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I don't use the dictionary feature TOO often, but it's one of the few software features I do use.
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Oct 28, 2013 22:44
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Odette posted:Dictionary updates? Who the gently caress uses dictionaries? No joke I am currently reading a paper book for the first time in years, and I've already pressed my finger down on a word and held it there for a beat three times.
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Oct 28, 2013 23:40
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Dictionaries are awesome, they're a big plus to having an Ereader. They updated the one on the Nook Simple Touch a while ago to actually be useful and I now use it constantly. It made reading through Infinite Jest, my big summer read last year, really educational. It's also great for reading old books with anachronistic terminology, and it does pretty well with etymology, as a bit of a word nerd I really like having that quick reference. And speaking of word nerdery, I'm curious, what dictionary does the Kindle use? The Nook ST currently runs the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, which is pretty solid. And also in Nook news, which there hasn't been much of for a while, some kind of Ereader device is going to be announced this week. Probably something to compete with the Paperwhite finally.
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Oct 29, 2013 00:46
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Odette posted:Dictionary updates? Who the gently caress uses dictionaries? Who are you, Walt Whitman? You've never come across a word you don't know the meaning of? 
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Oct 29, 2013 01:51
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Don Tacorleone posted:Who are you, Walt Whitman? You've never come across a word you don't know the meaning of? I was merely lashing out at the inability for stock Paperwhites to have the collections managed by external programs such as Calibre. My apologies, as it seems that I should have constructed my initial post in a way that my disdain for Amazon to lock this feature away was more apparent. Odette fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 01:58
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I still think Amazon is fundamentally against the idea of making large collections easy to manage, purely so people aren't tempted to acquire large amounts of books from somewhere other than the Kindle store. So I wouldn't bet on that becoming a feature. I mean you can already add books to collections, to multiple collections even. It would be trivial for them to open up, or just implement a management tool through your Kindle account. All you're doing is tagging books, and the functionality is there. Yet they don't allow this. I can't see it being an oversight baka kaba fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 02:59
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baka kaba posted:I still think Amazon is fundamentally against the idea of making large collections easy to manage, purely so people aren't tempted to acquire large amounts of books from somewhere other than the Kindle store. So I wouldn't bet on that becoming a feature. That doesn't make sense though. Everyone who wants to pirate already does so. And the search system makes it a breeze to find the book you want.
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Oct 29, 2013 03:34
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I'm talking about 1000-eBookz_NYT_BestSELLERS.torrent or whatever. Someone could download something like that, throw it on their Kindle and nicely tag it up in collections and they'd basically be set for life. Lots to read just by picking up the device, less likely to go browsing the Kindle store. So instead they get to throw 1000 books on their Kindle and then cry as they try to somehow organise it. Searching is all very well if you know exactly what you're looking for, but if you're browsing your stuff (or, say, you've dumped hundreds of books on your Kindle) you have to be able to look through it. These are devices with gigs of memory, and your average book is in the order of kilobytes, yet the organisation system has to be meticulously done by hand, one by one, very very slowly. And it inconveniences people who pirate tons of books more than it does people who buy things individually. I'm not saying it stops anyone pirating, it just seems like Amazon's happy to make their lives a lot harder by restricting basic functionality. Anyone it deters is a potential customer, and it's book sales they care about in the end, not Kindle sales
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Oct 29, 2013 03:50
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baka kaba posted:I'm talking about 1000-eBookz_NYT_BestSELLERS.torrent or whatever. Someone could download something like that, throw it on their Kindle and nicely tag it up in collections and they'd basically be set for life. Lots to read just by picking up the device, less likely to go browsing the Kindle store. So instead they get to throw 1000 books on their Kindle and then cry as they try to somehow organise it. Yes, uh, people do do this. There's no need to tag them in collections in order to do this. I have to imagine that the intersection of "happy to pirate" and "will only put it on kindle if they could be in collections" is extremely small. baka kaba posted:Searching is all very well if you know exactly what you're looking for, but if you're browsing your stuff (or, say, you've dumped hundreds of books on your Kindle) you have to be able to look through it. These are devices with gigs of memory, and your average book is in the order of kilobytes, yet the organisation system has to be meticulously done by hand, one by one, very very slowly. And it inconveniences people who pirate tons of books more than it does people who buy things individually. Or you just don't organize it, and search for something you want to read? It does full text search after all. And I'd say it's deterred exactly 0 people ever, so I don't think they planned that to do this.
