Hi everyone,
since we already know some of the features of the iLiad and soon many of us will be probably getting one soon, I think it might be good to share ideas on tools that might enhace the use of our latest geek toy.

First, offline explorers. Right now the iLiad can't browse the web despite of its network capabilities. It does however open locally stored XHTML files. While the small gap between "having network capability+rendering XHTML" and "browsing the web with some limitations" is filled, we can only see our favorite pages by storing them to disk first. An offline browser does that automatically, so you can use it to store your favorite site (if it's an xhtml site of course). While I don't have the time to make a full comparison, the most popular are compared at this URL (the URL tool goes all crazy with it, sorry about its looks):
http://www.metaproducts.com/mp/chart.asp?action=list&chart_id=1&lng=1&id=17&ex=1&ex=14&ex=17&links=1
Be aware that the chart is on the site from the makers of 'offline explorer' so take it with a grain of salt.
Also, there is an opensource, free offline explorer here (http://www.httrack.com/) which I haven't tested but might do the task just as well.
I have personally used offline explorer, years ago and it worked for me. The tricky part for this kind of program is to handle javascript links (some sites will use javascript to take you from one page to another, as opposed to using actual links, which may fool an offline browser since it basically works by changing the URLs in the links to recreate navigation on your hard disk.
Also, when you use this program you must configure it so that the links are converted to relative paths (ie: /images/someImage.gif), because absolute links (ie: C:\mysite\images\someImage.gif) will not work in the iLiad.

Thanks for the info.

But what about sites that are just plain HTML and images?
Any HTML to XHTML converters? Or is HTML support coming to the iLiad?

Sam Krupa

If you use RSS news syndication, you will probably want to get these news into your iLiad for convenience. I have checked a few ways to do this:

1: RSSOwl is a news aggregator that lets you export the news to three formats: (x)html, PDF and rtf. Two of these already have viewers available on the iLiad. It's the one I recommend the least because the PDF generated is ugly and displays HTML code if the feed is in that format (I tried teleBlog's feed and it doesn't look too great). Then I tested the html exported file which looks great on the browser, but failed to validate as proper XHTML (also a problem with an HTML feed since it's not properly escaped). It might still display on the iLiad, but only Henrycat can test that now. I'll try to upload the file later in case Henry is interested.

2: rss2pdf is a site (located here (http://rss2pdf.com/) ) where you can request for a feed to be converted into PDF. You can easily create bookmarks in your favorite that generate an updated PDF that looks much better than the one you get with RSSOwl (at least with HTML based feeds). You simply create a link that starts with http://rss2pdf.com?url= and ends with the url of the feed you want converted (like http://www.teleread.org/blog/wp-rss2.php for instance). The resulting link would be this (http://rss2pdf.com?url=http://www.teleread.org/blog/wp-rss2.php) . This site also allows to use aggregated feeds in OPML format (which is like a collection of feeds). )

3: Adobe Acrobat: for those owning the tool (this is not the reader which is free, but the PDF editor that you pay to use). They claim to have a tool named 'tracker' which is a news aggregator with incorporated PDF exporting. So, like RSSOwl but not free and probably with good output quality (but that's just my guess).

Sammy: I don't know if there is such tool, but converting html to XHTML isn't easy as far as I know, so automating the process of converting several files might be a difficult task. I think HTMLTidy (a free tool) does clean up most of the code but I have no idea of an automated tool to do that.
Edit: I just tried this online free tool (http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/pdf-o-matic.php) and although not beautiful, it does convert html to PDF. Still far from automating the process though. Might need to investigate a bit further to find something useful.

If you read here you will see that the iLiad natively supports just plain HTML:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=6392

Sam Krupa

Well, a page can be xhtml even if its URL ends with '.html'. To know if a page is xhtml you must see the source (view/page source in the menu). If at the beginning you see a line like this:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> , then the page is xhtml.
(some pages disable the 'view source' option in IE, but firefox will always allow to see the source, try CTRL+U).
There are lots of xhtml pages out there (most blogs, the wikipedia, and any other thing that 'smells like web 2.0' will be xhtml, for example). Mobileread is an xhtml site so it can be viewed with the iLiad, and since HenryCat tried a mobileread page, I think all the references to html you saw actually mean xhtml.

