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Palm Organizers (PDAs) as Ebook Reading Devices V 1.3
This ebooklet was created to help others wade through some of the considerations in buying and using a PDA for the primary purpose of reading ebooks. It also examines the other functions that writers in particular might find useful. It is not intended to be a complete guide to the Palm or other PDAs, but merely a collection of experiences and opinions of one person. All attempts were made to be as accurate as possible within the limitation of time that was available for this project.
The author, at freecookbook@telusplanet.net, welcomes any corrections or additions and will evaluate them and add them, if appropriate, to the next version.
© Eva Kende 2001. Permission to reprint all or part of this article with proper credits and links can be obtained from the author by email freecookbook@telusplanet.net
Table of Contents
How else would a cookbook author do it?
I just bought a Palm IIIxe and to begin at the end of this story, I just love it. It does everything I wanted from it and in the mere 72 hours since I got it, I discovered features that are very useful, but totally unexpected. Unexpected, because Palm doesn’t emphasize it and, as I discovered, most store clerks are clueless as to what’s inside the box.
Now let me go back to the beginning, where this story should have started. I am an electronic author. I have an ecookbook, Eva’s Kitchen Confidence, published by DiskUs. This is my second cookbook. My first, Eva’s Hungarian Kitchen was self-published in 1984 and is nearing the end of its fourth printing and still going strong. I also write short stories and articles, do some volunteer translating for amateur genealogists, write a lot of personal email to my many friends and relatives scattered around the globe and love my computer for making it all possible. I am turning 60 this September and look more like the grandmother I am, than the retired biochemist cum author, which I also am. To further confuse people, who like to jump to conclusions, I have roughly 25 years of computer experience and love all things mechanical, computerized and technical. A natural affinity to technology and better than average base knowledge make it easy for me to learn or understand the logic behind many gizmos. At home when it became clear that my talent makes it easier for me to set the VCR, the answering machine, the computerized thermostat, and the myriad of other modern gadgets that are supposed inject convenience into our life setting and adjusting these gadgets became my domain. In 37 years of marriage, my husband and I learnt to divide jobs according to ability, rather than to stick to traditional male and female roles.
I have several friends and most importantly my son, who is an engineer, who willingly answer my questions when I find myself out of my depth. – Just to brag, the biggest compliment I ever received came from my son shortly after the birth of his first son. "Mom you are in charge of stimulating his interest in science!" – Before buying something, I research the item extensively and only turn to clerks when I have a fair idea of what I am talking about and what questions I want answered.
This in part comes from the fact that clerks in traditional male domain stores, such as hardware, electronics, computer stores and garages, seldom take a woman seriously. Some times in desperation, I tote my husband along and watch in amusement as they address the comments to his blank face. This makes it complicated, because my questions are usually ignored and while my poor husband tries to re-ask them without having the slightest idea or interest in what I am talking about.
When I enter a store like that alone, the reaction is even funnier. It ranges from glazed over eyes that pretend that I don’t exist, to patronizing comments about the product that even an imbecile could read off the package or a presumption that I am attached to the lone male customer wandering around the store, checking out the latest in audio blasters.
Depending on my mood and the urgency of my mission, I either make a cutting remark to the manager and leave, or try my best to wade out of the stereotyping by explaining to the clerk that I am a serious customer with some knowledge of the subject. Often this works and I get some attention.
This was not the case in the Battery Plus shop at Calgary Airport. In late March, I got to the airport hours early because the Calgary transit strike affected availability of cabs as well. With time to spare, I thought I would check out the various Palm products and have one demonstrated to me, so that when I return, I will have a clear idea of which one to buy.
I first tried to talk to the Japanese lady in the store, but it became evident very quickly that she was there only to serve Japanese customers and handed me over to the male clerk. The clerk was very young, under 25, and looked like he just stepped out of GQ. In fact, while we talked I had the impression that he was checking his profile and his trendy haircut in the reflecting glass cabinets of the store.
I persevered, in spite the fact that his attitude irked me. I told him that my priority was to read ebooks on the unit and do not need too many bells and whistles. I wanted to sort through the many models to see which one will serve my purpose. He categorically stated: "Palm doesn’t read ebooks!" I told him that I have been reading a lot of material on the Internet and know that Palm does read ebooks. However, I am not clear on which model will serve my purpose, nor do I have too many opportunities to physically see the units, since I live in a rural center. He told me to buy it from the Internet. I left the store. When I looked back, I could see him telling the Japanese lady about my quest and both of them being very amused at my expense. Annoyed, I swore never to enter a Battery Plus store again.
