What is all the fuss about with ereaders?
I felt that perhaps it might be useful to go right back to the basics of the whats and whys of ereaders and ebooks, to try and explore why anyone should buy such a device to read their books with – after all, we have happily read books published on paper for centuries now, with no real problems.
It is absolutely true that paper books are an almost perfectly designed method for reading, but they suffer from a number of drawbacks, and it is these drawbacks that the ereader and its attendant ebooks were designed to respond to.
Drawback number 1:
Paper books are – or can be – heavy and bulky to carry around.
Drawback number 2:
You need to find a book shop to get new books to read.
Drawback number 3:
If you are old or visually impaired paper books can be hard or impossible to read owing to the text being too small.
These are just a few examples of the way that paper books are not actually the ideal method of dealing with your reading needs, there are probably many more if one sat down and really thought about it, but they will do to start with.
Ok, so how do ereaders and ebooks respond to these points?
An ereader is at its simplest, nothing more than a device in which you may store an enormous number of ebooks (ebooks = electronic or digital books), so that instead of having to deal with kilos of paper, you merely have one light and generally comfortably sized device on which to keep an almost unlimited number of books, and with which it is simple and pleasant to read these books with.
An increasing number of ereaders these days are capable of connecting to various online book shops via the mobile phone network, so you can go and hunt up new ebooks directly from your ereader very easily and rapidly. Thus you can find and buy ebooks at any moment you choose without moving from your house.
This last benefit of ereaders is truly useful, all ereaders are capable of presenting your ebooks to you in a variety of text sizes, from very small to very large, all at the click of a button, so you can adjust the size of the text you are reading to suite your needs at all times. This is a real boon for those whose eye sight is not perfect – which is a vast number of us.
So, those are some of the advantages of ereaders.
Now, what exactly is an ereader?
An ereader is a device consisting of a screen and various buttons with which to carry out the different actions you need in order to read or organise your ebooks. and in which you may store your ebooks. They come in basically two types, which relate to the type of screen they offer you, and are generally about the size of a paper back novel. But much thinner.
e-Ink screens:
The first, and generally considered best type of ereaders for simply reading with have one version or another of what is called an e-Ink or e-Paper screen. Currently these are almost all monochrome, which means black text on a white page. These are very easy on your eyes, as they are not in fact merely small computer screens, but an electronic version of paper, so they are not in fact illuminated as a computer screen is (called Back Lit). Thus, as with a paper book, you will need a reading light if you want to read in a dark place, and if you are in bright sunlight, they work perfectly. In fact they behave exactly the same as a paper book does in this respect. Thus an ereader with an e-ink screen is to all intents and purposes exactly like a paper book.
LCD or TFT screens:
The other type currently available make use of some version of a computer screen, and are thus capable of reproducing colour, which can be good (magazines, kids books, text books and so on). But, they suffer from a number of problems. Firstly they are very hard to see in bright sunlight (try a computer on a beach and you will see what I mean), they are much harder on the eye, and owing to the different technology used, they consume much more power, so you have to recharge its batteries much more often than with an e-ink ereader – every few hours instead of about once every couple of weeks as is the case with e-Ink screens.
What do I see on the screen?
Whichever type of screen technology you get, they both work on the same basic idea, that is they present you with one page at a time on the screen, and when you have read that page, either by means of a button, or sort of a swiping action you move on to the following page (if it has a touch screen – which means that you control your ereader by means of a touch sensitive screen, rather than buttons) . Just as with a paper book really, except here you only have one page at a time (which in passing I would mention makes bed time reading much easier… get comfortable and you dont have to deal with left hand and right hand pages, if you see what I mean).
As I said above, another benefit of an ereader is the ability to set the text size to a size that works for you. All ereaders, regardless of whatever type of screen they use have this extremely useful ability.
Also, all ereaders (well, almost all) remember the last page you were reading when you have turned it off, so when you want to carry on reading, you can go directly to the page you were reading, a sort of electronic dog-earing system.
Easy to use?
Yes, is the simple answer to that question. Ereaders are mostly very well designed to use – at least the better makes are. there are an increasing number of cheap Chinese made ones appearing on the market, and these can be tricky to get working, so if you happen to be not very good with computers, you should perhaps avoid these ereaders, and choose one of the established makes (Sony, Kindle, Nook, Kobo and so on).
Assuming you have an ereader that is moderately well designed, you will master it in a very short time, certainly using it simply to store and read ebooks with.
Other functions:
Most ereaders these days come with a whole variety of extra functions, which may or may not be of use to you. Such as the ability to make notes on pages, using one form or other of keyboard that the device may have, highlight or mark passages that interest you, built in dictionaries to enable you to quickly find the meanings of words in the text you might not know, and a whole load of other functions. Obviously when choosing an ereader, you should consider which if any, of these extra functions are of interest to you,and choose accordingly.
Where do you get your ebooks?
This can be fun, and also very tricky, as the publishing and book selling world is still struggling to find the business model that works both for them and for us, and frankly, it is something of a mess just now.
But, putting that to one side for now, one gets ebooks from a huge variety of online sources.
Not free ebooks – ones you pay for, that is:
Depending on which ereader you have chosen, there are a number of ways in which you may purchase ebooks to read on it. This is complicated just now, sadly, so I will have to deal with this by make.
Kindle, from Amazon:
If you have chosen a Kindle, then unless you happen to be pretty nifty with computers, you are effectively limited to buying your ebooks from the Amazon website as Amazon (the makers of the Kindle range of ereaders) have chosen to have a format for their ebooks that is unique to them, so you wont be able to read any ebooks you purchase from other sources on your Kindle ereader. Equally, any ebooks you buy from them wont work on any other ereader.
