linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
Can anyone recommend an ebook reader? I need one that 1) allows me to read my own PDFs and taking notes under Linux; 2) is sold and (well) supported in Israel; 3) doesn't require me to have a non-Linux machine to flash the updates; 4) doesn't require me to go online to download my own content to it; 5) isn't illegal to have in Israel because of its wireless capabilities (in fact, I'd like to be able to disable any wireless technology and not to use it anyway). Something for which I don't have a desktop sync app in Linux as opposed to Mac/Win and have to mount the reader as a usb storage device is fine. For a global picture, there is a cool "master list" over at http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix VKH ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 1/9/2014 12:31 PM, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: Can anyone recommend an ebook reader? I need one that 1) allows me to read my own PDFs and taking notes under Linux; Any Android tablet. Though these days a used iPad 2 16gb Wifi sells for around 1200 NIS. Not Linux, and old, but still current as far as iOS and really nice hardware. 2) is sold and (well) supported in Israel; There are plenty of those. The 600 NIS ones are probably one time devices, you use them until you can no longer get apps to run on them. If you did not follow it, look at the thread I started recently about Chinese tablets and Android 4.4 (subject was Chinese KitKat). 3) doesn't require me to have a non-Linux machine to flash the updates; That's because the people who built the mods use Windows. Actual supported devices will download the updates via WiFi and install them.My android phone did that, but my Chinese android tablet (sold by the now defunct Office Depot) has no update option. 4) doesn't require me to go online to download my own content to it; Just about all of them use SD cards for storage, and the USB port to connect to a computer. You can move files via an SD card reader, or when connected via USB as if it were a disk drive. My Chinese tablet also supports OTG (on the go) storage, It has a type A USB port, and you can plug in memory sticks or hard disk drives. 5) isn't illegal to have in Israel because of its wireless capabilities (in fact, I'd like to be able to disable any wireless technology and not to use it anyway). You can turn WiFi off on them, and there are no illegal tablets due to wifi. US CDMA devices simply won't work here (although AFAIK, they are only iPads). 5.8gHz WiFi became legal here 1 April 2012. Someone posted a link to the document from the MOC stating that, you can look in the archives. Something for which I don't have a desktop sync app in Linux as opposed to Mac/Win and have to mount the reader as a usb storage device is fine. http://calibre-ebook.com/ For a global picture, there is a cool "master list" over at It's pretty much obsolete. Probably 99% of ebook reading is done on iPads and Android tablets. In the real world where people buy their eBooks, the iPad and Android tablet offer the ability to buy books from several sources, while the dedicated readers don't. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ Jerusalem Israel. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 1/9/2014 12:31 PM, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: 5) isn't illegal to have in Israel because of its wireless capabilities (in fact, I'd like to be able to disable any wireless technology and not to use it anyway). BTW, that was only the original iPad, and it was blocked in an attempt to satisfy the cellular companies and iDigital that people would not smuggle them in and avoid paying their markup and VAT. In the end it turned out that they only used 2.4gHz WiFi and passed CE certification, which was enough to make them legal here. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ Jerusalem Israel. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 09.01.2014 14:08, geoffrey mendelson wrote: [SNIP] It's pretty much obsolete. Probably 99% of ebook reading is done on iPads and Android tablets. In the real world where people buy their eBooks, the iPad and Android tablet offer the ability to buy books from several sources, while the dedicated readers don't. Thanks for your answer. When I posted a link to a matrix of all the current eink-based readers, I assumed it is obvious I want an e-ink based one. I'd think dedicated reader would be more energy/weight/price efficient than a general purpose tablet, but anything with e-ink will do! Also, as I had stated, I'm not interested in buying DRM books anyway... On 09.01.2014 14:18, geoffrey mendelson wrote: On 1/9/2014 12:31 PM, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: 5) isn't illegal to have in Israel because of its wireless capabilities (in fact, I'd like to be able to disable any wireless technology and not to use it anyway). BTW, that was only the original iPad, and it was blocked in an attempt to satisfy the cellular companies and iDigital that people would not smuggle them in and avoid paying their markup and VAT. In the end it turned out that they only used 2.4gHz WiFi and passed CE certification, which was enough to make them legal here. Ah, I see! Thanks a lot, I haven't followed the development since the original debate began. V. