iPad Tutorial: How to read your old (non-ePub) ebooks using iBooks

How to read your old (non-ePub) ebooks using iBooks, iPad Tutorial. 

The app "calibre" (Mac only?) is pretty amazing.  It will even fetch news from all kinds of web sites, format them in iPub, and transfer it automatically to iBooks in your iPad! Very nicely formatted too, readable and with chapters and links.
If your favorite web site is missing from the list, somebody on the mobileread forum can probably mix you up a "recipe" for it! I had it done for The Online Photographer amongst others. Highly useful.

Dell Streak download issues

Now my Dell Streak will not download at all from the Market (app store). It's incredibly frustrating. And not at all uncommon, a Google search gives nearly 22,000 results!

I've rebooted of course, no joy. And so far I've not found any help.

It's a pity, for otherwise this five-inch device is not a bad pocket-sized ereader.

Update:
Hurrah! I found the solution here. (It's not "options" though, it's "settings", in the menu from the home page.)
But I have to say that it's a really poor show that an update to the Market app will block downloading...

I even found an app (Hard Copy) which will let me read my Instapaper articles on the Dell, kewl. (Although it seems to have no options for changing text size, quite a disadvantage which I'm inquiring about.)

Galaxy Tab review (updated)

Galaxy Tab review.

"The grippier casing comes into its own when you’re using the Galaxy Tab for ebook reading, and indeed Verizon preinstall Amazon’s Kindle app which works well on the 7-inch display. At 1024 x 600 across a smaller panel than the iPad’s 1024 x 768 resolution, the Samsung actually has a higher pixel density; that adds up to crisper text. The Tab is also light enough to comfortably hold one-handed above your head, such as when lying in bed, whereas the metal and glass iPad soon gets tiring."

And, ooh, the web browser apparently has text re-flow (text fits to the window) when you zoom in! Apple, may we pleeease have this in safari?!

Like the Dell Streak (and probably all Android devices), the Galaxy Tab has not just a Home button, but also a Menu button, and a Back and a Search buttons. Search button I can live without, but the Back button is very practical to get back to the last app, and I think especially that Jobs super-minimalism is again a little overdone in not having a Menu button on the iPad, for it is really good to have. On the iPad, you often have to search around on the screen to find where in the interface the app producer has decided to stick a menu for preferences and so on. Granted, it might also have been made simpler with a standard for where the menus are, but I think a simple menu button would work great.

It seems the GT will work with a bluetooth keyboard. That's good news for writers who like a very compact word processor on the go. A fold-able keyboard (under 200 grams) and an iPhone works well, I have used it, but that screen is a bit on the small side. An iPad instead is great but adds quite a bit of weight. I think a machine like this GT is a very nice compromise.

Kindle app for Android

Through Kindle Chronicles I just found out that the newest version of the Kindle app for Android has a search feature where you just speak the term you want. Pretty cool, I like how fast this technology is growing in usefulness. (Maybe I'll get the galaxy tab anyway despite the shameless price.)

It’s a Tablet. It’s Gorgeous. It’s Costly.

It’s a Tablet. It’s Gorgeous. It’s Costly. NYT review of the new Samsung Galaxy Tab.
It's good, but most Android apps are made for small screens, and then it's just too expensive. It cost more than an iPad for lord's sake. I think you have to be very anti-Apple to think that's a good deal.

If not for this, I might have been tempted to try it as an ereader, for it's very light and have a good size (7-inch screen on a device the size of a Kindle3). And I guess that unlike Nook Color it will run the Kindle app.

Color epaper is coming

Color Comes to E Ink Screens, NYT article.
[Note: I think NYT is one of the places it's worth it to sign up (free), they have many good articles. (One can make an extra "throw-away" email address just for such things.)]

Can't wait to see it in the wild. How's the contrast? How's the speed?

"However, the new color E Ink display, while an important technological breakthrough, is not as sharp and colorful as LCD. Unlike an LCD screen, the colors are muted, as if one were looking at a faded color photograph. In addition, E Ink cannot handle full-motion video. At best, it can show simple animations."

If the colors are muted, I guess the contrast is not much better either. And so far they're pretty expensive, couple hundred bucks over a cheap LCD.

Oooh, bad news about the contrast:
"To create the color image, E Ink uses its standard black-and-white display overlaid with a color filter. As a result, battery life is the same as its black-and-white cousins, measured in weeks rather than hours, as with the iPad. The color model from Hanvon can be easily read in bright light, although the color filter does reduce the brightness."

