BOOKS, TABLET or KINDLE?

[hellosailor]

"The problem is that if you don't have physical control of an ebook's file, if you only access it through the publisher's app, "

It may be politically incorrect to mention this, but if you can read and follow the arcana of using an app called Calibre, that's an ebook manager which can even download Kindle files to your local computer, unlock them, and allow you to keep them locally online or offline in PDF format. It takes some waltzing to do it, but it can be done.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

Well, yeah. Obviously. That's true for anything that you keep stored on someone else's hardware, and access only over the internet. So, for important stuff that you don't want to risk losing, you download it and keep your own copy. I figured that went without saying.

The problem is that many retailers try to make it difficult.

Buy an ebook on Amazon and you can only download it with a Kindle App.

B&N used to be better - you could download the epub file from their website. They stopped allowing that a few years ago.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Jdege

The problem is that many retailers try to make it difficult.

Buy an ebook on Amazon and you can only download it with a Kindle App.

B&N used to be better - you could download the epub file from their website. They stopped allowing that a few years ago.

Not in fact true... although the "making it difficult" part is. If you download the kindle app for your desktop then the files will be on your drive somewhere. I've a mac so I can't speak for windows, but I've set the download location to be in my Documents folder where it is easy to find them.

I am guessing the same holds true for the Nook desktop app.

[hellosailor]

"Buy an ebook on Amazon and you can only download it with a Kindle App."
That is true. But as Mac says, you CAN easily download the Kindle ebook to your computer.
And as I had posted, it is commonly known that you can use the Calibre app to then unlock the Kindle ebook, convert it into PDF format, and have the ability to treat it just like any other PDF file. Best done in batch processing, so you download everything to your computer, perhaps monthly or every other month, and then convert it all in one shot and archive it.
DRM is all well and good, but as the folks at Lotus123 learned some 30+ years ago, when you make copy protection an inconvenience for the customers who PAID for the product...you pretty much guarantee they'll simply crack it, to end the nuisance. And then once you've put them to *that* inconvenience, well, the folks who had to crack their own (legal) copies of Lotus often lent the new disks around.

I think what ticks me off the most about Kindle, aside from sloppy authors doing sloppy proofreading and OCR scanning, is that Kindle is still just plain LOUSY TYPOGRAPHY. Despite the changes in the past year or two. I don't know if that's because the Kindle format isn't as powerful as PDF, or if the "publishing" process just isn't ensuring the right formatting is being done. But Kindle....ugh. That's why "desktop publishing" was denigrated by the entire typesetting industry in the early days. Right now, Kindle pretty much is sub-par compared to even the more established word processors.

[Jdege]

It used to be possible to download any Nook book you'd purchased from B&N's website using any web browser. They stopped allowing that a couple of years ago.

So for ebooks I buy from B&N I do what I do with the ebooks I buy from Amazon, I download them using the Windows app.

Most of the ebooks I buy, these days, though, are from independent authors or publishers. Baen, for example, has a lot of very good SF that you can buy and download directly.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Jdege

Baen, for example, has a lot of very good SF that you can buy and download directly.

And a great free library! https://www.baen.com/allbooks/category/index/id/2012

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

And a great free library! https://www.baen.com/allbooks/category/index/id/2012

And never forget Project Gutenberg

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"The problem is that if you don't have physical control of an ebook's file, if you only access it through the publisher's app, "

It may be politically incorrect to mention this, but if you can read and follow the arcana of using an app called Calibre, that's an ebook manager which can even download Kindle files to your local computer, unlock them, and allow you to keep them locally online or offline in PDF format. It takes some waltzing to do it, but it can be done.

I’m not sure if I’d call Calibre “arcane”. I’ve been using it for ten years now. It’s a great library manager to have on your network somewhere. As stated above, it can take any books, whether PDF or ePub or kindle or any of dozens of more unusual formats. I convert everything either to ePub or PDF, and store them there by category and back that library up.

Any device can then search that library and download books from it. My iPad Pro has all the boat documentation and some of my current books on it. Kids’ iPads have a load of kids’ books. My wife’s iPhone has a different set of books on it, as do various computers.

I used to use Kobos but hate the low resolution, slow page update, and their tendency to break at the slightest impact. And, as has been mentioned, they’re no good for technical manuals because of their tiny low-resolution screen.

