What are eBooks?

Ooh… for school books, I’d MUCH rather have in .pdf format… because it’s searchable! That was a HUGE help to me when I went back to college (after I delved into the technical realm and lost 99% of my patience). For those who can’t deal with books in that format, they’re usually just CD inserts to paper text books anyways.

I’ll plug in here for audio books as well. I had a friend turn me on to http://www.podiobooks.com , where you can get podcast-style chapters of books sent to your itunes etc. at a regular interval. I “subscribe” to three books, and I get one new chapter a week, and I listen to them on my drive in to work.

There are lots of free and inexpensive books in digital format that are in a much more reader friendly format than Adobe’s PDF. Microsoft Reader (proprietary) and Plucker are two that I use the most; there are free converters for both from HTML, Word, or other formats and the same source file works on PC, PocketPC/Windows Mobile and Palm (for Plucker formatted files).

They are searchable and because they work on handheld devices they are truly portable. I’m more apt to take my PDA with me on a flight than a paper book nowadays and since a lot of the technical manuals come with a CD and a Microsoft Help file (CHM) I convert it and take it with me.

i like ebooks, but havent found a reader that will work with gutenburg project books on my pda, in fact, the only reader i have seen that works well came with a program called quickverse. when i can read an ebook on my pda easily, i might consider replacing my hard copies.

i like ebooks, but havent found a reader that will work with gutenburg project books on my pda, in fact, the only reader i have seen that works well came with a program called quickverse. when i can read an ebook on my pda easily, i might consider replacing my hard copies.

Last year I discovered the (first) World eBook Fair when it had only a couple of days to go, and I downloaded furiously. They had a free additional month in October as part of International Book Fair Month, but circumstances prevented me from doing much then. I had been “hanging out” for July 2007 and started downloading on the first day of the Second Annual World eBook Fair which runs from July 4th to August 4th.

The basic site http://worldebookfair.com has general and some specific info and ends with ‘ Michael Hart’s hint: ‘”Start with the Browse Collections page.” ‘

That Browse Collections link is also at the top of the page next to the search box, and there is a long list of collections with a summary of each one and an indication of how many titles it contains.

Please note that when you click on the link to a specific collection, generally you will see only part of it but there will be a further link to view the complete index of that collection. Some of them are HUGE.

For those who would rather listen than read, there is an mp3 collection at http://worldebookfair.com/Mp3eBooks.htm.

There is also an audio archive at http://www.archive.org/details/audio.

Other collections include a range of formats including mp3 and pdf.

The links from some of the collections lead (initially or eventually) to other sites. For example, I went to the eMovies Collection link at http://worldebookfair.com/eMovies.htm and then to the Browse Collection link for the complete archives of “Computer Chronicles” (a 20-year TV program). That browsing link took me to the search results for Computer Chronicles at the Internet Archive, and clicking on its Home link opens up another world including the Audio Archive link above (and a Live Music Archive link). Isn’t the Internet great?

The MobileBooks Collection link goes to http://www.mobilebooks.org/ where there are more free downloads. Note, too, that this is one of the sites that has free downloads all year (thanks to Project Gutenberg). There are others in the worldebookfair collections which have free downloads all year.

Check the three Project Gutenberg collection links (US, Australia, Europe) for more year round freebies.

For many of us the Technical eBook Collection may be one of the most interesting.

Enjoy!

Merna

Last year I discovered the (first) World eBook Fair when it had only a couple of days to go, and I downloaded furiously. They had a free additional month in October as part of International Book Fair Month, but circumstances prevented me from doing much then. I had been “hanging out” for July 2007 and started downloading on the first day of the Second Annual World eBook Fair which runs from July 4th to August 4th.

The basic site http://worldebookfair.com has general and some specific info and ends with ‘ Michael Hart’s hint: ‘”Start with the Browse Collections page.” ‘

That Browse Collections link is also at the top of the page next to the search box, and there is a long list of collections with a summary of each one and an indication of how many titles it contains.

Please note that when you click on the link to a specific collection, generally you will see only part of it but there will be a further link to view the complete index of that collection. Some of them are HUGE.

For those who would rather listen than read, there is an mp3 collection at http://worldebookfair.com/Mp3eBooks.htm.

There is also an audio archive at http://www.archive.org/details/audio.

Other collections include a range of formats including mp3 and pdf.

The links from some of the collections lead (initially or eventually) to other sites. For example, I went to the eMovies Collection link at http://worldebookfair.com/eMovies.htm and then to the Browse Collection link for the complete archives of “Computer Chronicles” (a 20-year TV program). That browsing link took me to the search results for Computer Chronicles at the Internet Archive, and clicking on its Home link opens up another world including the Audio Archive link above (and a Live Music Archive link). Isn’t the Internet great?

The MobileBooks Collection link goes to http://www.mobilebooks.org/ where there are more free downloads. Note, too, that this is one of the sites that has free downloads all year (thanks to Project Gutenberg). There are others in the worldebookfair collections which have free downloads all year.

Check the three Project Gutenberg collection links (US, Australia, Europe) for more year round freebies.

For many of us the Technical eBook Collection may be one of the most interesting.

Enjoy!

Merna

Ooh… for school books, I’d MUCH rather have in .pdf format… because it’s searchable! That was a HUGE help so i can look up key words to find the answers w/o reading it…lol