Reading on your iPhone

If you are an iPhone user, and love reading, you will be delighted with version 2.0 apps. A long time ago, I was a PC user, but after my hard drive crashed, and I lost irreplaceable files, I switched to an Apple and never looked back. The only thing that I miss about a PC is Microsoft Reader. Nevertheless, I was still able to use Reader with my Hewlett Packard phone. After giving up my HP phone for an iPhone, I soon started to miss my digital reading device on the train, or while stuck in traffic.

Now iPhone has different apps that can read electronic books. The free application eReader only read books bought or uploaded from their online eBookstore. Their site does provide a few free books. Another application BookShelf cost $9.99. It supports uploading your own electronic books in various formats such as.txt, .html, .fb2, .pdb, .prc, and, .mobi. However, both apps lack the ability to read .lit format, which is a Microsoft Reader format. Anyway, I am on a budget and I do not want to buy an app to read public domain books, which is not compatible with the .lit format (University of Virginia Library has many free electronic ebooks in .lit, pdb and html). Searching for an app that would read .lit, I found Stanza. Right now Stanza is free on Beta version. Their website LexCycle, has a free library of public domain books that can be uploaded to the iPhone once downloaded to a Mac. Furthermore, there is no restriction where to obtain electronic reading material. Stanza’s supports numerous formats.

Catalog your book collection.

I've been using Delicious Library to catalog my book collection for a long time. Since it lacks a built in html export, I have started using Bookpedia. However, there are free exports available for Delicious Library, but the exports are not efficient for a large collection. Meaning that if you have over a hundred items in your library (like me), it will take longer to load on a browser, because all the book cover images are loaded in the same window. Bookpedia’s interface is not as pretty as Delicious Library, but it has more features such as wish list etc., and its search on book information is superior. In addition, it has a built in export and a .mac export, which makes it super simple to have your book collection ready to share. Now, I find myself using both softwares, because I don’t have the heart to give up on Delicious Library. Cross my fingers, 2.0 will be available soon with a built in export and better information book search.

My book collection is now on the side bar links.

Podcast for bibliophiles.

I have never acknowledged podcasts; my ipod was always filled with music. Ipod has made my long communte a little more bearable. Anyway, a couple of nights ago while downloading itunes, I accidently clicked on podcast then decided to surf. What I found raised an eyebrow. I knew podcast had the news and such, but Barnes & Noble has a podcast that once subscribed to will automatically download interview from "Meet the Writers". I'm now listening to some of my favorite writers talk about their books such as what inspired them, to plots and characters. Anyway, thought it was cool.