Free computer books
2010-04-13 15:40:25.824559+00 by
Dan Lyke
1 comments
Green Tea Press has a number of free computer books, which will make a good test case for the iPad as an ebook reader, even though they're not in Apple's book reader format and I'd have to read them with a net connection.
Speaking of which, I got an iPad yesterday, and... well... I don't think Apple's there yet. I like the form factor, but Safari is as annoying as it is on the iPhone (where it's a marvel, but not a real web browsing experience), and I haven't found that killer app yet. May yet write it, but...
I'm looking forward to the Google Android pad, and since someone else bought the iPad for me, I'm also still interested in the Always Innovating Touch Book.
[ related topics:
Apple Computer Books iPhone
]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2010-04-13 16:14:01.697843+00 by:
Jim S
The iPad uses E-PUB as its format. It was painless to take the HTML version of the Lua 5.1 reference
manual and convert it to E-PUB with Sigil (cross platform, mac version has brief UI hangs, but works well).
Non-monolithic sources would be harder. (Hint: If you want a pretty cover, just paste it in the "Info"
window of iTunes when you load the book.)
Those Green Tea books start out as LaTeX. From there to HTML and thence to E-PUB is not hard.
I find the E-PUB books better suited to the iPad since they reflow and allow font size selection. PDF works,
but I feel like I'm looking through a peephole at the page.
My biggest surprise is how well the location finding works. I was using a low power access point in a
subbasement that certainly isn't visible from a street and it still had my location accurately enough for an
air strike.