iLiad using iLiad for research?

Matt · 11-01-2007, 08:10 AM

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but I'd like to get a sense of how people are using their iLiad to do research reading...

I'm just starting to use an iLiad to try and reduce the vast amounts of paper I use as an academic. In my normal practice, I download academic articles in pdf form, and print them out on paper. I then carry this paper with me everywhere, slowly but surely reading the articles, making lots of notes on them and generally marking them up. They then go in a pile on my desk, sorted by whatever I'm working on. When I'm writing articles, I go through these piles, re-reading marked sections and my notes and incorporating them into my work.

What I've started to do is put articles sorted by topic on my iLiad, scribble on them, and then copy the folder containing the pdf, manifest.xml, and the scribble.irx file to my macbookpro. I use the iLiadPdfScribbleMerger java program to merge the scribbled pdf, placing it in a 'work-in-progress' folder on my desktop. I then use these files when writing.

I have the standard problems of screwing with pdf formatting and using zooming to try and get the text readable but that seems to be mostly working (using the print-to-pdf automator action developed by scotty1024.) I'm currently thinking about trying to find a way to automate the above process a little, maybe by making an automator action than runs when the iLiad mounts, automatically running the java merge, and updating the contents of my works-in-progress folders.

I've gone through the forums to try and get a sense how others are using their iLiad for research reading but I was interested in getting a better overview. If you're willing, (and if you use it this way) could you post how you use your iLiad for reading and marking up texts? I'd be really interested in hearing how people go about this, and what software on and off the iLiad that you use.

best,

Matt

daudi · 11-01-2007, 09:21 AM

Hi Matt,

I am also using my iliad as a replacement for reading PDFs on screen or printing them out. Here's some of my general approach followed by some of the issues I have worked through to make it work with the iliad, followed by a typical work flow.

A) General approach

i) Referencing:

I use bibtex as my reference manager and until I got my iliad I used to have one large file with all my entries in.

ii) Storage strategy:

I like to name the PDFs that I download using the same keys as I use in my bib files, e.g. blogs03AD would be first author Blogs, published 2003, second author's name starts with 'A', third author with 'D' (to be reasonably sure the key will be unique). I then have a library (directory) with directories for articles, books, reports, and within the articles directory I file the references in alphabetical order. This makes it easy to find an article 6 months down the line.

Important: When I am actually working on something, however, I like to have the articles I am working with in the directory where I am working, and on linux I use symlinks to the stored articles for this.

B) Making this work on the iliad

i) Since getting the iliad, because it uses container directories, I have decided to create a single bib file for each PDF and keep the bib file in the container directory. I then have a script that uses "find" and "cat" (on my linux pc) to get all the individual bib files and makes one big one that I refer to when creating documents on my PC.

ii) I now have all of my references and books on a USB stick so that I can easily access them on my PC or my iliad. I still have a library directory and file articles by author name. I have directories for "A-E" and so on.

I have a script that I run on my PC that takes a PDF and arguments for the description and then creates a container directory, manifest file, an image of the first page of the PDF and puts whole lot in the container directory. The manifest file has a reference to the image so the first page appears in the content lister.

I have another script that I can run from the command line but now have integrated into the gnome file manager that creates something a bit like a windows shortcut to a PDF container. (This is because I can't use symlinks on a USB stick formatted to play nicely with windows and I haven't tried to format my USB stick for ext2/linux). The script creates a new container directory and a manifest file that points to the orginal PDF. I can then move this to my working directory and leave the original PDF in the library. When I open the PDF using this shortcut it refers not only to the original PDF but also to the scribble.irx so I get my previous scribbles and accumulate more as I work.

I do all my reading and annotating on the iliad and use my PC for writing. Reading multi-column articles on the iliad has become much smoother now that I use the version of ipdf with the column-mode patch.

Here's a typical work flow:

i) I do my searching on my PC and save a PDF to a specific directory using my key filename system.

ii) Use pybliographer to get the bib information and create a bib file or download it directly if it is available and save that with the same basename to the same download directory.

iii) Use my script to create the customised container directory

iv) move the container directory to my USB stick

v) create a shortcut and move that to my working directory on the USB stick

vi) Put the USB stick in the iliad, go to my working directory and read and annotate.

