Pocket PC eBooks Watch - eBook and beyond  
 http://cebooks.blogspot.com 

Index Watch
Digital Book Index
"Digital Book Index provides access to more than 73,000 titles records. It is the sole index that gathers both commercial and non-commercial eBooks from more than 1800 publishers and private publishing organizations."

posted by Jerry permanent link

18th HoleBooks
18th Century Collections Online
The Eighteenth Century Collections online makes available online for the first time, in one resource, more than 150,000 printed works. It is designed to offer every significant English-language and foreign language title published in the United Kingdom between 1701 and 1800, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Register for a 30-day free trial, sign up for informative emails, view interactive demonstrations and more at:www.gale.com/EighteenthCentury.
Coming in November, Gale's references will be available in an ebook format. Gale Virtual Reference Library is designed to offer more than 85 reference sources and allow your library to provide 24/7 remote access to encyclopedias, almanacs, series and more. It's online, cross-searchable reference does not require special hardware or an online reader.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Bonusebook
Ezine Promotion Tactic
Use information as a bonus:
Write an ebook or ecourse with genuinely useful information and offer it to other ezine publishers. Let them use it as a special bonus to keep their existing subscribers coming back for more. They will also benefit from referrals when their readers pass on the newsletter to friends so that they too can read your ebook or ecourse.
Too many ezines are short on great articles they can use. There are plenty of articles available out there but very few high quality ones that you will use in your own ezine.
The same applies when ezine authors want to offer incentives to encourage their readers to buy their own information products. If you give publishers a high quality ebook or ecourse that they can bundle with their information product you will get your message out to a lot of people and very quickly.
These tactics could help you to build your ezine in ways you never considered before now. Test them for yourself and enjoy new success with your ezine.
More Tactics

posted by Jerry permanent link

eComics
Cow Tipping
Cow Tipping, the first collection of "Oddly Enough" cartoons by Chris Kemp of Ucomics.com, is available as an PDF ebook.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Old School, Dead Mind
EBook Publishing: Should I use PDF or EXE format ?
Ebooks are becoming a fantastic method of promoting websites and retaining visitors and Michael Southon discusses the pros and cons of publishing ebooks using the most popular formats.
If you write and publish eBooks, sooner or later you will probably be faced with a dilemma - should you create your eBooks as .exe files or .pdf files?
PDF, which stands for Portable Document Format, is the file extension for files created with Adobe Acrobat.
Exe, which stands for ‘executable’, is the extension for files created by eBook compilers.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/30/2003

MoreBooks
HP Wants to Overhaul E-Books
"We're also experimenting with how to deliver newspapers electronically," says Robson. "Even with a small display, there are ways to present newspaper content in a familiar fashion. We're working, for example, on ways to use the touch strips to zoom in on a particular column and then zoom out for a view of a whole newspaper page. We think people might pass a Wi-Fi hotspot, get their newspaper downloaded to their e-book and have it right there along with a library of e-books. There is such a revolution going on in storage and memory that we think it will be feasible for people to store hundreds of books on one device—along with lots of text documents and entire digital photo libraries."

posted by Jerry permanent link

ToucheBook
Finding Ben
by Barbara LaSalle
One mother's remarkable journey from resentment and guilt to unconditional love. Barbara LaSalle's first son, Ben, seemed to be an extraordinarily gifted child. For the first few years of his life, he amazed his mother with his brilliance and creativity, speaking in full sentences before age one and reading competently by age two. Yet lurking beneath this boy genius's amazing abilities were a crippling social aloofness and fear of change.
Finding Ben is both a fascinating look at a baffling neurological disorder and the profound story of one mother's personal journey from frustration and resentment to love and acceptance.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Get Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass'
For Free--Without Microsoft's DRM Bribe
See the TeleRead blog for more details. Or go directly to the appropriate page at Abacci eBooks.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

AOL Blocks LiveJournal Links: E-Book Ramifications?
Deliberately or accidentally, AOL is blocking links from LiveJournal. And that has some e-book ramifications. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Color Digital 'Ink' for E-Books--Ahead of Time?
Color e-ink for electronic books--could it end up as a practical reality far ahead of time? More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Why E-Book Prices Should Be Lower in Developing Countries
The reason aren't just morality-related . Even Gordon Gecko should understand. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Henry Adams and the 'Terrors of Copyright'
Looks as if the author of The Education of Henry Adams had an uppity 'tude about copyright and might have really appreciated Creative Commons. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Pocket DVD
So you'd like to... watch your Y Tu Mama Tambien Unrated DVD on a PDA
First off, you will need to purchase a PDA with a CompactFlash slot in order to have enough storage space to hold your 'Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too) - Unrated Edition' DVD. As of the time of this posting, the only format that will allow you to hold an entire DVD at normal quality or half of a DVD at high quality, is the CompactFlash form factor. There are a number of PDAs on the market today that will allow you to either purchase an expansion pack allowing the use of a CompactFlash card or come with a slot for use with a CompactFlash card.
Then Finding the software, next Preparing Your Computer for the Conversion Process, Converting the Audio, and Finally...

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/29/2003

Limited Time Free DRM5 eBooks from M$
The Business Travel Bible
by Jonathan Aspatore
This comprehensive resource for business travelers includes facts, figures, and data designed to provide help and information while on the road. Included are phone numbers--both listed and unlisted--for all airlines, hotels, car rentals, and other frequently used business services. Business travel emergencies such as computer crashes, finding medical help in case of illness, and lost plane tickets are addressed. Also supplied are business words and phrases spelled out phonetically in the 14 most common foreign languages and information on local roadside assistance, Internet service provider numbers, and taxi and transportation information. In addition, maps of the 23 largest United States cities for business are laid out in detail.
+
The Last Chance Café by Linda Lael Miller
+
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/28/2003

Pocket Readerss
Pocket PC Thoughts: MobileRSS Beta
Two Peaks has developed a mobile RSS web client. What's RSS? It's an increasingly popular web standard for news feeds; it uses a structured XML document to allow other sites or devices to get a syndicated, lightweight, newsfeed.

