12:49 PM by WarStrider in More E-Book Readers | Fictionwise eBookwise

I bought 3 of these EB1150s http://www.ebookwise.com/ebookwise/ebookwise1150.htm to use as Christmas presents for my brother and nephew and one to horde for myself. Now that I received them and the extra memory I ordered from a different retailer, had a chance to play around with them and see whats good and whats bad, I can post a review of my opinion on this ebook reader.

Sizewise it is perfect. Its the size of a regular paperback book. It doesn't weigh overly much, 18 oz, and feels solid in your hand. With only two buttons for scrolling, everything else is down by the touchsensitive screen and software buttons.

Battery life maxes out at 14 hours and some odd minutes, though thats a bit misleading as the battery lasts according to how bright you power the screen. I have read for two days, 8 hours per day, with breaks of course, and still had a few hours left on the meter.

The screen is lcd graytone 320x240, which is fine for reading. It does reflect a bit so I doubt you would enjoy reading outside in the sunlight, but under a shady umbrella or tree I think it would be alright, but of course I do most of my reading indoors, where the glare problem is much less.

Now getting the books onto the ebook reader is round about. The ebook reader has a USB port that connects to your computer, but there is at present no software available to transfers documents from your computer to the ebook reader. eBookwise says they are working on getting the Gemstar ebook librarian rights so they can offer it with this ebook reader, but so far they haven't got it. There is a software package out there http://www.breeno.org/eBook/ that claims to be able to do so, but I tried it and it didn't work for me. So in order to get documents from your computer to your ebook reader you need to use an online server setup for this purpose. https://www.filamentbooks.com
Once you've created an account and registered your EB1150 you can upload books to the server and then connect to the server with your ebook reader, via a USB connection to a computer with an internet connection, and then download them into the ebook reader. Like I said its roundabout, but it works so long as that server is up and running. Hopefully eBookwise or breeno.org will come up with a working librarian program because if there is an achilles heel to this reader this is it.

On the bright side, the ebook reader comes with a SmartMedia slot, so you can add up to 128M of memory to the unit. So far I have put 73 books on it and still have 57% of my memory free. Load this baby up once a year if you are an voracious reader or once a lifetime if you are on the other end of the scale. Either way its a lot of memory. On the downside SmartMedia is an older technology and is becoming difficult to find. I found a place to buy them from for $37 Cdn each, which isn't too bad, but is surely not on the same price curve as the more popular current media types. But the reader itself is an older generation so this is no real surprise.

All in all I would give this product 4 stars out of 5. At $99 USD each they are well worth it.

10:26 AM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Check it out: Astraware, one of the coolest game co's out there, is offering up free games for the holidays! Pick up Astro Defence, Bzzz!, Nisqually, Police Range, and/or Seven Seas for the absolutely low low price of... free! Other games are deep discounted too.

What are you waiting for? Grab 'em now!

Happy Holidays!

10:21 AM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PDAmill is now busy working on a huge update round for their Palm OS line of games, and they're actively seeking beta testers.

We're very busy working on big updates to all our Palm OS products, fixing all compatibility and stability issues. We now have a new version of each of our Palm OS games, even our upcoming GameBox Solitaire II. If you have a bit of time, please help us by downloading these new beta versions and testing them on your Palm OS 5 device and reporting back any findings to us.

If you're running Palm OS 5, have some spare time and feel like helping out, head over to their forums and download the latest beta versions for testing.

05:36 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

German research foundation Verum exposed cells of human tissue in glass dishes to mobile phone signals and discovered that the low-power microwaves they emit can damage DNA, potentially causing cancer and other illnesses.

The so-called Reflex study which took four years to complete is the second independent study released within the last two months which links cell phone use to body cell damage, adding to the already heated debate over mobile phone safety.

It also found that the risk was increased in areas with a poor signal because the mobile phone used higher-powered radiation to maintain contact with the network. The output from a single handset can range from a minimum of two milliwatts to a maximum of about a watt, depending on whether the phone is in use and how good the signal is.

