Pocket PC eBooks Watch - eBook and beyond  
 http://cebooks.blogspot.com 

Keep It Simple Stupid dept.:
Ebook Publishers Face High Costs
Electronic publishers save bundles on paper, ink and printing, but face higher costs in unexpected areas such as translating texts from one software format to another, the head of Time Warner trade publishing said on Wednesday.

posted by Jerry permanent link

New Polling #3:
There area rumours that MS Reader 1.5 for Pocket PC will be available soon. If so, will you buy ebooks that are using DRM level 5? For more info on several levels of DRM, please visit this link and look for February 22 posting.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Final Result of Polling # 2
Q: Will you read illegal copies of eBook?
(of 137 respondents)
54% Yes, I support P2P
20% No, I will delete it from my disk
26% Never found one, can't answer it now

posted by Jerry permanent link

There is a discussion of MS Reader 1.5 for Pocket PC at Brighthand.
Most people seems will not ebooks that have DRM level 5, even though when Pocket PC is supporting them. But the hassle of the hardware protection scheme are just too much. What do you think? Join the discussion.

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Another great web site on ebooks reporting
TimestwoPublishing: A summary of the latest developments in e-publishing

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Stephen King made $463,832 for his discontinued ebook the Plant. And Stephen clears up some misconceptions about The Plant and its future. He said, "First, let me make two things clear. The first is that Part 6 of The Plant does conclude the first major phase of the story. It is complete in itself, containing the three classical elements: beginning, middle, and end. The second thing is that The Plant is not finished on line. It is only on hiatus. I am no more done than the producers of the TV show Survivor are done. I am simply in the process of fulfilling my other commitments. In my view, The Plant has been quite successful. You can form your own opinion based on the story itself and our complete financial records which will be posted to this site in January. Think of it as Plant Part 7!"

posted by Jerry permanent link

Should we make mail list group ('egroups') for Pocket PC eBooks? email me.

posted by Jerry permanent link

:-) Thanks for those who send me beautiful emails and explaining they have develop a habit of creating ebooks from the web articles. The personal archive that they made from the web in ebooks format (Is this politically correct? Just like some people are archiving the articles from the web by saving or printing them out) are:
- Linux programming ebook
- Italian cooking
- Letterman Top Ten
- Adult stories (uh-oh)
- HTML manual
- Academy Awards nominees and winners list
- Articles about using Pocket PC
Please send me email on describing any topic of ebooks that you had made from the web (don't send me the ebook please). I really appreciate, if you also send me the original URL of the article.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/27/2001

From FAQ of RosettaBooks, we can realize how BAD the DRM level 5 are:
Is it possible to order multiple copies of an eBook at once?
No. Since eBooks are bound to the hardware device (are we fools? not really if you are using DRM level 4 and below) from which a purchase is originated, it is not likely that a purchaser would want more than one copy on a given device.
Can I purchase an eBook as a gift?
No, (yes, if you buy ebooks that Pocket PC compatible ebooks from other stores) currently it is not possible to send an eBook as a gift unless you share your account details (Username & Password) with the recipient (yeah yeah yeah, just stop using those DRM level 5). This is not recommended and we are working on a secure gift giving solution.
What if I lose or delete an eBook or eBook permit for which I have purchased a permanent license?
You can reinstall a permit and eBook by going to your personal account at the Reciprocal clearing house. www.rightsplace.com.

posted by Jerry permanent link

RosettaBooks is sued by Random House: New York, Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Random House Inc. has asked a federal judge to bar a publisher of ebooks from copying works of William Styron, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robert Parker and selling them over the Internet. ``Our contract gives us the right to publish in book form, and we take book form to mean paper form or electronic form,'' said Random House general counsel Harriette Dorsen. Arthur Klebanoff, founder and chief executive of New York- based RosettaBooks, said publishing contracts dating before 1980 didn't anticipate that books could be sold electronically, and that authors never sold publishers their e-book rights. RosettaBooks will be represented in the case by attorney David Boies, the Justice Department's chief lawyer in its successful antitrust suit against Microsoft Corp.
FYI. RosettaBooks is using DRM level 5 for all the ebooks, which means NO Pocket PC users can buy them :( (yet, and probably won't buy it because of the hardware based copy protection system).

posted by Jerry permanent link

No Wonder Amazon stocks are going down... They must be out of their mind by selling The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at Amazon with DRM level 5 (hardware based copy protection), while Sleepy Hollow ebook at Univ. of Virginia Library is free copy without protection at all.

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Great Reading: E-Books Are Now on the Shelf, great article from MJ Rose in Wired.