posted by Jerry permanent link

P2P Free Zone
Businesses boosting anti-P2P software
Applications were poky, pipes were full, and the hospital was inching toward buying new, expensive connections to keep up with the demand for bandwidth. But before paying the phone company, Burch agreed to try out network-monitoring software created by a company called Packeteer.
What he found was a surprise: In the first 18 hours that Burch used the software, file-swapping services like Kazaa made more than 1,100 attempts to use the company's network. Even more surprising were the effects on the applications that the company had already noted were a little slow. Burch found that when P2P networks weren't active, a routine but critical database information swap that had been taking nine hours to perform suddenly was done in an hour and a half. It was a wake-up call, he said.

posted by Jerry permanent link

iPAGE
HP developing e-book with virtual pages
Hewlett-Packard has developed a prototype electronic book viewer that can contain an entire library, reported BBC News.
The brushed metal device is about 1 cm thick and is no larger than a paperback. A screen and a series of touch sensitive strips that allow the reader to navigate through the book dominate the high tech book. Content is transferred using a standard USB (Universal) port on a computer.
The developers retained features of traditional books, such as page-turning, to keep readers who like to turn pages happy. A small but powerful computer that animates a turning page has been fitted into the e-book.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Jim Karpen's
Free eBooks, Free eBook Reader
Speaking of free eBooks for the Pocket PC, I recently found out about yet another site with a large stock of them: Abacci eBooks. The site's developer, Peter Shanks, has put online over a thousand titles, several hundred of which he has formatted himself for Microsoft Reader.
Peter has also taken the unusual step of inserting reviews from Amazon so that you can see what people say about the particular titles. He also includes links in case you decide to purchase the paper version of the book from Amazon. (Note that his free eBook download links are at the very top.)
Thanks to Santoso@...co.id for the link

posted by Jerry permanent link

Microsoft E-Book Freebies: Survivor's Tips
How to cope with the uncertainties of the new version of Microsoft Reader--which you'll need to install to enjoy the current e-book freebies from Microsoft? More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  8/27/2003

Pocket MisSiNg
Pocket MSN
Pocket MSN® is a new, rich, client-based subscription solution. Delivered as a subscription service with MSN mobile operator partners, Pocket MSN will give your Pocket PC and Smartphone users instant, one-click access to core MSN services, including MSN Hotmail®, MSN Messenger, MSN Alerts, and MSN browse content (where available). Designed for seamless integration into the existing Pocket PC and Smartphone applications, Pocket MSN offers users a familiar and consistent experience. In addition, the service enables true mobile data scenarios by providing both always-on functionality and offline mobile functionality.
With Pocket MSN, users can take advantage of:
Always-on functionality so users are connected, signed on, and available to their online contacts, without requiring a continuous network connection.
Ability to communicate with online contacts on MSN Messenger regardless of device (PC, phone, Pocket PC).
Real-time updates of Hotmail messages and MSN Alerts.
Offline Hotmail capabilities so users can compose e-mail in a non-connected state.
Personalization features that give users rules-based sync with Hotmail filters and message download options.
Ability to seamlessly send Hotmail messages to offline MSN Messenger contacts.
Quick, one-click access to MSN Hotmail, MSN Messenger contacts, and MSN information resources from the device Today screen.
Discuss it at Pocket PC Thoughts
"I've heard a rumour they're going to price it out at $24.95 per year - not bad, but I'm not sure I'm their target audience. If you're hardcore Hotmail user, the offline message composition might be invaluable, but none of the other features seem to really jump out at me. What do you think about the services listed so far?"

posted by Jerry permanent link

The DRM Gouge: E-Bookers Speak Out
Digital Rights Management is expensive and a pain in the rear for e-book readers, aka customers. "I can't afford it," a member of the eBook Community list said recently. "I live entirely on Social Security. I can't pay the extra price for inconvenienced books." One list member has an interesting proposal: publishers should bill authors for DRM if the writers really want it. Meanwhile the founder of Project Gutenberg has compiled a list of reasons why he's down on DRM. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

China: Next E-Book Central?
Mainland China just could be the next E-Book Central, given the interest in both digital libraries and e-book readers. So what's happening, and what could it mean? More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Time to go Out!
Mars approach is nearest in 60,000 years
Like cogs and gears on a colossal clock, Earth and Mars are synchronizing their orbits, bringing them closer to each other than any time in recorded history.
The alignment early Wednesday brought droves of earthlings out of their homes overnight to marvel at the glowing reddish point in the sky, for now the brightest nighttime object except the moon.
Mars, five times closer now than six months ago, is now 34.6 million miles away, its closest brush with Earth in about 60,000 years, according to calculations by international astronomers.
The closest approach officially took place minutes before 6 a.m. EDT. The nearest terrestrial place to Mars at that time was Tahiti, according to astronomers.

posted by Jerry permanent link

What A Fool Believes
DVD-Cracking Code Not Free Speech
Internet disclosures of trade secrets aren't protected by the Constitution's free-speech guarantee, the California Supreme Court has ruled in a decision hailed by Hollywood and business groups.
The high court's unanimous decision Monday reversed a lower court that had ruled disseminating trade secrets is protected by First Amendment rights.
The case involved coding used to keep consumers from making copies of DVDs. While ruling on the general question of trade secrets, the justices did not resolve Monday whether the DVD code was still a trade secret, leaving that question for a lower court.
San Francisco computer programmer Andrew Bunner had posted the code to circumvent DVD encryption technology in 1999 and, according to the movie industry, helped users freely replicate copyright movies.
Will this apply to M$ DRM5 Crack too?

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/26/2003

www.Interesting.ebook
www.Here-I-Am
Sam didn't think much of religion. What with science being able to explain almost everything about us and about the world we live in, there didn't seem much point to believing in God any more. And, besides, if there was a God who cared about us and was all-powerful, there wouldn't be suffering and poverty and war, would there? But then came the day Sam was exploring the Internet, and stumbled across God's website! At least, that was what it claimed to be. But who knows?

posted by Jerry permanent link

Fast Forward
BBC plans to open archives online
The project, called the BBC Creative Archive, was outlined by the Director-General Greg Dyke at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, but details have yet to be finalised.
"The BBC probably has the best television library in the world," he said. "Up until now this huge resource has remained locked up, inaccessible to the public because there hasn't been an effective mechanism for distribution.
"But the digital revolution and broadband are changing all that. For the first time there is an easy and affordable way of making this treasure trove available to all."

