One week's use - thoughts and questions

[MarkRPenn]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not aware of any book creation tools for MobiPocket format which run on the Mac, but given the extremely wide range of file formats that the iLiad will handle "out of the box" - and even more if you install FBReader - how much of an issue is that for you? There's certainly no issue with buying Mobi format books using a Mac.

It's not really - as I said, it's more a matter of principal, made worse by some of the claims of uiniversal support on their web site, that winds me up.

You're right, there's no issue at all with buying books, and I wouldn't want to read them on my Mac anyway. I'd be more likely to use my Pocket PC if the Iliad stopped working.

I also can't see any reason why I'd ever want to create an e-book, so that's no issue either.

The one feature of thier PC reader I would like to have on my Mac, is the RSS "Newspaper" thingy they do.

Mark

[MarkRPenn]

Originally Posted by Petitefadette

One other Brit newspaper that has a similar PDF version is the Guardian. They have multiple sections available, each is about 10 pages and they are updated throughout the day. The format is actually easier to read on the Iliad screen, as well. At least it was for me. I didn't even have to zoom for it to be readable.

You can download them here. Still no easy way to download directly to the Iliad, of course. But it is another option.

-Petitefadette

Thanks! I'll take a look.

Mark

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by MarkRPenn

I also can't see any reason why I'd ever want to create an e-book, so that's no issue either.

The main reason I make them is because I like to buy and download my Baen books in RTF format (for archival purposes) and convert them to the format my Reader uses (LRF in my case) to take advantage of the benefits of that format over RTF on my Reader.

'Course, that doesn't mean anyone else has to do the same, or even should — I'm just pointing out one reason you might want to at some point.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MarkRPenn

It's not really - as I said, it's more a matter of principal, made worse by some of the claims of uiniversal support on their web site, that winds me up.

You're right, there's no issue at all with buying books, and I wouldn't want to read them on my Mac anyway. I'd be more likely to use my Pocket PC if the Iliad stopped working.

I also can't see any reason why I'd ever want to create an e-book, so that's no issue either.

The one feature of thier PC reader I would like to have on my Mac, is the RSS "Newspaper" thingy they do.

Mark

One reason to create an e-book is that you download it in a format that's not as nice for reading on your device. So you clean it up and format it so it looks nice and give you a good reading experience. Also, if the book is public domain or released under Creative Commons, then you can use Book Designer and create a PRC, LRF, and IMP for the people her eon the forum as well. Ok, make that two reasons.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by NatCh

The main reason I make them is because I like to buy and download my Baen books in RTF format (for archival purposes) and convert them to the format my Reader uses (LRF in my case) to take advantage of the benefits of that format over RTF on my Reader.

'Course, that doesn't mean anyone else has to do the same, or even should — I'm just pointing out one reason you might want to at some point.

Much less reason to do so with the iLiad, because Baen supply books directly in Mobi format which the iLiad can read with no conversion.

I download all my Baen books in both Mobi format (to read) and RTF (for long-term archival).

[NatCh]

True, that does make matters simpler.

[MarkRPenn]

Originally Posted by Petitefadette

One other Brit newspaper that has a similar PDF version is the Guardian. They have multiple sections available, each is about 10 pages and they are updated throughout the day. The format is actually easier to read on the Iliad screen, as well. At least it was for me. I didn't even have to zoom for it to be readable.

You can download them here. Still no easy way to download directly to the Iliad, of course. But it is another option.

-Petitefadette

Lovely stuff now I've tried it! You're right, it is nicely formatted for the Iliad.

In fact, as I use Mac OS X, I've created an Automator plugin that downloads several sections automatically, and have that run at a fixed time each day using a recuring event in iCal. Doesn't get them onto My Iliad automatically, but at least I don't have to remeber to download the latest issue to my desktop.

OS X is even clever enough to append "-1" etc onto the file name if it finds an existing copy in the same folder when it downloads the latest, so if I forget to transfer one to my Iliad, it's not lost.

Can't do the same for the Telegraph unfortunately, because they change the file name each day , so I can't give Automator a fixed URL.

Mark

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by MarkRPenn

Lovely stuff now I've tried it! You're right, it is nicely formatted for the Iliad.

In fact, as I use Mac OS X, I've created an Automator plugin that downloads several sections automatically, and have that run at a fixed time each day using a recuring event in iCal. Doesn't get them onto My Iliad automatically, but at least I don't have to remeber to download the latest issue to my desktop.

OS X is even clever enough to append "-1" etc onto the file name if it finds an existing copy in the same folder when it downloads the latest, so if I forget to transfer one to my Iliad, it's not lost.

Can't do the same for the Telegraph unfortunately, because they change the file name each day , so I can't give Automator a fixed URL.

Mark

You should be able to modify the manual comic strip downloader to work with online newspapers and PDF's.

If properly scripted, wget should be able to handle a changing file name as well...

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not aware of any book creation tools for MobiPocket format which run on the Mac

Danx reports that mobigen runs under wine in Linux. This should work in OSX too. It is more of a conversion tool than a creation tool, but at least it is a start. A good import source for mobigen is a .lit file exploded by ConvertLIT to get a .opf version, although simple HTML would also work.

[HarryT]

It's a "packager" for HMTL files. That's basically what Mobi books are - an HTML file stored in a PRC "container". Nice to hear that it runs under Wine.