RDYoung

Now it includes links to different readers and free content. If you have anything to add, post, and I'll make sure to put it here.

robyn

Startide

Baen makes free complete copies of selected eBooks available at their website:

Baen Library -- Contains complete and free eBook versions of actually-published books. A number of authors volunteer their books to do this such as David Weber and Eric Flint. You can also buy them at the usual B&M.

The eBook offerings can change from time to time, so it is worth re-visiting to see what new eBooks have been posted.

RDYoung

I've added the Baen Free Library, as well as updated a couple of links.

Robyn

Startide

While it might be "different" is there anyone opposed to me posting a fully legal commercial site that has the eBooks available for free? The eBooks are free because EVERY page has an advertisement on it. Yes, every page. But you can read the book. Did I forget to mention that every page has an advertisement on it? If not, I wish to remind you that every page has an advertisement on it to make sure that you see the advertisement on every page.

If you were able to read the above without being annoyed, then you should be able to read these eBooks without being annoyed at the ads. Really, they aren't that bad.

Anyways, here is another free eBook site. I will keep hunting for more sites with free downloads.

Univ of Virginia eText Archive -- has 5,000 texts, 1,600 eBooks for both the Palm (AportisDoc format) and Microsoft Reader, and 164,000 images. All of these are free.

RDYoung

You know, I kinda think I know the site you're talking about. I may have browsed through there once. I have no issues with that at all. I just didn't want to feature the ftp's, and other sites that people can find by using usenet. Besides, you've posted some of the better usenet references, so we should be okay there.

I'll add your link above.

Later on, I'll post a site that keeps track of some of the free e-book newsgroups.

robyn

h0l211

just wanted to mention another legal ebook site which i _highly_ recommend, since it's taking the best of all the sites, plus a lot of stuff (out of copyright pulp fiction, for example!) and putting it all in one place.

it's Blackmask, at:

http://www.blackmask.com

[i'm not associated with the site, btw - i just love it!]

Startide

Another one of the better free eBook sites is ABIKA. This is the site that lets you download commercially printed books, scripts, magazines, and newspapers (like those sold at Barnes & Noble bookstores). If you are willing to put up with ads or website URL on each page, then you can download and use the eBook for free at

ABIKA.COM

As an example, here is a list of their current top 20 downloads:

Top 20 Downloads at ABIKA.COM

I never thought I'd see "The Art of Kissing" available as a free download, but there it is. Along with a bunch of computer books.

To download, you need to register at their site. Not every book in the world is available for download. A set of publications is available for download based upon how many people request the item.

If you search their site or browse their collection and don't find the publication, you can click on their "SUBMIT A BOOK" option available on their homepage under the "ebooks" column. Then look on the left margin for the "Place a Demand" option. Obviously, it is to your advantage to convince other people to "place a demand" for that item as well. The top requested items are then negotiated by Abika with the copyright holder before being made available at the ABIKA website.

Place a Demand

For example, the out of print book "A Dragon Never Sleeps" has only one vote for it so far. The book "203 ways to drive a man wild in bed" has only 42 requests so far.

RDYoung

Here is a site for free newsgroups.

http://members.home.net/open-news-servers/

It basically keeps track of all the free usenet book groups out there. Startide, if you want, you can add this to your usenet post,(if it's not already there--I don't remember seeing it.) and then I'll delete it.

robyn

Startide

Fictionwise is has a set of free eBooks that you can download. Typically, they make HUGO and other award winning ebooks available for free as a means of promoting their site. It's a small set, but at least they're free.

Fictionwise.com Homepage

[i]Free eBooks at Fictionwise[i]

The free eBook selection usually is updated after award nominations are received and also after awards are won by certain ebooks.

Easy

Thanks to all for an enlightening thread. Unfortunately, I cannot find a reader I like. The Palms are just to small for these old eyes. RCA/Gem/Reb 1200 is nice... I really like the look and feel. Clearly, a lot to thought went into it and it is a very good design. A bit pricey but not overly expensive. In fact, the hardware had me sold but the software is another story. I never thoutht I would find a company more anal than Microsoft. I have now. It appears that Gem only supports their own format. Period. If there is any Gem supported way to read (or even convert) other content I have not found it. Do they really believe that I should buy Tom Sawyer in their propritary format when I can easily and legally download a text copy from Gutenberg for free? I guess they do. That killed the sale for me. In my view they have crippled an otherwise desirable product. What a shame! Well, I guess I will pin my hopes on the Hiebook and hope they don't make the same mistakes. In the meantime, ybook is really very nice.
Oops almost forgot -
FYI Another freebie spot: http://www.wildsidepress.com/Virtual...eller/main.htm Not much yet but just getting started.

