[bowerbird]

> Incidentally, you should check out Hadrien's Feedbooks site

oh, i'm _quite_ familiar with hadrien's site. :+)


> it generates PDF files on the fly in just the way you're describing,
> in several preset sizes, plus a customizable one.

well, very much like the way i'm describing. but not exactly.

for instance, you can choose the font that's used, but only from
a list of a dozen or so. they are great fonts, and that is a range,
certainly enough to make you feel like you did _have_ a choice...

but if your favorite font in the world -- georgia?, futura?, verdana?,
optima?, tahoma?, lucida grande?, baskerville?, eurostyle?, caslon?,
bodoni book?, bookman?, bembo?, hoefler?, american typewriter?,
gill sans?, stone sans?, comic sans?, benguiat? -- is not on the list...
well, it's not on the list...

hadrien also lets you control the margins, which is great, and even
the _linespacing_, which i think is one of the most important keys
in customization for each individual's greatest pleasure in reading.

so yeah, i'm already on the record: hadrien makes beautiful books.


> I think he uses LaTex on the backside ....

yep. huh. i wonder to what extent that's why his books look good.
i'll have to see what happens when i try to mimic one of his books,
see if my engine can approach the quality of the famous tex engine.


> I also agree that PDF is one of the best conceived formats extant
> and marvelous for its designed purpose.

hey, let's not get carried away. i'd call it "adequate", not "marvelous". :+)


> That purpose just isn't all that well suited for e-books
> so its performance there is mediocre, requiring the
> specific formatting you refer to in order to really work well.

i guess that's sufficiently qualified. but i'd say a _good_ designer,
who knows what (s)he's doing in regard to .pdf creation, who also
knows the target monitor, can deliver an excellent e-book in .pdf.
for instance, take a look at some of the .pdfs created by seth godin.
the guy knows how to make .pdf work well. his e-books are _great_.
and you know what, i've never even _seen_ a sonyreader or an iliad,
but i am willing to bet you his e-books will render nicely on them...


> But with DE and epub, we have a situation where Adobe's
> acumen/ruthlessness is now getting behind a format that is
> much better suited for e-books, and a number of e-book sellers
> and e-reading devices have expressly announced plans to support it.
> All of which could be very exciting indeed.

it could be. or it could all be a big dud.

i've seen all of this hype and marketing happen before.
and it was all a big dud. so i'm not holding my breath...

because, you know what?, in spite of adobe's tremendous experience
in the world of digital documents, and the head-start they had on this,
and their control of the timing of the development and announcements,
the first release of "digital editions" was a stinker. i mean, this is _adobe_
-- a rich company with a stable of software engineers and programmers --
and they released a stinker. and months later, it's _still_ a stinker. c'mon...


> If we get a situation where a standard e-reading emerges then
> suddenly all e-books and all e-readers can be inter-compatible,
> and we can then focus on getting that standard format refined
> instead of spening a lot of effort trying to get a standard in the first place.

well, gee, maybe it's just me, but that sounds terribly naive.

oh, yeah, i know that _everyone_ is saying that, so maybe that makes you all
feel more comfortable repeating it, over and over, but i think it's _malarky_.

if the publishers and all the various software and hardware entities involved
had _wanted_ a "standard format", they would have invented one long ago...

oh, that's right, they _did_. it was called "oebps", and it was gonna create
the e-book revolution. until one company did its usual "embrace/extend",
and other companies acted in contrast, with all of them trying to establish
their own little stranglehold on the distribution chain. or, in other words,
_business_as_usual_...

and now we have the "new and improved" version of oebps, and
they're just rolling out the same old hype, with a new timeline...

do you think it's gonna be any different this time around?
can you tell me who's gonna give up their piece of the pie?

amazon paid $3.5 million for mobipocket. do you think they will toss it,
in favor of epub? is microsoft simply throwing in the towel on this arena?
and the publishers still want to slap d.r.m. on everything, which means
a "standard format" won't really end up meaning much of anything at all.
they just don't _want_ you to be moving books from machine to machine.
if they _did_, they coulda solved this "problem" years ago. but they don't.

they will hold on to _every_ form of lock-in they believe they might have,
worried that if they let it go, it will prove to have been the important one.

the problem is, nobody sees how to make any money here at this time
-- and yet, they all know that _potentially_, there is a gold-mine here --
so they are jockeying for position. or, in other words, business as usual.

and sure, sometimes that jockeying for position means that they have to
mouth the platitudes about how their company is supportive of standards,
but when push comes to shove, if they think they're not gonna get a chair
on the cakewalk, then they will push and shove all those platitudes aside.
it's called "business as usual"...

i mean, i _hope_ i'm wrong about all this. but history _does_ repeat itself.


> Mayhaps I dream, but it's a pleasant dream.

well, keep sleeping. because as soon as you wake up, boom, it's over... :+)

-bowerbird