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I did a ton of research before I bought my wife a Sony Ereader, because Kindle doesnt allow a download of public library books – for kindle to work, you have to buy the books and basically, Im cheap.

This isn’t completely accurate. There are a lot of books available for free or really cheap, and not just public domain classics. I get books for my Kindle from at least 5 different places, all legal and legit, and most of them have free offerings available at any given time. By the end of the year, library books will be available to Kindle owners too.

Science Fiction and Fantasy fans – Google “Baen free library” and “Baen CD fifth imperium”. Baen is awesome. Mr. Baen was a visionary, a true pioneer, and though he has passed, his company carries on his vision.

Im a huge fan of public library books and have found that ebook selections are very limited when compared to audio books, and there are still lots of titles that dont even come in audio book formats.

This varies quite a bit depending on where you are. Many rural libraries are joining consortiums in order to grow a shared collection, and others are adding new ebooks weekly. Yes, there are still many libraries with rather sad ebook selections, but there are also many with surprisingly large collections. The OP will have to check their own library to see what’s available. Overdrive has an impressive amount of titles available for libraries to license, so that’s not the issue.

Here’s irony for you – in Tennessee, a consortium of sorts was created to bring a larger ebook selection to the many rural counties. The four largest counties (including mine, Davidson) were left out because they were large enough to sustain their own collection. The result? The consortium counties ended up with access to more than twice the amount of ebooks than we have. I don’t begrudge them their ebooks, I just find it amusing.

Plus one thing to watch out for….most of the time, when you download a ebook (or audio book) from a library, its just like checking out a real book….it has a 7 or 14 day license to view it, and once the license expires, you dont get access to the book. This is if you are using an ereader or a pc.

This is indeed something to look out for, but again, it varies by library, as does the number of checkouts permitted at a time and holds policies. My library, for example, allows me to choose 7, 14 or 21 days for each book during the checkout process, and I can check out 10 at a time.

My opinion….wait for a while. Ebooks are still very new and publishers are still seeing if its a viable source for distribution. Books stores will be there for a long time (even if they are not brick/mortar, Amazon and BN online will still be selling books, just like they are still selling VHS tapes). If your device is online, magazines and newspapers are becoming viable to get subscriptions for on an ebook device, but books available thru the library are still a pain.

It’s not so much a matter of publishers not seeing it as viable as it is publishers trying to fight the inevitable. Not all of them, of course, but some are quite plainly trying to make things as difficult as possible, most notably the Agency 6 (used to be 5). The publishers that embraced the changes are now the shining examples of How It Can Be. Examples of those publishers include Baen, Harlequin and BeWrite among others. Baen and BeWrite don’t even use DRM, nor do the authors and publishers who publish on Smashwords, Feedbooks and some other online venues.

And libraries will eventually get on board, once all the DRM stuff gets settled into standards and common sense use for ereaders and publishers gets worked out. Libraries arent going away, and the concept of lending books for reading has to adapt for the masses.

Sadly, I don’t see the DRM issue being settled any time soon. Same goes for format. We’ve got it down to a few primary types of each, which is an improvement. But in my eyes we’re not really looking at a “VHS vs. Beta” issue – we’re talking about companies with ecosystems they are trying to build on. Many people said that Kindle owners would never get library books unless they allowed ePubs on the devices. Instead, Amazon developed a way for Overdrive to work with Amazon’s system, rather than the other way around.

Ebooks are not new, it’s just that they’ve been expanding out of their niche a lot more over the last few years. Those of use already using ebooks are saying, “It’s about time!” while those who weren’t are asking, ‘Where did you come from?” Now we just need certain publishers to realize that making things harder is not going to pay off for anyone.

As I’m sure you can tell, I’m quite an ebook geek. My Kindle has greatly improved and expanded my reading life, even though I’ve always been an avid reader. (I also have a Literati that I use for library books, but I particularly don’t care for it.) I’ve also gotten quite involved in the technical aspect of it and follow the developments quite closely. I expect some interesting things over the next year. Though e-Ink have stated they won’t be producing a new screen in that time, I suspect more devices will be showing up with the eInk Pearl, currently only available on Kindle and Sony. B&N have stated that a new Nook model will be announced on May 24th, causing much speculation. Amazon have apparently contracted a supplier, making it likely that they will be offering a tablet soon. Amazon also just added a Kindle Store for Germany on amazon.de. It’s an exciting time in the ebook world.

