nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> writes:

> yes, but not the screen size.  Which means you can read in big letters
> and scroll all the time to see more text... :p

Most ereaders have screens comparable to or bigger than paperback
books. If reading on an ereader is a problem, then reading a book will
be a bigger problem.

Post a reply to this message

Stephen <mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> writes:

> On 13/01/2011 3:50 PM, nemesis wrote:
>> or to
>> read ebooks in tiny letters...:)
>
> With E Books, you can change the font size.
> I would not go anywhere without my Sony Reader.

I love my Sony. The interface is really good. I can't imagine life
without the touch sensitive display (I use it to read news). Also, the
dictionary is handy - just double tap on a word and it pulls it up.

I'm sure I'll find some use for handwriting notes with the stylus one
day, but haven't thought of one yet.

What I find really cool is that when I transfer news from Calibre to the
Sony, the device *knows* that it's receiving news. So it puts them all
in the Periodicals Section. This way, my list of ebooks is not cluttered
with hundreds of newspaper ebooks.

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> dictionary is handy - just double tap on a word and it pulls it up.

I find myself reading comments in net news or blogs, and missing the ability 
to just point at a questionable word and pull up the dictionary.

> I'm sure I'll find some use for handwriting notes with the stylus one
> day, but haven't thought of one yet.

If you don't have a very smart phone, you could put appointments or phone 
numbers in it. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Get an ereader that is not a Kindle, and learn how to strip DRM if
> you're brave enough. 

I have found instructions for stripping DRM out of kindle docs too, but I 
don't know if they work.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

> Or, more bitrate means more switching means more power. Running a DAC at
> 22KHz is going to take lots more power than running it at 8KHz.

Actually I just remembered this from my first Nokia (3310), you could 
dial some special 4-digit code and you got better sound quality during 
calls, but battery time was reduced.

Post a reply to this message

> Not for the Nook, as I can associate any Nook with my account and access
> my content.

Why remove the DRM then?

> Making customers have to re-buy material because they lost access would
> be very poor customer service indeed.

Obviously they're not doing this on purpose, just that if there is some 
tiny chance that people would rebuy, whereas without DRM they wouldn't, 
then this would get factored in to the finances.

Post a reply to this message

On 18-1-2011 9:41, scott wrote:

>> Making customers have to re-buy material because they lost access would
>> be very poor customer service indeed.
>
> Obviously they're not doing this on purpose,

why would the publishing bussiness act different than the music bussiness?

Post a reply to this message

>> dictionary is handy - just double tap on a word and it pulls it up.
>
> I find myself reading comments in net news or blogs, and missing the
> ability to just point at a questionable word and pull up the dictionary.

Surely the vast, vast majority of words you'd actually want to look up 
aren't even in the dictionary?

Obviously I can't find an example now that I want one, but Thunderbird's 
dictionary is missing huge numbers of really quite common words - and it 
isn't even a real "dictionary", it's just a word list. Similarly, when I 
was at school I tried to look up "indefatigable" in the school's (paper) 
dictionary, and it didn't exist. What on Earth makes you think that an 
e-reader would have a more complete dictionary?

Post a reply to this message

On 17/01/2011 05:50 PM, Darren New wrote:
> scott wrote:
>> In general more power means you have more possibilities to do stuff to
>> increase the quality.
>
> Or, more bitrate means more switching means more power. Running a DAC at
> 22KHz is going to take lots more power than running it at 8KHz.

For decent speech transmission, you apparently need a spectrum that goes 
up to about 4 KHz. That means at least 8,000 samples per second.

A CD-quality digital signal is 44,100 samples per second. That's only 
about 5x higher. Are you seriously telling me it takes 5x the power to 
do that?

Post a reply to this message

>> Besides, who wants a system that can delete the books you've paid for at
>> any time, for no defined reason?
>
> Get an ereader that is not a Kindle

Or perhaps just not get an e-reader at all? It's not like *I* want one 
anyway. ;-)

> One quite unintended benefit for me was the ability to read my news
> through it.

I guess that could be useful. Of course, *I* don't follow the news, so 
that wouldn't apply to me.

> You can have it once a day download all the news and save
> it in a nice format (like epub, which the Kindle is arrogant enough not
> to support - but you can try the mobi format).