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Stephen King to preview novel online (AGAIN)
Best-selling horror writer Stephen King has taken to the Web again, just months after pulling the plug on an online novel and illustrating the difficulties in making money by selling books on the Internet.

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New, free, fun, (frightening?)...The Quotes of George W. Bush [Download]

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/26/2001

Software on my Pocket PC: Thesaurus/CE is a 50,000 word English Thesaurus. It is a $5 shareware with an unknown expiration date. It is a small size program (300K< in your Pocket PC).

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TomeRaider is a new concept in document and reference viewing; combining the best elements of flat text documents with features of a database such as indexing, fast navigation and searching. In addition compression, rich-text formatting, bookmarks and hyperlinks enhance the TomeRaider further. TomeRaider is cross-platform reference viewer giving instant and free access to hundreds of megabytes of encyclopedias, dictionaries, guides, religious works, philosophical texts, e-texts and novels in TomeRaider format. Check it out!

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The Real Pulp Fictions: New section from BlackMask. Weird and cheap, written rather rapidly, often featuring Western heroes and the like.

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Elegant Solutions Software Company is proud to introduce Electric Quill, the right tool for preparing text for eBook conversion. This is the perfect companion for Overdrive's ReaderWorks. Features Include: Conversion of text to HTML,,Automatic Table Of Contents generation, Automatic chapter generation, Verse formatting, Drag and Drop editing, HTML preview. Download here for $24.95.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/24/2001

In the Digital Comfort Zone: Code becomes culture and culture code, as computers work their way into the mainstream. One effort to bring e-books into the mainstream is Random House's AtRandom.com, the first electronic effort from a traditional publisher to mix digital culture titles with other nonfiction. However blunder at random: from chekcing one of the title at Amazon, their e-books are available for your desktop or laptop computer only; handheld devices are not supported at this time :(

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/23/2001

Speaking on Make your Own eBook: My February favorite sources are (Choose printed version of the page, then copy and paste into MS Word, for more info on creating ebook look previous posting):
1. Wired: The First Year Articles.
2. New Yorker's The Power Of García Márquez by Jon Lee Anderson
3. Wired Articles on Microsoft Monopoly (1994-2000): The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth (Nov 2000), 83 Reasons Why Bill Gates's Reign Is Over (Dec 88), Microsoft Morphs into a Media Company (June 96), "Oh No, Mr. Bill!" The inside story of the antitrust case against Microsoft (Apr 94).
4. Nancy Chan: Diary of a Manhattan call girl (Salon) (NC-17)
Do you like what I do in recommending articles? Should I continue this next month? email me

posted by Jerry permanent link

This is a great guide by Ken Mattern of ESSP (the number one Top 5 ebook site for two months in a row):
eBooks: Download Them, or Make Your Own! Learn about the tools and tricks you need to create your own elegant eBooks
Most of the basic questions are answered here on how to create your own ebooks. Anyway if you encounter txt file, that has hard return at the end of each line, look for MS Word macro steps that I made to convert them automatically to become normal paragraph line (so it will line up nicely on your ebooks) in my December archive.

posted by Jerry permanent link

The Outpost Readers' Library
This collection consists of tools for protecting your privacy online, free e-book reader software with brief reviews, free e-book translation software with brief reviews, and free e-book links. Some of the free e-books are public domain classics. And other ebooks are original works not available elsewhere. Original, new stories are listed on the table of contents page and found in the archives.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/22/2001

In an interview done nearly two decades ago about the compelling, bestselling novel of the future, Battlefield Earth, its author L. Ron Hubbard predicted that people would be able to carry their own pocket computer libraries. Ironically, not only has that prediction come to fruition, but the book which was the subject of that interview has now broken new ground as an electronic book, ranking as the #1 bestselling science fiction eBook for the year 2000. More from Entertainment News Daily.

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Saying that the Federal government should adopt "the aggressive and visionary goal of providing digital content to every citizen," the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) issued a report earlier this month recommending funding for large-scale digital library testbeds, as well as research on metadata, content interoperability, storage, and other issues critical to the eBook revolution.
The report, which may influence the Bush Administration's budget recommendations for new and existing digital library initiatives, envisions a near future in which computers and the Internet ensure that "no classroom, group, or person is ever isolated from the world's great knowledge resources."

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Independent Booksellers Join Early E-Book EffortsLightning Source, Booksite Team to Give Independents Access to E-Book Market; Several Independents Already Aboard Pilot Program. Under the agreement, these new e-book services will give independent bookstores the ability to sell a range of e-book titles directly to their customers in Microsoft Reader format.

