before buying an Iliad

sputnik · 12-30-2007, 01:25 AM

I’m thinking seriously to buy an Iliad. But before buying it, I want to make sure it does what I need it to do. I am a scholar and I plan to use it for reading, highlighting portions of text and taking notes on the margins, and then reviewing these markups. So here are my questions:

1. Can you put pdf and html files on it directly, i.e., copy-paste or drag-and-drop?

2. Can you put whole folders on it? Is there a way to access a multi-level folder on the Iliad? If I use programs like Offline Explorer to download whole websites, can put them on the Iliad and read them? If so, how well? Do hyperlinks work?

3. I would very much like to be able to use the Iliad to browse the Internet, particularly Wikipedia and other free encyclopedias. How well can the Iliad do that? Some screenshots would help.

I currently use an EBW-1150 but preparing the imp files is cumbersome. Also, the screen is quite small. I would stretch and buy an Iliad if it performs well on the tasks above. Everyone’s opinion would help, but I am eager to find out the opinion of people who use it for study – scholars maybe?.

rlauzon · 12-30-2007, 04:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sputnik

1. Can you put pdf and html files on it directly, i.e., copy-paste or drag-and-drop?

2. Can you put whole folders on it? Is there a way to access a multi-level folder on the Iliad? If I use programs like Offline Explorer to download whole websites, can put them on the Iliad and read them?

Yup. It shows up as a hard drive. So you can use it like that. The iLiad interface supports multi-level directories.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sputnik

If so, how well? Do hyperlinks work?

It uses a mini-browser to display web pages. So it works like any other browser.

Note that for PDFs, I have heard that links within PDFs don't work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sputnik

3. I would very much like to be able to use the Iliad to browse the Internet, particularly Wikipedia and other free encyclopedias. How well can the Iliad do that? Some screenshots would help.

Some people have gotten this to work, but it doesn't work out of the box. eInk is very slow to update, so most web sites will be painful to view.

daudi · 12-30-2007, 05:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlauzon

[...] It uses a mini-browser to display web pages. So it works like any other browser.

Note that for PDFs, I have heard that links within PDFs don't work.

Just for clarification:

i) it is a stripped-down browser so it does not have all features of a full browser, such as firefox, so it might be better to say that it works mostly like other browsers with some limitations.

ii) hyperlinks withing PDFs *do* work, very nicely. Links to external documents (e.g. other PDFs and webpages) do not work.

wallcraft · 12-30-2007, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sputnik

2. Can you put whole folders on it? Is there a way to access a multi-level folder on the Iliad? If I use programs like Offline Explorer to download whole websites, can put them on the Iliad and read them? If so, how well? Do hyperlinks work?

Multi-level folders are not a problem. When connected via USB, one of the iLiad's user-level filesystems (e.g. internal memory or CF card) is exported to your desktop - just like a USB memory stick.

The multi-level folders are accessible on the iLiad, but the primary file interface (the content lister) is showing its age and is sub-standard relative to newer e-book readers. It only shows 6 files per page, as shown in the attached screenshot (if the text looks bad the image has been rescaled by your browser, click on it to get the full sized image).

I don't know how well the iLiad's web browser will handle downloaded websites, but if a web browser can navigate the downloaded site on a desktop it should also work on the iLiad. An alternative is to create a Plucker file on your desktop (e.g. using Sunrise) and then read the plucker file with FBReader. I have never used this for an entire web-site, but it works well for simple page hierarchies. You can test Sunrise and FBReader on a Windows desktop to see if they fit your needs.

So far as I know, you can only highlight and make notes in PDFs.

nekokami · 01-02-2008, 01:42 PM

I switched from the eBw 1150 to the iLiad primarily to be able to read and mark up PDF copies of journal articles for graduate school. This has worked quite well for me. Search the forums on "iLiad" and "scholar" or "graduate" or "research" and you'll find quite a few threads with helpful tool suggestions.

