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wgrimm · 07-03-2007, 07:26 PM

Back in the 1980s, my perfect vacation was sitting on the beach under an umbrella, a book in hand and a bikini-clad pretty girl next to me to mix the martinis. In the 1990s, I still had the pretty girl but 2 young daughters also, and vodka bottles were ditched to make room for baby bottles. And the heavy bag of books was replaced by a Rocketbook.

I have tried most of the e-book readers- Palm, Rocket and REB, HieBook, etc. The only complaints I have had are short battery life and the work it takes to convert a publication (readable on PC) for e-book reader use. The Sony Reader is nice, but the same old conversion hassle exists (I bought UNPDF, so hopefully when the Reader-compatible version is released, conversions will be easier). By far, the easiest method of reading e-books for me has been to buy from ereader.com and read on the Palm. Downside is that many technical books are not available there (only the CodeNotes publications).

Copyright law says that once I buy a publication (or music or whatever), I can convert to other formats for my own use- this is why I can legally rip a cd I own to an IPOD format. But book publishers seem to think that I should be forced to buy an electronic version of a paper book I already own- no publisher makes it easy. For example, I bought Singh's OS X Internals a year or so ago- the publisher tells me I have to BUY a PDF version to read on my computer. That's $65 (list 80 or so) for the printed, another $45 for pdf. And the PDF is DRM'ed; what am I going to do- pay the cash or start looking around the torrents or newsgroups for the pdf?

E-Books are great, and convenient, but it is the users and hackers that will bring the book publishers kicking and screaming into the 21st century. IMHO, a very small segment of the population supports publishers (look up the statistics of how many books the average American reads in a year), and they should be catering to us instead of trying to rip us off. I spend several thousand dollars per year on books- much of that on e-books- and don't like being taken advantage of.

07-03-2007, 07:26 PM	#11
wgrimm Addict Posts: 230 Karma: 334908 Join Date: Oct 2006 Device: multiple	Electronics Use Back in the 1980s, my perfect vacation was sitting on the beach under an umbrella, a book in hand and a bikini-clad pretty girl next to me to mix the martinis. In the 1990s, I still had the pretty girl but 2 young daughters also, and vodka bottles were ditched to make room for baby bottles. And the heavy bag of books was replaced by a Rocketbook. I have tried most of the e-book readers- Palm, Rocket and REB, HieBook, etc. The only complaints I have had are short battery life and the work it takes to convert a publication (readable on PC) for e-book reader use. The Sony Reader is nice, but the same old conversion hassle exists (I bought UNPDF, so hopefully when the Reader-compatible version is released, conversions will be easier). By far, the easiest method of reading e-books for me has been to buy from ereader.com and read on the Palm. Downside is that many technical books are not available there (only the CodeNotes publications). Copyright law says that once I buy a publication (or music or whatever), I can convert to other formats for my own use- this is why I can legally rip a cd I own to an IPOD format. But book publishers seem to think that I should be forced to buy an electronic version of a paper book I already own- no publisher makes it easy. For example, I bought Singh's OS X Internals a year or so ago- the publisher tells me I have to BUY a PDF version to read on my computer. That's $65 (list 80 or so) for the printed, another $45 for pdf. And the PDF is DRM'ed; what am I going to do- pay the cash or start looking around the torrents or newsgroups for the pdf? E-Books are great, and convenient, but it is the users and hackers that will bring the book publishers kicking and screaming into the 21st century. IMHO, a very small segment of the population supports publishers (look up the statistics of how many books the average American reads in a year), and they should be catering to us instead of trying to rip us off. I spend several thousand dollars per year on books- much of that on e-books- and don't like being taken advantage of.