Just uploaded a recording of a presentation I did yesterday on eBooks. Here's the description:

eBooks: Promise and Reality

eBooks have been around for several years and every couple of years the technology is hyped as being ready for mass consumption. We'll take a look at the current eBook landscape. I'll demo several hardware solutions, including the Sony PRS-500 Reader System and alternative devices like cell phones and the PlayStation Portable. I'll demonstrate how to use BookDesigner to convert among formats and other software tools. We'll talk about sources for eBooks like the Gutenberg Project. We'll also take a look at newly announced technology, including Amazon's Kindle eBook reader, Adobe's new Digital Editions format, and color eInk devices that were shown at SIGGRAPH this summer.

View the Presentation

(Adobe Presenter Flash format)

So I've been fooling around more with the Samsung Sync and eBook reading and I've discovered a few new bits that might be helpful to anyone who would like to use the device for reading eBooks. I'm preparing for a presentation on eBooks that I'll be giving on Wednesday, so I'm doing some experimentation with various hardware and software tools.

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I received an interesting comment on my post about getting video onto my Samsung Sync mobile phone this morning. In the comment, Matt asks if I've ever tried to use the Sync to read eBooks. I hadn't. But being an eBook user and fan, I took it as a challenge. Matt had already tried copying a text file over using Bluetooth and opened it using the Picsel file viewer. The results are unsatisfactory - clunky zoom and the need to pan all over the place to read because the text does not wrap. I suspect the text is being treated as if it is an image and this makes it impossible for the software to understand the document's text flow. Matt had been on the right track after this initial attempt. He says he tried to open the browser and could not find any way to use the file:// protocol to call up the file in the web browser.

Here's how I solved these problems and was able to read text comfortably on the Sync:

I took a Word document (it could have been any text format) and saved the file from Word as HTML Filtered. The "Filtered" option in Word 2007 strips out all the nasty Microsoft specific code that might not render properly in the Sync's browser. I then copied the file to my MicroSD card and popped it into the phone. I navigated to the file using the "My Stuff" file browser and opened the file. Because it was an HTML file it opened directly in the phone's browser. This result had two consequences that were an improvement over the Picsel file viewer. First, the text was sized properly for reading on the small screen, and second, the text properly flowed vertically and wrapped nicely so that no side-to-side scrolling was necessary. In addition, the browser allows you to resize the text on the page; there are three text size settings: normal, smaller, and larger. I found the normal sized text to be very much readable on my phone, and scrolling down for more text was not too bad.

Thanks again to Matt for asking this interesting question. I still find it really cool that we have these fantastic computers that we carry around everywhere with us and that fit in the palm of our hands. I feel like I'm in a Star Trek episode sometimes when I think about the ubiquity of this kind of technology.

Wired ran an article in the latest issue about a new website that takes the idea of user created video to the next level with a focus on experimental methodology in the sciences. The Journal of Visualized Experiments offers howtos on hardcore experimental methods. These methods have been bound up in tacit knowledge which is extremely difficult to extract from the brains of seasoned researchers. Now with a little work and a community of inquiry spirit, these bits of specialized expertise can be easily accessed as needed. This kind of site really brings to the fore the fact that video has reached the level that desktop publishing reached in the last decade. What's next you might ask? Desktop fabrication. Work has already begun on DIY open source rapid prototypers.

So, I know some of my readers have used my original DVD ripping and encoding guide to get setup with the right software. But some of the recommendations are stale. At the very least I wanted to recommend a product to take the place of DVD Decrypter which has been abandoned by its creators under legal threats from the MPAA and their minions.

I have been using an inexpensive tool from Slysoft to help with copying DVDs. AnyDVD is a lightweight driver that removes CSS, Macrovision, and Region Codes from DVDs making them directly accessible for conversion using any encoding utility such as Nero Recode 2, 1ClickDVDCopy, and others. For $30 it is well worth the price. The application is updated frequently to keep up with new encryption/copy protection schemes used by movie studios who want to tell you where and when you can watch a DVD you have purchased. Highly recommended.

So my birthday was a few months ago and I received a couple gift certificates and some cash as gifts. At the time I was thinking that I would save the money and combine it with anything I received at Christmas and a few bucks I saved in the meantime and buy a PS3 when they become more widely available in the next few months. I'm more interested in the mediahub/den computer aspects of the machine, so the 60 GB model is the only thing I'm considering. With accessories and a game or two, the PS3 would probably run me about $1,000.

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