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Oct 29, 2013 04:05
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RightClickSaveAs posted:
While I recognize they have to release a response device, I would much rather they do some things to enhance the service. The lack of ability to upload books to the cloud is what's really hurting me right now as I would really love my side loaded books to sync across devices. I have a Nexus 7 on top of my simple touch and I would really love to bounce between devices and keep my page synced. I've picked up a bunch of books from Story Bundle and Humble Bundle and I hate being tied to one device. While I can understand their inability to care about books you didn't purchase through them, their main competitor offers it and you really want to keep features in parity to keep people on your platform.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:04
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This may seem very minor, but I wish they would bring back some of the original more in store features. I miss walking into a store and getting my free coffee and feeling like I have a reason to actually buy in store. My wet dream is that they will release a new unit with physical page turn buttons, their killer feature, an audio port, and a little page that entitles me to free cookies.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:20
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baka kaba posted:I still think Amazon is fundamentally against the idea of making large collections easy to manage, purely so people aren't tempted to acquire large amounts of books from somewhere other than the Kindle store. So I wouldn't bet on that becoming a feature. 
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Oct 29, 2013 11:21
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So Matchbook is live, and while I appreciate the concept, so far there just doesn't appear to be enough publishers on board to make it particularly useful (for me anyway). Out my 12+ year Amazon purchasing history, I have 4 books I can purchase: 1 short story, 1 I don't ever remember buying and 2 books my wife bought on my account.
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Oct 29, 2013 15:54
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Maneki Neko posted:So Matchbook is live, and while I appreciate the concept, so far there just doesn't appear to be enough publishers on board to make it particularly useful (for me anyway). I'm confused as to what makes a book eligible. I looked at a few example books that I bought, and a bunch of them are showing as available in the matchbook search section, but apparently I'm not eligible for them? I bought them directly from Amazon, so it's not like I bought it from a 3rd party...Out of the tons of books I bought, only 1 was eligible.
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Oct 29, 2013 17:44
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10 years, zero books available. Way to go, Amazon! You sure "Bookmatched" me!
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Oct 29, 2013 17:45
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Yeah I've been an Amazon customer for at least 8 years and my only option was a single book. Also, I thought the original plan was to make the ebook version free? Guess even with that concession they still didn't get many bites from publishers.
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Oct 29, 2013 17:51
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Press release said 70,000 books, which is both a lot and a little. I had 13 out of 110 total books purchased, which is OK. Some of those were third party sellers, which don't count, and some were coffee table books, which don't really matter. I might pick up the Neal Stephenson books, because I have the hardcovers and they are really bulky. smackfu fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 18:38
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Install Windows posted:Yes, uh, people do do this. There's no need to tag them in collections in order to do this. I have to imagine that the intersection of "happy to pirate" and "will only put it on kindle if they could be in collections" is extremely small. There's no need to tag things, and just have hundreds and hundreds of books piled up in one category, yes. When I first got my Kindle I went wild on the free books section of Amazon, in Gutenberg etc., and the end result was not being able to remember what I'd put on there. Slowly looking through that lot is tedious enough, I can only imagine what a nightmare it is if you have a thousand books on there - it must be like throwing stuff into a pit, especially if you didn't know what you were adding in the first place. Install Windows posted:Or you just don't organize it, and search for something you want to read? It does full text search after all. Searching's useful if you have something specific in mind. If you want to look through your stuff, you need to be able to browse. That's the entire point to having a collections system in the first