Pet E-book peeves

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

Smashwords seems especially bad turning a book into two long chapters broken in the middle of a chapter.

I agree with most of your formatting, but the books I've gotten from Smashwords have been formatted pretty well. I usually use epub but have tried mobi and found them to be pretty poorly formatted. or my reader doesn't handle mobi very well.

[Purple Lady]

what I always missed was the info on the book jackets - when I want to decide what to read next, I always read the book jackets to decide. title, cover and author really isn't enough to go by.

then I discovered that calibre can insert that info as the first page of your ebook! I will have to reconvert my ebooks to get this - since I've only had my ereader since March, I only have forty or so to do so I might as well do the ones I've already read too.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by jlg432

"

Are we talking about digital original source or a digitized copy of a hardcopy? I assume one version would require more work than the other to produce a version that is fluid and can accommodate all the different screen sizes available.

I don't know where that information appears. The book I was thinking about was published early to mid 90's so I assume it is OCRd.

[GeoffC]

OCR'd books are those most likely to contain errors, unless they've been saved as pdfs (for instance).

[Alan OldStudent]

I got the Sony 600 a few weeks ago, and I found figuring out how to use it to be quite a daunting, frustrating, and unpleasant experience. If the initial Sony-600 user experience is representative of ebooks in general, they are not ready for the mass market.

I finally found Calibre, discovered Calibre and the Sony software don't play nice together, figured out how to keep the Sony software from taking over my computer every time I plugged in the ebook, found a source for a wall charger that supposedly does not burn out the battery after finding out what a klunky nuisance the USB charging is, and so on.

If Sony were to make it easier to just use a file utility like Windows Explorer to load books, that would be a blessing.

Sony should have a manual that is progressive and simple, and they should have it in epub format. I had to google for it, and then it was a PDF, which I had to convert to make it usable on the device.

Sheesh!

One should not be forced to install and use the Sony software even to fire up the damn thing.

Sony should include a wall charger as a standard accessory, and the Sony 600 should sell with a fully-charged battery, and the manual should be in EPUB on the device. This ebook is quite unintuitive.

If the Sony marketing folks lurk on this forum, and if they think word-of-mouth is an important tool in any mass marketing scheme, check out the following sentence:

I would not recommend the Sony-600 to anyone who is not a techie sort, willing to noodle out inadequate documentation and spend several hours doing it. That's probably 90% of Sony's potential customers.

It's too bad, because I think the Sony-600 is a good product once one figures out how to use it. I figure I have at least average intelligence and greater-than-average computer savvy, and if it took me 4 or 5 hours to even understand out how to use its most basic functionality, the Sony marketing department are not earning their keep.

I am considering writing a review of this reader for my blog in a month or two, after I have explored its many and undoubted strengths.


Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living -- Socrates
My Web Site

[Juliette]

Originally Posted by Alan OldStudent

I got the Sony 600 a few weeks ago, and I found figuring out how to use it to be quite a daunting, frustrating, and unpleasant experience. If the initial Sony-600 user experience is representative of ebooks in general, they are not ready for the mass market.

I finally found Calibre, discovered Calibre and the Sony software don't play nice together, figured out how to keep the Sony software from taking over my computer every time I plugged in the ebook, found a source for a wall charger that supposedly does not burn out the battery after finding out what a klunky nuisance the USB charging is, and so on.

If Sony were to make it easier to just use a file utility like Windows Explorer to load books, that would be a blessing.

Sony should have a manual that is progressive and simple, and they should have it in epub format. I had to google for it, and then it was a PDF, which I had to convert to make it usable on the device.

Sheesh!

One should not be forced to install and use the Sony software even to fire up the damn thing.

Sony should include a wall charger as a standard accessory, and the Sony 600 should sell with a fully-charged battery, and the manual should be in EPUB on the device. This ebook is quite unintuitive.

If the Sony marketing folks lurk on this forum, and if they think word-of-mouth is an important tool in any mass marketing scheme, check out the following sentence:

I would not recommend the Sony-600 to anyone who is not a techie sort, willing to noodle out inadequate documentation and spend several hours doing it. That's probably 90% of Sony's potential customers.

It's too bad, because I think the Sony-600 is a good product once one figures out how to use it. I figure I have at least average intelligence and greater-than-average computer savvy, and if it took me 4 or 5 hours to even understand out how to use its most basic functionality, the Sony marketing department are not earning their keep.

Hi and welcome on board!

You can use Explorer, just drag and drop your files. Once the reader is registered with ADE, it's perfectly ok to use this system and avoid ADE or EBL (Adobe's and Sony's softwares). Of course to download the books on your computer you still need one or both, depending on the store/stores you're buying from.

I do however agree that the support and how-to material supplied with the PRS-600 isn't the best, although I wouldn't be so drastic- there are people that aren't techies but who find the PRS series not that difficult to operate (example: my father). I hope that they'll change the USB-charging mess in the models coming out soon; that was possibly the most unnerving part of the experience, although a PSP usb cable helped.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Some of these things are hard to research before purchase. Don't think I've seen that in any comparison chart.

