locked ebooks

[miriam_e]

Most people seem to assume that locked ebooks are just a fact of life; that they are needed. But I've never seen anybody mention anywhere the simple fact that every locked ebook you ever own will lock you out eventually.

It is inescapeable.

Any time you upgrade your hardware or software you will lose all your old locked ebooks. If you can find those books for sale, and if you have the spare cash you can always buy them again, I guess. If you can't and they were fiction books and you never re-read fiction then it might not bother you too much, but if they are reference books, well bad luck.

Doesn't this seem just a bit perverse???

Locked ebooks are a really bad idea. There has to be another way.
I think that other way is open ebooks. We need to start treating readers as friends instead of enemies.

Comments

[flemco.livejournal.com]

As this is something I hold a strong opinion on, I will hereby splatter said opinion all over your LJ for no particular reason other than "I can":

Go buy a paper book, you goddamned hippies.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Cory Doctorow talks about the love of paper books as a fetish.

So what the hell's wrong with a paper fetish?

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't believe the number of people I have heard justifying their preference for paper because of the look, feel, and smell of paper. Sure sounds like a fetish to me. :)

I don't see anything wrong with a fetish, so long as people see it for what it is and don't hurt others. But if they try to use their personal fetish as the basis for arguing that paper is better, then they are simply wrong. Open ebooks are plainly better.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I have and I do. I have around 2,000 paper books. Last time I moved house most of the large truck I hired was taken up with books and it took me about a week to pack them all up. These days I am gradually changing over to ebooks. I now have about 3,000 (open) ebooks and they fit on a single DVD. Big difference.

I had a nightmare a little while back. I woke in fearful sweats from it but it really got me thinking. In the nightmare I had to flee my house due to a natural disaster that was about to destroy all in its path. In the dream I picked up my folder of DVDs that contain programs and ebooks, and my little Palm computer on which I do most of my reading, and my laptop computer, leaving all my thousands of paper books to destruction.

These days I can easily carry a couple of thousand ebooks on a USB drive as a pendant around my neck.

This is why locked ebooks are so worrying. Electronic books have very real benefits. They are easier to read, bookmark, refer to, carry, store, and share than paper books. If we make the mistake of moving to locked ebooks in any big way then we not only lose those benefits, but we incur other, unnecessary, draconian penalties as well.

This is going to be a long one...

[gothxxangel.livejournal.com]

I can easily carry a couple of thousand ebooks on a USB drive as a pendant around my neck This sentence gave me a chill--in a good way.

Right now I'm battling a different kind of access problem and it's ALL caused by paper books. Physically shipping paper books across oceans and continents and whatnot drives their price up to double their original cover price. Because of that, bookstores here will only carry English-language books they know will sell--namely those with a movie tie-in. For people who've already read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Memoirs of a Geisha" there's precious little else.

Storage being in such short supply here as well makes the physical nature of paper books highly incompatible with daily life. The Japanese are prolific readers, but also throw out and sell used books (libraries anyone??) in large amounts. We even have a twice-monthly garbage day specifically for old books and magazines; train stations have specific trash cans for them.

I'm also in favour of having ebooks in an easily accessible format (ie downloaded on a DVD or USB drive) but for some reason that hasn't taken hold here. My own little handheld has basically NO memory and is only good for reading online books, some of which are good and some...well, skippable. What I'd really like is something like you've mentioned: bookmarking and easily-accessed books.

Locked books sound scary....

Re: This is going to be a long one...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

My own little handheld has basically NO memory

I have a feeling you've told me before, but what kind of handheld do you have?

What I'd really like is something like you've mentioned: bookmarking and easily-accessed books.

Depending on what machine you have, the best ebook reader I've found is Plucker, which is free. http://www.plkr.org
Around 20 ebook novels on an 8MB machine will still leave almost half the memory free. If you have a newer machine that can take those little postage stamp-sized flash RAM cards then you can hold thousands.

Plucker also has the best method of organising your library interface that I've seen. It lets you give each document a marker based upon what category it falls into. You decide what the categories are. Then you can display items based on one or all of some set of marks you want. This sounds confusing until you try it.

Re: This is going to be a long one...

[gothxxangel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link, I'll definitely be checking that out.

I've got something called a "Zaurus" and it's a tempermental little piece of hardware. It does take the tiny flash memory cards (in theory) I've yet to find a way to not make it freeze up when one is inserted. Anyway, that's another kind of bonding experience we all need to go through with our gadgets. Haha!

Re: This is going to be a long one...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, cool! A Zaurus. Always wanted one of them.

But Plucker is no good for the Zaurus I think, though there should be plenty of other readers for the Zaurus. Is your Zaurus one of those running a version of Linux?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus

There is a heap of software available for the Zaurus it seems, as you would expect of something that can benefit from the Linux world.
http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/
Choosing 'Applications' from the menu on the left:
http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/showapps.php?cat=1
- DarkStar is an HTML editor
- DocReader reads Palm docs
- FBReader is another ebook reader.
and 'Utilities' http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/showapps.php?cat=10
has heaps more stuff too. Lots of text and HTML editors.

Of course all this probably depends upon the model you have.

If the machine freezes when you add a memory card... have you looked carefully at whether the kind of memory card makes a difference? For instance, SD cards and MM cards look the same but are slightly different internally. Also have you tried inserting the card while the Zaurus is switched off and then turning it on?

Have you asked the people at Sharp for support?
http://www.myzaurus.com/

There is a Zaurus User Group
http://www.zaurususergroup.org/
They probably have a forum for Q&A

You've probably tried all these things. :)
Forgive my blathering on. I'll go away and try to do some productive work. :)