Kindle books versus oldfashioned ones ??

[anivid]

"Returns coming in all the time" - W_P
Interesting to be able to see things from the other side
I gather lots of the returns were about colour - no ??
That's still a great obstacle when buying cloths on the net.
The photographer has to cooperate with the screen technology - with the result that the combinied forces lack somewhat behind - often a pic for a catalogue is used, and those pics are taken with filters for beautyfying, matter in fact the description of the colour is non better
So here's really a field for improvement.
Also the field for educating the customers seem to need improvement

But tell W_P, wasn't things from a net trade intented to be somewhat cheaper in price than those from a street trade ??
Personally I prefer the net boutiques - I just hate to try on cloths in those little chambers they have in the street shops - it's like doing Taekwondo in a submarine

 

[Warren_Paul]

"Returns coming in all the time" - W_P
Interesting to be able to see things from the other side
I gather lots of the returns were about colour - no ??
That's still a great obstacle when buying cloths on the net.
The photographer has to cooperate with the screen technology - with the result that the combinied forces lack somewhat behind - often a pic for a catalogue is used, and those pics are taken with filters for beautyfying, matter in fact the description of the colour is non better
So here's really a field for improvement.
Also the field for educating the customers seem to need improvement

But tell W_P, wasn't things from a net trade intented to be somewhat cheaper in price than those from a street trade ??
Personally I prefer the net boutiques - I just hate to try on cloths in those little chambers they have in the street shops - it's like doing Taekwondo in a submarine

Colour was a big issue, yes. Also the fact that once they tried it on, the clothes didn't suit them, or fit them right.

Dare I say it... the third reason is that sometimes the DC workers just pick the wrong item off the shelf...

Yeah, I guess it is cheaper than a designer clothes shop, but the clothes cost more than what you would pay at the department stores over here. (Warehouse, Farmers, Kmart)

 

[Overread]

One other thought - I can eat crisps or something with my kindle and not worry about getting grease marks on the kindle as they just wipe off. With books its clean fingers only unless one wants marks to appear.
Both are also equally weak to water based threats - though in theory Kindles could easily be made 100% watertight or at least heavily water resistant (you'd only really have to have cover built over the connection ports and the basic ones without a keyboard would just need the buttons proofing).

The photographer has to cooperate with the screen technology - with the result that the combinied forces lack somewhat behind - often a pic for a catalogue is used, and those pics are taken with filters for beautyfying, matter in fact the description of the colour is non better
So here's really a field for improvement.
Also the field for educating the customers seem to need improvement

And possibly teaching customers how to order their real size and not their dream size (or in the case of guys getting them to bother to measure their size and not just use the last one that worked years ago when they last bought clothes ).

On the subject of colour though, that is a nightmare as pretty much no computer screens are colour calibrated for real world colour and many LCDs have the brightness and vibrancy turned up a lot (you'd be amazed how much brightness you can cut from the screens settings and still have a clear readable screen with a lot less glare).
It's a topic that comes up for photographers as well, and proper calibration isn't little charts on the screen, its got to be done by a specialist machine (human eyes adapt way too much to judge colour impartially).

 

[Moonbat]

An issue with the Kindle has popped up in our house. Swapping books.
After watching the HBO series, my GF wants to read a Game of throns, I have them on my kindle as I have read up to book three, but without lending her my kindle I can lend her the book to read. With a normal book this wouldn't be a problem, but we have had to swap kindles, and only because I found a book or two worth reading on her Kindle.

Some books can be lent to another kindle, but only for 14 days, but not the ASOIAF books. So, though I still love my kindle, there is a problem/restriction with them.

 

[Warren_Paul]

An issue with the Kindle has popped up in our house. Swapping books.
After watching the HBO series, my GF wants to read a Game of throns, I have them on my kindle as I have read up to book three, but without lending her my kindle I can lend her the book to read. With a normal book this wouldn't be a problem, but we have had to swap kindles, and only because I found a book or two worth reading on her Kindle.

Some books can be lent to another kindle, but only for 14 days, but not the ASOIAF books. So, though I still love my kindle, there is a problem/restriction with them.

Hmm, we are dipping back into legal issues here, me thinks... I don't use a kindle, so I'm not sure how the library system works for your collection. I believe it is hosted on the Amazon cloud server now?

