07:08 AM by caleb72 in E-Book General | News

Just received this email:

Effective September 30, 2013 the Rainbow eBooks web store will be closing.

So that we may serve our existing users, the web store will remain active for purchases through September 30, 2013 and will remain active for customer downloads through December 31, 2013.

After December 31, 2013 Rainbow eBooks will provide direct links to publishers, who request that we do so, so that you'll still be able to find all of the great GLBT eBooks that you've come to enjoy.

It has been our joy to serve you and we are very grateful for your support over the years.

Thanks for thinking Rainbow eBooks!

Tammy May, CEO

Gift Card Balances

Please plan to use any existing gift card balances by September 30, 2013 or contact the office at admin@rainbowebooks.com to make other arrangements.

This is a fairly specialised store, so possibly won't affect many. But if you have purchased from here, I guess the time has come to do the needful.

10:05 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | General Discussions

For many if not most of us, e-books are digital versions of printed books. And they are just that. Others, on the other hand, believe that e-books should offer additional content and multimedia enrichment. Meet Bill Adair, Knight Professor for the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University, who recently described his disappointing experience with e-books in an article published on Poynter's.

I spent my vacation reading from pixels instead of paper.

I read e-book versions of “Bruce,” a Springsteen biography by Peter Ames Carlin, and Dan Brown’s bestselling novel “Inferno.” Both had great potential for extra audio and video that could have created a much richer experience. But the e-books offered no more than the ink-on-paper versions.

My disappointing experience offers a lesson for news organizations that are considering selling e-books because its shows how legacy media is still thinking like … legacy media. Book publishers still have an old-school mentality — like many newspaper editors.

Do you think e-books need to be "enhanced" with multimedia features for a richer experience? Or do you prefer the single-dimensional aspect of text, where any kind of enhancement could potentially be intrusive and get in the way with the story?

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

There's been a whole heck of a lot of stuff happening this week. Purvey the below for your pleasure.

E-Book General - News

• Prestigio MultiReader 3664 entry reader to enter Russian market
• Anti-piracy watermark in e-books gets disassembled, it's a tiny barcode!
• The college textbook ripoff charted by Bloomberg
• Sony PRS-T3 video review for the undecided
• CNET AU thumbs up the Kobo Aura
• B&N Chairman talks to shareholders, no outlook for Nook Media
• Rumor: Photos of next-gen Kindle Fire HD emerge, goes angular retro
• Marvin 2.0 lands in iTunes App Store, now also for iPhone and iPod touch
• calibre V1.3 released, brings its magic to Oppo and PocketBook Mini

E-Book General - General Discussions

• On vacation: 71 percent prefer paper over e-books, survey claims
• DIY Kindle scanner and DRM cracker
• The morality of circumventing geographical restrictions only to buy cheaper ebooks
• E-paper: Cure for insomnia?

E-Book General - Deals, Freebies, and Resources (No Self-Promotion)

• iAnnotate PDF on sale for just $1.99 until September 13 (iPad)
• O'Reilly has 50% sale on select programming e-books for today only

E-Book Readers - Apple Devices

• Mandatory Kindle for iOS 3.9.2 released ahead of iOS 7

E-Book Readers - Kobo Reader

• Turn your Kobo into a Debian Linux tablet

E-Book Readers - Sony Reader

• Sony PRS-T3 and lighted case impressions

E-Book Software - Calibre

• Calibre Companion V3.1.1 released
• Calibre Companion prerelease 3.1.1b (Android)

E-Book Software - Reading and Management

• EPUB3Reader open-source Android App released

05:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

calibre 1.0 was revealed less than a month ago, and already Kovid has pushed out the third point release for his most popular e-book library software. Yes, dear e-book aficionados, that means you've got a new calibre download that fixes various issues and adds a few improvements as well.

Detailed changelog for calibre 1.3:

New Features

• When doing searches or switching between virtual libraries in the main book list, preserve the current book. The currently selected book will remain visible if it is present in the results of the search or the selected virtual library
• Drivers for Oppo Find 5 and PocketBook Mini 515

Bug Fixes

• DOCX Input: Handle numbered paragraphs where the numbering is specified in the paragraph style, instead of on the paragraph directly. Also support the use of arbitrary, styled text for bullets
• DOCX Input: Fix a single line break at the end of a paragraph not being rendered as a blank line
• DOCX Input: Fix extra top/bottom margins around headings when the heading style in word does not specify any top/bottom margins
• DOCX Input: Handle images in footnotes and endnotes
• ODT Input: Only treat the first image as a cover if it is of suitable size, instead of any image in the document
• Book polishing: Do not leave behind the old comments when updating metadata if the comments have been deleted in calibre
• PDF Output: Fix non-breaking space characters incorrectly rendered in PDF outline
• Content server: Fix error in opds feed after using virtual libraries in the main server
• Do not scroll the book list horizontally after editing metadata
• New database backend: Handle databases that contain multiple tags/series/publishers/etc. that differ only in case

New and improved news sources

• Caravan Magazine by Kovid Goyal
• Phys Org by Krittika Goyal
• Harvard Business Review
• Jakarta Post
• Jakarta Globe
• Dilema Veche
• Daily Express
• Anandtech
• High Country News

calibre is a powerful tool which can be a bit intimidating in the beginning. If you need any assistance or have any suggestions, join our dedicated calibre forums where a crew of calibre users will welcome you dearly.

