Yet another newbie

[catsittingstill]

Hi. I've been reading a little bit for about a week, and I've just decided to go ahead and join.

I guess I have about a thousand pounds of books at my house, and I'm really attracted by the idea of books I can store on a chip the size of a postage stamp.

I don't have a dedicated e-reader yet, and am still trying to decide whether to take the plunge or to stay out of the market and watch for Better Things To Come.

Aside from the DRM issue, I am leaning toward the Kindle at the moment. I just wish Amazon had gone the Baen route and made their ebooks widely available and their reader able to read a wide range of formats. Frankly I think they'd expand both their market for the Kindle and the market for their ebooks.

To find out whether I will like the concept in practice (and since Kindle will read unprotected Mobipocket) I downloaded Mobipocket reader for my Palm TX, and got a handful of books out of the Baen Free Library. So far it's just as Baen's diabolical plan predicted--having finished the first two books in the 1632 series I am going to have to buy the next books. The first taste is always free... Damn you, Jim Baen! (shakes fist at the sky)

But the TX does have drawbacks. I find it makes my eyes ache after a while, especially when I'm reading in the dark (but it provides its own light for reading under the covers--I just find myself wishing I could turn the light *down*). Also, its battery tends to run down a lot faster when I'm reading books on it, and not just carrying it around to tug my sleeve and remind me that I promised to meet my friend so-and-so at such-and-such time today and that's only 30 minutes away, so shouldn't I get ready? I have to charge it pretty much every day--and it's annoying to be almost at the end of the book and to have the TX beeping every ten screenfuls or so and whining that it wants to be recharged.

Those little screenfuls of text are a bit like potato chips. I can't read just one.

Anyway--Hi everyone. I look forward to learning more about ebooks and formats and such on this forum.

[NatCh]

Welcome to MobileRead, catsittingstill! Glad you found us.

I don't have a TX, but I do have a Trēo, so I'm suspicious that there is a way to turn the backlight down on your TX -- I had a T3 before, and it could be turned down, but the control was pretty hidden. See if maybe this article will do it for you.

If you're finding the backlighting to be bothersome to your eyes, then you are probably a good candidate for e-ink. When I moved to the Sony Reader last year, I never looked back to my Palm for reading, not even a little bit.

[catsittingstill]

Thanks for the tip! My TX doesn't work quite the same way as the Palm models referenced in the article, but just knowing it might be possible to turn down the backlight (and that the icon was a sunburst) led me to explore the interface and find out how to do it on my model.

Alas, I already had the backlight turned down as far as it would go :-7

But thanks anyway.

Yes, I'm attracted to eInk for the backlight/eyestrain issue. One of the reasons I'm drooling over the Kindle. Plus I've loved the idea of eInk since I first heard about its ancestral prototype some 15 years ago--somehow this was the first I heard it was available in a mass produced device. I guess I just missed hearing about the Sony and Cybook (and iLiad?) readers.

[MickeyC]

Welcome to the Forum

[hidari]

Welcome to Mobile Read Cattsittingstill. I am also relatively new hear. I am waiting for a mini eink reader. Alas, I also use a PDA to read my books: an ACER n311. It is great in the day. But, in the evening and at low light/dark I have the same problem: too bright and hurts my eyes. I spent hours looking for a solution on the net. I found the best and the most simple:

Sunglasses.

Funny: yet I do use sunglasses at night and it cuts down on the glare quite a lot. Oddly enuf, I never owned a pair of sunglasses until I bought my pocket pc... so now I only Wear my Sunglasses at Nite.....

TO Read Ebooks.

Hope that helps....

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

Thanks for the tip! My TX doesn't work quite the same way as the Palm models referenced in the article, but just knowing it might be possible to turn down the backlight (and that the icon was a sunburst) led me to explore the interface and find out how to do it on my model.

Alas, I already had the backlight turned down as far as it would go :-7

But thanks anyway.

Yes, I'm attracted to eInk for the backlight/eyestrain issue. One of the reasons I'm drooling over the Kindle. Plus I've loved the idea of eInk since I first heard about its ancestral prototype some 15 years ago--somehow this was the first I heard it was available in a mass produced device. I guess I just missed hearing about the Sony and Cybook (and iLiad?) readers.

[catsittingstill]

Thanks :-) Glad to be here.

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by hidari

Welcome to Mobile Read Cattsittingstill. I am also relatively new hear. I am waiting for a mini eink reader. Alas, I also use a PDA to read my books: an ACER n311. It is great in the day. But, in the evening and at low light/dark I have the same problem: too bright and hurts my eyes. I spent hours looking for a solution on the net. I found the best and the most simple:

Sunglasses.
(snip)

:-) You're kidding. Okay, not really, I guess it would work. I usually read in bed, though, and sunglasses would be trapped between my head and the pillow, and be uncomfortable.

But I appreciate the thought. Hmm. I wonder if I could lay a sheet of dark translucent plastic over the screen and read that way--like sunglasses on the PDA instead of on my face.

[hidari]

actually. serious. I do use sunglasses to read at nite with my pda. It makes reading much easier on the eyes. You could try this site for example:

http://www.ergoindemand.com/lcd-scre...on-filters.htm

screen protectors for laptops. You could cut one to fit the size of your PDA monitor...

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

:-) You're kidding. Okay, not really, I guess it would work. I usually read in bed, though, and sunglasses would be trapped between my head and the pillow, and be uncomfortable.

But I appreciate the thought. Hmm. I wonder if I could lay a sheet of dark translucent plastic over the screen and read that way--like sunglasses on the PDA instead of on my face.