* Posts by Josh

3 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jul 2008

Sony e-book reader to debut in UK tomorrow

Josh
Go

Great toy and sanity saver

Maybe try buying from the states?

I bought my 505 for ~$230 USD, and use it regularly.

The 505 seems to run longer on a charge, as well as responding to page turns faster than the PRS-500 I initially had, and ended up sending to my mother, who got me addicted to books in the first place.

Admittedly, they could have possibly done with a couple less buttons, but the buttons that are there are usefull, other than the afore mentioned music control buttons.

As was also mentioned, the music function kills battery life, so I just don't load any music. If I want to listen to music, I turn on a radio, or carry an iPod.

I've easily read RTF files regularly, as well as the LRF files, since the publisher that I have purchased from now supplies them as well as the other 5-6 formats that they had. (www.baen.com, and www.baen.com/library/)

All in all, the icon says it for me. If you're an avid reader, and can live without the complete tactile sensation of paper under your fingers, this makes an excellent addition and a way to cary far more books in your pocket than would normally be possible!

Kindle fails to set light to unsold e-book pile

Josh

Amazon Kindle vs Sony eReaders

I've looked at the Kindle, but as others said, I can't stomach the price, only to be locked to one DRM locked standard.

I ended up buying a Sony PRS-500, and then later on a PRS-505.

The only gripes I had with the 500 were how slow it could be when accessing a large memory stick or SD card, and that the battery life seemed to be getting short.

That being said, mine had been a display model before I bought it, so I suspect that the Lithium Ion pack had a shortened life due to the constant charging at 99% capacity.

The PRS-505 that I currently use is a bit faster, charges off of USB (unlike the 500, which uses a PSP power cord), and as also noted, reads a great number of book formats. I don't think I've loaded any DRM'd books on mine, and only recently started to use the BBeB formatted books on it, just due to having found that Baen now offers them along with the other 5 or 6 formats that they offer their books in.

For me, I love the idea. Having dead time at work, waiting for things to break, it's a life saver to have something to read. Someone above already mentioned the ability to have multiple books, so that when your mood changes, or you just get fed up with one style of writing, you can change what you are reading. Having it all in a small enough package to slip it into a pocket and get on with your life when you need to is nice as well.

As much as I like my hard copy books, I hate moving the boxes of them when I move, so this is another consideration I've been looking at. Add to that that I read Sci-Fi, and Baen publishes from free to ~$7 ($15 if you want the book as it's going back and forth between the author and the editor, before publishing), and the pricing works out for me.

Firefox sweeps away carpet bombing bug

Josh

@ wobbly1

Much as others have said, extensions can be fixed.

Regarding ABP and NoScript, I've had no downtime at all on those two, or any of the other 5 that I use. I just checked to make sure they were all working, but FF 3.0.1 has them all online with no gripes or complaints. *shrugs*