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

Previously at MobileRead:

E-Books - News

• Bookeen Cybook Gen3 - Out of Stock
• 2008 Wikipedia Ebook Available For Free Downlaod
• Amazon is Blackmailing POD Publishers

E-Books - Elsewhere on the Net

• Get "Infected" by Scott Sigler

E-Books - Content

• HTML of all the Baen Webscription eBooks with links to all the formats
• EPUB best practices guide

E-Book Devices - Sony Portable Reader

• Baen's Webscriptions Service adds Sony LRF format
• Dictionary for Sony PRS500/5 (autorun from SD card)

Mobile Devices - General Talk

• Mobile laptop computing in 2015 - an image gallery of guesses

09:13 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Most POD (Print On Demand) publishers do not own printing equipment. Instead, they pay a printer to print a certain number of copies. Amazon, happens to own one such printer. It's called BookSurge.

Amazon has recently told a number of POD publishers that if their books aren't printed by BooKSurge, Amazon.com won't carry the books*. Amazon has already followed through on this threat with a publisher called PublishAmerica. Here is a list of books that publisher has on Amazon. Check it. See how many are being sold by Amazon.

http://www.writersweekly.com/print/t..._03272008.html

I don't know about you, but I'm pissed.

10:53 AM by Clemenseken in Sony Reader | Sony Reader Dev Corner

Hi!
Like llasram, I've been busy with obelix' autorun solution:
Here is the second edition of DictioLauncher 0.7b.

*** There is a NEWLY altered versions "...7b" by =X= that's fit for larger dictionary files (=> quicker search!!!) on page 4, post #59, of this thread.
AND: there is an even NEWER version by lisak, posted on page 5 /#64, link at bottom here, that has completely rewritten code; I assume improved one (w/o having looked at it...) ***

These are the new 0.7b features:
– Found explanations for your search word are now separated correctly.
– The "Choose Dictionary" button lets you change the dictionary from the UI (your choice is saved in "dict.dat").
– Expressions that consist of several words (e.g. "New York") are displayed now completely in the "first" line; "space" can be input from keyboard.
ATTENTION: This means that in your dictionary the search word HAS to have TWO SPACES before the explanation !!! Otherwise NO WORD will be found ...

Here are the features from 0.5:
– Dictionaries can be accessed without closing your current book: by inserting the SD card the launcher just "appears" and will "disappear" after use.
– Your dictionary must be a simple ".txt" file !!!
– You can search for any word using the onscreen keyboard (use buttons 0 to 9).
– Get at different keyboard rows with "cursor-up/down" ("left/right" for model 505).
. .(It's enough to type the first letters of a word: the whole word will be displayed...)
– The "arrow" key removes letters from your input word one-by-one.
– Translation/search starts by pressing "ENTER" – To quit application press "MENU" or pull SD card out.
– The previous/next line (= word) will be displayed by pressing <page up/down> or <cursor left/right> (again: <up/down> for model 505).

DictioLauncher will check your input word against the first word of each line of your text file.
Search time varies from zero ("a...") to "quite some time" (> 3 s for "z..." in a 12,000-lines-file).

=================================================
– Included are three example dictionary files (French, Italian, Spanish; from www.freedict.com). Version 0.5 needs to have the dictionary file renamed to "dictionary.txt" and put into "software".
(Actually I found those files from freedict.com at http://www.wordgumbo.com/index.htm which has a MUCH broader assortment...)
– BUT - you may use *ANY* text file you have/find (thesaurus, to-do-list, etc.)
– Go and find dictionary files for any language you need.
– Your text file should be saved as UTF-8. Sony PRS-500/5 seems to get a "hangover" if confronted with characters like á, è, ß or even ö (o-umlaut)...
(Also the eReader does *not* like "-, *, /" at the beginning of a line while searching your input .)
=================================================

To install, extract the zip file and put "Sony Reader" onto your SD card (root); if you use version 0.5 place one of the dictionaries into "software" and rename it to "dictionary.txt".

The second attachment ("...505_SP1.zip") is especially and only for models prs-505. Its bigger size is due to an alternative keyboard layout (both are "landscape", the alternative one has letters rotated 90°; the application's windows are portrait, though...).
The third attachment is ONLY for models 500 !!!

... the fourth one ONLY for 505'ers ...
... just like the NEW fifth attachment:
an "add-on" feature for models prs505: it's another alternative keyboard layout (suggested by spooky69).
With this one letters are organized in an A-Z order (abc/def/ghi/...) which may suit 505-owners better, I assume. It wasn't too much work, so I just post it here as a "Service Pack 1" for 505ers!
But be aware that this totally different layout needs an (only marginally) changed "autorun.js" file (included); whenever you decide to swap layouts (back) you'll have to swap "autoruns", too...