place. It's already deterred me - there are lots of classic public domain books I wanted to read (which obviously doesn't make Amazon any money, free books are competition for their business) and I though it would be nice to have this library device, put things on there and tag them up, and work my way through this nicely organised bookshelf. Haha, nope. Hell it won't even remember what books you've read, I have to leave them on the last page when I'm done Hmm yes, Amazon includes a useful collections tagging system that's crushingly slow to work with on any large number of books, provides no external way of managing it despite this being trivial to implement, and when developers find a hacky way to manipulate this in Calibre the loophole is removed entirely in later models. This fits entirely with Amazon's business model, encouraging active consumer engagement with their bookstore using the Kindle as a consumption device, rather than people treating it as a disconnected archive to fill up and turn to when they need something to read. "We sell the hardware at our cost, so it is break-even on the hardware" because the entire point of the Kindle is to get people on the website browsing and buying books. This is a wild and crazy theory though because rather than being a coherent business strategy that discourages behaviour that keeps people away from the store, it's because Amazon R Dumb or something. Nobody's actually given another reason why they've hamstrung the basic organisational capabilities of their multi-gigabyte ereaders Anyway that's why I'm saying I wouldn't hold your breath on getting decent Collection management anytime soon. It ain't in their interests
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Oct 29, 2013 18:55
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Well I sincerely doubt that your particular OCD habits were what Amazon had in mind to deter piracy. If you don't have anything in particular in mind, they why do you need something organized to look through? Organization is meant to make it easier to find something you know you want. And it's odd that you claim it doesn't know what books you've read, that's what the progress indicator is for.
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Oct 29, 2013 19:08
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baka kaba posted:
Wait, are collections gone entirely or just annoying for huge collections? My Kindle is a little old but when I finish a book I just shove it in a "Already Read" collection.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:08
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^^^ Just annoying to put things in, especially if you want to put them in several categories (I soon gave up on that idea). I did think about the 'already read' category, problem is what I usually want is a 'not read yet' category, which means tagging every single thing and remembering to go through and untag it when I'm done. Which is doable, it's just not something you should have to be doing in 2013Install Windows posted:Well I sincerely doubt that your particular OCD habits were what Amazon had in mind to deter piracy. Because maybe I want to read some fiction and I just want to browse through my fiction books without trawling through absolutely everything? Or I forget what that interesting-sounding philosophy piece was that I added a few months back but never got around to reading? I mean are you really saying you don't understand the point of collections? And the progress indicator is fine, except when I'm done with a book I'd like to not open it on the last page next time I come to read it. If you go back to the first page the progress indicator reflects that. So like I said, I have to leave them on the last page when I'm done, because the Kindle makes absolutely no distinction between 'book that's been read at least once, which was last open somewhere near the beginning' and 'book that's never been touched'. Except for a little NEW tag that lasts a few days. Simple organisation features that would be useful for managing and maintaining larger collections, conspicuously absent, while Amazon's business aims to have people read a book and come back to the site as soon as possible. Probably just a lucky coincidence baka kaba fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 20:12
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I tried posting this in the Android app thread and didn't get any bites. Maybe you guys can offer some suggestions. I'm using the 2013 Nexus 7 to read pdfs and I'm having trouble with text selection within one column of a multiple column pdf. I have this problem with a lot of "older" articles, here's an example from ye olde 1998 Trying to select text from one paragraph includes the adjacent column (captions, page numbers, and so on)  Downloading the same article from another archive yielded a correct flow but in a way that makes notation erratic. Moonreader+, ezPDF Reader, and Skitch all select like this. Adobe Reader will actually flow across the first example correctly but its selection toggles are useless  Any suggestions?
