MobileRead's Tenth Birthday Giveaway!

[gdimike]

Happy 10th Anniversary! I'm not much of a chatterbox, either on or off the Internet, so you won't find too many posts from me, but I highly value this site and would greatly miss it if it were gone.

I visit often, and I seem to spend a lot of time on https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=26 and https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=226. I also follow the posts in Week's Hot Topics of the main page with great interest. I have looked in the Ebook Readers forums for my specific (Nook, Kobo) devices a couple of times when I was having difficulties and found solutions. Sometimes I just like to wander around and see whats here... this site is huge! I don't have any specific suggestions for improvement; everything seems great to me.

[brdwygurl]

It is incredible that mobileread has been around so long. I visit the forum almost daily and have discovered so much wonderful information. I really like the News and General forums, because there have been some really rich discussions cutting across devices. I was going to suggest tapatalk, but since that's done, I don't have any other suggestions, this place rocks!!

[jpuntd]

Happy birthday Mobileread! Congratulations!

My favorite corner of the mobile reading universer has to be the PocketBook Developer's Corner. As an owner of a PB902 Pro, I simply find it amazing to look at all the incredible stuff dedicated people are able to get out of their pocketbook devices.

[JeffZ]

Happy 10th Anniversary,

Ive only been a member a few months but its become a regular stop each morning. My favorite forum is Deals & Freebies, primarily for the Baen threads. Close behind though is Reading Recommendations. Ive discovered several new authors (Hugh Howey would be at the top of the list) via this forum. No improvement suggestions - you're all doing a superb job!

Jeff

[terriluvsbooks]

Happy Anniversary!

My favorite section is the Deals and Freebies. I especially like it now that there are dedicated threads for romance and mystery books.

No suggestions.

[pepijndevos]

My favourite section is the Kindle dev corner. I have been posting and reading in that section almost exclusively. There are a ton of experts there with deep knowledge about the Kindle hardware and software. I myself am experimenting with an external USB keyboard for my K4.

The search and wiki feature might be improved, as it is hard to find less common details about a particular piece of hardware/software.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Merry haunted yuletide birthday apertif, Mobile Read! Here's a cake for you made of eggnog sorbet, topped with carmelized pumpkin marzipan and stippled with tiny bottles of Germain-Robin Coast Road Reserve.

I've only just seen this contest because the lights were out before. Ever since the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, we've been submerged in the blackout here in the Lower East Side of New York, but we finally emerged last night.

CONTEST COMMENT

My favorite Forum is surely E-Book Software, with particular emphasis on the Sigil and Calibre Sub-Forums:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=165

We all love mouthing off in the News forum, the Deals forum is tremendous for impulse buys and coupons, and the E-Book Readers forum is ideal for tricks, customization and comparisons. But when the palaver and sprees end, I absolutely need the Software Forums for content creation and e-book repair. I just can't bear to let brutal errors stand.

One thing I'd like to see: an organizational distinction between software forums for content creation and the ones for e-book library organization, with the content creation software closer to or part of the e-book format forums. Content creation and specific formats are interrelated, as you know, and people with broad questions might benefit if the two were more closely linked. (Wouldn't it be nice to be able to merge forums on the content display side, as the user can in a search?)

(I also think it's time for either a Tablet Forum or tablet sub-forums in the E-Readers Forums: Google Nexus, Samsung and Asus, respectively.)

BONUS NON-CONTEST COMMENT

My favorite part of the entire site is the Patricia Clark Memorial E-Book Upload Library, particularly the epub section: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebooks.php?forumid=130

That's the part of Mobile Read which I brag to everyone about, explaining that the books they buy on Amazon are often bested by the creations offered here by so many of our obsessive formatters and unpaid editors. The MR library is as altruistic an undertaking as any charity organization. It's the virtual Red Cross of literacy.

A few things I might do:

• Offer more literary fiction, poetry, scholarly and philosophical work in the English language section. In this, the German library is far more balanced. I often wish the entire thing were available on MR in English translation.
• Offer subpages of two letters within one, much as the volumes of an encyclopedia does: SA to SE, etc. This might make navigating one's way through the Kerouac scrolls for individual letters less daunting.