My resolve didn’t last long. We were in Chinook Mall one weekend and while my husband was occupied elsewhere, I popped into the Battery Plus shop two doors down. The clerk, alone in the store at the time and trying to serve 2-3 customers at once was most gracious. He seemed to be oblivious to the fact that I am not a stereotypical young male executive, trying to buy a flashy unit on expense account to flash around among my friends, but a person with a challenging problem.
He admitted freely that his knowledge was limited, but he was going to try his best. With his assistance, we narrowed down the models to the IIIxe or the m-105. While he looked after other customers at my insistence, I had an opportunity to handle both units and read the specs on the boxes. I started to dig for paper to write down the model numbers and prices, but before I got to my notebook, he offered me a business card so I would have the store telephone number if I had any more questions. He also pressed a mail-in rebate sheet on me, "in case you don’t get back to this store and the other store hasn’t any".
Nice touch to show his sincere concern.
Back at home I reviewed the info and once more checked my information on the Internet. This time concentrating on the choice of one out of two models. The next day I telephoned with a question and the same clerk politely repeated the forgotten answer.
The next day my husband had to go to Calgary and I sent him to the same store to buy the IIIxe. He got a different clerk who was a little miffed that he just walked in and wants to pay. He would have liked to demonstrate the unit or at least convince him. This amused my husband no end, but the effort of the clerk impressed him and he had a positive experience.
It was becoming clear about a year or more ago that if I wanted to read some of the many wonderful ebooks on the market, I needed a better way to do it than sitting at my desk. Not only my back couldn’t take the hours of sitting up, but also somehow, it affects my concentration and enjoyment. It was too similar to working. Critics of ebooks often cite the lack of portability as the reason for their aversion to books in electronic format. This is a valid point. -- While the need to smell paper and ink is not in my opinion. – I also desperately wanted to demonstrate ebooks in general and my book, Eva's Kitchen Confidence, in particular, to the public, to get the word out about the great variety of reading material available in electronic binding and the many talented writers that reside in cyber-space. I started studying the possibilities and went through a series of options while keeping in mind the reality of my budget.
Collecting "one side good" paper from friendly offices to print out the material was one reasonably good option, one that I've practiced until recently. The draw back was that the 8.5x11 inch paper, while good for editing my own writing, really didn't feel like a book, was hard to hold and flopped when I was reading in bed. Definitely not a way to demonstrate the ease of ebooks.
I considered buying an elderly laptop to do the job, but quickly gave up on the idea after I borrowed one for a demonstration in Hungary and lugged it all day from one end of Budapest to the other. Granted it was small, but by the end of the day, I had muscles aching in places where I didn't know I had any. I kept this thought as an option for a long time, because it certainly had merit for demonstrating and writing while on the road.
I kept hearing great things about the Rocket Ebook, but it wasn't available in Canada and the thought of dealing with Canada Customs both at the time of buying and in case of needed repairs certainly wasn't attractive. I was about to set aside my trepidation and buy a unit when Gemstar announced that they bough both the Rocket and the much higher priced Softbook. I was hoping that such an acquisition will result in lower prices and wider distribution, but it was not to be. The lower priced unit soared to $299 US with a limited distribution network restricted to the US. A search for the physical device takes you to the RCA page extolling the virtues of the two models, -- " With the RCA brand eBook, you can buy many of the latest releases from the world's leading authors." -- but gives no link to any content provider. Searching for reading material, you land on the Gemstar Ebook site where a handful of fiction titles from big name publishers appear to be the only content available. I could not find a list of other books for the Gemstar, but found a list of Publisher Partners that included my publisher, DiskUs, none of them had a link to their websites. I know my book is available in their format from my royalty statements and the fact that The Gemstar eBook(tm) Community Newsletter of January 19, 2001 featured Eva's Kitchen Confidence as a recommendation. I suppose I could ask my publisher for details, but I think what I found or rather didn't find speaks for itself.
I was going to leave the discussion of the Gemstar at that, but couldn't help searching the site a little more. In technical support, I found references to telephone numbers to Barnes and Noble and Powell's, no links, nothing to give one the slightest idea that more books may be found on those sites. I checked out both stores and found Eva's Kitchen Confidence, albeit not very easily.
