Read E-Books on a PDA with eReader
Reader Software for both Pocket PC and Palm Handheld Devices
eReader is a useful program for your PDA allowing a wide variety of e-books to be stored and read on your handheld device. Available for both Palm and Pocket PC PDA's.
One of the many functions you may require from your PDA is the ability to download and read one of the growing number of e-books available for download. There are many 'reader' software options - one of the most well known is eReader.
eReader was originally owned and developed by Palm, however it is now independent of Palm and is available for PDA's using Windows Mobile / PocketPC as well as a variety of other formats. eReader allows you to buy and download titles from their extensive range of books, and load these onto your PDA to read through their viewer. Whilst they offer a wide range of books, from bestsellers to childrens fiction - eReader is also compatible with 'doc' format e-books (Important note: Doc referred to in context with e-books are different to docs from Microsoft Word. A doc file for the PDA will end in .prc or .pdb).
There are two versions of eReader, the basic version which is free to download, and an upgrade which is referred to as eReader Pro. E reader offers all that you need to start reading e-books - however the ‘Pro’ version has some neat features, which for a cost of $9.95 may be considered as good value. Particularly as the pro package currently comes bundled with Merriam-Webster's Pocket Dictionary, which alone retails at $15.00.
eReader allows you to read a book on your PDA, the pages are 'turned' by tapping on the screen, or if using the Pro version you can set the screen to scroll. This can be adjusted to scroll at the speed of your reading meaning you don't have to turn pages as you read.
In addition to the Pro version, there is also an additional add-on to eReader, which is a font pack. This gives readers the opportunity to pick a font that is more pleasing to them, and also vary the font size. This is a useful tool for those of us who welcome a larger typeface when viewing a document on a PDA.
E-books purchased through eReader are protected against copyright violation in a clever way. The files are encrypted and in order to be able to read the e-book on your PDA you need to enter the credit card number that you used to purchase the e-book. This means that if you share the book with another person, or copy it onto another device then you need to give them your credit card number. This should act as a deterrent to people sharing books with people they don't trust explicitly. Sharing a book and therefore your credit card with someone you don't know well might mean that you have shared more than you bargained for!
When purchasing an e-book through eReader, you pay for the book using a credit card and then download the file onto your desktop. This then needs to be unzipped and uploaded onto your PDA in the normal manner. It is likely that if you have many e-books, or plan to start a large collection that you will download the books onto your card extension, rather than use up precious memory.
Other reader software for your PDA includes MobiPocket and Plucker.
For many other ideas of things to do with your PDA look at the Suite101 article here.
