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Printed Books Vs E-Books

  • September 26, 2013 at 7:44 am

    #1653570

    Koen Verbeeck (9/26/2013)

    I'm thinking about getting a Kindle. Anyone experience with it?

    I have some PDFs lying around, can it display those as well?

    Is it good for reading technical books (screenshots, tables, code samples, ...)?

    I've used my father-in-law's a little, just to try it out. It's okay for novels, but I could tell in the first 10 minutes that I'd never want to use it for anything technical.

    To be fair, he has an older one (with ads! :angry:) and he opted for the model without the touch screen. The newer ones might be nicer, but I wouldn't ever read technical books on my phone either. The 5" screen isn't enough real estate. Talk about not being able to see the big picture...

    Just my two cents.

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  • September 26, 2013 at 7:56 am

    #1653580

    For me, it's definitely the hardcopies. I've so many pdfs in my lappy but couldn't complete any and the only one's i've completed are the hard copied. Somehow I cannot pace up with the current world on that note and old fashioned reading serves best for me. :-):-):-)

  • September 26, 2013 at 12:56 pm

    #1653720

    Koen Verbeeck (9/26/2013)

    I'm thinking about getting a Kindle. Anyone experience with it?

    I have some PDFs lying around, can it display those as well?

    Is it good for reading technical books (screenshots, tables, code samples, ...)?

    It can display PDFs, but the screen is small and I find some technical PDFs have diagrams that when shrunk onto a 5" screen become undecipherable. A screenshot from a tablet may look ok (I don't know if any Kindles have color as opposed to grey-scale - mine doesn't, so that could be an issue) but I suspect screenshots of a 24" screen might appear a bit too tiny. Tables and code samples, like diagrams and screen shots, are going to be OK only if they fit legibly onto a 5" screen. So I don't think that a Kindle is is adequate for all technical books, only for some.

    Also sometimes when with a paper book I would keep a place with my finger while I looked at some other section the Kindle equivalent is any one of add a bookmark, remember some text (then you can search for it), or remember a position identifier (a number, how many digits depends on how far into the book the position is). At first I found that awkward, but I've got used to it and creating, using, and deleting marks has become easy. And of course when you close a book the Kindle remembers where you were, which is something I've often wished paper books would do.

    I find mine useful for some technical documents but not for others because of the problems with the 5" screen. For the others I use either the Kindle app on my laptop or Foxit reader (both are free, and I hate Acrobat) or other apps for other formats (most formats can be converted to Kindle format or PDF). I've run out of shelf space so I have reduced by paper book acquisition rate by a large factor.

    Tom

  • September 26, 2013 at 1:04 pm

    #1653727

    I believe the manual effort of actually writing something down facilitates the learning process, at least for me it does. My comprehension of the material is better that way.

  • September 27, 2013 at 2:41 pm

    #1654207

    I have the Kindle Fire HD, which has a 7" screen (I think). I do most of my leisure reading (books and magazines) on the Kindle, and do some technical reading on it. I'd do a lot more if my library had more technical ebooks available for checkout.

    As a bonus, I listen to music at work on it, it has games if I need to keep the grandkid occupied, and works fine for browsing most web sites (it is getting better all the time) and watching Netflix.

    I don't mean to sound like an Amazon ad but I love my Kindle and carry it everywhere!

  • September 27, 2013 at 10:03 pm

    #1654244

    Printed books at home and pdf at workplace.

  • September 27, 2013 at 11:04 pm

    #1654246

    Koen Verbeeck (9/18/2013)

    Personally I like printed books the most. Nothing beats the actual touch and feel of an actual book. (and you can kill flies with it!)

    It's also easier on the eyes and it doesn't consume batteries. However, printed books are usually not in color.

    Since I don't have the physical space to store every book I want to read, pdf on a laptop comes as a close second.

    Me too. But, you cant do a search on a real book. Maybe use an app only to find words ?

  • September 28, 2013 at 4:37 am

    #1654271

    E-book is always a good option if you can download it for free.

    Hard copy helps me to read further as on my laptop or ipad, I start playing games after some time.

    But if money and storage is a problem then ultimately we have to opt for e-books.

  • September 30, 2013 at 12:14 pm

    #1654681

    For technical books, I prefer PDFs - I can easily search, copy samples, toggle to whatever IDE and try them.

    For leisure reading, there is no joy like browsing a printed book 🙂

  • October 1, 2013 at 6:25 am

    #1654860

    I have to agree with the Kindle love. I have a third generation Kindle (greyscale, no touch screen, no back light) and I absolutely love it. I do mostly recreational reading on it and stick primarily to free selections. There was one book that I read for free on the Kindle that I loved so much I bought a physical copy of it.

    For anything technical, I stick to paper copies. I find it easier to quickly look something up in the physical copy. I also find that most technical books I don't read linearly. That's probably the biggest hurdle preventing me from switching to ebooks here.

    I have a handful of pdf's but I find that I get headaches a lot quicker when reading a pdf on a computer. I've also found that converting a pdf to ebook for the kindle is a very hit or miss. I've had a few that have converted ok, but I've had others that were completely unreadable.


    The opinions expressed herein are strictly personal and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of my employer.

  • October 1, 2013 at 8:06 am

    #1654924

    Can I vote for whichever format doesn't have code or results printed over multiple pages? That's a huge pet peeve of mine.

  • October 1, 2013 at 9:07 am

    #1654951

    I will say I have started reading more books in PDF format now that I found that check mark in the Preferences for Restoring to the last view when reopening documents. Makes keeping track of what page I was on a whole lot easier.

  • October 1, 2013 at 9:45 am

    #1654962

    Now that I have two large monitors at the office, it's a necessity rather than a luxury to use one of them for an open reference. I always have Books Online open, and occasionally one of the free eBooks. With a small notebook computer screen out of the office, one print book is OK, but having to juggle two or more is a pain. Having said that, I still haven't taken the plunge for a Kindle or other tablet. BTW, it may pay to have a Kindle (or Nook) in addition to an iPad or Android tablet, since you don't have to risk damage or theft to the more expensive device while using it for real work.

  • October 1, 2013 at 11:15 am

    #1654991

    I do have many e-books, but still prefer paper. Admittedly I tend to treat them as the trophy of the hunt 🙂

  • October 2, 2013 at 3:02 pm

    #1655339

    Printed books -- 100%.

    I read pdf's & ebooks on my phone & tablet but this is only when it would not be convenient to huff around a real book.

    "I cant stress enough the importance of switching from a sequential files mindset to set-based thinking. After you make the switch, you can spend your time tuning and optimizing your queries instead of maintaining lengthy, poor-performing code."

    -- Itzik Ben-Gan 2001

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