08:09 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

No, this is not something you put on your morning eggs. What exactly is the Pepper Pad?

The Pepper Pad's new invisible, simplified operating system is based on MontaVista Linux and Java, which are both enhanced and optimized for the Intel XScale processor. The Pepper Pad also utilizes Intel's new 2700G companion chip for speedy 2D/3D multimedia handling. The system features 256 MB of SDRAM, 32 MB of flash memory, and a 20-gigabyte hard drive. It has a rechargeable lithium polymer battery with power management, plus an AC power supply. The Pepper Pad turns on instantly and charges quickly.

Plus the Pepper Pad 2 has an 8.4-inch color touchscreen and 802.11b+g Wi-Fi. Doesn't that sound like a great solution for reading e-books? I think so too. If you cannot wait and want to be one of the first to have it for January 2005 deliever, you can pre-order it now (for a heavy price tag of USD 800).

07:45 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Brad from ePublishing Blog has just published an interesting review of Plucker (you should also check out Brad's earlier review on iSilo and iSiloX). It is worth checking out. We definitely agree with him:

Plucker does not spend enough time trumpeting how good of an ebook compiler and reader they have. The reader, on the Palm has one of the most elegant interfaces I have seen. The compiler is not quite as straight forward but if you play with it you will figure it out rather quickly. Both reader and compiler are absolutely free and without any royalties for publishing in the format.

Btw, we added ePublishing Blog newsfeeds to our Frontpage. You can disable/enable it in your control panel.

06:29 AM by Mobipocket in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Only few days to save up to 40% on eBooks for your PDA in Mobipocket format.

Tess Gerritsen: Body Double, The Surgeon, The Apprentice, The Sinner

Julie Garwood: Muder List

Karen Harbaugh: Night Fires

Key Hooper: Hunting Fear

Greg Keyes: The Charnel Prince (Book Two of the The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone)

Brian Tracy: Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed, Something for Nothing: The Causes and Cures of All Our Problems and What You Can Do to Save the American Dream

... and many others.

see http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/SpecialOffers.asp

05:45 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Mobipocket Reader is something like the insiders' tip of PDA readers. Perhaps not so often in the news, yet with a lot of features and a most promising product pipeline!

The latest addition to the Mobipocket Reader family is Mobipocket Creator Home Edition, replacing the older product Mobipocket Publisher. Mobipocket Creator allows you to

• create rich content with one of the 10+ predefined built-in templates : Photo Album, Travel guides and more
• create custom searchable databases: dictionaries, cooking recipes, shopping list, wine database and more
• create custom eBooks from TXT, RTF or Microsoft Word documents

We hope we can give you a small review in the next couple of days. In the meantime, why don't you have a look at the beta yourself. You can download it here and test it until October 1, 2004.

10:08 PM by ignatz in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Okay so we're a little behind on this, but...
From PalmOne:

PIM Support Update for Tungsten E, Tungsten T3, Zire 31 and Zire 72 handhelds

This update backs up the extended Personal Information Manager (PIM) functions of Tungsten E, Tungsten T3, Zire 31 and Zire 72 handhelds, and corrects incompatibilities discovered between these devices and some third-party applications. In addition, the update includes several smaller code adjustments and solutions.

Haven't seen much more about it than this. There's no specification about what problems this fixes, or with what 3rd party apps it deals. I went ahead and installed it on my T|E, but there's nothing noticeable.

10:00 PM by ignatz in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Well, sort of...

From Pocket PC addict:

VR-Zone has posted a step by step tutorial on removing the 5GB ST1 Compact Flash card from the the new Creative MuVo² FM. This unit has started selling in Singapore for approximately US$260. No doubt that these will be flying off the shelf now that everyone knows that it really means US$260 for a 5GB CF card for their digital cameras and PPCs. Think about it, that's $52 a gigabyte.

In fact this is actually a small hard drive with a CF form factor. Pretty sweet. They must be planning to market it separately, or why use that shape? So I'm wildly speculating that CF may experience a resurgence in the form of mini hard drives.

Of course I don't have anything with a CF card, except my digital camera, and it has more than enough space with 256 meg. The Axim x30 that I just ordered has SD only. It seems that PPC manufacturers can't decide whether or not to stop supporting CF. Regardless, this would be a great way to turn your PDA into a low level iPod. And hardware hacking is such fun!!

04:48 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Boing Boing explains us how easy it is (contrary to general belief?) to swap a new battery into your iPod.

The battery itself costs around $30 and with a miniature screwdriver and some sure instinct you can replace it within 5 minutes.

PS: Don't be mad at me if you break your iPod by not being careful enough!!

08:25 PM by aranpura in Archive | Mobile Sites

My first contribution to this lovely group of PDA-obsessed compatriots...

http://www.ranpura.com/resourceHome.html

I wrote a little perl script to reformat Mapquest's atlas pages (http://www.mapquest.com/atlas/main.adp?region=world) in order to minimize extraneous content for PDAs. You can use any web converter with a link depth of 1 to download the whole atlas (I use iSiloX).

Note that there are over 300 maps in this atlas -- without image compression I think this would require around 70 Mb of space. iSiloX allows me to compress all images down to 25% of their original size, giving me an atlas that weighs in around 10 Mb.

If anyone knows of a better world atlas solution, please do get in touch. Mapquest is the only place I know to get decent looking maps (I have a T3 and no, line drawings aren't good enough!).