I've always loved to read, I could read a couple of books a day plus a few comics books that were always stored in the bathroom. After bedtime I'd read under the covers with a flashlight. After I grew up and left home, and then later became homeless, I took to always carrying a library book around with me in my purse. If things got long and drawn out where we were visiting, I'd take a trip to the powder room with my purse and my latest read.
The first ebook reader I ever tried out was in 1996 on my Psion 3. I don't remember the name of the program just now, but I liked the idea of having lots of huge books with me right there in my 2 MG electronic organizer. I also enjoyed the Psion 3a which came out with an optional backlight for reading on the bus and train after nightfall.
About five years later I was working on a project where I needed lots of literature and I needed to be mobile, so I took a friend along to help me explain what I wanted in Ukrainian, and went to several copy shops in that city to ask if they could please scan my books and put them on a disk so that I could use them more easily. All we got for our trouble was a few blank stares and hard looks. But now...? Now - I have nearly 300 books on my hard drive!
I hope I don't have to read them all to get through my next project, organizing them and keeping track of them is a bit tricky, (I really do prefer paper and turning pages, cuz I'm not a tree-hugger). I found a pretty good program to help with that, Calibre.
With this program I can go online and find meta data on most of the books, and reviews. I'm also supposed to be able to search the content of the books through the program. That would be a great feature, but not all the scans are done with text recognition.
Yesterday we spent at least 6 hours on the road, but I was reading most of the time, lucky each trip was under 4 hours so I could charge up my netbook in between travels. I've heard the Kindle has good battery life, but no backlight option, a person would need a flashlight to read in the dark, just like when I was a kid. If I were designing a space alien their eyes would have rays of light coming out of them, if we had illuminating eyes the Kindle wouldn't need a backlight ever, but until it comes with that option I'm sticking with the netbook.
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7 comments:
"High fives"! Life would be very drab (or something!) without books. I inherited my love of reading from my grandmother, who never left home (let alone stayed home) without a book in her hand.
I am laughing at the purse/book/powder room scenario....hahaha!!
Not a tree hugger either, and my bookshelves prove it.
I saw a sign the other day that said "Book lovers never go to bed alone" :)
Have you heard of bookcrossing? It's more practical than libraries when you travel a lot, and a fun idea too. Go to (surprise surprise) bookcrossing.com
My name there is auroradormita.
Seems like we're always searching for something that we can't find or a more convenient way to do something or a smaller more compact something or other!
By the way we don't use Article in Finnish either so I can't give you examples of that with this language.
hahaha! I love your comments on this post all of you! :)
Thanks for making my day!
I have a Sony Reader now and I love it. It would be handier, for sure, if it was lit from within, but they say that is bad for the eyes, hence, the 'no light.' I just have a handy book light for times in the car when it is dark. But I read this Sony thing at home all the time, too. Never thought I would like one, but it was given to me for a gift, so what can I say...except I like it. : )
Hey- here's what you need: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/48490
It's wild, for sure! ;)
That's one of the things I miss most about my iPAQ since it went swimming... sighhhhh....
Haha Anita! great link!
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