It's not "arrogant". It's "product lock-in". It's a feature. ;-)

> Also, I just got sick of having so many physical books.

I'm one of those weird people who actually likes the look of a big 
weighty tome. I keep thinking about buying TAOCP, for example. (But then 
I realised that I wouldn't understand a word of it, so what's the point?)

On the other hand, I'd only have a few of the best books. I wouldn't 
want to fill my house with millions of books that I'll only read once. 
But then, I don't read enough for that to be a danger...

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 09:09 AM, andrel wrote:

> why would the publishing bussiness act different than the music bussiness?

I get the impression that the only *real* advantage of HD is that you 
can charge people all over again for the same content...

Post a reply to this message

On 18-1-2011 10:16, Invisible wrote:
> On 17/01/2011 05:50 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> scott wrote:
>>> In general more power means you have more possibilities to do stuff to
>>> increase the quality.
>>
>> Or, more bitrate means more switching means more power. Running a DAC at
>> 22KHz is going to take lots more power than running it at 8KHz.
>
> For decent speech transmission, you apparently need a spectrum that goes
> up to about 4 KHz. That means at least 8,000 samples per second.
>
> A CD-quality digital signal is 44,100 samples per second. That's only
> about 5x higher. Are you seriously telling me it takes 5x the power to
> do that?

It depends a bit on the type of DAC. In general power consumption in 
CMOS is almost linear with clock frequency. It does take almost no 
energy to keep a switch in one position, only to flip it to the other 
state. For more than 8 bits resolution often low-pass filtering of 
oversampled data is used, which increases frequency and thus the power 
consumption.

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 9:14 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> dictionary is handy - just double tap on a word and it pulls it up.
>>
>> I find myself reading comments in net news or blogs, and missing the
>> ability to just point at a questionable word and pull up the dictionary.
>
> Surely the vast, vast majority of words you'd actually want to look up
> aren't even in the dictionary?
>
> Obviously I can't find an example now that I want one, but Thunderbird's
> dictionary is missing huge numbers of really quite common words - and it
> isn't even a real "dictionary", it's just a word list. Similarly, when I
> was at school I tried to look up "indefatigable" in the school's (paper)
> dictionary, and it didn't exist. What on Earth makes you think that an
> e-reader would have a more complete dictionary?

Because it has!
The Sony has both the Oxford Dictionary of English and the New Oxford 
American Dictionary.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 18-1-2011 10:24, Invisible wrote:
> On 18/01/2011 09:09 AM, andrel wrote:
>
>> why would the publishing bussiness act different than the music
>> bussiness?
>
> I get the impression that the only *real* advantage of HD

advantage to who? (or is that whom, one of the finer details that is 
lost on me).

> is that you
> can charge people all over again for the same content...

Post a reply to this message

On 18-1-2011 10:22, Invisible wrote:
>>> Besides, who wants a system that can delete the books you've paid for at
>>> any time, for no defined reason?
>>
>> Get an ereader that is not a Kindle
>
> Or perhaps just not get an e-reader at all? It's not like *I* want one
> anyway. ;-)
>
>> One quite unintended benefit for me was the ability to read my news
>> through it.
>
> I guess that could be useful. Of course, *I* don't follow the news, so
> that wouldn't apply to me.
>
>> You can have it once a day download all the news and save
>> it in a nice format (like epub, which the Kindle is arrogant enough not
>> to support - but you can try the mobi format).
>
> It's not "arrogant". It's "product lock-in". It's a feature. ;-)
>
>> Also, I just got sick of having so many physical books.
>
> I'm one of those weird people who actually likes the look of a big
> weighty tome. I keep thinking about buying TAOCP, for example. (But then
> I realised that I wouldn't understand a word of it, so what's the point?)
>
> On the other hand, I'd only have a few of the best books. I wouldn't
> want to fill my house with millions of books that I'll only read once.
> But then, I don't read enough for that to be a danger...

Many people fill their houses with books they intend to read...

Post a reply to this message

>> Obviously I can't find an example now that I want one, but Thunderbird's
>> dictionary is missing huge numbers of really quite common words - and it
>> isn't even a real "dictionary", it's just a word list. Similarly, when I
>> was at school I tried to look up "indefatigable" in the school's (paper)
>> dictionary, and it didn't exist. What on Earth makes you think that an
>> e-reader would have a more complete dictionary?
>
> Because it has!
> The Sony has both the Oxford Dictionary of English and the New Oxford
> American Dictionary.