Scarecrow

Easy, the Gem supports Rocket E-Book Format IIRC as well as the Open E-Book Spec. Can't you make RocketWriter and make a book for the Gem? If I'm remembering correctly you can.

darkside

I still believe the Palm reader is the best reader available for portable ebooks. If you switch the font to large the text is very easy to read. If you buy the encrypted books from peanut press you can read them on any palm or even pocket pc. My wife and I can share the books without having to buy a second copy. The Adobe and Microsoft readers are a pain in the butt when it comes to trying to move your books around. Some books I bought on the desktop can't be transfered to my laptop without calling Adobe and asking for permision. Screw that. The Pocket version of MS Reader won't even let you transfer many of the PC books on to the handheld.

With Palm Reader its also very easy to use the free etexts (you will have to convert them to .doc format, but there are free converters for that) and free books can easily be beamed to someone else if you want to share the book. Also I can save all the books I buy and download on my PC or a CD-R. With stuff like Gemstar you can only download direct to the book and you have to delete old books to free up space. Then when they stop supporting the format you won't be able to redownload the books you already payed for. Changing too many settings on you PC can cause Adobe books to stop working all together.

The Palm Reader is being upgraded soon to support the new high res Palm screens so reading etexts will be even easier on the eyes with the new Palms like the Sony N710C.

The main reason I think the Palm Reader may end up being the best choice is the millions of Palms already on the market. The other ebook readers like Gemstar and Ebookman are selling so poorly its doubtful they will be supported for long.

BTW the Heibook may change my mind about this when it finally debuts. Since it will support a variety of different formats it may be a safe choice for a portable ebook reader.


[Edited by darkside on 05-18-01 at 07:05 PM]

Easy

I think that is correct. The problem is that AFAIK that program is only a Rocket leftover and not supported by Gem. What happens when RocketWriter needs to be updated in a year or two? I suspect I would be out of luck.

Easy

I agree with much of your reasoning and agree it will likely become the standard (or at least compete with MS) but the palm is just too small for me to use for extensive reading. Bad eyes, personal choice.

Startide

I've been too spoiled by reading on brightly lit LCD displays. Many palm-type devices have displays that are too dim or too small for me to be comfortable. The readers aren't unique devices; they compete with laptops and my ePod. As Classicman has indicated, power conservation is bad if you want to maintain your lifestyle. And the power conserving devices out there now are close, but not quite what I want to use.

If I'm not reading text on my laptop, I'm reading it on my ePod. The ePod type of display is nice and big! Because it runs microsoft Windows CE, it is quite powerful. The flat ePod slate doesn't invade the propriety of other diners either (not like a laptop would anyways).

For portable readers, I think their displays, if usable for eBook reading, should also be leveraged for browsing. Add a wireless modem to it and voila. At home, can quickly convert text format documents into HTML if I want the better interface of a browser with plugins as done on the WinCE platform. Plain text is just too plain. Also, the wireless modem lets me pick and choose what I want to read while at the restaurant.

Here in Seattle, some restaurants are already laptop friendly. Tuna House (japanese) in Bellevue has an outlet by each table in the back area for all those wireheads.

darkside

I hope the Heibook becomes the best of all worlds. Multiple formats supported with a larger display area. BTW I forget the most Palms use inverted back lighting and are not that great in low light. I have a Sony Clie and it has a very bright indiglo backlight. Why other Palms don't support this I don't now.

Startide

Your local library may have a bunch of eBooks available for your use. For example, in the Seattle area, various libraries ranging from school, city, and county libraries have eBooks available for use by their patrons.

Many of these libraries make the eBooks available online and not just in the library. So, it is possible to use your library without having to drive over to the local branch. If you're a student at some university and community colleges, you may have access to vast searchable collections of online eBooks and publications (like magazine articles).

Go to the webpage for your library and look up the eBook services available. If not, why not forward to them the URL for the King County Library System (KCLS) as an example.

HERE is an example for the King County Library where I am. And HERE are eBook offerings for the Seattle Public Library. If your library doesn't currently offer eBooks of certain special interest books, perhaps you could show these URL to your librarian as examples of what you might want to see.

