06:50 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Which one should I buy?

Nicholas Lee from Middle Earth Country is looking for a suitable PDA for reading his favorite Tolkien novels. Among his wish list is good battery life, a SD or CF expansion port, a minimum 320x320 screen, and the ability to use common AA or AAA batteries. All his choices so far are Palm OS-powered devices. Personally I would recommend Nicholas to take a look at VGA Pocket PCs, but then again those usually don't satisfy the need for good battery life, do they?

Which device would you recommend Nicholas to look at considering his main interest is reading e-books?

[via PalmAddicts]

06:11 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

It's not a secret that Sony's Librie e-book reader has probably the most gorgeous display available nowadays thanks to the unique E Ink electronic paper technology. The catch (why must there always be one?): Sony once again managed to spoil its own success by crippling the Librie with a proprietary e-book format that virtually noone beside Sony business partners support.

Few months ago, Matt McClintock of Manybooks, an e-book site offering over 10,000 e-books from Project Gutenberg and other free sources, decided to support the Librie by using MakeLFR, a small tool some Librie fans developed by reverse-engineering the Librie LFR e-book format. I think until today, Matt's site is still the only place where you can download free e-books for the Librie.

Despite some initial furore Matt's interim report doesn't look good. David from Teleread talked to Matt, and concluded that for the Librie to become a success, Sony must deliver an English-language version of the machine, especially without all the proprietary complications and fiendish DRM. According to the download stats at Manybooks, the Librie is far behind any other e-book format (PDF is still dominating with a huge winning margin, how sad is that?). Matt's explanation:

Well, I'll keep messing with it every now and then, but I’m going to wait until a few of the barriers are removed - a) the language barrier, b) the poor conversion tools supplied by Sony, and c) possibly a better understanding of how the files are stored on the memory stick (I just don't work with Windows enough to be able to get the various alternative methods working correctly).

So, part of the problem is my own lack of Windows experience, compounded by my lack of Japanese language skill. The other part is an admitted frustration with the ridiculous DRM stuff that still gets in the way of the excellent makelrf tool from scythic (how else can you explain the fact that you can’t simply load an lrf file onto the memory stick and have the Librie read it?).

Only a few days ago Jason Kottke revived the public awareness of the Librie and responses have been generally good. So let's look at the bright side. As E Ink and competiting e-paper technologies are becoming more popular, chances are that someone else will fix what Sony has broken.

06:02 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.

Avantgo
AvantGo planned outage

E-Book Conversion
Gentoo Handbook (and news feed) in Plucker format
PdfGrabber 2.0 exporting PDF content

E-Book Readers
Sony LIBRIe Firmware V1.2 upgrade
Sony Librie is nice, but worth $600?

E-Book Webstores
Best Sources of E-Books

General Chat
Cell phones radiation unharmful (say Japanese mobile ops)
Cold Fusion Achieved!
Danger lies ahead from mobile hackers
Google Gmail Account Sizes Are Growing
GORODesk - the perfect sofa desk
Handhelds built with nanotechnology
Motricity increases its share from direct software sales
MS Longhorn OS to Store Security on a Chip
On the sad status quo of the Mobile Web
Poll: PDA Software Customer Service?
Some Great Editorials at PDAThoughts
Steve Jobs crotchety over unauthorized biography
Will Your PC Handle Windows Longhorn?

iSilo/X
iSilo/X 4.26 beta 3 released

Other E-Book Resources
Spanish reference dictionary for Mobipocket
Tutorial on converting e-books to open formats

Other Gadgets
Intel's car entertainment system goes mobile
Microsoft's dream of a mini-tablet PC? (from WinHEC)
SanDisk MobileMate card reader

Other Readers
PalmFiction 0.12a document reader for Palm OS
Wikipedia Encyclopedia on your handheld

Palm
How much is your Palm device worth?
palmOne Tungsten T5 for $290
Sam's life powered by Palm OS
Village Sim 1.0
What do have a Treo 650 and a Mercedes sedan in common?

Pocket PC
Laplink Everywhere 4 for anytime, anywhere remote access
PocketCopy eases transition from Palm to Pocket PC
PocketGear 15% discount - only today!
StyleTab makes Palm OS apps Pocket PC-compatible
The Future of the Dell Axim
Windows Mobile 2005 (aka Magneto) to be unveiled on May 9-10

Portable Audio/Video
Cowon’s (aka iAudio) X5 to be released

Smartphones
Mobilinux - a Linux solution for mobile devices
Skype for Windows Mobile Smartphones 0.0.0.3 released
The relentless advance of converged devices

Sunrise
Sunrise 0.41k released

WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies
Surf wirelessly on the train at over 300km/h

10:06 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Post your favorite sources of e-books here as replies to this thread. Please indicate whether the site is free or pay (or mixed), plus an indication of what the site is like and what kinds of books can be found there.