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Oct 29, 2013 22:06
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RICKON WALNUTSBANE posted:Moonreader+, ezPDF Reader, and Skitch all select like this. Adobe Reader will actually flow across the first example correctly but its selection toggles are useless Text selection when it comes down to PDFs is always going to be poo poo. There really isn't much you can do, unless someone else in this thread knows what's up.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:08
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Odette posted:Text selection when it comes down to PDFs is always going to be poo poo. There really isn't much you can do, unless someone else in this thread knows what's up. If someone could point me toward a free, Mac compatible tool to futz around with this I'd be overjoyed. As far as I can tell this article only electronically exists as these two terrible pdfs  edit: If Adobe Reader's selection tool wasn't pure poo poo it'd be perfect. Phooey.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:35
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It's generally because the PDF format is like "put this line of text at position X and Y". There's not necessarily any more connection between lines in a column, and the lines opposite from each other in columns. Adobe probably gets it closer to right because they are ignoring the order in the PDF file and trying to group text by logical boxes instead.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:51
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baka kaba posted:
What I'm saying is I don't see why you think collections are needed to pirate thousands of books, and why you think Amazon keeps them harder to use to reach such a goal. I also don't understand why if you have no idea what you're looking for, a meticulously put together set of collections is going to help you more than search.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:58
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Does anybody know if either the Cybook Odyssey HD or the Kobo Aura HD support good series/tag filtering? Something like Calibre Companion on Android does, where you can sort by author's last name, then series, then series number. Or, hell, I'd be happy with good folder support so I can just put the books in that pattern. It's not ideal, but better than a giant list of books. e: if you have thousands of books in hundreds of series, the names of which don't always match up, it's a lot easier to find what you're looking for. I can't maintain a mental index of my books and their series and which books are where in which series, but I'm fine remembering things like "I want to read some noir-ish fantasy...oh, that's right, I wanted to read some Joe Abercrombie" or especially if you have some favorite authors who you keep tons of books from, like Asimov, Sturgeon, or Salvatore. It's even worse when you have series that span multiple authors, like the War of the Spider Queen series or the various Star Trek/Wars and D&D collections. These are not hypothetical situations, by the way - every single example I have up there is something that affects me personally, and it wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue if I bought all of my books through Amazon. SymmetryrtemmyS fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 23:32
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Install Windows posted:What I'm saying is I don't see why you think collections are needed to pirate thousands of books, and why you think Amazon keeps them harder to use to reach such a goal. I also don't understand why if you have no idea what you're looking for, a meticulously put together set of collections is going to help you more than search. The more books you have on there, bought or free or pirated (the last two being especially bad for Amazon's business model), the less time you're likely to spend on Amazon's site browsing for more books. And the more you're going to need some kind of organisation to keep them in usable order, so keeping bulk management a huge pain discourages people from that unprofitable behaviour If you don't understand how it's easier to browse through your fiction by going to your 'fiction' section, compared to searching for... what exactly, I really don't know what to tell you. If you don't even understand the point of collections then obviously you're going to think they don't matter to anyone in any situation
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Oct 30, 2013 00:26
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I think what he's saying is that basically libraries are a stupid idea.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:34
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SymmetryrtemmyS posted:I think what he's saying is that basically libraries are a stupid idea. 
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Oct 30, 2013 00:45
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baka kaba posted:The more books you have on there, bought or free or pirated (the last two being especially bad for Amazon's business model), the less time you're likely to spend on Amazon's site browsing for more books. And the more you're going to need some kind of organisation to keep them in usable order, so keeping bulk management a huge pain discourages people from that unprofitable behaviour I currently have nearly a thousand purchased and public domain books on my Kindle. I've never had trouble finding things by just using search. It's not that I don't understand the purpose of collections, is that I don't understand why you think they're necessary to piracy or large volumes of books. Books are the single most searchable digital medium. Especially if as you admit you have no specific book in mind, that's the easiest way.
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Oct 30, 2013 03:52
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Some people just have an obsessive need to categorize everything, even if they spend more time doing it than actually using whatever they're categorizing. Nothing wrong with that, but you're just not in the majority, and I don't see Amazon touting that as a major selling point. It'd be nice, sure, but I'd prefer tags or something else.
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Oct 30, 2013 04:15
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baka kaba posted:I'm talking about 1000-eBookz_NYT_BestSELLERS.torrent or whatever. Someone could download something like that, throw it on their Kindle and nicely tag it up in collections and they'd basically be set for life. Lots to read just by picking up the device, less likely to go browsing the Kindle store. So instead they get to throw 1000 books on their Kindle and then cry as they try to somehow organise it. What the gently caress conspiracy theory nonsense is this? They're working on features that are worthwhile for 90% of customers instead of catering to the 10% (it's way less than that) that need these serious features. Every organization at Amazon is hiring like crazy and still can't find enough people to fill head count. It's not for lack of trying.