No good. I thought they would start to use little colored balls instead of little b/w balls. A filter on top of the already dull b/w epaper screen, I don't care for.

Paper is clumsy

I'm listening to a good and entertaining podcast, Kindle Women, and in an old episode one of the girls told about how, after a couple of years of reading all her books on a Kindle, she read a hardcover book, and she found she could hardly do it anymore, it's so clumsy and inconvenient. "How come I never noticed that when I used to read these things?" she mused.

That might not be the important question, but I think it's just that she had no other experience and no alternative. Now we have, ereaders. And they are just starting to become good.

Steve Jobs on a 7-inch tablet

Steve Jobs has sadly almost crushed hope for a 7-inch iPad, when he said: "One naturally thinks that a 7-inch screen would offer 70 percent of the benefits of a 10-inch screen," Jobs said during the call. "This is far from the truth: 7-inch screens are 45 percent as large as an iPad...this size isn't sufficient for making great tablet apps."

Well, apart from Steve's many famous 180-turn-arounds*, this is complex, innit? For example, if a 7-inch iPad were to have the same amount of pixels as the ten-incher, it might have almost the same value, at least for those with good eyes and slim fingers, no?

Also, to follow Steve's math: an iPhone has only 1/8 the area of the iPad. Does Steve really believe that the iPhone is only 1/8 as good as the iPad? If so, why did he put the phone in the forefront several years ago when they were actually working on a tablet first? And why does it cost about the same as an iPad? (In fact I think that's a good question. Why is it more than twice the price of an iPod Touch? The Touch has almost all the features.)

To be honest, the essence for me is getting a 350-gram iPad (12.5 oz). 7-inch or 10-inch, no biggie. But yeah, bigger screen is better, if not for the durn weight when it's a hand-held device.


*And these examples don't even include my favorite: the the original "lamp" iMac, the first flat-panel iPad, when it came out he said that the reason they had separated the screen from the processor and disk and drive, was that the latter do not work well in a vertical position, so they'd decided to "let each unit be what it wanted to be". Woopsy, two years later, we have a slab iMac with all the drives vertical! Whuhapp'ned?

Publishing today

Post about books and publishing on my main blog.

Ipad respect-explosion

After I had absorbed what the iPad was (about when Steve was done talking about it in his intro in January 2010) I was in no doubt at all that it would be a big hit.
But it's shocking just how big a hit it is. It is the fasted-expanding consumer-device in history! It is met with enthusiasm from toddlers over university students over pros over artist, and to 100-year-old users.
And now it is also being strongly recommended by one of the most prestigious business-consulting firms in the world. Don't think I've seen anything like it.
Noting that chief executives are usually not directly involved in deploying electronics in their company, Gartner this week recommended that CEOs should treat Apple’s iPad as an "exception," or risk being left behind.
Gartner believes that the iPad will "disrupt" technology use, as well as business models, in the corporate world. It has advised CEOs to ensure that the iPad is being "seriously evaluated" within their company.

Dang. This is exceptional to the Nth degree.

The only thing more unbelievable than the continued growth of Apple's success in the past decade is the growth of the use of vampires in popular culture. Every year I think: "amazing, it must have peaked now," and every year it grows again.

Kindle's grey screen, and keyboard

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I would use my Kindle a lot more if the screen was not so dang grey.

It just strikes me: I read so much about the Kindle, but hardly anybody ever mentions this. But to me it's such an important flaw. To me it's like a fabulous million-dollar car that can't go above 20 miles per hour. 
I need such bright light to read on the Kindle, and even then it's not really a pleasure.
So I use my iPad a lot more. It also has the great additional advantages of easily being able to read all kinds of Net-delivered content, including web pages. But it's so heavy.
OK, I'm repeating myself. I'm sorry. But it's just: why does this not bother everybody?

Admission: when the Kindle 3 came out, I was very enthusiastic about it, because it had improved speed and yes, a little better screen contrast. But after a few weeks, well, I just sort of "fell off it" again. The improvement was simply not big enough.

I wonder if e-paper will improve drastically soon.
I can live without color for most reading. And I don't need snow-white for the background. That's actually too much. A light grey is perfect for reading, in my view. Good contrast, but not so much brightness that it is way over the surrounding environment.

