I got an email from Kalmbach notifying me of the availability of e-books. I've never used Kindle and these are being offered with an ap called NOOK. I don't know if these are free aps or not. Also, do these aps work on a PC or do you need a tablet. I'm stuck in the year 2000 technology wise. I don't even have a smart phone.
I checked the prices of a few titles and it seems the e-books save you about $5 over the printed versions. At that price point, I think I would opt for the printed copy. I can take that anywhere to read. By the fireplace, my screened in porch, my Jacuzzi. Also I can buy those from my LHS which helps them out a little too.
I could clear a lot of storage space if I were to go completely digital. I've got most MRR issues going back to the 1970s in plastic drawers which I keep under my benchwork. I have access to the digital archives but I just can't see parting with the printed ones. If I was just starting out in this hobby I would probably go completely digital for all my reading and reference material but I'm too much of a seasoned citizen to change my ways now.
I belive NOOK is free. My young kids use it.
Perhaps Kalmbach can help answer that Q?
Nook is an app developed by Barnes & Noble. As far as I know the app is free.
Joe Staten Island West
joe323 Nook is an app developed by Barnes & Noble. As far as I know the app is free.
When you download a book, does it download the entire book into memory or just part of it at a time? The reason I ask is I can disconnect my PC and run for a while on battery power which would allow me to take it to other locations (except the Jacuzzi of course). My PC is plugged into my modem. There is a way to establish a wireless connection too but I've never figured that part out. If I can download the entire book and/or save it, I wouldn't need to have it loaded into memory piecemeal.
As I'm sure everyone can see frome my questions, when it comes to e-book technology, I am functionally illeterate.
It downloads full book. I am in my 60's but can find stuff online faster than in any book. Biggest problem I have is a lot of search engines try to keep you safe so you don't get to see all that is out there which I admit can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.
Nook is Barnes & Nobles app. It's free.
I once again find myself on opposite side of most. I grew up with paper books. There was no such thing as a handheld reading device until I was na adult. Books? I read a LOT. I have boxes and boxes of books, far too many to even have out on bookscases - unless I could afford a house that has a dedicated library. Always have. One SUmmer home from colelge I decided to keep every book I read piled up alongside my bed instead of putting them away, just to see how many I did read. Mistake - I had hard time getting out of bed by the end.
But I started reading e-books when I got an early PDA - a Palm III. That has to be close to 25 years ago. Small screen and not really an ideal experience, but it allowed many books in the space of less than one paperback, plus it did plenty of other things. I actually had an early smartphone - the Kyocera 6035, which was a cell phone with a Palm PDA built in. One device to carry, not two. Years bofre the iPhone.
When tablets came along, I held off. Pretty expensive and an extra device to carry, especially if I ended up not really using it. But then HP's mistake was my gain, at $99 I could afford to have it end up in a drawer after a few weeks. But it didn't end up in a drawer. Finally something where it was easy to read books on - large type, plenty of content per page, compared to a tiny phone screen. Eventually even the third party sites with support and apps dried up, so I started looking for another tablet. Since I had an iPhone, I ended up getting an iPad which I have had for several years now.
Reading books on such devices perfectly suits me. I have no problem "flippign back and forth" like I used to with paper books. Typical e-book apps give you a return to where you left off button, so when you flip back to review something, one touch takes you back to your progress point in the book. That I can adjust text size, brightness, etc. is invaluable. Zoom in to pictures (when the content it is properly produced and isn't just a dump of the same version sent to the printer for the physical version - you really need to see this in action, it's like zooming in to those large format photos scanned by Shorpy's). Links in the material can actually directly open in the web browser on the tablet - instead of reading it off a physical page and typing it in your browser. And a single 1 pound device holds a volume of books and magazines you couldn;t even lift if they were physical. Plus it has the web browser, I can access my email, and even play games to take a break.
I can go on, but as someone brought up on books, I was a rapid and early adopter to the e-book method. I've purchased very few physical books since - mostly ones that weren't available as e-books. I subscribe to two magazines, both are electronic versions (one was from the time it was introduced, the other, I switched over to a pure digital subscription and stopped the physical version).
