E-book readers

[stitchawl]

What's worse is that the ebooks are horribly crippled. I've had some etextbooks where you can't copy/paste text from it, take screenshots, or even print pages

Have these been pdf files? It's quite common to lock pdf, but just as easy to unlock them. As for different formats, that's were the free software called 'Calibre' comes in. You can easily convert one format to another, change meta-data, add tags, create multiple libraries, etc.

Stitchawl

 

[shunsui]

The whole situation with etextbooks is disgusting.

What we need for textbooks are "open sourced" ebooks put together by teachers, students, and professionals. I'd imagine the textbook publishers have made enough money to retire comfortably.

 

[smegs]

My daughter gave Grandpa a Kindle for Christmas. She gave me one too. I thought Grandpa would balk at using it. Boy, was I wrong. He's thrilled with it. Takes it everywhere and has read about 10 books with it since Christmas.

I only have one nit to pick with the device. I wish I could sync to the furthest page read with different devices like my phone or Ipad. Seems that it only works with books purchased from Amazon and not with books you already own. Other than that, it's my preferred reader. The button layout is excellent and the E-ink is easy on the eyes.