Sep 16 2009
Tuesday Midday Links:
I have to go to the dentist today for an aching tooth. Yes, my hardliving consisting of peanut m&ms and Mountain Dew is catching up with me. That’s some real news I know you all were dying to read.
DNAML, a company with more consonants than sense, is selling a PDF to ePub converter. This would be great if we knew how well it worked but alas, DNAML doesn’t believe in trial versions of its software. It’s $99 if you want to take the chance.
Laura Benedict explores the advantages and dangers of the free giveaway.
Technology gives us the ultimate democracy. Ultimate freedom. Anyone can be an artist. Put the work out there and you, too, can be judged in the marketplace of ideas. As long as you don’t plan on making a living at it.
Rupert Murdoch has begun to charge for the Wall Street Journal’s mobile content. In an interview, Murdoch sounds positive about the future of journalism.
Almost in every property at the moment [there is] a slight lift," Mr Murdoch said. "It’s very much better than it was a couple of months ago. It’s everywhere," he added, highlighting an 8 per cent fall in revenues at News Corp’s television stations in September, compared with an expected 20 per cent decline for the year to date.
Murdoch is convinced that moving to digital will reduce costs because there will be no unions (the printing unions are apparently killing him), no paper, no printing plants. I’m not as convinced as Murdoch that the costs of journalism will decrease so dramatically but it’s nice to see him have a positive outlook, right?
Ariana Huffington will be launching a book section to the Huffington Post and a new book club. It’s highly unlikely that romance will ever star in Huffington’s new book club. In a bid for legitimacy, the only appropriate action is to condemn the genres and go straight for the literature books with a capital L. Huffington will be partnering with New York Review of Books. The editor of the site is Amy Hertz, a Penguin editor for the Dutton division.
Gizmodo links to an article on Transhumanists and their opinion of the future of sex. Basically virtual reality will destroy physical relationships. The future is either full of woe or WHOA depending on your point of view.
Send to Kindle
Sep 16, 2009 @ 19:40:04
Okay, I admit to being technologically dumb, so take that as a given and tell me this: why is ePub preferable to PDF?
I’ve been buying e-books, and choose PDF whenever I’m able because I vaguely understand that, when I have the PDF, I have the book. I own it, and it can’t be disabled or revoked, whereas the ePub version can.
Am I wrong?
‘Cause I haven’t really noticed that the ePub books necessarily flow any better on my Sony 505 than the PDFs.
Sep 16, 2009 @ 20:04:23
@Suze: ePub is preferable to PDF because it actually does reflow better on devices than PDF. ePub is also being pushed as the industry standard so that should you move from device to device as technology advances, your books can move with you.
An ePub version can’t be disabled or revoked any more than a PDF. PDF and ePub are both currently encrypted by Adobe. The ebooks that were disabled were on the Kindle. The Kindle formats are TPZ and AZW, both are proprietary version of Mobipocket. Confusing isn’t it?
The format isn’t what makes it easy for Amazon to go and delete the book, it’s the 3G connectivity and the fact that Amazon can reach out to all the Kindles and zap a book from the library.
Sep 16, 2009 @ 22:31:15
Cool, Jane, thanks. I must say, I’ve learned more about pbooks and ebooks from your site than from HOURS of googling. Being technologically dumb, I kinda suck at it. :P
Sep 16, 2009 @ 22:37:39
@Suze: I am so glad I can help you!
Sep 28, 2009 @ 01:05:11
I was actually more curious about your teeth than the links (Just kidding. I was actually looking for a pdf converter. My profession and the tooth thing was merely coincidental). Isn’t there a trial version for that thing? That’s kind of sad really. I’m not really into buying software without having tested it out first.