Well, a page can be xhtml even if its URL ends with '.html'. To know if a page is xhtml you must see the source (view/page source in the menu). If at the beginning you see a line like this:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> , then the page is xhtml.
(some pages disable the 'view source' option in IE, but firefox will always allow to see the source, try CTRL+U).
There are lots of xhtml pages out there (most blogs, the wikipedia, and any other thing that 'smells like web 2.0' will be xhtml, for example). Mobileread is an xhtml site so it can be viewed with the iLiad, and since HenryCat tried a mobileread page, I think all the references to html you saw actually mean xhtml.
Hi, LittleTalker.
Actually, some of the pages Henrycat tried in his answer for my question weren't XHTML (and some weren't valid HTML either):

HTML with out DOCTYPE (Not Valid)
http://homepage2.nifty.com/PAF00305/lib/unicode.html
HTML 4.0 Transitional (Valid)
http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode-example.html
HTML 4.01 Transitional (Not Valid)
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/utf8.html
HTML 4.01 Transitional (Not Valid)
http://www.macchiato.com/unicode/Unicode_transcriptions.html

(Pages were checked by the W3C Markup Validation Service (http://validator.w3.org/).)

So maybe this could mean that the iLiad might have a decent HTML browser? :blink:

That's crazy... why then can't the thing browse the web if it has an html viewer and networking capabilities? :rolleyes5

That's crazy... why then can't the thing browse the web if it has an html viewer and networking capabilities? :rolleyes5

I think it could browse the web, but nobody will like the results becouse of "slow " e-ink screen.
Imagine, if you need to scroll the web page - your eyes will "blow up" from screen flashing (((( E-ink refreshes the whole screen even if only one pixel is new on the page... Banners, and so on, what makes screen do full refresh :(

Battery will be empty in an ~1,5 hours of web browsing...

Well, I don't think it's hard to disable animations on a web page, especially if you are making the viewer. My bet is that javascript and embedded objects (applets, flash and the like) will not work so animation would be very limited.
Even so, browsing in bad conditions is better than no browsing at all.
Maybe Henrycat can shed some light on this...

But why do you want to browse with the iLiad? It's like saying you want to browse with MS Word instead of/as well as Internet Explorer! The iLiad is clearly a document reader, not a browser. Sure, it connects to the internet, but for a very specific content-fetching function, why must ALL connections be used for browsing? One day in the future, we'll have the ideal machine that can do it all, probably changing screen size according to function (or shooting the info directly into our brain, who knows), but this is not it, methinks. ;)
From personal experience, all hybrids in ANY field lose specific quality in exchange for doing more than one thing... having hybrids is often convenient, true, but that doesn't mean we should get rid of all specific appliances, eh? I have been waiting for years for something that ONLY read books, getting rid of weight, battery drain, wrong screen, extra buttons... I want an electronic paperback, and it looks like we're finally getting it! :)

All i was told was that "live" browsing was never contemplated, and offline was considered doubtfull and so abandoned.

Continued use of wireless consumes a lot of power, Eink isn't fast enough for any kind of animation, the browser on Iliad would require a lot of work to remove the various elements not to be usead (flash mainly) and to paginate the content correctly on screen.

It wasn't planned but that doesn't mean it won't be added in the future ;)

Elahuget: I want to browse using the iLiad for the same reason I want to read my PDFs on the iLiad: read away from the desk with an easy-to-handle screen (I did consider a tablet PC before learning of the iLiad) and being able to do it for hours with no eyestrain (so the tablet is out...). I read much more content from the internet than I do from books. Actually, I'd say so does the majority of people nowadays (those lucky enaugh to have internet access, of course). I think of the iLiad as an e-Reader, not an e-book-reader. There is so much more to read than books (rss feeds, blogs, comics). So e-readers should be able to cope with all the sources of content we have today. It's not a matter of making it a hybrid (as in: calendar, games, e-mail... I don't care for these features). It's about displaying static content meant to be read. I usually like to browse the wikipedia and read about whatever comes to mind. After a little while, my eyes can't take it anymore. I am hoping to do the same using the iLiad. So what if that drains the battery? I plan to use it at home, connected to my wireless LAN and I don't mind to plug the power outlet while I read. If the wireless connection is there, why not use it?

Henry: let's hope they end up implementing something for the wireless (I can't browse my files, I can't browse the web. Oh wait! I can connect to IDS! I always wanted an exclusive wireless device to connect to an online store!!! great!!!).
As to 'removing' undesired content, it's not so much work IMHO. When you visit a page with lots of flash and you don't have the flash plugin, you can still see the page but with no animation. Thus the iLiad should have no problems with flash since there's no flash at all :wink: (the same goes for any other embedded object such as java applets). If you disable javascript by default, block hover effects (not so hard either) and prevent gif animation, then you need little else to prevent animation in pages. Of course it's not going to have all the features of a regular browser, of course many sites will not be possible to browse at all. But as I said before, limited browsing is better than no browsing at all.
And, about paginating content, isn't that already implemented? I was actually impressed on how well the HTML is displayed, I though it would look very sluggish. That's where my perplexity comes from, since it seems it takes very little to enable web browsing.
I guess it's another case of 'we are aiming at corporate use' again. But corporate users would probably thank browsing as well.

