How long have you had your eink device(s) ?

[RWood]

The biggest change for me has been the reclaiming of bookshelf space (and the removal of pressure to add more bookshelf space.) I have now cleared three full shelves (~36" each) and several boxes from the basement (of old classics, many thanks to Patricia.)

I still have the two volume Sherlock Holmes collection although it has not been touched since Harry published his omnibus (although it does have the original graphics from the stories that Harry may add someday after the Dickens is complete.)

[yvanleterrible]

Ironically, I cleared shelf space too... and I build them for a living. Talk about shooting oneself in the foot!

[vivaldirules]

I've had my Sony Reader for exactly six months and currently have 268 books and documents on it after having read and removed a few dozen others. I've cleared and donated one shelf of pbooks and replaced them with ebooks, thanks almost entirely to you good people! I have an increasingly long list of ebooks from here that I want to read. I've purchased 29 ebooks from Sony in addition to the 50 free "classics" (which are in no way as good as the ones found here). In the same period, I've purchased only a handful of pbooks compared to about one per week before that. I still have many technical documents (mostly PDFs converted with PDFLRF) on my Reader but I have mostly given up trying to do "real work" on it and will wait to do that on a tablet or some other more capable device later (maybe an iLiad?). I take my Reader everywhere (yes, the bathroom, too) and now read more than ever and at least some every day though it may only be the ten minute walks between my car and office at work. I've tried looking for new ways to use it (maps, grocery lists, to do lists, contacts lists, news articles, puzzles, sheet music, etc.) but have found that it works really well for literature and less well for all these others. And, I have found and love this place and the people here, too. I'm a pretty happy camper.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

... I've tried looking for new ways to use it (maps, grocery lists, to do lists, contacts lists, news articles, puzzles, sheet music, etc.)

Intriguing. How do you go about getting legible sheet music. Do you know any way of getting it to reflow? That would be spectacular!

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Intriguing. How do you go about getting legible sheet music. Do you know any way of getting it to reflow? That would be spectacular!

Well, it might be spectacular, but my attempt was to use PDFs from scanned images and then convert with PDFLRF. That was pathetic and I'm surprised I even tried. Play, play, squint, play, squint some more, pause to push button to trun the page, wait for page to turn, squint, play until all hope is lost (about two more seconds). Not sure what the right way to do this might be, but that was not it. I'm just glad no one was listening at the time.

[vivaldirules]

I should say that my attempt with sheet music was almost purely out of curiosity. I go to a fair number of concerts and I'm often surprised that every musician in every orchestra sits dressed in fine attire playing beautiful instruments but each has this preposterous music stand in front of them with large sheets of paper with their music printed on them. They then turn and shuffle these between and during performances. It's seems stunningly archaic. I don't know what the digital alternative might be, but it just seems to me that there ought to be one.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i just got mine in december 2007, on ebay. since then i have read on it several hours every night and quickly become completely addicted to it.

2 days ago i started to read a paper book for the first time since i got my eb1150, which i bought only because i couldn't find an e version. it's an omnibus edition with 3 novels in it, paperback, almost 600 pages. it's driving me crazy : so heavy ! no possible way to hold it with one hand ! even with BOTH hands i feel like i'm fighting with it sometimes. cheap paper, small type size, printing too close to the binding (and because it's so thick, hard to open it flat enough) ! when i turn on my side (in bed), i have to struggle to keep it open, and turn the pages ! the other half blocks the light from the page i'm trying to read ! and no built-in dictionary when i come to a word i don't know !!

i think i can safely say i'm utterly convinced by the ebook experience. if only all books were available in digital format...

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I should say that my attempt with sheet music was almost purely out of curiosity. I go to a fair number of concerts and I'm often surprised that every musician in every orchestra sits dressed in fine attire playing beautiful instruments but each has this preposterous music stand in front of them with large sheets of paper with their music printed on them. They then turn and shuffle these between and during performances. It's seems stunningly archaic. I don't know what the digital alternative might be, but it just seems to me that there ought to be one.

While browsing on internet I accidentally came to the site of a company(Idon't remember which) making a device for music. It was an LCD cross between a Rocketbook and a tablet with sheet music software onboard. It would be practical with a foot operated page clicker I guess (or a toe operated trackball ). Unless you are an organist, because it would interfere with the bass pedal.

[yvanleterrible]

Aaah! I found it again. The MusicPad Pro Plus. It is quite expensive though, $1200.00. It can have a stand and a footpedal.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I should say that my attempt with sheet music was almost purely out of curiosity. I go to a fair number of concerts and I'm often surprised that every musician in every orchestra sits dressed in fine attire playing beautiful instruments but each has this preposterous music stand in front of them with large sheets of paper with their music printed on them. They then turn and shuffle these between and during performances. It's seems stunningly archaic. I don't know what the digital alternative might be, but it just seems to me that there ought to be one.

If you're up for a lot of work I could suggest a method. I use a software package called NoteWorthy Composer. (http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/)

For private, non-commercial purposes, I formatted a bunch of christmas carols for the members of our church. (which involved transposing a couple of them to bring them to a more comfortable range, and then also transposing the whole thing so a trumpet, horn, and sax could play along)

For me, I printed out copies of everything. A few things I ended up printing on legal size paper, so that I could see more music on one page without it falling off the piano. Now, NoteWorthy is a notation system, not a graphic system, so when you change the page size, the notes shown re-flow, but rather than scanning in music you will have to encode it (which ends up taking about as long as re-typing a document of similar page length.)

So, after entering the music, changing the page size to match your screen, and printing the music to PDF format, you could display a perfectly readable score. But I can't help you get the page turn time down.....

Roger

[vivaldirules]

Cool ideas. The 12" LCD slate is interesting. I see they spent a lot on software development (sarcasm dripping). They let you scan your own sheet music to an image file. Then they reflow it ... er, rather, they reshow it. All for only $1200!

[TallMomof2]

I've had the Kindle 2 days after it came out and the Iliad in December. So far I prefer the Kindle because it's a little more portable and I've been able to get setup the way I like.