Thanks for thinking of us, Alexander!

[wandalynn]

Congratulations on reaching the 10 year milepost. Here's wishing you many, many more.

My absolute favorite forum is Deals, Freebies, and Resources. It's the only thing that's kept my ereader TBR pile high since the big 5 price fixing scheme.

How could things possibly be better? Hmmm, maybe convince ebook vendors to offer MR member discounts?

[tstarky]

Happy Anniversary MobileReads!

I came across this forum when I first decided to buy a Kindle 2 years ago. I would have to say my favorite (though less used now) forum is the Kindle Fire. I really learned a lot of tips and tricks there and learned more about the android system. I can't really think of anything that would make it better. It suits me just fine.

[Tarana]

Thanks for having the contest. My favorite forum is the Calibre Forum. Every time I have a question, bang, the answer has already been provided on the forum. The only improvement I can think of at this time is a search function.

[Shack70]

Wow! Happy 10th Birthday MR! My favorite section is the Kindle section. Before I got my Kindle 3G 2 years ago I started researching e-readers and ended up here. The community was so nice and answered all my questions. Finally after I Got my Kindle I came back and found so many helpful people that were willing to share all kinds of interesting and helpful tips and tricks for my new toy. I continue to come back every week to read about the world of e-readers and to connect with people who are interested in the same things I am.

Thank you for creating this wonderful community!

[Jim the Obscure]

I just joined MobileRead today so my comments are preliminary - for sure! My favourite forum section is going to be Sigil, which I'm just starting to learn how to use, so other people's questions are valuable to me - I'm sure to run into their issues soon enough - and it helps immensely to be able to pose a question to knowledgeable users.

I'm also going to be in the market for an e-reader (currently using Calibre on a 10" Acer-one netbook which is not ideal) and will be looking for something that doesn't have a back door or is proprietary - I'm already a big fan of the ePub format - and most of the books that I'm interested in reading are older classics that are out of copyright anyway; nonetheless, I feel that if I buy a book (e or otherwise) it's mine! So the e-reader forums will be valuable as well.

I have a collection of about 700 (analogue) books in my library, mostly Victorian/Edwardian - and out of copyright - and would like to see them become available, properly edited and formatted (few & far between online) to make people aware of the literature of times past and the digital format is ideal for that purpose.

As I say, I'm new here so I don't have much in the way of criticism but if I could make a suggestion . . . somebody has to deal with the state of older literature that is available for download online at sites like archive.org & Project Gutenberg; e-Pubs and text files are filled with scanning errors that make reading them precarious at times. I appreciate what Google has done in making the initial scans but that is only half the job. Some deep-pocketed corporation/s should step up to see that these old masterpieces are properly edited and formatted on open platforms for the benefit of future generations. Perhaps the MobileRead community could push things along in that direction.

[wyndslash]

Congrats to MR for 10 years of wonderful service and conversations

I've only joined last year, but everyone has been so friendly and accommodating, I immediately feel very welcome.

While I hang out and enjoy many parts of the forum like the Lounge and get cool deals over at deals section, I must admit that my very favorite is the General discussions, where members create thought-provoking and sometimes just downright funny threads. It's a great way to know how others think and how they defend their own viewpoints

That's the way I like to think of it, anyway. In some parts of the universe ten years is only ten minutes in other parts. I haven't used the forum very intensively because I had a Kindle but I'm now branching out and trying other things, and Mobileread is a valuable resource. I think the advice on Sigil and Calibre have been quite useful, and I've used both pretty extensively since finding out about them on Mobileread. My primary interest at the moment is the Ectaco Jetbook Section because I've just ordered a Color. I've wanted a larger reader for some time in order to read academic PDFs, so am excited by the purchase. However, the reviews and advice in the section look like they can help me get the most out of a device that probably has better hardware than software. (I'm a little amazed that Russian tech isn't still using vacuum tubes.)

Anyway, thanks for being here to help.

[sonofthe]

Well, I've only just joined, but I've been using the site for about a couple of years now.

My favorite part is the ebooks! So many loving conversions which are far better than those found elsewhere. My one suggestion for improvement is having a way to collapse by author when browsing. Going through the master list can be a bit tedious as it stands.