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Jeff Kirvin has a great column on Several Levels of MS DRM (Digital Rights Management):
Microsoft Reader supports five levels of Digital Rights Management, although only three are implemented in the actual product. These are:
Level One: No DRM at all, basically an open, unencrypted file that anyone can read and modify. This is not implemented in Reader because it doesn't protect document integrity.
Level Two: Sealed, dot lit itself is a sealed.
Level Three: Inscribed. It does provide some protection from unauthorized distribution by "branding" the buyer's name onto the first page.
Level Four: Password protected (Not implemented in MS Reader).
Level Five: Owner Restrictive, with hardware identification (upto two hardwares).
For more detail information on DRM click here.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Will eBooks Catch On? Survey Says: Not 'Till Pricing Is Right. (Internet.com)
The sample was drawn from Arthur Andersen's Online User Panel, which is comprised of 5,000 U.S. online users. The survey of Internet users shows that despite favorable perceptions, the demand for eBooks remains relatively low. Not 'Till Pricing is Right!
And based on Pocket PC eBooks Watch, $2 to $5 range is the right price.

posted by Jerry permanent link

HarperCollins Publishers announced it has launched a global program to release up to 100 E-books this year. Titles will be available not only in Gemstar, but also in competing formats — Microsoft Reader and the Adobe Acrobat E-Book Reader format. (Daily News)

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/21/2001

Inside.com reporting: Peanutpress gives out e-book awards
The common wisdom on e-books these days is that they're not really selling -- which might explain why virtually no e-book publisher will release even a general range of sales figures. But that hasn't stopped peanutpress.com, one of the first e-book providers, from giving out awards to the top 25 e-best-sellers in 2000. No surprise, the first place winner is Stephen King's Riding the Bullet, which sold about 600,000 copies in record time last spring.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Top 5 eBook sites for February 2001
1. ESSP, very selective .lit collection, and very nice cover pages.
2. Blackmask, with 10-20 new MS Reader free ebooks a day, it will become the largest collection of .lit free ebooks in the net.
3. Univ. Penn NEW LISTINGS (need conversion, most files are in html format)
4. Peanutpress (the most complete selections for commercial ebooks with no copy protection!), You need to download the peanutpress reader to read its ebooks.
5. Memoware, with more than 7,000 documents in several file formats, you need to download mobipocket reader or Tomeraider to read some of the ebooks.

posted by Jerry permanent link

The Buzz on Sex, Dating and Relationships by Rusty Fischer
Want the lowdown on everything from one-night stands to getting stood up, from puckering up to getting down? The Buzz on Sex, Dating and Relationships is the e-book for you. Loaded with phat facts, this e-book gives hipsters the scoop on everything they've always wanted to know about the language of love (or at least getting to first base): the fine art of flirting, interpreting body language, losing your virginity, writing personal ads, surviving blind dates, approaching spinsterhood, and even ...

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Great Article to read, before casting your vote to the Polling above.
Peer-to-Peer -- In A Very Different Light (ebooknet)
Jeffrey Harrow invites readers to imagine a future where the Napster concept has been taken one step further -- used to share blueprints for physical objects that could be replicated using digital fabricator machines.

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"Sesame Street" creator Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop, announced February 20 that it will work with Microsoft and Random House Children's Books to publish Microsoft Reader versions of illustrated children's titles from the Sesame Workshop library.
But it is NOT compatible with Pocket PC yet, so forget about reading it to your kids in the park.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/20/2001

2001 Eppie Award Finalists
This year's Eppie Awards will be given out at an award ceremony in Las Vegas, March 17th, 2001. The event will be hosted by Jeff Strand who provided the now-famous stand-up for last year's inaugural affair. The awards are given by the Electronically Published Internet Connection (EPIC).

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Powell's Books, the nation's largest independent bookstore and an established pioneer in the eBook marketplace, and Lightning Source(SM), a leading provider of a complete package of digital fulfillment services, today announced a partnership that will dramatically expand Powell's online selection of eBook titles and broaden the range of services for Powell's electronic book offerings. These titles will be available in Adobe(R) PDF Merchant(TM), Glassbook Reader, and Microsoft Reader formats.

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Final Result Polling #1
Q: How much a reasonable price for a popular fiction ebook?
(of 245 respondents)
0% Same price as the hardcover
13% Same price as the softcover
8% Around $10
42% Around $5
38% Around $2

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/18/2001

"Experts predict e-books are more likely to be used for textbooks or reference works rather than for entertainment, because they can be searched by keywords and it is easy to update material." Ian Simpson's article in Busrep
Well not until they use Pocket PC...:)

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Henry Kong, a user from Singapore has a nice review of Starbuck, another Pocket PC eBook Reader: Amongst the many formats, Starbuck is capable of reading are TXT, HTML, Palm's PRC, Palm's PDB, bReady, UniCode, and its own native format, Zipped-HTML.
You can download Starbuck Reader from here, and then register it for $10.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/17/2001

A Guide to 2001 eBook Events & Conferences by eBooknet
2001 will be the year of the reality check for the eBook business. Who's making money? Which technologies will survive? How can the enormous potential of eBooks be unlocked without breaking the bank or destroying the publishing industry's existing revenue streams? eBookNet brings you this roundup of events and conferences where these and other urgent questions will be on the agenda.

