Category: eBook

PSP eBook Creator

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, PSPLeave a comment

I’ve finally figured out how to turn my PSP into an eBook reader. I’ve googled the term “PSP e-book reader” before with bad results. You know, those homebrew programs. Yeah, that’s a bad result. I refuse to brick up my PSP just so I can see if I can read an ebook on it.

In my google search I did find a message board where they talked about a PSP e-book reader so I checked out a couple of ideas, this is one of them.

“ PSP eBook Creator ” which is actually not a bad program. What you do is click File then open a “.txt” file, you can change it from portrait to landscape, change the background color or give it an image, change the text color, change the font, font size and make it bold or regular then create an output folder then build your e-book files. Once all the images are made all you need to do is upload the folder to your PSP Picture folder, turn it on and start reading.

What it does though is it creates an image for every page of the e-book . If this is a long e-book, this process will take a long time and the size of the entire book might be huge especially if you are running low on space. Not to mention that you won’t have a book cover image to look at since all the files were taken from a text file.

Since it only uses text files you will have to figure out a way to convert your e-book to text format with Calibre.

Here is a sample of what one of the pages will look like in text format as a .jpg file.

It’s not a bad image to look at although you will see some boxes here and there (as seen before Cover Photo Credit…). I read this book from beginning to end last night on my PSP just to see if it would hurt my eyes at all and even though it’s not that long of a book my eyes were ok for a while. But if it were a 400 page novel I’m sure that reading on a PSP would start to hurt your eyes after an hour unlike e-Ink.

If I were to make some changes to make it easier on the eyes I would probably put in a dark background image, make the text white, bold and bigger. For this test I made the font Comic Sans regular size 12. Default is regular (non bold), size 10 but I don’t know what the default font is.

You don’t have to worry about a bookmark since all you have to do is leave the image part of the PSP. Once you go back into it you will be right back on the last page (or image) you were on. That is unless you turned the PSP all the way off, then you would have to find where you were again.

If I were to give this a rating I would give it a 3 out of 5.

New Lower Priced Kindle

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, Kindle, TechLeave a comment

There is now a lower priced Amazon Kindle at $299.  Now that’s what I’m talking about.  Although it has a 6″ screen, 2 GB HD (1.4 available for user content) and you can see what else it has…

Kindle: Amazon’s 6″ Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

It’s not as big as the latest Kindle and it doesn’t have an SD slot, it’s not in color and it isn’t touchscreen.  But the good news is that it’s coming down in price.  Maybe they are seeing that people just aren’t buying the Kindle because of the gigantic cost.  I mean, $300 is still a lot of money but not compared to $489 for the Kindle DX.

If I bought a Kindle for $299 then I bet you anything in about a year they will have a better one for $199 then a year later a better one for $99.  Well, I don’t know if they will drop that dramatically but I think I’m going to wait for them to come down a bit more before I take that leap.

I would love to buy a bigger screen one for Darrin for the newspaper but unfortunately our local paper is not available for the Kindle.  They are digital but with another company so hopefully when the Kindle goes down in price then our paper will see that it’s getting popular or they are getting a lot of requests then they will finally add their paper to the Kindle.

eBookwise

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, Kindle, Products I LikeLeave a comment

I went to eBay to find how much the Kindle 1 cost used and it’s not that much cheaper.  I did find this though. eBookwise 1150 Reading Device for $135.95 +$10 shipping.  It has a sad 64mb of internal memory but you can add more with SmartMedia Memory Cards, up to 128MB.

Go ahead and read their website from that link above.  I’m thinking that if I am able to save the money for the Kindle 3 by the time it comes out and I still can’t buy it or it still doesn’t have the features I want then to heck with it, I’ll just buy this one.  Or I might just save up for eBookwise e-reader to use as a test e-reader and use it until the kindle goes down in price.  There is no sense in spending money I can’t afford to spend on something I probably won’t be able to use that often.  And if I bought books on this new one I’m almost positive I can transfer them over to Kindle if I do decide to get one of those.  Then I can give the eBookwise to Darrin.

Hehe I’m always giving him my hand me down electronics.