*** ATTENTION ***
PLEASE SEE MY "ORIGINAL" SOFTWARE BELOW AS A PRIMITIVE FIRST CONCEPT OF WHAT HAS LATER ON BEEN DEVELOPED BY lisak AND OTHERS!
MY VERSIONS WILL NOT BE SUPPORTED ANY LONGER OFFICIALLY (BUT I WILL ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT THEM...)
An improved version: lisak rewrote my "old" code - see #64 on p.5 or the link below.

Link to lisak's version "Page 5 (Goto Post #64...)"

... NEWER version "dictioLaunchX.87" on page 7, post #99 ... VERY interesting "addon" by = X = page 9, post #125 !!!

01:46 PM by MatYadabyte in E-Book General | News

Hi Mobile Readers

We have just released the new Wikipedia TomeRaider file, its a big one at over 3 Gigs, but fits well and "plays for free" in TomeRaider.

It can be downloaded from:

http://yadabyte.blogspot.com/2008/03...wikipedia.html

and TomeRaider from:

http://www.tomeraider.com

Thanks very much

Mat Ripley

09:27 AM by adinb in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Just dropping a note from twitter-land to let everyone know that Scott Sigler has gotten permission from his publisher to give away electronic copies of his new hardcover book, Infected. (For those not familiar with Scott Sigler, he is known for his horror/sci-fi audiobooks)

From his blog:

Crown Publishing is letting me give away the PDF of INFECTED from March 27 through March 31, leading up to the hardcover in-store release on April 1. So download it! Feel free to email the link to anyone you know.
Please do not email the PDF, email the LINK.
This is so I can prove to Crown the value in giving away content, and if your friends click on the link, that counts on their server stats - emailing the PDF doesn't count on the stats.
THANKS & ENJOY!

Get Infected here.

01:50 PM by mjdb in E-Book Formats | Workshop

If anyone is interested, here are lists of all the Webscription EBooks.

One is a huge html page (1.5 MB) with 15 links per book, including links to the Sony formats as well as all the others.

In the absence of a bulk download, If anyone with a sony reader wants to download all their Webscription eBooks in the new format, this will at least save them having to visit the page for each book individually.

http://www.bonham.net.nz/SF/Baen/WS/ws_books_dl.html - uncompressed (1.5 MB !)
Available also in the zip here
http://www.bonham.net.nz/SF/Baen/WS/ws_book_lists.zip

Along with the simple list that just links to the Book pages in Alphabetical order, and the txt lists in alpahbetical and numberical order.
http://www.bonham.net.nz/SF/Baen/WS/ws_books.html
http://www.bonham.net.nz/SF/Baen/WS/ws_books.txt

Updated to include the latest Webscriptions eBook (Subterranian Press)
http://www.webscription.net/p-820-or...s-the-key.aspx

Martin.

12:49 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

We always want to know what's around the corner for mobile computing. And the guesses usually turn out to be remarkable wrong, unless we are talking about a 6 month window. So what's the point in guessing about 7 years forward? Not much, but it's still fun.

Check out ComputerWorld's attempt to look at the future of laptops in 2015, as well as their companion image gallery. At least it's some pretty fun eye-candy!

12:22 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Formats | ePub

The new IDPF EPUB e-book format standard is taking the world by storm. Think of it as the analogy to the Adobe .pdf format, but for flowable text, so it can display well on any size screen from a PC to a phone. Plus, a standard for the container format, so multiple document files can be distributed together in a zip archive.

Okay, so maybe "taking the world by storm" is a bit of an exaggeration at this early stage, but it's certainly gaining as much momentum as could possibly be hoped for, much of which is a result of the enthusiastic and substantive support from Adobe. But, it's clear that one critical success factor for EPUB is the ability of e-book creators to create a well-formatted EPUB e-book, which is compatible with a wide range of software and devices. Coincidently, that's a great interest of many MobileRead members as well.

So I'm very happy to report that Adobe is furthering that goal, by providing the following:

(1) An EPUB Best Practices Guide white paper, created by the Digital Publishing Team at Adobe (attached in EPUB format). There is also some background information about the format that may make it of interest to non-technical readers as well.

"By following the best practices in this Guide, you will be able to produce EPUB files, compatible with the IDPF EPUB specifications, that will look great for consumers, regardless of whether they are reading your content on desktop PCs, mobile phones, or other reading devices."

If you haven't already, you will probably want to download Adobe's Digital Editions software to read the document.

(2) A web site (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/digitalpublishing) with "the latest information from Adobe on Digital Publishing".

Nick Bogaty of Adobe, who kindly tipped us on this information, says that the site will launch Wed, March 26, 2008 (looks like it's already live to me), and that it will include "access to information on Adobe Digital Editions, Adobe Digital Experience Protection Technology, Adobe InDesign CS3 and other tools and scripts that Adobe provides to help create, distribute and consume both PDF and EPUB digital publications."

It will be interesting to hear feedback from some of the practitioners here after they dissect the information with the benefit of their experience and expertise.