Against which, Amazon have developed an extremely easy to use system for buying ebooks from them using the mobile phone networks or the wireless internet, and their prices are in line with every other ebook seller, as well as offering you a huge range of ebooks.
And the Kindle 3 is a very good ereader, that is for sure, and competitively priced as well.
Nook ereaders from Barnes and Noble:
The above comments about the Kindle apply equally to the Nook range of ereaders. Be aware that the Nook works with ePub, but it is a different type to the ePub all others use.
All other ereaders – Sony, Kobo and any others you may find:
As far as I know, apart from the Nook and Kindle, almost all other ereaders work with (among other formats) the effective world standard ebook format, known as ePub. This means that you may buy ebooks from any online ebook seller (apart from Barnes and Noble – see note above) who offer ebooks in the ePub format, which is all of them really.
DRM:
This is another tricky area, DRM, which means Digital Rights Management is a system to prevent you from distributing any copyrighted ebooks you buy to others, and effectively means that such ebooks will only work on your ereader.
All ebooks you buy are likely to be subject to DRM protection.
This isn’t the place to go into the details of how this works, but you have to be aware that you will need DRM software either on your ereader or computer in order to read such ebooks. This is normally an automatic process that happens when you first use your ereader, otherwise you may well need a bit of help from someone with a reasonable grasp of such technology
Free ebooks:
Now this is where ereaders truly come into their own. There are now hundreds of websites that offer free ebooks for you to download, almost all in ePub format as well. To a large degree this means books that are out of copyright, i.e the author died some time ago, so they tend to be all the well known Classics, but they are by no means limited to these, there are many where authors place their books to be distributed for free.
In the course of writing this blog I have discovered hundreds of such sites, a number of which I have reviewed on the blog, so you can either use the search window (top right here) or simply type “Free ebooks” into Google, and you will be amazed at the choice that you are presented with.
All free ebooks are of course DRM free, so they will work happily on any ereader you might have, and can be given away, copied and transferred from one ereader to another with no hassles. From our point of view, an ideal arrangement.
Need help?
So, there you have a sort of beginners guide to ereaders, if you have any questions, either send me an email (from the Contact me tab above) or leave it as a comment here, and I shall do my best to help you out.
January 25th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Samuel Winston, eBookAnoid.com. eBookAnoid.com said: Back to basics – What is an ereader exactly, and why might you want one? http://goo.gl/fb/v9Pi6 [...]
January 27th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
A few errors, Tony, in an otherwise execllent (as usual) article. First, paperback (or hardcover) disadvantage number 2. Owning an ereader doesn’t free you from having to find a bookstore. It’s jsut that you have to find a virtual bookstore rather than a physical bookstore. But a caution: Today’s younger generations tend to be more reclusive than my generation (baby boomer) and everything is virtual — friends, books, movies, all forms of social interaction. Is this good? Is this healthy? Are we creating generations who only care about their individual self and not about the collective?
Also, physical bookstores provide a reason for the elderly to get out of their homes. If it weren’t for the bookstore, the grocery, the doctor visits, and the library, my 88-year-old parents would be hermits, as would most elderly. I agree that actual reading is easier on an ereader device for this segment of the population, but not necessarily healthier.
Second, you are incorrect about the Nook. It uses exactly the same ePub as Sony, Kobo, and all other devices that use ePub. The difference is in the flavor of the DRM. The Nook can read any ePub format ebook from any ebookstore except the Apple ebookstore. Apple, like Barnes & Noble, uses an incompatible DRM layer, which is on top of the ePub format. FWIW, the DRM scheme used by B&N is easy to remove, which means that any device that can read ePub format can also read ebooks from B&N as long as the DRM is removed.
Third, although 95%+ of free ebooks are DRM-free, not 100% are DRM-free. It depends where you get the free ebook from.
January 28th, 2011 at 7:29 am
@ Rich,
Firstly, thanks for the compliment, coming from you I appreciate it – I always read your posts with great interest, and frequently a wish that I had thought of writing about the topics you cover so well myself!
You make some very good points here.
On the matter of being able to get your ebooks without leaving home, I confess I hadn’t considered the point of it being a good reason for elderly people to get out and about. A very real point I feel, so I agree with you completely there.
It has reminded me of the case of the two brothers who only communicated via a chat room, whilst sitting in the same room, each behind his own computer.
I can see the risk of people becoming even more hermit like in this way – something perhaps for one of us to address in a post?
But for those who are truly unable to get out, bed-ridden or almost immobile folk, young or old, the possibility to choose ebooks from home is a boon, that is certain.
I also thank you for your explanation of the ePub situation with B & N. But as I understand it, as with the Kindle format, unless you are prepared to tinker around with the formats, you can only read ebooks they sell on their devices. I agree, if one is even moderately computer literate, stripping DRM is no great task.
For many of the people who read my blog, I have observed that even that is too much hassle – they simply wish to buy ebooks and read them on their ereader, and have no desire or ability to change formats, or anything else much that involves more than the most basic computer operation.
This is why I wrote what I did about the Kindle and the Nook, both good ereaders, but one has to be aware of the problem of formats.
Both you and I are deeply involved in ereaders, and thus fully aware of these matters, but an awful lot of people who either are given an ereader as a gift, or simply buy one they see in a shop are not aware of these pitfalls, and become very confused and angry when they run into the problems.
