I can still remember back in 2006, I used to stay late at work, waiting for everyone to leave so I could print out the Venusian Arts Handbook, all 225 pages of it. Something about having it physically in my hands as a book made it so much more valuable. I still believe that till this day, which is why I’ve printed out more than 30 eBooks to read. The problem with reading an eBook on your computer is that you end up scrolling through it to find the key points, or cool tips.
When you read a book that’s printed out, you actually take the time to internalize the teachings. The easiest way to get your books printed and bound, is to send it through staples.com and pick it up the next day in store. At about $10 per book to be printed and bound it was well worth it in my opinion because I would get 2x the value than if I tried to read it on my computer or laptop.
A few months ago I bought a Kindle 2 and loved it. I could put all of my eBooks on it and read it just like I would a paperback book. Hint: Use the program MobiPocket Creator to change your PDFs to kindle formated books for easier reading.
Here is a list of 100 free kindle books that you can download: Amazon Best Sellers List
I just bought the new Kindle 3 which is awesome because it now is small enough to fit in my pocket and has Wi-Fi for when I travel outside of the U.S. The best part is that it’s only $139.
The cool things about the kindle is that it’s a much much cheaper alternative to having a $800 iPad and the battery life lasts for 1 month without charging. Also the eInk screen is easy on your eyes just like a paper backbook would be. You can use it to surf the web, check your email, and it’s perfect for reading those eBooks, especially the ones you downloaded for free.
Enjoy your kindle guys! I can’t wait till my new Kindle 3 arrives in the mail.
Its great if you want to get a few pages in at the bustop or over a cup of coffee at the cafe but the screen is too small imo if you want to sit down and have a serious reading session (over 15 mins). Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later when they have 8×11” screens that have been scaled down to mainstream price points (i.e. ~150$ range).
Can’t wait for these screens to start being integrated into netbooks/laptops though. I (like many people who read this blog I’m assuming) tend to spend a LOT of time in front of a monitor for various reasons. Even if they were only black and white, the tremendous increase in battery life (weeks per charge) and ability to use it in direct sunlight would make it a ton easier to get outside more often and not have to be relegated to my man-cave.
Antoine – You’re right about the screen size, the larger screen model, the DX is $379 which is more than double the regular kindle price.
However, there’s a cool feature on the kindles where you can change the text size of the book, making it much easier to read.
The 6″ screen, is the same size as a paperback so if you can comfortably read paperback books it’ll be fine. I had no problems reading on the kindle for an hour at a time. Actually when I get lazy, I turn on the text to speech feature and read along with it, and end up resting my eyes and just listening.
“When you read a book that’s printed out, you actually take the time to internalize the teachings. The easiest way to get your books printed and bound, is to send it through staples.com and pick it up the next day in store. At about $10 per book to be printed and bound it was well worth it in my opinion because I would get 2x the value than if I tried to read it on my computer or laptop.”
Agreed. Very similar to what I did/still do.
Plus it’s easier to jot down notes, go back and re-read, re-internalize, etc.