PDA Fiction

Sunday, November 30, 2003

Talk to Me

Have you ever wished your computer could read to you? Of course, Microsoft Reader sort of sometimes can. But what if you just want to hear your email? Or you want to hear the flow of a story your are writing?

Some freeware tools designed for the visually impaired might be just what you want. Say Pad from InspiredCode is free. I haven't tried it myself, but it looks quite interesting.

One tool I have used is ReadThis Very interesting - and free.

Saturday, November 29, 2003

Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings, Portraits of American Genius

University of California is making a number of textbooks available on-line. Chuck Jones : A Flurry of Drawings, Portraits of American Genius is one definitely worth checking out.

Friday, November 28, 2003

Popular Ebook Sites

Pocket PC eBooks Watch lists these as the Top 10 Ebook sites:

TOP 10 ebook sites
(updated November 28, 03)

1. FictionWise, multi formats one stop shopping site, include non fiction and exclusive short fictions.
2. BlackMask, the best free ebook site in several formats.
3. PalmDigitalMedia, award winning ebook store for PDA, friendly DRM solutions. (CEBooks still calls it Peanut Press)
4. Execubook, eSummaries that deliver wisdom. Perfect for PDA users.
5. eBookAd, many indies label are here
6. Memoware, free documents from volunteers.
7. FreeeLiterature dot com, classics for free
8. Univ. of Virginia Library, Free ebooks
9. ESSPC, great place to start your collection (Free)
10. I Love God, free religion ebooks new

I buy alot of ebooks from Fictionwise. Their new Pre-order plans and hefty Micropay Rebates are very tempting. If you check them out, don't miss the Daily Specials in the upper right hand corner of the Home screen

Black Mask Online has a great collection - but not in Palm Reader format.

The UVA Etext Library has been a favorite of mine for years. Along with University of Adelaide in Australia, it's the place for classic literature.

Thursday, November 27, 2003

PerfectBound -- e-books from HarperCollins

From the latest PerfectBound newsletter:
Through December 15, enter coupon code TURKEY at checkout to get an extra 10% off your entire purchase at the PerfectBound e-book store.

Monday, November 24, 2003

WorldNetDaily: Bill Clinton lists 21 favorite books

I know nothing about this WorldNet web site -- in fact, I found it kind of creepy. But the list of Bill Clinton's 21 favorite books is interesting, especially considering that the current president probably hasn't even read 21 books.

According to the AP, Clinton's list, in alphabetical order by author, is:

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," Maya Angelou.
"Meditations," Marcus Aurelius.
"The Denial of Death," Ernest Becker.
"Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963," Taylor Branch.
"Living History," Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"Lincoln," David Herbert Donald.
"The Four Quartets," T.S. Eliot.
"Invisible Man," Ralph Ellison.
"The Way of the World: From the Dawn of Civilizations to the Eve of the Twenty-First Century," David Fromkin.
"One Hundred Years of Solitude," Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
"The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes," Seamus Heaney.
"King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa," Adam Hochschild.
"The Imitation of Christ," Thomas a Kempis.
"Homage to Catalonia," George Orwell.
"The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis," Carroll Quigley.
"Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics," Reinhold Niebuhr.
"The Confessions of Nat Turner," William Styron.
"Politics as a Vocation," Max Weber.
"You Can't Go Home Again," Thomas Wolfe.
"Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny," Robert Wright.
"The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats," William Butler Yeats

Read that list again and compare it to George Bush explaining why he doesn't read newspapers or even watch televison news: "The best way to get the news is from objective sources... and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world"

Monday, November 17, 2003

JuJu Soft ELibrary

TeleRead has an interesting piece about a new utility called the JuJuSoft eLibrary, for downloading texts from Project Gutenberg. Read what TeleRead has to say, then take a look at the screen shots on JuJuSoft's site, and download the beta versions of eLibrary and the Reader, if you're adventurous.

Sunday, November 16, 2003

KnowBetter.com's Best Of 2003: Call For Nominations

Knowbetter is taking nominations from readers for the best ebooks of 2003 in a whole bunch of categories:

Best Overall Performance By A Publisher
Best Romance Novel (includes all romance sub-genres)
Best Mystery Novel
Best Sci-Fi Novel
Best Fantasy Novel
Best General Fiction Novel
Best Non-Fiction Work
Best Ebookstore
Most Favorite Author
Best Illustrations And Artist (covers both cover art and internal illustrations)
Most Favorite Ebook Format
Person/Persons Who Have Done The Most To Advance Ebooks

Learn more at Know Better

Check out last year's winners

Friday, November 14, 2003

Final Free Microsoft Reader Ebooks

The free promotion from Microsoft ends this week, not with a bang but a whimper:

"Welcome to the Microsoft Reader eBook Newsletter. This week we feature
the final three free eBooks in Microsoft's eBook Reader promotion."

The Americans: The Colonial Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin
The Americans: The National Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin
The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin

So what ever happened to the Tony Hillerman that was promised in the first week?

Monday, November 10, 2003

Project Gutenberg

The project Gutenberg 10,000 Ebooks for Free DVD is ready for download :

ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/cdimages/pgdvd.iso

If you don't have a fast internet connection or can't burn DVDs - Project Gutenberg will send you the DVD. Get details at Teleread

Sunday, November 09, 2003

Free Software from Palm

I got this in email from Palm earlier this week - but couldn't get the download links to work. I was finally able to download the software today.

Palm says, "To celebrate the launch of PalmSource as a separate company, we are offering our customers the opportunity to download two featured applications from our online store for FREE! "

The applications are v. 4 of MobileDB, a pretty good Palm based database, and NoviAnimator (about which I know nothing)

Check it out at http://www.palmsource.com/support/freeoffer.html

You can find lots of premade MobileDB databases here: http://www.mobiledb.com/

And, of course, there's the MobileDB version of the Xena Episode Guide available at PDAFiction

Friday, November 07, 2003

AudioBooksForFree.Com

This site looks interesting -- free MP3 Audio Books.

As you'd expect, most books are Public Domain classics. They are offered in several formats. Only the tinniest sounding format appears to be free. But if you have a hankering to listen to Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad during your commute, this would be the place to start. Lots of Arthur Conan Doyle, too, if you don't share my taste for Conrad...

Plucker Electronic Books mini-HOWTO

Here's a good introduction to making Plucker ebooks by David A. Desrosiers.

Lots of links for finding Plucker books, too

Saturday, November 01, 2003

Internet File Converter

Looking for a fast, easy way to convert web pages to PDA files?

Columbia College of Chicago has taken the old source code from screwdriver.net and created a page that will convert web pages to plain DOC or iSilo2 formatted pdb files.

Eh... it's sort of out of date, but I can see its value for folks with wireless access who are nowhere near a computer to do the necessary conversion themselves.

They also use SiteScoopper if you want a multi-page web site converted: http://web2.colum.edu/palmconvert/convert-sitescooper.html

Just remember - this is iSilo v2, not iSIlo v3 or v4. Still mighty convenient, tho

MemoWare EBook Primer

Memoware is hosting a short tutorial, prepared by PDAlive, on reading and creating Ebooks. It's not bad, if you are new to the world of Ebooks.