Obviously I can't remember exactly which dictionary we had at school, 
but it was a big thick thing from either Oxford or Cambridge or what 
have you. And, as I said, it failed to contain the word I wanted. And 
that was a proper reference dictionary, which cost *money*. It seems 
highly implausible to me that a freebie dictionary would be more 
comprehensive.

Post a reply to this message

>> On the other hand, I'd only have a few of the best books. I wouldn't
>> want to fill my house with millions of books that I'll only read once.
>> But then, I don't read enough for that to be a danger...
>
> Many people fill their houses with books they intend to read...

...in which case, I guess if you have an e-reader, you can just fill 
your flash drive with books you intend to read. I can see how that might 
be an advantage.

My mother, of course, fills her house with offcuts of wood. Because, you 
know, in 15 years' time, you might just happen to need a piece of wood 
that's 17.42 cm by 11.19 cm for something... >_<

Post a reply to this message

On 18-1-2011 10:45, Invisible wrote:
>>> On the other hand, I'd only have a few of the best books. I wouldn't
>>> want to fill my house with millions of books that I'll only read once.
>>> But then, I don't read enough for that to be a danger...
>>
>> Many people fill their houses with books they intend to read...
>
> ...in which case, I guess if you have an e-reader, you can just fill
> your flash drive with books you intend to read. I can see how that might
> be an advantage.
>
> My mother, of course, fills her house with offcuts of wood. Because, you
> know, in 15 years' time, you might just happen to need a piece of wood
> that's 17.42 cm by 11.19 cm for something... >_<

on the iPad there is probably an app for that too.

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 9:43 AM, Invisible wrote:

>>
>> Because it has!
>> The Sony has both the Oxford Dictionary of English and the New Oxford
>> American Dictionary.
>
> Obviously I can't remember exactly which dictionary we had at school,
> but it was a big thick thing from either Oxford or Cambridge or what
> have you. And, as I said, it failed to contain the word I wanted. And
> that was a proper reference dictionary, which cost *money*. It seems
> highly implausible to me that a freebie dictionary would be more
> comprehensive.

What can I say other than I’ve got one and you haven’t?
Well I could say school dictionaries are abridged, your school bought 
cheap dictionaries etc.
The dictionary on the Sony is not a freebie it is licenced by the OED 
and if you were to buy it, it would cost you money.
I think that it is quite good and there have been few words that I could 
not find an entry for. Lots of the entries have a link to the word it 
was derived from. Some foreign words in common usage are included as 
well. One thing it doesn’t do is select a phrase from the book text and 
look it up but you can highlight the first work and see if there is an 
entry for that.

BTW "indefatigable" is in this dictionary.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

> Obviously I can't remember exactly which dictionary we had at school,
> but it was a big thick thing from either Oxford or Cambridge or what
> have you.

That's called a concise or shorter dictionary, the majority of words 
have been deleted out so it can fit in one book.  This is a proper 
dictionary:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-English-Dictionary-second-Volumes/dp/0198611862

 > And, as I said, it failed to contain the word I wanted. And
> that was a proper reference dictionary, which cost *money*. It seems
> highly implausible to me that a freebie dictionary would be more
> comprehensive.

Try Chambers free dictionary online (and many others I'm sure), it has 
the word you're after.  I'm sure the Kindle can easily hold a 20-volume 
dictionary, and I guess amazon can easily sort out a deal with a 
supplier for it.

Post a reply to this message

> What can I say other than I’ve got one and you haven’t?

I guess...

> Well I could say school dictionaries are abridged, your school bought
> cheap dictionaries etc.

Well it was big enough. If you had hit somebody over the head with it, 
they would probably have a concussion.

> The dictionary on the Sony is not a freebie it is licenced by the OED
> and if you were to buy it, it would cost you money.

So how come it doesn't cost you money then?

> BTW "indefatigable" is in this dictionary.

How about "frobnicate"?

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 9:41 AM, andrel wrote:
> advantage to who? (or is that whom, one of the finer details that is
> lost on me).

Use he/him to decide who/whom, correctness.

So as "advantage to he" sounds wrong it must be "advantage to whom".