Kindle 2 Arrives Today

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, KindleLeave a comment

The Amazon Kindle 2 arrives early.  Not to me but to those who bought one.  I watched a USA Today review of it and it pretty much touched on a good point.  That it doesn’t have a battery door and no SD card slot.  But other than that it’s pretty good.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj3jXNKu5B4

I would love it if someone who has a Kindle (1 or 2) who has a newspaper subscription could please do a little video demo showing how a newspaper looks on the kindle (turning the pages, if there is a table of contents etc).  I’m really curious about that.

I went to YouTube looking for a demo from regular people and all I got is a demo from Amazon and the review from USA today.  Also interviews from Amazon.

Comic Books

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, Nook1 Comment

Wow, I didn’t know there were so many comic books out there.  I knew about the obvious ones, Spiderman, Superman, X-Men etc.  But there are some that I didn’t know about like from tv shows that I watch or used to watch but are now gone.

Here is a list of comic books from tv shows that I used to watch

  • Futurama
  • The Simpsons
  • Eureka!
  • Farscape (I actually missed that show because we didn’t have cable when it was on.  I found out about it way later and by then they were in their last season so I just got to see a few episodes)
  • Buffy the vampire slayer (I actually knew about this)
  • Star War
  • World of Warcraft (from the game?)
  • Angel (is this the Buffy spin off or something else?)
  • Doctor Who
  • Ghost Whisperer

This list is from G-Mart, that page you can order comic books.  I seriously didn’t know that there were that many comic books.  I used to love comic books as a kid, especially Mad Magazine and I wish I still got it or some comic books.  That would be so neat.  I’d love to get the Buffy, Angel, Doctor Who and Ghost Whisperer comic books.  Eureka! and Farscape would be cool too.  Some of them are $2 a month and some are $5 a month.  Too much for me right now.  Plus I’ve missed all the earlier from the beginnings so I’m sure I’ve missed tons of information.  Oh well.

Kindle Blog

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, KindleLeave a comment

I was looking at Kindle the other day and as I was there I saw that you can read people’s blogs on the kindle.  I thought that you could just go to either their website or there was a think where you tell them who you subscribe to but apparently it’s not like that.

If you want to read a blog their blog site has to be registered through Kindle and you have to pay for it.  Well, I don’t want to charge people to read my ramblings.  Although the money would be nice but why charge people when they can read it for free here through my website either on the PC or through a mobile phone like the iPhone or iPod or even PSP.

If they make it so that I don’t have to charge people at all then I will add it to Kindle but I honestly don’t know anyone who even has a Kindle.  I would like to publish my blog though because I currently have 0 readers.  So frankly, nobody is going to read this.  Hell, I don’t even read my own blog.  I just blog it.  I do read it after I’ve posted it to see if there are any corrections needed or I go back.  Anyway lol I was rambling.  I would like to get it on Kindle but not as a pay blog.

My Last Kindle Obsessed Post… Maybe

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, KindleLeave a comment

Ok, 1 last thing about the Kindle.  I know I mentioned in my first Kindle post about how you can email your text files to your Kindle but as I read more about it I find out more stuff.

It’s not just text files.  It’s also pdf files so if you have a manual in pdf format then you will have it on your Kindle.  Sometimes if you buy like a DVD player or a printer or whatever, I’m pulling at straws here, you can go to that manufacturer’s website and download the manual in pdf format.  Well, who wants to sit and read the manual on the computer?  Especially if the hardware you need to read about is in the other room.  Say it’s your tv’s manual or your washer and dryer.  You can just download that and send it to your Kindle and it converts it to Kindle format so you can read it.

I’m not sure if the Kindle puts your e-books, e-magazines and e-newspapers in categories or not, I think it would be a good idea though because if you get e-newspapers you will want them to be stores in there in folders.  Like say you get the LA times and the NY times.  Well, you don’t want them to be in the same area as everything else like your books.  If you get the newspaper and magazines on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis then the list will be too long so if you want to search for the book you are reading you have to scroll through the list of stuff.