This is working well for me. I always have all of my references with me and most of the work is automated.

daudi · 11-01-2007, 09:52 AM

Here's the script for creating the shortcut. There's one thing that needs to be redefined at the top of the script. This is a variable that says where the USB device is mounted on the host PC. In my case it is:

PCMOUNTDIR="/media/UDISK\ 2.0"

To use this on a machine that uses the gnome desktop, e.g. a standard ubuntu, just unzip this file to the ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ directory. Then once you have edited the above variable, insert the usb key, open the file manager, find a PDF container directory, right click, select scripts and choose "Create shortcut".

I plan to see if I can get this to work on windows with a copy of bash.exe and sed.exe. Eventually.

arivero · 11-01-2007, 10:04 AM

For reading papers, there is some unix utilities under the name pdfcrop or similar, or pnmcrop for graphics etc. It can be useful to do some scripts to crop your pdf automatically. Or perhaps to copy the zoom configuration from a paper to other, using bash scripts in the iLiad itself

jharker · 11-01-2007, 01:45 PM

For reading papers, I rotate to landscape mode and use fullscreen (that's why I wrote it!), then zoom to cut off the side margins. Makes it about 90% of the size of the printed version, and I can read both columns at once.

Of course, wpd's column viewer is really nice and even easier to use.

As for managing files, I just use bibtex, with all my entries in one big file, and I use JabRef to manage them. What's nice is, it can import ISI-exported reference lists. No typing!

For keys I usually use year, followed by the first author's last name, and then a number if that's not unique: 2005Chen, 2005Anderson1, etc.

Then I can put the files in any folder structure under a single directory, and JabRef can find them by name (since the name is the same as the key).

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a good way of taking notes yet. I don't like writing on the files directly, I like to have all my notes in one place. My current approach is to have a notes file in LyX where I take notes on each article as I read it. This has pluses and minuses, but it's the best method I've found so far...

I do my academic writing in LyX. If you haven't tried it yet, you should!

daudi · 11-01-2007, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jharker

[...]
As for managing files, I just use bibtex, with all my entries in one big file, and I use JabRef to manage them. What's nice is, it can import ISI-exported reference lists. No typing!

I get most of mine from medline and pybliographer works nicely with that. I've used jabref a bit in the past and I'll have to look at it again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jharker

For keys I usually use year, followed by the first author's last name, and then a number if that's not unique: 2005Chen, 2005Anderson1, etc.

Then I can put the files in any folder structure under a single directory, and JabRef can find them by name (since the name is the same as the key).

That's how I used to have it on my PC, all in one folder. But now that I've moved my library to my iliad (or rather a USB stick that I read on the iliad) I didn't want to have to go through pages trying to find refs. I therefore decided to have a directory structure that makes it relatively quick to locate a particular reference on the iliad. Oh, ... as I typed that I remembered that the iliad can search in single directories. Doh! Perhaps I can get rid of my directory structure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jharker

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a good way of taking notes yet. I don't like writing on the files directly, I like to have all my notes in one place. My current approach is to have a notes file in LyX where I take notes on each article as I read it. This has pluses and minuses, but it's the best method I've found so far...

I don't feel that I have found an optimal solution either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jharker

I do my academic writing in LyX. If you haven't tried it yet, you should!

I looked at it ages ago, but never really got hooked. I am a latex and emacs guy. With reftex emacs, bibtex and latex work together very nicely. And these days I usually add R into the mix ("Sweave" documents, the ultimate in reproducible analysis). I think it would be too hard to change now.

I wonder if it would be possible to port emacs to the iliad and have gestures for Ctrl and Meta. Then anything would be possible!

nekokami · 11-01-2007, 03:54 PM

I haven't gotten my research process fully worked out yet, but I've been getting some really great ideas reading all your comments.

At this point, I read the documents on the iLiad, and scribble. But I need to collect notes about what I'm reading elsewhere, e.g. a laptop, which kind of defeats the purpose. I want to try the new bookmark/comment feature just developed for ipdf and what I'd like to be able to do is somehow extract those comments straight into something like bibtex. Now that we can export the CF card on the iLiad, I thought I might use that for my primary storage, accessed on my laptop via USB as needed (and backed up regularly). But I think it would be tedious to use the keyboard to enter very long comments, and I'm not yet sure how well the handwriting recognition would work for this. I'd be happy enough if I could get a little "post-it" note to write on that would be exported somehow with the reference, so I could read it when I'm getting ready to write. I'd also like to be able to highlight chunks of text to include in my bibliographic database.