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/25/2003

Optimizing Browser
Pocket PC PIE Plus
ReenSoft PIEPlus is software that adds lots of enhancements to Pocket Internet Explorer.
Feature List
Optimize the web contents to fit for PIE
Open multiple PIE windows
Fullscreen mode
Extended context menu
Identify PIE as IE5.5 or IE6.0
Set default charset
Enable/disable script and script warning
Enable/disable ClearType
source PocketPCThoughts

posted by Jerry permanent link

Step by Step
Encoding and Streaming to your Pocket PC
If you've got a Windows PC, this article will show you how to get audio & video content from your PC onto your Pocket PC. There are two ways of doing it:
By encoding the source material into a format suitable for the Pocket PC and then copying the files onto the device
or
By using a network (preferably a wireless one!) and streaming the encoded data over to the Pocket PC
...
Gotchas
You may be wondering why, if you are using Encoder 9, I kept on telling you to change the audio settings. The reason is because, by default, the encoder likes to use a 48kHz audio format - which Pocket PC 2002 doesn't like. I don't have Windows Mobile 2003 device, so I can't confirm whether or not that behaves the same way. Anyway, the problem is documented in Knowledge Base article 813693 if you want the MS line on this and how to permanently fix it.
Conclusions
Hopefully I've been able to help two audiences with this article - those who want to encode audio & video material for their Pocket PC and those who want to stream that material over a wireless network. By using the encoder application, the process is actually reasonably painless - once you've got the hang of the various settings
So go on - set your PC up, recharge the battery on your Pocket PC and go and sit in the sun and enjoy the stream!

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/24/2003

The DRM tax--on readers, writers and publishers
Digital Rights Management ain't free. Looks as if we're talking about 10-15 percent of an e-book's cover price and perhaps much more--at least in the case of books from small publishers. Time for industry standards to replace proprietary tech and trim these outrageous costs? More via TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Quick IMHO Review
Palm Reader Pro for Pocket PC 2.3.1 Upgrade
First of all, Palm Reader has THE BEST DRM that dignify the honest ebook buyers; that alone should kill the crackable-but-annoying Micro Soft-DRM5 (hehehe).
What I like:
1. Faster load up of the ebook (I mean really fast)
2. Ability to highlights (stabilo) the texts.
3. Faster dictionary lookup than MS Reader Update (which make MS Dictionary lookup works slower)
4. Themes (I am not a big fans on themes, but I guess it is pretty cute)
5. Font type and size changes according to particular ebooks. Let's face it, some ebooks need bigger fonts, aren't they?
6. More dictionaries
7. Friendlier eBook Library Screen, and yes you can Delete ebook from this screen.
8. Device ID for eLibrary time-limit functions
9. Pictures now previewed on page (and you can zoom it)
Beware of Love Bugs:
1. The instalation will delete ALL your previous Bookmarks.
2. On italic fonts, the right justification kind of cut off the screen.
3. You need to reactivate again you ebooks (To save time, activate the same Credit card ID ebooks then open other ebooks with the same ID, it will not required you again to enter the Card ID. I.e. I have two different Credit Card ID for the ebooks that I got from Fictionwise and Peanutpress).
Rooms for improvement:
1. Auto Syncrhonization bookmarks and annotation with Desktop Reader.
2. Faster dictionary lookup
3. Left and Right Margin screen setup
4. "Copy Text" PLEASE
5. Fix the bugs
6. Category, sort, and hidden option in the Library Screen.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/23/2003

About MS Reader News
MSReaderNews.com
Register to receive the newsletter about the latest blockbusters, free eBooks, discounts and specials, fine-tuned to your specific interests.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Free eBook Limited Time
Selecting the Pope
by Greg Tobin
Award-winning author Greg Tobin offers a compelling guide to what is sure to be one of the most important and headline-making events in modern history—the election of the next pope. Selecting the Pope examines each rule of this secretive process—and explores the rich history behind the conclave and the key issues that will shape the future of the Catholic Church. You’ll discover:
Why the election always concludes with the rising of white smoke
What powers the cardinals hold during the vacancy of the Holy See
Pope John Paul II’s startling changes to the centuries-old election process
A day-by-day account of the balloting inside the Sistine Chapel
How the electors should behave during the conclave—even their “dress code”
A look at the list of probable successors to John Paul II
Selecting the Pope is an indispensable handbook for anyone, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, who wishes to understand the extraordinary process of electing the world’s most influential religious leader.
More Free ebooks from MS: The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

posted by Jerry permanent link

Marching to March 2004
BookTech Expo 2004
North America's Largest Book Technology Conference and Expo
BookTech 2004 will host the leading electronic and book publishing product and service suppliers within its exhibit hall. Many of those exhibiting will showcase their latest innovations, products and services during the exhibition hours on March 15-16, 2004.
Who Should Attend BookTech:
BookTech is for all members of the book publishing team, especially executives, managers, directors and supervisors of:
• Production
• Design
• Electronic Content/Internet Publishing
• Prepress
• Manufacturing,
• Business and Finance.
CONFERENCE: March 15-17, 2004
EXPO: March 15-16, 2004
LOCATION: Hilton, New York, NYC

posted by Jerry permanent link

Crack Watch
New DVD-copying tools to hit shelves
DVD drive company Tritton Technologies on Friday said it agreed to distribute software called DVD CopyWare, created by United Kingdom-based Redxpress. Like software from rival 321 Studios, which has been sued by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the CopyWare package will make a perfect copy of DVDs to a blank disc.
Tritton said it is simply trying to help people make backup copies of their own DVDs, not facilitate movie piracy, even though no protections against making multiple copies or making duplicates of copies are included in the software.
It would be nice if we can copy/convert to lower resolution and watch our DVD with Pocket PC

posted by Jerry permanent link

Jail eBooking
Write a Story, Go to Jail
A student who wrote a violent short story on a school computer may face 10 years in prison. Prosecutors say they are trying to prevent more school massacres; the student's defenders say they're fighting attempts to criminalize thought.

posted by Jerry permanent link

2 hours after the Chicken Soup
Bedtime Stories for Women
I miss my Beast," laments Beauty, as she settles unhappily into married life with her husband, the prince. She reminisces about earlier rendezvous with the prince when he was a frightful beast, more animal than man, in "Beauty and the Beast," the first story in this series of erotic fairy tales for women. Each story is a sensual adaptation of a well-known fairy tale, featuring a unique erotic fantasy that was chosen from among the most popular fantasies shared by women.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/22/2003

eLibrary Watch
Wright Memorial Public Library Offers eBooks
Wright Memorial Public Library, named for the family of Orville and Wilbur Wright, the inventors of the airplane, is now offering ebooks to patrons through Wright Memorial's new Digital Library Collection at www.wright.lib.oh.us (click on Library Catalog). Located in the City of Oakwood, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, the library partnered with digital media company OverDrive, Inc. to bring their patrons 24/7 access to eBook titles available for reading on PCs, notebooks, and PDA devices.
All a patron needs is a library card, an Internet connection, and free eBook reader software from Adobe Systems Inc. or Palm Digital Media.

