05:43 PM by zelda_pinwheel in E-Book General | News

Just two days after the alpha release of epub-editor Sigil, developped by our very own Valloric after much discussion with MobileRead members and book-makers, we are happy and proud to announce that Sigil is setting up house in its very own forum right here on MobileRead !

You can find it here, and the door is always open, so please feel free to stop by, look around, and sit in the comfy chair for some sweet epub-editing goodness.

This is the place to ask questions, talk about best practices, exchange useful tips, talk about possible bugs, and discuss what features and enhancements are important to you, to make Sigil the best epub editing software ever ! So what are you waiting for ? We think it's off to a great start already.

10:39 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Lo and behold, we've already three meetups planned for this month: two in Canada, one in Scotland. If you're anywhere nearby you should definitely swing by to at least one of them!

• August 8th, 2009 (Saturday this coming weekend!) in Montréal, Canada during the 67th World Science Fiction Convention - Link
• August 15th, 2009 (Saturday) in Toronto, Canada - Link and Link
• August 22th, 2009 (Saturday) in Edinburgh, Scotland during the Edinburgh Book Festival - Link and Link

02:53 PM by Valloric in E-Book Software | Sigil

OK, here we go...

As some of you may already know, I have been working on an ePub editor for quite some time now. And after about six months of development time, I come to you with the current, initial version of Sigil. It’s still rough around the edges (to say the least), so consider it an alpha build at best (version 0.1.0). It can crash, it can bug out on you. It has nowhere near the features I want it to have, but it will get there. I consider this to be a multi-year project for me, so this is just the start.

Now what does it have to offer…

• Free and open source software under GPLv3
• Multi-platform: runs on Windows, Linux and Mac
• Full Unicode support: everything you see in Sigil is in UTF-16
• Full EPUB spec support
• WYSIWYG editing
• Multiple Views: Book View, Code View and Split View
• Metadata editor with full support for all possible metadata entries (more than 200) with full descriptions for each
• Table Of Contents editor
• Multi-level TOC support
• Book View fully supports the display any XHTML document possible under the OPS spec
• SVG support
• Basic XPGT support
• Advanced automatic conversion of all imported documents to Unicode
• Currently imports TXT, HTML and EPUB files; more will be added with time
• Currently exports EPUB and SGF (Sigil native format); more will be added with time
• Embedded HTML Tidy; all imported documents are thoroughly cleaned; changing views cleans the document so no matter how much you screw up your code, it will fix it (usually )
• An actually usable user interface
• Native C++ application
• Bugs
• And a lot more...

It can be downloaded here: http://code.google.com/p/sigil/. There is currently no documentation, so don’t waste your time looking for some (it will be added with time, don’t worry).

Installation instructions can be found here.

Report any bugs on the issue tracker on Sigil’s website (search the threads and the tracker first, please; also, read this wiki page). Be sure to include any and all relevant information. The more info you give me, the better and sooner will I be able to help you. Feel free to give any suggestions on how Sigil can be improved. My TODO list of features and improvements fills up a book (literally), but I’m certainly more than willing to hear what other people think.

This is open source software, and it will hopefully be open source development. I want the community to say what should be changed, updated, improved and in what way. MobileRead is by far the most awesome community I’ve ever been a part of and I know we’ll be able to come up with some great ideas.

Request for documentation writers can be found here.

For those who want more up-to-date information on Sigil's development, you can always see the live ChangeLog here. That file is linked directly from the repository, and it is updated as bugs are fixed and features are added. You can also subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds here.

Also feel free to check out Sigil's development blog.

11:56 AM by pilotbob in E-Book General | News

Well, from rumor to availability. Sony's newest eBook reading devices are now available for pre-order at J&R.

The Sony PRS-300 is priced at $199:

http://www.jr.com/sony/pe/SON_PRS300RC/

The Sony PRS-600 is priced at $299:

http://www.jr.com/sony/pe/SON_PRS600SC/

Some interesting items found in the information for these devices.

For the PRS-300:

• USB 2.0 Data and power connection
• Intuitive eBook Library software for PC and Mac
• 512MB of onboard Memory lets you carry up to 350 of your favorite books at a time.

