A Spaces friend bloged on eBook writing and reading back in August.  This is one thing that has been on the fringe of technical circles for years but is slowly coming into mainstream thanks to Amazon.com and Ophra.  The issue is, as with any new technology, standards.  Each reader has its own internal format they don't share, there is PDF, HTML, TXT, etc. all of which require their own codes to store, load, and read in the device.  Just like now, most music is played in MP3 format, though there is still Windows Media Player, Real Player, and Quick Time formats, most players can read most files.  That is the issue with eBooks and preventing it from really taking off.

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The Joys of Bookmaking in a Digital World

No, I don’t mean the kind of bookmaking that involves gambling! This post discusses techniques you can use to make or assemble your own ebooks that can be read on your Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle or other eBook reader you might own. You might be wondering why someone would want to do this. After all, there are many ebooks available for sale or downloadable from libraries (provided you have a Sony Reader) and many web sites that provide free ebooks for download or reading online. - Jeff Flynt

The reason for bloging on this is because I have been thinking of getting some books.  While not a big issue, I can order from Amazon and shipping is relatively quick, 4 weeks, but there is customs and such.  For the older books I wanted, US historical references, speeches, essays, and works from authors like Poe, Twain, etc.  Thanks to Project Gutenberg, digitizing copyright expired books into public domain and eBook formats, many older works are now available for free in various formats.  Gutenberg, by the way, was the German printing professional who profected the printing press by developing and implementing moveable typeface.

I have a PSP 2000 that I got last Christmas.  I have only a few games, half are in Japanese or Chinese, and its memory stick is half filled with photos, music, and demos of games (because I do not download illegal games).  I had heard that you could read books on the PSP so I investigated and found the program PSP eBook Creator, found at parablax.co.uk  The program is small and is pretty cool that it allows you to customize background color, text color, font face and size, etc.  It is limited in that it takes files saved in TXT format, so if you have PDFs or other formats the program can't read them.  The good thing is Gutenberg has thousands of books and they are all in TXT format, so there are tons of copyright free books available, all classics.

The program works like this, it takes the TXT file, converts it into a JPG that fits perfectly onto the PSP screen.  You flip pages/screens using the left and right buttons so there is no scrolling which makes reading more easy for me.  I have downloaded about 8 files and the longest one is 104 screens and comes in about 6Mb.  I have just found this so it is still in the novelty phase but I do like it.  Reading is ok, you can increase the text size, and being on PSP you can have multiple enternatinment options to you now.  Sometimes playing games, watching video, or listening to music is not all that practicle you can now read a book, and all of this one device.  I really like that the PSP is much more functional then originally thought, with wireless and Skype loaded I can even use as a WiFi phone if so inclined.  So for those out there interested in trying out ebooks and not wanting to invest any money, take your, or your kids PSP, download a small program, a few books and see if it is good enough to sink the money into a Kindle (which I could use but WiFi will not work in China, just like Amazon unbox, music, game, and other downloads).  I recommend this as a money saving way to read, no books, no shipping, and all done in less then the time to get to the car!