posted by Jerry permanent link

CashOut
Some Try to Cash in on Blackout Souvenirs
It didn't take long for some savvy folks to dream up merchandising the blackout of 2003.
After power returned to Michigan customers, Steven E. Harris, of Warren, Mich., spent 16 hours Saturday writing an e-book on the blackout. "Surviving the Blackout of 2003" sells for $9.95 on his Web site Knowledgepublications.com.
"On Saturday, when things were coming back, all my friends and myself, we knew we dodged a bullet," said Harris, who is a member of the local civilian emergency response team. "We were looking at each other, (saying) `This is kindergarten, people... why don't you try doing this for a week?'"
Harris' book, which he plans to eventually make available at no charge, warns people that it could have been much worse and offers advice on preparing for and handling future blackouts. The advise ranges from the types of clothing to have in an emergency to how to use the bathroom without water.

posted by Jerry permanent link

eBento
Matsushita Electric to Launch e-book Service at Narita Airport
Narita Airport Authority and Matsushita Electric will launch a trial e-book service at the Narita International Airport from September to November. Under the service, the test user will receive a dedicated e-book viewer dubbed Sigma Book, use it on a trip, and report what they think need to be improved, including content quality and the durability and design of the terminal.
Source: eBookweb.org

posted by Jerry permanent link

Words
Paper or plasma? (Screens, that is)
In an ideal world, Saugus Library assistant director Michael Colford would prefer not to accidentally drop any of his reading materials into the water in his bathtub. If he had to choose, however, between losing a dusty old novel or a handheld electronic book, Colford says he would just as soon replace the paperback.
"If you drop a paperback in the water, sure you might ruin a $3 or $4 book, but if you drop and e-book in the water, then you're out $100," says Colford.
..."If they do improve the technology significantly, then making something look like something else is a very good way to overcome people's fears," Orifice says. "Otherwise, people are going to be afraid of it and it's not really a rational fear."

posted by Jerry permanent link

Das eBook
MuseSearch Powers German eBook Portal
MuseGlobal, Inc. and Kreutzfeldt Electronic Publishing from Hamburg, Germany have announced "Deutsches eBook-Portal", a Web site that serves as a point of access to more than 2000 ebooks in the German language. Visitors to the portal at www.ebookportal.de can simultaneously search the databases of six ebook shops.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Contemporary Instructional Concepts
Argument Online
Argument Online! can be implemented as a collateral resource for convential classroom instructors who are teaching critical thinking and argument/research skills, and it can certainly be used as the primary text in online courses. In addition to the Judge Jimmy Courtroom Simulation Game, the purchase of this text:
*Includes links to writing and research tutorials
*Includes direct instruction on how to write arguments
*Includes necessary search tools for legal and other sources
*Includes step-by-step instructions on formatting in MLA Style.
Instructor's manual and interactive test (75 questions) are also available to instructors who implement this text in their classrooms or online courses.

posted by Jerry permanent link

eBush
President Bush Not Interested in Gadgets
No pager or PDA hangs off his belt and there's no cell phone in his suit pocket.
President Bush, like many world leaders and business titans, relies on aides to carry the high-tech gizmos that are a staple of modern life. That's just fine by Bush, described as intrigued by what technology can do but not necessarily with the gadgets themselves.
Through his staff, he has access to the most advanced technologies. The president, for example, doesn't experiment with digital cameras, but a professional White House photographer is always nearby. He doesn't need to deal with online banking or shopping because his personal aide handles that for him.
He doesn't cart around today's keep-in-touch tools because someone is always nearby with communication equipment, and secure telephone lines are set up everywhere he goes by a White House office created just for that purpose.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/21/2003

Project Gutenberg Needs You
Part of a letter from Michael Hart, Project Gutenberg's founder:

As Project Gutenberg moves from 9,000 to 10,000 eBooks in the next 4 months, we only have 2 months' budget on hand. . .so right now it looks as if we will run out of money in October. . . .
This month my assistant and I are working with no salary. We might get paid later, if things start looking up.
We are going to need people to interface with the MAJOR granting agencies to get a good run [toward] a million eBooks!!!
We should approach the Fortune 500, Computer 100, and the 500 wealthiest people, too.

Come on. I know Jerry's site and mine at TeleRead.org are read by people at blue-chip companies, including some looking for good PR. What better way to earn it honestly?
Even if you can't authorize money for worthwhile cultural activities, maybe you can fire off a memo to someone who can. No need to guess what PG might do with the money. It's the first and biggest publisher of public domain material on the Net.
If you want to reach Michael Hart directly, he's at hart@beryl.ils.unc.edu.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Somewhat Gentler DRM
DRM for the most part still has miles to go in terms of user friendliness, but as E-Commerce Times notes, recording studios have made progress--as shown by the example of Apple's iTunes service. Now if Microsoft and the like in the e-book area can catch on. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Sales Stats for the Classics
So how well did classics like Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird sell last year? BookMagazine recently published some stats that may be of interest to publishers and readers, especially boosters of the public domain doctrine--who are looking ahead to the future. More via TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  8/20/2003

OICLOL
Overdrive Joins OCLC Cataloging Partners Program
As part of the program, OCLC is also adding OverDrive's Content Reserve collection of eBooks to WorldCat, a database of bibliographic information containing nearly 50 million records. In addition, OverDrive is providing OCLC with catalog data on tens of thousands of eBooks in several formats including Adobe Reader (PDF), Microsoft Reader and Palm Digital Media. eBook titles from publishing houses such as HarperCollins PerfectBound, AOL Time Warner, McGraw-Hill, Scholastic, and others are available for purchase by libraries through Content Reserve an online repository of eBooks.

posted by Jerry permanent link

E-Booking Prisoners
E-books for the more than two million of Americans behind bars? Indeed! Literacy isn’t such a bad idea. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