Spatte · 01-09-2008, 01:09 PM

Hi,

Im very curious Neakokami, what you mean with "worked quite well". I have read a lot of your posts and I would say your needs seem very close to mine. So Im also thinking of getting an Iliad and use it in my research work. What are the areas the Iliad is not doing so well as you would have expected?

nekokami · 01-09-2008, 02:12 PM

What the iLiad does well for my research needs:
- Read PDF journal articles, which are most of my class reading assignments these days, as well as the articles I need to read for dissertation prep and other writing. I'm able to read any PDF I've tried, though multiple column PDFs are still a nuisance (but see Community iPDF, below).
- Mark up those articles with my notes
- Take notes in class and at meetings and conferences, or (sometimes) while reading paper references or thinking about research ideas
- One thing I think is strongly in favor of the iLiad is the very active developer community. Some of the applications I have loaded aren't intended to help me with my research (though since I'm researching learning games, I suppose I might be able to make a case for some of them...

)

What I hope it will do soon:
- With the new Community iPDF, add "comments" to pages that can consist of text one can quickly find on the iLiad and/or export to a bibliography database
- Also with the Community iPDF, handle multi-column documents more easily, by changing the scroll pattern. There's a patch now to do this with text PDFs, but I'd like a manual option for scanned PDFs, too.

What I struggle with:
- It can't make notes on non-PDF files. iRex keeps talking about a new super-reader that will handle multiple formats and perhaps that would allow notes on HTML or whatever, but there's no solution for this right now. Some of my journal articles and other references are in HTML, so this is a nuisance.
- Finding text or written notes quickly -- one can't flip through the pages on e ink quickly, because of the speed of the display technology, and there is no search function across multiple files for text (any format). For text-based files, grep -r could probably help. I use FBReader for everything other than PDF files, and it has an internal search. We still need PDF search, though. I'd like to see a thumbnail view of notes or marked up pages that one could scan to find the desired page.
- Converting written notes to text -- I could probably do this on my Mac using my OCR software, which can recognize handwriting, but that's a pain -- I think it should be on the device.
- Access via the USB port from the Mac seems to be iffy, but that might be my CF card. By "iffy," I mean that if I am exporting the CF card on the iLiad, I plug the iLiad into the Mac USB port and I can see most of the content of the CF card, but if I try to make any changes the card gets corrupted and I lose everything.

- Backups are a pain, in part because of the corruption problem above. If I used a PC I might be able to use the companion software to make this simpler. I'm looking into setting up Samba on a linux box or on the Mac to see if I can make this simpler.

The only time I notice the slow start time is between activities (e.g. classes or meetings) if I want to make a quick note.

I do use it for pleasure reading, as well, but I haven't found an adequate light that will let me see the pages well (the display contrast can be a problem here) but won't keep my husband awake. This time of year I don't read outdoors much, but in the summer I really enjoy being able to read in sunlight, whether journal articles or novels.

Overall, if I could get a full linux tablet computer that would last as long on a charge as the iLiad, I'd probably rather have that (at least, if someone finally comes out with HWR for linux!). The e ink screen doesn't matter as much to me (except in the summer). But I couldn't afford a tablet computer right now, and the batteries don't last nearly as long anyway. I guess that's where the e ink does matter to me.

I hope that helps-- feel free to post more specific questions if there's something else you're wondering about.

12-30-2007, 01:25 AM	#1
sputnik Enthusiast Posts: 46 Karma: 133388 Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: London, Ontario Device: EB 1150, iLiad	before buying an Iliad I’m thinking seriously to buy an Iliad. But before buying it, I want to make sure it does what I need it to do. I am a scholar and I plan to use it for reading, highlighting portions of text and taking notes on the margins, and then reviewing these markups. So here are my questions: 1. Can you put pdf and html files on it directly, i.e., copy-paste or drag-and-drop? 2. Can you put whole folders on it? Is there a way to access a multi-level folder on the Iliad? If I use programs like Offline Explorer to download whole websites, can put them on the Iliad and read them? If so, how well? Do hyperlinks work? 3. I would very much like to be able to use the Iliad to browse the Internet, particularly Wikipedia and other free encyclopedias. How well can the Iliad do that? Some screenshots would help. I currently use an EBW-1150 but preparing the imp files is cumbersome. Also, the screen is quite small. I would stretch and buy an Iliad if it performs well on the tasks above. Everyone’s opinion would help, but I am eager to find out the opinion of people who use it for study – scholars maybe?.