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 1/9/2014 3:08 PM, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: Thanks for your answer. When I posted a link to a matrix of all the current eink-based readers, I assumed it is obvious I want an e-ink based one. I'd think dedicated reader would be more energy/weight/price efficient than a general purpose tablet, but anything with e-ink will do! Also, as I had stated, I'm not interested in buying DRM books anyway... Not really. You can buy an active display android tablet for about the same money. E-ink displays are more energy efficient, but slow. You end up hitting the next button before you finish a page in the hope that it starts to refresh before you get to the last word in the page and finishes as you do. They also suck for displaying material that was originally color or scanned material. I have many books that were scanned and they are unreadable on an e-ink display, E-ink was an idea which came and went. I also found that battery life was exaggerated by the vendors, being a fast reader, I got about 6-8 hours of reading out of a charge. This was both on an original Kindle (with a new battery and cellular turned off) and an original nook with wifi turned off. They list some enormous number of "page flips" which does not mean a lot, your average paperback book needs 3-4 "flips" to cover one page of paper. An A4 page of 10 point type takes a lot of them. As for DRM books, I figured that out, but they do drive the market. People are no longer satisfied with only one vendor and want the ability to buy them from many vendors which means a tablet, not a reader. Just for the heck of it I looked up original iPads on Yad2. They go for about 600 NIS, which makes it not worth buying a dedicated reader, especially if you have to pay postage from the US and VAT. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ Jerusalem Israel. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
I'd say that the e-ink is not yet obsolete. B&N and Amazon still sell them and will continue to do so, as the tablets are not a friendly device to read a long book or document. e-ink readers are not good for video, or even web browsing, but they are umatched for reading books on the road/plane. They are small, batteries last a long time, you can get one that is backlit for reading in the dark, etc. That said, I have yet to find an all around good arrangement for reading pdf files, especially scanned ones. The 6" devices are too small, the iPads and Nooks of the world either have a horrid path to get to the documents (library metaphor in Apple, plus books are divided between their own reader app and Adobe through two different UIs. The Nook and even Kindle app on it do not retain the last page read info, so you have to look for it every time. The 10" Kindle might work (in B&W at least), but is not worth the money. At least that was the situation when I gave up. If anyone knows an android app that resumes reading a book at the last page reached, and/or has bookmarks to easily reach that place manually, do let me know. Thx. Z On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:24 PM, geoffrey mendelson < geoffreymendel...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 1/9/2014 3:08 PM, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: > >> Thanks for your answer. When I posted a link to a matrix of all the >> current eink-based readers, I assumed it is obvious I want an e-ink based >> one. I'd think dedicated reader would be more energy/weight/price efficient >> than a general purpose tablet, but anything with e-ink will do! Also, as I >> had stated, I'm not interested in buying DRM books anyway... >> > > Not really. You can buy an active display android tablet for about the > same money. E-ink displays are more energy efficient, but slow. You end up > hitting the next button before you finish a page in the hope that it starts > to refresh before you get to the last word in the page and finishes as you > do. > > They also suck for displaying material that was originally color or > scanned material. I have many books that were scanned and they are > unreadable on an e-ink display, > > E-ink was an idea which came and went. > > I also found that battery life was exaggerated by the vendors, being a > fast reader, I got about 6-8 hours of reading out of a charge. This was > both on an original Kindle (with a new battery and cellular turned off) and > an original nook with wifi turned off. They list some enormous number of > "page flips" which does not mean a lot, your average paperback book needs > 3-4 "flips" to cover one page of paper. An A4 page of 10 point type takes a > lot of them. > > As for DRM books, I figured that out, but they do drive the market. People > are no longer satisfied with