Yes, I do realize that some of these small details are hard to find out. But if you are lucky enough to have found MR before purchase, then you can ask all your question and get answers.

[Kumabjorn]

For me it was the other way around. Once I had my device I googled it and that is how I discovered Mobileread. Clearly a superior community.

[GeoffC]

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Alan OldStudent

I got the Sony 600 a few weeks ago, and I found figuring out how to use it to be quite a daunting, frustrating, and unpleasant experience. If the initial Sony-600 user experience is representative of ebooks in general, they are not ready for the mass market.

I finally found Calibre, discovered Calibre and the Sony software don't play nice together, figured out how to keep the Sony software from taking over my computer every time I plugged in the ebook, found a source for a wall charger that supposedly does not burn out the battery after finding out what a klunky nuisance the USB charging is, and so on.

If Sony were to make it easier to just use a file utility like Windows Explorer to load books, that would be a blessing.

Sony should have a manual that is progressive and simple, and they should have it in epub format. I had to google for it, and then it was a PDF, which I had to convert to make it usable on the device.

Sheesh!

One should not be forced to install and use the Sony software even to fire up the damn thing.

Sony should include a wall charger as a standard accessory, and the Sony 600 should sell with a fully-charged battery, and the manual should be in EPUB on the device. This ebook is quite unintuitive.

If the Sony marketing folks lurk on this forum, and if they think word-of-mouth is an important tool in any mass marketing scheme, check out the following sentence:

I would not recommend the Sony-600 to anyone who is not a techie sort, willing to noodle out inadequate documentation and spend several hours doing it. That's probably 90% of Sony's potential customers.

It's too bad, because I think the Sony-600 is a good product once one figures out how to use it. I figure I have at least average intelligence and greater-than-average computer savvy, and if it took me 4 or 5 hours to even understand out how to use its most basic functionality, the Sony marketing department are not earning their keep.

I am considering writing a review of this reader for my blog in a month or two, after I have explored its many and undoubted strengths.


Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living -- Socrates
My Web Site

are you still within your return window? get a Kindle! none of these issues happen with it!

[Alan OldStudent]

Hello all,

Several people have made some interesting comments about my posting and also this forum. Kumabjorn says:

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

For me it was the other way around. Once I had my device I googled it and that is how I discovered Mobileread. Clearly a superior community.

I agree that the MobileRead website is a great resource. I found it after I bought my Sony-600 reader, and it led me to a lot of the essential information the Sony corporation did not include with the product.


GeoffC (btw, I love your avatar) wrote a message with just a cute graphic:

But his signature line has links to some really terrific resources, including the ebook library, the terrific MobileRead wiki, forum member Dreams's helpful links to ebook shops, and the free ebooks page on the wiki with an impressive number of links. What a treasure trove in one small signature line!


KindleKitten asks me:

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

are you still within your return window? get a Kindle! none of these issues happen with it!

I gather you're quite partial to the Kindle. The main reason I did not get it is that I did not like the idea of vendor lock-in. When Amazon remotely deleted a couple of George Orwell books from their customers' after discovering that it did not have the proper distribution rights, it both alarmed me and turned me off.

No doubt this was human error and not corporate wickedness on Amazon's part, and I like Amazon. But this unfortunate incident made me conscious of the need to support more open devices.

To the somewhat clueless first-time buyer (like me) of this new technology, Kindle does not seem to encourage use of other formats, especially EPUB. In 1960s lingo, Kindle puts out heavy Microsoft-style "vibes."

Moreover, being on the USA's senior citizen retirement program (Social Security), I do not have a lot of disposable income. So I opted for what seemed like the more open-format-friendly alternative when a local bookstore offered the Sony-600 for $150 US.


Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living -- Socrates
My Web Site

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jellby

You mean widow and orphan avoidance, I guess.

Well, I'm not so sure of that. The way to the CSS does it is to use...

body {
widows: 0;
orphans: 0
}

So given that 0 is off and any other number is on. Maybe we are both right? I dunno exactly.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by simplyparticular

ETA: And my pet peeve is section breaks. Too many e-Books don't have them, so you can't tell when a scene shifts, a character POV changes, or in nonfiction, the subject changes. Drives me batty to re-read two paragraphs that *appear* consecutive, but just needed to be separated in some way to make clear to the reader that there was a change.

I've not found that an issue really. Just the opposite actually. Too much spacing used for section breaks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I agree with most of your formatting, but the books I've gotten from Smashwords have been formatted pretty well. I usually use epub but have tried mobi and found them to be pretty poorly formatted. or my reader doesn't handle mobi very well.

Getting books from Smashwords is hit or miss. Sometimes they are fine and sometimes a total mess.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

OCR'd books are those most likely to contain errors, unless they've been saved as pdfs (for instance).

Why would an OCRed eBook be any better as PDF then say ePub or Mobipocket? They wouldn't. But what really peeves me that has yet to be mentioned is using PDF as the source format. I've seen plenty of errors from using PDF as a source format.