eBooks

Questia iPhone App Review

When I first downloaded and played with Questia, I thought, “I don’t get it.” I understood that it offered access to loads of academic humanities texts, and had a free public domain section, but what was the value in it? You could hit up your university library if you needed to do research, and public domain books are available in loads of places. Then I had the chance to talk with Tim Harris, CEO of Questia, and that’s where I learned the true value of this application. “We are a research library, for people who want to access as much…


Year of the eBook?

Yes, it is that time of the week again. State of the eBook is back to bring you the latest eBook news and commentary, just in time for Black Friday and the holiday shopping season.


The Brave New Digital World: An Interview with K.C. Blake

Welcome to another State of the eBook! This week we’re bringing in an expert to share some thoughts on eBooks, music, and movies, and where the future is taking digital media. Read on for Gear Diary’s interview with K.C. Blake of the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California.


Amazon Kindle for PC Review

(courtesy of Amazon.com) Just a few short weeks ago Amazon announced the Kindle was coming to PCs, and today it landed! Windows-only for now, with Mac OS X support promised “shortly”, Kindle for PC represents Amazon’s first attempt to strike back against Barnes and Noble’s eBook expansion. Does it succeed? I’ve been playing with it all day, read on for my review and thoughts!


Book Review: Microsoft Windows 7 Unleashed by Paul McFedries

A few week ago, I received a copy of this book to review. I’ll admit it, I’m primarily a Mac user, but I use Windows XP at work, and I run it on my Mac in a VMWare session so I can support my Windows Mobile devices and do those things that are available only for Windows. And yeah, I’m one of the many, many, people who played with the Windows 7 betas – and I like it. Not enough to give up my Mac, but it’s nice to see what Vista should have been finally come to fruition. It’s…


eBook News Avalanche!

Welcome to another round of State of the eBook! There’s been an avalanche of eBook news and releases, so let’s dive right in! Barnes and Noble releases the nook upon the world B&N’s nook came out swinging, with a dual screen design and an Android foundation. Check out Gear Diary’s coverage of the nook’s release here, and commentary on a B&N conference call that answered some questions and raised new ones here. In related B&N news, Plastic Logic has announced that their Que reader will be not only using the Barnes and Noble eBook store but will also be sold…



Disney Digital Books Review

It’s a ritual around my house, and I imagine it’s done in households everywhere — the bed time story.  Whether one of my kids is laying down for a mid day nap or getting tucked in for the night, they always get a story before they close their eyes. With three girls at home we’ve become fans of many of the Disney characters, so when Disney Digital books asked us to review their new online service I jumped at the chance.  Disney Digital Books provided me with a one month test subscription to try the service out at home with…


The Dark Side of eBook Popularity?

Welcome to another “State of the eBook”. We’ve got some quick news to review, and then a discussion of something that keeps publishers up at night; piracy in ebook-land. Is it an epidemic of music proportions or is it the straw-man argument that publishers use to justify high prices, digital rights management, and slow ebook adoption?


Make Memories Last with Picaboo Photo Books

Do you have summer photos just hanging around on your hard drive, abandoned now that fall is here?  (Well, or almost here if you live in Texas!)  Don’t let them get forgotten–upload them to Picaboo! Picaboo is a service that allows you to create photo books and cards from your digital photos, starting at just $9.99 for a softcover book. They offer easy-to-use software that guides you through the creation process with tons of  layouts, backgrounds, fonts, and sample albums to help spark ideas.  Possibly the coolest feature of the software is the ability to auto-create a photo book in…


eBook Gains and Losses

Welcome to another installment of “State of the eBook”. A few quick news-y items, and then onto the major heart of today’s discussion, where we’ll be tackling the greatest debate in the book world today. Interested? Read on… First, in the “cut up your nose to spite your face” department, we have the news that both Sarah Palin’s book “Rogue” and Ted Kennedy’s book “True Compass” will not be released as eBooks until some time has passed after the hardcover release. Let’s consider that for a moment. At a time when people are looking for better deals, trying to find…


An eBook Introduction

Welcome to a new series we are starting here at Gear Diary called “State of the eBook”. Every two weeks or so (more if the news warrants it) I’ll be bringing you the latest news in ebooks, publishing, and the general digitization of our reading lives.


