Friday, October 28, 2011

High Tide



14 comments:

  1. Guess it's up to us West Coasters to say Howie is still Number One.

    Puddle--thanks for the message from Renee.

    Bill--Oh, pox! I accidentally erased the reply I wrote for you. In short, the Kindle files are a slightly modified MOBI format. I gather EPUB is the big one. There are free and shareware converters for virtually all formats--Calibre seems to be very highly recommended: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Calibre
    I think the best way would be to download (or move) the files to your computer, convert them as needed, and then transfer them to the Kindle via USB cable (included with purchase).

    Good trip to the Bay Area and back; court was longer than I had hoped (had to come back to finish up after lunch) but far less difficult than I had feared. We noticed a truck of pomegranates and another of what appeared to be elephant garlic on the way up. Had dinner at Casa de Fruta, which we hadn't done for ages. We fed the ducks, and boy were they hungry! Weekends so many people feed them that they turn up their beaks and let the fish have almost everything.

    TTFN

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  2. Precipitation type... rain and mountain snow

    * accumulations... potential for five or more inches of snow

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  3. Bill--I pulled this from the Internet:

    "Amazon offers thousands of free e-books in the Kindle Store, which are divided into two sections: popular classics and rotating, limited-time offers.

    There are a number of other resources for free e-books outside of the Kindle Store as well. Collectively, millions of titles are available through Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive (mainly historical items useful for academic work), Open Library, ManyBooks.net, LibriVox (audiobooks), Fictionwise, Bookyards and Planet eBook. In most cases, you’ll need to download the e-books and transfer them to your Kindle using a USB cable."

    I have used Project Gutenberg; will have to check some of the others.

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  4. Alan~~Most Amazon books are in Kindle (.azw) format. This is an encrypted DRM format that calibre doesn't do. Nor does it do any other e-book with DRM set. I have downloaded most of my non-DRM books in Mobipocket (.prc) format. I know that my Mobipocket Reader program will handle Amazon's .mobi format (although it insists on telling me it doesn't recognize the retailer), but haven't checked whether Kindle for PC will handle the .prc format.

    so what I'm hearing is that non-DRM e-books are no problem, but the only DRM books you can read on the Kindle are those from Amazon. You cannot load non-Amazon reader programs onto the device.

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  5. I am a regular Fictionwise customer. In fact, I am currently a very good Fictionwise customer, since I have discovered that I can get my books 40% - 60% off if I order enough every week or two to maintain a "store credit" balance. In another month or two I will have bought every science fiction title that looks even remotely interesting. Then I'll start going through the fantasy. But a couple of days ago was the first time I'd ever seen a free science fiction book.

    I'm familiar with Project Gutenberg, of course. But that's only books old enough to be out of copyright. Not much science fiction there.

    Stranagely, that list doesn't mention the Baen Free Library, which has a fairly sizable selection of the books Baen pulishes. Actually, because I am legally blind I can get free copies of any e-book Baen published.

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  6. Bright and sunny earlier, but it has clouded over now. Temps in the low 50s. Penny tells me there was a touch of snow on the garage rook this morning, but it is gone now. Meanwhile she has picked a bunch of gree tomatos that will now ripen in the house.

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  7. Started. But sounds more like sleet than either rain or snow. Will see.

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  8. Well, it's sticking. But so far, only a dusting. But the storm watch lasts till tomorrow around noon.



    * precipitation type... snow

    * accumulations... 3 to 6 inches of snow.

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  9. Hmmm.....maybe so. Skinflint that I am, I have no intention of downloading any significant number of DRM books to my kindle. Project Gutenberg does me just fine.

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  10. I'm not familiar with Baen--will check them out, thanks.

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  11. I have snow envy!

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  12. Whooo! I had a LOT of fun with Middle*Granddaughter tonight, though we didn't get to as much as I'd planned to do, and what we did do was a lot more chaotic than I'd anticipated. LOL! There are usually two of us to "team" the situation, so just enjoying the time we did have, just as it came, is wonderful.

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  13. Ah, fun!! How's the cold?

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