Show us your ebooks!

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by allens

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best reader for PDFs?

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...5&pageNumber=1 may be of use to you. (Tell it to skip the ad, of course.)

[allens]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...5&pageNumber=1 may be of use to you. (Tell it to skip the ad, of course.)

Thank you; some useful info.

-Allen

[hcobb]

Nationite MIDnite Android "pad" with seven inch display: Cover of OGRE Minis PDF

[allens]

http://www.best-ereaders.com/compare-ereaders/ may also be of interest.

-Allen

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by allens

http://www.best-ereaders.com/compare-ereaders/ may also be of interest.

Only if you're in the USA - not all of those are available elsewhere.

[allens]

Originally Posted by robkelk

Only if you're in the USA - not all of those are available elsewhere.

Well, I did say "may" - and nobody's importing them (with or without permission)?

-Allen

[Kuroshima]

Well, it took me a while, but here are my e-reading devices: An Asus EEE PC 901 (8.9" 1024x600 display) and an HTC Desire (3.7" 480x800 display). I'm waiting for a good android or Maemo/MeeGo based tablet such as the WeTab to reach affordable prices and decent battery life (The WeTab is very close to my ideal tablet, but it's a little too expensive, and the announced battery life is a little too short for my tastes

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by allens

http://www.best-ereaders.com/compare-ereaders/ may also be of interest.

Originally Posted by robkelk

Only if you're in the USA - not all of those are available elsewhere.

Originally Posted by allens

Well, I did say "may" - and nobody's importing them (with or without permission)?

Canadian laws about bookstores are protectionist; if they don't have a brick-and-mortar outlet in the country, it's very difficult for them to be allowed to ship across the border. And even if the store jumps through the hoops, it's not a sure thing - amazon.ca doesn't have all the stuff amazon.com has, for example. There's no B&N up here at all, as far as I know...

(What? Warehouse 23? That isn't a "bookstore" according to Canadian law.)

As for "grey market" imports, some warranties are phrased so they're invalidated if you ship the unit across a border and then sell it. (Go figure. I try to avoid buying stuff with that kind of warranty.)

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Do they censor the online bookstores like Amazon and iTunes?

For example can you see my ebook on either of these sites?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003XYFMUI
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...=2940011884818

You need to seriously work on your product description, but you'd get better feedback in another thread, instead of doing the spambot thing on this one.

[demonsbane]

Beware: long post ahead.

Well, I badly need a true PDF ebook reader for the GURPS stuff (between other things, sure). I feel I have too many things waiting for being printed in paper (some Dungeon Fantasy releases like 11 and 12, several Pyramid issues, Plant Magic, Low-Tech Companion 1 and so).

So, it seems the only device that is close to offer a decent GURPS-PDF reading experience (besides a computer screen, of course) is the famous and expensive iPad.

As some people around here is using it, I would like to make a few questions about it:

Goodreader: people talk marvels about this 1$ software piece, but I've heard comments about the difficulty of making the zoom degree you exactly want, or that making zoom renders a blurred, pixelated or serrated display of the text and images of the PDF file.
Is that true? In what extent is needed to do zooming for reading GURPS PDFs with an iPad? I guess the screen isn't enough large for allowing an actual, non-eye straining readable full-page display.

iPad: How good it is? Discussions about Apple products seem to carry a lot of fanaticism. OK that's life, but with so hot tempered and extremist attitudes is a bit difficult to grasp a right impression of the issue. Some people talks marvels about the device, while others laugh at them saying it's a downgraded hardware piece with a monocore processor and 256 MB of RAM (separated in two pieces of 128 MB each), with the machine being unable to use the full 256 MB of available memory simultaneously, and being inferior in that to some smartphones. Additionally Apple seems to be almost ready to launch the iPad with a new feature: built-in webcam for December. The product lacks of an USB port so any data transfer between a computer and it needs to be wireless.

On the other hand most people using it seems satisfied with the product despite these technical discussions.

Yesterday I discovered that, with special pens you can get a pressure sensitive way of drawing and painting in the iPad. That is also very interesting to me, because I use digital painting. Additionally, a "digital slate" would be very useful to me. I hate using real paper only for sketching because I feel dead-tree paper is very valuable. Additionally, sketching with colors isn't exactly free. I wouldn't know how to get one of such iPad POGO pens here in Spain but I think with some effort it would be possible to order one through some store (no, the main Apple Store in Spain don't sell them; it's a third-party product at least as I understood it).

Concerning the closed-nature of Apple products, I don't know if it's really possible to read "my own" stuff in the iPad or all need to be purchased through iTunes or Apple Store. Maybe this is an exaggeration from the detractors? I could log from the Safari web browser of iPad to my e23 account for downloading my GURPS PDFs in that machine, yeah, but I don't know if the device would admit a PDF created by myself or a modification of a GURPS PDF for my personal use (like joining the Basic Set in a single PDF volume for ease of reference). The same about movies and music: is needed to purchase them through Apple in order to play them in the iPad? I find myself downloading documentaries and others things from Internet, things that are free. I wonder if the iPad would allow me to play such material on it.

My interest in the iPad is due to some of these reasons: due to some health issues lately I have true difficulties for remain seated for hours in a chair in front of the computer screen, and the same scenario repeats with laptops because they force me to adopt a posture very akin to be siting. I wouldn't have this problem with a handheld device like these tablets because you can use them in more relaxed postures (like merely holding a book).

If I really need to read something large enough (like work stuff, or playtest files or whatever that is needed to be read eagerly or quickly), then I print it. But as I already said, there's so many good GURPS stuff around here that, being producted with color (look at the new Low-Tech or the Pyramid issues), they seem to be thought for being read in the frame of a digital display.

Other reason is: I don't see real iPad competitors around here... At least until March-April 2011 (LOL, "iPad 2"!). The promised devices for the Christmas commercial campaign may be better in some points (dual-core processors, 1GB of RAM, full computer OS systems as Android or Windows 7) but their screen resolution generally seems to be 1024x600 (like most netbooks, that is, inferior to the iPad's display resolution of 1024x768) and the size of their screens seems to be around 7" instead the almost 10" of the iPad. Because I would want a device as these for reading not just plain text but books intended for full page display (like GURPS PDFs) I think a screen of 7" is going to be sub-optimal even if you have tactile zoom features. Additionally most seems to have shorter battery autonomy (around 7 hours in comparison with the 10 hours of iPad).

I know the iPad is very expensive: even the cheaper of them having a storage capability of 16GB and only wireless connection capabilities -and it's even more expensive for European customers! Still due the current health issue it may be very useful to me, not exactly a luxury toy. I stress that my main use for one of these devices is reading. I'd need a decent display for reading not just plain text, rtf or epub documents but works with a decent amount of footnotes, and to be able to put my own stuff & files inside, instead of purchasing all of it.

It'd be cool, too, to see some youtube video with an iPad displaying a GURPS PDF and how the user is able to interact with it.

Apologies for the long post! I'll appreciate any opinion of people having an iPad and/or being well informed about the current ebook readers and tablets panorama.