03:25 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Great news for all Palm OS gamers: PDAmill is running a 50% off promotion on all Palm OS products this week, that is the Palm OS versions of Snails, GameBox Asia, Classics, Gems and Solitaire.

To use this special promotion you have to go to www.pdamill.com, add the item(s) to your shopping cart and enter 'PDAMILL' as the promotion code, then hit 'Recalculate'. The promotion's running only this week and is limited to the first 200 buyers. So being quick is essential :-)

Thanks to Peter for the news!

09:26 PM by hacker in E-Book Formats | Workshop

I've been fielding a LOT of requests lately for custom works in eBook format. Many of you have seen my 9/11 Commission Report. That work apparently gained the attention of several very large companies who want their material converted in a similarly-professional manner. In fact, so many are interested, that I've started another company to handle it (can't say anything more on that right now).

But two of the largest works we've been asked to do, are the Wikipedia and IMDB, in a standalone mobile format.

Wikipedia required a LOT of rehandling of the upstream MediaWiki source, which I updated to fix quite a few problems. The approach taken by EVERY other attempt to get this Wikipedia content into a manageable format for the Palm size/memory, is wrong. I've seen several Perl scripts that try to take the SQL dump and translate that back into HTML. Bzzt.

We took a completely different approach (and one that will continue to transparently scale, including images), and we've been very successful so far.

IMDB is another sizable work. To redistribute it, requires extensive licensing, so we can't just give that away for free, without something to cover our costs to license the material.

So the question I'm proposing here is...

I'm working on 3 of these custom works right now (one, very timely, must be out this month, or the whole effort is wasted). I've now successfully partnered with 1/2 dozen companies who are very interested in these "custom" conversions of their works to formats suitable for handhelds. There's a lot of interest, and we're gaining more and more partners every week, it seems.

But I need your help, your suggestions and your input. Let me know how we can make the whole process better, and continue to provide better and better material for you, the reader.

04:06 PM by JongJungBu in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Screenshot: http://www.trisystech.net/images/aod8.jpg

Aeon of Discovery has been updated to version 1.3. The update includes multiple save slots, delegating multiple times per turn, changes to diplomacy, and a few cosmetic fixes. Aeon of Discovery is a turn-based strategy game for the Pocket PC involving four major maritime powers during the Period of Exploration and Discovery of the New World. More information about the game and the latest version changes can be found on the Trisystech website:
http://www.trisystech.com

Don’t forget if you purchase Aeon of Discovery through our Handango-Powered Store, you can immediately purchase Giza or Medieval Folk Healer for 20% off!

08:10 AM by Laurens in Archive | Sunrise

I just released Sunrise 0.3.2. This versions contains several bugfixes, including one for cookies and NY Times. Also, the New Item Wizard can now automatically discover RSS feed links in web pages. For instance, if you point the wizard to http:///www.mobileread.com/ it will detect that there is a feed link in the web page and give you the choice of using the original URL or the feed URL. Finally, you can now select a custom character encoding, enabling you to convert non-Latin text.

Full Change Log

Download from PalmGear

Quick Tour

11:42 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

BBC runs a story how Totalhotspots.com has joined up with phone services firm Mobile Commerce to let UK people consult a directory of hotspots while on the move.

Anyone using the service can find their nearest hotspot by texting the word "hotspot" to the 84140 SMS short code number. In return they will get data about the name, address and telephone number of the nearest wi-fi locations

I hope this Wi-Fi finding service will soon become globally available!

08:56 AM by ignatz in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

[from ePublishing Blog]

PyGE (Python Gutenberg E-text Project) is an exciting SourceForge project to make it easier to use Project Gutenberg books. It consists of three component desktop programs:

• PyGETS (PyGE Transfer and Search): searches through Gutenberg archives and downloads selected texts
• PyGEMZ (PyGE Make Ztxt): compiles texts into zTXT for reading on Palm devices and on:
• PyGERS (PyGE Read and Speak): a desktop ebook viewer that can also read the books to you

Being python based, this software can run on Windows and Linux, but there is no Mac-native version as yet. This is pretty exciting stuff, since Project Gutenberg is a cornerstone of modern ebooks. I'm curious to see where this technology can go.

My only disappointment is that I cannot find any ebook readers for the PPC that support zTXT. Not that you need it. You can just use PyGETS and then either read the raw txt book, zip it up (µbook supports zipped files), or convert it to iSilo and read it that way.

07:56 PM by cbarnett in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

For those of us that remember, Stephen R Donaldson wrote two trilogies back in the late 70's and early 80's, dealing with a leper called Thomas Covenant, thrown into a fantasy setting he was definately not prepared for.

I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with these books at the time; they were great to read, with detailed characters and plot (the main character is one of the most flawed I've ever encountered), but the writing style of Donaldson was very challenging for me at the time, and I really needed a dictionary to get through it (and English is my first language!).

Having said that, these books helped set my on the path of fantasy reading (along with LOTR), and I've never looked back.

It appears, though, that the story isn't over yet, and 20 years later, a final trilogy is being released to complete the story of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. This partial interview with Stephen Donaldson reveals a little about it, and the first book, The Runes of the Earth, will be released next month.

I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Craig.

08:05 AM by Mobipocket in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

The Mobipocket Creator Home Edition is now available on Mobipocket website.
- Create an ebook in a few clicks by adding HTML and image files to your publication
- Import Word and Text documents
- The Table of contents Wizard enables you to automatically generate links to the chapters of your ebook, based on smart heading extraction
- You can add a personalized cover page to your ebook

10 Applications in 1: the built-in Creator templates will allow you to easily create and edit the following databases and ebooks: My Photo Album
- Birthdays and Anniversaries Date Book
- Cooking Recipe Database
- Personal Dictionary/Glossary
- Cocktail Recipe Database
- Personal Travel Guide
- Quizzes
- Restaurant Guide
- Shopping list
- Simple Generic Database
- Personal Wine Database

* Web like navigation with the choice of list view or thumbnail view for the Publication List
* Integrated preview in web browser & edit in HTML editor
* Built-in Mobipocket Emulator allows to test your ebook on the PC
* Send ebook direct to PDA
* Three Security Options: no encryption, encrypted & password-protected

Built-in Mobipocket eNews Creator
Create eNews from any Web source: RSS, Web & PDA sites
eNews Wizard with WYSIWYG Interface
Post your channel to the Mobipocket eNews Search Engine

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