With the Sony Reader, my library is on my computer, so there isn't really anything to stop me putting the file onto 2 Sony Readers, if I had two of them. Other than the legal issues of course - it's probably considered making a duplicate copy, so technically pirating.

But yes, that is a drawback to using a Kindle.


EDIT:

I think my limitation is that the PC program might only be allowed to register 1 reader, but that doesn't stop me adding the file to the library. I just add it to the libraries for both the readers. It can't tell that the other reader already has it added.


On further research, I can authorise up to 6 readers to one account, so... yeah, guess Sony doesn't have that problem. Another reason not to go with Kindle maybe? I thought the mobi format and spam was bad enough.

 

[The Procrastinator]

That's one of the reasons I shied away from buying a Kindle and went for the more generic epub-based reader. You can get free and non-drm books in epub format.

 

[ScottSF]

An issue with the Kindle has popped up in our house. Swapping books.
After watching the HBO series, my GF wants to read a Game of throns, I have them on my kindle as I have read up to book three, but without lending her my kindle I can lend her the book to read. With a normal book this wouldn't be a problem, but we have had to swap kindles, and only because I found a book or two worth reading on her Kindle.

Some books can be lent to another kindle, but only for 14 days, but not the ASOIAF books. So, though I still love my kindle, there is a problem/restriction with them.

It's a bit of a hassle but my wife bought me a few books when she bought me the kindle and what she did was register the kindle to her, then she loaded the books she bought me on it, then I de-registered and registered the device to me and the books she put on it were still there. And still are.

 

[Finnien]

This may not be entirely relevant, and I've posted something similar in the Barnes and Noble publishing thread, but something for Kindle buyers to be aware of is the movement of some of the major publishers away from DRM-locked content towards more open formats. Charles Stross and John Scalzi have recently written articles on the move towards more open, drm-free formats in order to combat the leverage that Amazon is starting to be able to bring to bear on publishers. Interesting reading for its own sake, but the main thing to be aware of is that we may quickly find two separate and distinct ebook markets - Kindle books, sold by Amazon, readable only on Kindle devices and apps on one side, and every ebook sold by every other publisher and distributor on every other device on the other side, using epub or a similar format. It's kind of like iTunes purchases only being useable on Apple devices... only there really isn't a major alternative to iTunes yet, the way there is with the Nook. That's not to say there's nothing good about the Kindle - if you're fine just reading it on one device and aren't worried about long-term ownership/re-readability, then Kindle has a lot going for it - huge selection, easy delivery, access to cheap or free indie books, etc. It's just worth being aware of the format issues associated with buying something on the Kindle, versus other e-reader formats.

 

[steve12553]

I have two tablets. The first was a present from my wife (she thought it was a color Nook) I was actually a Pandigital that was Nook compatible. The second one I received was also a Pandigital but was not bought so much as a reader but as a true tablet. It also has "apps" (I hate that word. They're really programs) that will read Nook or Kindle (separate, of course). If you go with a device referred to as a tablet rather than a reader you can run both programs and either book format. Amazon has a large library but the epub (Nook style) readers are able to pull up a lot of free older books. Myself, I've not read all the old books in the world really feel like I owe it to myself to try. Goals don't have to be realistic. This is, after all, a Science Fiction/ Fantasy forum is it not?

 

[monkeypooper]

on my 3rd this year apparantly a books screen doesnt crack when you clumsily sit on it yet the advert shows someone with a Kindle in there back pocket

 

[Warren_Paul]

I'd never put it in my back pocket, that's just crazy.

It wouldn't quite fit anyway. I use my coat pocket to carry my reader.


And if you don't have a cover for your ereader, get one now! If you don't then you're just asking for trouble.

I have the black one of these for mine, but also with the light:

 

[Catswold]

The Kindle shows up as a hard drive on your computer. All you have to do is open the Kindle under file manager and access your library. The books can be copied like any other file and loaded onto the other Kindle. There is, as previously mentioned, the question of legality, but the act itself is quite simple.

As for epub books and other free ebook libraries, there are a number of programs . . . I use Calibre . . . that can reformat all ebooks into what ever reader format you desire. Most of the books on my Kindle are downloads of classics from one of the free libraries online (all books are out of copyright) or from one of the other legal free sources like Baen Books free library.

