I bought a Palm

Team7 · 02-20-2005, 09:19 AM

I broke down and bought a Clie Th55 for my wife. I bought it last week and she still hasnt used it once. She is how should I say technologicaly challenged. She says it too complicated. She is Japanese and since she is comming to America to live with me I figured it would be cheeper to buy a clie that can read books rather than buying books in Japanese from overseas. Do the ones in western countries have cameras built into the backs? I thought that was a cool feature but then all the Pocket PCs also have cameras built into them. I was going to buy her a Toshiba e805 but it was $200 more and I dont think she would appreciate the extra features. Anyway just wanted to tell you about the new arrival.

Bob Russell · 02-20-2005, 09:47 AM

That's a really nice PDA. I'm sure she'll like it.

Is there anything like the Gutenburg project in Japanese with lots of public domain books? How about ebook sellers... are there many?

Team7 · 02-21-2005, 11:01 AM

Well if you know anything about the language you know there are three alphabets. I can speak fine but I cant read kanji very well so it limits my ablity to read therefore I cant search for things well on the net. From what I have found the ebooks are fairly up to date but it seems like you need to download 3 different ereaders for the books. Unlike english ereaders you can stick with your favorite and find all the books you want. The up side is that they have a program that will let you read comics. I dont know if any of the english programs have this. Currently Im trying to figure out how to put music on it. I have this program but it is overly complicated lol.

Bob Russell · 02-21-2005, 03:43 PM

Believe it or not, I do know a very tiny bit about Japanese because I tried to learn it in college. I could say things like the car is blue. Something like Karuma for car, if I remember. I used to play competitive table tennis and was sponsored by Butterfly. They had some magazines from Japan with table tennis strategy in them, and I tried really hard to learn enough to translate. But without much success. The biggest problem was that even after I could distinguish and look up the kanji and kana or whatever they are called, I could never tell where one word or sentence started and the other one ended. Or something like that... it's been a LONG time!

I figured ebooks would work pretty well because that have both those phonetic characters that work kind of like letters, and a smaller subset of the Chinese word symbols. Plus, I figured everything could probably be written in the phonetic language if necessary. Is that what you meant by 3 alphabets?... Phonetic, Chinese words, and something else?

I bet would be very interesting to our (English speaking) Japanese readers, as well as the rest of us, if you told a bit more about ebooks and readers and book sources in Japanese. Maybe you'd consider sharing that with us?

Team7 · 02-22-2005, 08:45 AM

wow thats cool that you studied Japanese. That is very big goal to become a translator, well atleast translate the magazine. I have been living here for two years and I still cant read! As for the alphabets they have the phonetic which is called harigana. It is a very simple and often round looking letters. Then there is Katakana which are basically the same letters as harigana but they are used to write words that are taken from other countries. So if you can read katakana most of the time you can understand the word without any japanese background. For example in japanese call a bed a bedo. It is written in katakana because it is a foreign word but is used by japanese people in everyday life. Then finally kanji which they have thousands of all stolen from the chinese. These are used when writing just about anything. Many words are spelled the same in harigana but have different kanji. Also katakana words dont have kanji. Anyway enough of the japanese lesson lol. I dont much about the Japanese ebooks yet but I am learning more every day. This is the link for the manga. I understand you can read it but there are pictures along the side that you can see what it looks like http://www.sony.jp/CLIE/enjoy/tips/15/index.html here is a really good place to start all your book searches http://dl1.jp.sonystyle.com/peg/Stor...c&req=book_top finally here is the ebook readers http://dl1.jp.sonystyle.com/meng/cp....te=sonystylepc most of those ebook readers if you follow their links have their own book stores. I havent looked at any of them but it seems to be that you need to download all the ebook readers because most books are only published in one reader.

Bob Russell · 02-22-2005, 09:00 AM

Thanks for the info Team7.
Sounds like you are transplanted. From the US?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Team7

wow thats cool that you studied Japanese. ... I understand you can read it but there are pictures ...

