Avid readers prefer to stay at ease while reading a book. Sitting comfortably in a small space shielded from any distraction, a reader can focus on the words on the page of the book on hand. That small space is a nook of comfort. Can Barnes and Noble’s eReader – the nook – provide the same sense of comfort to readers? Let me take you to THE nook to find out.

Barnes and Noble’s nook is a bit heavier – by 54 grams – than Amazon’s Kindle 2. At half an inch thick, this eReader is handy to hold, not flimsy or bulky; just approximately the same size as a pocket book. You can personalize your nook with covers and frames to suit your taste and style – a personal statement of your preferences.

The clarity of letters and the appearance of words on a page are elements all of take for granted when reading. Our eyes can immediately tell us if words on a page are worth reading or not. Like all the other eBooks available today, the nook is designed to make eReading easy on the eyes. With a capacity to store 1,500 books, newspapers and magazines in its memory, nook can show the colored cover what you may want to read; a feature not available in other eReaders. If you want more space to handle your ebook collection, you can add a memory card. You can literally take your library with you anywhere you go.

Owning a nook gives a reader access to 500,000 ebooks for free – courtesy of Barnes and Noble. As well known book publishers, B&N has a wide array of free eBooks to choose from. Aside from the free eBooks, there are more than a million titles available a nook owner can download wirelessly. You can sample an eBook for free anywhere you are, and browse eBooks, magazines and newspapers on AT&T’s 3G Wireless Network or on Wi-Fi. Every Barnes & Noble bookstore has free Wi-Fi, so you can download what you want to read fast at their stores. Most best sellers and new releases are available for $9.99, which you can buy and down load in seconds.

Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary is the pre-installed dictionary of choice with the nook. This eReader also allows you to lend books to others for up to 14 days at a time. In lending a book to someone else, your copy is removed from your collection. With nook, the book sharing tradition of continues.

With the nook, you can read for 10 days without recharging with wireless access off, which is more frequent compared to other eReaders. All other nook features are similar to what other eReaders have.

The nook may have some software issues, but these can be easily addressed by the Barnes & Noble team behind this product. There will always be room for improvement on any electronic device.

But what really separates the nook from the rest of the eReaders available now is – Barnes and Nobles support and reputation. The availability of 500,000 free eBooks and millions of book titles makes the nook THE eReader any avid book lover should have. Having a large book collection available makes a nook owner instantly contented. This alone can bring reading to a new level of comfort to eReading.

The nook is available for pre-order at BarnesAndNoble.com for the affordable pricetag of $259 USD.  It is expected to ship on Feb 12, 2010.

The BeBook e-book reader is a product of Endless Ideas BV, headquartered in Netherlands, and well known for the companies like Shell, Philips, TomTom and Heineken. Endless Idea’s mission is to provide consumers with innovative products with an uncompromising, elevated experience. The BeBook is an e-book reader and does not try to replace books; it only lets you read digital content on the go, as you do on paper.

Announced on January 22, 2010 the BeBook Neo is the latest addition to the BeBook family and the first Wi-Fi e-reader in the world with access to eBook stores worldwide. As tells the company besides reading your favorite e-books on this new e-reader model, you can also make notes, scribbles or easily add, save and erase annotations. The reader has a touchscreen element and draws on a Wacom-made tablet surface that allows for margin notes or highlights.

Building on the success of the BeBook One and BeBook Mini, the Neo features the latest WACOM touchpanel technology, providing readers a very fast and more natural reading experience. Running on a 532 MHz Freescale processor and 1600mAh Li-ion battery, the BeBook Neo offers browsing and operating speeds of up to 2.5 times faster than other e-readers on the market. The powerful battery of the BeBook ne will allow for up to 7000 pages turns. The e-reader depends only on Wi-Fi to get online and points users to multiple third-party stores rather than to an internal shop.

With BeBook Neo on your hands you will have easy access to e-book store simply clicking on your country and then you can see a clear overview the third party e-book stores. It’ll have basic surfing abilities as be able to surf Wikipedia and Google. Endless’ reader supports must popular e-book formats including: EPUB, PDF, TXT, HTML, RTF, MOBI, CHM, PDB, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIF and other. Don’t worry also about e-reader’s memory, BeBook Neo comes with 215Mb internal memory, which can be supported a microSD slot that can take up to 16GB cards.

