"Books are great. They’re portable, they’re wireless, and they have their own search engine in the back."

–Jim Greenlee, Georgia Tech computer science professor

Books definitely are great. But when you want to carry a bunch of them with you, that's when you run into problems. Books get bulky and heavy. A lot of them are awkward to carry, to say the least.

So, what if you could carry dozens if not hundreds of books with you? And what if they could fit into something the size of a small hardcover, but lighter? That's the promise an eBook reader delivers. While eBook readers are nothing new, they've really started to come into their own.

A little history

eBook readers have been around since the late 1990s. Many of the early models looked either like oversized Palm Pilots, or took the book metaphor a bit too seriously and literally had two hinged covers – either with a screen on one or both sides. For better or for worse, none of them survived. Either the technology wasn't quite ready for prime time (for example, the screens didn't have enough contrast or were hard to read over long stretches), or they were introduced around the time of the dot-com bust, when a variety of promising technologies fell by the wayside because their developers went under or were forced to abandon them due to cost-cutting measures.

Some of the pioneering eBook readers, which influenced today's crop of devices, included the eBookMan, the Rocket eBook, and the SoftBook Reader.

Why not use another device?

Like a smartphone, a PDA, a netbook, or even a laptop computer? Good question. Let's be honest, a laptop is portable, but not that portable. People use smartphones, like the BlackBerry and the iPhone, as eBook readers but their screens are small and can be tough to read for any length of time. You might remember a previous TechTip that looked at how to turn an Eee PC into an eBook reader. A clever solution, but it's also a tad awkward.

eBook readers, on the other hand, have a solid form factor. They're light, the size of an actual book, and have large screens. They also fit into a bag or knapsack quite comfortably.

Note: cialis in usa An upcoming TechTip will look at some of the eBook readers that are currently on the market.

The technology

eBook readers are essentially small, single purpose computers. Like a computer, they have a CPU (which runs in the range of 200 MHz to 400 MHz) and pack anywhere from several hundred megabytes of storage space to a few gigabytes of memory. You can expand the storage with an inexpensive SD card. Many readers run the Linux operating system, and have built-in viewers for a number of document formats. More on these formats in a little while.

On top of that, ePaper doesn't use a backlight. You need a source of light – whether sunlight or indoor lighting – to read the display. An ePaper display actually reflects light. But light shining directly on the display can make it hard to read.

Formats

As you can probably guess, there are well over two dozen formats for eBooks. Most readers support a handful of these formats, and have software built in to display them. To be honest, though, a majority of eBooks come in three or four of those formats.

As mentioned earlier, many eBook readers also support other formats. These include plain text, HTML (the language used to create Web pages), Microsoft Word, Rich Text Format, Microsoft LIT, and ePub to name a few. You can learn more about many of the available eBook formats here.

Drawbacks and criticisms

eBook readers have always had their detractors. One of the main criticisms has always been the price of these devices. In the past, you had to drop $500 or $600 to get one. Nowadays, a good one will cost you between $300 and $400. Still, that's a lot of money for a gadget that only has a single use.

With the success of the Kindle, which supports the wireless downloading of content (at least in the United States), some deem an eBook reader inferior if it doesn't come with wireless capability.

Final thoughts

eBook readers have their drawbacks. But, if you're a serious book hound and want to combine that interest with your interest in technology then an eBook reader is definitely a worthwhile investment. You can carry around literally hundreds of books – novels, non-fiction, technical tomes, and more – all in less space than your average trade paperback. That, in itself, is worth the price.

Often in my travels people ask me: “Where did you learn so much about computers and electronics?” “Why,” I say, “the answer is easy – I got a good foundation and then keep up with the fun stuff.” “Well, how,” they ask, “do you get started?” “Easy,” I say, “as every journey starts, with the first step.”

The Foundation

First and foremost, you need a good foundation. For myself, for some disturbing reason only my subconscious can answer, I have a deep and unabated interest in all things electric – but particularly computers. More than likely, if you’re reading this Tech Tip, you probably have such an interest too. If you are looking for something that’ll give you a good background in computer components, I’d recommend the book Upgrading and Repairing PCs by Scott Mueller (QUE Publishing). You’ll learn more than you ever wanted to about the ins and outs of computers and how they and their components work. You’ll also pick up many of the building blocks needed to catapult you into computer stardom. You can pick up a book directly from the publisher or, of course from Amazon. For those of you who want to try before you buy, you can take a look at portions of the 15th edition of the book (it is up to the 18th edition now) on Google Books Search.

Keeping up to Date

Books are great, especially for getting a solid foundation – but, because they’re static, books are good only up to the day that they’re published. After that, you’re either waiting for a new edition of the book or stuck in a technological no man’s land. What to do? Fortunately there are several good web resources for looking at trends as well as keeping up-to-date on the latest gadgets and gizmos while you’re waiting for that update. Speaking of gadgets and gizmos, two of the must have sites to keep up-to-date with are Engadget and Gizmodo. Engadget is, according to Wikipedia “a popular multilingual technology weblog and podcast about consumer electronics” – basically a blog with all sorts of gadgets highlighted. Gizmodo is a similar site that, according to Wikipedia, “is a popular technology weblog about consumer electronics” – again, another blog site, but with a little different angle then Engadget.