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WORTH TO VISIT:
Warner Bros officially launch Harry Potter site. The site is really cool! I always hope Potter #5 will be distributed as ebooks, so we don't have to line up in the bookstore anymore.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/16/2001

The New Yorker magazine now offers the wired generation new collections from its rich treasury of fiction, memoir, and exceptional coverage of arts, business, medicine, and the far-flung. These E-book anthologies, compiled by the editorial staff of the magazine, now are available to be read on your pocket pc:
First Stories: An Anthology of Debut Fiction.
John Updike, John Cheever, J.D.Salinger, Alice Munro--the New Yorker has a long history of spotting early talent. Here is a selection of stories by highly promising writers published over the last four years.
In Sickness & In Health: An Anthology of Medicine.
Sickness and the struggle against it inevitably reveal us at our most human. Medicine is kept in this fascinating context in these dispatches from Jerome Groopman, Richard Preston, Atul Gawande and others.
The Price of Everything: An Anthology of Business.
America loves to talk business, and this generation of businessmen is particularly pleasing to contemplate. Malcolm Gladwell, John Cassidy and others examine the girth and worth of the New Economy.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Polling topics. If you have some idea for polling, please email me. I want to change the polling next week. Thanks.

posted by Jerry permanent link

I really hate that most of the new MS Reader ebooks in BarnesandNoble.com are using DRM level 5. Don't they just realize 4 out of 5 top seller do not use the copy protection? Ed Hansberry, Win CE MVP, told me that even BN does not like DRM level 5 either, since when you change your machine, your ebooks will be toasted. DRM level 5 use machine identification (not just your id and password).
From microsoft.public.pocketpc.ebooks, Marc Zimmermann, Microsoft MVP - Windows CE, also said, "You can only create a new Passport and have B&N transfer the rights from the old Passport account to the new one. In my opinion, (it is) the worst part of the whole DRM concept."

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Open eBook Forum: The Open eBook Forum (OeBF) is an international, non-profit trade and standards organization. The Forum's mission is to promote the development of a thriving eBook market. To do this, it creates, maintains and promotes adoption of eBook standards and brings together all the participants in the eBook world by providing an inclusive forum for discussion of eBook related social, legal, and technical issues.

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For Booksellers: eBooks Runs by itself
"The revenue model for electronic books works the same as regular book buying. The company buys volumes at a discount and sells them at retail prices. A benefit is that Powell's doesn't have to buy the electronic content ahead of time. Further, there are no handling costs for storage or shipping, and no labor costs except marketing, "it just runs itself,""

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Pocket PC users will be the most likely consumers to buy e-books
A missing decryption key limits the number of titles that can be read by a Pocket PC handheld. Microsoft and a group of publishing heavyweights are set to announce a small step for technology -- the creation of a new online electronic bookstore -- that they hope will be a giant leap forward in the advancement of electronic books.
As a result, not all e-books will be initially available to owners of Pocket PCs, the people analysts say are the most likely consumers to first visit the new e-book "store".

posted by Jerry permanent link

Kill DRM5
This is a great respond from Ed Hansberry, a Microsoft MVP regarding my idea of ebook distribution bundled with the printed book using DRM level 3 (printing buyer identification in the ebook). Now I learn some bad things of using DRM level 5 (which is MS Reader 1.5 for desktop and laptop use). This type of protection is used when you see "only for desktop and laptop, not for pokcet pc" in the MS Reader ebook's description in Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other sites.

I don't think it is an issue of tracking a rogue ebook back to the purchaser. DRM 3 allows that. Is\t is the publisher assumes everyone is a thief and with DRM 5 they can completely restrict the locations of the ebooks. Never mind that you can't loan the book to a friend, or spouse, or that you lose your ebook if you get a new PC or just reformat your existing hard drive, or get a new Pocket PC, or any number of other things that could prevent you from legitimately copying the book to your PPC. The Audible DRM model is much less restrictive, and I've still had to call their tech support to get content activated because of software glitches.

> Does it mean if I change my notebook then all the ebooks using DRM 5 can't be read in my new notebook (or pocketpc when it allows)?