All this is really why I justified buying the iLiad instead of sticking with my eBookwise 1150, so I'm really hoping the current trend in innovations for ipdf and related tools will continue, because I do see us headed in the right direction.

I just wish I could use the same annotation tools on HTML and RTF, as well-- I occasionally get reference documents in those formats.

daudi · 11-01-2007, 04:28 PM

@nekokami

I think we have similar needs in terms of bibliography tools (in fact I've been intrigued by your sig. for a while and was going to ask if you had a spec./wishlist worked out).

IIRC the bookmark feature stores info in the manifest, so if it is stored as a plain text it should not be too hard to have a tool to extract info from the manifest and insert it into a bibtex file (I love plain text files). But as you say writing too much with the keyboard on the iliad will be frustrating. Being able to select a few lines of text and have that saved in the manifest as plain text (with page number maybe) would be very nice. I wish I had more experience with compiled languages so I could try to implement something, but that is not going to happen. Whenever I read about pointers I get a headache and I often have to look 'C' up in the dictionary to make sure I've spelled it correctly.

Edit: I convert my html and rtf/doc files to PDF so I can scribble on them.

nekokami · 11-01-2007, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daudi

@nekokami

I think we have similar needs in terms of bibliography tools (in fact I've been intrigued by your sig. for a while and was going to ask if you had a spec./wishlist worked out).

The sig line doesn't seem to show it, but "bibliography tool" is a link to my specs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daudi

Being able to select a few lines of text and have that saved in the manifest as plain text (with page number maybe) would be very nice.

Exactly!

Quote:

Originally Posted by daudi

Edit: I convert my html and rtf/doc files to PDF so I can scribble on them.

Yeah, I know I could do that, but I really don't want to have to. They're easier to read in HTML/RTF format, for one thing -- those formats reflow!

Matt · 11-02-2007, 06:51 AM

Hi all,

great responses - so interesting to read what you all are doing to fit the iLiad to your research practices. I hadn't even considered automating my bibliographic process - I have used Endnote for years (oh why did I ever stop using bibtex!!) but am now exploring using Zotero because of its support for online grabbing of citations.

In my current practice my keeping of references and my note-taking are separate - I've never used the note fields in any bibliographic software, keeping my comments in separate text files in a special "notes" directory. I think this is because what often starts as a short comment becomes a longer piece of text (that I later use in the actual paper.) Keeping notes in small text fields somehow stopped me from doing that kind of extended commentary - and I do everything in my power to keep myself writing! I wonder is this has something to do with disciplinary difference - I'm mainly a humanities scholar that does qualitative research on new technologies.

So are most people here using patched versions of the community iPDF? I see that many of you have created patches and that jharker is working on an all-in-one version - brilliant! I've finally downloaded shell access and ipdf_powersave_bookmarks_for_2.11.zip (the only binary I've found so far for 2.11- I don't have a linux distribution to do patching,) and will eagerly await the full all-in-one version.

Last year, some colleagues and I wrote a grant for the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) aimed at funding a research project on the scholastic use of ebooks like the iLiad. (I thought it was such a good idea, what with iRex being right there!) We had a bunch of scholars onboard - researchers in typology, librarians, folks in special collections - but couldn't get the science foundation people or iRex interested in supporting the research. One claim we made was that current ebook designs fostered passive reading practices - reading for entertainment - rather than active reading for research (e.g. note-taking, highlighting, etc.) This seemed (and still seems) like a mistake to me - academics and researchers being probably the best fit for ebook early adoption! (Just like the book itself in its print configuration.) I find it so interesting that ebook companies like sony and iRex still haven't taken researchers on board as a market, but also that the researchers themselves (you all) have taken the ball into your own hands with projects like the aforementioned patches and the all-in-one iPdf.

Finally, (and sorry for the long post) has anyone looked at using the iLiad as part of note-taking and annotation software like Pliny (http://pliny.cch.kcl.ac.uk/), AtlasTI (http://www.atlasti.com/), or NVIVo (http://www.qsrinternational.com/)?

daudi · 11-02-2007, 08:40 AM

Hi Matt,

I agree that researchers are a potentially large market for the iliad. I got mine mainly because reading PDFs on an LCD was killing my eyes, and largely thought of it as an alternative screen. I am now using it much more than I ever thought I would for work, and am also now reading much more for pleasure (books formatted by feedbooks look wonderful!).

