[aklug] Re: Calibre and a Kindle

--- On Mon, 2/21/11, Alan C. <alan@caruth.org> wrote:

> The advantage of e-ink/B&W
> devices is with the wifi/3G turned off the battery
> life is amazing

A Wi-Fi-only device still gets great battery life.=A0 I believe the Kindle'=
s specs say it can remain on standby for four weeks with no network connect=
ion, three weeks on Wi-Fi, and ten days on 3G.=A0 Since you only need a con=
nection to buy new books or download firmware updates, many of the e-reader=
 owners I know leave networking off until they need it.

> and the display is very easy on the eyes
> (like reading paper - no flicker at all).

I ultimately received my Nook as a gift, but the lack of backlighting was i=
mportant to me.=A0 My wife and I stare at computer screens all day long, so=
 something like a laptop, iPad, or Nook Color would just add to the eye str=
ain (not to mention the additional weight and cost).

I'm still a Calibre novice, but I like it.=A0 Right now I have a dozen subs=
criptions, which is more than I have time to read, so finding content isn't=
 a problem.=A0 I think most of the formatting and ease-of-use issues are th=
e e-reader's fault, but it'd also be nice if Calibre were smarter about how=
 it downloads news feeds; if Feed X is scheduled to refresh every day, you =
don't need to download the last two weeks' articles each time.=A0 On the ot=
her hand, Calibre's great at organizing all the files I lifted from Project=
 Gutenberg, and does a solid job of converting .doc files into something th=
e e-reader can properly display.

Pretty much everything Alan said about the Kindle regarding PDF's and Web b=
rowsing is also true of the black and white Nook.=A0 They work, but just ba=
rely.=A0 The Nook natively supports PDF's, but they're basically displayed =
as images, and only in portrait format.=A0 I tried scanning my textbooks in=
to searchable PDF's, and what I got was an image of each page followed by t=
he machine's clumsy attempt at rendering that page.=A0 It's kind of a mess.

--
Aaron A.
akbeancounter@yahoo.com
=0A=0A=0A      
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