Re: [Hampshire] eReaders
The nook is apparently quite excellent, but I don't believe you can buy it in this country. On 13 September 2010 00:07, Stuart Sears stu...@sjsears.com wrote: On 12/09/10 22:24, Philip Stubbs wrote: I would be interested in peoples thoughts on ereaders. Ever since I first read about eink displays, I have been fascinated. Recently, the price has dropped to a point where I am seriously tempted, but I have a problem. The two that interest me the most are the Kindle from Amazon, and the new Sony PRS-350 due out soon. They both have the ability to display PDF's but only the Sony will work with industry standard ePub format, avoiding the lock in to Amazon with the Kindle. I'll let you know how that goes, my kindle arrives this week :) it is a little daft that it doesn't support epub, but it does read MOBI and I'll convert to that for non-amazon books, I expect. Or plain old txt, I suppose. After all that, the short question is, does anybody use an ereader and if so, who have you got on using it with Linux? FBReader on my HTC android phone, like Jan. P.S. I already know about Calibre :-) well, there you go, then :) Stuart -- Stuart Sears RHCA etc. It's today! said Piglet. My favourite day, said Pooh. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk -- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] eReaders
On Sun, 12 Sep 2010 22:24:02 +0100 Philip Stubbs phi...@stuphi.co.uk wrote: I would be interested in peoples thoughts on ereaders. Ever since I first read about eink displays, I have been fascinated. Recently, the price has dropped to a point where I am seriously tempted, but I have a problem. The two that interest me the most are the Kindle from Amazon, and the new Sony PRS-350 due out soon. They both have the ability to display PDF's but only the Sony will work with industry standard ePub format, avoiding the lock in to Amazon with the Kindle. This would be great, except I have tried to run Sony's library software and Adobe's digital editions, and failed as they are only supported on Windows and Mac. For me the problem has been proprietary formats for ebook readers. I have used fbreader on my main system to read ebooks downloaded from Baen Books in mobi format but reading books on a computer doesn't really appeal so an ebook reader would be an improvement. I own several hundreds of Pbooks and have no intention of giving up buying more but have realised that proper books have a disadvantage, they have to be held with two hands and pages turned manually. This is not really an problem except when ones hands aren't fully usable. I have been suffering from a condition known as trigger-finger for some time and so far have gone through 3 minor opps to correct the condition in both thumbs and a little finger plus a cortizone injection in another finger. This condition has made it painful at times for me to handle books and I have been warned that I could be getting arthritis in the joints which could affect my ability to handle proper books even more. So being able to use an ebook reader could be a solution, I have even thought that adapting something like an anglepoise lamp to hold the reader in position should be possible if things got really bad. I haven't handled a kindle but waterstones stock the sony readers and I have played with those briefly, enough to realise that the eink displays are superior to my computer screens for the task they do. With amazon bringing the price down and presumably making their full range of books available in the UK, the kindle has to be considered as an option. There are several other makes of readers, and I have seen one alternative to the sony range in waterstones, but for now the sony range is the best I have seen and if their prices drop as well then I could be in the market for one. Having a separate device for reading books fits my philosophy of having devices that do specific jobs rather than multi-purpose devices like these new-fangled phone thingies, (my basic mobile phone is still switched off more than it is on) If I can get over my dislike of being tied to Amazon, the Kindle would work great as I understand that it does not need any sort of library software on the computer to make purchases. I had the feeling that you had to download from their shop direct into the reader rather than via a PC but probably have this wrong. What I really want is for the book publishers to get over themselves and remove DRM as the music industry has. The really stupid thing is that I will probably not purchase much content anyhow. There is more than enough PDF's and other content out there that will fill my needs. I doubt I'll be buying many ebooks either as there is enough free material available and as I said I don't expect to stop buying proper books any time soon. After all that, the short question is, does anybody use an ereader and if so, who have you got on using it with Linux? P.S. I already know about Calibre :-) I didn't so one of the first things I did after this thread started was to 'aptitude install' it and add my small collection of ebooks to its library. I also used the built in reader and found it OK. Since fbreader is currently broken (two days ago anyway) in Debian Sid I needed a usable reader anyway. The fact that calibre can convert between formats is potentially very useful. On principal I wouldn't buy any drm encumbered ebooks so am not likely to have any problems using calibre. -- John Lewis using Debian sid -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Linux meets at Nokia in Oct Dec