Recently I wrote a very rude review of a super-cheap ereader, the MiGear, and this has produced what in effect is a sort of informal Support Group, as people were being confronted with the format problem and hadn’t a clue what to do about it. So far almost 140 comments on that one!
I did hesitate when I wrote about the Nook and Kindle, but felt that as that post was aimed at people who knew nothing about ereaders, I should point that out to them.
It can be tricky knowing at what level to pitch such posts, but since most posts that explain ereaders normally assume a level of background knowledge, that is often missing in the readers of my blog, I felt I had to aim low to be any use.
Lastly, I hadn’t realised that some free ebooks had DRM protection, I have not bumped into any with it yet, so I thought it safe to make that statement, so that is another useful bit of information for people (and me) to know about.
But having said that, I am very glad you wrote that comment, it is a very useful contribution to the post.
January 29th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
I am posting this on behalf of Rich Adin, who for some technical reason couldnt post it himself;;;;;;
Tony, I don’t disagree with separating B&N and Apple ebookstores from
the other ePub stores. The point I was trying to make is that the
underlying ePub is identical, regardless of which ebookstore you buy
from. The difference is in the DRM, which is an overlayer and not the
format. OTOH, both Kindle’s format and DRM are different from everyone
else’s.
___________
Rich
February 6th, 2011 at 12:32 am
Archos 70c color e-reader now up for pre-order stateside…
I found your post very interested so added a Trackback to it from my website….
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Thank you so much for the helpful info. Sometimes there are just too many info sites, I am glad I opened yours. However, my question was, do they only work when connected to a form of Internet? I did not see an answer to that, can you help? Thank you.
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:51 pm
@ Aiming.
You only need to connect to the internet in order to purchase ebooks. Once an ebook is installed on your ereader, then you can read it without being connected to anything.
Basically it goes like this:
* Connect to the internet (either on a computer or your ereader if it can do that)
* Go to an ebook seller’s website
* Find an ebook you want to read
* Pay for it and download it onto your computer (or ereader if it supports this)
* If downloaded onto your computer, connect your ereader to your computer (via an USB cable) and copy the ebook onto your ereader
* Disconnect your ereader from the computer
* Go out, find a pleasant coffee house, switch on your ereader and read your ebook in comfort…..
I hope this clarifies that side of it all for you? If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to ask, and I shall do my best to help you,
Tony
May 27th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
Hi Tony.
Can I copy files from my computer to an e-reader like note book, word pad, etc.?
May 28th, 2011 at 5:44 am
@ Marie,
You should be able to, if you connect an ereader to a computer, it will see the ereader as an external disk,much as when you connect a memory stick, and then you can simply copy any files to the ereader.
June 4th, 2011 at 7:36 pm
I am not very “nifty” with computers. My knowledge is limited. Do the ereaders come complete with usb connectors ? Can I download the ebook directly to the e-reader? I would like a very simple one, how do I know which is which? Thank you
June 5th, 2011 at 6:14 am
@ Marlene,
Yes, most ereaders come complete with USB connectors the iPad doesnt though.
There are basically two systems for downloading your ebooks and getting them into your ereader. Put simply, if you have an ereader that has 3G (mobile phone network) or WiFi (wireless internet) connectivity, you can browse the online ebook stores directly from your ereader, select and downlooad ebooks directly to your ereader. Ereaders such as the Kindle, Nook and Kobo are examples of this sort. Other ereaders that do not have 3G or WiFi connectivity require you to use a computer to find, buy and download ebooks, which you then transfer to your ereader via the USB cable connecting the computer to the ereader, the Sony range of ereaders is one such, as are most cheaper ereaders you might find in shops such as Wall Mart and other supermarket chains.
If you are not comfortable with computers, I think you would do best to buy a Kobo, Nook or Kindle as they are the simplest to use currently, and all are perfectly good ereaders as well.
I hope this is a help, need more, give me a shout and I shall do my best to further help you.
Best wishes,
Tony
June 5th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
thank you for a prompt and “easy-to-understand” answer. A couple more questions.
– How much can you dowloand with 3G? Also, can you delete the books you read and do not want to carry anymore?
I do have a mobile phone, but can I use my computer to connect and dowload? My computer is connected directly to a phone line. I think it’s what you call DSL (I am in Germany), my internet is on continuously, I do not have to wait for a connection.
My other question is : how much is 3G ?
My questions must sound rather silly, but like I said before, being a “senior citizen” I am not very knowledgeable witih modern technology.
Thank you agian for your help.
June 5th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
@ Marlene.
Sorry, I didnt explain the 3G bit properly. Some ereaders can use the 3G mobilephone network to connect to whichever ereader online store your ereader supports. So if you happen to have a Kindle3, then you will connect via the 3G system built into your ereader to Amazon, and equally, if you have a Nook, it will connect to the Nook online ebook shop. This does not involve your mobile phone in any way. Your ereader simply makes use of the mobile phone network to connect to the appropriate ebook store.
So if you buy an ereader that says it has 3G connectivity, then that is the way you find, buy and download your ebooks to your ereader. In the case of the Kindle, this is free (to be honest, I am not sure if it is free in Germany, you would have to check with http://www.amazon.de about that).
To annswer your question about how much can you download with 3G…. Well as much as you want. Forget about it being 3G, and think of it as a normal internet connection. Most ebooks are actually quite “small” in computer terms, typically around 300 to 600 Kilobytes, so they download pretty quickly in fact.
