TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for October, 2005

By David Rothman

A Finnish study, sponsored by a paper company and mentioned here earlier, compared the “Standard Usability Scale” scores of print, an iPAQ Pocket PC, a Tablet PC and a Nokia 7710 for e-book reading. Here are the results as summed up in eFinland:

Printed material performed best in the reading platform comparison, receiving an overall average SU score of 86.4 out of 100 with the highest individual score at 100 and the lowest at 67.5. Of the actual eBook reading devices, the highest overall score of 80.0 was obtained by the Rocket eBook. The lowest individual score of all was 45, given to the Tablet, followed closely by the regular computer at 47.5. Incidentally, with the exception of paper, the regular computer also scored highest at 97.5, probably because of its familiarity to users.

Tablet, although a standard computer and therefore probably initially more familiar to users than the iPAQ, received a significantly lower overall score. All in all, Tablet users were not as satisfied with their device as were the iPAQ users.

The Nokia 7710 scored quite well, but since only one user was able to use the smart phone, the result isn’t definitive. It is interesting to see that users were very happy with the Rocket eBook device, since there isn’t much variance in the ratings.

I’m not surprised that the Rocket eBook did well. It’s big enough to read comfortably on–but isn’t as bulky as a Tablet PC. Of course, the form-factor debate is a classic one within e-bookdom. My own approach at the personal level is to use a Cybook tablet at home and a Sony Clie PDA when I’m on the go.

I need to stop now for work-related deadline reasons, but may have more thoughts on this later on. Meanwhile, what are yours?

By David Rothman

Here, via the Librie list. All this is actually rather relevant to Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti’s discussion of paragraph and sentence lengths in e-books. The closer they can be to p-books in appearance–just so the pages are big enough–then the less need there’ll be for e-writers to worry about the lengths. Further info here.

Question: the photo makes me wonder, “Has E Ink improved the contrast between text and background?” That’s a problem with the Librie.

By David Rothman

TeleRead e-book reviewer Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, a veteran book editor, has recorded a very helpful MP3 on the need to keep sentences and paragraphs short in books intended to be read electronically. The text version is here.

Enjoy Sadi’s podcasts regularly by pasting the TeleRead audio feed into your podware. And remember, she welcomes feedback.

By Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti

Who am I to speak to the length of paragraphs and the style in which e-books are or should be written? I come with a background in traditional publishing. But I’m also a tech and e-book geek who has taught tech writing, and I’ve written many thousands of words online. So here’s my humble opinion.

I’ve been trying to slog through several e-books online or through PDF files, and I’m finding it very difficult. When I say e-books I mean books written for the Internet, not books that were written for print and then turned over to e-books because there was or is a demand for them and thus they were converted. Such books may still be harder to read online or by a pocket reader or PDA, but they are useful, available for research and much more portable than carrying the book around. Moreover, the authors likely intended the book as paper books, so we can’t really come down on them for paragraph length and so on.

Here instead I speak of the throngs of authors who have decided to go the e-book route, or, who tried the p-book route and got nowhere and so decided to publish their novel as an e-book. What they failed to do before doing this was to tailor the book for the Internet. Make the paragraphs shorter and thus easier on the eye, and the sentences shorter and snappier– again, easier on the eye and easier to read. (more…)

By David Rothman

“Come December 2005, the young and talented writers will be invited to join eAuthor contest by Oxfordbookstore.com. They are the fiction writers whose works have never been published as printed books. This time around, they will get an opportunity to have their works displayed on the internet after the online talent search competition.” – The Financial Express in India.

The TeleRead take: This apparently isn’t the first year the contest has been held. Rules appear here. At any rate, it’s a great idea for bookstore–well worthy of imitation by large and small bookstores alike. In an era when many local bookstores are worried about being Amazon away, this could be an excellent way to connect with young Net users. What’s interesting is that the number of people seriously reading books has declined, but the number of would-be writers has actually skyrocketed. (more…)

By Branko Collin

Distributed Proofreaders is not just a piece of software; it is also a string of communities using that software, some by themselves, some heavily connected.

Currently, the Distributed Proofreaders software is being used by three different projects: Project Gutenberg in the USA for mostly English texts, Project Rastko in Serbia and Montenegro for European languages and Project Madurai (in Australia?) for Tamil documents.

Having looked at the output of Distributed Proofreaders (DP) the last time, we’ll explore the human side of the mechanics of DP.

(more…)

By David Rothman

“Hey, guys. I can’t be the only Apple user that’s bought a Cybook! Unfortunately, there is no Microsoft ActiveSync that I can find for the Mac platform.” – Novice posting to the Cybook list.

The TeleRead take: Can Microsoft ever figure out whether e-books are valuable in themselves, or just as a way to promote Windows? The Cybook post is yet another example of the mess in e-books, and, yes, the Tower of eBabel does figure here.

Granted, the lack of ActiveSync for the Mac is a generic problem extending to apps beyond e-books, and, granted, there are workarounds such as the use of a memory card. But it isn’t as if the crossplatform issue and the Tower of eBabel mess are entirely separate. You need ActiveSync to get Microsoft Reader going on the Cybook, and, in turn, you need Reader to read books in the Redmond-blessed format. Oh, what a Web of incompatibilities Microsoft has woven by linking an operating sytem and an e-book format! And now the kicker. So far, although its Cybook is a Win CE machine and has been out for many months, Bookeen has yet to be able to get a version of Microsoft Reader for the Cybook. So even if the novice Cybook user owned a PC and could use ActiveSync, he’d still be up the creek if he wanted to read Microsoft Reader books.

