reader version is 1000+ (really demotivates a reader who wants to eventually finish a book and sees that they have 750 pages to go!).

Sorry, just had to get a little input out there. Remember to use your resize button wisely. :inquisiti

Something I recommend, being a "younger person." Many people converting books to LRF have been choosing, IMO, very large fonts for the base setting, because that is what they prefer (and they may be a little far-sighted); something to consider is that fact that the Reader has a text size changing button that can grow the font for them, unfortunately there isn't a text-shrink button for those of us that don't need size 18-pitch fonts. I swear, on the the largest setting I can read some of the books across the room. Not that you may consider this a big deal, but I prefer more time spent on reading a page than flipping to the next page to continue the action or when the PB-version of a book is 350 pages and the Reader version is 1000+ (really demotivates a reader who wants to eventually finish a book and sees that they have 750 pages to go!).

Sorry, just had to get a little input out there. Remember to use your resize button wisely. :inquisiti
Please have a look at the book Little Fuzzy (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10393) that I formatted. I wuld like to know if you think the base font is too large or not. I upped it to 11 point from Book Designer's default of 10 point. if you think it's too large, I can back it down to 10 point and post another copy in the same thread for you to have a look at.