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 10:33 AM, scott wrote:

> That's called a concise or shorter dictionary, the majority of words
> have been deleted out so it can fit in one book. This is a proper
> dictionary:
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-English-Dictionary-second-Volumes/dp/0198611862

> I'm sure the Kindle can easily hold a 20-volume
> dictionary, and I guess amazon can easily sort out a deal with a
> supplier for it.

Then again, the dictionary you linked to costs almost £700. That's 
multiple times the cost of a Kindle. What in the name of God makes you 
think that they would give this kind of thing away for free?

Post a reply to this message

On 18-1-2011 11:36, Stephen wrote:
> On 18/01/2011 9:41 AM, andrel wrote:
>> advantage to who? (or is that whom, one of the finer details that is
>> lost on me).
>
> Use he/him to decide who/whom, correctness.
>
> So as "advantage to he" sounds wrong it must be "advantage to whom".
>
Thanks, that should be easy to remember.

I have the feeling that I do not see that often people using whom, is 
that so or is that because I mainly talk to people for whom it is a 
second language?

Was it the not the nine o'clock news where they had a sketch about a 
student handing in the same paper over and over that turned out to be 
about who/whom? It must be on youtube, but how to find it?

And the sketch about 2 pilots that crashed in Antarctica and one ate the 
other. The final defence (after some lame excuses about penguins) when 
interrogated for murder was that the guy wanted it that way and not the 
other way around, because he was a vegetarian. (though this could very 
well be fry and laurie)

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 10:34 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> What can I say other than I’ve got one and you haven’t?
>
> I guess...
>
>> Well I could say school dictionaries are abridged, your school bought
>> cheap dictionaries etc.
>
> Well it was big enough. If you had hit somebody over the head with it,
> they would probably have a concussion.
>

That explains a lot. :-P

>> The dictionary on the Sony is not a freebie it is licenced by the OED
>> and if you were to buy it, it would cost you money.
>
> So how come it doesn't cost you money then?

It did but included in the price of the e-reader.

>
>> BTW "indefatigable" is in this dictionary.
>
> How about "frobnicate"?

No, neither is pockle.
"Frobnicate" is, I believe, Jargon

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 3:47 AM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Somehow I doubt Gutenberg will have their favorite authors.

Why not? A lot of my wife's favorite authors are in Gutenberg.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

> Then again, the dictionary you linked to costs almost £700.

A lot of that is probably just the manufacturing cost.

 > That's
> multiple times the cost of a Kindle. What in the name of God makes you
> think that they would give this kind of thing away for free?

Who said anything about giving it away for free?  Amazon probably gives 
2 pounds or something to the dictionary publisher for each Kindle sale. 
  The dictionary publisher is happy because they are getting loads of 
extra money for basically doing nothing (beyond preparing the data for 
the Kindle).

Post a reply to this message

> Use he/him to decide who/whom, correctness.

Is it valid to use I/me to decide "x and I"/"x and me" correctness?  If 
so, I see a lot of people getting it wrong - eg "Me and John will be 
coming tomorrow" or "It will be John and I coming tomorrow"

Post a reply to this message

>>> The dictionary on the Sony is not a freebie it is licenced by the OED
>>> and if you were to buy it, it would cost you money.
>>
>> So how come it doesn't cost you money then?
>
> It did but included in the price of the e-reader.

Except that a dictionary is more expensive than an e-reader...

Post a reply to this message

> I have the feeling that I do not see that often people using whom, is
> that so or is that because I mainly talk to people for whom it is a
> second language?

IME those with English as a second language would be more likely to know 
when to use who/whom than native speakers :-)

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 10:50 AM, andrel wrote:

>>
> Thanks, that should be easy to remember.
>

:-)

> I have the feeling that I do not see that often people using whom, is
> that so or is that because I mainly talk to people for whom it is a
> second language?
>
Because of the "sloppiness" in the way people speak now, it is 
considered overly correct or posh.
You might hear a rejoinder (in a gay tone). “Ooo! Get him, whooom!”

> Was it the not the nine o'clock news...
>
> And the sketch about...

Sorry, I was out of the country at the time ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 11:05 AM, scott wrote:

> IME those with English as a second language would be more likely to know
> [insert feature X of the English language here] than native speakers :-)

FTFY.

