06:33 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

One of the most common discussions about e-books centers around (non-protected) PDF files. Everyone generally tries to avoid them for e-book reading, or convert them into another format where possible with programs like PDFRead.

Sure there are many reflowable formats like txt, rtf, ePub and so forth. But when you want to read technical manuals or tutorials or scanned documents, what do you do?

Let us know in the poll associated with this post!

My solution so far has been a combination of several methods:
1) Read it on my Lenovo x61t tablet PC. This method never fails. I get color full-screen documents and lots of reading options. I can use Adobe Reader or FoxIt or whatever program I choose. And the tablet PC form factor means I can lay it on my lap and turn pages with the d-pad next to the screen. But it's heavy, gets warm, has limited battery life (maybe 4-6hrs), is tiring for the eyes, and requires me to carry around a very expensive computer just to read the documents.
2) Convert the pdf file using one of the many pdf document processors. I use PDFRead, but there are others. One of the new ones for Python folks even uses a fancy algorithm for splitting lines in the middle where there is white space between words. My method is simply to run the default PDFRead settings for my Sony Reader PRS-500, which results in each pdf page becoming two landscape Reader pages. I need glasses to read the resulting document, but it does get the job done reasonably well. This method is my solution when I want to read on the e-ink device, which is very convenient to carry around.
3) Extract the text from the pdf file and load it up on my favorite e-book reader. The problem with this is that text doesn't come out of scanned documents, and the text doesn't seem to come out nicely even for text-based documents. I've gotten to the point that I don't even try this most of the time. On the other hand, it has the advantage of getting the document onto my Treo smartphone, so it's always with me.

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Missed some of our big stories this week? Time to catch up:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Sony Reader conquers Europe - Germany is next
• Penguin UK with some ePub books to try out
• Waterstones Ebook store to Launch midday 04/09/08
• New IDPF ebook sales figures: June sales surge 87% y-o-y
• panmacmillan.com offers DRM-free EPUB
• After Germany, Sony will launch in France mid-September

E-Book General - Deals, Freebies, and Resources

• Free E-Book: Strange Attractors by Jeffrey A. Carver

Portable Devices - Other Devices

• [Soribook B60] running TCPMP

E-Book Devices - Bookeen Cybook Gen3

• New Firmware build 796 available for CyBook Gen3

E-Book Devices - Fictionwise eBookwise

• Web Browsing from the Ebw-1150 - BETA Testers needed

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Reminder : London Meetup TOMORROW Saturday 6th September at 3 pm !

06:58 PM by igorsk in E-Book General | News

As reported by our own Gary Gibson, panmacmillan.com now offers EPUB ebooks without DRM. I've just bought a few and I can confirm it. The download links are plain unencrypted EPUB files, not .ebx tickets for Digital Editions as provided by BooksOnBoard or Waterstone's.

They also currently offer a 3 ebooks for 2 deal for selected SF and fantasy ebooks. One of the books is Gary's Stealing Light.

The prices could be somewhat lower and selection could be somewhat bigger, but it's still a great start.

P.S. I did not check other formats; it's possible they're DRM-free as well.

01:28 PM by zelda_pinwheel in Miscellaneous | Announcements

My, how time flies !! It's already friday, and you know what that means don't you ? yep, the London meetup is TOMORROW !! So here's a friendly reminder, because we would be really sad if anyone missed it.

Here are the important details :

Costa Coffee Shop, Lower Ground Floor, Waterstones, 82 Gower Street London, UK

Sat 6th Sept 3 pm.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all !

01:01 PM by bwaldron in More E-Book Readers | Bookeen

News via Bookeen Blog

What's New in Version 1.2 (Build 796)

* New: user interface now available in 6 languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian & Dutch).
* Improvement: reduced power consumption.
* Improvement: reduced memory usage.
* New: zoom menu for PDF files.
* Improvement: fast panning within PDF files.
* Improvement: general stability and performance.
* Fix: SD card detection.
* Fix: last page saved for files with UTF8 (non ANSI) names.
* New: possibility to restore factory settings (also deletes personal data in internal memory). To do so, press volume- while switching off.

12:43 PM by zelda_pinwheel in E-Book General | News

Thanks to kanel who found this article.

According to Philippe Citroën, director of Sony France, the Sony liseuse should be available in France around mid-september, for 300€.

The newspaper Le Figaro who reported the news was unable to find out whether it would be sold by large chain stores like the Fnac ; according to M. Citroën, they are still finalising a distribution deal.

I'm thrilled to see another liseuse appearing on the marken in France but I really hope that price will go down before the launch : 300€ is significantly more expensive than the US price or even the UK price. Although if there is enough publicity, perhaps at least more people will become aware of ebooks, even if they don't buy a Sony (unless it's imported from the states ). More public exposure and more competition is what ebooks need after all !

01:24 PM by Smashwords in E-Book General | News

The IDPF today published its latest trade ebook sales figures for the quarter ending June 2008. Wholesale trade ebook revenues for the month of June surged 43% to $11.6 million compared to $8.1 million in the same period a year ago, while sales for the first six months of 2008 grew 43% compared to the same period a year ago.

Trade eBook sales were $4,900,000 for June 2008 alone, an 87.4% increase over June 2007.

I blogged about it here - or you can view the results directly at IDPF.org.

09:45 AM by stustaff in E-Book General | News

Woohoo UK Ebooks

Store to launch in just over 12 hours at waterstones.com

Source = http://www.waterstones.com/waterston...o?pPageID=1576