Hello fellow LUGgers, Head on over to the Surrey LUG site to check dates for meetings held at Nokia, Farnborough. Best regards, Bob. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] eReaders
After all that, the short question is, does anybody use an ereader and if so, who have you got on using it with Linux? FBReader on my HTC android phone, like Jan. If you read on android, try aldiko - its an ePub reader and has an interface into a huge number of free and public domain books (most of Guttenberg by the look of it) in ePub format Anton -- Anton Piatek email: an...@piatek.co.uk blog/photos: http://www.strangeparty.com pgp: [74B1FA37] (http://www.strangeparty.com/anton.asc) fingerprint: 7401 96D3 E037 2F8F 5965 A358 4046 71FD 74B1 FA37 No trees were destroyed in the sending of this message, however, a significant number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] eReaders
On 12 September 2010 22:35, trotter m.nutt...@ukonline.co.uk wrote: Is there a feature in the 350 that you are looking for? Haven't heard about it and most features seem to be present in the 505 including a SD card slot. It has a touch screen. Unlike the older PRS-600, the new PRS-350 and PRS-650 do not use an overlay, but inferred detectors around the screen edge. That avoids the problems caused with extra layers over the eInk display. Other than that, it supports the more open ePub format. I have read somewhere that Best-Buy are going to start seling the Kindle. As they already sell the Sony, I will wait a bit and see if I can see them side-by-side. -- Philip Stubbs -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] eReaders
At 14:40 13/09/2010, you wrote: On 12 September 2010 22:35, trotter m.nutt...@ukonline.co.uk wrote: Is there a feature in the 350 that you are looking for? Haven't heard about it and most features seem to be present in the 505 including a SD card slot. It has a touch screen. Unlike the older PRS-600, the new PRS-350 and PRS-650 do not use an overlay, but inferred detectors around the screen edge. That avoids the problems caused with extra layers over the eInk display. The current Sony touch screens apparently suffer from screen glare which the 300 and 500 dont. Thats according to reviews on play.com and amazon. A touch screen interface would be nice but not at the expense of readability. Martin N Running MorphOS v2.4 on Mac Mini, Moderator of MiniDisc,amithlonopen,bwfc Yahoogroups -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Fwd: [ANNOUNCE] London Perl Workshop 2010
This may be of interest to Perl users, or even Python users wishing to upgrade ;-) -- Forwarded Message -- Subject: [ANNOUNCE] London Perl Workshop 2010 Date: Monday 13 Sep 2010, 16:40:00 From: Mark Keating m.keat...@shadowcat.co.uk To: London Announce london.pm-annou...@london.pm.org It is my pleasure and joy to announce the London Perl Workshop for 2010. *When and Where:* The London Perl Workshop will once again be held at the University of London's Cavendish Campus on Saturday 4th December 2010. I would like to thank Sean Tohill at the University for all of his efforts in securing us the venue. *Theme:* This years theme is Perl Flavours. We would like to accept talks and workshops that centre around the notion of a variety of Perl languages and implementations such as Camelia, Rakudo and Raptor. As always speakers can submit talks on any subject, but talks that focus on our theme will be given a higher priority during any selection process. *Website:* The website will be live very soon on http://conferences.yapceurope.org/lpw2010/ ! * Keynote:* In addition to the fun of submitting a talk, one of the speakers, submitting a talk of 40 minutes, may be selected to give this years Keynote speech. To add a little excitement the talk that best fits this years theme (potentially given by a known experienced speaker, but that is not a condition) will be chosen for the honoured place as the keynote. If you have any questions or queries then please do not hesitate to ask. * Volunteers:* As always we would appreciate a number of volunteers to help with a variety of tasks during the day. If you think you can help and would