Wow! I can download a whole book to my hard drive!
Dec 15 '99
By now, most of you know that while I love the internet, I dislike electronic news compared to print news. My opinion of electronic books is similar, although my reasons vary a bit.
Books, compared to value of the product received, are extremely inexpensive and an excellent value for the money. Paperbacks are easily stored and handled, and hard covers can last for eons, and can increase greatly in value as an investment.
The idea of an e-book is an interesting one. You "purchase" the book on the net, and you are able to save it to your disk, to read at your leisure. I imagine this helps to keep costs down, because publishing costs would be almost nil.
In theory, you wouldn't have to hang onto a book, and just keep it on your hard drive, thereby not worrying about a place to store the book.
My main complaint with this idea is the comfort level. I am not comfortable reading three hundred pages in MS Word (or NotePad, or whatever!) on my computer screen. While I've got a great 17" monitor, that's just not ideal, and it leads to eye strain.
Another comfort complaint deals with sitting at a computer itself, instead of relaxing in an easy chair or curled up in bed. Even with a laptop, you're not in the ideal reading position that is most comfortable.
While I suppose it is possible to just dump the e-book to your printer, this way having a hard-copy of the book, I would promise this wouldn't be an economically feasible option when compared to just going out and buying a book. Inkjet cartridges aren't inexpensive, and to print out 200-300 pages (or more) would drain a great portion of most inkjet printer reserves. Then, you have to factor in the cost of paper. Added to that is the cost of wear and tear to your printer itself.
What you wind up with is a much more expensive solution to owning a book.
No, I think I'll stay with the old and reliable method of reading a novel... I'll buy it either in a bookstore or off the internet, but it will be a printed version of the book that I can cherish for years to come.
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Member: Jeffrey Schwartz
Location: Sunrise, FL, USA
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