My reader won't ship from the Sony store until late November, and I'm impatient to begin experimenting with content. Is it possible to download the desktop app from somewhere? I couldn't find it on the Sony site...

I assume it's ok to use the desktop software without a Reader, and that the built-in viewer is a reasonable emulator of the Reader display...right?

If you have a large monitor (or a small one with lots of pixels), it might. On my monitor, I can't see the whole page at once, so it would be impossible to read in any reasonable way, and there's no zoom that I've found so far.

Some of the folks doing some hacking said that there is a similar page generation mechanism, didn't they? If so, that would bode well for the screen being a close representation to what's on the Reader, and would allow you to prepare content without having a Reader in your hands.

But of course the Reader Connect software is also only available with a Reader, so you might have to wait either way.

I'm puzzled why Sony wouldn't make the software available as a separate download. It's not like you need an iPod to get iTunes. In fact, the app no longer even ships with the hardware--you must download it separately.

Is there any alternative? For example, I read somewhere that Sony released a bunch of the Librie code.

I'm puzzled why Sony wouldn't make the software available as a separate download. It's not like you need an iPod to get iTunes.

One doesn't need iPod to get iTunes :)

You can get one here: http://rapidshare.de/files/36024256/PRS500.ISO.html

I upload it to share with my friends.

Prefect, thanks

New link: http://rapidshare.com/files/11331634/PRS500.rar.html