Bingo! You are toast if you are getting a new machine. Just be sure to read everything before making the switch.

Note on the PC it isn't hardware specific. It gets a number off of the HD that is placed there during formatting. Get a new OS and reformat your HD and you are equally screwed. This isn't MS either. This is mandated by the publishers. MS could do whatever they wanted to do, and they insist on this draconian measure. Even when MS Reader for the PPC is updated to allow DRM-5 content, I doubt I'll bother until the publishers treat me like a customer and not a thief.

posted by Jerry permanent link

DARTH MAUL: SABOTEUR, the first Star Wars ebook, is available at Peanut Press right now. Remember you can read peanutpress ebook with special free software from their site.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/15/2001

E-book publishers face piracy panic (CNN)

-- Not long ago, traditional publishers were poised to take their first tentative steps into the digital age. Indeed, to this exploding industry, the emergence of peer-to-peer is a marketer's dream: "The publishing industry stands to lose $1.5 billion through e-book piracy by 2005," warns Gemstar's Web site, which has made its secure, closed-loop sales channel for e-books a major selling point to publishers. "The rise of peer-to-peer file-sharing systems like Napster, Gnutella and Freenet, together with the fact that no digital encryption scheme is immune to hacking, will create widespread piracy of valuable books," the site declares. "We're preventing what's happening in the music industry, which is casual copying," says Richard Sarnoff, president of new media and corporate development at Random House.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/14/2001

I don't usually recommend games to people, but this one is really good, Peter's Gamebox , for several reasons: 1. Freeware, 2. Small Size on your Pocket PC, 3. Six games inside: - tetris - tetris2 - snake - same (bubblets) - cannons & - squash. It is nice to play simple games between readings.

posted by Jerry permanent link

The New Yorker now have its website. Read those long and great articles in your Pocket PC. Look at December 2000 blog to see how you can convert those html article into .lit format.

posted by Jerry permanent link

emails, emails, emails, and you just want to have more emails.
You can join following active email groups that I recommend from egroups (now Yahoogroups):

[PDA-Ebook]: discussion not just about Pocket PC ebooks, 541 members, approx. 50+/- emails/month

[MS_Reader]: mostly discussing technical issue from an ebook publisher's point of view, 178 members, approx. 150+ emails/month

[PocketPCs]: general mailing list for Pocket PC users, 799 members, approx. 300+ emails/month

posted by Jerry permanent link

William Shakespeare (1564--1616)
complete works in html format.

posted by Jerry permanent link

FYI: Yahoo's ebook directory a good place to start your ebook adventure.

posted by Jerry permanent link

U Penn's The Online Book Pages: Latest ebooks links from all over the internet. Worth to check daily. Most formats are in html, so you need to convert it to .lit format.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/13/2001

eBook Trend Watch: With the capability of pick and choose the articles (like myslate has offered), and many other online instant ebook creator (like ebookexpress); Look for possibility of ebook syndicator... This could be user-customized collection of short stories, business articles, law cases, adult stories, movie scripts, you name it... And it will be very affordable priced, considering the information overload (read: too many supply) that was caused by net frenzy economy. ZDNet just release a nice article Syndicate or die: E-businesses see new revenue from selling content. Now it is just a matter of delivery method. I personally believe PDA is the right place for reading the ebook, and that where the syndication trend will be: the ebook!

posted by Jerry permanent link

eBookexpress.com offers ONLINE easy and FREE e-publishing resource. The site offer a form that will allow you to create an eBook in Microsoft® Reader format from your manuscript or other document. It accepts .DOC, .RTF, .HTM/.HTML, XML, .TXT, .WPS, .WPD, .WRI and ASCII as source files.

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NISEE eBook Library from UC Berkeley featuring engineering ebooks in MS Reader format.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Lots of Poetry ebooks available in Blackmask February 12th edition. I really mean alot.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/12/2001

I want to welcome Jeremy Wagstaff of AWSJ to join the team of Pocket PC eBooks Watch. It is an honor to have you here. Please visit his techno blogger site!

posted by Jerry permanent link

Create your own Microsoft Reader eBooks with Cover Graphics for free! Download Reader Studio (Beta) from CEWindows.Net

posted by Jerry permanent link

For those of you who bought the Pocket PC from Franklin Covey will have a Franklin Planner Handheld suite for free. The CD ROM also for sale for $39.95 (currently backorder): Applications that highlight the suite include Key Information, which allows you to store financial, medical and other personal information for yourself and others; File Locator, which allows you to index files, handwritten notes and other important information; and EZ-Convert, a measurement conversion tool. Plus, you receive digital copies of best-selling Franklin Covey books including 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Or you can get the ebook The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey only for $10.95. The ebook is a nice reference for your collection.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Memoware had been one of the pioneers in e-books. Starting by supporting Palm, now memoware supports pocket pc format too.
It is worth to take another look at their website.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/10/2001

EBook distribution idea. This is one of the many ways to increase the number of ebooks sold, especially for .lit format. The distributor actually should package the ebook with the printed ebook. To buy the ebook version w/o printed will cost 10-15% less. But when people buy the printed book they will get free ebook.

