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Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

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sword:
Quantities the same, two inkjet sets per year. Price lower now thanks to Kodak. Dot matrix for half my printing

zridling:
Any of our British friends seen a COOL-ER CoolReader yet? It's supposedly more open than Kindle. Problem is, it uses Adobe's smelly DRM. Pretty sad that Amazon has proved that it is no great friend of open access -- first, by embracing DRM for its books, and second, by disabling the text-to-speech capability because The Authors' Guild has 18th-century ideas of what copyright is about.

The reason that Amazon can turn off the screen reader capability is that the machines use non-free software, controlled by Amazon rather than by the user. If Amazon can turn this off retroactively, the product has a dangerous (and costly) back door. Amazon's point is to keep people from sharing a book with a friend or family member. In that world, all public libraries are criminal institutions!



As long as ebooks have to be viewed on lock-down devices (phones, tablets, e-readers), the book industry will continue to give way to more open technologies. Anyone who pays $400 just to have the company invade and erase your PURCHASED documents is asking for it.

xtabber:
my conclusion is that when they come out with one with a full letter page sized screen, i might take the plunge.
-mouser (August 27, 2009, 05:58 AM)
--- End quote ---

For a mere $895, you can buy the iRex reader 1000S which features a full page (10.2") screen with 1024x1280 resolution, native PDF support and the ability to write on the screen.

Product page: http://www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000

For a less than enthusiastic recent review, see: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/07/23/review_electronic_book_irex_digtal_reader_dr1000s/

iRex is supposedly coming out with a version that includes WiFi (like their smaller iLiad, 2nd edition), but there has been no release date specified.

mouser:
i looked at the irex.. but 10.2" is not a full sized page.  an 8.5x11" page would have a 13.5" screen.  i guess one could argue that with common margins that might shrink to 11.5 or 12".  but i still want a real full sized page, and 10.2" isn't going to do it.

xtabber:
My aging eyes find printed output much easier to read for many things, in particular, long articles, and certainly much easier to edit (unless you like applying a pencil to your screen).

The last 16-bit utility I still use with any frequency is Dan Bricklin's Page Garden, released in 1989 and quickly sold off and abandoned by him, a command line batch-oriented page description scripting language for HPL and PS laser printers. I have yet to find anything as good for making long code listings easy to read and work with. The main drawback is that it only recognizes 8.3 file names.

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