Tag: pdf files

Money Saved for ebook Reader

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

I officially have the money saved up for an e-book reader. Although I can’t really buy it yet because I have to make sure we have enough money for food for the next 2 weeks before I can spend the money I am saving. I have to get my priorities straight lol.

So I’m leaning towards the Amazon Kindle. I wanted to get the Nook because of its color screen but heard how slow it is and it’s not worth my time. I don’t need little icon book covers to make me happy.

I didn’t want a Kindle because most of my e-books are in pdf, .prc, .lit, .mobi and .epub format. I know you can read pdf files on a Kindle and I’m ok with not being able to use the dictionary I guess. I probably won’t have that feature with a Nook with pdf files anyway. I don’t really care for a Sony because I don’t really care about library books, oh and I don’t care about lending books with Nook as I have no friends with a Nook anyway lol.  And the Nook, Sony and Kindle stores all have pretty much the same prices for e-books anyway so store options don’t matter.

So, Kindle it is. But, again, I have to wait until I get my next check to make sure I have the money and then some.

Although I still have a lot of regular books in paperback and a hardcover book coming that I won from GetGlue.com. No not the zombie one, they offered me another one. But when I do get the Kindle the first e-book I will buy will be the first Sookie Stackhouse novels books 1-8 despite it’s hefty $55 price tag. I say hefty because it’s paperback version is only $35 so I’m over spending on it. Although, who knows what I will do. I’m unpredictable lol.

Oh and I’m going to also buy the Kathy Griffin book “Official Book Club Selection” and her moms book Tip It. Although, those 2 in e-book format are expensive so not right away.

After those then I will start buying the charmed novels and maybe more buffy novels. I have a few in paperback but not in order. Also there are star wars novels and star trek novels, let’s see, supernatural, smallville, roswell… too many to list. Let’s just say I’m going to be pretty busy. Oh and that’s not including all the books I plan on buying from Rainbow ebooks too lol.

Will I have enough time to read all these books that I plan on reading?

I do have a LOT of e-books on my computer right now so I’m not exactly sure how much money I will be spending on e-books right off the bat because I will be converting all of them to Kindle format so I can finally read them. Yes, I have a lot of unread e-books waiting for me. So the only money I’ll need to spend right away is on the Kindle then I won’t have to spend any money for quite a while until all of my current books have been read.

Ah the life of a book-worm.

Update: Ok so I was wrong, check this out.  The new kindle has this –  Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights.  That’s perfect!  That’s all I wanted to know lol.  Now the Kindle IS my choice to buy.  Cool, now I can buy all .pdf files anywhere and transfer them over to my Kindle.  This way if one store has an e-book cheaper than Amazon then I can buy it’s pdf file.  And I can buy Rainbow ebooks in all pdf file formats and not worry that I can’t read them.  Awesome!

PSP eBook – NIMS PSP eBook Reader

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, PSP1 Comment

I’ve finally figured out how to turn my PSP into an eBook reader.  I’ve googled the term “PSPebook 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 e-book 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.

NIMS PSP Ebook Reader .  This is a little different although not quite better.  If you google the title you may find that it is found in homebrew websites.  However, it does not need a homebrewed PSP to work.  It does work with a regular PSP because all you are doing is loading an html file in your web browser as your reader then putting your e-book files in another folder.

It has a dos program that you run where it will convert PDF files.  I tried it and the output was terrible.  It wasn’t what I had hoped it would have been.  It’s supposed to convert your pdf e-book file into html files along with some other files I don’t know.  Anyway, it wasn’t good.

I did take their index file though and made my own little version of an e-book reader.  I changed the text and gave it a background so it looks snazzy but it works better.

Ok here is what you do.  File: PSP_ebook.zip This is safe, scan the file with your virus software, all it is, is a zip file with 2 files in it.  1) index.html file and 2) the background image.  You unzip the files and put them in your PSP in the folder – PSP/books.  You have to create that books folder.  I did that to make it easier to find the file in your browser so you don’t have to type too much to find it.

When you buy ebooks you might be able to buy them in pdf format, if you can here is a sweet utility that will convert them to html.  If the e-book store offers an html version then all the better for you because you won’t have to worry about converting anything.

When you have your html files of your ebooks you put them in your PSP in the folder – PSP/COMMON/books.  You will have to create that books folder.  When you open an e-book file you cannot choose to find them in the same location as the index file, they have to be in a higher folder like Common.

Now here is what you do.  Go into the browser of your PSP, type this in the address bar:

file:/PSP/books/index.html

Now bookmark that so you don’t have to type it in every time.  Now just click Browse, scroll down to /PSP/COMMON/books and click that then find the name of the book you uploaded into the PSP and click it and viola, your PSP is now an e-book reader.

There is a downside, you won’t be able to bookmark at all.  Fortunately when you leave the browser, once you go back into it you will be right back where you left off.  That is if you didn’t load an actual website which would close the point you stopped reading.  If you did that then you would have to scroll down to where you left off at.

If your PDF had chapters with links then you can use those links to find the chapter you were on.

I give the NIMS program a 1 out of 5 for the fact that the e-book I chose to convert looked terrible as an e-book in my PSP.  I give my conversion of their program a 4 out of 5 because it has no bookmarking ability but it works better than their idea.

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.