Tech From an E-booker’s Viewpoint

No, this isn’t strictly about e-books, but I feel that it’s worth talking about.  By now most people have more than enough thumb drives, especially the lower capacity ones as we constantly upgrade.  So if you are wondering what to do with those 256 and 512mb drives consider installing some portable software.  Portable applications can be run directly from your flash drive so no matter where you are you can use your own applications. A great place to start is Portable Applications.  In addition to Open Office they have applications ranging from games, photo editing, chat, and password managers.  My favorite other than Open Office is the pdf creator.  These are some of the possibilities listed on their site:

Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks

Carry your calendar with all your appointments

Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings

Carry your whole office suite along with your documents and presentations

Carry your antivirus program and other computer utilities

Portable applications are also convenient too!  The most convenient feature is that you can carry utilities that can be used to help your friends that are having PC problems.  Another site to check out is Everything USB.

SanDisk’s Cruzer Freedom comes with applications already install on the flash drive.  The software allows the user to storage and use copyrighted digital content such as e-books, games, and music. SanDisk offers a variety of books at their digital store.  While the Freedom Cruzer is geared towards students, others may find the content offered interesting.  You may want to check out the virtual tour.  I like that it has a dictionary onboard.  Maybe now that the prices are so low we may see mobipocket books on a stick.  Just think about having the Harry Potter collection on one and being able to read it on any PC.  Just a thought.

This weekend I finally got around to getting my DS lite to read e-books.  There are a few things you need in order to do this.  First, you need something like a Max Media Dock or Datel’s Games and Music cartridge.  Both are under $30.    There are other cartridges such as a Supercard SD, Gameboy Advance Movie Player, R4 Multimedia card, etc. You will also need either an SD, Micro SD, or Compact Flash card depending on what kind of dock or cartridge you buy.  Finally, you will need the e-book reader software from one of the homebrew sites.  I’ll list all links at the end of this post. The process was rather easy once I found an how to guide on Pocket Gamer.  This guide shows how to install DS Reader, but this guide will work for any NDS software.  I found three readers available for the DS: Read More, DS Libris, and DS Reader. 

So far DS reader is the most stable one I tried.  There was no screen freezing and it is easy to navigate. DS reader recognizes txt files only and uses True Type Fonts.  It comes with two included, but you can add your own.  You can also choose to have either a white or black background, standard style or anti-aliased. Another thing I like about this software is that you can adjust your font size. Screen view settings include top, bottom, and both.  Another choice is whether or not you want smart paragraphs.  I would pick yes to avoid lines with only one word on it. 

I also tried Read More and DS Libris.  Both readers are portrait mode so you would hold the DS lite like a book and it displays two pages.  I was impressed by these two programs since I felt like I had a regular book opened.  The problem is that they didn’t work that well for me.  First, Read More opens to an introduction of the program, but that’s as far as I got.  Whenever I tried to get to the menu, the program would freeze.  I searched some forums and there were others who shared my experience, but so far no answers.  So I can not tell you if this application is customizable. Now for DS Libris.  This is a new home brew and the author states that it may have many bugs.  The program only lists the first eight files and only recognizes files in xht (XHTML) format.  I tried to format some text using Word, but no luck.  I may try it using Open Office. The program is also prone to fail on start up.  It worked great for awhile and then it started to give error messages.  From what I could tell there is no way to change any of the settings.  Another problem worth mentioning is that I couldn’t find a way to exit out of any of the three reader programs.  All I could do was turn off the DS.

Overall it was a nice experience reading on the DS, which has beautiful bright screens .  I wouldn’t use it as my primary reader, but on trips it could be a nice diversion from gaming.

Links

Max Media Player

Read More Alpha

Newbie Guide for DS lite

GBA Movie Player

Mini site for Datel’s Games and Music

Drivers to patch NDS files to work on Cartridge

DS Scene: A DS Homebrew site for downloads and user forum

Deal Extreme:  E-store with cartridges, cases, etc

For Comic e-books:  The author of the site is closing it soon

Golden Age Comics: Site for downloading copyright free golden age comics.

Books for a Buck: Specializes in affordable novel-length fiction. We do sell many of our books through Fictionwise and Mobipocket, but some of our books (especially our cheapest books) are available only through the publisher website. Also, new books are on sale for only $1 during their first month of availability-before they go on Mobipocket, Fictionwise, or other distributors.

Try searching with Digital Reading Search
It’s a Google Custom Search Engine that searches the free and paid-for ebook sites.
(Baen, PG, ManyBooks etc are on the list)… no warez.

