No paper books.
I justed missed the 'Read An eBook Week'. Which was March 6-12 2011.
Several years ago I started looking around for free eBooks (electronic books). One of the first great site I found was Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg. It turns out that Project Gutenberg was created in 1971 by Micheal Hart. Project Gutenberg is considered to be the largest collect of free eBooks. Micheal Hart has been labeled the father of e-publishing and eBooks. There was an interview with him about eBooks in 2002. At that time he was not at all impressed with the technologically being produced. He knew that portable devices could be produced to read eBook. Such as the Dynabook.
Alan Kay in 1968 created a concept of the Dynabook. Alan wrote a paper 1972 title 'A Personal Computer For All Ages'. Now this was before the mass amount of people even heard of 'person computers'. Those of you that are not sure about what I mean. What you now call a computer or laptop. Which was called a 'PC' or person computer. Which there are people that do not know that 'CD' is short for compact disc. Which is compact compared to the 'Laser Disc' that was almost 12" in diameter. Which was first publicly demonstrated in 1972 and started selling in 1978. Wolfgang Gruene interviewed Kay on April 17, 2010. He ask Kay if the iPad was a stolen concept of the Dynabook. Kay's response was
“I have been given proper credit for my research and so have the other principal contributors to personal computing and Internet working. We've all been given the major awards in our fields, honorary degrees from universities, elected as fellows to the major professional societies, etc,” Kay said. “I don't know of any who wanted to be popular like a rock star or actor, so it all worked out well. And for quite a few of us, the big rewards now come from when our ideas are actually used rather than watered down.”
In the that article it also notes that Kay's vision has not come to past, yet.
Personal I'm not sure if we every will meet the design that was understand in late 60's and early 70's.
We have found out that back-light (color producing) screens cause major eye strain. For your eyes to be able to read a screen. We have lower light levels around us to reduce glare on the screens. Then we have the device at armers length. When we are fully interested in a topic or there is low light. We as humans tend to have our eye lids full open. Which allows the back-light from the device quickly dry out the eye ball. Many say that it feels like their eye's are burning. Now you know why they fill like that. This is why that gray-scale displays have been so popular for eBook readers. There is no back-lighting. Which in turns makes it so you can not read in a dark area. If you like to read and want the portability of a eBook reader. Don't get sucked into the hype of colored eBooks.
Here some sites to go to get started.
If you like to write your on eBook or see what people are writing about. Check in to Scribd, if have an account here myself. No I have not wrote anything yet. Another site is Globusz
KnowFree is a site that users can exchange freely eBooks, video training and other materials for educational purposes and self-practice.
For free eBooks of course Project Gutenberg, and try Feedbooks or ManyBooks.
If you want books sent to you in bit size chunks to your email or RSS reader. Try DailyLit you can set the days and what time it will send the it to you.
Mixture of eBooks you pay for and are free.
Amazon
Google Books
eBooks.com
Side note: This took longer then it looks. Could not keep to the original subject. It did help that I spoke most of what you see and what I deleted. Their was a lot that I delete. LOL
Yes, spoke (automatically transcribed).
Several years ago I started looking around for free eBooks (electronic books). One of the first great site I found was Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg. It turns out that Project Gutenberg was created in 1971 by Micheal Hart. Project Gutenberg is considered to be the largest collect of free eBooks. Micheal Hart has been labeled the father of e-publishing and eBooks. There was an interview with him about eBooks in 2002. At that time he was not at all impressed with the technologically being produced. He knew that portable devices could be produced to read eBook. Such as the Dynabook.
Alan Kay in 1968 created a concept of the Dynabook. Alan wrote a paper 1972 title 'A Personal Computer For All Ages'. Now this was before the mass amount of people even heard of 'person computers'. Those of you that are not sure about what I mean. What you now call a computer or laptop. Which was called a 'PC' or person computer. Which there are people that do not know that 'CD' is short for compact disc. Which is compact compared to the 'Laser Disc' that was almost 12" in diameter. Which was first publicly demonstrated in 1972 and started selling in 1978. Wolfgang Gruene interviewed Kay on April 17, 2010. He ask Kay if the iPad was a stolen concept of the Dynabook. Kay's response was
“I have been given proper credit for my research and so have the other principal contributors to personal computing and Internet working. We've all been given the major awards in our fields, honorary degrees from universities, elected as fellows to the major professional societies, etc,” Kay said. “I don't know of any who wanted to be popular like a rock star or actor, so it all worked out well. And for quite a few of us, the big rewards now come from when our ideas are actually used rather than watered down.”
In the that article it also notes that Kay's vision has not come to past, yet.
Personal I'm not sure if we every will meet the design that was understand in late 60's and early 70's.
We have found out that back-light (color producing) screens cause major eye strain. For your eyes to be able to read a screen. We have lower light levels around us to reduce glare on the screens. Then we have the device at armers length. When we are fully interested in a topic or there is low light. We as humans tend to have our eye lids full open. Which allows the back-light from the device quickly dry out the eye ball. Many say that it feels like their eye's are burning. Now you know why they fill like that. This is why that gray-scale displays have been so popular for eBook readers. There is no back-lighting. Which in turns makes it so you can not read in a dark area. If you like to read and want the portability of a eBook reader. Don't get sucked into the hype of colored eBooks.
Here some sites to go to get started.
If you like to write your on eBook or see what people are writing about. Check in to Scribd, if have an account here myself. No I have not wrote anything yet. Another site is Globusz
KnowFree is a site that users can exchange freely eBooks, video training and other materials for educational purposes and self-practice.
For free eBooks of course Project Gutenberg, and try Feedbooks or ManyBooks.
For research papers and books in a .pdf format. Pdfgeni and pdf-search-engine seem to be a good search engines.
For mathematics and computers try Freecomputerbooks, OnlinecomputerBooks.com or 4ebooks (It's not great but it is start for programmers).
If you want books sent to you in bit size chunks to your email or RSS reader. Try DailyLit you can set the days and what time it will send the it to you.
Mixture of eBooks you pay for and are free.
Amazon
Google Books
eBooks.com
Side note: This took longer then it looks. Could not keep to the original subject. It did help that I spoke most of what you see and what I deleted. Their was a lot that I delete. LOL
Yes, spoke (automatically transcribed).
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