If you notice, to describe these two sites, I pulled information from the invaluable Wikipedia website. Wikipedia is (according to Wikipedia – sorry, I couldn’t resist), “a free, multilingual encyclopedia” that is completely user driven; that is, you and I can contribute to the content of the website – the idea being that in the hands of many users, the information is going to be more (or less) correct. The Achilles of Wikipedia is the same thing that makes it great; the information is not reviewed by experts who can put their stamp of approval on it and then lock it down – the content is endlessly edited and mistakes can easily be placed and kept in an article. That being said, if you have a sudden hankering to know just what a “Phenom II” is, or wondering what the difference between a 1.1 and a 2.0 profile on a Blu-ray player, then you can head over to Wikipedia and take a look.

To the Making of Many WebPages, There is No End…

“But,” you say, “there has to be more than just a couple of weblog sites and a user driven encyclopedia site.” Absolutely! For example, I get an e-mail update every morning from CNet news site that keeps me abreast of the top topics in the electronic industry. For unfamiliar terms that I may run across, I turn to Webopedia that will give you quick, concise definitions for such wondrous things as CardBus, NetBEUI and TWAIN (a word of warning though, these definitions tend to be a bit on the technical side.) If I want to see if a particular electronic do-dad fits my needs, I may want to check out some reviews on it. Some excellent sites to look at are CNet’s review site, Tom’s Hardware and also Amazon. Tom’s Hardware is particularly useful for getting more benchmarks than you knew existed on new processors, video cards and all sorts of computer goodies. For keeping abreast of the industry in general, some good sites are DigiTimes, EETimes and The Register – though these do tend to be very industry oriented, and assume that you have a good idea of some of the industry players and the jargon that they use. Of course, actually visiting the manufacturers’ website for product information can be beneficial as well (where better to learn about the newest Intel motherboard chipset than at Intel’s site.) There are of course other excellent sites that are but a few mouse clicks away via Google search on such terms as “computer tech sites”.

Finis
cialis how it works />

To get “in the know”, electronically speaking is no great mystery. First, you start with a solid foundation and then you build on it. So, mosey over to Amazon and pick up a copy of Scott Mueller’s tome of computer guts. Head on over to Engadget to see the latest “thing-a-ma-bob” being offered. Take a gander at DigiTimes to see who’s buying what and what industry trends look like. Then, you’ll find out about all that cool stuff you didn’t even know existed and you’ll now be not only “in the know”, but you’ll be a whole lot more Geeky for it.

Editor's Note: This issue of Tech Tips marks our 200th, which means we've been doing this for just about four years now:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to us!

Thank you for your ongoing support and suggestions. Tech Tips exists for YOU, our loyal subscribers, so be sure to join the
Tech Tips Forum and make your voice heard!

There’s been a lot of hype lately about solid state hard drives as well as a lot of computers offering them as an option. What exactly are solid state hard drives, what are their pros and cons over standard mechanical hard drives? In this Tech Tip, we’ll take a look at these drives that seems to have mysteriously appeared on the scene in the last year.

Well…What are They?

So, exactly what are solid state hard drives? Quite simply, they are hard drives that use memory chips instead of a spinning platter that a standard mechanical hard drive would use. Often abbreviated as SSD, solid state drives have actually been around for a while, but have only started hitting it big on the consumer level in the last year or so. Some of the enterprise level (server room) solid state drives may use the same kind of memory that a computer uses as their main memory (called DRAM – which has to use a small battery to keep the contents intact), or flash memory chips (much like what is used in a digital camera or USB flash drive). Most solid state drives that are used in consumer level computers (the rest of us) use flash memory, so the remainder of this Tech Tip will deal with that type. So, let’s look at some pros for using solid state drives.

The Good

There are some very obvious advantages over a standard mechanical hard drive. First off, they’re solid state! That is, there are no moving parts, no spinning platter, no actuator arm, no motor, no nothing – just a bank of memory chips – this means that there is a much higher degree of mechanical reliability. Because they’re just a bank of chips, there is no time used to spin up the hard drive, it is just up and ready as soon as it is powered. Also, because there is no time spent for the actuator arm to read information off the platter, solid state drives can read much, much faster than a standard mechanical hard drive. Another nice advantage is because there is no spinning motor, there is no noise generated by the solid state drive (though some may incorporate a small cooling fan, that is nothing compared to the noise generated by a disc spinning at 7200 RPM). In addition, file fragmentation has very little impact on a solid state drive because of the very constant seek time performance of this type of drives. Solid state drives are also able to withstand shock and temperature extremes better than a mechanical drive, an important consideration if ever dropped.