And to answer your other question, yes, you can delete any ebooks from your ereader, or copy them over to the hard disk on your computer and then delete them from your ereader. That way if you ever want to read them again, you can easily (using the USB connection) replace them in your ereader.
When you connect an ereader to your computer via the USB cable, then your computer simply sees the ereader as an external disk, just as with an external Hard drive or USB memory stick. So you can move files back and forth exactly as you do with any external disk or other memory unit.
Does this answer your questions OK? If not, or if you have other worries, just ask away, and if I can answer them, I shall happily do so.
And don’t worry about not being a computer whizz…. Most people are not computer whizzes, and seem to manage to live perfectly happy lives.
Though old age is not a reason for problems… I am 68, almost 69 and manage OK… (O:
July 5th, 2011 at 10:13 am
I am concerned about downloading books to my computer and the amount of memory this takes up in my computer. Sure I can erase the books once downloaded to my ereader. But what if I lose my ereader, it breaks, the battery dies or I accidentally erase the ebook? I then have to buy the book again? Does the ebook store keep track of what I have purchased allowing me to re-download the ebook without having to pay for it again? If not, why isn’t the size of the file listed along with the ebook info?
July 7th, 2011 at 5:15 am
@ Yoly.
You don’t really need to worry about running out of hard disk space with ebooks, generally they are about 300 to 400 Kb in size, so on a modern computer with the huge hard drives we have these days, the amount of space a collection of ebooks will take up on your hard disk is negligible.
With any ereader other than a Kindle, all your ebooks would be stored on your hard disk, as well as on your ereader, so if your ereader dies for any reason, your collection is safe. In the case of a Kindle, your ebooks are stored online with Amazon, so if your ereader dies, no problem either, you simply redownload them onto your replacement kindle. You have to have an account with them when you start to buy ebooks from them, so your ebooks are safe.
The thing you need to be careful about in this respect is that if your ereader dies, and you replace it with an ereader of a different make, you would probably have to convert your existing collection of ebooks to work on the new ereader, which is because of the DRM systems that are in use (This is the copyright protections systems that publishers insist the ebook sellers use).
July 9th, 2011 at 3:29 am
1st: are ebooks cheaper because i love to read but some books can be expensive.
2nd: can you put text files from a word prossesor or something similar onto an e reader?
July 9th, 2011 at 5:20 am
@ Chey,
Sadly,owing to the pricing policies of a lot of publisher, ebooks can be more expensive than their paper versions. But on the other hand,if you are not only interested in best sellers and well known authors,there are plenty of sites that offer ebooks for as little as $1 or even free.
Most ereaders will work fine with TXT or DOC files that you can transfer from your computer.
Hope this is a help,
Tony
July 11th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
@Yoly
Use SD cards with your ereader. Make two. One you use, the other is back up. Save the books on your computer like any other info you feel you need to keep on cd, dvd. Back up all you feel you need to save from your computer on cd or dvd!
J
July 15th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Hi there, thanks for all the great information so far. It’s great to find ebooks explained in layman’s terms! I just read all of the above comments and don’t think the following questions have been answered so far. It would be great if someone ebook-savvy out there could help me understand:
1) Do any particular ereaders suit customers in certain parts of the world better? For example, I am from Australia and wonder whether I will be at a disadvantage in the ereader world. Can I simply go to any international website and purchase any books that are compatible with my ereader without having to worry about copyright across borders?
2) Am I correct in saying that when you purchase an ebook you can view the book on your ereader, computer, and any other compatible devices?
3) If I bought a kindle, I would only ever be able to view the ebooks I bought via Amazon on a kindle or on my PC? So if in 5 years time say the Sony ebook readers become vastly superior, I wouldn’t be able to transfer my Amazon library over, ever. Instead I would only be able to read my Amazon ebooks on my computer or I would have to keep purchasing kindles so I could read my old books.
4) If I wanted, could I print a copy of an ebook I purchased?
5) So basically if you lose your kindle, Amazon.com will remember all of your purchases and allow you to re-download your library onto your new kindle, however with other ereaders, you are required to ensure you have a safe digital backup of your files. So if you house burns down and takes your external hard drives with it, you have completely lost your ebook library and can’t recover it?
6) I know it probably sounds silly but, will buying a new computer matter with ebooks? Can you just up and move your digitial ebook library to a new computer every few years with no problems at all?
July 16th, 2011 at 5:35 am
@ Ashleigh,
What a lot of questions!
1:
it doesnt matter where you live from the poihjt of view of what ebooks you may buy. In any country you will be effected by the geographical limitations publishers or authors agents set on the ebooks they sell.
Thus, whatever ereader you happen to have will suffer the same restrictions.
So as far as that goes, you can buy any ereader you like.
2:
You are correct, provided you have the appropriate apps or softwareinstalled on whichever device you wish to read your ebook on.
3:
This is a bit more complex, but basically you are correct. This only applies to ebooks with DRM protection, ebooks without DRM protection can be read on any ereader, though you might have to use a program such as Calibre to change the ebook’s format to a format that will work with your newer ereader. In the case of ebooks with DRM protection, you would have to strip that protection from the ebook and then change its format to suite your new ereader.
4:
I have never tried doing this, but I imagine you could do that, though you might have to copy and paste the ebook into a program such as Word to get it into a format that your computer and printer would accept for printing…. Give it a go and let us know if it works or not.
5: Exactly right, yes. But this would equally apply to your paper books when you think about it, and it is a damn sight easier to grab a portable hard drive as you rush out of your house than a couple of hundred paper books.