Within the e-book standards in general, I do see some positive signs. Over at Adobe, Bill McCoy has called in his personal blog for an MP3 for e-books. Bill’s speaking only for himself, not necessarily Adobe, but I hope that others will listen. And I hope that the corporate Bill will listen to the blogger Bill and be genuinely open to the deployment of a truly universal e-book format without consumer-hostile proprietary gotchas. (more…)

By David Rothman

Could e-books be a great fix for a St. Louis man with a massive book addition–the kind that got him written up in the Post-Dispatch? Excerpt:

Norma Kachigian has come to terms with her husband’s addiction. It could be worse, she tells herself. It could be alcohol. It could be drugs.

Instead, Amerik Kachigian, 72, a semi-retired Granite City lawyer, has spent his life collecting books, storing them away like a well-read squirrel preparing for winter.

“I tell people, ‘The day he dies, before I bury him, I’m going to get a Dumpster and throw them all out,’” said Norma Kachigian, 65. “They’re everywhere. They’re in my basement. They’re in my garage.”

A son says: “Some people go to Mecca, my dad goes to book fairs. That’ll be his funeral pyre. They’ll burn him on a stack of books.” (more…)

By David Rothman

“…I’ve decided to challenge myself to see if I can effectively use my Tablet PC as a total replacement for pen, paper, and books. Next week, I start an intense 8-week business law course and I’ve decided to use this course as the subject of my next Tablet PC challenge.” – Eric MackOnline, via Electronic Paper.

By David Rothman

Details from Ars Technica, via MobileRead.

By David Rothman

Here–text, video and audio. Excerpt:

…administrators say the system is working well overall, and students seem to agree. Sophomore Justin Platt says it’s a relief not having to worry about having different textbooks for every class. “You keep a lot more organized. You don’t have to worry about bringing all this different stuff every day. It’s always there for you.”

By David Rothman

Oh, Gazit Bingaman, how can I forget you? Every day I find you in the TeleBlog’s spam filter.

This morning I zapped exactly 825 comment spams touting poker and cellular ring tones and the other joys of life. Most came from you. I’ve been mighty curious about the kind of of business that would be your domain registrar.

Over at eNom, John Kane has finally responded to my calls and email, and parts of the conversation amazed me. In effect he asked, “Aren’t you begging for it? You’ve got a blog where readers can post comments. Gazit’s just taking advantage of that capability.” Right. My e-book and tech-oriented readers want comments full of links to poker tips and the like. No need to stay even remotely on topic, huh?

In fairness to John, he did promise to ask eNom affiliate NameCheap to verify that Gazit is indeed in Cyprus for sure–which I wanted to know to be able to step up my with the so-far-lackadaisical bureaucracy over there. (more…)

By David Rothman

Here, via Boing Boing.

By David Rothman

Over the years, Forbes at times has printed some pretty clueful stuff. Although far more liberal than Forbes, I’ve cherished the magazine’s pokes at the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extention Act.

Still, even good publications can let us down–and that’s exactly what happened with Attack of the Blogs (reg. required). Excerpt:

“Bloggers are more of a threat than people realize, and they are only going to get more toxic. This is the new reality,” says Peter Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Intelliseek, a Cincinnati firm that sifts through millions of blogs to provide watch-your-back service to 75 clients, including Procter & Gamble and Ford. “The potential for brand damage is really high,”says Frank Shaw, executive vice president at Microsoft’s main public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom. “There is bad information out there in the blog space, and you have only hours to get ahead of it and cut it off, especially if it’s juicy.”

Gosh, I’d hope Microsoft and friends would be monitoring this blog. As both a consumer and co-founder of the OpenReader Consortium, I’ve love to see ‘em improve the problematic Microsoft Reader, and, in fact, we do get our share of accesses from microsoft.com. (more…)

By Roger Sperberg

At Mobileread, Mikhail Sobolev announced the port and release of FBReader 0.7 today. FBReader is an e-book reader for Sharp Zaurus with Qtopia-based ROMs and pdaXrom, Siemens Simpad with Opensimpad 0.9.0/Opie ROM, and Linux desktops. (A port to the Nokia 770 is also being readied.)

New features include support for new file formats (plucker, palmdoc and ztxt, in addition to the pre-existing fb2, html and plain text), scrolling with overlaps, and configurable keybindings. The reader can be downloaded from http://only.mawhrin.net/fbreader/.

By David Rothman

“…what will the consequences be if poorly written, plagiarized, open-source textbooks become the runaway hit that Wikibooks predicts?” – Kim White in if:book. Strong stuff, but the blog has disturbing specifics.

As a Wiki booster, I hope that Jimmy Wales will expand existing QC efforts–much needed. Imagine the possible legal liabilities here. Even established writers such as the Doris Godwin, Louis Roberts, Stephen Ambrose and Alex Haley have found the waters perilous. Now, what happens when entire books result from armies of obscure contributors? One good measure would be to require as much linking as possible to credible source material.

A TeleRead/OpenReader approach, offering real books with permanent links to specific pages, would help.

Related: Can you trust the Wikipedia? in the Guardian. (Thanks, Alev.)

By David Rothman

Details from Librarian.net. Also see LibraryTechtonics and Coding in Paradise, the blog of Internet Archive techie Brad Neuberg. Example of The FlipBook viewer here.