Then came the promise of the Franklin Ebookman with projected launch date in October. Here was the answer to my problems. It had everything I wanted for under $200 US. Distribution was to be accomplished simultaneously around the world (no trans-border headaches), it was to be compatible with a number of existing formats, including the much praised MSReader, 8MB memory. The description was enough to make my heart flutter. Although the additional functions like MP3 capability didn't particularly interest me, I was ready to experiment with the voice recording feature to see if it would be useful for dictating manuscripts during trips away from home. I quickly set aside the money to buy this gadget as soon as possible. I spoke to bookstores, libraries, and anyone else who would listen, making a pest of myself, promising free demo cum seminars in November. The launch was postponed repeatedly. My spirits flagged. I was afraid to bump into would be readers that I enticed and who were genuinely interested in seeing ebooks. The most depressing moment came in January when our local librarian passed a now out of production Softbook around for people to see at the Friends of the Library meeting, as a demonstration of how she intends to introduce ebooks into the library soon. She pointed to me and said, "Eva is our expert on ebooks if you want to find out more". At the after meeting coffee klatch, I was swamped with questions about ebooks. If only I could demonstrate my book and those of other authors, I thought. The Ebookman made its debut about the same time in the US and even as far as Australia, but is still not available in Canada because they needed time to translate to French. Since I was anxious to be the first to hear news about this wonder gadget, I signed up to the Franklin Newsletter on their website. It's been months and I haven't heard a word from Franklin.
Then the reports started to trickle in from those who bought it. They certainly were not glowing. The fact that a very computer savvy person told me that loading books was a rather a complex process eliminated a whole segment of the population that I thought would embrace such an appliance. The computer shy seniors would in my opinion enjoy a handheld reader, it's portability and adaptability to minor disabilities. The books offered by Franklin were few and pointers to the vast array of ebooks produced by the independent epublishers were promised, but have yet to materialize. While conversion of most formats was possible, the procedure was far from easy. Someone like me, wanting desperately to demonstrate my book would invest the time, but I had grave doubts that others might.
There are promises that Hiebook and GoBook will fill the need soon, but I decided that I could not wait any longer for the perfect ebook reader to be invented.
I started to eye the Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). They have been in circulation for years; they have proven their reliability, have already gone through several generations of improvements, are readily available, and are becoming ubiquitous. However, I needed help in deciding which of the many versions will do the job for my needs at the lowest price. I suspect most PDA users don't use half of the features that their handheld possesses. The Palm is the best known handheld, but there are several others that use the Palm OS, namely the Handspring, Sony, IBM, SUPRA, Franklin Covey, Symbol, TRG, Kryocera and Epocrates. Since the others are not widely distributed in Canada, I will stick to talking about the Palm, but presumably, because they work on the same operating system, my comments can easily be applied to all the other handheld organizers listed. There are charts at Palm's home page to aid you in choosing the right model. However, helpful the site tried to be, it didn't quite end my confusion.
There are seven models, ranging in price from $129-449 USD. Two of the models have color. I wasn't prepared to pay for color for what I wanted to accomplish. One model has only 2 MB memory, which I knew was not enough to read long or multi ebooks. I wanted to be able to store my book Eva's Kitchen Confidence, to show at any time to anyone I might meet, 2-3 examples of work by my fellow writers and 2-3 books that I am currently reading for my own entertainment.
I was also hoping to be able to load some of my work in progress to read, contemplate and possibly make editing marks of some sort. It was easy to eliminate the m-500 and VIIx for having features that I wouldn't use. I crossed off the Vx for being too pricey for my pocket.
The weight comparisons were meaningless unless I actually held one in my hand to feel what it means. There was also a piece of misinformation in the comparison chart and incidentally on all the boxes in the stores, that led you to believe that only the m-series is equipped to handle e-books. I spent several hours tracking this bit of information, since I have heard well before the m-series was introduced, that people did read ebooks on their older Palms with some kind of software. I checked and true enough there were several software available to convert html or text, I even found one that claimed to convert .pdf. So what was so special about the Palm Reader for eBooks that came loaded on the m-series. I found out that Palm has just acquired Peanut Press, a company selling paperbacks converted to its proprietary reader and this reader now is the Palm Reader. You can add this software to any Palm if you wish to read the same books that you'll find on the airport racks, but I couldn't find any independent publishers listed or linked on the site.
Armed with all this confusion, it was time to hit a live store with a hopefully helpful clerk. You have read the results of that quest in the introduction.
The helpful clerk listened to my parameters and showed me two units that he felt would do the job, the m-105 ($199 USD) or the IIIxe (reduce from a $199 to $170 USD with a mail in rebate of $33). He explained that the later is being discontinued. He left me to finger the two models, feel the weight of each, read the specifications on the boxes and compare. Together we decided that the larger screen and lower price would better suit me. 6.8 oz. is quite manageable for long periods even with my arthritic fingers. The narrower body was even an advantage for my small hand span. After a day of mulling over what I have just learned. I decided to buy the IIIxe.