6:
You can move your backed up ebooks to any number of new computers, but once again, the DRM might give you a few problems unless you have registered your new computer properly with Adobe Digital Editions. A slightly murky area for me this one.
I hope these answers help a bit………
Best wishes,
Tony
July 16th, 2011 at 11:05 am
Thanks for all your help Tony. Much appreciated!
August 3rd, 2011 at 8:56 pm
I am stil in the “decision” stage…. ($$ is the problem
) . However, it won’t be long now for me to get the Kindle. My question is, why is the adapter they are offering, needed? is it necessary for the use of the KIndle ? I am still a bit hazy about that.
Thanks for all the info you give
August 4th, 2011 at 7:33 am
@ Marlene,
Hi again Marline.
That adaptor (which will be an American one probably) is simply an alternative to using the USB cable connected to your computer to charge the Kindle.
Thus there are two ways you can charge its battery:
1: via the supplied USB cable using your computer to charge it
2: via the adaptor, then you simply plug your Kindle into the mains electricity and charge it that way, thus no computer needed.
I hope this is clear?
Good luck,
Tony
August 16th, 2011 at 2:53 am
my parents gave me a literati ereader and it powered by kobo. lots of my paper back books have a coda past the titile page that says 9847598475902870 ereader (random numbers) how con i get that on to my literati and not pay for books that i already bought?
September 14th, 2011 at 9:06 pm
[...] Borders did not anticipate the popularity of e-readers, small portable devices that store digital books. Amazon released the first e-reader, the [...]
October 7th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
I am still confused of how the Kindle can dowload. I do not understand what is WI-FI. My internet is what we call here in Germany DSL, meaning it’s on all the time. I have a special phone line for it. So, is that enough for the ereadeer to connect to Amazon? I do not wish to download the books to the computer. I would like them to go directly to the new ereader. I am talking about the smaller one, as I don’t need the bigger one. Please explain. Thank you for your patience .
October 8th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Marlene,
Hi again, Your internet connection to your computer uses a telephone line to your house, and then a special cable from the socket on the wall to your computer, this is a standard cable connection system. WiFi (which means a wireless internet connection) means that in your house you will need to have what is called a Wireless router, a small box which plugs into your internet cable socket and then sends out the internet via radio waves, so if your computer (or ereader) is equiped to work with WiFi, it will connect to the internet without you having to plug it into the wall internet socket. Very handy, as it means you can get onto the internet anywhere in the house without using any sort of cables to connect to the internet.
For an ereader that has WiFi capability, this means that it will connect directly to the ebook store without your computer being involved in any way.
But to achieve this, you will have to buy (or rent from your telephone company) a Wireless router, but these are reasonably cheap to buy. You might well need someone to help you set it all up though, as that can be tricky work.
I hope this answers your questions? If not, let me know and I shall try to be more clear for you,
Best wishes,
Tony
October 8th, 2011 at 10:52 pm
Hi Tony…thanks for your patience in answering my questions. I had previously entered my expalanation and questions and unfortunately, took too long to submit so it wouldnt take it. Anyhow, here it is again. Tony, I will try to give you a fast explanation of what I have – soooo many wires LOL. Actually I have 2 boxes: Box A goes to the telephone line AND connects to 1) my telephone, and 2) to box B which connects to the computer. The telephone line has 3 different numbers so that, at any time, I can use both the telephone and the computer at the same time. Box B is conected to the computer and to Box A, which connects to the telephone line, thus allowing the internet.
I hope you were able to follow this maze, as it took me several minutes to find my way through all those wires. A very good technician did this installation a ´while ago, and now unfortunately he is not available to answer my questions.
And my last question for today (hopefully LOL), if and when this set-up works, once I turn the Kindle on, would it interfere in any way with the computer and/or the internet ?
Again thank you for your help .
October 9th, 2011 at 11:59 am
I have answered this one with an email directly, as I wanted to include a schematic in my reply. So, Marline, check your inbox please……
I forgot to answer the last part of your question, nope, it wont interfere with your computer’s internet access in any way – if it is all set up properly, that is.
November 29th, 2011 at 2:51 am
Hello, I would like to say thank you for your review on e readers..I was very unsure about E readers until I seen this post..They seem to be very useful for a girl like myself..I currently go to college to pursue a teaching degree and I work a sit down job during the day and needed something to pull out and read that wasn’t so obvious like a book..An E reader is perfect because I can sparatically look at it through out my day without pulling out my huge text books at work. QUESTION..WHATS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN e Reader AND A TABLET..I HAVE MY EYE ON A TOSHIBA TABLET AND IT HAS GREAT REVIEWS..CAN I PURCHASE THIS TABLET AND GET ALL THE SAME PERKS AS THE E READER..OR SHALL I PURCHASE THE E READER AND GET ALL THE PERKS AS THE TABLET..I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHICH ONE IS LIKE TWO IN ONE..THE TABLET OR THE E READER..BASICALLY I WANT TO HAVE A LIBRARY FOR MY BOOKS AND ALSO ENJOY ALL MY ANDROID APPS AND GAMES PLUS BE ABLE TO CREATE SOME SORT OF ORGANIZATION IN MY LIFE WITH SCHOOL..SHOPPING..BILLS ETC..THANKS SO MUCH..AND CAN YOU SUGGEST A GREAT E READER OR TABLET..I THOUGHT THE TOSHIBA WAS GREAT SIMPLY BECAUSE IT ALLOWS YOU TO REMOVE THE BATTERY AND HAS AN HDMI SOCKET..
