Friday, July 22, 2005

Hooked on Ebooks

I love ebooks. I always liked them but got really hooked on them when Ridley was a baby.
Ridley was born premature at 32 weeks so of course I hovered over her...lots.
She wouldn't sleep if I was holding her and she wouldn't sleep with me so I would sit by her crib and read an ebook on my palm pilot. Try reading in the dark with a paperback! Later on, she would decide that she didn't want to be lonely at night which meant I couldn't have the light on to read before bed. By then I had my nifty cool pocket pc, problem solved. Happy mommy and baby. I love the convenience and instant gratification of logging onto amazon.com at 3am, purchasing and downloading a new book to read. If it isn't available to buy, I can find it elsewhere.

The Harry Potter folks decided not to release any electronic versions of Harry Potter. I don't think that was a wise decision. Within 11 hours, the new Harry Potter book was available for download at your local neighbourhood newsgroup. (who couldn't have predicted that???) I'm curious how many ebooks would have been sold at midnight if they'd had the foresight to make it available.

I may be in the minority as far as ebook readers go, but I will be buying the new book once it becomes available in the gift edition. (October) I have all 5 of the previous books in the gift edition put aside for Ridley already. I can't wait until she can read them. Although I have a feeling that by that time, she'll be hiding under the covers with an ebook instead of a flashlight.

My favourite ebook reader for pocket pc is uBook
It doesn't support copy protected ebooks so unfortunately, I have to use Microsoft reader for any books that I buy.
I read on an Axim x3i which has a jog dial. (makes for easier "page turning")


Project Gutenberg has tons of free ebooks available for download.


And if you get hooked on ebooks and don't know what to do with your paper books, maybe you could "release them into the wild".

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love ebooks - and I have a Toshiba e800 which has a 400 by 600 display which is amazing to read with.

I find amazon's ebook searching frustrating - it's very difficult to search for only ebooks. Even if I start the search with ebooks selected by 2-3 clicks I am somehow back to looking at books that aren't even published digitally. But when I do find one that I like it's amazing to buy it and download it from the digital locker whenever I want. And I trust amazon. Very sweet.

Have you purchased any from ereader.com? I am thinking of trying them next. They seem to have a better selection - or rather I can find ebooks more easily. And they have an RSS feed.

Cheers,

Toby

Kelly said...

Niice pocket pc!

I haven't purchased from ereader. I tried their software and didn't like it. Maybe download their software first and see how you like it. If I remember correctly I couldn't just drag and drop books where I want.

I agree, amazon leaves something to be desired.

Anonymous said...

Geeeez, another techno geek. I think Scot and I need to join a partners of techno geeks support group.. Oh ya there's a little blue light on in the bedroom when Sondawg is reading her ebooks. very weird... Marshall

Kelly said...

Poor Marshall and Scott! :)

Don't ever ask Scott to do without his ps2/xbox or line 6 pod!
Hes a techno geek too.

Though its funny that I gave Scott an older pocket pc of mine (ipaq 1940) and he never used it! He just doesn't get it!

Ridley on the other hand...
DOES! I gave it her to her and she happily watches the muppets, listens to music, draws and plays learning games on it. I figure she'll be reading ebooks on it before long.


Eerie ebook light. I tell Ridley I'm tanning my face. :)