Joe from CA USA

jcbrief · 09-10-2006, 09:39 AM

Hi,

I've been using my PDA mainly for free e-books for about a year. My son gave it to my wife and myself and I've been using it lately.

Now I'm starting to look at books that I could buy, so am looking to get info on them. I heard something about encryption and I don't want to buy books that I may not be able to use if (really when) I get another PDA.

I've also looked a bit on the section of scanning ones own books for making e-books. I've found the PDA nice at night and low light conditions where I would need so much light for the normal books.

Joe.

Pride Of Lions · 09-10-2006, 02:03 PM

Welcome Joe.

I hope that our community can help you get more from your PDA. These little things are kinda amazing sometimes.

Alexander Turcic · 09-10-2006, 05:08 PM

Welcome Joe. I am sure you find the right answers here, especially when it comes to the pros and cons of DRM.

paulkbiba · 09-10-2006, 05:23 PM

If you go over to www.fictionwise.com you will find that they have an excellent tutorial on ebooks and they discuss all the different formats that are available. That should be a big help.

The two most popular formats for commercial ebooks are MobiPocket and eReader. Each format requires its own reader. Many ebooks you can buy have no encryption. As a matter of fact if you look at the vendors you will find that most of the books are not encrypted.

The two most popular encryption formats are MobiPocket and eReader. MobiPocket is tied to your machine and you are allowed to use the book on three different machines. If you change machines after that you have to send them an email to reset your account. It works pretty well, but is a pain if you change machines a lot, like I do.

Therefore I prefer to buy ebooks in the eReader format. The decoding key is the credit card number you used to buy the book. With this scheme you can use as many machines as you want, you just have to enter your credit card number the first time you read the book on a new machine. I find this to be easy and simple and buy most of my ebooks in eReader format whenever I can.

Hope this helps.

jcbrief · 09-11-2006, 03:36 AM

Thank you all for you kind responses.

paulkbiba,

I've been using mobipocket on my pda, and I'm happy w/ that reader. I tried several of them when I first started playing w/ it.

I've been reading free scifi ebooks. The site I've been looking at buy an e-book from is:
http://www.webscription.net/free/

Unlike the link you sent me for fictionwise they didn't have any info re: encryption what I'm learning is also called DRM. I have question on how this encryption effects the end user.

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulkbiba

If you change machines after that you have to send them an email to reset your account. It works pretty well, but is a pain if you change machines a lot, like I do.

I have already had to reset the PDA & clear memory once, and I think I've somehow corrupted it again, so I figure I'll be doing it soon. Does its PID change then. It would seem not, but figured I would ask.

But re: the PID for the computer. I also re-load it maybe several times a year. do you know if the mobipocket changes its PID after a re-load??. The miain thing I'm trying to do is make sure that if I buy e-books, that I don't loose the use of them.

I do almost exclusivly use the PDA for my ebooks. But I've noticed that mobipocket has to be installed to re-load the PDA. So I have some question re: it and its use with encryption.

I will look at eReader again thought.

I have looked at the help info on the fictionwise site. Thanks, that has added some more info.

I do things slowly, and methodicly. So please be paitent with me

.

Thanks for your help,
Joe

NatCh · 09-11-2006, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcbrief

I've been reading free scifi ebooks. The site I've been looking at buy an e-book from is: http://www.webscription.net/free/

Unlike the link you sent me for fictionwise they didn't have any info re: encryption what I'm learning is also called DRM. I have question on how this encryption effects the end user.

Hey, jcbrief, that's Baen Publishing's website -- the reason you can't find any info on DRM there is that they don't use it at all. Their files are completely DRM/Encryption free, so you should be able to read them just fine.

I have a number of Baen's e-books (which I'm quite satisfied with), but I download them as RTF's and run them through a Word macro to mark them up for eReader. I think I remember playing with MobiPocket for a while, but founding I preferred the way eReader worked for me. Purely a matter of preference, of course.

toledotom · 09-11-2006, 04:19 PM

Greetings. I am an attorney, my office is paperless, with all client files maintained in Adobe PDF. I need something to take to court. A tablet pc would be okay, but I am concerned about battery life, and it seems that a simple "read-only" device would work, and would have much better battery life. Needs at least a gig or two of flash memory to hold client files.

The ability to nagivate folders and display PDF documents from them quickly are my minimum "requirements", but these too would be nice:

1. 802.11b and ability to display web pages;
2. Input for a keyboard, either ps2 or usb;
3. Ability to accept gps coordinates and display them to a very "bare bones" map graphic, such as mapopolis;
4. VGA output so that the documents could be put up on an external monitor, for example a display in the courtroom.

8-bit grayscale would be good enough, and I think would be far preferable to color in terms of power conservation.

So, that's what I'm looking for and that's how I came across mobilereader.com. This site is quite interesting and I'm glad I found it.

jcbrief · 09-12-2006, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NatCh

Hey, jcbrief, that's Baen Publishing's website -- the reason you can't find any info on DRM there is that they don't use it at all. Their files are completely DRM/Encryption free, so you should be able to read them just fine.

NatCh,
thanks for that info, I figured I would eventually e-mail them and ask, but just hadn't gotten around to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NatCh

I have a number of Baen's e-books (which I'm quite satisfied with), but I download them as RTF's and run them through a Word macro to mark them up for eReader. I think I remember playing with MobiPocket for a while, but founding I preferred the way eReader worked for me. Purely a matter of preference, of course.

