Cybook Gen 3 Heeelllpppp! Please

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's a pity there isn't an eBook version of the "Shorter Oxford". That's what I'd really like to have.

Or the complete OED. Now that would be great... Should be doable in principle, as it fits on a CD-ROM. Whether there'd be a real market for it, though...

I just got the Chambers from Fictionwise. Turns out there is a 77% Micropay rebate on it at the moment, so if anyone is a regular Fictionwise customer and looking for a good dictionary, now is the time to grab it.

The Chambers and the Concise Oxford together only *just* fit on the internal flash of my 64MB Cybook (less than 1.5 MB free) :-)

[HarryT]

Yes, the Chambers is definitely one for the SD card if you have a 64MB Gen3, I think. A good reason to upgrade to the 512MB model, perhaps? .

[Ortep]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, the Chambers is definitely one for the SD card if you have a 64MB Gen3, I think. A good reason to upgrade to the 512MB model, perhaps? .

That is very easy to do. Break your screen, pay 120+15 Euro and you have the new one

My old SD card is used in my camera now

BTW the Collins is only $19.99 now

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/...p?BookID=65018

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, the Chambers is definitely one for the SD card if you have a 64MB Gen3, I think. A good reason to upgrade to the 512MB model, perhaps? .

When that full OED in MobiPocket format comes out . For now a simple 1 GB SD card I had lying about serves me fine (dictionaries on internal flash, books on SD card)

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Ortep

The problem is that there are only 16 million Dutch people and about 6 million in Belgium that speak Dutch. So even if we have 5 times as much people writing as in English speaking countries we still have not many writers. And off course not everybody likes every writer. There are simply more English books than Dutch ones. And English is relatively easy to learn for somebody from The Netherlands, English and Dutch are related languages (Unlike Spanish ) There is a lot of translated work, but not everyting of course. And worse: Only part 1 an 2 of a 5 piece work are translated.

I read English books all the time, but like Harry, I'll often have to guess the meaning of words. Not beeing a native English speaker that will happen to me even more often. When reading a p-book I won't bother grabbing a dictionary an page through it to find a word. Unless of course, it is absolutely vital for the understanding of the book. But on my cybook it really makes reading more enjoyable.

The first book I bought for my Cybook was a dictionary. And there is small other 'problem' Not many Dutch books make it into an e-book. I only found *five* that I wanted to read, and those were translations of English books. And much more expensive than the originals

And there is another thing in our country. We have a 'fixed' (high) book price. That is done to protect starting writers an poets. The bestsellers subsidise the 'slow sellers'. We have writers that sell only 300 books. But that does not mean they are bad writers. It is simply because the market is to small. They would never survive if they would have to do it on there own. A publisher can afford to take risks or lose money on those writers.

That is why I started reading English when I was a student. Much cheaper

That explains a lot, it does. Setting aside the "fixed", subsidizing book prices - which are an abomination - I can see why you choose to read English-language books. I *was* wondering if part of the reason for non-English-as-their-primary-language readers were choosing English-language titles because of depth and breadth of selection.

You know, I kind of wish that there were as many (proportionately, by country population) Dutch, German, etc. titles being released because I believe each culture has so many stories to share. But we sure do churn out the literature over here.

Derek

[HarryT]

One of the main reasons (IMHO) to learn other languages is to be able to read literature in its original language. Reading a translation just isn't the same.

[Ortep]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Setting aside the "fixed", subsidizing book prices - which are an abomination

There is a lot of discussion going on about this one. It went all the way up to the European court. It is not allowed tot 'fix' prices in Europe.

It is easy for a mediocre English writer to sell ten thousand books. Simply because of the size of the market. But even a top writer in a small language can't live from writing alone because he only will sell a couple of thousand copies. And no one will try to publish him. Then we would end up with no Dutch literature anymore and only translations of Ludlum and Harry Potter in the bookstores. So the European court ruled that subsidizing is allowed in this specific case.

[TantricWarrior]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

I just got the Chambers from Fictionwise. Turns out there is a 77% Micropay rebate on it at the moment, so if anyone is a regular Fictionwise customer and looking for a good dictionary, now is the time to grab it.

Hmmm... wish I had seen this earlier, just bought Concise OED from FictionWise for $29.99 ($6 MPR) specifically for a book I'm reading (Accelerando by Stross - which came free with my new CyBook) only to find that there is no lookup function in pdf - and "index not supported" to enter the word directly ARRRGGH Hmmm... no bookmark function in pdf too... I see why pdf is so maligned by CyBook readers...

Originally Posted by Mindy

Well, I would estimate that I have an above average vocabulary and, like Harry, can usually make a reasonable guess as to meaning given context, so wasn't going to bother buying a dictionary since I don't normally read with one beside me.
<<snip>> - why go through life making rough guesses when I can have the actual answer with relative ease? Why limit my vocabulary to what I already know, not using new words because I don't REALLY understand them?

Totally agree, this book is full of made-up "techno-babble" constructs as well as words I've never heard of -- I *do* have an excellent vocabulary but it would have been nice to be able to look a word up to see if it truly is a word or a construct. *sigh* I guess I'll have to go back to having my laptop next to me as I read. Also, now I can see why having Google and Wiki available within a reader (Kindle) is so enticing.

Also, since I'm here: after upgrading to 708 I've experienced several page-loss bugs; opening to previous pages (read to #a, power off/on, read to #b, power off/on open to #a); power-out-lockup with 20% battery left; and have corrupted SD card - folders converted to binary files and all files converted to "FILE###.CHK", reformatted the card a few days ago and have had no further problems, good thing I keep a backup "ebook" folder on my Mac.

Speaking of... upon receiving the CyBook, I tried to sync MobiPocket Reader running in VirtualPC (Win2K) on my Mac (10.4) but, of course, VPC-W2K wouldn't "see" the Cybook or Card through the USB port , so ran Windows Update (41 updates - guess it's been a while ) to see if that would fix it... while simultaneously moving books directly to card in Mac OS...only to have the Mac barf on one of the books ("cross-linked file?") and lock up in the gray screen of death ("You must now power down your Mac, bad boy"). Of course, since W2K was in the middle of updating, it will now not boot up in *any* mode, safe or otherwise, so now I basically have 16GB of useless virtual disk - DOH'
Fixed problem by using husband's work laptop (Dell-WinXP)- whizz-bang - worked like a charm!

[Argel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I recommend the Chambers 10th Edition Unabridged; it's not the cheapest dictionary around, but it's excellent - much more comprehensive than the Concise Oxford.

Thanks for the heads-up. Less than $10 for Chambers on Fictionwise after rebate - cannot be resisted. Was not resisted.

Now when I can't understand the words in the definitions in the Concise Oxford I can look them up in Chambers. Neat, eh?

[JSWolf]

Accelerando is available in a proper Mobipocket format right here on MR at ...

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13664

It will work fine with the dictionary lookup on your Gen3.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

I just got the Chambers from Fictionwise. Turns out there is a 77% Micropay rebate on it at the moment, so if anyone is a regular Fictionwise customer and looking for a good dictionary, now is the time to grab it.

That is too good a deal to miss. Not got. Thanks!

Paul