Addendum: When my Palm quit working three months after the warranty expired, I was pleasantly surprised that without much explanation and much courtesy, the warranty was extended and I was given a replacement unit within two weeks. All it cost me was the postage to mail my unit to the Canadian service center.
General Comments about the Features
In my excitement to use my new toy I converted the .pdf book that I was readying to text just by select all, copy and dumped into a word to save as text. -- We were off on a short business trip where my husband was calling on clients, while I waited on a park bench. I wanted my PDA and book with me and had no time to try an elegant conversion. -- I imported the text file into the Palm memo pad, which chopped it into 1.5-3 page neat segments and off I went reading. The text was a bit grungy, but readable. Since the book was riveting, I hardly noticed the grunge after a while. Interestingly, strangers came over to see what I was doing and I could expound on ebooks and their benefits. It was an exhilarating experience. As soon as I could, I set to searching out available conversion software and testing it to see how well it does the job.
About the physical unit:
The memory at 8MB is ample in my opinion. The system and programs take up very little space. Presently, I have loaded 3 books in .pdf and 3 in .html This includes Eva's Kitchen confidence which weighs in at 2.8 MB in .pdf, but goes to 1.5 MB when converted to the Palm OS, and the same book in .html an 800 KB file that somehow balloons to 980 KB when converted with MobiPocket Personal Edition. I have a number of memos, newsletters, type long emails, 3 games that I haven't tried, date book entries, software reference guides, as well, and still have over 40% of the memory free. The reference guides can be deleted soon when I am comfortable with the operation of the programs.
Battery usage of the 2 AAAs is very low. There is a battery level indicator on the Main menu. The reference guide claims that the batteries will last about 14 days with careful use. I have been using mine for intensively 10 days now and still have about 80% battery left.
Careful usage, according to the manual, means using the contrast wheel, handily located on the side, to turn down the contrast. I haven't bothered to turn the contrast down, because I wanted to read at the optimum visibility for me, adjusting the wheel to my comfort level. The back-light is only useful in a totally dark situation, so I haven't tried it much, and don't know what its power usage is. The unit does not use the batteries while idle. It automatically turns itself off if there is no activity for a set amount of time. I found the 2 minutes setting to be optimal for me. It would be nice to have an AC adapter for when an outlet is readily available.
The Palm comes with software that can synchronize with the inbox of several common email clients. I tried this function, but decided to disable it. Since I filter my incoming mail to a number of folders, my inbox contains mostly junk mail and spam. I find it far easier to copy and paste lengthy emails or those that I specifically want to work on, to a memo, read and delete or compose the answer as a memo, synchronize, then copy and paste the message into the email client.
If one turns off the unit in the middle of a passage, it will display the same page, when turned on again, making bookmarking unnecessary, although most applications, especially the ebook reading ones come with a book mark function. The general "Find" function works very well, looking at all applications for the term requested, quickly. All ebook readers have their own find function to locate specific passage when necessary within the text that's being read.
The screen is sharp, clear and very readable without enlarging the font size or using bold. The sharpness is easily adjusted to optimize the screen for the prevailing light conditions. I can read for hours without eyestrain. Each application when you call it up opens at the spot where you left off the last time you used it.
Entering text is much easier than I thought. Using the graffiti pad for handwriting recognition requires a lot of practice. I am not sure I want to invest the time required, although there is a very good game called Giraffe that came with the Palm that makes learning fun. While I don't think much of the graffiti method other than to pick out a single letter or some numbers, I do like the pop-up keyboard. I am not a touch typist therefore working this keyboard hardly slows me down. The freedom to write a paragraph or six away from my desk makes up for the lack of speed. I don't much bother with typos and punctuation since I eventually put the text into my word processor where all those can be corrected. I usually just copy and paste from the Palm Desktop into the manuscript.
Going the other way, it's easy to copy and paste the manuscript into a Palm memo to read and edit on the go, then return it to the word processing document and check for typos, formatting glitches and spelling. Several paragraphs of the present ebooklet were created in just such a manner, while listening to the birds and smelling the pine needles on my deck, enjoying our brief Canadian summer.
– —
To sum it up:
The Palm reads ebooks quite well, although a larger screen would be very welcome. It's easy to use and very intuitive to learn.
The little gadget is very useful in getting rid of the many little reminders on my desk. Having an address list, calendar with alarm, to do list, my book to demo and the novel I am currently reading is definitely convenient.
How to Get Your Books into Your Palm PDA?
Few PDA owners use their gadget for more than the glorified time manager, the purpose for which it was originally designed. However, there are literally thousands of applications available for the Palm Operating System and many of them are free.
