E-books terribly hurt my eyes every time. I prefer a real book, because you can hold it and feel the pages in your hands. Your eyes will be comfortable in a way. There's no painful background light emitting from your computer screens.
E-books terribly hurt my eyes every time. I prefer a real book, because you can hold it and feel the pages in your hands. Your eyes will be comfortable in a way. There's no painful background light emitting from your computer screens.
"Love just is."
We have alread discussed e-Paper as a solution to to that, to be fair though a dedicated eReader device is too expensive to be practical to your average person, myself included unfortuantely.Originally Posted by K. Skywalker
However when you compare a book to an eBook in terms of convenience and comfort you have to factor in eReader devices, or at least PDAs and pocket PC's as these answer 90% of the common objections to ebooks. Otherwise, I concur, there is no contest - reading from a PC screen at a desk is abominable.
Suicide carried off many. Drink and the devil took care of the rest. - R L Stevenson
Currently Reading: Dead Souls - Gogol
I have been following this thread for quite some time now, as this is a topic of general interest to me. I can sympathize with the comments on concern regarding piracy. It is a very real concern for the market. While it is similar, it is by no means identical to that of the mp3 market. However, what it boils down to is this... personal integrity to uphold the values which we ourselves hold dear.
I know many people who essentially laugh at me for "buying" my music. While, this poses a problem for me on a storage level (I do not have a whole lot of space to be storing my voracious cd collection). I personally feel that I am supporting the arts that I so dearly love. Being generally a classical and "world" music enthusiast, this genre is usually not available for "free downloads". And while this may be a reason I purchase this music, rather than download it; I have come to adopt this principle in my overall character.
In this same way, I have been following the ebook market. It concerned me for the book industry I so dearly love. I was concerned that it would depreciate the value of the author's themselves. However, I was hopeful that it would open a whole different type of person to the possibility of appreciating books. The overall effect of this device has not made itself clear at this point. The debates are similar to those posted here. It will be interesting how the computer industry and legal represenatives choose to approach this challenge.
We can say what we like about the individual device itself. There are a few out on the market with different features and such. For me, it is tempting, again for the space restriction. I am continuously running out of room on my bookshelves and flat surface areas to house those books which I can't seem to part with. I cannot afford to store them in the "proper" sense to avoid deterioation of the book themselves. And in this sense, I feel that I would disgrace the book by treating it such disrespect.
What it boils down to is this.... personal character. If you chose to purchase such a device, it is up to you as an adult (I assume you are one) to be responsible about the usage of its contents. If you truly love the book industry as a whole, your respect for such personages will dicate on whether you purchase or pirate; should you have the option.
IMO, this is just one more way to test civilization on its moral fiber.
Silence is golden. But in the absence of silence, classical music is the avenue which chaos is turned into harmonious order.
Yes... I am THIS weird
Hey I was just wondering for the person who had the sony reader or anyone who knows the answer.
Can you upload Free E-books to the sony reader or do you have to get legal/paid for ones?
What files does it load? Does it load mobibooks?
Just wondering cos theres a new one out soon and I may get one. Most of the literature I want is online free..... and I'd like to upload some poems too.
Thanks
yes. with the Sony reader you can upload free books. As far as the mobibooks.. I am not sure.. you might try your question at mobileread.com. A lot of folks there share their experiences and questions in reference to all of the readers on the market.
Silence is golden. But in the absence of silence, classical music is the avenue which chaos is turned into harmonious order.
Yes... I am THIS weird
I do not know what happened to the kindle thread, but I would like to correct an error I posted to WuWei: I wrote that archived kindle content could not be deleted, and I was only correct insofar as it pertains to deleting from Your Media Library. If you literally want to remove content it can be done from computer> my account> my orders, and then you turn kindle wireless on, sync to Amazon, and voila, the content disappears, but I would use this sparingly if any money was paid for the text file; even with the free files, if those are under copyright Amazon can offer it free one day and then put a price in place the next.
I hope this post corrects my unintended error.
My e-reader is pretty cool. It came with over 100 classics already on it. Plus, you can download others for free. It's easier than trying to find time to go to the library or bookstore. Plus, if you're one of those readers who can't resist flipping to the end, the e-reader kind of discourages that.
Just one question, with these e-reader things can you annotate whilst reading them in some form? I assume that you can't and it strikes me as another drawback of using them. Whenever I read, mostly I will annotate what I am reading, jot down thoughts here and there, but surely this is not possible with the e-readers, or can you do this?
Either way though, I don't think that I'll be getting one in the near future, though I can see them inevitably taking over eventually.
Yes, you can, there is the ability to make notes anywhere in the text and you can search on those notes.
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda
This is one area where I think I'll stick to the old school.
OK thanks, they've obviously thought of that one then, I thought that there may be a gap in the market for a e-reader student edition, but obviously not. I wonder if you can print off your notes on them too, can you do that do you know, I bet you can then?
Yes, but it has to be done through your pc usb port. I am pc stupid but I have my ereader operation down; it breaks my heart that this was not around when I could have closed the deal on my doctorate, because I probably could have with tools such as this.
For me audiobooks all the way. I can read ebooks (I have a very very smart ereader for that purpose and will buy an iPad in very near future) and I regularly buy and pile up paper books but for the time being I can only afford to give time to audiobooks. I listen to my books while walking the dog and during my commute to and from work.
"The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the sh1t the more I am grateful to him..."
-- Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett
I used to listen to audio books when I had this other job where I could listen to the headphones all I wanted. I would read on the bus to the job, listen all day to various audio books, then read on the bus all the way home, then read at home - it was good; the audio books kept me in that job for about three more years then I would have done. However now with that job gone I don't have any reasons to listen to them, so have hardly used them since.
I've never been able to listen to audio books. In any setting when I can read, I would rather be read (its much faster) and in any setting where I have to primarily give my attention to something else so I can't read, such as in the car, I unconsciously turn it into background noise and tune it out. I still have a fairly good collection of public domain audio books because I have a few friends who swear by them for their long car rides and they've come to count on me for recommendations of something interesting that they haven't read/heard yet.
As far as e-books go, though they've come a long way in the last handful of years, I don't think that they could ever outright replace paper books. They certainly have several uses that can make it more convenient to make than getting ahold of a paper book (actually, my chosen college Senior Project was to build an e-book, so I would hope I have some appreciation for them), but as several of the comments on this thread demonstrate there are some aspects of paper books that people simply prefer.
To bring up a point that hasn't been mentioned here: One thought I heard recently that I never would have thought of on my own is that with ebooks one does not have the opportunity for serendipitous conversation. For example, if I see a co-worker with a kindle reading during every break, unless I regularly ask them the obnoxious "Whatcha readin'," then I won't know when they are reading something I might actually be interested in discussing with them. Likewise, a stranger on the bus might be reading my favorite book of all time, and I'd be happy to strike up a conversation about it for the rest of the bus ride (I've done this before) but I would never know to if they were reading it on an ebook reader (and I certainly don't want every stranger on the bus to ask me what I'm reading or try to peer over my shoulder).
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