Quote:
Originally Posted by mrwrite
Manybooks.net
They have a search tool. Typed in "excel."
Best match was, "The Crusade of the Excelsior"
Under computer books such titles as:
The Cyberpunk Fakebook Chapters 1-3, by St. Jude and R.U. Sirius
Man and Superman, A Comedy and a Philosophy, George Bernard Shaw
Not worth browsing.
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ReallY? I have always liked Manybooks.net. Maybe it depends on what you're looking for. If you're just looking for a book on computing, you probably shouldn't visit a site that specializes in public domain fiction, literature, poetry, history, etc. There aren't going to be a lot of computing books on a site that offers mostly public domain ebooks because not many people were using excel spreadsheets in 1923.
So you're left with Creative Commons ebooks on computing, as well as the Shaw ebook that accidentally got categorized as a computing book.
On the other hand, it is a lot of fun to browse categories. Click. Pulp. Oh, look, it's a Robert E. Howard novel! Click. Nautical. Oh, cool, Jules Verne! They have everything from Ghost Stories to Pirate Stories to Philosophy.
The search engines on the free ebook sites are often a problem if you are just looking for something general, probably because there is so much on those sites. Most searches will be looking at the title, author name, and maybe even description. So you're looking for something on hacking, and you wind up finding William Makepeace Thackeray instead. That doesn't mean the site is bad -- maybe you need a site with a better advanced search feature. Or maybe you're looking for a more specialized site that only carries computing books, not tons of classics and pulp fiction and the like?
I think it might be ... stretching it... to complain because you were disappointed by sites "mentioned by a few lazy web-writers." Maybe those writers weren't
lazy --- maybe they simply weren't looking for tech books, which seems to be what you're most interested in. After all, if you look at a site like The Online Books Page and find "a few gems," you might be expecting more out of a free ebook site than you can get.
It's also possible those writers wrote their reviews a couple of years ago, and the sites they were reviewing have since changed hands, or changed the services they offer. For example, scribd (
http://www.scribd.com/) used to be a site for uploading and sharing documents, and for publishers to promote their books, but they recently changed to become a sort of Netflix for books service. However, I can still log in with my old account and search for documents posted by users. I'm pretty sure new members can still create a free account and search for free stuff other users have posted -- brochures, legal documents, legal forms, presentations and reports, etc. However, categories include things like "School Work," so that free book you get might be somebody's Computing 101 project. You do get what you pay for.
Looking for new ebooks on free ebooks site is an uphill battle. The legitimate sites are posting what's in the public domain. If they post newer stuff, then of course they can get in major trouble from the publishers. If you find a site with lots of free, up-to-date computer and tech books, then there's a good chance it's not a legitimate site. Either that or the books aren't very good, and that's why they're free.