03:40 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

We were just wondering how long it would take before Apple determined the fate of the latest version of Marvin for iOS, and we've got some great news -- it's been approved! Congrats to MobileReader kguil, and thank you for making this fantastic reading app possible.

So what's new in Marvin 2.0? Plenty, plenty, plenty. Among the most prominent changes and new features are: location sync, support for the Marvin XD calibre driver (more about it in a moment), compatibility improvements, a refreshed UI, edge-to-edge screen scrolling, faster page rendering, an improved battery life, and various bug fixes. You can find more details on the Marvin blog.

The Marvin XD calibre driver is something special, and I am sure you will love it. Developed by MobileReader GRiker, the driver provides native access to your Marvin library from within calibre. Things you can do with it include the syncing of metadata between Marvin and calibre, adding books from Marvin to calibre, deleting books from Marvin, managing your collections, viewing annotations, vocabulary words, and much more. You can find the latest version of the driver and more details in this thread.

Excited? Join our Marvin forum and find out more about this reading app.

App Store links:

• Marvin for iPad
• Marvin for iPhone and iPod touch

11:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

In celebration of today's Programmer's Day, tech book specialist O'Reilly is running a one-day-only 50 percent sale on select programming e-books, including such bestsellers as JavaScript: The Definitive Guide and The Linux Programming Interface.

Use the discount code DEAL to take 50% off the regular price. The deal expires September 14, 2013 (5:00am PT) and does not apply to print books.

Link: O'Reilly Programmer's Day sale

09:26 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Alright, follow me on this one. iAnnotate is one of the most popular PDF viewing and annotation iPad apps in existence, and it's on sale for $1.99 right now to "celebrate" the back to school season. That's 80% off its regular price ($9.99). The deal is only good until September 13 (12pm CDT).

iAnnotate bills itself as "the most powerful PDF annotation application for the iPad" that includes an "intuitive interface" and a "comprehensive set of features" for taking notes and annotating documents.

Download link: iAnnotate PDF

08:03 AM by simplyparticular in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

I visited the Sony store in Niagara Falls, Ontario this afternoon and they had the T3 in stock. They also had an open box T1 for $90 with extended warranty, and the T2 on clearance for $80, so I could compare all three. The store associates would not let me take pictures, and I chose not to buy the T3 for various reasons, so this will strictly be a written impression. I spent about 15 minute playing with the T3 and comparing it with its predecessors.

PRS-T3 Reader
The stock T3 with integrated cover felt nice in hand in book mode, but the with the integrated case flipped around to the back (how I usually read), the cover slides around, and made feel like I didn't have a good grip on it. But the back itself is a smooth touch rubbery plastic, similar to the T1/T2.

The bezel felt a bit narrow, but that could also be because I've gotten used to the T2 lighted case cover - it has the battery compartment which makes a nice grip. I did really like the rounded edges being totally exposed by the flap cover - very comfortable in hand compared to the snap in case edge n the T1/T2, but still not as nice as the clip system used by the 3/6/950 series.

The text is sharper than both the T1 and T2, but it's less obvious compared to the T2 because they are both using the same "Original" font, where the T1 used a different one. Brightness of the background was identical to my T1 and the display T2. I was hoping for a lighter background.

Software was basically identical. I knew my way around better than the 2 sales people who tried REALLY hard to sell me a T3. I meant to check out the dictionary options, but forgot.

In both the stock and the lighted cover, the T3 has a very slim profile. I would guess it is about the same size as the 350 in its lighted cover, perhaps a bit slimmer. So definitely very portable, and really light.

The lighted case:
This was a surprise, in both positive and negative ways. The integrated case popped off easily - they both use the same back plastic that snaps into place, and they both have a microfiber lining.

The lighted cover is powered by the T3, and has a super slim light that slides up out of the back.

The lighted cover has big negatives for me:
1. The light level is not adjustable. It was hard to judge in the bright store, but it appeared that the top was overlit and the bottom was underlit.

2. The light only engages when fully extended - so no way to adjust position. It comes straight up and over, and that's it.

3. The lighted case had a difficult time making contact with the power nodules on the back of the T3. Three of us fiddled with two different lighted covers cases and had this problem. So the only way I could get the light to turn on was to squeeze the left side of the device/case to force the case and nodules to make contact. I gave up, since I wasn't so thrilled with the first two problems.

Given the very small space involved in the lighted cover design, it doesn't take much to throw alignment off track - those power nodules are VERY tiny - there are two that are about the size of a ballpoint pen tip. I hope for Sony's sake this isn't a design flaw, just two faulty cases, or maybe an alignment problem with the display model. But I would suggest if you buy a T3 lighted cover - test it with YOUR device in store to make sure everything aligns properly!

So the T3 stayed at the store. I didn't feel the sharper screen was enough to justify moving up for the T2, and the lighted cover (and the fact that you HAVE to use a cover) is a negative for me.

YMMV. Happy shopping for your perfect reader!