This is the chronology of getting ebook with the purchase of printed book (based on scenario that Microsoft have working relationship with the book distributor):
1. Every printed book has unique serial numbers.
2. Buyer should have account with Microsoft Reader ebook download center; by opening an account with credit cards registration (without being charged, just for to confirm real identity).
3. After log in MS ebook download center, the buyer enters the serial number from the printed book.
4. Then MS will specifically insert the user ID/Email into the cover of the ebook, which can't be modified. This is to trace if the copy had been spread illegally. So no need DRM (copy protection).
5. The ebook will be ready to be downloaded or sent via email.
(idea by jerry s. justianto, copyrighted)

posted by Jerry permanent link

I want to thank and to welcome Jason Dunn, MVP Microsoft CE, and Farlan Williams to become Pocket PC eBooks Watch Team.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/09/2001

This is a better logic regarding ebook future (compare to Mr. Hertzberg's):
"They're getting smaller, smarter and cheaper--all at the same time. In the last year or two, numerous handheld e-book reading devices have hit the market. Innovative features include audio capabilities; built-in dictionaries; revolutionary easy-on-the-eyes type; backlit LCD screens; highlighting ability; direct Internet connections; and much more," said Donna Loyle, Editor of BookTech Magazine.

posted by Jerry permanent link

BookTech East 2001, held Feb. 12-14, 2001 at the Hilton New York Hotel & Towers, NYC, will gather the leading experts on the emerging e-book technology to address topics of vital interest to the book publishing and e-book community. Here, more than 3,000 expected attendees will be treated to a series of e-book seminars and a special exhibit hall section, e-BookTech Pavilion, focusing on electronic books. Exhibitors in the special pavilion will include product and service providers that specialize in the burgeoning field of e-books. http://www.east.booktechexpo.com

posted by Jerry permanent link

Open eBook Forum to Hold Annual Meeting at Paris Book Fair March 18-21, 2001: The Open eBook Forum, OeBF (www.openebook.org), the leading international electronic book trade association, will hold its Annual Members Meeting and Open House March 18 through 21, 2001, in conjunction with the Salon du Livre (Paris Book Fair) in Paris, France. The four days of events will include working groups, receptions and opportunities to join the Open eBook Forum and contribute to the development of new markets for digital content.

posted by Jerry permanent link

``Reading an e-book is just like reading a book ... but it's just less fun, more expensive and heavier,'' said Robert Hertzberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. ``That's not much of a marketing motto.''
I don't think so Mr. Hertzberg, not until you have a PocketPC. Actually the ebook sales had been increased significantly with the introduction of pocketpc. Now readers have reason to carry the ebook reader that also functioning as their PDA: which is lighter (comparing bringing several hardcover books), cheaper price (new Star Wars ebook for $1.99), and more FUN (aaah yes those PocketPC games).

posted by Jerry permanent link

Executive of the Association of American Publishers Has Concerns About E-Books: One problem is generational: a high-tech product introduced to a low-tech industry. But Schroeder said publishers also are troubled by the cost and by the lack of uniform coding, which can mean that a text available on one device is unavailable on another.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/08/2001

Have you seen this? Etext.org, it claims as a site for Home to electronic texts of all kinds, from the sacred to the profane, from the political to the personal. Our mission is to provide electronic versions of texts without judging their content (which are mostly come from Zines).

posted by Jerry permanent link

A Question for the weekend. If DRM (copy protection) for ebooks is implemented, should the sales price of ebook should be lowered? The logic is because only you that can read the book, maybe they should change the term to rental price... Wired just have some good article written by Kendra Mayfield about the cloudy forecast of ebook sales, and the possiblity of lesser price ebook to enhance its sales. All in all, the expansion of ebook sales and the ongoing momentum to find the equilibrium sales price will benefit writers as a whole to become more independent.

posted by Jerry permanent link

I just add reasonable Pocket PC ebook price Polling at the top of the blogger. As you know, that eBooks do not have paper costs, inventory costs. What is the reasonable price for an ebook? for apple to apple comparison, let assume it is an e-version of a general popular fiction book. I also add CEBooks BBS, a place for Pocket PC eBook users changing their ideas and comments.

posted by Jerry permanent link

The Psychology of the Internet by Patricia Wallace: explores the psychological aspects of cyberspace, a virtual world in which people from around the globe are acting and interacting in many new, unusual, and occasionally alarming ways. Drawing on research in the social sciences, communications, business, and other fields, Dr. Wallace examines how the online environment can influence the way we behave, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Our own online behavior then becomes part of the Internet's psychological environment for others, creating opportunities for shaping the way this new territory for human interaction is unfolding. Very interesting book!

