MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Reading on a Palm

mogui · 05-27-2007, 11:13 PM

Up until recently, until I bought my Sony Reader, my main eReader was an old TRGpro running the Palm OS. It has a 32M Compact Flash card which I mainly use for backup. For reading I used SmartDoc, Plucker and Mobipocket. All of them work well.

Within the last year my TRGpro had developed a problem of intermittent screen blackouts. To ensure my continued ability to read, I asked my daughter in the US to buy a refurbished Palm M125 for me. It was only US$29.00. Along with the M125 I got a 1G SD card.

The TRGpro has a bit of software that makes the distinction between main memory and flash storage rather seamless. I could have books stored on the CF card that were visible to my reader applications.

Suddenly, with my new device, books that are on the SD card are not seen by the applications residing in main memory. Ideally, I would like to carry the eReader software and the books together on the SD card. Does this work? It works with some software and not with others.

The Mobipocket software appears to find all of my ebooks, but does not put their name in the catalog. The catalog shows only a vertical list of book icons. I could use it, in theory, were I willing to open each book to find out what it is before reading, but that is obviously inconvenient. Mobi also annoys me by rendering icons in greyscale. I prefer clear black and white. Too bad. Mobipocket gets the boot.

SmartDoc is a good reader. I used it a lot on my TRGpro. In the M125, running off of the SD card, it will only show those books I have copied to main memory. I have "Filez" on the M125, a piece of file management software that lets me see what is in main memory and on the SD card, and copy from one to the other. I could live with those limitations with SmartDoc. By the way, SmartDoc has now become Quickword, which I have not tried.

I really like Plucker for its desktop app's ability to convert PDFs and HTML pages to Palm-readable format. When I use Plucker to convert and install to my SD card, Plucker, running from the SD card, finds the book on the SD card and catalogs it. When Plucker is run from main memory, it also finds the book on the SD card. Plucker gets a home on my SD card.

I discovered the free reader called Palm Reader. It finds all my books on the SD card as well as those in main memory, though it appears it will only show me 12 books at a time in the library. It politely puts an SD card icon beside the names of the ebooks on my card. It is easy to use and has one feature I really like. It will show the screen in reverse video, so I can use the backlight at night for high readability. On my Palm, this program shows up in the application menu as eReader. This one is a keeper.

05-27-2007, 11:13 PM	#1
mogui eNigma Posts: 503 Karma: 1335 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: The Philippines Device: HTC G1 Android FBReader	Reading on a Palm - keeping books on SD card Up until recently, until I bought my Sony Reader, my main eReader was an old TRGpro running the Palm OS. It has a 32M Compact Flash card which I mainly use for backup. For reading I used SmartDoc, Plucker and Mobipocket. All of them work well. Within the last year my TRGpro had developed a problem of intermittent screen blackouts. To ensure my continued ability to read, I asked my daughter in the US to buy a refurbished Palm M125 for me. It was only US$29.00. Along with the M125 I got a 1G SD card. The TRGpro has a bit of software that makes the distinction between main memory and flash storage rather seamless. I could have books stored on the CF card that were visible to my reader applications. Suddenly, with my new device, books that are on the SD card are not seen by the applications residing in main memory. Ideally, I would like to carry the eReader software and the books together on the SD card. Does this work? It works with some software and not with others. The Mobipocket software appears to find all of my ebooks, but does not put their name in the catalog. The catalog shows only a vertical list of book icons. I could use it, in theory, were I willing to open each book to find out what it is before reading, but that is obviously inconvenient. Mobi also annoys me by rendering icons in greyscale. I prefer clear black and white. Too bad. Mobipocket gets the boot. SmartDoc is a good reader. I used it a lot on my TRGpro. In the M125, running off of the SD card, it will only show those books I have copied to main memory. I have "Filez" on the M125, a piece of file management software that lets me see what is in main memory and on the SD card, and copy from one to the other. I could live with those limitations with SmartDoc. By the way, SmartDoc has now become Quickword, which I have not tried. I really like Plucker for its desktop app's ability to convert PDFs and HTML pages to Palm-readable format. When I use Plucker to convert and install to my SD card, Plucker, running from the SD card, finds the book on the SD card and catalogs it. When Plucker is run from main memory, it also finds the book on the SD card. Plucker gets a home on my SD card. I discovered the free reader called Palm Reader. It finds all my books on the SD card as well as those in main memory, though it appears it will only show me 12 books at a time in the library. It politely puts an SD card icon beside the names of the ebooks on my card. It is easy to use and has one feature I really like. It will show the screen in reverse video, so I can use the backlight at night for high readability. On my Palm, this program shows up in the application menu as eReader. This one is a keeper. Last edited by mogui; 05-27-2007 at 11:16 PM.