11–20 of 33 posts
I've made little headway into ebooks, for a number of reasons: a lot of the books I want to read are not available in electronic form; a lot of the books I want to read I already own paper copies of, and I feel little incentive to buy them again; I find that I usually prefer reading in paper form rather than electronic form, especially for anything longer than a couple of pages or so. That said, I have recently read…
I have maybe 20-25 books now. Nearly all of them are technical titles, because the typical reader device isn't large enough to display their diagrams/charts (Amazon doesn't sell the 10" Kindle any more, and iPad-like devices don't have the battery life for a reader)
I do miss the possibility of re-reading the titles that never made it to digital (muddy copyright ownership, lack of interest on the part of the publisher), but I'm happy that perhaps someone browsing through Goodwill might pick it up and enjoy it too.
I've made little headway into ebooks, for a number of reasons: a lot of the books I want to read are not available in electronic form; a lot of the books I want to read I already own paper copies of, and I feel little incentive to buy them again; I find that I usually prefer reading in paper form rather than electronic form, especially for anything longer than a couple of pages or so. That said, I have recently read…
Ebooks and privacy? I'm not seeing the link, explain?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230487030457749...
And more generally, moreso from the free software angle:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/the-danger-of-ebooks.html
Of course, there are suppliers of ebooks besides Amazon, or besides Apple, who do not infringe upon at least most such concerns.
I've made little headway into ebooks, for a number of reasons: a lot of the books I want to read are not available in electronic form; a lot of the books I want to read I already own paper copies of, and I feel little incentive to buy them again; I find that I usually prefer reading in paper form rather than electronic form, especially for anything longer than a couple of pages or so. That said, I have recently read…
Ebooks and privacy? I'm not seeing the link, explain?
I gave all my books to Goodwill last year -- a lifetime of collected & curated sci-fi & fantasy paperbacks, plus some antique tech titles (the "Be Book" was in the pile) and went digital. I have maybe 20-25 books now. Nearly all of them are technical titles, because the typical reader device isn't large enough to display their diagrams/charts (Amazon doesn't sell the 10" Kindle any more, and iPad-like devices don't h…
Why not a local library? Same tax advantage, but a much higher chance that the books will get into the hands of readers at no cost.
I mean, assuming lending libraries even exist any more -- I haven't checked. :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ebooks and privacy? I'm not seeing the link, explain?
If the government can monitor your book purchases, you don't get the protection that a good librarian can give you against PATRIOT Act intrusions.
Between us I think we kept about a dozen books; autographed copies of things or gems that we can't get in digital, but that's it.
Programming books we long since switched to digital - those giant tomes were not only a huge waste of space but went out of date way too soon. Yay for O'Reilly.
I gave all my books to Goodwill last year -- a lifetime of collected & curated sci-fi & fantasy paperbacks, plus some antique tech titles (the "Be Book" was in the pile) and went digital. I have maybe 20-25 books now. Nearly all of them are technical titles, because the typical reader device isn't large enough to display their diagrams/charts (Amazon doesn't sell the 10" Kindle any more, and iPad-like devices don't h…
With that in mind the library of books I would even want to buy electronically is limited. A further limitation of e-books is that they often come with DRM. E-books that I've seen are sequential access, paper books are random access. Search helps bridge the gap here. (Paper books will never have search, and it's arguably a more useful feature than random access. Especially if your E-reader software supports bookmarks.) The major advantage of an E-book is that it takes up basically no space. Considering the flexible media potential of electronic computers, that's sort of disappointing.