These can be accessed at:
and several other places. A search for Palm OS Software turns up thousands of sites on the Internet.
I suspect there is a ready audience among PDA owners for ebooks. The only thing, in my opinion, that's holding back these users is a simple, how-to do it outline to point them in the right direction. I will try to fulfill that need by creating a simple step-by-step recipe at the end of this booklet.
I must add that before converting, you must make sure you are not in violation of copyright. Free public domain books can be converted without permission. Ebooks produced by most of the major print publishers are usually locked to your computer or device, often without the option to even print a paper copy for your own use. They can't and shouldn't be converted. The fact that they are encrypted signals the publisher's desire to control what the reader may do with his/her book. Most independent epublishers don't mind if you move their book from one platform to another to better fit your lifestyle, but you should check to make sure. It's best to order the book in Palm format to start with, so that the book looks the way the publisher intended. However, many of us have a huge "to be read" pile of honestly acquired ebooks in a variety of formats languishing on our PC that we never get time to read as long as they are tethered to our desktop computer.
For personal use only, the following programs will help convert those books,
making them portable using your PDA.
Aportis (http://www.aportis.com/)
Most professional publishers use Aportis to convert their files to .prc format for the Palm OS. It costs $30 US for the document converter, after a free trial period of 30 days, and for an additional $14.95, you can have a .pdf converter too. There is also a free function limited program available. I haven't tried any of them since this is a proven product, industry standard, but I did compare the results of the free programs to the .prc version of my book professionally converted using Aportis by my publisher. The copy created by my publisher is definitely better. The Aportis version of Eva's Kitchen Confidence is 234 KB while the conversion with MobiPocket is a hefty 984 KB. This is due to the fact that the MobiPocket leaves the .html tags for graphics in the converted document. This means, reams of gibberish, image tags in the middle of the text, as well as, memory space taken up unnecessarily.
Peanut Press MakeBook (http://www.peanutpress.com/makebook/)
I haven't tried this program, but it's free and creates .pdb files from .html. This company was recently acquired by Palm. The reader for this comes preloaded in the m-series Palms.
There are many programs available for PDAs, but many of their descriptions leave a lot to be desired. They either have to be tried and evaluated or recommended by someone who uses them. Each program has it's own instruction for download, installation and operation, so such an exercise is quite time consuming. The upside is that many good programs are free.
Addendum: I tried this program since and works well, but is restricted to converting .txt or .doc files and will not accept .html.
MobiPocket Reader (http://www.mobipocket.com/)
Free for personal use. Professional version is available.
Converts file from .html or .txt to Palm compatible file.
Recipe:
To read:
Addendum: The above notes refer to Version 3.2. I tried to update to Version 4.4, but while the reader is nicely endowed with additional feature, it's very slow. The converter presumably to make the paid for books more secure, does a poor job of converting personal files, chokes on some web pages, dumps books into documents and insists on taking space in the start file even when not in use. Most annoyingly, it tries to connect to the homepage constantly, even if there is no subscription is indicated, interrupting my train of thought at the most inopportune moments. I noted there is a Version 4.5 available now, presumably remedying these problems, but I returned to the old version after doing battle for several days with 4.4. I also downloaded the new Desktop reader which I find very useful to scan books before reading them or to read at my PC or when the Palm is not available for some reason.
Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm OS (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforpalm.html)
I don't think it is widely known that Acrobat now has a Palm OS version which converts .pdf files for reading in PDAs. I happened to find it quite by accident. I do like Acrobat in spite of its many faults, because it preserves the lay out and shows graphics, which is often important.
Recipe:
To read:
RichReader Freeware (http://users.rcn.com/arenamk/RichReaderFreeware.html)
There is excellent documentation at the above site on the functions and uses of this program, so I will not repeat those. It is supposed to convert .rtf, .pdf and .html as well as read them on the PDA. I was not impressed with the .pdf conversion. It was almost as grungy as my feeble cut and paste effort. The converted .html files read well and looked crisp on the Palm screen, but some of the function icons are so small that tapping accurately is very difficult. Many of the functions are disabled in the free version so that it's difficult to judge how good the full version may be. I will keep this reader for the time being as a back up for the MobiPocket.
Addendum: I have since taken this off, for I was not using it, but annoyingly I find it has left grunge on my computer, which I have not been able to clear off even using a registry cleaner program.
To find more books to read on your PDA follow the links below:
Ebooks specifically for PDAs:
Version 1.0 was created on June 6, 2001.
This version 1.3 was appended October 7, 2002
© Eva Kende 2001. Permission to reprint all or part of this article with proper credits and links can be obtained from the author by email freecookbook@telusplanet.net