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
That 6035 was one of the greatest innovations built. I had the first one sold in Beverly Hills when it came out, as I was designing a portal application for the AT&T screen phone and the 6035 was a near bitmap-equivalent. Of course they dropped support for the browser shortly thereafter and while it was a nifty device, who bothers with Palm OS?
Nook was originally a line of e-readers, as I recall intended to compete with the Kindle as a means of streaming lucrative proprietary content to walked-garden equipment. I bought two of the originals for the kids when they started reading -- neither one ran more than about a year. The free reader is something I did not know about -- I hope it works!
rrinker Nook is Barnes & Nobles app. It's free. I once again find myself on opposite side of most. I grew up with paper books. There was no such thing as a handheld reading device until I was na adult. Books? I read a LOT. I have boxes and boxes of books, far too many to even have out on bookscases - unless I could afford a house that has a dedicated library. Always have. One SUmmer home from colelge I decided to keep every book I read piled up alongside my bed instead of putting them away, just to see how many I did read. Mistake - I had hard time getting out of bed by the end.
I too prefer real books and newspapers to reading from an electronic device but those my soon be obsolete. Had I ever gotten rich enough, I would have had my own private library floor to ceiling bookshelves and those rolling ladders that attach to the top of the shelves. Never got close to being able to afford such an indulgence. My home office has a pair of four foot bookcases with 3 shelves a piece that hold most of my books. I also have a smaller book case in by bedroom above my dresser.
Actually 'Nook" is the name of the device or reader, so the app allows one to download things to the Nook.
rrinker I can go on, but as someone brought up on books, I was a rapid and early adopter to the e-book method. I've purchased very few physical books since - mostly ones that weren't available as e-books. I subscribe to two magazines, both are electronic versions (one was from the time it was introduced, the other, I switched over to a pure digital subscription and stopped the physical version). --Randy
I agree 100% with Randy. I've converted all of my personal and professional periodicals to digital. My digital Trains and MR go back to 2013. I love being able to check a reference to any of them with a few keystrokes and then back to the original. Much easier than shuffling through (and finding) old magazines. Same with MRP and GMR annuals. The ability to "pinch or spread" a photo to enlarge it is the best bonus. My wife got me a hard copy of "The Southern Pacific in the San Fernando Valley" for my birthday. Wonderful book with some great photos. I actually caught myself pinching a photo to enlarge it to see more detail - DOH.
At work I used to have the "office" technical library with text books going back to the 1930s. I had a full wall of floor to ceiling engineering books. When we moved to the farm in North Carolina, I had no space for them in my new home office. For three years the books have been boxed up in our shop and I've hardly missed them. My company has a subscription to Knovel which has digital copies of almost any engineering text you would need. A few clicks and a digital search and I've found what I needed much faster than thumbing through the old books.
Ray
Yes, the Nook original was a device from B&N. But that fizzled so there is a Nook app for IOS and Android that lets you read books in that format. I've had it installed for years - I think the first thing I got was an e-book version ot Track Planning for Realistic Operation. Though that is truly an example of how NOT to do an e-book, although there wasn;t a whole lot Klambach could do, the book predates using all electronic typsetting so it's more or less a glorified scan. More recent Kalmbach Book releases in e-book format are of a much better wuality.
It's slightly annoying they use Nook, most of my book reading is done in the Kindle app - for $10/mo I have Kindle Unlimited so I can get all the books I can read for just that one fixed price - not only does it mean I always have somethign to read, it also means I am much more likely to try some author I never read before, because heck, it's essentially free, if I don't like it, I just return it and get something else - you don't get to keep the books, it's more like a library. But books you purchase, those are yours forever.
I discovered a lot of authors due to one publisher issuing CDs full of works of the author of a given book, plus related ones - 100% free. Typically the first one or two books of a series - get you hooked, then you buy the rest, which I did many times. Ones I didn't like - well, it was free, if I didn't like it enough to continue the series, no need to waste money. A good model that ends up selling more books, given that it's now $10 or more for a paperbak. I don't buy much I don't know anything about.