The Great Blackout:
An E-Reading Opportunity
A Detroit News columnist gained a new appreciation of e-books during The Great Blackout. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  8/19/2003

Pocket TiVo
Replay Vtuner
vTuner now has a partnership with ReplayRadio to provide you with the best in Internet radio recording.
It's like a TiVo for Internet Radio! Now you can record your favorite radio stations and shows with Replay Radio. It's easy and it's fun.
Record your favorite radio stations and shows. Replay Radio turns your PC into a TiVo for Internet Radio!
Special offer: As a vTuner registered user, you can now buy Replay Radio at the special price of $19.90 (regular $29.95) or you can download a free trial of Replay Radio (if you like it then you can buy it for the regular price of $29.95).
WHAT YOU GET WITH REPLAY RADIO
- A schedule of popular radio shows.
- Record shows scheduled in Replay Radio's database.
- Record any audio playing on your PC.
- Record shows once, daily, or weekly.
- Creates MP3 files.
- Download to any MP3 Player including Pocket PC, Palm PDA
or iPod for listening on the go.
- Burn a copy to a CD.
- Simple installation and easy-to-use.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Jewish spiritual study
The orthodox Jewish organization Chabad has Jewish spiritual study material available for the Pocket PC (jewishcontent.org/pocket-pc/).
Taken from Pocket PC Magazine Nov 2003 edition

posted by Jerry permanent link

Media Monopolists Rejoice!
Michael Powell is still at the FCC
Want your cable company to be able to influence, in a pushy way, which Net sites you can visit, including e-book-related ones? Then you'll love the latest sentiments from FCC chair and ideologue Michael Powell. Kudos to Amazon.com and others for fighting Powell-style insanity, whatever their motives. Via CNET.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

The Time Challenge
E-Books and the Young
Books and magazines were the big losers in a Yahoo-related study of young people's habits. Time for the e-book biz to search for ways for digital books to be as affordable and easy to use as possible? The study is bad news for format zealots who insist that readers take time out to cope with a Tower of eBabel. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

DRM and E-Books:
Some Possible Solutions
The Aug. 15 Library Journal tells of the DRM nightmare ahead for readers and librarians if the status quo continues. Written by an ALA copyright maven, the article suggestions some interesting solutions. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

New Site
PocketDirectory
powered by Town Compass, The patent-pending Town Compass® DataViewer software allows three-tier hierarchical data searching and index cross referencing for navigating and displaying database information.
Town Compass® customizes database products to extend the company's core handheld navigation strength by creating mobile content solutions for business and individuals to access, anytime, anywhere.

posted by Jerry permanent link

eNewstand
Pocket PC Magazine: November 2003
Microsoft recently introduced Windows Mobile 2003, the latest upgrade to the Pocket PC operating system and built-in applications. Chris De Herrera takes a detailed look at the upgraded operating system, and tells about all the enhancements and additions.
Chris reported that the memory leak bugs of Pocket Reader 2002 has been fixed with the Windows Mobile 2003

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/17/2003

How to 'Celebrate' Clinton's Net Policy: Repudiate It
Old White House policy hands never die. They just fade away into law firms and think tanks and long for yore. Across the Potomac from me, a gaggle of Clinton Dems will gather on September 15 at George Washington University to "Celebrate Ten Years of Cyberspace Policy." I have a celebratory suggestion. Why not repudiate the DMCA, copyright term extension and other joys that Bill Clinton brought us--with plenty of help from the GOP? More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  8/16/2003

For Friends without PDAs
E-Book Hardware on the Cheap--Now
OK, so you like your Pocket PC, but you have a friend who wants to read e-books and is open to cheap alternatives, including nonPocket PCs. TeleRead has some suggestions. A future item will discuss cheapie Pocket PCs.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Copyright Law:
Tolerate at Your Own Peril
Stephen Manes, a board member of the Authors Guild, has just written a PC World column titled Copyright Law: Ignore at Your Own Peril. I'd prefer, "Tolerate at Your Own Peril." More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  8/15/2003

Don Jones

Born to Steal: When the Mafia Hit Wall Street
by Gary Weiss
This account of the Mafia's infiltration of Wall Street uses as its chief source a fast-talking Staten Island kid named Louis Pasciuto who, from age 19-25, moved stocks for 17 different brokerage houses--most of that time without even a fake license. Louis was the consummate liar, selling overpriced and phantom stocks to naive Americans and leading a lifestyle worthy of Caligula. To avoid a long prison sentence, he ultimately became a witness for the state. Among the book's scenes: morning pep rallies filled with Dr. Seuss poetry and "Rocky" theme music; tie-'em-up-in-knots cold-call sessions that netted for each hood-broker as much as $500,000 per month; 36-hour cocaine binges; orgies; and tussles with Mafia thugs toting Mac 10 machine pistols.

posted by Jerry permanent link

From The Other Side
M-Systems, Palm tie-in redefines PDA
Then there's the growing interest in portable electronic reading material. Palm Digital Media, a subsidiary of PalmSource, has over 10,000 titles available as eBooks. Adobe also offers a PDF reader for Palm OS based devices. There's also MP3. It doesn't all have to be music, though. Recorded messages, travel guides and instructions could all be pre-recorded and carried.

posted by Jerry permanent link

G'Book Mike
Better read
Somewhere in the near future, you will read a book that hasn't been produced in the way books are normally produced - i.e. printed on paper and bound. Digital books or ebooks exist in cyberspace as bits and bytes, but they're no less "books" for being represented by small electric currents. Many literary masterpieces can be read online and are accessible from myriad sources, some free and some for a fee.
More exciting is the extensive Australian site Project Gutenberg of Australia, which offers 250 free ebooks, including works by Australian authors and titles which are associated with Australia (although not necessarily written by an Australian). The local site also specialises in books of Australian exploration so you can read not only about the expeditions of Burke and Wills but also Shackleton, Mawson, Leichhardt, Forrest and Sturt, among others. The site is also looking for project volunteers so, if you're looking to do "your bit" for literature, you might consider this.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/14/2003