November 29th, 2011 at 2:56 am
Hello again..I noticed that the nook black and white E reader has free 3g..is there any hidden info behind this or is it completely free and what wireless network soes it run off of.. Secondly..can you tell me if there are any other free 3g services out there for any other tablets or e readers that are in color..I would like color..this is the only reason why i would take a wifi over a free 3g system..thanks again
November 29th, 2011 at 5:25 am
@ Sheila,
From what you say in your first comment, I think you should probably buy any good Android Tablet out there,and get the various Apps you can get for free from the main ebook sellers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble,Kobo and so on) to read ebooks on it.
Kobo, Barnes and Noble and now Amazon all make what are in effect Android tablets, sort of pretending to be ereaders, but they all have a number of probkems if your primary desire is for an Android Tablet.
I am not aware of any colour screen ereaders that offer 3G connectivity.
Best wishes,
Tony
December 8th, 2011 at 8:01 am
Thank. A very instructive, precise and friendly explanation.
December 8th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
@ Jose,
I am glad that you found it helpful, that was the idea. And I am very pleased that you found it friendly, I try to achieve that as well, so it is nice to hear that I have suceeded.
If you now go out and buy an ereader, i wish you much pleasure from it too.
January 14th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
H Tony
I am a fairly constant reader, mostly literature, novels and art. I am very interested in purchasing an e reader but not being very knowledgeable on the technology and not willing to be further mystified by sales people who need to sell, I went to the source. Your information and advice was exactly what I needed,even to answering questions I was not aware of. Thanks for all that. Now I feel I can go to a store and specify my requirements.
Regards
Peter Flynn
January 14th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
@Peter,
I am very glad to hear that what I (and others) have written here has been a help to you. Also, I really appreciate you taking the trouble to post your comment to tell me so. It is always good to hear that one has achieved at least a degree of success with what one has written.
I hope you find the right ereader for yourself, and have great fun using it too.
Tony
February 18th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Hi Tony… I have finally got my KIndle ! Yaayyy! I am really happy with it. it is quite easy to use. I have downloaded a few PDF books, but some of them the font is so tiny one can hardly read it. I was told that it is better to download with MOBI, which is what the KIndle uses. Is that true? and what if they have to be “unzipped” like I was told ? I wouldn’t klnow how to do that. Please help.
with some of the PDF, I just switched to horizontal and made the font a bit larger.
Thank you for all your help
February 19th, 2012 at 8:25 am
Hi, well I am glad you have got your Kindle, and even gladder that you like it. You are correct, avoid PDF like the plague if you can, and stick to the actual ebook format that Kindles use, it will all work much better that way.
You could try converting your PDF files to Mobi with Calibre, which is a free format comnverter program (among many other useful functions).
You will find a link to Calibre on the left of your screen, in my Blog Roll.
Have fun with your Kindle, and best wishes,
Tony
February 19th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
I’m not really sure what I want to do with an ereader as far as connecting online. I basically just wanted it more like something to compile my reading information off my computer to an ereader, and maybe capability to go online, but I read reviews stating the only capability to go online with ereaders are to download books. I’m not even sure if I will decide to purchase ebooks, but if I wanted to go online once in awhile would a tablet be better?
February 20th, 2012 at 8:31 am
@ Sincerely:
From what you say, I think that you really need to buy a tablet of some sort, rather than an ereader. Ereaders are really not designed for web browsing, though it is possible, simply very clumsy.
April 5th, 2012 at 11:53 pm
Hi Tony I am in rural Australia and I have a kindle 4 with wi fi only. I thought I would be able to use it with my wireless broadband dongle connection on my home pc but obviously not. I have since been to a friends house and tried setting it up with her router but it kept coming up with incorrect password. We tried everything to no avail. My question is if I purchase a router myself will my kindle now work. I have managed to register it online through Amazon and purchase a book but can’t read it and have had to resort to the library this Easter weekend lol. Also can you recommend which router I would need to purchase. Many thanks and Happy Easter.
April 7th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Hi Karen, sorry not to have replied sooner, I have been in a small island that didn’t even have mobile phone connectivity for the last week, so no chance to check emails or do anything online… Rather nice in fact!
You do seem to be having problems with your Kindle, sadly.
OK, as you discovered, your 3G WiFi dongle wont help you with your Kindle, as it only connects your computer to the net, and doesn’t actually broadcast any sort of WiFi signal for other devices to make use of. And the Kindle can’t make use of that dongle either (no USB port on it).
The only way to do it at home is to buy yourself a WiFi Router, but, and this is important, this will only work if you have an internet connection via your fixed line telephone cable, or some other form of physical connection from your home to an internet provider. The router simply broadcasts an internet signal you get via a cable in your home to any device you may have that is capable of receiving a WiFi signal – such as a Kindle ereader.
Assuming you have some sort of internet connection via your telephone line, then any wireless router you buy and connect should work fine. As to which model, I would go for the cheapest you can find frankly, as they are all more or less the same, the only difference is that some offer a few more functions (WiFi printing for example) than the basic models offer.
As to setting your Kindle up for WiFi, well once you have connected your wireless router to your internet cable, as instructed by the router handbook, and discovered the key that you need to make this connection work (which will probably be something like this – Network Key: aotAYuhEm -. Thi8s key will be given to you in the router handbook I believe. You then go to the “settings” or “connect WiFi” page on your Kindle and follow the on screen instructions. It should all work perfectly easily if you grab your Kindle handbook and the wireless router handbook. I have used a Kindle in all sorts of places, cafes, parks and so on that offer free WiFi, and never experienced any problems with establishing a connection, so you should be OK too I would think.