I'll get things started with my favorites, which are some of the heavy hitters that should be bookmarked by every PDA owner:

1. Project Gutenberg [Free] This is a huge collection of classic texts that is sure to include your favorites. It is growing all the time, and the most popular books are even available on a CD or DVD that you can receive for free if you don't have adequate online access. You might even want to consider donating a small amount to support their ongoing work to expand their library. And don't miss their page on converting texts for PDAs and eReaders

2. Memoware [Free] Another giant collection of texts. This one is not just classic texts, but does include classics. The advantage of this site is that you can usually find a PalmDoc or iSilo text for most of the books. Other PDA formats are also supported on some books. They have their own excellent guides for many aspects of ebook reading on PDAs. It's a great resource even if you don't download any of their books.

3. eReader [Mostly Pay] This site is a bookstore with DRM-protected books designed to be read on their own eReader software, available on platforms including Pocket PC and Palm. The have a few free books here also. Commercial books are "ready to go" and usually are formatted a bit nicer. Most modern books and best sellers can be found at online bookstores, but not at the major free sites.

4. Fictionwise [Mostly Pay] Another excellent bookstore with DRM-protected books. This store offers books in various formats, including secure versions for MobiPocket, MicrosoftReader, AdobeReader, PalmReader and FictionwiseReader. They also offer many books in multiformat, which are not DRM-encrypted, and include up to eight different formats including Adobe Acrobat (PDF), Mobipocket, Palm Doc, iSilo, Microsoft Reader, Franklin eBookMan, Hiebook, and Rocket (REB/1100).

5. Christian Classics Ethereal Library [Free] This is a bit more of a specialty site, but an excellent one with wide appeal. It provides a massive collection of texts, making it an unbelievable library of the classic Christian writings, covering a wide range of authors. A delightful source because most of the best Christian writing was done a long time ago, and therefore is copyright-free. [Edit: This link may not be available for a while. The CCEL editor forums indicate that the server has been crashing the last few days. May take as much as several weeks to repair. Seems to be run by a Professor, probably at Wheaton College, and this is a busy time of the semester for him. I'm sure it will be back, better than new, in the near future.]

With the growth of online book collections and ebook reading devices such as PDAs, this is truly a great time to be a book reader!

Be sure to add your own favorite sources of ebooks. There are many more out there, and the sites above are just the tip of the iceberg!

08:40 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

This I found tonight at MSMobiles: Motricity (PalmGear, PocketGear, Smartphone.net) has decided to increase its share of revenue from software sold on their sites by 10% (and is now on par with Handango):

The new Motricity reseller agreement reflects the following, in effect June 1, 2005

• A rate of 60% payable to developers on Motricity direct sites, and 50% on Motricity partner sites, not including shared transaction costs. Please note: the transaction costs calculation is not changing and will be deducted from the sales price prior to the developer royalty calculation.
• IRS rules for tax withholding for non-US residents
• Real-time fulfillment definition
• Change in revenue share for products which do not utilize Real-time fulfillment methods
• An effective date of June 1, 2005

The discussion on price policies of electronic sales distributors such as PalmGear isn't new. You can browse an older discussion here.

04:58 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Skype released an early beta of its client software for Windows Mobile-powered smartphones this week, but left out the main feature: voice capability. With the present beta, it is only possible to log-in to the Skype network and to exchange instant messages with other Skype users. According to a forum posting by Skype staff member "Tarmo", CPU power and network connectivity of currently available phones is not sufficient to enable Skype voice calls.

Owners of a Windows Mobile-powered PDA should instead use Skype for Pocket PC. A new version is out btw; 1.1.0.6 fixes calls between older and newer versions, there may have been silence or noise in both directions.

Click here to download SkypeForSmartphone-Beta(0.0.0.3).exe (2.2Mb).

09:49 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Found this at Akihabara: GoroDesk is the ULTIMATE desk for every self-respecting Homer-wannabe... or how to get some work done on your PC without getting up from your sofa or bed.

No more cramping on the sofa... I really want this desk! The price tag is around USD 50.

09:30 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

That's a tough question to answer right now, but there are signs that you'll want a pretty beefy computer when you make the upgrade. Microsoft Watch gives us a few tibits of information...

• It's currently scheduled for end of 2006 (but don't be surprised if the date slips.)
• Last year some sources indicated unofficially that the average PC with Longhorn was recommended to have:
  -- Dual core 4-6 GHz CPU
  -- At least 2gig RAM
  -- A graphics processor 3x as fast as those currently available
  and more!
• At WinHEC this year, a Microsoft group product manager said "most existing mainstream 32- and 64-bit CPUs from mainstream manufacturers should run Longhorn." (But that may not mean it would be a pleasant experience!)
• Set in stone are requirements for at least 512Meg RAM and "support for the new Longhorn Display Driver Model (LDDM) in order to handle the operating system's new graphical features."
• A Microsoft developer "did advise mobile PC makers to consider supporting 802.XX wireless; General Packet Radio Service (GPRS); Bluetooth; the various Tablet PC input technologies (including speech and touch, in addition to digital ink); ClearType, the hybrid flash/disk technology; and Longhorn's forthcoming Secure Startup capability, among other features."

So bottom line, I'd say you better plan on running Longhorn on a computer you don't own right now. But that's okay because your current PC will probably be pretty out-of-date by the Longhorn is available anyway!