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/07/2001

AOL user type KEYWORD:EBOOK, you will find many free e-text (that's what AOL called) on several subjects like 20th century fiction, history, etc. To convert to .lit look at December 2000 archive.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Ebook Trade Association Founded: Publishers of newspapers, magazines, trade journals, catalogs, newsletters and other information providers have founded the Electronic Book Newsstand Association. EBNA was created to raise publishers' and consumer awareness of e-reader devices as platforms for distributing news and information. The organization also plans to facilitate the flow of such content, provide technical research, advice and insights, and represent periodical publishers in the Ebook, PDA and E-Paper industries. From Writenews.

posted by Jerry permanent link

DotLit your DotCom: With many dotcom zines have uncertain future, it is time to fossilized the good and long articles in .lit format for your own e-library.

posted by Jerry permanent link

.LIT idea: Scan you Camera / Video Manual, Car Manual, First Aid and many other things to MS Reader Format. And put it into your pocketpc.

posted by Jerry permanent link

E-Book Dilemma: Potboiler for the Digital Age. Any book lover worth his Book-of-the-Month Club canvas tote would support technology that furthered the cause of reading, right? In the case of electronic books, or e-books, that remains to be seen. From Bookwire

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/06/2001

The Unofficial Microsoft Reader FAQ compiled by Richard Crocker. Highly recommended, a must to visit!

posted by Jerry permanent link

4 out of BN's Top 5 MS Reader eBooks can be read on your Pocket PC, as well as on your desktop or laptop computer. The trend is going to the unprotected ebook format or that easily compatible with Pocket PC. Anyway who brings laptop to read in planes, trains or automobiles... Demand your ebooks publisher to publish ebooks that can be read in PocketPC.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Beatles by Mark HoffmanThis book provides an in-depth look at the group's history and includes everything from their rigorous touring schedules, marriages, periods of personal growth to their experiments with drugs and Eastern religions as well as their devastating break-up. Even if you think you know everything about the Beatles, this book brings new insight into the lives of perhaps the most important group of musicians ever to grace the planet.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Stephen King’s first ebooks The Plants project had been stopped. So for those who had read for the first 6 chapters asked to join their mailing list about the future of the plants.

posted by Jerry permanent link

The first Star Wars eBook! Star Wars: Darth Maul: Saboteur. The e-story written by James Luceno -- best-selling author of Star Wars titles Agents of Chaos: Hero's Trial and Jedi Eclipse -- is about 14,000 words long and priced at $1.99. Peanutpress.com will sell it on Feb 15.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Top 50 of the 4th Quarter 2000 Best Seller List by ebookconnection:
#1 The Best Laid Plans, Leta Nolan Childers #2 "Repent Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman, Harlan Ellison #3 The Well-Fed Writer, Peter Bowerman #4
The Best Laid Plans: Backfire!, Leta Nolan Childers #5 Objects of the Desire in the Mirror are Closer than they Appear, Harlan Ellison

posted by Jerry permanent link

Using the same concept that allowed readers to pay Stephen King a dollar per installment of The Plant, Amazon.com has unveiled "The Honor System" -- a way for authors, musicians and just about anyone else with a product and a website to collect voluntary small-dollar amounts for what they offer online. It involves a small pay box on the seller's website, which takes a visitor to a pay page at Amazon.com. From Wired Article

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/05/2001

For lovers of short fictions, and who think it is hard to read a long novel in Pocket PC, visit FictionWise. Fictionwise.com specialize in short fiction, but start expanding into novels as well. The cute things are the fiction price starts from $0.50 to $3.00, and novel ranging around $5.00. Average size of fiction ebooks is +/- 50Kb.

posted by Jerry permanent link

If you encounter the difficulty of deleting ebooks from library menu of Pocket PC Reader, do open another eBook to take the previous eBook out of memory (RAM) and you can delete it no problem. If you still encounter the problem, use the file explorer to delete the ebook file and the annotation file.

posted by Jerry permanent link

For those of you who wants to combine the power of Avantgo and MS Reader, there is another alternative software: Mobipocket.com. Download area include application development software for creating Mobipocket ebooks and channel. The software also support Asian characters, but does not provide ClearType technology yet. I installed it and quite like the channel capability. But for the ebook, I still love PocketPC Reader much better.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Get an email from one of the visitor:
"... I convert some of the Wired article (but you must view it in print mode) like Microsoft Trial, Fiber Optics, etc, to .lit format as I learned the method from your site. I am so glad that now I have my personal compilation ebook, that I named it: the best of Wired." - Adi Halim.