The experts involved included scientists from the universities of Vienna, Bologna, Milan, Hannover and Bordeaux, as well as Finnish experts in radiation and nuclear safety. They admit the results do not yet prove mobile phones are harmful, because although the cells were affected in the laboratory, the body can often tackle any damage through its own immune system.

What should we believe? Is this study one more piece of evidence that mobile phones are not as safe as the industry tell us they are?

[via Wired]

04:30 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Manybooks.net is a clearly laid-out free e-book site which offers all Project Gutenberg texts in various formats for download. As of late, Manybooks also supports the Sony Librie LRF format, thanks to some reverse-engineering we discussed earlier!

Other supported e-book formats:
- Plucker
- iSilo
- Doc
- Rocketbook
- zTXT
- PDf
- eReader
- TCR

This is wonderful news considering that owners of Sony’s Japan-only Librie were until recently constrained to buying DRM-protected e-books that would automatically expire after a sixty-days-use.

Another option to convert your own text to LRF is to use one of the free addon programs recently released as an act of courtesy by Sony (*sarcasm*).

12:46 AM by hacker in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

(This picture is not me, thanks Alexander =)

As many know, I have a lot of mobile, embedded, and other handheld, powered, and battery-laden gear. I just picked up another pair of 16-outlet TrippLite adapters just to try to keep the office desk and floor cleaner to try to alleviate the headaches of all of the power bricks and adapters.

All of these gadgets means I have a lot of cables, cradles, adapters, parts, pieces, and other things that are all very device-specific. A year from now, when I'm looking at two unlabeled power adapters, I won't remember if they go with my Cybiko units, or the JTAG I was using at the time to reflash my iPAQ devices.

This leads to a cable-management nightmare. I've tried keeping them separated in boxes. I've tried labels. I've tried putting them in "industrial" ZipLock bags with the built-in labelling. I've tried the little plastic drawer sorting solutions, and these don't work well either with all kinds of shapes, sizes, and parts to fit in identically-shaped drawers.

None of these solutions are ideal.

Here's what I'm looking for:

1. A cable/cradle/adapter management system that allows me to label, sort, and re-label my gadgets as necessary.
2. Some sort of case, block, foam standup portfolio that lets me hold about 25 PCMCIA cards and adapters inside. Ideally, this should include holding other media as well, for my CF, SM, and SD/MMC cards, but that isn't really a hard-requirement.
3. Some way to keep the system clean and out of the way, which can be easily relocated or moved around (i.e. semi-portable, not bolted to the floor or wall).

Has anyone found something like this that they've used, or seen used before? Its really reaching the boiling point now, I have an entire 6x8 table covered with sorted wires, cradles, adapters, and other devices.

Note: Ok, I've identified the numbered list bug here. If you have a numbered list, and preview your post several times in a row, while changing nothing, the spacing above the numbered list will continue to grow by one line for every preview you make. Alexander, a small fix?

12:29 AM by hacker in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

So here I was, surrounded by dozens of possible gadgets, books, and other odds-and-ends to buy for myself for the holidays (I'm very hard to shop for, I either already have what most people will buy me [in duplicate], or whatever they're going to get me, is obsoleted by something I have, or doesn't work with whatever I have already in-place).

I went out to my local Cingular store (I'm already a customer), to see if they had the Motorola V3 Razr for my wife. Indeed they did, at $549.00/USD with a 1-year plan. EEP! Ok, maybe I can wait to get her a new flipphone. Almost $600 for a phone + service, she would castrate me for even thinking of such a purchase.

But, while I was there, I picked up a Motorola HS820 Bluetooth headset. Only 17g of weight. It really has to be held to be believed. It has 1hr more of standby time than the last version. It also had a $30.00 rebate, which basically cut the price in half. Not a bad deal.

I also snatched up a Jabra EarWave Boom headset for the wife to use with our 5.8Ghz system at home while carrying the baby and talking to "The Grandmothers™" With our phones, it gets hard to have to crank your head to one shoulder to hold the phone, and juggle a 5-month-old baby in the other arm, and concentrate. Being able to go handsfree, is really a godsend when you're dealing with a squirming little lifeform.