Baen: They have many in their free library. None of their books have DRM, they are reasonably priced and they have many formats. Unfortunately they are somewhat specialized in military related SciFi and they currently do not support the LRF format used by the Sony Reader. However they do have formats that can be used with the Sony, e.g. RTF, and also have Mobipocket, MS .lit, HTML, Palm & Rocket/Ebookwise. They do have a few books by other publishers as well, e.g. Tor.

Penguin GroupI like this site because it has a special interest grouping.  So if you are into African American literature, this site has the best selection I’ve seen and I didn’t have to search for it.  Other special interest groups include Latino literature, parenting, and short reads.  Prices on some of the books are more expensive than other e-book stores.  Site sells paper books and not all include an e-book version. Also some selections include an excerpt of the book.

Cyberread

Site contains over 40,000 e-books in a variety of formats.  Not all formats available for every title.  Good selection of categories that may be of interest to professionals and students in addition to fiction novels.

Diesel E-books

Good selection of children fiction and religious fiction.  Formats include MS reader, Palm reader, and Adobe.  Diesel also sells bundles and offer free e-books.  Free e-books are mostly classics and require you use MS reader.

Digital Book Index

If you are looking for free e-books, this is must go to and bookmark place.

The site links to more than 137,000 titles from 1800 non-commercial and commercial publishers, universities and private sites.  If you need some help in find articles for research, this site and really help you find more resources.  Great for all types of students and us regular folks too.

Readers ‘R Us

This is mainly a place to get classic books for free.  They also offer free MP3 audio too.  I found this site when looking for children books.  The site is not very user friendly when it comes to navigating through the categories.

When you own a lot of gadgets, software, and belong to several forums, how do you keep track of need to know information?   You could build a spreadsheet with the pertinent information, but what if your computer fails and you haven’t backed it up?  I used to keep all my information about my purchases in a journal, but after awhile it became so disorganized.  Now I use a paper address book.  Now I can enter information alphabetically.   The information I keep includes the name of the device, software, website, and serial numbers, tech support phone numbers, user ID, passwords, etc.  Basically everything and anything I think I may need. I find this has been not only a quick reference, but also serves as a historical catalog of my purchases.  I also keep information associated with extended warranty purchases. I often go back and write notes when I have to call a vendor, or if I decide that the product sucks.  It also helps when I reformat my computers and need all my registration information to reinstall applications.  Sometimes I keep non tech info too, like my son’s wall locker’s combination, and for my youngest, his lunch PIN.

I just got an email from The Tech Geeks.  They have a USB to serial adapter for $10.99 and free shipping.  I think that’s a pretty good price.  If you are still using your Rocket e-book or any device that connects via a serial port, you may want to consider this.  I have bought from this site and so far I have been pleased with my purchases.

One thing I like is being able to customize my devices.  It makes it more unique and personal.  I thought is would be nice to talk about a  few things that can make using your device more enjoyable.

USB flash drives:  You can also use USB thumb drives with the DT375.  That is, if you don’t mind it sticking out of the device.  I got it to work using a file I got from the Epods Yahoo! user group.  If anyone is interested in getting it, let me know.

Virtual Display:  I bought this program because I don’t like reading in landscape mode, especially when viewing PDF files.  It can be unstable at times, but you can download the trial version to see if you like it.  Just make sure that you’ve backed up your files before installing.

Adding E-books:  In order for the Palm reader to see your books, they must in be in a specific folder.  When you install the software it creates a folder called “Peanut Press” in your m”My Documents” folder.  More than likely you will want to keep your e-book files on a memory card.  So, on your CF card create a folder called “My Documents”.  In that folder create another folder called “Peanut Press”.  Now copy your palm books into this folder.  When you start the reader it will now list all your books.  I also do this for Mobipocket and MS Reader.  For my Mobi books I create a folder called “My Ebooks” within the “My Documents” folder and place my e-book files inside.  For lit books I place a folder called “My Library” and then copy my lit files inside.  I find this keeps everything organized.  Also if for some reason you don’t want to go through the activation process, you can use Convert Lit GUI and downvert your lit files and the reader will  then be able to access the files.  I do this because I have had problems with reactivating the reader on my PC.  The Microsoft site says I am over my device limit, but I was just trying to activate the same device.  Anyway, I have ended up with two Microsoft passports. So the only way I can read all my books is to downvert them.  (More after the break to include pictures).

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