But as I said before, limited browsing is better than no browsing at all.

That may be true for the people that frequent this board, but not necessarily for the general population. If their favourite page fails to load because is uses a Flash-Menu without fallback, java and some weird activex plugin they will mostly not come to the conclusion that the webmaster is at fault. No, it will be “The iLiad sucks! Why cant I view www.dancingjesus.com?”
The moment iRex would advertise “Browse the web on your iLiad” people would simple expect to be able to do everything they do on their PC, including Flashgames or homebanking.

A way for Irex to provide at least a limited browsing-experience would be to provide a limited version of their IDS-Server to end-users. Like an RSS aggregator it could keep package and preformat a number of selected Websites and RRS feeds and transfer these to the iLiad.

Elahuget: I want to browse using the iLiad for the same reason I want to read my PDFs on the iLiad: read away from the desk with an easy-to-handle screen (I did consider a tablet PC before learning of the iLiad) and being able to do it for hours with no eyestrain (so the tablet is out...).
I can understand that, but I think we need something different to do so, not e-ink. Apparently, appropriate technologies for no-eyestrain, fast-refresh is being currently investigated, we won't have to wait much. But asking e-ink to be other than what it is... doesn't make sense. :)

I read much more content from the internet than I do from books. Actually, I'd say so does the majority of people nowadays (those lucky enaugh to have internet access, of course). I think of the iLiad as an e-Reader, not an e-book-reader. There is so much more to read than books (rss feeds, blogs, comics). So e-readers should be able to cope with all the sources of content we have today.

Any page of the internet is meant for reading, basically, apart from streaming media, so you're not leaving much out, eh? I think books, magazines and newspapers have different formats because of different content, and I don't ask for magazines or newspapers to come in paperback format... which is what you seem to be asking for right now. Now, if you're willing to take the trouble yourself in adapting that internet content (taking away frames, margins, side menus, banners...); or, another solution, pay for the internet content provider to adapt it and serve it to us on the IDS platter... it's still not a magazine, but it might do.

It's not a matter of making it a hybrid (as in: calendar, games, e-mail... I don't care for these features). It's about displaying static content meant to be read. I usually like to browse the wikipedia and read about whatever comes to mind. After a little while, my eyes can't take it anymore. I am hoping to do the same using the iLiad. So what if that drains the battery? I plan to use it at home, connected to my wireless LAN and I don't mind to plug the power outlet while I read. If the wireless connection is there, why not use it?

Why not use your PC connection, which is also "there"? ;) I can see the sense in developing a program to download x page (or set of pages that you configure, including RSS) at some set time, and have it all ready to be popped into the USB drive for you when you wake up in the morning, say (or any other time), like I have my virus scanner at 5 am, so that in the morning I just have to check the final result (AND it doesn't use up my memory/processing capacity while I'm using the PC). Make the best of the PC with its functions, and use the iLiad for reading. As soon as it becomes multipurpose, the price shoots up (just see the Sony Reader vs. iLiad for that).

Hello everybody!

The iLiad sounds like it is a great device, but why complain about features that the company hasnt even planned on adding to the device?

The MAIN feature of the device is reading (mainly) ebooks. Ok, thats great for the majority of people. Then they added the MP3 player-- that makes it even better. And they also have added a WiFi card.

But why on earth would people want to browse the web on a black and white scren with a refresh rate of 1 Hz? You all have to remember that eInk is still a very new technology. They are still working hard on improving it.
We are not talking here about the replacememt of LCD screens (well...maybe we are, but its too soon to know), we are talking about the replacement of paper as the medium for content.

In my opinion the WiFi should be used for a more than just connecting to the IDS server, but the main purpose is to push content to the device wirelessly.

A great use of the integrated WiFi would be the ability to download content from a source other than the IDS.
I would lik it very much to set up a server (on my machine or using a hosting service) to put all my ebooks, then connect to it when i need more content to read. Seeing that this device is aimed at business people and geeks, the limitations of the WiFi has a bad impact on most of us reading this forum.