You give me too much credit. I gave up after a year. I could only read snippets here and there and only with a dictionary at hand. It was very slow even to do the dictionary lookup, but I was proud of getting to the point when I could do it.

I'm sure your wife will enjoy the TH55, but you'll have to let us know what she thinks!

Alexander Turcic · 02-22-2005, 09:08 AM

Bob, I didn't know you knew any Japanese. That's pretty impressive! I was in Japan once (last spring, on a friend's wedding in Tokyo), and it was one of my best short trips I've ever had. If you don't know anything about Japan, I'd recommend the movie Lost in Translation with Bill Murray, showing us just how different Japanese culture really is.

Team7, are there any Japanese gadget sites that you can recommend?

Bob Russell · 02-22-2005, 09:41 AM

Thanks for the movie tip Alex. It's now in my Blockbuster online movie queue.

Team7 · 02-23-2005, 09:58 AM

thats funny that you recomend that movie alexander. I loved it but all the japanese people really didnt like it. I guess it would be like watch a movie about everyday life in your own country. As for japanese gadget sites I really dont know any I can recomend. I dont really look up that type of stuff on the internet unless Ive seen it in the store and I want to buy it. I could go on and on about the stuff I see in the stores though! Oh and yea bob Im from the US. I used to live in Indiana and Im moving back on april 5th. Cant wait. If I find any good sites Ill let you know and Ill keep you updated on the clie. Also what program do the english palms use to convert mp3 files into sony readable music files?

Bob Russell · 02-23-2005, 10:51 AM

That will be quite a change coming back to the US!
I had a CLie SJ33 that would play mp3s as-is, but I was limited in the bitrate. Newer versions should be able to play pretty much any mp3s because I don't think they have that proprietary sound stuff under the covers.

hlloyd01 · 03-13-2005, 10:56 AM

Many new users just need a little bit of hands on help with getting started. I suggest showing her around on the device, maybe loading a couple of books and showing her how to bring them up quickly. Once an individual know how to use a pda and can see that it adds benefit to their daily lives the tool can become addictive.
Have a most excellent day!

02-20-2005, 09:19 AM	#1
Team7 Zealot Posts: 102 Karma: 257 Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Greencastle IN Device: Toshiba e755,Samsung i730	I bought a Palm I broke down and bought a Clie Th55 for my wife. I bought it last week and she still hasnt used it once. She is how should I say technologicaly challenged. She says it too complicated. She is Japanese and since she is comming to America to live with me I figured it would be cheeper to buy a clie that can read books rather than buying books in Japanese from overseas. Do the ones in western countries have cameras built into the backs? I thought that was a cool feature but then all the Pocket PCs also have cameras built into them. I was going to buy her a Toshiba e805 but it was $200 more and I dont think she would appreciate the extra features. Anyway just wanted to tell you about the new arrival.

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02-20-2005, 09:47 AM	#2
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	That's a really nice PDA. I'm sure she'll like it. Is there anything like the Gutenburg project in Japanese with lots of public domain books? How about ebook sellers... are there many?

02-21-2005, 11:01 AM	#3
Team7 Zealot Posts: 102 Karma: 257 Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Greencastle IN Device: Toshiba e755,Samsung i730	Well if you know anything about the language you know there are three alphabets. I can speak fine but I cant read kanji very well so it limits my ablity to read therefore I cant search for things well on the net. From what I have found the ebooks are fairly up to date but it seems like you need to download 3 different ereaders for the books. Unlike english ereaders you can stick with your favorite and find all the books you want. The up side is that they have a program that will let you read comics. I dont know if any of the english programs have this. Currently Im trying to figure out how to put music on it. I have this program but it is overly complicated lol.

