04:25 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Today I read a lovely essay on the development of the e-book market by James Patrick Kelly from Asimov's Sci-Fi mag.

James first analyzes why e-books are not dead yet as many pundits would have predicted in 2001. His main argument is the jump in e-books sales experienced since 2003.

He then goes on citing authors why they generally prefer p-books:

Neil Gaiman: "(I like) The smell of paper, the way the book feels, the look of it, the heft."
Tanith Lee: "(I like) Everything. Touch, smell, appearance. Content, of course."

Well, you cannot sniff e-books. So what? It is only a question of time before some crazy hardware developer announces the first hardware e-book reader with articifical book fragrance.

The third paragraph of the essay is the strongest. Here James talks about the functionality of e-books:

Ebooks are almost infinitely mutable. You can turn them into webpages, send them to a publisher to be printed on paper, format them at home however you please (large print, double columns), have your computer read them aloud to you or send them to your cousin in Stuttgart. You can carry hundreds of them around on a flash memory stick the size of a Bic lighter. You can find any ebook in your elibrary at the tap of a few keys and search that book in an instant for a place or a character or a memorable quote.

He forgot at least one more benefit: You don't have to breath in anymore the toxic fumes of dusty paper books

09:53 AM by ignatz in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Both NewEgg and TigerDirect are offering great deals on Kingston 256 meg SD cards. Both involve rebates and you can get up to 2 cards. NewEgg works out to be $7 after rebate and Tiger $10. Not only is NewEgg's price less, but their shipping is also cheaper, so go with them if you can. NewEgg's sale ends today and Tiger's tomorrow, so get 'em while you can!

09:09 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

The Register has reviewed the Sony Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1L digital music player. Final Verdict (from a generally Sony-hostile newspaper) is surprising:

I came to the VGF-AP1L with some hostility - I'm pro iPod, anti Sony's stance on MP3 - but it won me over. I found it far more pleasant to use than I had been anticipating, less bulky and better designed. It's compact, well-built and its audio quality is superb. I liked it.

Pros: Superb audio quality, well-designed and constructed, nice colour screen with album cover art support

Cons: no native MP3 support (possibly... we'll see), expensive even compared to iPod, screen too small to make the photo feature worthwhile

06:14 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Thanks to Laurens for pointing us to this 1src link:

Offered by J&R, the PalmOne 3175WW Hard Case shows a Tungsten T5. The case sells for $39.88.

Looks very stylish

09:02 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

If you happen to still use Internet Explorer, you better read this information at Easynews and seriously consider switching over to Firebird.

Once this virus has overflowed GDI+, phoned home, connected to an ftp site and downloaded almost 2megs of stuff, it installs another trojan as a service on your Windows machine. Real evil.

The isolated virus file is also available there for download, so you can test if your latest virus killer can detect this one.

08:37 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Straight from The Register:

Reliable sources familiar with the company's plans suggest that the new Tungsten's launch could come as early as next Monday. The new machine is expected to be dubbed the Tungsten T5, skipping past the T4 moniker to avoid offending buyers in nations for whom the number four is held to be bad karma.

06:27 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Fictionwise currently offers a 50% Micropay rebate on any of its policitcal e-books.

So for instance you can buy The Family: The Real Story Behind the Bush Dynasty by Kitty Kelley for $4.97 after rebate.

Great deal, especially now when the US Presidential race heats up

06:12 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Another PalmSource Euro DevCon highlight is PalmSource Web Browser 3.0, designed to offer Palm OS licensees and mobile operators the flexibility to customize its interface based on the needs of their customers. Licensees and mobile operators can update the default home page, pre-provision bookmarks, customize settings specific to each operator's service and add navigation functions tailored to different mobile devices.

Built on the ACCESS NetFront core technology, PalmSource's web browser offers enhanced graphics rendering and navigation capability by using uses technologies such as page zooming, scalable fonts and 'squeeze' rendering, allowing users to eliminate horizontal scrolling for easier navigation. It also fully supports standard specification such as WAP 2.0, HTML and XHTML, and it offers enhanced security such as SSL and TLS.

Interestingly, the PalmSource Web Browser SDK includes documentation how to best create content for the smaller screens of mobile devices and how to integrate their applications with the PalmSource Web Browser 3.0. Probably a future must-read for every web-designer.