I can also see how RSS could play a major role; each day, the server pulls up the headlines(and maybe the complete stories), and you connect the iLiad to the server just to download the stories; You dont need the iLiad to connect to various websites out there; that creates lots of problems to deal with, such as formatting, flash, javascript, gif, etc...


In my view, the best upgrade/modification they could make to this device is to allow it to connect to a different server, other than the IDS. :)

I think books, magazines and newspapers have different formats because of different content, and I don't ask for magazines or newspapers to come in paperback format...

But apparently iRex sees one of its main markets in delivering Broadsheets in 12x16cm. ;)

I agree that a lot of pages on the web are ill suited for reading on the iLiad. Not really because of size but because of the slow refresh rate of epaper. Reading a threaded Forums or navigating an online shop is not something I would enjoy doing with an iLiad.
But there are also many pages with content and formatting not fundamentally different from an ebook (think Wikipedia, reference Sites in general). Why should users be forced to make a local copy on their PC and then to transfer onto the iLiad using a memory card if it could be downloaded in a few seconds via WiFi.

As soon as it becomes multipurpose, the price shoots up (just see the Sony Reader vs. iLiad for that).

I don’t really see how a small change in the network configuration can shoot up the price. According to this tutorial http://e-paper.i-merge.net/epapermanual.pdf the iLiad connects to your LAN like any other network component. And as the OS used is based on Linux it should be trivial to expose the iLiad via SAMBA or at least SSH.

Why should users be forced to make a local copy on their PC and then to transfer onto the iLiad using a memory card if it could be downloaded in a few seconds via WiFi.
The opposite is also true: why should it work differently to the way you plan to put books on it? ;)

So much for my 'tools for the iLiad' thread.. now it has become a 'internet yes/no' thread (my fault as well).
Anyway, this begins to look like a beatles vs rolling stones discussion. As I expressed, I'd love to at least browse the wikipedia and yes, I think eInk is suitable for that. But if browsing is not implemented, I'll use an offline browser and I'll be almost as happy :D

Ok, so to bring the thread back in line, I think a tool to "easify" offline browsing would be good. :)

Just my 2 cents regarding...

Offline Browsing:
You can use the Microsoft Internet Explorer to save a complete Web page. Selecting the appropriate "save as..." option will result in a website and a directory with all the additional files inside it. Copying file and directory on the Illiad should work.

Browsing PC files:
Apparently the Illiad is using a Linux operating system, isn't it?

I am pretty sure that some geek will compile samba and a terminal application for it. This way we freaks ;-) could be able to browse our shared windows directories.

Irex would not have to support these features, but they could compile all the applications which are necessary to pimp up the Illiad and we freaks would be able to use them while the casual business user wouldn't even know that what about the additional possibilities.

What I would like to have even with a 1fps refresh rate:


full blown internet acess with email and ftp client
calendar, to do list, notes and contact list with Outlook synchronisation
printing over network
very special but with great potential: xThinks handwritten computer algebra system


Just send an Illiad to some of the geeks you can find on the Zaurus User Group (http://www.zaurususergroup.org) and - believe me - they will do everything with it. ;)

Also, there is an opensource, free offline explorer here (http://www.httrack.com/) which I haven't tested but might do the task just as well.
I've tried many website copier tools in the past, and this open-source tool, HTTrack, beats them all. Perhaps some people here would appreciate a small how to?

Another important tool will be ConvertLit (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1973) if you want to turn your (legally purchased :D) Microsoft .LIT e-books into HTML.

If you own a lot of books and e-books, or if you are going to once you've bought the iLiad, you should maintain a database to keep track on what you've already read and what's on your upcoming reading list. A great free Windows tool is eLibPro which can be downloaded from here (http://songstech.com/elibpro.html). It can fetch all relevant information including cover image directly from Amazon.

If you deal with a lot of HTML files, you should probably also get one of these HTMLTidy tools to reduce the markup. I assume that the fewer the markup, the faster the iLiad to parse it.

Thanks, TadW, I already have the HTMLTidy, which is very useful, but the library db will be very good, I think. :)

Hi again. Another interesting tool for using along with the iLiad is openOffice. You can get it for free at www.openoffice.org. It will help in two ways:
1. It has converters/parsers for many Microsoft office file formats, including .doc
2. It has an excellent PDF export tool that you can use to convert any text you can open using openOffice to a text-searchable PDF document. You can format the page size to match the iLiad screen size, then export to PDF, then... enjoy!

Since most of us read MS office documents frequently, openOffice and its quite faithful converters will be very useful.

Yet another potentially useful tool: a free java comics viewer that will convert your cbr/cbz files to PDF. The URL is:
http://jomic.sourceforge.net