02-21-2005, 03:43 PM	#4
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Believe it or not, I do know a very tiny bit about Japanese because I tried to learn it in college. I could say things like the car is blue. Something like Karuma for car, if I remember. I used to play competitive table tennis and was sponsored by Butterfly. They had some magazines from Japan with table tennis strategy in them, and I tried really hard to learn enough to translate. But without much success. The biggest problem was that even after I could distinguish and look up the kanji and kana or whatever they are called, I could never tell where one word or sentence started and the other one ended. Or something like that... it's been a LONG time! I figured ebooks would work pretty well because that have both those phonetic characters that work kind of like letters, and a smaller subset of the Chinese word symbols. Plus, I figured everything could probably be written in the phonetic language if necessary. Is that what you meant by 3 alphabets?... Phonetic, Chinese words, and something else? I bet would be very interesting to our (English speaking) Japanese readers, as well as the rest of us, if you told a bit more about ebooks and readers and book sources in Japanese. Maybe you'd consider sharing that with us?

02-22-2005, 08:45 AM	#5
Team7 Zealot Posts: 102 Karma: 257 Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Greencastle IN Device: Toshiba e755,Samsung i730	wow thats cool that you studied Japanese. That is very big goal to become a translator, well atleast translate the magazine. I have been living here for two years and I still cant read! As for the alphabets they have the phonetic which is called harigana. It is a very simple and often round looking letters. Then there is Katakana which are basically the same letters as harigana but they are used to write words that are taken from other countries. So if you can read katakana most of the time you can understand the word without any japanese background. For example in japanese call a bed a bedo. It is written in katakana because it is a foreign word but is used by japanese people in everyday life. Then finally kanji which they have thousands of all stolen from the chinese. These are used when writing just about anything. Many words are spelled the same in harigana but have different kanji. Also katakana words dont have kanji. Anyway enough of the japanese lesson lol. I dont much about the Japanese ebooks yet but I am learning more every day. This is the link for the manga. I understand you can read it but there are pictures along the side that you can see what it looks like http://www.sony.jp/CLIE/enjoy/tips/15/index.html here is a really good place to start all your book searches http://dl1.jp.sonystyle.com/peg/Stor...c&req=book_top finally here is the ebook readers http://dl1.jp.sonystyle.com/meng/cp....te=sonystylepc most of those ebook readers if you follow their links have their own book stores. I havent looked at any of them but it seems to be that you need to download all the ebook readers because most books are only published in one reader.

02-22-2005, 09:08 AM	#7
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,175 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	Bob, I didn't know you knew any Japanese. That's pretty impressive! I was in Japan once (last spring, on a friend's wedding in Tokyo), and it was one of my best short trips I've ever had. If you don't know anything about Japan, I'd recommend the movie Lost in Translation with Bill Murray, showing us just how different Japanese culture really is. Team7, are there any Japanese gadget sites that you can recommend?

02-22-2005, 09:41 AM	#8
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Thanks for the movie tip Alex. It's now in my Blockbuster online movie queue.

02-23-2005, 09:58 AM	#9
Team7 Zealot Posts: 102 Karma: 257 Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Greencastle IN Device: Toshiba e755,Samsung i730	thats funny that you recomend that movie alexander. I loved it but all the japanese people really didnt like it. I guess it would be like watch a movie about everyday life in your own country. As for japanese gadget sites I really dont know any I can recomend. I dont really look up that type of stuff on the internet unless Ive seen it in the store and I want to buy it. I could go on and on about the stuff I see in the stores though! Oh and yea bob Im from the US. I used to live in Indiana and Im moving back on april 5th. Cant wait. If I find any good sites Ill let you know and Ill keep you updated on the clie. Also what program do the english palms use to convert mp3 files into sony readable music files?

02-23-2005, 10:51 AM	#10
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	That will be quite a change coming back to the US! I had a CLie SJ33 that would play mp3s as-is, but I was limited in the bitrate. Newer versions should be able to play pretty much any mp3s because I don't think they have that proprietary sound stuff under the covers.

03-13-2005, 10:56 AM	#11
hlloyd01 Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 12 Join Date: Jan 2005 Device: Palm Tungsten C	Many new users just need a little bit of hands on help with getting started. I suggest showing her around on the device, maybe loading a couple of books and showing her how to bring them up quickly. Once an individual know how to use a pda and can see that it adds benefit to their daily lives the tool can become addictive. Have a most excellent day!

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