Well Adi, I am glad that you made your own "best of Wired" ebook for your own pocket PC. I know that .lit format become a very useful portable document file :) for us to carry in our pocket pc. For those who wants to learn in creating .lit based on the articles from the web, look at my December archive.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/04/2001

A new unmoderated mailing list, MS_Reader , has been started on Yahoo! Groups (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ms_reader/ ) for the discussion of all technical matters pertaining to the Microsoft Reader for ebooks.
A partial list of allowable discussion topics include:
1) Technical publishing matters associated with the creation of works in LIT format. This includes, as a partial list, OEBPS, HTML, CSS, XML, conversion from other formats, compilers, etc., etc.
2) End-user issues, such as the installation of Microsoft Reader (both Desktop and PocketPC versions), reading, and accessibility.
3) Software development using Microsoft's Reader Content SDK (see http://www.microsoft.com/reader/sdk/default.htm ). This includes the development of new LIT compilers.
4) Security and server issues.
This list is independent and, as noted above, unmoderated. MS_Reader is not affiliated with, nor endorsed by, the Microsoft Corporation. All
posts to MS_Reader are publicly accessible and there are no membership restrictions.

To join, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ms_reader/ and follow the appropriate links. If you have an existing eGroups account (and you haven't transferred it yet to Yahoo! Groups), first read the message at http://www.egroups.com/ .

I look forward to seeing you on MS_Reader!

Jon Noring
MS_Reader List Administrator
noring@olagrande.net

posted by Jerry permanent link

  2/01/2001

Get PocketPC Dummies ebook for free from Microsoft. If you’re new to the Pocket PC world, the Pocket PC StarterPak was designed for you! It includes free software and a Dummies eBook to show you the ropes and how to maximize the investment you’ve made in your Pocket PC. If you’re a seasoned Pocket PC user, this is still a useful collection of applications and eBooks for your Pocket PC. To get the StartPak, all you need is your Pocket PC serial number (which is on the back of the unit). And all you need to do is fill out this form. . This offer valid only for US and Canada customer. More detail on the Dummies CD Pack by Jason Dunn

posted by Jerry permanent link

Thanks for Brennen Guillory for reminding me about MS Reader is only for PocketPC but not for other Win CE devices, and he emphasize that peanutpress.com is better for more ebooks collection and also more compatibility to other ebooks format and PDA platform. I installed peanutpress reader in my iPAQ several weeks ago, and for my own personal preference I don't really like it, due to looks of the fonts, the program is not supporting ClearType yet. I just hope it will support ClearType in the next release of Peanutpress reader.

Here's Brennen's reasons on why he thinks peanutpress reader is the best:
"1. I find their reader to be far superior to Microsoft Reader - many more features, better interface etc. It doesn't use clear type but that really doesn't bother me at all. The files are also much smaller than .lit files.
2. They have an encryption medium already all worked out. It may not seem ideal but at least I can get most of the Reader books out there that are offered only for the desktop but not for PocketPC - and a lot more that aren't.
3. If I only had a WinCe device and not a PocketPC, I could still read the books, I don't have to pine over not having a PocketPC (which I do have)."

posted by Jerry permanent link

eBook Ad.com provides many MS Reader ebooks, since there are no indication that the ebooks are only for desktop/laptop, I supposed the MS Reader ebooks that they offered are compatible with PocketPC. Chek them out, it is worth to visit.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Will Microsoft Reader be available for other Windows CE-powered devices?
Microsoft Reader is not available for earlier versions of Windows CE powered devices. Microsoft Reader runs on Pocket PC, which is the next-generation PDA device.

Why are there some books that I can purchase for Microsoft Reader for the PC, but not for Microsoft Reader on the Pocket PC?
Titles that have been secured for distribution at the highest level of security require hardware functionality on the client that the Pocket PC does ot yet provide. However, titles offered at lesser levels of security can be read on the Pocket PC.

More FAQ in Microsoft.com Click Here

posted by Jerry permanent link

Check out the Microsoft Press book store, and look that they don't publish their book in Ebooks format. Email them, and demand them to publish their books in Pocketpc MS Reader format.

posted by Jerry permanent link