Thursday, September 4, 2014

Kobo Arc 10 HD vs Kobo Aura H2O

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The Kobo Arc 10 HD and Kobo Aura H20 are two of the latest generation devices that are in Chapters bookstores all over Canada. Obviously with all of the holiday foot traffic, people will inevitably be drawn to the big display areas where all the tech gadgets are. If you are looking to do your digital reading on either of these devices, which one performs better?

The purpose of today’s comparison is to give you a small overview over the key differences between an Android tablet and the new waterproof H20 e-Reader. You will get a sense on how PDF files and eBooks look, and options to tailor the overall reading experience.


Kobo Arc 10 HD vs Kobo Aura H2O is a post from: Good e-Reader

Sony Launches Support System for Digital Paper e-Reader

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The Sony Digital Paper (DPT-S1) is becoming a runaway success and hundreds of units are being sold on a weekly basis.  Now that Sony is selling these e-readers directly to customers there will obviously have to be some sort of support network to handle warranty and troubleshooting. Today, Sony announced that they have created a new support system and also will be establishing a relationship with cloud storage provider “Box”.

Sony has revised their support site  to provide information, drivers and software (including information about available updates in firmware), manuals and specifications as well as the latest support related news and tutorials for Digital Paper. Sony has not yet included video tutorials if they feel it is necessary they will be available on the support site.

When customers are in need of direct support, Sony has established a new method to talk to a CSR agent on the phone. There is a new button in the top right hand corner of the e-support page labeled "Contact Us".  This provides a dedicated telephone number (239-245-6320) for Digital Paper phone support, available to the user from 9 am -6 pm EST.

The Sony Digital Paper is a very costly device and in some cases something may go awry with the hardware. In an email to Good e-Reader Sony said “if we conclude that the unit is in need of service, our support team will instruct the user to send the unit to service, and if under the warranty, which is 1 year, the malfunctioning unit will be exchanged with the customer for a new unit. We have an advance exchange program that enables Sony to send a new unit to the customer prior to receiving the malfunctioning unit, thus minimizing the time the customer is without their Digital Paper.”

Finally, Sony has established a formal relationship with cloud service provider, Box.  Sony confirmed “With the formal support of Box, we expect to receive more inquiries about the functioning and interaction of Digital Paper with the cloud and are making appropriate arrangements (given that the cloud is still quite new to many people).  DP does not have a full app for Box yet, but can be connected via WebDAV.”

Sony Launches Support System for Digital Paper e-Reader is a post from: Good e-Reader

Independent Author Network Launches Author Pages

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The Independent Author Network is a new service aimed at self-published authors. It was designed to serve as an unified author page, that tells the public what the author is all about and also links to their books and social media networks.

Amazon and other bookselling companies allow authors to setup their own pages, but tend to only promote books that that are for sale on their particular ecosystem. The IAN is more agnostic, authors can list their eBooks now matter where they are for sale. If an author sells physical books, there is code you can copy and paste for customers to buy it directly from services such as Paypal or Stripe.

IAN promotes books you list with them to over 300,000 followers and over 16,000 people a day visit the website. You can list your author profile for free, but they ding you if you want to sell your books.

If you have 1-6 books to promote, the membership setup fee is $24.95. A Silver membership allows you to include and promote 7-13 books on your page and costs $49.99.

In the end, the Independent Author Network may be a viable way for authors to promote themselves and get their names out there. Sure there are services like GoodReads and Amazon for this sort of thing, but constant promotion is certainly not a bad thing.

Independent Author Network Launches Author Pages is a post from: Good e-Reader

iPad Mini With Retina vs Samsung Nook

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Today we look at the brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook and the Apple iPad Mini with Retina. The main intention behind this video is to primarily evaluate the overall reading experience. This is accomplished by looking at a magazine, eBook and how you go about buying content. If you are looking to purchase any one of these devices for the purpose of reading, you don’t want to miss this!


iPad Mini With Retina vs Samsung Nook is a post from: Good e-Reader

Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook vs Nook HD

samsung galaxy 4 nook vs nook hd

Welcome to another Good e-Reader Comparison Video! Today, we look at the latest generation Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook and the Nook HD. If you are thinking of upgrading to the latest model, there are some important things you need to know.

The purpose of this comparison is to look at the Nook HD, which came out last year and the new Samsung Nook that was just released. You will get a sense on the hardware differences and what makes new model so compelling.


Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook vs Nook HD is a post from: Good e-Reader

Recommended titles for readers by readers

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Last weekend on OverDrive's Facebook page, we asked our followers to recommend titles that they thought other readers would enjoy. The response was tremendous with greater than 70 unique suggestions ranging from best sellers to those that may have been lost in the virtual stacks. We loved your responses so much that we wanted to make them easily available for you to add to your digital library.

Here you'll find a link to a list full of Facebook recommendations from Shakespeare and the Outlander series to Dune and We Were Liars. After you've added these titles to your collection, be sure to put your recommendations in the comments of this blog so we can keep growing this wonderful list.

Happy Reading and thank you to everyone for sharing your choices!

 

*Please note: some titles have restricted geographic availability.

Adam Sockel is a Marketing Specialist at OverDrive.

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Bus stop Pac Man

Last week saw Trondheim in Norway host a Maker Faire. Rather than go with the usual stale old poster advertisement, the folks at Norwegian CreationsHK-reklame and Trondheim Makers hacked a piece of civic infrastructure with a Pi, a modded MaKey MaKey and some aluminium strips, ending up with a bus stop you can play Pac Man on.

You can read all about the build – which involved hacking the power supply to the bus stop so it provided 230V of AC for the monitor – over at Norwegian Creations.

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We love Maker Faires, and we love the way that this sort of bus stop hacking project has become – well, if not exactly mainstream, something culturally recognisable. If you want to meet the team at a Maker Faire this month, Rachel Clive and James will be with the folks from Pimoroni, demonstrating what happens when art, education and science come together in the form of a tiny computer at the gargantuan World Maker Faire in New York on Sept 20-21.

(It’s the first World Maker Faire Eben and I have ever missed, but we have a great excuse; it clashes with the vacation we’ve been planning all year for our tenth wedding anniversary.) Say hi to the giant motorised cupcakes for us!