The Neo features 6-inch E Ink screen, and 6-inches seems to the standard for e-readers, as the Kindle, Sony e-reader, others, all feature the same size and weights just 298g including battery. The BeBook Neo comes with also a 3.5 audio jack and a USB port with OTG support included in the package.

The BeBook Neo is available for pre-order now for $299.99 USD, and will be made available in the second half of February.

For everyone looking for a cheap ebook reader…there’s hope!

We’ve compiled a list of the best prices for most of the popular ereaders, to help those of you in the market to buy ereader.  If you see a better ebook reader price, please leave a comment so that we can update this list.  Hopefully this will help you find the cheapest ebook reader for a Xmas present!

Size (inches)	Device	Pic	Best Prices
6	Amazon Kindle 2		$259 - Amazon
9.7	Amazon Kindle DX		$489 - Amazon
6	Astak EZ Reader		$240 - Buy.com $299 - Wal-Mart
5	Bookeen Cybook Opus		$217 - Amazon $250 - Wal-Mart $250 - Newegg
5	Interead Cool-er		$249 - Interead
10.2	iRex Digital Reader 1000		$859 - eReader Outfitters $1000 - Amazon
5	Sony PRS-300		$190 - Amazon $190 - Newegg $198 - Wal-Mart
6	Sony PRS-600		$290 - Amazon $290 - Buy.com $298 - Wal-Mart

It’s always nice when you want to buy ebook reader, to find the cheapest ebook reader.  Especially in the current economy, a cheap ebook reader is a great idea.   The list above can even be sorted by device name, size, and ebook reader price.

Currently most of the popular portable ebook readers are using eInk technology to display text, graphs, and pictures on the screens.  But there are starting to emerge competitors which bring with them promises of color, flexible, higher resolution, and easier-to-read devices.

Here’s an update on what’s going on in the world of electronic paper:

• PVI eInk
  • PVI is the company that owns the eInk technology in the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, as well as other devices
  • Currently the leader in ePaper technology
  • Uses electrophoretic technology
  • Future plan – color and flexible screens within 2 years, video within 4 years
• Fujitsu FLEPia
  • The first company to make a color ebook reader!
  • Also has touchscreen functionality
  • Once Fujitsu brings prices down, they could have a serious Kindle competitor
  • Future plan – no ETA on when video will be available
• Pixel Qi LCD
  • Been in development for only one year
  • Uses advanced LCD and OLPC technology, so will be fairly cheap to manufacture
  • Already supports color and video!
  • Future plan -  take over the ereader market
• Qualcomm Mirasol
  • Uses reflective technology called Interferometric MODulation (IMOD) with Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) – basically a lot of big words that only super smart people understand
  • Inspiration reportedly comes from looking at how butterfly wings work – cool!
  • There’s already a few products using this technology and a bunch more in development, including a couple mobile phones
  • Already supports color and video.   Requires very low power usage and is viewable in direct sunlight.
  • Future plan – unknown
• BridgeStone QR-LPD
  • Quick Response Liquid Particle Display (QR-LPD) uses particles suspended in air rather than in link (like eInk)
  • Already in use in stores in Asia
  • Already has color and touchscreen functionality!
  • Future plan – no ETA on when electronic reading devices will be sportin’ this cool tech
• Plastic Logic
  • Designed with business users in mind
  • It’s extremely flexible, has touchscreen, is unbreakable, and can be quite large if needed
  • Uses Organic Thin Film Transistors (OTFT) which is cheaper than silicon
  • Future  plan – color and video to come in the next couple years
• LiquaVista
  • A child company of Philips
  • Uses electrowetting technology that is great for video playback
  • Compatible with LCDs
  • Flexible, has color and of course video, and has 3 operational modes – reflective, transflective, and transmissive
• ASU Flexible Display
  • Has over $100 million in investment including from HP and the US Army
  • Primary design is for the screens and they borrow existing technologies to “ink” the displays
  • Uses Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED), eInk, and Kent Displays
  • Already supports video and color
• Gamma Dynamics EFD
  • Based out of the University of Cincinnati’s Novel Devices Lab
  • Uses electrofluidic displays (EFD) which have a greater than 85% reflectance to white (very impressive)
  • Supports video
  • Is flexible and very durable
  • Not in commercial use yet; no word on when this will happen
• Opalux P-Ink
  • Design based off the structure of opals and uses photonic chrystals
  • Supports video and color
  • Can diffract and reflect different colors based on how the ePaper is structured
  • Extremely flexible and durable

Well that’s definitely a lot to take in.   Hopefully that helps you get some understanding of all the development that’s going on to advance portable ebook readers and make them easier to use and read.