For the PRS-600

• Touchscreen navigation
• Freehand highlighting and annotation
• Built-in Oxford American English eDictionary
• Intuitive eBook Library software for PC & Mac
• 512MB of onboard Memory

Available accessories for both units include a car charger for $29 and a cover w/light for $54.

Interestingly there is no mention of any memory card slot on either device. Of course, that doesn't mean neither has them.

The file formats on both appear to be the same as the current PRS505/700 including BBeB (lrf/lrx), ePub and PDF with and without Adobe DRM, rtf and txt files. Still no html support.

Finally there is no mention of expected ship dates. Just a "notify me when available" button.

Get your orders in now.

Thanks to member komugi for this find. There's plenty of discussion on these devices found here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52303

UPDATE 8/2 18:00 EDT.... apparently J&R has pulled these pre-order pages down. I assume this means they jumped the gun however it does show that Sony is very close to announcing these rumored devices.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Just in case you've missed anything, here is the list of our frontpage news this week.

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• New Sony model to be called PRS-300 and PRS-600

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• August 2009 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Welcome Verencat to the team!

11:09 AM by igorsk in E-Book General | News

A poster on Sony Insider forum discovered two service manuals for models named PRS-300 and PRS-600.

Both manuals mention "US, Canadian, UK, French, German, Netherlands Model"

Approximate specs:

PRS-300: 5" screen, no touch screen, no audio output, no card slots, ~440MB user partition, 220g.
PRS-600: 6" screen, touch screen, audio output, SD/MS slots, ~380MB user partition, 286g.

Manuals mention silver, red and black colors for both models.
No built-in lighting or wireless connection seems to be present in either one.

via the-ebook.org.

11:58 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Ladies and gentlemen, it's with great pleasure that I welcome Verencat as the newest member to our team! She will be officially in charge of our newly launched Facebook Fan page, which, I may add, has already grown quite respectfully.

Please, if you like to share your thoughts or comments on the fan page (like, what you would like see more, what you would change, etc.), don't hesitate to contact Venercat directly.

Venercat, we are all truly happy to have you on board!

08:32 PM by pilotbob in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

For for the Aug 2009 eBook for the Mobile Read Book Club. The poll will be open for 7 days. We will start the discussion thread for this book on August 26th. Select from the following books.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
"The book tells the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up more than a century later. He finds himself on the same spot (Boston, Massachusetts) but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000 and, while he was sleeping, the U.S.A. has been transformed into a socialist utopia."

The Road Home by Rose Tremain
"In the wake of factory closings and his beloved wife's death, Lev is on his way from Eastern Europe to London, seeking work to support his mother and his little daughter. After a spell of homelessness, he finds a job in the kitchen of a posh restaurant, and a room in the house of an appealing Irishman who has also lost his family. Never mind that Lev must sleep in a bunk bed surrounded by plastic toys--he has found a friend and shelter. However constricted his life in England remains he compensates by daydreaming of home, by having an affair with a younger restaurant worker (and dodging the attentions of other women), and by trading gossip and ambitions via cell phone with his hilarious old friend Rudi who, dreaming of the wealthy West, lives largely for his battered Chevrolet. Homesickness dogs Lev, not only for nostalgic reasons, but because he doesn't belong, body or soul, to his new country-but can he really go home again?"

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
Jules is a young man barely a century old. He’s lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World. Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now in the care of a network of volunteer “ad-hocs” who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches. Now, though, it seems the “ad-hocs” are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself. Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It’s only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now it’s war: war for the soul of the Magic Kingdom, a war of ever-shifting reputations, technical wizardry, and entirely unpredictable outcomes.

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft.
From user hudson on Feedbooks: "One of the best longer Lovecraft novels, a story of a doomed antarctic exploration party that uncovers the eldritch nightmares buried and sleeping under the snow." I've been reading a lot of Lovecraft recently, but haven't read this one yet.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith's widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to "help people with problems in their lives." Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency received two Booker Judges' Special Recommendations and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.