For magazines, a Readly subscription and a 12.9” iPad takes some beating, and all my yachting mags are sitting right here, and searchable.

[hellosailor]

"The e-readers have one huge downfall and that is their ability with illustrations and diagrams- ifind that those are often problematic on the kindles."
That problem with art work, especially illustrations, has to do more with the production standards than with the "ebook" concept in general. Kindle of course is not designed for artwork, I'm not sure what it can accommodate. But if a file has been properly built in PDF, it is a PostScript file and that allows for literally infinite resolution on artwork, rendering in vector or bitmap. The problem is, fast cheap production aimed at small file sizes often means poorly rendered images.

Tillsbury-
I called Calibre arcana because the knowledge of what it is, and how to make use of it, is somewhat obscured, unknown, and hard to follow. As opposed to the standard of modern programming, where you would open a standard file system window, click on a folder, click buttons for "import and convert" and then just be done with it. You've got to go through a bit more with Calibre, and it is not all intuitive or clear. (Or wasn't when I last went through that.)
Of course if you listen to the Kindle folks, or your local library, ebooks are PROTECTED and there's no such thing as a package that can suck them up and put clean copies on your computer. No man behind the curtain. (Ahuh.)
DRM is a problem, and I don't think anyone including the authors is happy about it.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

DRM is a problem, and I don't think anyone including the authors is happy about it.

It's not usually the authors who are insisting upon DRM, it's the publishers.
And I don't think anyone actually benefits from it (though some publisher's think they do.)

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

That problem with art work, especially illustrations, has to do more with the production standards than with the "ebook" concept in general. Kindle of course is not designed for artwork, I'm not sure what it can accommodate. But if a file has been properly built in PDF, it is a PostScript file and that allows for literally infinite resolution on artwork, rendering in vector or bitmap. The problem is, fast cheap production aimed at small file sizes often means poorly rendered images.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Electronic books (pdfs) are a slightly different animal than ebooks (epub's, azw's etc.) The former are static, designed layouts while the latter are reflowable text files on steroids. The genre really has broken down into a bunch of different routes for displaying "book" information.

And pdfs will only display the amount of information you put into it. If all you have are 300 dpi illustrations of technical drawings, all you will get is 300 dpi display...the infinite resolution thing only works if the images were originally done in a vector drawing program.

I am currently working with a project (https://standardebooks.org/) to take a lot of the crappily designed Gutenberg ebooks and try an apply good typographical conventions to them, but at the end of the day there is only so much you can do with something designed to be user modifiable.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Jdege

It's not usually the authors who are insisting upon DRM, it's the publishers.
And I don't think anyone actually benefits from it (though some publisher's think they do.)

While a lot of publisher's insist on DRM, don't forget about the retailers. They are the ones who actually control the DRM and subsequently your books. The sheer volume of data they gleen from the DRM is the real reason that Amazon, Kobo and Apple are in business these days.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

While a lot of publisher's insist on DRM, don't forget about the retailers. They are the ones who actually control the DRM and subsequently your books. The sheer volume of data they gleen from the DRM is the real reason that Amazon, Kobo and Apple are in business these days.

I've purchased ebooks from Amazon that included the tag "At the request of the publisher, this title is shipped without DRM."

So the publisher can choose to not use DRM.

I have no idea whether Amazon tries to discourage it, but they do allow it.

[Adelie]

For really critical stuff I want both, but if I had to choose, books in ziplocks.

Critical to me would be:
Pilots for the area I’m cruising
Bowditch
Engine manuals
1 or 2 medical books.
CelestialNav books.

Probably 12-18 books total.

Everything else on kindle or PDF/laptop.

[CatNewBee]

All manuals downloaded as pdf and distributed as set including scans of all documents to tablets, board pc and encrypted usb sticks.

Manuals are considered bloatware, different sizes, hard to store, consisting of various languages and 50% of disclaimer pages and warnings and almost no meaningful troubleshooting information.

I have only the circuit diagrams in paper on board.
I also carry pilot books, a universal repair book and the medicine on sea book in paper (universal DIY diagnosis, first aid almanac with recommendations for the on board pharmacy on recreation and commercial vessels by region, with translations for medico calls in the main languages etc.).

Easy reading stuff for fun is epub on kobo and on the tablet, also audiobooks. Maybe one or two disposable paperbacks you can cdrop or change in some marinas free library or with other sailors along the way.