[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I have a Sony 505 and have never even looked at the Sony cd. I have a Mac, so it would not work for me, and I don't like buying formats which are tied to a specific device or brand. I have been buying from Fictionwise and reading freebies.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

What he said. I haven't been back since I bought the $50/reader worth of books that came as part of the original deal for buying a PRS-500.

Two reasons:

1. I refuse to purchase any eBook that has DRM that I cannot remove. Further, I try hard not to purchase any eBook that has any DRM whatsoever! I keep books and re-read them, so I expect permanent access when I purchase. And I've already been screwed by one hardware change (from REB-1100 to Sony) where incompatibilities deprived me of my eLibrary. I will not permit this to happen again.
2. As a Mac user, I cannot use the Sony store anyway. Aside: What on earth posessed them to build a store where you have to use their software to give them money? What's wrong with Web standards, anyway???

Anyway, if they fix those issues I might be back. Maybe.

Xenophon

i installed the sony software when i first got my 700 but never got around to registering it. my reasons are basically the same as xeonphon for not using the store with a few small differences.

particularly 1. drm and closed formats : i buy as few drm-ed books as i can, and only a format i can remove the drm from, and my format of choice is epub (go standard formats !!). i may download a free lrf from mobileread if it's not available in any other format but i try to avoid it, and i would never buy an lrf much less an lrx because i don't know what device i'll have in future, and it could easily not be a sony. i lost access to quite a few of my lit books from fictionwise when i reinstalled my system (the new installation of the windows reader has a different id, or something, so i can't download them again and i can't open the ones i had downloaded). luckily, i always remove the drm immediately for archiving so i still have access to those books, which is a good thing since i hadn't even read all of them yet when i had to reinstall. but that just confirmed to me (as if i needed it...) that drm and closed formats are the last thing i'm interested in. buying books is an investment to me, and i want to keep them.

2. substitute "live in france" for "mac user" ; technically, the sony store is not accessible to me. in france sony has partnered with the fnac (large chain of book stores) so that is my "official" sony bookstore and that store can be visited / bought from using any computer with a webbrowser.

i use calibre for everything ; library management, conversion, creating collections, meta-data... it's an excellent solution for me and i have no need for the sony software (which, from what i've seen of it, is not nearly as powerful / useful / multi-purpose as calibre.