Just a quick reply about the versions of ipdf. In the long week or so we have before the first combined version will be released you could try this set of installers. It includes 3 versions: the standard iRex; fullscreen; and column mode versions.

EDIT: I have just added the bookmark version (that I think also includes the fullscreen patch).

EDIT: Unzip this on your iliad or usb stick or CF disk, go to it on your iliad and then you can choose between versions. You won't get any message telling you which one is currently installed I'm afraid. There's probably no point me making that happen with the new combined version so near.

nekokami · 11-02-2007, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt

Last year, some colleagues and I wrote a grant for the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) aimed at funding a research project on the scholastic use of ebooks like the iLiad. (I thought it was such a good idea, what with iRex being right there!) We had a bunch of scholars onboard - researchers in typology, librarians, folks in special collections - but couldn't get the science foundation people or iRex interested in supporting the research. One claim we made was that current ebook designs fostered passive reading practices - reading for entertainment - rather than active reading for research (e.g. note-taking, highlighting, etc.) This seemed (and still seems) like a mistake to me - academics and researchers being probably the best fit for ebook early adoption! (Just like the book itself in its print configuration.) I find it so interesting that ebook companies like sony and iRex still haven't taken researchers on board as a market, but also that the researchers themselves (you all) have taken the ball into your own hands with projects like the aforementioned patches and the all-in-one iPdf.

You might want to try re-submitting your grant application, citing the posts in this thread and the various threads that describe the patches people are making to ipdf to support active reading and research.

You may also want to look at DotReader, which could be a killer app on the iLiad, as the iLiad supports wireless connectivity as well as pen input. Currently DotReader requires Mozilla, which is too heavy-weight to be practical on the iLiad, but perhaps a grant could fund porting it to a minimo or dillo platform. DotReader could do amazing things for collaborative research and review groups, in my opinion.

Matt · 11-02-2007, 01:31 PM

Daudi - thanks for the installers. They all work great - I'm currently running in the bookmark with fullscreen version which has added a huge amount of functionality for me.

Nekokami - well, I'm no longer in Holland or working directly with the folks with whom I wrote the grant, but your suggestion is a good one. Definitely the work of people on this forum demonstrates a strong interest in active reading. I'll take a look at dotreader as well. I may be starting a project that relies on the OLPC devices. Supposedly they are fairly proficient ebook readers - might be nice to have some cross-device action going on. You've also reminded me to stay watching dotreader - I haven't been paying attention to it since it hasn't had the ability to read pdfs. However, I read somewhere they they are planning to implement that functionality. If so, that would be a great solution.

Looking forward to the all-in-one release of iPDF!

zeigerpuppy · 11-29-2007, 04:33 AM

Thanks for the great thread everyone,
I am also a researcher (medical/neuroscience/philosophy... hell I don't know what to call it anymore!) and am so undecided about whether to get a tabletPC running Ubuntu (Fujitsu T2010) or an Iliad.

The main advantage I see of e-ink is the eye-strain factor but I have a habit of using Lyx/web browser/bibtex referencing software/wiki all at the same time... something I don't expect will be easy with the current Iliad software... although I do have Lyx and Xournal and firefox running on my Zaurus (I guess ports to the iliad should be possible).

I have been a close follower of the development going on in linux for the Zaurus platform (this little device is fantastic!) but useless for reading PDFs... screen too small. Anyway, I also am coordinating some development of online referencing and collaborative editing software so this is an area very close to my heart.

What have been your experiences using e-ink vs modern LCD displays as far as long sessions of reading papers?

tribble · 11-29-2007, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeigerpuppy

What have been your experiences using e-ink vs modern LCD displays as far as long sessions of reading papers?

E-Ink rocks. Much better than LCD for longer reading sessions. And on the iLiad i can read papers very nicely. I tend to read with fullscreen mode and sometimes i use the comlumn mode reader. Though often the order of textboxes gets mixed up. You can read for ours with alot less eyestrain. Well, at least i can. I just would like the E-ink to be faster, so that you can easily flip through pages like you can with paper. But i hope we will have that in a couple of years.