Flatworld Knowledge offers open source textbooks you can listen to or print

Flat World Knowledge is combating the insane price of college textbooks by making open source textbooks an easier solution for colleges. The catalog for now is limited to a few titles per school but eventually they’d like to have more colleges adopt open source online distribution of textbooks. The company sells affordable alternative formats such as print-on-demand full color and black and white print versions, PDF versions, podcast and .mp3 versions, as well as Flat World Knowledge and user-generated study aides such as mobile flash cards and web quizzes to support the books. Naturally social media is in the cards…


Only read this book if you are interested in your universe!

Ever tried to understand Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?   Or even just wondered if time travel was possible?  How about if the ever wonderful warp speed in Star Trek was feasible? These and many other questions have a serious grounding in the new book Why Does E=MC2? by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw


Big Ideas by Alex Hutchinson Book Review

One of my favorite parts of the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” is how the historical characters are both fascinated and frightened by the modern world. I’m a sucker for a good “Joan of Arc leads an aerobics class” gag. In all seriousness, we surround ourselves every day with inventions and innovations that we take for granted. The computer you are reading this review on, the clothes you are wearing, the medicine you’ve been given in your lifetime…how many of them didn’t exist 50 years ago? How many of them have changed the world? In this Gear Diary Book…


Dan Brown’s new book: The Lost Symbol

Doubleday is now promoting Dan Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol. If you didn’t already realize it, Dan Brown is the author of the insanely popular bestseller The Da Vinci Code. Mention this book in polite company, and 10 people will give you 25 opinions. Or just ask the Gear Diary contributors and watch your inbox get flooded with responses. So why is this big news for Gear Diary?


Email Etiquette

As a communication medium – email has  had rapid adoption has become a communication standard.  Statistics, extrapolations and counting by Radicati Group from August 2008 estimate the number of emails sent per day (in 2008) to be around 210 billion.  183 billion messages per day means more than 2 million emails are sent every second. About 70% to 72% of them might be spam and viruses. The genuine emails are sent by around 1.3 billion email users. Since we all use email, you would think we could all practice a little etiquette in our email.  After all, we don’t let…


The Amazon Kindle 2 Review

[Note: This is a joint review by Doug Goldring, Judie Lipsett, Dan Cohen, and Kerry Woo.  It is being simultaneously posted on Just Another Mobile Monday and Gear Diary. If you haven’t already, then take a look at Doug’s The Kindle 2: First Look and Unboxing and Judie’s Unboxing the Amazon Kindle 2.] Doug: One thing about sites like Gear Diary and Just Another Mobile Monday, we love our gadgets (I know, shocking!) We love playing with them almost as much as we love writing and telling you about them.  Rarely does a week go by when one of us…


The Ectaco jetBook Universal Portable Reading Device Review

With all of the hullabaloo over the Amazon Kindle 2‘s recent release, one might think that there were no other eBook readers on the market; not so! Those who eschew DRM protection and who can do without the convenience of an online content store (I’m thinking of Amazon‘s and Sony‘s, specifically) should pay particular attention to the Ectaco jetBook, a reading device capable of handling .txt, .pdf, .fb2, .jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, and MP3 file formats. According to the literature I picked up at CES, the EPUB format is expected in Q1 2009*.


Unboxing the Amazon Kindle 2

I was starting to feel like I was one of the last people to get theirs, especially after enviously reading Dan’s emails and Doug‘s post about their Kindle 2s, but today my Amazon Kindle 2 finally showed up. I also got the Cole Haan Brown pebbly leather cover to go with it, since Amazon neglected to include even a cheap plastic one. The big box is the leather cover, and the smaller box is the Kindle 2; go figure. I opened everything with an expectant, yet slightly wary eye; I had dropped serious coin on this gear, and if it…


The Amazon Kindle Review

I love reading; always have. I remember the joy of checking out books from the library when I was a child: the thrill of finding a book that could transport me to other worlds and situations…and the sorrow when the time eventually came to return “my” book. It was as if I had separation anxiety when it was time to return a title I had really enjoyed. What if I wanted to read it again later? What if I couldn’t remember the title or author? I decided early on that book ownership was key. With that goal in mind, I…