It's Coming
June Was A Good Month For (e)Books
E-books continued their steady rise, with sales up 218.3 percent ($500,000) and year to date figure show an increase of 169.9 percent.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Thoughts on Audio Contents
Other Content For Your Pocket PC - What Do You Listen To?
I regularly listen to music as well as "The Wall Street Journal" from Audible on my Pocket PC. I'm not a huge fan of audio books though. I'd rather read them, in ebook format of course. There are times though when I'd like to listen to something for hours and for now, I've found something pretty good. Reasons.org has a weekly radio show that is broadcast over the internet.
Of course, that means you have to be near your computer, which is no good. Fortunately, they convert the show to MP3 format. They strip the ads out, which is nice, but a 1.5 hr show is $3 per download, a bit too much for my taste...
And don't forget Applian's Replay Radio which is an incredibly easy way to record radio broadcasts. Just pick your favorite radio show, or select a station and a time range, and Replay Radio records it for you. It's like a VCR for the radio. Now you can listen to your favorite radio shows whenever and wherever you like!

posted by Jerry permanent link

New eBook
Dante's Equation
by Jane Jensen
In a breathless thriller that explores the relationship between science and the divine, good and evil, space and time, Jane Jensen takes us from the world we know into a reality we could only scarcely imagine. Until now. Rabbi Aharon Handalman's expertise with Torah code--rearranging words and letters in the Bible--has uncovered a man's name. Who is Yosef Kobinski, and why did God hide his name in His sacred text? To find the answers, Aharon begins an investigation, and discovers that Kobinski, a Polish rabbi, was not only a mystic but also a brilliant physicist who authored what may be the most important lost work in human history.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/13/2003

Keep'em in your Pocket
KeepMedia Launch
The service is now live and we look forward to your visit at www.keepmedia.com
KeepMedia offers easy, affordable access to 140+ magazines, newspapers, and more.
Here's how it works:
Become a KeepMedia subscriber for $4.95 a month and:
Get unlimited access to all the up-to-date archives in its system from leading publications, including:
U.S. News and World Report
Esquire
Family Circle
Variety
BusinessWeek Online
Kiplinger's
Forbes.com
San Jose Mercury News
Psychology Today
Browse, search, share and keep as many archives as you want

posted by Jerry permanent link

Reduced Price (read: correctly adjusted)
The Great Movies
from original price of $24 to $10.20
From America’s most trusted and best-known film critic, one hundred brilliant essays on the films that define for him cinematic greatness. For the past five years Roger Ebert, the famed film writer and critic, has been writing biweekly essays for a feature called "The Great Movies," in which he offers a fresh and fervent appreciation of a great film. The Great Movies collects one hundred of these essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send readers back to that film with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm–or perhaps to an avid first-time viewing.

posted by Jerry permanent link

The Dreams of Yore
Andersen Consulting's $2.3B E-Book Fantasy
The consumer market for e-book content will reach $2.3 billion dollars in 2005, including $700 million in "replacement sales." That's what experts hired by the publishers were saying in in 2000--namely, Arthur Andersen Consulting, yes, Andersen from the Enron scandal. But there are some good, realistic ways for publishers to multiply sales of e-books and even please the public--as opposed to enraging Netfolks by lobbying for clueless copyright laws. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Upgrade Watch
Palm Reader Pro 2.3.1
The new version includes several enhancements, some of which apply to the free version. As far as I know, none of these enhancements have been incorporated into the versions for HPCs and old Palm-sized PCs, but all Pocket PCs benefit.
• Inline images that scale well to the Pocket PC format. Previously, displaying images was optimized for 160X160 screens or multiples of 160. Now they look great on your 320X240 screen. You can tap on the image to zoom in as well.
• Theme support. If you dislike the drab white background, there are a number of textures you can use under the text. You can also choose the text color, link color (for footnotes), background color and highlight color if desired. I've not played with it yet, but I understand theme backgrounds, or the canvas, are just .png files so if you have a decent graphics program, you should be able to create your own canvas.
• Background pagination when you open a new ebook. This allows you to begin reading immediately. Even 4,000+ page ebooks paginate in under a minute on my iPAQ 2215.
• Better library screen allows you to see more information about an ebook before opening it.
• Finally, ebooks on the SD card are not closed when the device powers off! Woo hoo!
• Word look ups in the dictionary are much faster. The old version of Palm Reader Pro crawled when looking up a word. Now it takes just a second or two.
• Lots of other little tweaks and new preference settings.
+ Now you can add highlight to the text (stabilo)
+ Option to lookup dictionary, highlight or add note when you highlighting text.
Becareful, if you UPGRADE, ALL your bookmarks will be GONE, and you need to enter the credit card verification again. Keep your card handy before you install the new program.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/12/2003

Why E-Books Beat Out P-Books:
Fifty Arguments for Boosters
Next time a Luddite rants against e-books, you can turn to a thoughtful collection of 50 "pro" arguments. More via TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Pocket PC Dictionaries
eOxford
The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.
Varieties of the dictionary include:
Electronic Pocket Oxford English Dictionary [Secure Microsoft Reader]
A Dictionary of Law [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
Oxford Paperback Thesaurus [Secure Microsoft Reader]
A Dictionary of Sociology [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
A Dictionary of Biology [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
A Dictionary of Business [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
A Dictionary of English Place Names [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
A Dictionary of Economics [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
A Dictionary of World History [Secure Microsoft Reader]
Concise Medical Dictionary [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]
A Dictionary of Chemistry [Secure Microsoft Reader/Palm Reader]

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/11/2003

BMers
German eBook Portal
Das eBook-Portal bietet eine umfassende Übersicht über eBooks in deutscher Sprache: mit Titeln in allen bekannten Reader-Formaten, direktem Zugriff auf die größten eShops, übersichtlicher und transparenter Darstellung.
Wählen Sie einen Recherche-Weg:
Über die Suche im Katalog können Sie gleichzeitig im Gesamtbestand von über 2000 eBooks recherchieren.
In den 12 Themenrubriken stellt die Redaktion ausgewählte Titel vor.
(Review: eBookAd)