11-01-2007, 08:10 AM	#1
Matt Member Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Umea, Sweden Device: iLiad	using iLiad for research? Hi all, Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but I'd like to get a sense of how people are using their iLiad to do research reading... I'm just starting to use an iLiad to try and reduce the vast amounts of paper I use as an academic. In my normal practice, I download academic articles in pdf form, and print them out on paper. I then carry this paper with me everywhere, slowly but surely reading the articles, making lots of notes on them and generally marking them up. They then go in a pile on my desk, sorted by whatever I'm working on. When I'm writing articles, I go through these piles, re-reading marked sections and my notes and incorporating them into my work. What I've started to do is put articles sorted by topic on my iLiad, scribble on them, and then copy the folder containing the pdf, manifest.xml, and the scribble.irx file to my macbookpro. I use the iLiadPdfScribbleMerger java program to merge the scribbled pdf, placing it in a 'work-in-progress' folder on my desktop. I then use these files when writing. I have the standard problems of screwing with pdf formatting and using zooming to try and get the text readable but that seems to be mostly working (using the print-to-pdf automator action developed by scotty1024.) I'm currently thinking about trying to find a way to automate the above process a little, maybe by making an automator action than runs when the iLiad mounts, automatically running the java merge, and updating the contents of my works-in-progress folders. I've gone through the forums to try and get a sense how others are using their iLiad for research reading but I was interested in getting a better overview. If you're willing, (and if you use it this way) could you post how you use your iLiad for reading and marking up texts? I'd be really interested in hearing how people go about this, and what software on and off the iLiad that you use. best, Matt

11-02-2007, 08:40 AM	#11
daudi Addict Posts: 281 Karma: 904 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Kent, UK Device: iRex iLiad, Psion 5MX, nokia n800	Hi Matt, I agree that researchers are a potentially large market for the iliad. I got mine mainly because reading PDFs on an LCD was killing my eyes, and largely thought of it as an alternative screen. I am now using it much more than I ever thought I would for work, and am also now reading much more for pleasure (books formatted by feedbooks look wonderful!). Just a quick reply about the versions of ipdf. In the long week or so we have before the first combined version will be released you could try this set of installers. It includes 3 versions: the standard iRex; fullscreen; and column mode versions. EDIT: I have just added the bookmark version (that I think also includes the fullscreen patch). EDIT: Unzip this on your iliad or usb stick or CF disk, go to it on your iliad and then you can choose between versions. You won't get any message telling you which one is currently installed I'm afraid. There's probably no point me making that happen with the new combined version so near. Last edited by daudi; 11-02-2007 at 09:03 AM.

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11-01-2007, 09:21 AM	#2
daudi Addict Posts: 281 Karma: 904 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Kent, UK Device: iRex iLiad, Psion 5MX, nokia n800	Hi Matt, I am also using my iliad as a replacement for reading PDFs on screen or printing them out. Here's some of my general approach followed by some of the issues I have worked through to make it work with the iliad, followed by a typical work flow. A) General approach i) Referencing: I use bibtex as my reference manager and until I got my iliad I used to have one large file with all my entries in. ii) Storage strategy: I like to name the PDFs that I download using the same keys as I use in my bib files, e.g. blogs03AD would be first author Blogs, published 2003, second author's name starts with 'A', third author with 'D' (to be reasonably sure the key will be unique). I then have a library (directory) with directories for articles, books, reports, and within the articles directory I file the references in alphabetical order. This makes it easy to find an article 6 months down the line. Important: When I am actually working on something, however, I like to have the articles I am working with in the directory where I am working, and on linux I use symlinks to the stored articles for this. B) Making this work on the iliad i) Since getting the iliad, because it uses container directories, I have decided to create a single bib file for each PDF and keep the bib file in the container directory. I then have a script that uses "find" and "cat" (on my linux pc) to get all the individual bib files and makes one big one that I refer to when creating documents on my PC. ii) I now have all of my references and books on a USB stick so that I can easily access them on my PC or my iliad. I still have a library directory and file articles by author name. I have directories for "A-E" and so on. I have a script that I run on my PC that takes a PDF and arguments for the description and then creates a container directory, manifest file, an image of the first page of the PDF and puts whole lot in the container directory. The manifest file has a reference to the image so the first page appears in the content lister. I have another script that I can run from the command line but now have integrated into the gnome file manager that creates something a bit like a windows shortcut to a PDF container. (This is because I can't use symlinks on a USB stick formatted to play nicely with windows and I haven't tried to format my USB stick for ext2/linux). The script creates a new container directory and a manifest file that points to the orginal PDF. I can then move this to my working directory and leave the original PDF in the library. When I open the PDF using this shortcut it refers not only to the original PDF but also to the scribble.irx so I get my previous scribbles and accumulate more as I work. I do all my reading and annotating on the iliad and use my PC for writing. Reading multi-column articles on the iliad has become much smoother now that I use the version of ipdf with the column-mode patch. Here's a typical work flow: i) I do my searching on my PC and save a PDF to a specific directory using my key filename system. ii) Use pybliographer to get the bib information and create a bib file or download it directly if it is available and save that with the same basename to the same download directory. iii) Use my script to create the customised container directory iv) move the container directory to my USB stick v) create a shortcut and move that to my working directory on the USB stick vi) Put the USB stick in the iliad, go to my working directory and read and annotate. This is working well for me. I always have all of my references with me and most of the work is automated.

