I want a Sony Reader
I spend so many evenings reading stuff on my computer monitor. You know, articles, books, feeds...
Readings on a monitor is just not comfortable
I already spent the whole day sitting on that office chair. And I'll tell you what: Spending the evening as well on it is not pleasant. I'd rather be sitting in my sofa or in my bed. And don't get me started about how my wife would find me more sociable!
Also, I never found long readings particularly comfortable (hence productive) on a computer screen. Therefore taking my laptop in my sofa or my bed is not a more satisfying experience. Not to mention using a laptop in a plane :-(
I want to read a book
What I want is to be able to read all that contents from a book.
Do you remember eBook Readers? These devices showed up a few years ago but vanished as soon as they appeared. The idea was that they are no computers, they are, well..., electronic books: Their screen is not LCD/TFT-like. They use so-called electronic ink, some new kind of display that make it look like a book: no backlight, black & white but as comfortable and readable as paper.
For some reason, everyone thinks these devices should be used only to download novels from a book library. Hell, no! I want to load them with all articles and contents available from my computer.
Sony tries again : Sony Reader PRS500
Even though all these devices seem to be stored on the deep shelves of electronics History, Sony is just about to try again: They will release a new eBook reader in a couple of weeks from now. The
All reviewers rave about the device's quality (including the PCMag video review):
- Wonderful screen
- ultra portable: 6" inch screen, 250g (9 ounce), thinner than a book.
- Battery lifetime... oh boy! 7500 pages. Yes, pages, not minutes or hours: The device consumes power only when you turn the pages!
- Sony eBook catalog. WTF! I don't want to read novels, I want to transfer contents from my computer.
- Price: $350. To read novels. Nooo! not novels! Why are you obsessed with novels. You know, i'm not a gadget fan. Not at all. But I won't hesitate a single minute to shell out such an amount for a device that can get me unstuck from my computer.
- DRM constraints for purchased eBooks. Then again, if you want to read novels...
- Not many file formats supported. Ouch, that one is worrying: The device basically supports only PDF and BBeB (Sony's proprietary eBook format). But after all, converting any device to PDF is as easy as invoking the Print command. Also, they say that the device comes with software that makes documents conversion to BBeB very easy.
- Slashdot readers will of course not forget to mention rootkits ;-)
I'm impatient to get my hand of such a device. But before i buy, I'll want to make sure reading PDFs formatted in A4/letter size will be easy to read on a 6" inch screen. This is actually my only concern.
Oh! And if they could have added a true USB port to let me plug my USB memory key, rather than a Sony Memory Stick or SD card, it would be perfect (The device does have USB connection but only through a mini-USB plug).
More info (including picture and links) on Wikipedia.[Edit: 250g. Not 4kg!]
posted by Serge Wautier @ 1:52 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Serge,
I understand your feelings. I think I would like to have it for programming material because I should be able to produce A5 PDFs which should look OK on it. As for PDFs already at A4 I think we may be out of luck, which sucks for all those academic papers that seem to accumulate on my desktop in PDF format.
Oh, and I understand the device can handle RTF and plain text as well as PDF and BBeB. Somebody's trying to reverse engineer the BBeB format right now though. Maybe we will have some luck.
I saw one in a store and it was almost paper. It was much closer to paper than to LCD screens. Your eyes will delight. I am definitely going to try and acquire one.
Hi Daniel,
Glad to read I'm not alone :-)
What would be the point of BBeB reverse engineering? What would it add to PDF support?
I just got a Reader the other day, and over all I love it. But i will admit that the PDF issue is a bummer.
Here is the deal with it though, PDF's were never designed to be changed. They were designed as to print the same on every thing. So a A4 page will just be a really small A4 page. that makes them harder to read. However I have found that if you export the PDF as a text document or a HTML document, there are some tools (google: BBeB Binder)
that will take those formats and convert them to .LRF files (sonys BBeB) those files then open and work like a champ with font sizing and all. Now if someone could just write a macro for OOo that would take the file and do this automatically we would be able to have some protablilty.
Serge, I have a Sony Reader and I'm very happy with it but there are a few caveats;
It's not a good device for reference books- navigation is too cumbersome, even with embedded links in the text.
The cost of contemporary e-books is way out of line. Until authors cut out the middleman and self-publish specifically for the electronic market at a reasonable price point, it'll probably stay that way.
On the positive side;
As a bibliophile, my interest in e-books is primarily in gaining access to rare and out of print classics- books that I cannot afford to obtain in paper editions. Project gutenberg, the Internet Archive and Manybooks.net will keep me busy for years and the content is public domain and free to download.
RTF is a great format for the reader- absolutely unneccesary to jerk around with BBeB or any other sort of proprietary format.
I spend 8-10 hours a day working in front of dual monitors and the last thing I want to do with my leisure time is to subject my aging eyes to any more abuse during my leisure time- the e-ink screen is very easy on the eyes.
As far as the price of the reader goes- the 299.00 I spent was cheap compared to what I spend buying out of print paper books. If you're interested in having a lot of literature at your fingertips with no space constraints and at no cost, I'd highly reccomend the Sony Reader.
Cordially,
Ted
PDFCropper is the application, designed to solve the problem with preparing for reading normal sized (A4-like) pdf's on relative small (Sony Reader PRS500/PRS505, iRex Illiad etc.) devices.
The problem is that pdf is not reformat able by nature. Yes, there is reflow mode in Acrobat Reader, but at first Acrobat Reader is not available for most e-book readers (especially for e-ink devices),
and second even with reflow function reading of complex content (technical books, magazines etc.) is not comfortable. Bad formatted pdf's and wide white spaces make the situation even worse.
The only way how this problem can be solved (at least based on my experience) to cut original pages into smaller pages with removing white spaces.
This is exactly what program do. But comparing with similar software PDFCropper is much more flexible, that allows to prepare books with much better quality in a very short time.
Currently PDFCropper can produce text and image pdf's. Later additional output formats (lrf, lrs, wolf etc.) will be added.
PDFCropper web-site currently is under construction. But it is already available for downloading:
PDFCropper v1.0 RC2 - http://rapidshare.com/files/79718571/Setup.exe.html
Trial version of PDFCropper is fully functional, but output pages are shuffled and include watermark (which by the way displays registration code that you need for obtaining license).
There are no yet tutorial or help available. But I prepared "How To" demo-video:
http://rapidshare.com/files/79717770/PDFCropper_-_How_To.swf.html
Also, anyone interesting in software, can send me example pdf, and I will send back resulted pdf prepared via application.
You can ask any questions about using or installing software (and details about purchasing the license) via e-mail:
vstefanyuk@gmail.com
P.S. Application is implemented by using Java. You have to have installed Java environment version 1.5 or higher.
Also Ghostscript has to be installed. In case if it is not, application will propose you to download.
Resize/prepare A4 pdf for your Sony Reader
www.pdfcropper.com
Online converter: http://www.lib2go.com
Very useful files search engine. http://Indexoffiles.com is a search engine designed to search files in various file sharing and uploading sites.
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Excuse, the message is removed
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