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01-02-2008, 01:42 PM	#5
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	I switched from the eBw 1150 to the iLiad primarily to be able to read and mark up PDF copies of journal articles for graduate school. This has worked quite well for me. Search the forums on "iLiad" and "scholar" or "graduate" or "research" and you'll find quite a few threads with helpful tool suggestions.

01-09-2008, 01:09 PM	#6
Spatte Member Posts: 15 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2007 Device: None	Hi, Im very curious Neakokami, what you mean with "worked quite well". I have read a lot of your posts and I would say your needs seem very close to mine. So Im also thinking of getting an Iliad and use it in my research work. What are the areas the Iliad is not doing so well as you would have expected?

01-09-2008, 02:12 PM	#7
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	What the iLiad does well for my research needs: - Read PDF journal articles, which are most of my class reading assignments these days, as well as the articles I need to read for dissertation prep and other writing. I'm able to read any PDF I've tried, though multiple column PDFs are still a nuisance (but see Community iPDF, below). - Mark up those articles with my notes - Take notes in class and at meetings and conferences, or (sometimes) while reading paper references or thinking about research ideas - One thing I think is strongly in favor of the iLiad is the very active developer community. Some of the applications I have loaded aren't intended to help me with my research (though since I'm researching learning games, I suppose I might be able to make a case for some of them... ) What I hope it will do soon: - With the new Community iPDF, add "comments" to pages that can consist of text one can quickly find on the iLiad and/or export to a bibliography database - Also with the Community iPDF, handle multi-column documents more easily, by changing the scroll pattern. There's a patch now to do this with text PDFs, but I'd like a manual option for scanned PDFs, too. What I struggle with: - It can't make notes on non-PDF files. iRex keeps talking about a new super-reader that will handle multiple formats and perhaps that would allow notes on HTML or whatever, but there's no solution for this right now. Some of my journal articles and other references are in HTML, so this is a nuisance. - Finding text or written notes quickly -- one can't flip through the pages on e ink quickly, because of the speed of the display technology, and there is no search function across multiple files for text (any format). For text-based files, grep -r could probably help. I use FBReader for everything other than PDF files, and it has an internal search. We still need PDF search, though. I'd like to see a thumbnail view of notes or marked up pages that one could scan to find the desired page. - Converting written notes to text -- I could probably do this on my Mac using my OCR software, which can recognize handwriting, but that's a pain -- I think it should be on the device. - Access via the USB port from the Mac seems to be iffy, but that might be my CF card. By "iffy," I mean that if I am exporting the CF card on the iLiad, I plug the iLiad into the Mac USB port and I can see most of the content of the CF card, but if I try to make any changes the card gets corrupted and I lose everything. - Backups are a pain, in part because of the corruption problem above. If I used a PC I might be able to use the companion software to make this simpler. I'm looking into setting up Samba on a linux box or on the Mac to see if I can make this simpler. The only time I notice the slow start time is between activities (e.g. classes or meetings) if I want to make a quick note. I do use it for pleasure reading, as well, but I haven't found an adequate light that will let me see the pages well (the display contrast can be a problem here) but won't keep my husband awake. This time of year I don't read outdoors much, but in the summer I really enjoy being able to read in sunlight, whether journal articles or novels. Overall, if I could get a full linux tablet computer that would last as long on a charge as the iLiad, I'd probably rather have that (at least, if someone finally comes out with HWR for linux!). The e ink screen doesn't matter as much to me (except in the summer). But I couldn't afford a tablet computer right now, and the batteries don't last nearly as long anyway. I guess that's where the e ink does matter to me. I hope that helps-- feel free to post more specific questions if there's something else you're wondering about.

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