11-01-2007, 10:04 AM	#4
arivero Guru Posts: 607 Karma: 2157 Join Date: Oct 2005 Device: NCR3125, Nokia 770,...	For reading papers, there is some unix utilities under the name pdfcrop or similar, or pnmcrop for graphics etc. It can be useful to do some scripts to crop your pdf automatically. Or perhaps to copy the zoom configuration from a paper to other, using bash scripts in the iLiad itself

11-01-2007, 01:45 PM	#5
jharker Developer Posts: 345 Karma: 3473 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Device: iRex iLiad v1, Blackberry Tour, Kindle DX, iPad.	For reading papers, I rotate to landscape mode and use fullscreen (that's why I wrote it!), then zoom to cut off the side margins. Makes it about 90% of the size of the printed version, and I can read both columns at once. Of course, wpd's column viewer is really nice and even easier to use. As for managing files, I just use bibtex, with all my entries in one big file, and I use JabRef to manage them. What's nice is, it can import ISI-exported reference lists. No typing! For keys I usually use year, followed by the first author's last name, and then a number if that's not unique: 2005Chen, 2005Anderson1, etc. Then I can put the files in any folder structure under a single directory, and JabRef can find them by name (since the name is the same as the key). Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a good way of taking notes yet. I don't like writing on the files directly, I like to have all my notes in one place. My current approach is to have a notes file in LyX where I take notes on each article as I read it. This has pluses and minuses, but it's the best method I've found so far... I do my academic writing in LyX. If you haven't tried it yet, you should!

11-01-2007, 03:54 PM	#7
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	I haven't gotten my research process fully worked out yet, but I've been getting some really great ideas reading all your comments. At this point, I read the documents on the iLiad, and scribble. But I need to collect notes about what I'm reading elsewhere, e.g. a laptop, which kind of defeats the purpose. I want to try the new bookmark/comment feature just developed for ipdf and what I'd like to be able to do is somehow extract those comments straight into something like bibtex. Now that we can export the CF card on the iLiad, I thought I might use that for my primary storage, accessed on my laptop via USB as needed (and backed up regularly). But I think it would be tedious to use the keyboard to enter very long comments, and I'm not yet sure how well the handwriting recognition would work for this. I'd be happy enough if I could get a little "post-it" note to write on that would be exported somehow with the reference, so I could read it when I'm getting ready to write. I'd also like to be able to highlight chunks of text to include in my bibliographic database. All this is really why I justified buying the iLiad instead of sticking with my eBookwise 1150, so I'm really hoping the current trend in innovations for ipdf and related tools will continue, because I do see us headed in the right direction. I just wish I could use the same annotation tools on HTML and RTF, as well-- I occasionally get reference documents in those formats.

11-01-2007, 04:28 PM	#8
daudi Addict Posts: 281 Karma: 904 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Kent, UK Device: iRex iLiad, Psion 5MX, nokia n800	@nekokami I think we have similar needs in terms of bibliography tools (in fact I've been intrigued by your sig. for a while and was going to ask if you had a spec./wishlist worked out). IIRC the bookmark feature stores info in the manifest, so if it is stored as a plain text it should not be too hard to have a tool to extract info from the manifest and insert it into a bibtex file (I love plain text files). But as you say writing too much with the keyboard on the iliad will be frustrating. Being able to select a few lines of text and have that saved in the manifest as plain text (with page number maybe) would be very nice. I wish I had more experience with compiled languages so I could try to implement something, but that is not going to happen. Whenever I read about pointers I get a headache and I often have to look 'C' up in the dictionary to make sure I've spelled it correctly. Edit: I convert my html and rtf/doc files to PDF so I can scribble on them.

