Archive for 'Digital Books' Category

Next Page »

The Amazon Kindle: A Yin for the Tablet Pc’s Yang?

21 November 2007 Posted By: Robert
Posted in: Digital Books, Hardware

Well the much anticipated Kindle e-book reader from Amazon has arrived (at least in the US - heaven knows when those of us who live elsewhere in the world are going to see it..sob!) and as you’ve no doubt seen for yourself already, it’s causing quite a bit if a stir on the blogosphere. The love/hate camps have sprung up, with the geekamentalists in the ‘love’ camp proclaiming the dawning of a new technological age, while the ‘die hards’ in the ‘hate’ camp are lamenting the death of the book in its traditional form (and also moaning a lot about the price :o)). I’m kind of midway between both camps (love the reader, hate the high price point) but wherever you’re inclined to pitch your tent, one important question remains - What value, in terms of usability, does the Kindle hold for the student who already uses a Tablet PC?

eTextBook/Resource Database? Are You Up for it?

17 September 2007 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books

A big undertaking, perhaps, but I think it’d be very useful for the digital student to have a big list of textbooks and good resources that are available free online. Even simple textbook companion resources would be useful. There’s so much out there that is just hidden in the mass of the web but is for the free taking.

I’m not saying illegal textbook sharing (although…no, that’s wrong), but ones that your teachers make available for free, course notes, your notes, books that have free digital copies online somewhere, books that have website companions that are so good they can sub for the book. Just stuff like that. Maybe we could arrange it by subject matter and just populate it based on stuff we find, like informative blogs, instructional videos, etc.

NaturalReader: Let your tablet do all the reading

24 July 2007 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books, Study Aids

Having a tablet lets you do many tasks with more interaction than you would otherwise. Many student tablet owners decide to digitize their books for easier reference and a lighter daily load, but digital books also have other advantages. They’re normal text and therefore you can do anything with them you can do to text, such as copy and paste into reports/notes. Such as…use a program that can convert text to speech (hmm…).

Maybe this is just my personal lack of concentration kicking in, but have you ever opened a textbook to read, only to realize ten minutes later you’re still on the same page? Assuming you don’t have any problem reading in general, this type of situation needs a little extra focus.

Humorous Book Snap-Scanning Tip

30 April 2007 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books, Scanning

I checked our Wiki today to see what was up and got a good laugh under the Scanning a Book page. I think it was from a contributor with the username Marsm:

If the book has very glossy pages you can take pictures outside in the sunshine to avoid the text being blurred out by the flash of your camera. To do this, turn into the direction of where the sun is shining from and place the book on a small chair or box. Next, place a table next to the box so you can rest your right arm on it to keep the camera steady. Because the sun will probably make your display very hard to see, get an empty toilet roll and tape it onto the display until the sun is blocked out. This also adds to stability because you can place the roll on your left or right eye.

Adobe Digital Editions: A great eBook reader

19 March 2007 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books, Software Info

While reinstalling Adobe Reader I stumbled upon a little surprise in the file menu labeled Digital Editions. I had no idea what it was but it sounded promising and I couldn’t help but click.

Adobe Digital Editions is a completely new way to read and manage eBooks and other digital publications. Digital Editions is built from the ground up as a lightweight, Rich Internet Application (RIA). Digital Editions works online and offline, and supports both PDF and XHTML—based content.

It takes hardly any time to download and install (here’s the link) and really is lightweight. It’s interface is quite sexy for Adobe, and the layout is super user & pen friendly.

Let the scanning begin

4 August 2006 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books, Going Paperless, Scanning

As comes the end of summer, so comes the beginning of scanning. Are those of us who partake in this endless task of scanning book after book mad? Insane? Bored? Without a social life? OK, possibly, HOWEVER, we have our reasons.

Right now I am sitting in an apartment, far away from family and friends, in a town where the only place to hang-out is Subway, and the word “wireless” has yet to reach the local’s ears.

I do NOT want to spend time that I’m at home around family and friends working longer than I need to on homework or studying, or huddled in my room with the scanner by my side on a Friday night. Scanning and OCR-ing my books allows me to be more productive during the school year. So what if it means I spend the day or two flipping pages and pressing scan. The benefits of 1000+ pages of searchable text, the freedom of studying whenever and where ever I get a chance, and extra mobility I gain by dropping about 30 lbs of books is WELL worth the effort.

Not only does scanning my books let me have more free time later, but that free time means that if I need to, I can spend more time studying when it counts. If I have a test that’s freaking me out, if I have homework due in thirty minutes, if I have a class that is INSANE, I can get more studying done in less time because I’m well organized and ready for action.

No, scanning doesn’t save you time in the long run (unless you have a really fast scanner), but it saves you time when it matters most. That’s all I’m trying to say here.

My next couple posts will likely be on scanning and digital books because that’s what I’m currently messing with. I have two books right now, one that’s 750 pages and one that’s 900 pages. I’m guessing with my way of scanning (OpticBook + Acrobat) that will be about 8-10 hours of work. Not too shabby, but still quite the effort ^_^.

Eric Mack: Is scanning your books legal?

27 December 2005 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books

Much of our discussion revolves around scanning textbooks for use on a Tablet PC (we are students, after all). We’ve had people take these discussions as a way to beat the system and share textbooks like MP3s (old-school-Napster style). We’ve also had people wonder if this idea of scanning textbooks was legal at all, even without sharing.

Digital History: a great site for digitizing the written word

12 December 2005 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books, Scanning

I was sent a link to a website called Digital History. It’s a book made into a website and is dedicated to “gathering, preserving, and presenting the past on the web” (you can purchase the book or use the free online version).

Check out the chapter labeled “Becoming Digital.” Extremely detailed, even if it’s more geared towards large scale projects (but who says five 1000 page books isn’t large scale ^_^).

Becoming Digital chapter outline:

• The pros and cons of digitization
• The different ways that text can be digitized
• The benefits and costs of marking up text

Scanning a book by removing the binding

27 November 2005 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books, Scanning

Forum member chocokid posted a great how-to on scanning a book by removing the binding first. Thanks for documenting the process!

…Remove the binding. The best way to go about this is to bring the book to Kiko’s and for about $5, they’ll cut the binding off. This saves you the trouble of ripping out each page one by one, which often results in ripped pages. If you decide to remove the binding yourself…good luck! Its been my experience that getting that glue off the page edges is nearly impossible. I prefer having the binding cut off because after your done scanning it, you may be able to have it rebound or you can use a 3hole punch and stick it in a binder and sell the book to a friend or online…

Read the entire post by visiting our forums!

How I’m handling Digital Books and Storing Notes

7 September 2005 Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Digital Books, GoBinder, Organization

Sorry for the lack of many updates now that school has started. I’m trying to keep up with the piles of homework I get taking 5 technical courses and it leaves limited time for blogging. I’ll try to keep some stuff going though.

That said, I’ve had trouble figuring out how best to keep my books I spent hours scanning in. I had them in a tidy little PDF file with OCR, but anyone who has a technical textbook knows they’re pretty dull and I personally need to annotate as I go just to stay awake. With Acrobat’s limited commenting abilities (I really want to ink, not just highlight), it just wasn’t making the grade.

Next Page »