I am puzzled by your inability to read the ebook you have managed to purchase from Amazon though. It should work, damn it! When you buy an ebook from Amazon, two things happen, the ebook is downloaded onto your ereader, and also sent to what is called a cloud account you now have with Amazon, which is basically a sort of private box you have in their system, which enables you to redownload at any time any ebook you have bought from them, or read that ebook on any other device (PC,Smart phone or whatever) that can connect to the internet and on which you have installed a free Kindle App.
Apps are small programs that enable you to do one thing on your computer, in this case, read any ebooks you have purchased from Amazon.
I am sorry that I can’t wave a magic wand and set your Kindle up for you, but I hope what I have said here may help a bit.
If it still refuses to work, give me another shout and we can try with specific information once you have established a physical internet connection to your home and purchased a router.
Good luck and a pleasant Easter to you as well!!!
Tony
April 13th, 2012 at 1:46 am
Thank you Tony for all your comments and advice. I do have a question about tablet v ereaders ease of reading on the beach?
April 13th, 2012 at 6:52 am
@ Robert,
I am pleased that my post has been a help for you – That was my intention when I wrote it.
The situation with Tablets versus ereaders on beaches or in any very bright sunlight situation is basically that tablets, as with computers, are not pleasant to read in any very bright light. Personally I find a tablet or computer impossible to read in that situation.
What is on the screen sort of disappears if the light on the screen is too strong. Ereaders on the other hand, as with normal paper books get easier to read when the light is bright.
So, if you want to read with a tablet on a bright sunny beach,then you need to create some sort of shade over the screen to be able to see it. Not nice I find.
April 13th, 2012 at 7:04 am
Again I thank you Tony, and I am truly glad to find someone willing to help the old man here find answsers to his lifes simply queries. (Did I spell that right?
Thanks again,
Robert
April 13th, 2012 at 7:15 am
@Robert again.
Um, well you spelled “answers” wrong…… LOL
As one ancient to another, you are most welcome!
Best wishes,
Tony
August 26th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Hi Tony,
love your blog and your answers. I’m one of the many who are unsure whether an ereader is the way to go. My partner and I love reading and share books all the time. If we bought an ereader, any kind, would we be able to transfer ebooks from one to the other? With the Kindle, I understand that he could redownload the ebook that I have previously ordered or vice versa, correct? (with the appropriate password etc). What about any of the other devices, can we transfer from ereader to iPad with an ereader software, for instance? Or would we both require the same make of ereader?
Thanks so much in advance!
Dina
August 27th, 2012 at 6:55 am
@ Dina,
I am glad you found this post and the various comments of others on it helpful, that pleases me no end!
I am afraid that swopping ebooks from ereader to ereader is not that simple, sadly. If you both have the same type of ereader, say a Nook or a Sony, then you can swap ebooks from one to the other provided they are not DRM protected. If they are DRM protected than you can’t swap the ebooks, you have to swap ereaders.
With a Kindle, in a limited way, you can swap DRM protected ebooks to each other’s Kindle. It is called lending, and means that for a period of two weeks the ebook is available on your partner’s ereader, but not on yours, after which it becomes available on your Kindle again, and no longer on his.
Provided the ebooks are in the correct format for your ereader (ePub for most ereaders, and Mobi for Kindles) then if they are DRM free, you can copy them easily enough from one ereader to another though.
It is a messy situation just now, and so far no real signs of any improvement in this problem.
What I would recommend is that one of you buys a Kindle, the other a Nook, Kobo, Sony or some ereader that works with e-Pub, and then simply swap ereaders with the relevant ebook in them. This way you simply swap ereaders and all will be well.
If for example you have an account with Amazon for a Kindle, you can use an App (from Amazon) to read your Kindle ebooks on an iPad though, so that might help, but it has to be in the same name to work.
As far as I know, you can’t share an account with Amazon, Sony or any other ebook seller.
Good luck!
September 5th, 2012 at 11:59 am
I never considered an e-reader before, but now am curious. I do read in bed, and as a result have books piled on the foot of the bed which sometimes get kicked off and land on the floor. Would an e-reader survive under that situation? I have vinyl not carpeting.
September 5th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
@ Linda,
Hi, well the answer is that they might survive…… Mine have fallen from my hands as I fall asleep reading in bed, and have survived – happily. But as with any piece of electronic gadgetry, they are not really built to survive falls.
But, the point of an ereader is that you will no longer have that pile of books at the end of your bed, they will all be tucked safely in your ereaders. Most ereader can happily contain several thousand ebooks in them,,, so no reason to have those piles any more.
September 7th, 2012 at 11:05 am
Thanks Tony, it is so much clearer now.
September 7th, 2012 at 11:43 am
Hi Ken, glad it was a help…. have a wander around the blog where I hope you will find other helpful bits and pieces of information about the whole murky business.
September 16th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Thanks for your response Tony, still not closer to a decision though. I was hoping it would be easier to share ebooks. I might just have to wait how the system develops.
I will definitely keep an eye on your blog as well!
cheers
Dina
September 16th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
@ Dina,
Well, i wish you luck with it all when you do decide to jump into the ereader world. And I am pleased that you will continue to read my waffles…. Always nice to know someone finds it interesting enough to return, thanks.
November 8th, 2012 at 9:19 am
So they have DRM for ebooks, but, if I buy a paperback I can give it to somebody else? Right.