Besides, this is my house we're talking about. We must have all of the modern conveniences that technology allows us! <grin>

But enough about that... there's a lot more gadgets I picked up. Maybe later on I'll write up some articles about those, and all of the books I bought for myself to read for Christmas. Lots of good stuff to be had.

I get home, and tear into the HS820 package, and charge it up. The unit comes with a split cable to charge the headset and phone. Unfortunately, my phone (a Nokia 3600) doesn't have the kind of connection that this cable would work with. Oh well, I labeled it and put it away into storage in the "Box-o-Cables™". (My next post will concern this very item)

After the mandatory 2+ hour charging time, I tried to pair it with the devices I have here, so I could play with it. I've got Bluetooth everywhere here now. My wife thinks I'm going to grow tumors all over my head from the amount of RF and wireless leeching out of our house.

The directions said to hold the MFB (Multi-Function-Button) for 5 seconds, until it rapidly blinks, to initiate "discovery", so I could pair it with my phone, PDA, and laptop.

The directions were wrong. I almost returned it as defective, until I did a quick google, and found a post in Hungarian (which I had to translate) that said you have to hold the button for 10 seconds, until it glows solid. That worked. I quickly paired it up with my Nokia, and PDA.

My laptop has Bluetooth as well (in fact, I wrote the HOWTO on how to sync your Palm device with Bluetooth under Linux), and I can sync my Palm and dial my phone from the laptop, thanks to BlueZ.

But I can't get the Palm to transfer audio from the headset to the phone!!! I can connect the headset to the Palm, and it claims "connected" as an Audio device (though, I can't use the headset for actual audio on the Palm, because Palm lacks the profile to redirect it to the headset).

If I have the headset paired with the Palm, and dial a contact, it never transfers the headset and call to the phone. The phone itself will begin dialing, and will take the call, but not through the headset.

If I pair the headset with the phone, and try to dial the phone over Bluetooth from the PDA, the PDA will fail to find/connect to the phone. This might be because the phone is taking the one connection it has, to the headset.

Has anyone had any luck getting their Palm to use any of the following (Note: MobileRead has a bug with numbered lists, grr!):

1. A Bluetooth headset as an audio device, to listen/record voice memos, or listen to music, or just plain audio at [all]
2. Dialing a phone, using Bluetooth, and then transfer the Bluetooth headset connection from the Palm to the phone itself
3. Pair a Bluetooth headset to a Bluetooth-enabled phone, and still allow a Palm device to dial the phone, using Bluetooth

I'd be interested in hearing any experiences with any of the above.

My next goal is to get the HS820 to work as a wireless mic for my laptop, for an ad-hoc wireless microphone for local speaking engagements that don't carry their own sound system.

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

In case you've missed any MobileRead news from this week, here is our usual roundup:

Avantgo
AvantGo 5.7 Production Release available
AvantGo new support site
Free AvantGo memory upgrade from 2MB to 3MB

Browsers
Essay on status quo of mobile web browsing

Current E-Books Trends
Google Print: earth's largest searchable library

E-Book Readers
Hi-res e-paper is a feast your eyes
Sony Librie Firmware upgrade

General Chat
Thank You For Being a MobileRead Reader!!!

New Links
Skyweezer - free gateway for mobile browsers

Palm
Another View of PalmSource's Future
Avantgo/Microsoft gives away free Palm/PPC game
Insider reveals: What Does "Palm OS for Linux" Mean?
PalmOne shares drop on Q2 results & Q3 forecast
Review: Trooper (Now Low Heap Version!)
Wi-Fi SD card support on your Treo 650

Pocket PC
BetaPlayer 0.095 with aac and mp4 support
PocketScumm V0.7 RC available
Square screen Pocket PC Devices, Like Treo?

Portable Audio/Video
Apple is suing to protect its "innovative products"

Sunrise
Sunrise 0.40 pre1 released

WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies
FCC approves cheaper WiFi technology on planes