Did you get the added fonts with eReader??. I played with it again yesterday and found even thought it in some ways I liked it, the font I was able to use (free version) was worse then Mobipockets. I have a very tight budget, and can't buy the pro/fonts just to see if its better. so I will do the next best thing, ask people here

.

What do you do w/ Word macro for eReader?, I know w/ mobipocked I can send html, and I;ve changed or copied some html books this way.

OBTW is this the correct place to keep chating here, or is there another section I should continue.

Thanks,
Joe

NatCh · 09-12-2006, 11:02 AM

Here's as good as there, near as I can tell, but you might find more info in the software section of the forum.

I use the free version, with the default fonts, the're fine for me, but I certainly understand that others might see it differently.

I'm just glad the options exist!

The Word Macro basically marks up an RTF or DOC file in PML (peanut/pilot markup language, depending on who you ask), you open a new doc with the template, insert the file you want to process, and run the macro. Then you save it as a text file (I use .pml extensions so I can recognize them later) and run it through an app called Drobbook to make the actual PDB.

Hmm, I hadn't really thought about how much is involved there -- though it isn't as cumbersome as it seems. I know not everyone wants to go to that much trouble. I've also modified my version of the macro to handle chapters (as long as they're labelled "chapter #" that is

), and do a few other things.

09-10-2006, 09:39 AM	#1
jcbrief Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Southern CA Device: Palm m130	Joe from CA USA Hi, I've been using my PDA mainly for free e-books for about a year. My son gave it to my wife and myself and I've been using it lately. Now I'm starting to look at books that I could buy, so am looking to get info on them. I heard something about encryption and I don't want to buy books that I may not be able to use if (really when) I get another PDA. I've also looked a bit on the section of scanning ones own books for making e-books. I've found the PDA nice at night and low light conditions where I would need so much light for the normal books. Joe.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Very impressed with author Joe Haldeman	ficbot	General Discussions	18	07-28-2010 05:01 AM
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman	leebase	Reading Recommendations	14	07-16-2010 08:10 AM
iPad Joe Wilcox: I was wrong about the iPad	kjk	Apple Devices	29	06-20-2010 11:35 AM
Digital Perception (Joe Konrath)	Guns4Hire	News	8	02-18-2010 04:36 AM
Free on Kindle - Killing Joe	koland	Deals and Resources (No Self-Promotion or Affiliate Links)	3	07-26-2009 05:22 PM

09-10-2006, 02:03 PM	#2
Pride Of Lions just kinda geeky Posts: 381 Karma: 30 Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Oakland, California Device: iPhone	Welcome Joe. I hope that our community can help you get more from your PDA. These little things are kinda amazing sometimes.

09-10-2006, 05:08 PM	#3
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	Welcome Joe. I am sure you find the right answers here, especially when it comes to the pros and cons of DRM.

09-10-2006, 05:23 PM	#4
paulkbiba Connoisseur Posts: 84 Karma: 45 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: United States Device: Nokia e61i, iPhone	If you go over to www.fictionwise.com you will find that they have an excellent tutorial on ebooks and they discuss all the different formats that are available. That should be a big help. The two most popular formats for commercial ebooks are MobiPocket and eReader. Each format requires its own reader. Many ebooks you can buy have no encryption. As a matter of fact if you look at the vendors you will find that most of the books are not encrypted. The two most popular encryption formats are MobiPocket and eReader. MobiPocket is tied to your machine and you are allowed to use the book on three different machines. If you change machines after that you have to send them an email to reset your account. It works pretty well, but is a pain if you change machines a lot, like I do. Therefore I prefer to buy ebooks in the eReader format. The decoding key is the credit card number you used to buy the book. With this scheme you can use as many machines as you want, you just have to enter your credit card number the first time you read the book on a new machine. I find this to be easy and simple and buy most of my ebooks in eReader format whenever I can. Hope this helps.

09-11-2006, 04:19 PM	#7
toledotom Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2006	Greetings. I am an attorney, my office is paperless, with all client files maintained in Adobe PDF. I need something to take to court. A tablet pc would be okay, but I am concerned about battery life, and it seems that a simple "read-only" device would work, and would have much better battery life. Needs at least a gig or two of flash memory to hold client files. The ability to nagivate folders and display PDF documents from them quickly are my minimum "requirements", but these too would be nice: 1. 802.11b and ability to display web pages; 2. Input for a keyboard, either ps2 or usb; 3. Ability to accept gps coordinates and display them to a very "bare bones" map graphic, such as mapopolis; 4. VGA output so that the documents could be put up on an external monitor, for example a display in the courtroom. 8-bit grayscale would be good enough, and I think would be far preferable to color in terms of power conservation. So, that's what I'm looking for and that's how I came across mobilereader.com. This site is quite interesting and I'm glad I found it.

09-12-2006, 11:02 AM	#9
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	Here's as good as there, near as I can tell, but you might find more info in the software section of the forum. I use the free version, with the default fonts, the're fine for me, but I certainly understand that others might see it differently. I'm just glad the options exist! The Word Macro basically marks up an RTF or DOC file in PML (peanut/pilot markup language, depending on who you ask), you open a new doc with the template, insert the file you want to process, and run the macro. Then you save it as a text file (I use .pml extensions so I can recognize them later) and run it through an app called Drobbook to make the actual PDB. Hmm, I hadn't really thought about how much is involved there -- though it isn't as cumbersome as it seems. I know not everyone wants to go to that much trouble. I've also modified my version of the macro to handle chapters (as long as they're labelled "chapter #" that is ), and do a few other things.

Advert

Advert