Startide

As mentioned on the privacy website at www.privacy.org, your privacy and connections to the web may influence what kind of readers you use in the future. Some web readers may "save up" your usage record for the one time that you do access a PC operating system that does have access to the web so that the data can be "phoned home" for verification.

Microsoft Develops Surveillance Program for eBooks

As part of Microsoft's strategy to foster respect for intellectual property, the company has developed an Internet surveillance program for illegal eBook content for ".LIT" files. The program, according to Microsoft, searches for unauthorized distribution of eBooks constantly. More info below:

Anti-Piracy Built Into eBook reader by Microsoft.com

Microsoft's position on eBook encryption, anti-piracy efforts, Declan McCullagh's Politechbot.com, August 6, 2001.

darkside

What Orwellian scheme will they come up with next? I love how all potential customers are now being treated like thieves. I can't wait to see all the snooping features built into Windows XP.

RDYoung

Figured it was time to bump this a little, since I should be receiving my Hiebook in the mail today!

Startide

The California State University library system is now lending e-books as described in THIS article. Additional resource URL at that link. I'm glad to see more large library systems getting into e-books. They will hopefully lead the way so that the smaller library systems can find a proven economical lending license to follow.

Unlike paper books, these e-books have a recurring revenue stream cost to the libraries. So, I guess only the bolder better-funded library systems will try e-books first. It would be hard to imagine any library buying a deadtree book and paying fees each year on that book in order to be allowed to loan it out (as with e-books).

darkside

The Hiebook looks cool and Fictionwise has started supporting it. I'm now using a color Sony Clie, so I'm pretty happy with my ebook reading options, but the Hiebook looks like a nice option.

RDYoung

I thought I'd post a little about the hiebook, now that I've had some time to play with it. It is a decent size--not too big, and not too small. It comes with a leather case that protects it pretty well, and almost gives it a feeling of a book. On to some of the good things.

• First, it allows you to format your own stuff. HTM primarily. It also has a desktop reader and a sync program so you can do stuff on the computer and transfer it over.
• The handwriting recognition is not too shabby. sometimes it gets lost, but it seems much better than some of the others that are available. I took notes with it one day, and it worked well when I was careful.
• Next, it supports greyscale images, and has a jpg viewer. You can carry pics around with you, as well as put pretty cool covers on your books.
• The mp3 player works well--allows you to listen and read if you wanted.
• Uses SMC, up to 128mb. Pretty infinite in expandability.
• Has a couple of games. Othello, a sliding tile puzzle game, and two that I really don't know how to play(no real documentation, so I'll have to figure them out later).
• Has a scheduler, and an address book. The address book is supposed to be compatible with microsoft's addy books, but I have yet to get that to work.
• The unit itself seems fairly rugged, although I'm trying to be pretty careful with it. Because of it's being from korea, I'm really not looking forward to the day that something happens and it breaks.

The Bad

• Well, I'm having a heck of a time trying to figure out how to do some things. The user support for the device isn't that great. As time goes by, I see this changing, but for now, it seem that the documentation sucks.
• When the stylus is in the device it presses agains the lcd screen, and causes a little mark. It took me about an hour to figure this out. So now, I keep the stylus in the case(in it's holder). Not a big deal, but still an issue, since I was getting concerned that there was a screen defect.
• The hie-builder(the software that builds titles), although easy to use, seems to work well sometimes, and not so well others. There is little to no documentation about it, so trying to figure out how to format titles is frustrating.
• This device is a little bigger than the typical pda, so it doesn't fit in your pocket well. More area to read, though.
• I would have liked for them to make the microsoft schedule compatible with this. I have tons of stuff in outlook, but have to basically re-do it with this device.
• The back lighting is basically that green text backlighting system, like on the Palm. Not nearly so good as the Rocket, but It does work in the dark.
• I've found that the screen is kinda glossy, and reflects a lot of light. Sometimes makes it really hard to read.

Overall, I'm pleased. I've been formatting books, and I'm happy that I have it. It also looks like it may have pdf support by the end of the year(more probably, next spring), so that would be very cool.

Robyn

benedict

great thread!

This one definitely should not die and is a great technical resource to complement the newer thread which has links to several named "ebooks".

Toxygen

Any update on the Hiebook? especially concerning that pdf reader ability