like to be one of these brave souls then please let Mark know as soon as possible. Some of the volunteers will be needed for: /*Setting up:*/ Making sure the venue is set up in the early morning (around 8-8.30) and helping with the placing of signs, tables, and the arrangment of sponsorship items and registration. /*Talks:*/ A volunteer is needed in each room to time the talk and hold up an appropriate sign warning the speaker of how long they have left, this can be composed from a list of people who are definitely attending a talk (as opposed to an all day volunteer) once the schedule goes up. An alternate idea is to get the speakers in each room to nominate a member of the audience as the timer - this will be used if people believe it is the best option. /*Video:*/ There will be video cameras in each of the lecture halls and suitable volunteers are needed to control the cameras, make sure the talks are recorded and give harsh looks to anyone making a noise near the cameras microphone (the use of non-harmful projectile weaponry is being considered ;) ). This year we will be asking all presenters to provide their slides as: Presentation (Open Office or Keynote) Bitmap image, jpeg, gif png etc. SVG Screencast Video format (mpeg etc., - must be timed to fit the presentation though!) Slides will be added to the video of the speakers in post production to provide the best possible experience. Once again contact mdk if you have any questions or queries. All speakers will be asked to sign a Creative Commons Licence for the usage of their presentations. This usage will simply be to promote the conference, Perl community and the Perl language, the videos will be available on sites such as PresentingPerl.org and if possible YAPC.tv. *Sponsors:* As with each year the London Perl Workshop aims to be a 'free' event for those people who attend it. With that in mind we seek each year for a range of sponsors to help support us. If you work for a company that is using Perl who you believe would benefit from the exposure they would gain from being a sponsor of this event then please contact Mark immediately. We are looking for new sponsors each year and new ways in which to enhance their profile and further our event. So please do not hesitate to contact us with a sponsorship idea. As always a group of sponsors have already come forward to set up the sponsored 'free' beer at the after-venue event. We will let you know of the details in a future email. *Accommodation:* Each year there is a spur to find cheap rooms in London and with some it is a matter of being given a spare bed/sofa from the local Mongers living in and around London. If you have a spare bed or can put up a fellow Perler for a couple of nights around the conference place yourself on the wiki once it is launched and lets see if we can lessen the cost and broaden the uptake for our conference. If you are looking to try and get to the conference and the barrier is accommodation place your name on the same page and we can hope that someone will offer you a place to rest your weary head. *Announce:* Please forward this mail to any appropriate list that it does not appear on. As always any communication concerning the workshop can be sent to Mark Keating
[Hampshire] Ubuntu startup
Does anybody know how to get ubuntu to show useful info when booting? The reason I ask is that it keeps hanging when mounting disks every few boots, but for all I know it could just be fscking them. Or failing, that is it possible to get it to keep old /var/log/boot files? Thanks, Leo -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu startup
Hello Leo, On Mon, September 13, 2010 22:35, Leo wrote: Does anybody know how to get ubuntu to show useful info when booting? By pressing the Esc key when you see the first splash screen, it should take you to the text-based bootup area where you can see everything happening. It might not show you absolutely everything. The reason I ask is that it keeps hanging when mounting disks every few boots, but for all I know it could just be fscking them. Or failing, that is it possible to get it to keep old /var/log/boot files? Not sure about this, because it is unknown in which part of the boot cycle your machine falls over. -- Regards, Jan Henkins -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu startup
On 13/09/10 22:35, Leo wrote: Does anybody know how to get ubuntu to show useful info when booting? The reason I ask is that it keeps hanging when mounting disks every few boots, but for all I know it could just be fscking them. Or failing, that is it possible to get it to keep old /var/log/boot files? Thanks, Leo I normally just hit the Esc key to see the messages. -- -- Discover Linux - Open Source Solutions to Business and Schools http://discoverlinux.co.uk -- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