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 11:04 AM, scott wrote:
>> Use he/him to decide who/whom, correctness.
>
> Is it valid to use I/me to decide "x and I"/"x and me" correctness? If
> so, I see a lot of people getting it wrong - eg "Me and John will be
> coming tomorrow" or "It will be John and I coming tomorrow"

It is always polite to put yourself second. The rule I use is to say the 
sentence without the supplementary “X and”.
"Me and John will be coming tomorrow" -> “Me will be coming tomorrow" – 
Not right.
“I will be coming tomorrow" – Right.
"I and John will be coming tomorrow" – Right.
"John and I will be coming tomorrow" – Righter.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 11:04 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>> The dictionary on the Sony is not a freebie it is licenced by the OED
>>>> and if you were to buy it, it would cost you money.
>>>
>>> So how come it doesn't cost you money then?
>>
>> It did but included in the price of the e-reader.
>
> Except that a dictionary is more expensive than an e-reader...

You are comparing a bound book with software that costs ~ £10 to buy.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 18/01/2011 3:57 AM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Stephen<mcavoys_at@aoldotcom>  writes:
>
>> On 13/01/2011 3:50 PM, nemesis wrote:
>>> or to
>>> read ebooks in tiny letters...:)
>>
>> With E Books, you can change the font size.
>> I would not go anywhere without my Sony Reader.
>
> I love my Sony. The interface is really good.

Me too!
The Sony software is Crap, IMO. I use Calibre exclusively.

I can't imagine life
> without the touch sensitive display (I use it to read news). Also, the
> dictionary is handy - just double tap on a word and it pulls it up.
>

For free Andrew :-P

> I'm sure I'll find some use for handwriting notes with the stylus one
> day, but haven't thought of one yet.
>

I’ve used it to jot down notes and sketches that I’ve had while reading. 
But I find that the m/c’s response is too slow to be useful.

> What I find really cool is that when I transfer news from Calibre to the
> Sony, the device *knows* that it's receiving news. So it puts them all
> in the Periodicals Section. This way, my list of ebooks is not cluttered
> with hundreds of newspaper ebooks.
>
That is a good piece of software, regularly updated. I find it slightly 
annoying how long it takes to “compute disk space” when installing but 
scince that is the only complaint I have, I’ll keep it to myself.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 18/01/2011 09:09 AM, andrel wrote:
>
> > why would the publishing bussiness act different than the music bussiness?
>
> I get the impression that the only *real* advantage of HD is that you
> can charge people all over again for the same content...


it is an advantage for people with non-damaged eyes.

Also, most people with new HD gear are buying new HD content, only occasionally
buying an old classic due nostalgia...

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> He didn't say, but it's not hard to believe. Consider Arthur C. Clarke:
>> Isaac Asimov's is similar (15 books).
>> Precious little of Ray Bradbury.
>
> Sure. None of which I'd guess were favorites of anyone's grandparents. :-)

Well, many people's grandparents are your parents' age. Those three
authors are most people's grandparents' contemporaries. Along with Roald
Dahl.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> dictionary is handy - just double tap on a word and it pulls it up.
>
> I find myself reading comments in net news or blogs, and missing the
> ability to just point at a questionable word and pull up the dictionary.

If you use Firefox, I'm sure there's an extension for that.

>> I'm sure I'll find some use for handwriting notes with the stylus one
>> day, but haven't thought of one yet.
>
> If you don't have a very smart phone, you could put appointments or
> phone numbers in it. :-)

Actually, I don't. My phone cost about $25. I'm not a cell phone
guy. Good point, though.

Post a reply to this message

Stephen <mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> writes:

>> I love my Sony. The interface is really good.
>
> Me too!
> The Sony software is Crap, IMO. I use Calibre exclusively.

I use the Sony software only to buy stuff from their store.

Post a reply to this message

andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> writes:

>>> Making customers have to re-buy material because they lost access would
>>> be very poor customer service indeed.
>>
>> Obviously they're not doing this on purpose,
>
> why would the publishing bussiness act different than the music bussiness?

Because with ebooks, it's easier to self publish than it is for
musicians to do so. 

Most of the reason we needed publishers was as a means to get our books
into stores. According to a lot of people, all the marketing they do
rarely helps sales. What does help is the ability to get bookstores to
put your book in an accessible place. This whole ebooks thing is
changing that.