All very good info. Someone mentioned library books too – Overdrive-based libraries (which is most of them) require the installation of Adobe Digital Editions. Formats at the moment include ePub and PDF (both using Adobe DRM except for a few DRM-free books in the system) and a few older Mobipocket books. Note: The current Mobipocket library books are not the same as Amazon Kindle Mobi – it’s an older version and not compatible, if that’s a concern. By the end of the year, library books will be available for Kindle and Kindle apps as well (Kindle for PC/Mac/Android/etc)

Most online ebook stores have one of three “models” that will affect how you read on your PC.
1) Proprietary software to access the books on your PC (Amazon, B&N, Sony); or
2) The use of Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) on your PC (Harlequin, Booksonboard, Overdrive Public Libraries); or
3) DRM-free titles which can be read by most reader software that uses that particular format (Kindle for PC for mobi/prc, Stanza, ADE and others for ePub) (Smashwords, Baen, Fictionwise multi-format, Gutenberg, and any other store/publisher that offers DRM-free titles for download or purchase)

So essentially, what you need depends on where you want to get your books from. The only seller/format I can think of that doesn’t have a PC option is iBooks from Apple – it is available only on Apple devices, in ePub format with DRM specific to iBooks and thus not compatible with anything else.

I second, third and beyond the suggestion for calibre. Excellent software that I cannot live without. I also recommend the forums at mobileread.com. It is everything ebooks over there. It is also the home of the calibre support forum – it is manned by the developers and hundreds of users.

The article made me laugh because of a conversation I had with my roommate this past weekend. He has a PowerPC Mac G5 running OSX Leopard, which is the highest he can go without an upgraded processor. He happened to stop by my room right after I installed IE9. (Yes, couldn’t wait a few days till the release.) I started to say, “I like the look of the new Internet Explorer-” when he cut me off to rant about newer versions of IE not being available for his computer. (The rest of my statement, which I got to finish sometime later was, “-because it looks more like Chrome.”)

Well, there’s a lot of stuff that’s not available for his computer. This does not make MS evil. In the comments of that article, a guy stated he might switch to Mac because of MS’s lack of IE9 for XP. For years, IE was “the browser to hate” and now so many people are in an uproar because they can’t get it.

I was using Chrome almost exclusively (except for IE-only sites) on this machine but for the last several days I’ve been switching back and forth between Chrome and IE9. I have a variety of other browsers installed on my other computers. I just use what works. Having LastPass and Xmarks makes things easier. Now that it’s in release, I’m planning to put IE9 on my two Vista machines.

Christa

Christa,

Hello… The short answer..Is

1. I never do “Incremental s” There are too many possibilities for something to go wrong. If one(incremental) doesn’t work out quite right,or gets corrupted the whole thing is toast.

2.The user interface (GUI) is straight forward and easy to use (with Macrium) The “tools” are all easy to use.

3.With Macrium you can “Verify” the image. ( never had a verified image fail done scores of recoveries ) both with Acronis 2010 v-7046 and Macrium

4.You can “mount the “Image” and have a look for yourself…see if all is there etc.

5.As you have stated 3rd party Imaging is faster than the “clunky” MS flavor… With Acronis i can Image my OS with verification in less than 7 minutes…Macrium is a bit slower. (about 20-to 25 GB depending on which OS I’m running)

6. Macrium uses “compression” ( your choice of how much) SO you can save many more backups in less HD space.

7.You can make (burn) a ” Boot Disk” and it runs the program at boot time …bypassing windows altogether.SO if you toast your OS you can boot into Macrium or Acronis and “fix it” :cheers: Regards Fred

PS : Just search the Security & Backup board and you can find a lot about both

Sorry it took me so long to respond. I forgot to turn on notifications. I finally got around to installing the second hard drive, so I’m legitimately backing up now. I understand your reasoning regarding incrementals vs full images, and I used to feel the same way. In the last few days I’ve decided on a compromise. I’m doing either full images only or image+incremental, depending on the content of each partition. The image+incremental partitions are still getting a fresh image every so many days, again depending on the content and how often it’s likely to change.

Thank you for sharing the reasons for your preference. Many of the other features you mention are present to some degree in the Win 7 tool, or at least to the extent that I need them at the moment. That could change once I get “settled in” with my new machine, or when I get a third hard drive, whichever comes first.

Perhaps my reticence to install Macrium stems from my elation that MS finally included a workable backup solution in a Home version of their operating system.