11-02-2007, 06:51 AM	#10
Matt Member Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Umea, Sweden Device: iLiad	Hi all, great responses - so interesting to read what you all are doing to fit the iLiad to your research practices. I hadn't even considered automating my bibliographic process - I have used Endnote for years (oh why did I ever stop using bibtex!!) but am now exploring using Zotero because of its support for online grabbing of citations. In my current practice my keeping of references and my note-taking are separate - I've never used the note fields in any bibliographic software, keeping my comments in separate text files in a special "notes" directory. I think this is because what often starts as a short comment becomes a longer piece of text (that I later use in the actual paper.) Keeping notes in small text fields somehow stopped me from doing that kind of extended commentary - and I do everything in my power to keep myself writing! I wonder is this has something to do with disciplinary difference - I'm mainly a humanities scholar that does qualitative research on new technologies. So are most people here using patched versions of the community iPDF? I see that many of you have created patches and that jharker is working on an all-in-one version - brilliant! I've finally downloaded shell access and ipdf_powersave_bookmarks_for_2.11.zip (the only binary I've found so far for 2.11- I don't have a linux distribution to do patching,) and will eagerly await the full all-in-one version. Last year, some colleagues and I wrote a grant for the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) aimed at funding a research project on the scholastic use of ebooks like the iLiad. (I thought it was such a good idea, what with iRex being right there!) We had a bunch of scholars onboard - researchers in typology, librarians, folks in special collections - but couldn't get the science foundation people or iRex interested in supporting the research. One claim we made was that current ebook designs fostered passive reading practices - reading for entertainment - rather than active reading for research (e.g. note-taking, highlighting, etc.) This seemed (and still seems) like a mistake to me - academics and researchers being probably the best fit for ebook early adoption! (Just like the book itself in its print configuration.) I find it so interesting that ebook companies like sony and iRex still haven't taken researchers on board as a market, but also that the researchers themselves (you all) have taken the ball into your own hands with projects like the aforementioned patches and the all-in-one iPdf. Finally, (and sorry for the long post) has anyone looked at using the iLiad as part of note-taking and annotation software like Pliny (http://pliny.cch.kcl.ac.uk/), AtlasTI (http://www.atlasti.com/), or NVIVo (http://www.qsrinternational.com/)?

11-02-2007, 01:31 PM	#13
Matt Member Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Umea, Sweden Device: iLiad	Daudi - thanks for the installers. They all work great - I'm currently running in the bookmark with fullscreen version which has added a huge amount of functionality for me. Nekokami - well, I'm no longer in Holland or working directly with the folks with whom I wrote the grant, but your suggestion is a good one. Definitely the work of people on this forum demonstrates a strong interest in active reading. I'll take a look at dotreader as well. I may be starting a project that relies on the OLPC devices. Supposedly they are fairly proficient ebook readers - might be nice to have some cross-device action going on. You've also reminded me to stay watching dotreader - I haven't been paying attention to it since it hasn't had the ability to read pdfs. However, I read somewhere they they are planning to implement that functionality. If so, that would be a great solution. Looking forward to the all-in-one release of iPDF!

11-29-2007, 04:33 AM	#14
zeigerpuppy Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Australia Device: zaurus SL-3100, maybe Iliad soon, still looking	Thanks for the great thread everyone, I am also a researcher (medical/neuroscience/philosophy... hell I don't know what to call it anymore!) and am so undecided about whether to get a tabletPC running Ubuntu (Fujitsu T2010) or an Iliad. The main advantage I see of e-ink is the eye-strain factor but I have a habit of using Lyx/web browser/bibtex referencing software/wiki all at the same time... something I don't expect will be easy with the current Iliad software... although I do have Lyx and Xournal and firefox running on my Zaurus (I guess ports to the iliad should be possible). I have been a close follower of the development going on in linux for the Zaurus platform (this little device is fantastic!) but useless for reading PDFs... screen too small. Anyway, I also am coordinating some development of online referencing and collaborative editing software so this is an area very close to my heart. What have been your experiences using e-ink vs modern LCD displays as far as long sessions of reading papers?