Which one should I get now?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It depends, of course, what you want to use them for.

Time left to read, or even a simply percentage figure, are both good ways of tracking your progress through a book (and, like you, I find "time remaining" to be very useful).

Where page numbers are essential, though, is for referencing: telling another person at which specific point in a book something can be found. For that, you really do need page numbers.

If you're using page numbers for referencing, that is only valid if you are using real page numbers, based on a specific edition of the book in paper format. If your reader is using page turns, like Kobo apparently does, that is no help at all, as the number of pages depends on the size of the font, and will change depending on who is reading the book.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

If you're using page numbers for referencing, that is only valid if you are using real page numbers, based on a specific edition of the book in paper format.

Precisely. And that's exactly what the Kindle does, of course (provided that the publisher has supplied them). A page reference is only of value if the person reading your reference can follow it up.

[howyoudoin]

Time left to read is good in principle, but my H2O doesn't seem to be doing a good job of it. I assumed it would track my pace over time and adjust it's predictions accordingly. That doesn't seem to be happening. It seems to be a static conversion based off number of characters left with no regard to my general reading pace. This makes it no different to page numbers. Same system - just a different unit of measurement.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I must respectfully disagree. The DRM applied by the "Pottermore" site (watermarking) doesn't "equate to and define a closed ecosystem", does it? "DRM" is not a synonym for "encryption"; encryption is merely one of many, many different methods whereby digital rights can be managed, and it's certainly not true for many of these methods to say that they equate to a close ecosystem.

I guess tht is something we tend to overlook all too often. You are of course right.

Originally Posted by HarryT

It depends, of course, what you want to use them for.

Time left to read, or even a simply percentage figure, are both good ways of tracking your progress through a book (and, like you, I find "time remaining" to be very useful).

Where page numbers are essential, though, is for referencing: telling another person at which specific point in a book something can be found. For that, you really do need page numbers.

I usually do not find it necessary to provide references, but when I do, I find the official recommendations by the various Style Guides to be satisfactory.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

Time left to read is good in principle, but my H2O doesn't seem to be doing a good job of it. I assumed it would track my pace over time and adjust it's predictions accordingly. That doesn't seem to be happening. It seems to be a static conversion based off number of characters left with no regard to my general reading pace. This makes it no different to page numbers. Same system - just a different unit of measurement.

Well, it works well on the Kindle....

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Well, it works well on the Kindle....

Kobo need to fix this. They track enough statistics to be able to do it.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I must respectfully disagree. The DRM applied by the "Pottermore" site (watermarking) doesn't "equate to and define a closed ecosystem", does it? "DRM" is not a synonym for "encryption"; encryption is merely one of many, many different methods whereby digital rights can be managed, and it's certainly not true for many of these methods to say that they equate to a close ecosystem.

And ADE DRM has a wide variety of devices that support it. There are apps for all of the tablets and most brands of eBooks support it as well. Perhaps copyright is a closed system. Certainly ePub support is the most open system there is currently.

Dale

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by shalym

If you're using page numbers for referencing, that is only valid if you are using real page numbers, based on a specific edition of the book in paper format. If your reader is using page turns, like Kobo apparently does, that is no help at all, as the number of pages depends on the size of the font, and will change depending on who is reading the book.

Shari

ADE page numbers are not based on page turns and is constant no matter what font or font size you use. They are good references between all ADE users no matter what platform they are on.

Dale

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

And ADE DRM has a wide variety of devices that support it. There are apps for all of the tablets and most brands of eBooks support it as well. Perhaps copyright is a closed system. Certainly ePub support is the most open system there is currently.

Dale

While it may be true that ADEPT is widespread, that does not make it any more open. And as I have already noted, the good apps that everyone uses do not support ADEPT.

EPUB is just as open as MOBI/AZW3, unless your name happens to be Richard Stallman. Device support has nothing to do with openness.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

ADE page numbers are not based on page turns and is constant no matter what font or font size you use. They are good references between all ADE users no matter what platform they are on.

Dale

But with Kobo at least, I believe there are other reasons to select KEPUB over EPUB.
And non-ADE reader usage outnumbers ADE usage in a general sense.

Relying on guesswork is not my idea of how to provide scholarly references. The style guides have it right, when they recommend using e.g. chapter and paragraph numbers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MickeyC

Does the H2O show how many pages are left in a chapter as well as how many pages left in the book? My iPad does that for Amazon and iBooks and it is a feature I would like to get when my current Sony T1 dies which is probably not that far away.

Please NEVER EVER use iBooks. And NEVER NEVER NEVER buy any eBooks from Apple.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

While it may be true that ADEPT is widespread, that does not make it any more open. And as I have already noted, the good apps that everyone uses do not support ADEPT.

EPUB is just as open as MOBI/AZW3, unless your name happens to be Richard Stallman. Device support has nothing to do with openness.

Sorry, but you are way off base here. Take an ePub with Adept DRM and any Reader that natively supports ePub has the ability to display it on screen. That means Readers from multiple vendors. There's also the ability to shop at multiple vendors for your ePub.

Amazon is closed in that they are the only ones who sell Readers that can display Kindle eBooks that have DRM. There there is only one shop where you can buy DRMed Kindle eBooks.

So yes, Amazon is a closed and walled garden when it comes to eBooks with DRM.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sorry, but you are way off base here.

Sorry, but you are way off base every single time you don't actually bother to read my posts before commenting on them.

Take an ePub with Adept DRM and any Reader that natively supports ePub has the ability to display it on screen. That means Readers from multiple vendors. There's also the ability to shop at multiple vendors for your ePub.

That's great, but it is still a closed system. I refer you to explanatory post #26.

Amazon is closed in that they are the only ones who sell Readers that can display Kindle eBooks that have DRM. There there is only one shop where you can buy DRMed Kindle eBooks.

So yes, Amazon is a closed and walled garden when it comes to eBooks with DRM.

I entirely agree with you that Amazon is a closed system (== walled garden)... but where did I say otherwise?
Where did I mention Amazon anywhere in that post, in fact??

Please take a course in reading comprehension, and then return and internalize the following repeated statement of mine:
The MOBI/AZW3 format is just as much an open format as EPUB is.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

The MOBI/AZW3 format is just as much open as EPUB is.

That's not so. Can you edit Mobi or AZW3 using just what comes with your OS? Nope. But you can ePub.

Yes, you can edit Mobi & KF8, but you need third party tools to do so. ePub just requires a text editor and a program that can ZIP/unZIP. So how can you say Mobi/KF8 is just as open when it's not?

[Unnecessary personal comment deleted - MODERATOR]

[eschwartz]

This is the first time I have ever heard that "open" means "accessible using tools builtin to the OS"... tell me, does that mean that tar and its famous companion gzip are closed formats, because they requires third-party tools to handle (at least on Windows it certainly isn't required by the OS)?

I am sure Richard Stallman would be horrified to know one of the integral concepts of his whole universe, and another which was invented specially for GNU, are closed formats...

In case it wasn't blindingly obvious to anyone else as well a closed format is one where the spec is a trade secret and one cannot make use of it without using the proprietary tools. I have chosen to define reverse-engineered formats as open, because practically speaking they are (technically there are two versions, open and closed, which in practice are basically identical).
A closed format is certainly not: a format which requires downloading and installing an open-source program to handle it, because that program didn't happen to come preinstalled with the base system.

Especially because I personally CAN edit AZW3 with my base system. My OS comes with calibre -- this is because I roll my own with Arch Linux.



[Unnecessary personal comment deleted - MODERATOR]