The other benefit of publishers is editing, etc.

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> I think that it is quite good and there have been few words that I could 
> not find an entry for. 

I'd say about 90% of the words I try to look up are in the Kindle 
dictionary. Of the 10% that aren't, I'm guessing at least half are made-up 
words (since I'm reading sci-fi). Most of the words I look up, I know what 
they mean, and I just don't know the definition.

The Kindle comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary, and you can buy 
others for some nominal fee.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> If you use Firefox, I'm sure there's an extension for that.

I just type it into google. It's not frequent enough that I feel I have to 
streamline it from ten keystrokes down to two.

> Actually, I don't. My phone cost about $25. I'm not a cell phone
> guy. Good point, though.

Yeah, I have a document on my Kindle which is basically a calendar. If I 
want to take notes, I highlight the date and put in a "margin" note.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> scince that is the only complaint I have, I’ll keep it to mysel
f.

Good job on that!

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> A CD-quality digital signal is 44,100 samples per second. That's only 
> about 5x higher. Are you seriously telling me it takes 5x the power to 
> do that?

In addition to what Andrel said, remember that when you're listening to 
music, you're almost constantly using the DAC. When you're talking on the 
phone, the output DAC is turned off while you're speaking, and the output DC 
is turned off between words.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> Is it valid to use I/me to decide "x and I"/"x and me" correctness? 

Yes.
-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> It's not "arrogant". It's "product lock-in". It's a feature. ;-)

Actually, "mobi" is essentially the same as "prc", which is a Sony format. 
It's not lock-in, it's just an older standard.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 18/01/2011 4:27 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>> scince that is the only complaint I have, I’ll keep it to myself.
>
> Good job on that!
>

;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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>>> Obviously they're not doing this on purpose,
>>
>> why would the publishing bussiness act different than the music bussiness?
>
> Because with ebooks, it's easier to self publish than it is for
> musicians to do so.

I'm not sure I agree with that.

It's pretty easy to write a document and put it online somewhere. It's 
pretty easy to make some music and put it online somewhere. Either way, 
you don't really need a publisher.

If you want to earn money, and if you want publicity, you probably need 
a publisher.

I don't really see how ebooks are different from music, video, or 
anything else.

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On 18/01/2011 4:24 PM, Darren New wrote:
> I'm guessing at least half are made-up words (since I'm reading sci-fi).

That is a proble with SF.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 18-1-2011 17:03, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  writes:
>
>>>> Making customers have to re-buy material because they lost access would
>>>> be very poor customer service indeed.
>>>
>>> Obviously they're not doing this on purpose,
>>
>> why would the publishing bussiness act different than the music bussiness?
>
> Because with ebooks, it's easier to self publish than it is for
> musicians to do so.

It is easier to write a book than to record a demo or album, but the 
publishing is just as easy.

>
> Most of the reason we needed publishers was as a means to get our books
> into stores.

Just as you need the record company to get your record played on a 
radiostation. If it isn't played in general it won't reach the shops. 
Perhaps with the exception of established bands, but there won't be a 
chance to get established.

> According to a lot of people, all the marketing they do
> rarely helps sales.

That might be different indeed for a five minute multiple play and a 2 
days attention span (mostly) single play item.

> What does help is the ability to get bookstores to
> put your book in an accessible place. This whole ebooks thing is
> changing that.

Yes, as it is changing the access to the public for startup bands.

> The other benefit of publishers is editing, etc.

In short I see hardly a difference. Besides my remark was on the 
financial side. Those that own rights do their best to sell their IP as 
many times as possible. If that means selling it to the same person 
multiple times makes no difference. I have not heard of a record company 
that released a best of album and then said to a customer: I see you 
have already paid your dues for the IP for 80% of it, so you get a 
discount. In contrast what they will do is create a 'best off' with 1 or 
two unreleased songs so the fans will buy it anyway even if they own the 
rest. With books that is more difficult, but I think they do the same 
with collections of short stories if they can.

In both cases the main problem is reaching potential listeners/readers. 
When that is really solved publishers and record companies cease to 
exist. Until then they will use every trick, possibly with the exception 
of blackmail and bribery, to stop that from happening.

The second problem is getting the author/musician paid.

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