only one vendor and want the ability to buy > them from many vendors which means a tablet, not a reader. > > Just for the heck of it I looked up original iPads on Yad2. They go for > about 600 NIS, which makes it not worth buying a dedicated reader, > especially if you have to pay postage from the US and VAT. > > > Geoff. > > -- > Geoffrey S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ > Jerusalem Israel. > > > ___ > Linux-il mailing list > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > -- Sincerely, Steve http://www.words2u.net - GPS points and tracks (mainly in Costa Rica) http://www.words2u.net/recipes - Recipe collection ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 09.01.2014 16:24, geoffrey mendelson wrote: On 1/9/2014 3:08 PM, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: Thanks for your answer. When I posted a link to a matrix of all the current eink-based readers, I assumed it is obvious I want an e-ink based one. I'd think dedicated reader would be more energy/weight/price efficient than a general purpose tablet, but anything with e-ink will do! Also, as I had stated, I'm not interested in buying DRM books anyway... Not really. You can buy an active display android tablet for about the same money. E-ink displays are more energy efficient, but slow. You end up hitting the next button before you finish a page in the hope that it starts to refresh before you get to the last word in the page and finishes as you do. They also suck for displaying material that was originally color or scanned material. I have many books that were scanned and they are unreadable on an e-ink display, E-ink was an idea which came and went. I've been quite happy with the 1st generation irex iliad reader, despite the slow refresh. The newer e-ink pearl units really look great, and much better on my eyes wrt reading strain than a tablet. So it's not a matter of money, but of my personal preferences and my use case, which is a perfect match for an e-ink reader! V ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:24 PM, geoffrey mendelson < geoffreymendel...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 1/9/2014 3:08 PM, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: > >> Thanks for your answer. When I posted a link to a matrix of all the >> current eink-based readers, I assumed it is obvious I want an e-ink based >> one. I'd think dedicated reader would be more energy/weight/price efficient >> than a general purpose tablet, but anything with e-ink will do! Also, as I >> had stated, I'm not interested in buying DRM books anyway... >> > > Not really. You can buy an active display android tablet for about the > same money. E-ink displays are more energy efficient, but slow. You end up > hitting the next button before you finish a page in the hope that it starts > to refresh before you get to the last word in the page and finishes as you > do. > > They also suck for displaying material that was originally color or > scanned material. I have many books that were scanned and they are > unreadable on an e-ink display, > > E-ink was an idea which came and went. > Not true at all. e-Ink continues to be developed and now is much quicker then it used to be. Many vendors are developing new e-ink platforms. I can reveal that I am working with one company on a better version of their system that will be sold in Israel when it is done. It is based on Android, will be able to read mostly EPUB but also PDF. The same company is also developing a cellular phone with eInk touch display. -- Ori Idan ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 09/01/14 12:31, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: > 5) isn't illegal to have in Israel because of its wireless > capabilities (in fact, I'd like to be able to disable any wireless > technology and not to use it anyway). I never could figure that one out. A router/access point needs to be told what country it's in, so it knows to not allow you to use frequencies that are illegal where you are. I could not figure out, however, why a non-access point device would need to know what frequencies are allowed. It will not connect on frequencies where an access point isn't listening, so why bother? Shachar ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
Shachar Shemesh writes: > A router/access point needs to be told what country it's in, so it > knows to not allow you to use frequencies that are illegal where you > are. I could not figure out, however, why a non-access point device > would need to know what frequencies are allowed. It will not connect > on frequencies where an access point isn't listening, so why bother? I suppose that even if there is nothing to connect to on a particular frequency a device may still emit, e.g., scanning a frequency range, and thus be a source of interference. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 1/11/2014 11:21 AM, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: I suppose that even if there is nothing to connect to on a particular frequency a device may still emit, e.g., scanning a frequency range, and thus be a source of interference. Ad Hoc networks. As I mentioned in a post about using TV sticks as software defined radios, you need a license to monitor VHF or UHF communications frequencies. I don't know what you could use a wifi device to monitor, but the 5.8gHz band was used by the IDF before April 2012. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ Jerusalem Israel. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 1/11/2014 8:43 AM, Ori Idan wrote: Not true at all. e-Ink continues to be developed and now is much quicker then it used to be. Many vendors are developing new e-ink platforms. I can reveal that I am working with one company on a better version of their system that will be sold in Israel when it is done. It is based on Android, will be able to read mostly EPUB but also PDF. That, IMHO is going to be a tough sell. If you search for Android on Zap, reduce the list to tablets and then under 1000 NIS, you get 135 different ones for sale, several under 300 NIS. Not surprising, the under 300 NIS tablets were sold under another name by Wal-Mart in the US last fall on the run up to Christmas for $59. Since a generic Android tablet can read many formats of eBooks, including ones with DRM, just an ePub reader is again, IMHO a hard sell. BTW, when I wrote about PDF files, I was writing about SCANNED images encapsulated in a PDF file. In order to read them, you need a wide range of grey scale or color, and the ability to slide sideways, up or down, and zoom. I was not writing about text files. I don't know what happened to the eVrit, an Israeli version of a Chinese ebook reader that had its own customized software which included Hebrew fonts and DRM from NDS for Steimatzky. Last I looked, it had morphed into an iOS App, I don't know if it made it to Android, and if books are still sold for it. It will be interesting to me to see how much it does sell for and what realistic battery life is. The same company is also developing a cellular phone with eInk touch display. Interesting, Nokia's "dumb phone" with an eInk display bombed in India, which may have been the only place they sold it. Again, price and battery life will mater. Though an interesting niche would be a cheap cellphone with a 7 inch display and full Android, or as they are called a phablet. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ Jerusalem Israel. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
On 09.01.2014 12:31, Vassilii Khachaturov wrote: Can anyone recommend an ebook reader? I need one that 1) allows me to read my own PDFs and taking notes under Linux; 2) is sold and (well) supported in Israel; 3) doesn't require me to have a non-Linux machine to flash the updates; 4) doesn't require me to go online to download my own content to it; 5) isn't illegal to have in Israel because of its wireless capabilities (in fact, I'd like to be able to disable any wireless technology and not to use it anyway). Something for which I don't have a desktop sync app in Linux as opposed to Mac/Win and have to mount the reader as a usb storage device is fine. For a global picture, there is a cool "master list" over at http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix VKH Went for onyx M92, and I was pleasantly surprised how good things work out of the box with linux --- no rooting, no special hack installations needed. Annotation works very well, too, as well as reviewing it back on Linux workstation. The only thing that doesn't work well out of the box is hyperref-produced hyperlinks in the PDF --- the Adobe PDF reader shipped in the reader isn't too intuitive. Need to install another reader app for that. Another minor annoyance is the silly confirmation question whenever you exit a PDF --- back from the days when the reader used to forget the last position in a book, no longer the case... Didn't need to contact the support in Israel yet, hopefully won't during the warranty period at all :) V. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Fwd: Re: linux-friendly ebook with decent support in Israel?
It will not be EPUB only, it will be Android with e-Ink display, so it can do almost anything that an Android tablet can. Battery life is expected to be 3 weeks. This is what we got in the preliminary models. If that's the case, it will be very interesting. My android devices, a 10" Chinese no name tablet, and a cell phone need daily charging. The rest of the family has gets similar results. As for eVrit, it is now an iOS and Android app. However they hardly sell any books and have relatively few titles available. There are today many EPUB reading applications that support Hebrew, and also more and more Hebrew books available in new and old store. Look at: http://www.booxilla.com or http://www.indiebook.com Thanks, my wife is looking for a source of easy Hebrew children's ebooks. My sons who are fluent, have not quite caught on to them. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson 4X1GM/N3OWJ Jerusalem Israel. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