Kindle will natively work with mobi format as well as the azw (Kindle) and pdf formats.

 

[steve12553]

.

As for epub books and other free ebook libraries, there are a number of programs . . . I use Calibre . . . that can reformat all ebooks into what ever reader format you desire. Most of the books on my Kindle are downloads of classics from one of the free libraries online (all books are out of copyright) or from one of the other legal free sources like Baen Books free library.

Kindle will natively work with mobi format as well as the azw (Kindle) and pdf formats.

I just downloaded Calibre. I was not aware of conversion programs before that. I have a fair amount of ebooks that I acquired for my Palm device several years ago. I still have a Palm but they are out of manufacture and when this one dies of old age it will be much harder to reacquire one. I keep the files in more than one location so if they can be converted for a newer style device I can continue enjoying the books just like the physical ones that I have carried around through moves and a divorce and whatever may come up.

 

[Reedg06]

Hmmmm

I have been considering going the kindle way myself for the past month or so. I do love having a real book in my hands, but having a whole library...NOW THAT'S POWER!!!!!

Still undecided, but it looks like it definitely has it's advantages....

Now if only the Kindle smelled like an old book!!!


GREED

 

[Overread]

Nice thing about Calibre is that it interfaces with a Kindle when you plug one in. So you can easily manage the content of the kindle (at least all the normal stuff not bought on Amazon).
I also use it a lot to edit the meta-data of books I find online for free (many of the expired copyright sites just display in text form - so books need titles and authors and edition and converting - Calibre does it all easily).

 

[Vertigo]

I just downloaded Calibre. I was not aware of conversion programs before that. I have a fair amount of ebooks that I acquired for my Palm device several years ago. I still have a Palm but they are out of manufacture and when this one dies of old age it will be much harder to reacquire one. I keep the files in more than one location so if they can be converted for a newer style device I can continue enjoying the books just like the physical ones that I have carried around through moves and a divorce and whatever may come up.

Calibre happily converts between a lot of formats; from RTF and plain text up to MOBI and ePub. They are generally easy to do but do run into problems if the book is DRM secured. Those problems can be circumvented quite easily though not totally legally. However I would debate the (moral at least) legality of me being restricted in how I can use something I have paid for. ie. Amazon forcing me to only read a book bought from Amazon on a Kindle.

I have all my books stored in ePub format on my PC (and so backed up with the rest of my data). If I buy in Amazon's AZW format I convert it to ePub. This way I know that if anything happens to my Sony in the future or if I buy a different device such as a Kindle, I will have no problems moving all my books to the new device.

Amazon's insistence on using their own format angers and frustrates me in equal measure.

 

[Warren_Paul]

Hmmmm

I have been considering going the kindle way myself for the past month or so. I do love having a real book in my hands, but having a whole library...NOW THAT'S POWER!!!!!

Still undecided, but it looks like it definitely has it's advantages....

Now if only the Kindle smelled like an old book!!!


GREED

Just keep in mind if you get a Kindle, you can't read .epubs so limited to books purchased solely on Amazon - although as mentioned, you can convert it with Calibre. I believe there is annoying things calibre does to the file though, isn't there? I remember trying it out once and it added comments that the file was made in calibre every 10 or so pages...

I'd strongly recommend considering all the other major brands, Sony, Nook, Kobo, before deciding if you want to get a Kindle over them.

 

[Overread]

I remember trying it out once and it added comments that the file was made in calibre every 10 or so pages...

Hmm never had that - maybe it was an older version of Calibre? (eg a demo and the earlier version was paid for software whereas its now freeware)

 

[Warren_Paul]

Hmm never had that - maybe it was an older version of Calibre? (eg a demo and the earlier version was paid for software whereas its now freeware)

Maybe so, it was a long time ago. I've not tried the software again recently, haven't had the need; every shop sells .epub except for Amazon, and Amazon isn't the cheapest either, so I've never had the urge to buy a .mobi ebook.

 

[Vertigo]

Hmm never had that - maybe it was an older version of Calibre? (eg a demo and the earlier version was paid for software whereas its now freeware)

Me neither, though I do occasionally have very minor formatting problems with some conversions. Though those too can usually be dealt with in the Calibre conversion controls.