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Oct 30, 2013 06:54
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^the feature already exists, it's just poo poo to use, and when Calibre made it less poo poo to use they blocked that functionality. It would be trivial to implement if they actually wanted toDon Tacorleone posted:Some people just have an obsessive need to categorize everything, even if they spend more time doing it than actually using whatever they're categorizing. Nothing wrong with that, but you're just not in the majority, and I don't see Amazon touting that as a major selling point. It'd be nice, sure, but I'd prefer tags or something else. But it literally is tagging? The functionality is already right there, it's just incredibly cumbersome for more than a few books. There's nothing 'obsessive' about tagging a book as fiction, or history, or politics, or maybe even politics AND history so you don't have to remember which single category you put it under. I never realised I was living on the edge like this! If someone can tell me this useful search term that will pull up every single fiction book on my kindle and nothing else then that will be great, and I'll gladly use it, because that would replace the entire need to tag things at all. You'd be doing everyone who ever uses collections a big favour baka kaba fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 06:57
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baka kaba posted:If someone can tell me this useful search term that will pull up every single fiction book on my kindle and nothing else then that will be great, and I'll gladly use it, because that would replace the entire need to tag things at all. You'd be doing everyone who ever uses collections a big favour It's called your brain. Pick a random page number on your overall book list and choose a book at random. It should be trivial to determine if it's fiction or nonfiction after a page or two. If you need help, use one of those internet dice roll simulators to pick a number for you. Again, you already said you have absolutely no idea what you want to read so this shouldn't work any worse than anything else! On top of that you can simply make your own tagging system by appending say ¤fiction to the end of titles of all your fiction books and so on. I believe this is scriptable with calibre. Then a search for ¤fiction pulls up all the books. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 09:16
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So, uh, the new Nook apparently WAS announced. http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/30/nook-glowlight/ RIP Page Turn buttons Only seen coverage on Engadget so far. You can order it straight from B&N but it also appears that stores have them in stock as well if the website is to be believed. I may go check one out at lunch, but I'm doubting it will really want to make me upgrade from my Simple Touch. I'm just not sure how much longer I want to stick with the Nook ecosystem. If they announced the ability to cloud sideload books with page sync, I would probably be on board.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:32
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B+N just seems like it's playing catch-up nowadays, I'm glad I moved out of the Nook ecosystem, especially with their dreadfully slow firmware updates. Also it looks like the new model has no external SD card, so rooting should be far more annoying.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:41
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hope and vaseline posted:B+N just seems like it's playing catch-up nowadays, I'm glad I moved out of the Nook ecosystem, especially with their dreadfully slow firmware updates. Yeah, but what do you need them to update in firmware? I still like my ST and I don't find it lacking in features at the device level. I just don't like the lack of syncing between devices for non-nook books. If I had my choice, i would have an ereader that just synced to Google Books, but unfortunately there's no such animal. I did see one comment though that the new Nook is still using IR touch and I think that's a dealbreaker for me. Without the physical page turn buttons, it would be impossible to use it in a waterproof pouch at the beach only relying on the IR touch. They really needed to move to capacitance touch.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:45
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bull3964 posted:So, uh, the new Nook apparently WAS announced. Huh. I'll have to check it out next time I go to the mall. Looking forward to the Nook ST Glow $40 blow out sales in the near future. Christmas eReaders for EVERYONE!
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Oct 30, 2013 16:48
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Quoting someone in mobileread regarding Nook's software shortcomings:quote:No collections, no way to get fonts working properly when accessed from outside of the ePub, a large empty space at the top of the screen when reading that's totally a waste of screen space, the font choices are worthless, no way to add in your own fonts, home screen and library screen too crapped up with B&N suggestions and books you've bought from B&N, memory divided between B&N bought books and side-loaded books with side loaded losing out, font handling is not all that good. Fonts get to be a tad lighter then they should be, and other assorted odd and ends. Going to the Kobo, I was able to have the formatting I wanted that wasn't possible with the Nook's software. Granted it has its own issues but at least they're actively working to fix them.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:50
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