For you Amazon Kindle 2 owners, here’s a list of many tips & tricks that you should find useful. These were compiled from many sources – let us know if any of them aren’t as helpful as we think!

Access Free eBooks @ Amazon

1. After you sign into Amazon and choose the Kindle store to search in
2. Type “-domain” (no quotes) into the search field.
3. This will give you a list of free books offered by Amazon!

Helpful Shortcuts

1. Bookmark: Alt-B. Alternate: Press 5-way up or down to go to cursor mode, and then press 5-way twice.
2. Kindle Store: Alt-Home.
3. Top Screen Icons: Press Menu button to see Wireless Network on top of the screen (top right), Time on top of the screen (top center) and Memory Remaining on your Kindle 2 on Top of the screen (top left).
4. Screenshots: Alt+Shift+G. Hold down Alt and Shift buttons and then press G.
5. MineSweeper: Alt+Shift+M.
6. Refresh Screen: Alt-G to refresh the screen and eliminate Ghosting.
7. Reload in Web Mode: Alt+R = reload when in web mode

Restart Kindle 2 in Two Seconds

1. Go to the Home Page.
2. Press the Menu button to go to the Menu.
3. Navigate to Settings and press 5-way to go to Settings.
4. Press Menu button Again.
5. Navigate to the Restart option, and press 5-way to select it.

Navigate within Magazines and Newspapers

1. 5-way controller to the left = previous article.
2. 5-way controller to the right = next article.
3. Press the 5-way = A list of sections within the periodical will appear.
4. On this Sections List page = Selecting the Number to the right of the Section Title will take you to a list of Articles within a section.

Read-To-Me Shortcuts

There shortcuts can be used with the “Text To Speech” functionality:

1. Shift + Sym button to start and to stop TTS. You have to keep Shift pressed down and then press Sym.
2. While TTS is on – Use Shift button to Pause or Resume it. Note: this might be Space (spacebar).
3. While TTS is on – you can switch between male and female voices, and change voice speed by using Alt + Aa keys and then using the 5 way controller.
4. To start TTS at a particular place on a page, move the cursor to the spot BEFORE starting TTS.

Mp3 Player Shortcuts

1. Alt+Space = play or stop background audio.
2. Alt-F = skip to the next audio track.
3. Space – starts or pauses an audio book

Change Spacing & Number of Lines Per Page

By using the Alt+Shift+ numbers 1 through 9 buttons you can change the spacing between the lines on the Kindle 2 and also the number of lines per page.

1. Press down the Alt and Shift buttons.
2. Keeping Alt+Shift pressed, Press a number button like 1, or 2, right up to 9 to cycle through the various spacing options.

Delete an Item or Book from Your Kindle 2

1. Press the Menu button to go to the Kindle 2 Home Page.
2. Use the 5-way to go to the item you want to delete.
3. Press Left on the 5-way to bring up the Delete selection.
4. Press the 5-way to confirm that you want to delete the item.

Note: Books you have purchased are still available in the Archive selection even after deletion you can reload them!

Load Pictures onto your Kindle 2

1. Connect Kindle 2 via USB to your PC.
2. Go to the Kindle 2.
3. Create pictures folder on your Kindle 2.
4. Now create sub-folders for your photo albums.
5. Put in images into these sub-folders.
6. The images that you put into a sub-folder will become part of the photo album.
7. Unplug your Kindle 2 and go to the Home Page.
8. Press Alt-Z on home page to see photo albums among books.
9. When you select one of these photo albums, the experimental Image Viewer starts.

Picture Viewing Tips

While you are viewing pictures in the Image Viewer:

1. Zoom In on the Picture = Q key.
2. Zoom Out = W key.
3. Reset Zoom Level for the Image = E key.
4. Toggle Picture to Actual Size = C key.
5. Toggle Picture to Full Screen Mode = F key.
6. Pan Photo if its larger than the Kindle 2s screen with 5-way controller.
7. Rotate the Image = R key.

Text Entry Shortcuts

These are helpful shortcuts when entering Text -

• Alt-6 for question mark ?
• Alt-7 for comma ,
• Alt-8 for colon :
• Alt-9 for quotation marks
• Alt-0 for single quotation marks

Change the Default Dictionary

You can change the default dictionary used by Kindle 2 from the New Oxford American Dictionary to another Kindle 2 supported dictionary, such as the Merriam Webster. Please check before buying any other dictionary as it might not be supported.

