Technology

eBook Reader- again

/ Technology / , , , ,

Upgrading to iOS 5 on my iPhone 4 broke one of my favourite apps, Stanza, an ebook reader. A quick search on the internet will show you how many people are upset by this. I have used my PDAs/smartphones to read books for years, starting with a Psion Series 3a device and books I got on CDs at computer fairs and from BBSs. So I was keen to get another ereader and fast. (See my original post here.)

Well I tried ShuBook – it is OK, but there were two problems. I really could not get on trying to ignore all the Chinese characters and although I could connect it to my Calibre library, it would not download the catalogue to the iPhone. I could transfer books to it via iTunes and it was a good reader.

Whilst looking on the web to see what was to become of Stanza I found this page

iOS 5 issues..

which led me onto trying (buying) MegaReader and using it this week and it is working out fine.

Things it does

  • It has built in access to online book collections, and I was easily able to add Munseys to the list. So I have access to a huge supply of pulp sci-fi and other freely available books.
  • It linked to Calibre and allowed me to access my catalogue across both my office and home networks.
  • It gives a good reading experience, including the option to lock the orientation of the page.
  • The app is supported by the developer.

There are a few issues (if I use Stanza as the bench mark).

  • There is a bug when turning the screen if the orientation is locked, where it does not redraw correctly.
  • Stanza had a great feature where the brightness of the screen could be adjusted by drawing a finger up or down the screen – very useful to set a comfortable reading light depending on the ambient light.
  • I could only download books one at a time from my Calibre library – in Stanza I could choose to download everything by an author, or from a series or tagged collection with one click.
  • The library display can sort the list by author or title, but if you have many books on your iPhone this is a long list to look through – better if you could choose to list all the authors and then drill down to look at their books or show A to Z of the titles and then drill down into those.

Octagon Technology has a client who we support, with manuals he distributes to staff on their iPhones. For this week they have been using iBooks but if MegaReader works out for me I may recommend he buys this for his staff.

Here are a couple of pages with links to free ebooks.

FREE eBooks, Excerpts, Stories! « Mike Cane 2008.

Over 900 Free ePub eBooks! « Mike Cane 2008.

 

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BBC News – Faster-than-light neutrino experiment to be run again

/ Technology / ,

BBC News – Faster-than-light neutrino experiment to be run again.

copyright BBC - used under

So it looks like we will not be changing “all our science” in the near future, because someone or something (other than Star Trek) beat the speed of light,. Of course if the same results are recorded again, things may change.

If Einstein’s iconic work is discredited, what does this mean for the people who have PhD qualifications based on work that is now no longer valid? Do they have to give them back? How does that affect their standing in the eyes of students who they are now teaching and assessing?

Science – nothing but questions!

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eBooks

/ Technology / , ,

Following the iOS 5 upgrade my favourite ebook reader, Stanza, has stopped working. As the company that wrote the app Lexcycle, has been bought out by Amazon it is unlikely Stanza will be fixed, so I am now looking for another reader app for my iPhone.

As a quick fix, so I could continue reading my current book, I switched to Apple’s iBook app, but to be honest it is a very weak app. It is so slow to open and start reading a book, slowed further by the auto-rotation trying to work out how to display the book. This problem could be fixed by adding a “lock screen rotation” in the app – Apple will tell you to use the system “lock screen rotation”, this is not convenient as I of course open the book before locking the screen or when I have finished reading I have to remember to unlock the screen when I am trying to use the iPhone for other tasks. Come on Apple just add an in app option – make iBooks a better app.

So I need a better reader. I am trying ShuBook and Bluefire.

ShuBook is Asian orientated but it does have English options including excellent English help pages. Bluefire is a much simpler app. Both work well as readers but It was the extras Stanza offered that I liked.

  • Stanza worked seamlessly and fast with my Calibre library
  • Stanza had links to online free books that liked particularly Munseys
  • the app was very fast not interrupting the reading experience when turning pages

Both Bluefire and ShuBook turn the pages quickly and have links to some online book collections (although many of the ShuBook ones are in Chinese, but I can ignore these) and ShuBook has an option for adding your own download locations including Calibre on your PC.

I am going to use ShuBook first – but hope like many others that Stanza is fixed.

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Things I like about iOS 5

/ Photography, Technology / , , , ,

Following the issues of actually installing iOS 5 onto my iPhone 4 the upgrade has added extra functionality to the phone. The highlights for me are:

  • wireless syncing over our network to iTunes on my laptop
  • iCloud to back up my photograph to my laptop
  • I like the “draw down” notifications screen
  • the new Reminders app is useful particularly when using the notifications screen
  • formatting in email

    • I am off to Cornwall next week for a few days walking and camping so I will try out the upgraded Camera app then and comment on it once I have seen some results.

    Things against iOS 5

  • the Newstand is a non-starter for me
  • has it slowed down the typing speed?

    • Should you upgrade – yes – but look back at my post a out my upgrade experience before you do it – iOS 5 problems.

    Things I like about iOS 5 Read More »

    iPhone Photo Backup – A Solution

    / Technology / , ,

    It has come too late to help me, but for the future, Apple has provided a solution to automatically transfer copies of your iPhone photos to your PC (either a Mac or Windows machine).

    iCloud, which comes with iOS 5 can be configured to transfer the photos via wifi. I had to install a control panel for iCloud on my Windows 7 laptop (download it from here) and create an account on my iPhone using iCloud in the Setting app. In the same app I turned on the “Photo Stream”. In the Windows iCloud control panel I went with the default settings so the photos are stored in folders in my Pictures folder – this is convenient as this folder is included in the my Online Backup software and so they are also backed up offsite.

    I tried it out, I turned the iPhone wifi on and my laptop was connected to the office network. I took a photo and it then took only a few moments for it to appear on the laptop.

    Just what I needed.

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