posted by Jerry permanent link

No Mute
Audible: The Head Winds Are Behind It
With new funding and lower losses, executives at Audible Inc. feel confident that the company is on the road to profitability. "We feel the days of fighting the head winds in order to survive are behind us now and the future looks very bright," said Audible president Donald Katz, as he disclosed the company's second-quarter financial results.
Consumer content revenue of $4.2 million was 73% higher than during the same period last year, and total revenue rose to $4.4 million, from $2.7 million, during the second quarter of 2002. Operating loss in the period fell to $917,101, from $4.7 million in last year's comparable quarter.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Swiss Cheese
Multimedia Swiss Army Knife - Pocket Player Review
The Pocket PC is a great platform. The built-in software lets you do most things pretty well. However, for the real enthusiast there is always room for applications that extend the Pocket PC and let you get more out of your device. Pocket Player fills the gap by giving you a fully skinnable, easy to use player for many audio formats.
Pocket Player by Conduits is a great application. Everything from installation to using it for the first time works smoothly. Coupled with Conduits' great support and committment to this product, this a great application for anyone who regularly listens to music on their Pocket PC.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Flash!
FlashAssist 1.3
FlashAssist is a Pocket PC application that lets you view Macromedia Flash content on your Pocket PC in three different window sizes. FlashAssist eliminates the scrollbars that appear when using Pocket Internet Explorer and allows you to open SWF files directly (no HTML companion file required).
Source: PocketPCThoughts

posted by Jerry permanent link

SlashDot Lit
Are We About To Enter The Age of Book Piracy?
theodp writes "The speed with which the 4MB e-mail hoax purporting to be the new cookbook from the Naked Chef streaked across the Internet suggests to Slate that a new, disquieting era for the publishing world may be in sight. Indeed, the latest Harry Potter tale made the rounds on the Web just hours after the book went on sale, its 870 pages apparently scanned in and distributed by rabid fans. The old argument that no one likes reading on a computer has pretty much eroded. Just because publishing people can't conceive of book piracy doesn't mean it can't happen."
Thanks to Jon Noring from eBook_community@yahoogroups.com

posted by Jerry permanent link

Next is Dead to DRM
The latest Harry Potter was digitally pirated. What's next?
Last week, an e-mail with the subject line "Free Stuff" appeared in my inbox. But this e-mail didn't contain a virus or an invitation to enlarge my penis. It was a large file purporting to be the new cookbook from Jamie Oliver, who achieved international celebrity as "the Naked Chef," with several best sellers and a popular cooking series on the Food Network. Complete with well-designed pages and color photos, this digital "book" quickly whipped its way around the world, even after Oliver's British publisher declared it a hoax. These were genuine Oliver recipes, but the book was cobbled together from his previously published cookbooks.
Scam or not, the speed with which the Naked Chef streaked across the Internet suggests that a new, disquieting era for the publishing world may be in sight. In an age when manuscripts circulate in digital form and scanners can swiftly convert hard copy into e-mail-able material, books are clearly vulnerable to piracy. Right now, devastated by file-sharing and bootlegging, the record industry is desperately trying to shut the barn door long after the horse has bolted. Hollywood, too, has been spooked by hackers uploading movies to the Internet. Can the publishing business afford to make the same mistakes?

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/10/2003

eBooks that change my lifestyle
Since 3 Months ago, I had changed my lifestyle from eat anything and limited sport activity to eat well and 5 times a week regular sport (+ loosing 12kg). The ebooks that inspired me and will always be in my Pocket PC are:
Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman M.D.: Don't do diet program but change your eating lifestyle. Designed for people who must lose 50 pounds or more in a hurry, Eat to Live works for every dieter, even those who want to lose as little as 10 pounds quickly. No willpower required-just knowledge!
and
The Portable Personal Trainer by Eric Harr
Eric Harr shares 100 inspirational strategies to uncover your passion and improve your performance.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/09/2003

The 'Valley Girl' Does TeleRead:
Speech Synthesis Good Enough for E-Books
Doubt that speech synthesis can be good enough for e-books for the masses? Check out the TeleRead Valley Girl demo, then have way-cool fun at the site of Rhetorical Systems, the actual source of the technology.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  8/08/2003

Time Out!
Who profits from spam? Surprise
There wouldn’t be spam if there wasn’t money in spam. So to understand what primes the spam economy, MSNBC.com answered a single unsolicited commercial e-mail. Following this one spam trail led us from Alabama to Argentina, from a tiny Birmingham-based firm and someone named “Erp” past a notorious spammer named Super-Zonda — and right through big-name companies like Ameriquest, Quicken, and LoanWeb. And that’s just the beginning. The truth about spam is this: While the dirty work is done by secretive, faceless computer jockeys who are constantly evading authorities, lots of companies with names you know profit, at least tangentially, from their efforts.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Free DRM5 eBook (Limited Time)
Facing Ali
by Stephen Brunt
Facing Ali tells the stories, in the fighters own words, of fifteen men from around the world, from famous names like Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Henry Cooper, to lesser lights like Tunney Hunsaker and Jurgen Blin and George Chuvalo. Facing Ali offers a unique perspective on what it was like to fight Ali, and gives new insights into the character of a man who is arguably the most recognized man on the planet.
More free eBooks from MS

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/07/2003

Memo To Random House:
The E-book Habit Needn't Be Just 'Random'
Peter Olson, Random House CEO and chairman, is exactly as pegged by the New York Times Magazine recently--"the most powerful man in publishing." So what's his big focus? Gasp, surprise of surprise, it's sales. But how to go about it? What role might e-books play in the future for a large publisher interested in a predictable and hopefully growing stream of revenue? More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

GoRepli
Repligo
RepliGo™ represents a breakthrough in document conversion technology and mobility. In a matter of seconds, virtually any document you have on your PC can be transferred to your handheld device while maintaining the document’s original look and feel. This includes Microsoft® Office documents, Adobe® PDF files, Web pages and hundreds of other formats. Once on your device, documents can easily be viewed, printed, and shared with others using the supplied RepliGo Viewer.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/06/2003

Slate's July edition of the eBook Club!
Our download this month is the first installment of the club’s most ambitious project to date, the Slate Poetry Collection. Volume 1 is an anthology of over 150 poems published between 1996 and 1999, with an original introduction by Robert Pinsky. Some of the poets in this collection are well-known, like William Carlos Williams (represented by “The Turtle”) and Joyce Carol Oates (“Double Portrait” and “Marooned in Dallas”), but most are relatively obscure outside the small community of poetry journals and academic writing programs. We’re proud to present them to you here and in our archives and hope that you have as much fun reading this collection as we had building it.
Microsoft Reader: July-2003

posted by Jerry permanent link

Read Longer
Universal Battery Extender with USB port
Is there anybody out there who hasn't at least once run out of battery power for their Pocket PC just when it was needed most?
Discuss it at PocketPCThoughts

posted by Jerry permanent link

Less Smart
Mobipocket Reader version 4.7 coming soon, version 4.6 withdrawn
The Mobipocket Reader 4.6 for smartphone has been withdrawn from Smartphone.net, although it still is possible to access it through the hidden link here. The new version 4.7 will resolve the problem with inability to show PID (Personal ID) to the user.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Free new DRM5 eBook (Very Limited Time)
The Killing Hour
by Lisa Gardner
Rookie FBI agent Kimberly Quincy knows the killer’s deadline can be met. But she’ll have to break some rules to beat an exactingly vicious criminal at a game he’s had time to perfect. For the Killing Hour has arrived....