1. First, press the Home button to go to the Home Page.
2. Press the Menu button.
3. Move the 5-way to underline Settings and press 5-way to select.
4. Press the Menu button.
5. Move the 5-way to underline Change Primary Dictionary and press 5-way to select.
6. Move 5-way to select the dictionary you want as your primary dictionary, when its underlined press 5-way to select it.

Navigate Through the Home Screens Pages

1. Jump to page x on the Home Screen Press the number x on the keypad and then press the 5-way.
2. Also you can use the Next Page and Previous Page buttons to circle through the pages.

Search Shortcuts

These shortcuts can be used while using search (simply enter @help in the search box) -

• @help will show a list of supported commands.
• Instead of pressing your 5-way on find you can move the 5-way right to bring up other search options i.e. Kindle Store, Wikipedia, Google, Dictionary, etc.
• @author Narrow a search in the kindle store to a particular author by using the authors name.

Recharge your Kindle Battery when it’s at 20%

1. You can re-charge your Kindle 2 battery at any time, without using up its life. There is no memory and there is no let it drain completely before charging rule.
2. You should maximize by re-charging your Kindle 2′s battery when it’s at 20% charge left. The worst thing you can do is let the battery completely drain out.
3. Do not recharge it to full every day. The battery is happiest in the >20% charge, <80% charge range (close to 80% is better than close to 20%).

There are several options for selling ebooks:

1. Build Your Own Website

There are internet marketing and salesletter techniques that can motivate your customers to buy your ebook:

• Credible web design, nice ebook cover graphics
• Convincing words
• Selling psychology

…or you can simply provide your potential customers with sample ebooks:

• Limited chapters can be downloaded
• All chapters are downloaded, but most of the chapters are locked using a password

2. ClickBank

• ClickBank is extremely powerful because it connects buyers, sellers, and marketers for basically any product.  If you’re a “seller” you’d have to offer an incentive for marketers to promote your books to potential buyers (such as 20% of the sale of each book).

3. EBay

• The old standard, Ebay is an online marketplace for buying and selling anything.  You could create an “EBay Store” to sell all your ebooks. EBay takes a cut of your profits, but only a small percentage.

4. CreateSpace

• This is a FREE online publishing community (brought to you by your friends at Amazon).  It’s useful for authors, musicians, and filmmakers to distribute their creations to buyers.

5. LuLu

• Lulu gives authors all the resources and tools they need to sell their ebooks.  A great site which connects authors and readers.

In order to sell Ebooks, you first have to be able to create them.

Activ E-Book Compiler is a software application that makes this easy.

It is:

• Incredibly easy to use
• A turnkey system that any aspiring electronic publisher can use
• Comes with complete instructions
• Works on computers with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT4, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista (requires Internet Explorer 4 or later)

Here’s just some of the features of the free version of Activ E-Book Compiler:

• Unlimited E-Books: Create as many E-Books as you want.
• Royalty Free: There are absolutely no royalties or on-going fees to use the system.
• Easy Distribution: Each E-Book is a self-contained Windows program.  You can distribute them on any media you like, including by Internet download, by e-mail, floppy disk, CD-ROMs, ZIP disks.
• Incredibly Easy to Use: Attractive modern Windows user interface with easy to use buttons and menus.  Makes creating E-Books a snap.
• Complete Documentation: Straightforward documentation explaining every menu option – every command – and every option in the program. The documentation even covers the steps you should take before using the program. – like how to design HTML files that compile into a high quality E-Book.
• Compatibility: E-Books created using Activ E-Book use the exact same “engine” as Internet Explorer. This means total compatiblility with the world’s most popular web browser including support for HTML, DHTML, images & animations, JPEG and PNG graphics, JavaScript, VBScript, and most Internet Explorer plug-ins.
• Internet Linking: Use standard HTML features to include links to relevant web sites in your E-Book. When a user clicks on a link to a web site, the program even opens Internet Explorer giving them a chance to connect if they’re not already connected. …And yes, you can even link to your own web site to draw traffic!
• Password Protection:
  • You can password protect your entire E-Book,  or just protect selected pages and allow your users to see a preview of part of the book before they get their password.
  • You can boost your ezine subscription rate by requesting readers sign-up before you give them them password.
  • You can customize the message shown when a user accesses a password protected page.
  • You can even allocate up to 1,000 different passwords per E-Book  - each user will require a different one from this pool – to prevent password “sharing”.
  • You can even link directly to a form or page on your web site for that specific user to get the password that’ll work for him.
• Powerful Testing Features: Test out how your E-Book would look and work with and without the correct password (assuming you have one) – switch between the 2 modes at any time with a click of the mouse.  Compile or Run your E-Book in seconds for truly Rapid Application Development.
• Save your Projects: Unlike some other compilers you don’t have to re-input all your settings each time you want to create a new version of an E-Book.  Simply save all your settings – and continue later at any time you’re ready.
• HTML Protection: Right-mouse clicking is controlled by your choice of setting in your E-Books. You can disable it completely or allow access to a limited menu (which does not include View Source). This helps protect your HTML source and stop thieves from easily stealing your valuable page designs.
• Branding: Every E-Book you create includes your name, your company name, your copyright message, and even a link to your web site – and your e-mail address or auto-responder address if you want it!(various options in the compiler, may allow you to turn off visible display of most of this info, or design your own page for it, if wanted).
• Unique Serial Numbers: Every E-Book includes a unique serial number (we call this an “ESBN” – it’s a similar idea to “ISBNs” used for off-line books). This gives you yet another way to keep track of, and manage distribution.
• Viral Marketing: You can create and give away free E-Books, and allow others to do the same. As word about your E-Book spreads, more and more people may distribute your E-Book, and each one becomes a Self-Replicating Traffic Generator.

• Icon Customization: Every E-Book can have its icon. The software comes with over 700 icons for you to choose from – or you can create your own unique icons in your favorite icon editor. (icon editor not included)
• Shareware-Style E-Books: Set your E-Books to expire after a set number of days or uses, unless the password is entered. Giving your users a free trial of all or part of your E-Book is an incredibly powerful tool that can skyrocket your sales.
• User Interface Customization: Turn on or off the availability of toolbars, status bars, colors, text labels on buttons, and more. Create kiosk-style E-Books. Customize the colors of “system” pages. Choose the starting screen position and size of your E-Books. You can even set your E-Books to float on top of other windows (great for instructional guides).
• Splash Screens and Start-Up Messages: Add a splash screen graphic to your E-Book and/or a pop-up message box.
• Built-in Search Engine: An extremely customizable search engine is built-in to your E-Books. If you are creating references or How To manuals, your readers will love this feature.
• Auto Installation Options: Your E-Book can prompt users when first run, and add its icon automatically to the Start menu or Desktop.
• Add-In Programs/Scripts: Kick-off external programs or files on specified events such as when your E-Book is started or closed, or when the correct or incorrect password is entered.
• File Compression: Creating really large E-Books?  You’ll be glad to know the latest version of Activ E-Book automatically compresses all your files when compiling E-Books. This can significantly reducing the file size and making it easy and quick for users to download your E-Books.

Create Your Own eBooks Today! Free Trial Download Activ E-Book Compiler Make and sell* your own information products: Simple to use Packed with powerful features* Drive traffic to your web site Create eBooks that you can sell* Start today – Find out how you can test run the Free Trial version of software  by clicking here *Note: some features, including making eBooks to sell, are only available in paid (“registered”) version.

Alternatively, you could simply create your own DOC or PDF files, but these won’t have nearly the same features or capabilities as those created by Activ E-Book Compiler.

Amazon.com has an eDocs department where you can shop from over 1,000,000 articles, documents and books – then download them instantly.  Most are quite reasonably priced as well.

www.buy-ebook.com

Has a great collection of the best ebooks on the Internet and at lower prices than any other site (Except the free ones, of course!).

According to this site, buying an ebook is better than buying a printed book, because:

1. You can buy an ebook right on your computer, without leaving home.
2. You receive your ebook immediately, and you can save it on your hard drive or print it. No shipping charges and no waiting.
3. You’ll find it easy to locate and choose the ebook you want with the help of our directory or search system. Use categories or key words, whichever is easier. Either way, you won’t spend all day searching the aisles and stacks of a bookstore.
4. An ebook doesn’t take up space on your shelf, getting dusty and old.
5. You can even have your computer read your ebook aloud to you with the help of a special program.

Buy-Ebook.com has a catalogue consisting of 50+ categories, which will guide you to find the book you want.  They also have a high-quality search engine.