The Not So Good

They wear out – or more to the point, the individual bits after a while can’t be erased and written to again. Flash memory quite simply has a limited number of times that information can be written to a location (a bit). Most consumer drives on the market today can handle about 10,000 writes to a bit. Once that spot is used up, it can never be used again. The good news is that there are a variety of techniques that engineers have developed to help combat this issue. The first thing is better flash chips. The chips used today are much better then the chips used in the first solid state drives that appeared a while ago on the enterprise level. Also, some drives employ extra memory chips to replace the bits that may go out. Many also employ wear leveling techniques that help wear the chips evenly. Another plus is that drives are larger and larger, so there are many of these bits to go around. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any consensus on what this means in practical, real world terms. How long will a drive last used with a standard operating systems, in a standard computer? Different sites have different answers, some saying as little as a year, while others up to five years (with normal usage).

cialis herbal alternative border=”0″ hspace=”3″ width=”250″ height=”188″ align=”left” />There are also a few other cons to be aware of for flash based solid state drives. The first is that there are two primary types of flash memory used in solid state drives. The more prevalent MLC type tends to be slower, and have really long write times. In fact, the write times on MLC based drives are slower then standard hard drives and are not usually recommended for using as a primary drive with an operating system installed (but do work great as storage drives, because once that information is written, it can be retrieved very quickly). The other type (called SLC) has faster write times, but tends to be much more expensive than the MLC drives. This actually brings up the second point, even with costs coming down, even the cheapest MLC based solid state drive will be much more expensive than an equivalent sized mechanical drive (in fact, much, much more expensive) and the price differential really jumps with SLC based drives. Another point to consider is that solid state drives don’t have the capacity of mechanical drives, though the gap is rapidly closing. This means that you can pay the same amount of money for a 32GB solid state drive that you may be paying for a 320GB mechanical drive.

Final Thoughts

Ok, you’ve probably noticed that two paragraphs were spent on the cons verses the pros on solid state drives. Should this mean that you may want to wait for newer, better, faster, cheaper SSDs to come out? Not at all, if you wait for something based on these factors, you’ll be waiting forever. If you want to make the plunge now, go on ahead. If you want the higher capacity of a mechanical drive, there’s nothing wrong with that either. But if looking for a drive, just be aware of what to look for, what the pros and cons are, and you’ll be sure to get just the drive you need – whether mechanical or solid state.

A previous TechTip introduced the eBook reader, a powerful and portable device for reading electronic books. After reading that article, you might be wondering what devices are on the market. Once upon a time, pickings were quite slim. Not any more.

You now have a range of choices. Different manufacturers, different models, different capabilities. There's an eBook reader for every gadget lover – from the person who wants every feature to someone who wants a simple but functional gadget. This time around we'll be looking at some of those choices.

Amazon Kindle

If there's a poster child for the new generation of eBook readers, it's definitely the Amazon Kindle. Since it's release in November, 2007 the Kindle has not only become a best seller (it's consistently sold out), but has also set the standard by which other eBook readers are judged.

Drawbacks? One is the limited number of eBook formats that the Kindle supports – including one that supports the much-maligned DRM. Some people have complained about the ergonomics of the device. The keyboard, they claim, is hard to use.

BeBook

I've got a soft spot in my heart for the BeBook. It's the eBook reader that I've been using for the last few months. So much so that I've rarely picked up an actual paper book in that time.

On the downside, the BeBook can be a bit slow when turning pages and sometimes hangs. The built-in readers occasionally don't play well with certain files. I've had trouble with a few PDFs and one or two eBooks in Mobipocket format.

iLiad

Ever watch Star Trek: The Next Generation or its spinoffs? Remember those little devices called PADDs that everyone did their reading on? Well, the iLiad from iRex Technologies is a lot like that.

The main drawback? Price, of course. It's one of the more expensive devices out there, costing about $699 (U.S.) or $899 for the tablet-like Digital Reader.

Sony Reader

The Sony Reader is the latest in electronics giant Sony's line of eBook devices. The latest one lies somewhere between the BeBook and the iLiad and Kindle. It's packed with a number of features, but lacks certain bells and whistles.

A big disappointment with the Sony Reader is that it lacks wireless capabilities. In the past, the refresh rate of Sony eBook reader screens (the number of times that the screen needs to draw the screen to render a page) left something to be desired. This has gotten better with the PRS-700, but it's not on par with some of the device's competitors.

On the horizon

Like any other area of technology, there's always something new on the horizon for eBooks. Most of the upcoming eBook readers aren't that compelling. But I found two very intriguing devices that are poised to hit the market.

The Readius, on the other hand, is one of the more innovative gadgets that I've seen in a long time. It's billed as the first pocket eReader. From the photos at the product's Web site, it certainly looks that way. The Readius fits in the palm of your hand. But that's not where the innovation lies. The Readius has what's called a rollable display. You literally pull the screen out of the device. On top of that, it will support wireless and Bluetooth. It will also pack an email client, an image viewer, and an RSS reader.

Finding out more

This TechTip only touched the surface of what's available on the eBook reader market. If you want to learn about the other devices out there, then check out the eBook reader matrix at the Mobileread wiki, or take a peek at this article at Wikipedia.