posted by Jerry permanent link

enlightebook
E-Book Overview: RENAISSANCE E-Books
Renaissance have the ability to sift out popular literature that has become extinct for one reason or another but which is of sufficient merit to see the light of day once more and delight a new audience.
While this may not be a commercial proposition in conventional book-form, it lends itself to electronic publishing with ease. An ideal format for the release of old literature into the market, I would expect this practice will increase in popularity over the next few years. There is a wealth of quality material out there which doesn't have to be edited and is waiting to be picked up by an ebook publishing company.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Free eBook
With Caesar in the Underworld
by Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg continues his on-going Roma Eterna series of alternate history stories following the path of Rome in a world in which Christianity never arose and Judaism remained a minor cult. This story is set during the reign of the Eastern emperor, Justinian (527-565) and concerns Menandros, an ambassador sent to Rome to initiate negotiations to marry Justinian's daughter to the heir apparent of the Roman empire, Heraclius Caesar.

posted by Jerry permanent link

E-Books Baffle Teacher:
A Solomonic Lesson
Schools are a crucial market for the electronic-book industry since they can help ingrain the e-book habit at an early age. But so far the industry has flunked Marketing 101 by insisting on a tangle of different formats and onerous copyright-related controls. Result? Technophobic educators tune out. Read of the difficulty that one e-book enthusiast had making a convert of a teacher even without mentioning the complexities. No luck so far, apparently. Via TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  8/05/2003

...Black in Jakarta...

posted by Jerry permanent link

An Edison Parallel for E-Book
Boosters--and It Isn't All Pretty
So why aren't 100 million people downloading e-books and reading them on their sharp-screened PDAs or dedicated devices? Some lessons from Thomas Edison's life might apply here--and they're not all flattering to him. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

  8/04/2003

Chuck Palahniuk's
Lullaby
Carl Streator is a solitary widower and fortyish newspaper reporter who is assigned to do a series of articles on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In the course of this investigation, he discovers an ominous thread: the presence on the scenes of these deaths of the anthology Poems and Rhymes Around the World, opened to the page where there appears an African chant or "culling song." This song turns out to be lethal when spoken or even thought in anyone's direction--and once it lodges in Streator's brain, he finds himself becoming an involuntary serial killer.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Library E-Books in France
An Insider's Report from the Paris Suburbs
The Landowski library in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt is letting users download e-books to their PDAs, Smartphones and Tablet PCs. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Free eBook from MS
The Disowned Self
by Nathaniel Branden
Have you ever not known what you were feeling? Have you ever thought you should be angry, upset, or even joyous about something but all you felt was numb? Nathaniel Branden, bestselling author of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, tackles the frightening problem some people face when they find themselves disconnected from their own emotions.
more free ebooks

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/03/2003

MobiPocket PC
Mobipocket Reader is available for most all PDAs
"...I think this makes Mobipocket the leader in number of devices, including the Franklin eBookMan and Windows CE 3 Casio BE-300, and operating systems that are compatible with the reader. For geeks like me with multiple devices, this makes it easier to shell out cash for eBooks when I can read them on any device."

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/02/2003

Nine out of Ten
Windows Media Player 9 Series for the Pocket PC - Awesome Performance!
Jason Dunn's post of the new upgrade:
I also heard about WMP9 being able to handle fairly high bit rates, so I was curious to know if the 256 Kbps preset in Windows Media Encoder 9 was overly conservative. It was! I manually changed the encoding parameters to devote a full 300 Kbps just for video, and 64 Kbps for the audio. I also bumped up the frames per second to 24 from 20, and the results are excellent! The 1940 was able to play back the video without any problems at all, and the extra 100 Kbps or so devoted to the video makes the quality noticeably better. I plan to push it even higher when I get back - this Samsung CPU is impressive for only 266 Mhz! And kudos to Microsoft for radically improving the performance of WMP when it comes to video - they really worked some magic with the code.

posted by Jerry permanent link

DigitALL
Digital (Fill in the Blank) Is on the Horizon
Nancy Savoy does not share the rapture of her technophile husband, Tom, when he starts talking about hardware and software, kilobits and megabytes.
"My eyes glaze over," she said. "I'm not nerdy."
But Ms. Savoy, whose life is already surrounded by many of the amenities of modern technology — a personal computer, high-speed Internet access, a cellphone, a digital camera and a DVD player — did not hesitate when she was approached recently about joining a pilot program for digital home technology.
Hers will be one of 20 families in the Boston area that will soon try out networked appliances, including next-generation ovens, which can both cook and refrigerate food and can be controlled remotely by using cellphones or personal computers.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  8/01/2003

Time Out!
Victorinox IPAQ
Victorinox, the company who manufacture the world famous Swiss Army Knife, is expected to announce a revolutionary iPaq 2215 modification. Victorinox hopes this modification will open a new market for outdoor Pocket PC use. Similar to the impact of the SUV on the automobile market. The Victorinox model will incorporate a Large blade, Scissors, Compass, Can opener with small screwdriver, Hook, Corkscrew, Toothpick and Tweezers. The company claims that the addition of these tools doesn't effect the standard 2215 specifications.
(Source: PocketPCThoughts)

posted by Jerry permanent link

Pew-Financed Study
Biggest Music Downloaders: Men, Young, Poor and Minorities
"A striking 67% of Internet users who download music say they do not care about whether the music they have downloaded is copyrighted," says a Pew-financed study of the Net. It also found that the biggest downloaders are men, the young, the poor and members of minorities. Time for the RIAA to care about social justice for real and come up with more realistic business models? And a lesson for the e-book biz--since the study found that that most full-time students are downloaders? More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link

Shame on AOL Time Warner
Your Preview of the Pay-Per-Read Future
Some free magazine-related links on the CNN site reportedly last only two minutes--after which you're told to subscribe if you want to continue reading. More at TeleRead.

posted by David Rothman permanent link