Overmod That 6035 was one of the greatest innovations built. I had the first one sold in Beverly Hills when it came out, as I was designing a portal application for the AT&T screen phone and the 6035 was a near bitmap-equivalent. Of course they dropped support for the browser shortly thereafter and while it was a nifty device, who bothers with Palm OS? Nook was originally a line of e-readers, as I recall intended to compete with the Kindle as a means of streaming lucrative proprietary content to walked-garden equipment. I bought two of the originals for the kids when they started reading -- neither one ran more than about a year. The free reader is something I did not know about -- I hope it works!
I actually still have mine, but somewhere along the way lost the charger. That I can probably take care of using my bench supply, but without the docking base (plus how many computers have a real serieal port any more?) it's next to useless. There's probably an online emulator (there are for the regular Palm PDA devices) but trying to go Grafitti handwriting with a mouse is really challenging.
PalmOS morphed into WebOS, the final version being on the HP Touchpad (well, LG actually uses it in their smart tvs now). The TOuchpad was just a huge HP blunder - it actually was a very good device, easily as fast as anything at the time, but HP hobbled it will all sorts of telemeetry stuff by default. A few taps in the settings and it was nearly twice as fast with no downside, of course all the reviews tested it as it came out of the box and universally panned it. At $99 it was the biggest deal in computers since the Timex-Sinclalr 1000 at $99. The now familias IOS method of your apps appearing as small 'card' that you can swipe through to task switch, or swipe up to dismiss? That was in WebOS with the Touchpad, years before it appeared in IOS.
Nook is a crappy app. I regret buying the kalmbach books that I bought. One of books is track plans and when I zoom in the text and line quality is blurry and poor
In addition, it a different app from the subscription which uses zinio.
rrinkerThe now familias IOS method of your apps appearing as small 'card' that you can swipe through to task switch, or swipe up to dismiss? That was in WebOS with the Touchpad, years before it appeared in IOS.
Who am I to say, though, that Apple didn't make it practical... they certainly 'got' how to make glass screens workable when then-market-leader RIM couldn't.
Remember NuBus, the expansion bus that ran at half-speed in a Mac because half the bandwidth was eaten up with big-endian vs. little-endian byte-swapping? You won't see that in Inside Macintosh! Nor will you see mention of the very, very suspiciously familiar-looking Sony word processor for which those hard-cased 3.5" floppies that so impressed Steve Jobs were explicitly designed... if I didn't own one, I might never have known either.
nw2 Nook is a crappy app. I regret buying the kalmbach books that I bought. One of books is track plans and when I zoom in the text and line quality is blurry and poor In addition, it a different app from the subscription which uses zinio.
That's not the Nook app, that because those older books are nothing more than glorified scans and the images aren;t in a resultion greater than the print version. The original digital MR was the same way, newer digital editions have higher res pictures. Just look at the online archive if you have access, or the 75 year DVD collection, it's the same way. On older issues where the was no digital source, forget zooming in.
A little research reveals that the "Nook" books may come in a file format known as "epub" (not sure, I've never owned a Nook or Kindle).
I do know that the standard file format for Kindle is "mobi".
If there's a Nook application (reader) for Windows, you could use that.
I'm on a Mac. For e-book reading (either epub or mobi) I use a free application called "Calibre". It comes in versions for Windows and Linux, as well. The Calibre download page mentions it can be used with iPads and Android tablets, but I haven't tried that.
Originally I didn't think I'd enjoy e-books as compared to reading from an "analog" book. But over time, it's become my preferred way to read. I particularly like the ability to increase font size, or even change the font if need be.
I do my e-book reading on a 13" MacBook Pro. Doesn't weigh much more than a big hardcover book...
My wife has a Kindle. She can read real books fine, but can't physically hold them due to arthritis in her hands. That said, you can adjust the typ size on a Kindle, so if the letters are too small, make them larger. I have seen no image degradation when sizing.
When we take the Capitol Limited out east and back, she can load up 10 or 20 books into the Kindle instead of carrying all those heavy real books. The library has books to loan in Kindle format. You get them for like two weeks, and they simply evaporate after that. We can access the local library via the internet or over 5G or whatever that is these days. I recall a time we were driving about and I pulled into a McDonalds so she could free WiFi a new book.
SOme Kindles have more features than others, and so can act more like ipads or such. I myself prefer paper, but then I am a Luddite.