Books don’t need batteries or recharging, and there’s no special ‘surcharge’ just to have the ability to purchase or read a book (the cost of the ereader), you can effectively keep a book forever and not ‘run out of storage space’, you don’t have to press buttons to move the ‘page’ up and down or turn the page – which in my opinion is distracting – you just turn the page. I can buy books cheap at the used book store or even online via Amazon. Many books are beautiful visually, whether the cover or size – the paper, the embellishment. I love looking around and seeing my books, holding them, the way they smell. I like to lay on the couch or in bed reading a paperback with the pages turned back.
Once I have a book – it’s mine. I can loan it, give it away, donate it, trade it, sell it.
Ebooks are a never ending chain of purchasing ‘books’ at new prices with limited storage space. IF you read as much as I do, eventually (and that means fairly quickly) you’ll run out of space and you’ll have to get rid of something. If you can afford to buy only new books that is. I re-read many books, sometimes several times over several years – I’ve had some books I held on to for 20 years, maybe reading it every 5 years. I don’t like the constraints and limitations the ereaders would place on me OR the cost of the books.
Also, after noticing some of the above comments, yes, I also just realized I would probably break my ereader in no time. They don’t call me grace. I drop things, step on things, spill ‘things on things’ and when it’s a paperback, if it falls in a mud puddle, eeeh, I just wipe it off and dry it out. I haven’t just lost a whole lotta money. If I step on it, I might stumble – but my big fat feet won’t crunch it. XD hahaa
Thank you so much for your information though, I have been very curious and your article gives a wide variety of information for somebody like me who wanted to know more about the ebooks!!
IF I ever got one it would definitely have to be one of those ‘ink’ ones and I would have to have the ability to buy books CHEAP, like I do at a second hand.
Thanks again !~!
November 9th, 2012 at 5:40 am
Hi Rebecca, That was an interesting comment, and I find myself in agreement with some of what you say, and less so with other points you make.
As to the benefits of real books (as opposed to ebooks), well yes, everything you say is true… ebooks generally can only be lent by lending the ereader in which the ebook is sitting… Which of course stops you reading anything else on it until you get it back. This is a source of continual anger and frustration for all ereader users, but is slowly showing signs of changing for the better.
I have just moved to Australia, and part of the junk I brought with me were about 90 something boxes of books – I love books, and like you, I reread quite a lot of them at regular intervals, they are old friends of mine thus. But on the other hand, I also own a number of ereaders, and love them too.
I have found no conflict in reading ebooks or paper ones, I skip happily from one type to the other at whim, so it is not a case of either/or. Further, there are literally millions of free ebooks out there, and not just those hoary old classics or some strange ebook written in 1930, but there are millions of newly written ebooks at sites such as Smashwords which are free, and well worth reading too.
Storage? Not really a problem as an ebook is actually a very small file, typically a couple of hundred kilo bytes, aso an average ereader can happily store up to several thousand ebooks in it, and then you mostly also have memory card slots, so you can actually store in one ereader the entire American Library of Congress, should you wish to do so. Storage of ebooks is never going to be a problem, believe you me.
And the other great advantage of ereaders is their portability. My wife has just gone off on a work visit to Hong Kong, and taken one of our ereaders, so she has enough reading material for her entire visit, and all in one very light and compact form… So much lighter than a couple of paper books. Excess baggage fees you know……………
Basically, ereaders should be seen as a supplement to paper books in my view, both have their charms and advantages, so use both is my simple view.
November 14th, 2012 at 5:11 am
Hi, I would like to highlight paragraphs as well as write notes over the text saved in an eReader, is this possible? Can the highlighted sections then be saved?
November 14th, 2012 at 5:32 am
You can do this on some ereaders, but not on all of them. Almost all ereaders let you save a page – equivalent to dog-earing a page in a paper book. Any ereader that lets you highlight passages will of course save those highlights.
So before buying a particular ereader, check its specifications carefully – It will always say it is capable of highlighting or writing
notes and saving them.
November 15th, 2012 at 5:39 am
Thanks Tony. I visited my local library yesterday, they had 5 eReaders on display for you to try before you buy. Very handy. Thanks
November 15th, 2012 at 6:25 am
Hi, I am glad you found this post useful, and even gladder that you obviously have a good local library where you can get your hands on different ereaders to try them out to see which sort best meets your own needs. That is splendid to hear. Libraries are a great resource for us all , aren’t they?
Do keep reading this blog though, I discuss so many different aspects of ereaders and ebooks here, and generally try and avoid getting bogged down in technicalities to much as well.
In any event, enjoy reading your ebooks now that you are started on it..
November 30th, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Hi Tony, You certainly have made things a lot more logical . Just one queiry, In addition to a novel or three I buy and hold on to for later reference a lot of magazine issues touring, camping , fishing and the like ( Australian). Could you shed any light if mags are available in ereader form and are they more expensive than the glossy covers. Thankyou.
November 30th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Hi Kev, Glad it has been a help, it can be quite confusing I know. As to magazines and such like, well the short answer is yup, plenty of them available in ebook form, both as individual buys and by subscription.
However, if magazines are what you mostly want to read, then a monochrome dedicated ereader is not really the best thing for you… Magazines simply work better with colour.
So If they are your main reading matter, then you would do best to look at some sort of a tablet, an iPad, an Amazon Fire or any other reasonable modern tablet would work.
Currently the best value for your dollars is the Amazon Fire (Amazon sell it as a loss leader as they know you will buy lots of ebooks and magazines from them). And it seems a pretty reasonable device too.
Hope this has answered your question OK… Good luck to you from a very hot and humid Brissie afternoon.