It’s great to have all those views nicely sorted and organised for you but how do you back them up? They are scattered all over the place, and as far as I know there is no way that you can do a backup of those scattered files…. I know that the libraries function can bring things together nicely for you – if you could use that to make a backup to some other location, that would be great – anyone know how?

I don’t know how other backup programs see the libraries, but Win 7’s built-in backup utility allows the libraries to be selected for backup just like standard folders. I don’t do this because I backup by partition/hard drive but the option is there. The built-in backup is actually more flexible than I expected it to be. Probably not enough for some users but we all have different needs and it meets mine adequately.

Why are you encouraging MS to add complexity when it is not required ?
Just let us create a Folder like say “C:Data and then create appropriate sub folders.
You may say that we are still allowed to do that.
But if people keep submitting to (and praising) MS inane changes (Win 7 Start Menu, Ribbon, Libraries), then MS will be encouraged to do more (aka restrict us more) in future OS’s
Rob

Maybe because a lot of people find it useful? I just got my first Win 7 computer last week and I already utilize the library feature extensively. One of the things that I wanted to do on this desktop that wasn’t an option with my laptops was move my user data to a secondary hard drive and distribute various user file types among different partitions for a custom backup imaging scheme. It took literally less than five minutes to create new folders in the correct locations and change the library folders.

I also have several applications that get or create files that need to be imported into another application. I just add the file locations for those apps to a library and navigate there with the importing app, sort by date, and there are all of the day’s files ready to be imported, even though they are actually residing in 5 different folders.

I would say the libraries are actually *less* restrictive than previous methods because we now get to tell Windows exactly where we want our stuff to be instead of jumping through hoops to change the default locations. Two users can now use the same Video or Music locations, for example, with just a few clicks.

I received my new Win 7 64 computer on Tuesday, installed SP1 on Wednesday. So technically it was a new PC, but I’m sure some of you can relate to the fact that my computers don’t stay in a brand-new state for more than a few minutes after it’s turned on the first time. I also wanted to install some of my most-used programs prior to the update so I could compare their performance before and after SP1.

Install went well. After the reboot, a few things seemed sluggish, so I rebooted again and then it was fine. The only issue I’m having is that my monitor occasionally doesn’t reestablish the HDMI connection after a reboot, but I’m going to look for new drivers today (both for the monitor and the Nvidia card) and see if that’s the problem. The HDMI cable came in the mail as SP1 was installing, so it could be a coincidence that’s only driver-related and not SP1-related. I only know that I did not have this issue when it was connected with VGA before SP1.

For those who mentioned Macrium – on my Vista & XP machines, I’ve been using Macrium Reflect free version. I saw that Just Plain Fred mentioned that it’s better than the backup in Win 7. I do like Macrium, it’s very fast, but the free version does not do incrementals, so I’m curious as to why you prefer it. I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing that would make it the better choice over the MS option.

I did my backups with the Win 7 tools, and also created Factory Restore discs, but I’m going to have to set up the backup again today when I install the second hard drive. (I committed the mortal sin of backing up to a partition on the system drive, but on the off chance the drive failed this week, I’ve only got a few days of set-up to recreate. Normally I’d not do that. Ever. I’m just tired of juggling external drives at the moment, and I’m running out of places to plug in AC adapters.)

Christa

Try this – for “artist”, use that track’s artist, and for “album artist” use ‘Various Artists’. Or, if it’s one primary artist with guests, use the primary as “album artist” (i.e., “B.B. King”) and include the guests as “artist” (i.e., “B.B. King & Eric Clapton”). This also comes into play if you have a single artist compilation where they are credited differently on different tracks (i.e., “Les Baxter & His Orchestra” vs. “Les Baxter”). That’s how iTunes groups tracks, by looking first at the album title, then splitting by track artist unless there is a common album artist entered.

Christa

I used to use xnview for this. It’s Freeware. I don’t have the latest version but I imagine the functionality hasn’t changed. You basically set a renaming template including how many digits you want and it will add the leading zeros up to the number you specify. (http://www.xnview.com/) One thing you need to watch, unless they’ve changed it, is you have to include the file extension in the template or it will leave it off.

Christa

One thing I’ve noticed about iTunes through my travels on the Apple discussion site is that a lot of its users have the mistaken impression that they are required to have a card on file. You only need one to sign up because it’s how they verify your legal country of residence. Once it’s set up you can remove it. Some of them also think that they can’t get the free downloads without one. That’s not true either. There are a lot of people with CC info on there that don’t even need it. There were people on that board that got hacked who have never previously made a purchase on iTunes.