Oh, while we are wishing: the Kindle's keyboard is not great. You have to really peck at it to use it. Sony Reader now has a touch screen which no longer hurts the contrast of the screen like on earlier SR models. The Kindle would be much more useful with this, and an on-screen keyboard for the odd time when you need to do a search or whatever. This could also make the screen larger without making the device larger.

Bags for small machines

I made a video about fitting the iPad and the new 11-inch MacBook Air into bags from Waterfield.


MacBook Air 11-inch in Waterfield bags from Eolake Stobblehouse on Vimeo.
It fits in the Waterfield (SFbags.com) iPad Wallet, and in the 10-inch Muzetto bag, even with the thickest sleeve case.
This video was made when staff at Waterfield Design asked for a photo of how the 11-incher could fit into the iPad Wallet and Muzetto. I thought a video would give a better feel for it.

They are wonderful bags, by the way, best "look and feel" I ever bought.
Same goes for the 11-inch Airbook: *Nothing* slow about it, full sized keeboard, high-rez screen, but only weighs one kilo. This is a portable like portables should always have been made.

Update:
In the Muzetto 10-inch bag, I can fit an iPad, the 11-inch Airbook in the "heavy duty" Sleeve, *and* an Apple Wireless Keyboard, all at the same time (plus a few small/thin items)!
In the iPad Wallet bag, I can fit the same, only without the big sleeve.

Palm Your iPad with a Hand-e-holder

Palm Your iPad with a Hand-e-holder, TidBITS article.
Seems quite useful.

The eyestrain debate

The eyestrain debate, article.
So far there doesn't seem to be a lot solid evidence that LCD screens are more straining for the eyes than e-paper. I never saw the logic behind it anyway. The light hitting your eyes is just light, how can the eye know if it's reflected or projected?

Contrast might do it, so I think one should take care not to use too bright a white background. (I use light grey when I can.)

Also flickering might create a problem, but so far as I know, unlike old CRT displays, LCD does not have an issue with that.

One thing with eye strain is to remember to blink often. One sometimes forget while reading or working.

Cruz Reader

Thanks to TCGirl for pointing to the Cruz Reader, shipping now and seems to be a very interesting alternative to the Nook Color. It's even a full Android tablet, which should mean that unlike the Nook, it should be able to run the Kindle app, letting you read Kindle books on a slightly bigger screen with color and higher contrast. (You can already do that on iPad, but it's heavier and more expensive, though it has a near-ten-inch screen.)
Update: wait... it has access to the "Cruz Market", not the regular Android free Market. Ten bucks says you can't get the Kindle reader there. Durnit! 
Nope, confirmed here. Per the video lower on the page, it seems the processor and touch screen (a "resistive" type) is not so bad for the price. 

The Cruz Reader has a 7-inch screen and weighs 450 grams like the Nook Color.  And it's only two hunnert bucks, well cheaper than the much smaller 5-inch Dell Streak, which is seriously over-priced at $549(!).
The Cruz handles email, which it seems the Nook can't do. Apparently you can't produce/create anything *into* a Nook Color.
(BTW, I sure hope that the ultra-delayed Android Market (app store) downloads I've seen on the Streak (up to days!) is not universal.)

I found a video.
It seems a little slow, like on page turning. That's not so cool, considering it does not have to wait for e-paper to change.



It seems like every reaction takes the better part of a second, surely way slower than an iPad (or the Dell Streak).
It also seems that he has to be careful to press very distinctly on the screen to get a reaction. The iPad is great that way, you literally barely have to touch it for it to react. You just dance over the screen rather than slog through tasks.

The Cruz Tablet seems more responsive, but it has less pixels and is $100 more.  Velocity says on YouTube, about this, in a comment/answer: "The Tablet has a faster processor, more storage, and a capacitive touch screen." It's a pity about the smaller screen though.

Update:
Wow, I can tell we will see many, many cheap Android tablets, look at this "Fujian Sanxi" 7-incher, might sell for only $150, it's Asian it seems. YouTube review. Producer's site (a bit confusing). It's only 250 grams like the Kindle 3! Kewl.
One thing is for sure, during the next year, the small-tablet market is going to take off like gangbusters. Right now there is also the Augen Reader and Augen Tablet, respectively for $99 and $149 through K-Mart. They are not getting great reviews, though, and neither is the Pandigital Novel.
I might add that if Apple were to make an iPad at 400 grams (either 7 or 9 inches), I would probably not bother to look at any other brands, that is such a great product apart from weight for hand-held reading.