Philocalist commented on the Kindle competitor post:
:-) I see that Amazon have just announced the imminent availability of an application that will effectively give you Kindle on your laptop / netbook etc, with the additional capability of colour photographs. Apparently, it will give you a better experience than the original!
Makes sense to me ... as much as I like the books lining my bookshelves, I like the idea of being able to easily take multiple publications 'on the road'. What did NOT appeal was having to pack along another piece of kit alongside the laptop / phone / digital camera etc.
Maybe this could be an ideal solution?
If you bring your laptop anyway, it's a good point. However, one of the reasons for ebook reading devices is that most people including me don't care for reading a lot of text on normal computer screens.
I'm not even sure why... the contrast? The flickering? The crude resolution? Anybody know this?
One reason of course is we like to hand-hold what we are reading, so we can sit comfortably. But I think there is more to it than that.
6 comments:
You have some valid points there Eolake ... it will be interesting to see what sort of result we get with this downloadable application; it has me curious when it actually advises that this 'will be better then the original'. Guess we'll just have to wait a little longer, and see.
Have to confess, I had no real interest in this area until my daughter dropped a hint that she'd quite like the Sony version off Santa :-)
Thank God she now has a great husband! :-)
I read huge amounts of text electronically, predominantly PDF's.
The problems I have with reading digitally is
1) Annotating, stickies, highlighting etc. I know they are all there, but then you have to save that version of the PDF somewhere where you can get it later, for example your clients office, home, or work.
2) Screen aspect ratio. That's a solution that money will provide. Rent a larger office, and get a bigger cubicle so you can have your rotating or portrait capable monitor. Wide screen monitors are great, you can have two docs side by side, but still that eats your screen real estate, and you have to "put the book away" every time you use it, putting it behind whatever app you are using.
Even with two monitors I could not fit a PDF alongside the editor and debugger without sacrificing something.
3) posture. A combination of small fonts and spidery diagrams have you leaning forward to read them, with a keyboard shelf poking you in the guts and you hand still keeping hold on the mouse, pushing your elbow into a lame half nelson.
4) Glare, reflections on some screen types. That ever delicate balance of contrast and brightness. The incident/direct light of the screen accenting every distracting dust mote that cheekily alighted on your spectacles, or refracting through the crazing fresnel lens of a grease smear thereon.
5) Bedworthiness. I hate sitting up in bed, again a better bed would not have a pendulous headboard that taps ravenlike against the wall. The pillows falling away everytime you relieve them of their burden. Laptops in bed are not a good thing.
6) Noise, the incessant drone of cooling fans. Worse still the cessant fans with 30 or 40% duty cycle, drone, hush, drone, hush.
However Electronic reading is very good and helpful.
1) Every try scanning through a 600 page document just to find six references of DER? With the PDF Bam, there you are!
2) Ever have a project on hold for three days while a book is shipped to you? I know I have (okay, they used to be able to fax them to you too). The PDF is right there, whereas the CD or hardcopy is 4 days away from Freescale.
I think a pair of (write on capable) readers and a three screen PC would make me happy. The outer 17" monitors in portrait, the center 30" widescreen horizontal. You need horizontal for schematic reviews.
I'm in the process of upgrading my XO, I see that has a reader program or two for it. I just need to find my 1GB thumb drive first ;-)
I have my Mac Pro stashed away in a "silencer", a closet which was handily stationed by my desk. And the Mac Pro is *way* more quiet than the G5 was, so I'm happy.
My 30-inch monitor is big enough that even when setting the browser or text or email app to a large font, which I do, the window is easily tall enough for lazy reading.
I have a glasses-cleaning kit in my desk drawer and uses it often.
The remaining issues for me is body position and... I dunno, there's something about the bright monitors which...
Like you said, delicate balance, for at the same time I wish the Kindle had a background rather closer to white than the middle-grey it is.
Ah but if I put my Toshiba Satellite in a cupboard I can't see its screen.
Strange, a 30" ws is big enough for that, but a 22" is not. Most curious.
Now try cross referencing the spec sheet of a CPU, the data sheet for the transceiver, and your IDE at the same time.
Those pads they had in Star Trek TNG look like the Nook. I think you would be happy with the paper they had in Firefly. There was an episode where Badger was reading a notice on what at first seemed to be a piece of paper, but it was "active", with animated icons. He squeezed a corner and the whole document changed to another page.
I switched to Palms a few years back so I could read. That became my personal organiser (I was so sad to let my paper one go!)... and then I finally switched to an iPod Touch. I read on that all the time, except the battery life isn't as good as the Palm. It now feels weird to have a full sized book with me.
Yes, I've heard that some people read on palm sized devices. Interesting. To me, the Kindle's (small one) six inch screen is a bit cramped.
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