I’ve also noticed two different kinds of attacks. The one getting the most recent attention is primarily account hacks. Many of these are tied to the fraudulent promotion of a particular app developer. The others are stolen CC info from other places. They get lumped together because iTunes is a common target for spending these stolen funds and also for testing if a card number is valid.

I don’t have info stored on iTunes. I have info on a couple of other sites, but it’s generally the branded card for that particular company, and they are deliberately low-limit cards with no overdraft enabled. I’m not responsible for fraudulent charges, and if it happens it only ties up that one account while it’s getting sorted out. None of my current cards have virtual cards available but this system works for me. If I need a purchase on iTunes I eiither put my info in for that transaction then remove it, or buy an iTunes gift card. I usually buy my music from other sources anyway.

Christa

I also endorse Everything for searching file names. For complicated searches I use Nirsoft’s SearchMyFiles. It is also extremely fast in my experience, and has a ton of search parameters available. I only use Windows Search for location-specific quick queries (ie, to see how many mp3’s are in a given directory or to find that one .wma that hasn’t been converted yet).

Another issue with Windows Search is that it can’t locate corrupted files. You know those annoying moments when you try to delete a folder and Windows says “file not found” even though you’re looking right at it in Explorer? Yeah, those. The two search options above can search within those folders, but Windows can’t. Once you verify that there are files there, you can fix them with Recuva or some other app, or run chkdsk. (Those files/folders are usually the result of a program creating them then encountering an error, or if it doesn’t properly run post-install clean-up.)

Christa

thanks and sorry to loose you.

believe it or not – this is the first I’ve heard of your gizmo freeware site. My natural skepticism prevents me from finding you via google, since the site I find doesn’t have your name in the url. Can you post a link?

His site is http://www.techsupportalert.com/. It’s awesome. And all my guardians have declared it a safe site.

Christa

I do not know if 7-Zip portable is one of them, nor if it does make them, if it removes the entries upon exiting.

To my knowledge, the most recent version of 7-zip Portable is full stealth. It’s available on the PortableApps platform, so it can be used with or without PortableApps launcher. I couldn’t get on the PA site a minute ago but the folks at Portable Freeware agree with the stealth assessment. The Portable Freeware site is a fantastic resource for such things.

Christa

I agree with JoeP. (Not necessarily in all cases, of course. There’s still much malicious material out there looking for a way in with or without our complacency.) When I work with other people’s computers (friends and family, I don’t have time to do it as a paying job) I think hard about UAC depending on the person. I find a few types, really – the first group is alarmist and scared and thinks every dialog box means that every single click means possible impending doom. I’m not sure this is what MS intended, but for these folks it works. It tends to stress them out, though, and computers should be enjoyable, not stressful.The second group is conditioned by its omnipresence to just click through, like Joe said, and complain about the time it takes to do anything. Then there’s the group I’m in – the first thing I do after Windows setup is turn it off.

As for MSE… I can’t lay much blame there. I can’t help but think if this was a different company, the comments would be different. There is no infallible AV, and there never will be unless someone comes up with a way to control time or predict the future. Those are the only two ways to stay ahead in the virus game. And that’s what it is for the people who create the malware – a game to see who can get a step ahead of the AV definitions and infect as many computers as possible before an AV update stops them.

I used to use Avast, and I still think it’s great. It’s also what I was using both times I got infected, once about 5 years ago and then again this past January. Yes, I switched to MSE, but not because Avast “let me down”, I switched because I needed something less system-intensive and less intrusive. MSE has also caught a few things Avast didn’t. They aren’t malware, they are diagnostic tools commonly flagged because they do things that could be used for evil. I have to update them every so often and Avast never blinked. MSE threw up the wall for each of them. But that still doesn’t make either one necessarily better than the other.

Staying safe on the internet has many factors, from the AV to the browser to the other software on your machine (Adobe Reader comes to mind). It’s just about doing the most you can, then accepting that once in a while stuff happens anyway.

Christa

You’re welcome! Glad it worked for you, and I’m glad you were able to get the full-screen working again.

Christa

Go into Control Panel and check your AutoPlay settings. (If in “Vista” view, it’s under “Hardware and Sound > Play CDs or other Media Automatically”; in “Classic View”, it’s just titled “AutoPlay”.) That will let you set the default actions for several things. It’s possible that a software install, an update or even a simple unnoticed mis-click could have gotten them out of whack. Or, just because Vista does strange things sometimes. Hope that helps!

Christa