Ok getting back to what I was talking about with sending text and pdf files to your kindle.  You can also download free e-books and send them to your kindle.  Oh and I read you can send pictures too.  Now, I’m not too sure about pictures with black and white technology.  I think I would much rather enjoy my pictures in color so that would certainly be something I would want to have but somewhere down the line when it has color.  Right now I have all of my photo albums cropped to widescreen 3×5 for my PSP and the pictures are pretty small so when I go to show them off it’s still a good size to look at but you know, it’s still small.  But at least I can carry all of my pictures.  But you can’t see them in the sunlight on my PSP.

Oh that reminds me.  You can read your kindle out in the sunlight and it shows up just like a regular book thanks to e-ink.  The screen isn’t shiny either so there is no glare from the screen.  If you are using a cell phone or pda or something as an e-book you have to cover it with your hands to be able to see it outside in the sunlight.  Well, the Kindle with e-ink allows you to actually see what you are reading.  And since it doesn’t have a tv type of screen you can’t see it in the dark but the new Kindle 2 has lights around the page I think on both sides.  Or maybe that was another e-book, I don’t remember now, I’m getting them confused.  I did see a Kindle light that clips to the kindle but it was made for the Kindle 1.

Ok, I can’t make any promises that I won’t obsess any more about this.  I’ve pretty much touched on everything that I can think of but who knows, maybe tomorrow I might read about something that I didn’t know and obsess about that.  Maybe my obsession will have so much text that you will have to convert it all into pdf format and it will be so long that it will be your next e-book or e-novel.  Maybe I’ll shut up about it.  Who knows.

Amazon Kindle 2

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, TechLeave a comment

In my previous blog about e-books I talked about the pro’s and con’s of e-books.  Well, most of the day I’ve been obsessively researching e-book technology and I have to say that I’m really excited about the future.

E-books use e-ink.  They don’t hardly use any power so the battery lasts a whole week.  You turn it on, press the menu and find the book you are reading, and by the way it shows in that menu the page you were on so you don’t have to find where you were at, it keeps it bookmarked from the last page you were reading.  Then you click the book you want to read and start reading.  Once that page is loaded it stops using any of the power from the battery.  You can have it sitting there for an hour on that page and it won’t use any power.  Once you press the button to turn the page then it uses power to turn the page then you see the words change and then no more power usage.  The battery will last basically a week before you have to charge it at all.  And when you do charge it, it takes about 2 hours to charge.

If however you are flipping through the Amazon website and flipping through pages of a e-magazine then yeah, it’s going to use a lot more of your battery and it will probably last 2 or 3 days before needing charged.

I love the idea of waking up every morning and the newspaper is already downloaded on your kindle.

It would also be good if the catalog companies would deliver their catalogs directly to your Kindle so that you don’t have to 1, wait for them to come in the mail and clog up your mail box and 2, waste paper when you throw it out.  This way you can flip through them then delete the file when you are finished reading it.  That is if you decide you want to, you can keep it if you want.

Another thing I want to obsess er um I mean discuss is the hard drive.  The previous Kindle 1 from last year only has a 256mb hard drive allowing you to store 200 e-books but the new Kindle 2 has a 2GB allowing you to have a hell of a lot more.  I don’t know exactly how many but it’s a lot.  Can you just imagine maybe in another year or 2 when they come out with the Kindle 3 it might have 2TB.  Then you will have a crap load of books and magazines and newspapers.  You won’t ever have to delete anything because you will have tons of room.

As I said in my last post, I’m waiting for it to be cheaper, in color and have touch screen.  Well, I watched a video today of the guy who invented Amazon talking to Martha Stewart and she kept mentioning color e-ink and he said it was in the labs.  Not their labs but in labs period.  Well, I’ve been seeing e-books with color e-ink so I know it is possible and I’m sure in Kindle 3 it will have color e-ink.

My other issue is about the touch screen.  I think it is a lot better than buttons.  I saw an e-book from Dvice.com that was touch screen, all you do is press and drag the page and it turns the page, or you just press the right side of the pager to flip it.  And also when you are on the website trying to buy a book you touch the screen for the keyboard and it comes up so you can type the name of the author or book title.  I think the Kindle keyboard is just too much.  Although it does have more of a use than just buying books, you can make notes in your books.  You can also highlight sentences.