Kenya pilots Pocket PC education

BBC NEWS | Kenya pilots Pocket PC education: "In the final report of Click Online's Africa season, we visit Kenya where a trial project using handheld Pocket PCs could help reduce the costs of education in poor communities."

Kenya is testing giving students Pocket PC PDA's as ebook readers that use electronic textbooks instead of paper textbooks.

Source: Teleread

Portability Matters in eBook Devices

I have noticed that I have used my Palm Tungsten T5 almost exclusively this summer for reading ebooks and have set my EB-1150 aside for awhile. The biggest reason I'm using the T5 is portability. In the summer months I'm running around away from home much more so I carry the T5 (in a hardcase) in my pocket for spontaneous reading moments. The EB-1150 is just too big to carry around.

Now I can still read faster on the 1150's screen so I will go back to using it in the winter, when I tend to read more in bed. It is a very comfortable reader. I would use a larger device more if I could download newspapers or magazines to it and have them render more closely to a print edition but nothing that will work with a Mac computer is there yet.

Finding Good eBook Reviews: eBook Review Ring

A year ago, in this post, I talked about the difficulty in finding quality ebooks to read with so many epublishers and self published ebooks (and POD books) and relatively unknown authors. At that time I said:

So just like in the conventional print world, this creates opportunities in the epublishing world: opportunities for good freelance editors, opportunities for good book reviewers to build a following of people that trust their reviews and even opportunities for artists to create cover art.

(My bold.)

It seems to me that there are quite a few people reading and reviewing ebooks and POD books and posting those reviews on the web. But would it not be nice if all those review sites couls be put into a bunch so that it is easier for readers to find those ebook review "voices" that they trust? Matching up readers with ebooks and POD books they like is just good for the whole industry.

To accomplish this, in the easiest way possible I have created the eBook Reviewers Ring at Webring. Hopefully it will grow and act as a small web directory of sites that make a real effort to review ebooks and/or POD books. (Many conventional book review sites refuse to review either ebooks or POD books.) If you have an ebook review website I hope you will join.

ADDED: The three sites listed right now are mine. They do list my little ebook reviews, such as they are, but there may not be a lot of reviews. That will change over time. I had to put 3 sites in as a minimum otherwise the ring gets deleted eventually. :-)

Buying eBooks Direct from Booksforabuck.com

I think I just made the fastest and easiest ebook purchase in my life by buying a new ebook from BooksforaBuck.com. Now I already had Paypal so that made it very easy on the payment side. Frankly I prefer paying by Paypal for security reasons so this is a definite advantage.

Booksforabuck offers their ebooks in 4 simple formats: Adobe Acrobat (PDF), PalmDOC, HTML and MSReader so they are readable on almost any PDA handheld or computer.

I wish a lot of ebooksellers and their shopping carts were this easy. I mention this because many people new to computers and ebooks get confused by many shopping cart systems yet many of these same people shop Ebay and have Paypal so buying ebooks from this small press publisher should be a breeze.

iSilo to the Rescue

The other night my Palm Tungsten T5 started having fatal errors every time I tried to start Mobipocket reader. Previous to this it had worked fine but now it was acting up. I had a couple of ebooks that I could only get at Blackmask that I wanted to read but this was going to be problematic without Mobipocket.

Saved by iSilo

Luckily Blackmask offers it's titles in iSilo format and I have a free version of the iSilo ebook reader on my Palm. I downloaded the ebooks again in iSilo format and it has worked flawlessly for me as I read these ebooks. Thank goodness Blackmask offers another Palm friendly format!

I have always found the iSilo reader interface to be a bit confusing and plain - it is not particularly hard to figure out, but it always seemed a bit complex. However, iSilo has never felt sluggish or bloated like Mobipocket felt. I have no idea what cause Mobipocket to quit but I suspect the problem is with the Tungsten T5 which a PDA which is prone to instability.

It looks like iSilo is going to replace Mobipocket as my reader of choice for all ebooks from Blackmask.

Manybooks.net Adds eBooks for iPod

Want to read ebooks on your iPod? Now you can, Manybooks (scroll down) has added iPod format so you can put their ebooks on your iPod and read them.

How to Read eBooks: A Beginners Guide

I have posted a quick and easy how to read ebooks guide on a forum I run. It is intended as a simplified step by step guide on how to:

1. Read ebooks on a computer.
2. Read ebooks on a handheld.
3. Find free and legal ebooks.
4. Buy both DRM and non-DRM ebooks.

All this without getting too entangled in the morass of formats, platforms and OS's.

Reading eBooks: A Beginners Guide

Ian Turner Found: Good News!

Ian Turner has been found and is well. Great news.

Please Help Find IAN TURNER

Ian Turner Missing: Facts Page | Threadwatch.org: "Ian Turner of Romsey Associates based In the UK went missing on Saturday 25th or Sunday 26th of June 2005 after attending the WebmasterWorld Conference in New Orleans."

Please see the link above for a picture of Ian Turner and more details, if you are from the New Orleans or Atlanta, GA area you might have seen him. His family is very worried.