re: NTLK Great news: ebooks in PalmDOC format can now be read on your Newt on!

From: Steve Weyer (sweyer@bellatlantic.net)
Date: Fri Dec 10 1999 - 09:30:52 EST


>Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 16:02:54 +0100
>From: RAND Peter <Peter.Rand@bankaustria.com>
>
>One of the Newton's outstanding features is its built-in ability to read
>NewtonBooks. However, with the official cancellation of the Newton, it has
>become increasingly difficult to find a good selection of up-to-date ebooks
>in Newton format. Palm users, on the other hand, enjoy a growing number of
>freeware ebooks in PalmDOC format, and an increasing number of contemporary
>titles (at about $5 per ebook) are also being offered in PalmDOC format.
>
>Steve Weyer has now added a plug-in to Newt's Cape that makes it possible to
>download PalmDOCs (in .pdb or .prc format) to the Newton and convert them
>automatically into NewtonBooks. For enthusiastic readers such as myself,
>this is an amazing development - suddenly thousands of new books that were
>"off-limits" to the Newton can now be read as any other NewtonBook!
>
>Books in PalmDOC format can be found for example at:
>http://www.memoware.com/.
>While ebooks in .prc and .pdb format can be downloaded directly to the
>Newton, ebooks in zip format need to be downloaded to a desktop, unzipped,
>and then emailed to a Newton running SimpleMail version 4.0. Newt's Cape can
>then load the .prc or .pdb attachment from the Inbox.
>
>Contempory ebooks can be purchased at http://www.memoware.com/mw-books.htm
>for about $5 per title. Select a book in .prc format, provide your credit
>card number over the secure server, and then download the ebook to your
>desktop in zip format. Unzip the book and email it to your Newton as
>described above. I just bought and downloaded my first-ever commercial
>ebook, and Newt's Cape is now converting it to a NewtonBook....... it works!
>I now look forward to reading this and other contemporary novels on my
>Newton.
>
>For more information about using Newt's Cape to read ebooks in PalmDOC
>format, contact Steve Weyer at sweyer@bellatlantic.net.
>
>Great job Steve - I want to thank you on behalf of the entire Newton
>community for this fantastic new feature which significantly extends the
>useful life of my Newton.

blush ;-)
thanks for the kind words (and testing) Peter.

a couple of points to clarify. I'll make the PilotDoc plugin available to
others to try later today (Friday). (currently, registered users are
testing). I was waiting to find out when SimpleMail 4.x would be available
(since 3.3 didn't work completely for me), but haven't heard back yet from
Simon Bell; but then I realized that the Inbox functionality requires a
small patch that I've made in Newt's Cape 2.0x-2, which I'm not ready to
release as a public eval version anyway. you can also upload docs to the
Inbox via EETransfer from desktop.

the docs are pretty plain -- the DOC format standard doesn't include
formatting info.
(though there are different Pilot readers that add non-standard extensions)

so, the PilotDoc plugin will work with Newt's Cape 2.0r-2 (the latest
public eval version), and you can download DOC .pdb/.prc books from the web
(including .zip via www.palmzip.com form) via Newt's Cape, but not via
Inbox.

enjoy!

>From: Victor Rehorst <victor@gear.torque.net>

>SimpleMail 4.0? According to Newton Versions and Simon Bell's
>Page, the latest version is 3.3... is there something in the works that
>only people "in the know" are aware of" I know that Simon was talking on
>c.s.n.(misc|programmer) about adding IMAP4 support.

it's a beta. if Simon's on NewtonTalk, perhaps he could say more about
features/timetable here, or on web site
(http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/road/aah66/)

Steve
weyer@kagi.com
NewtDevEnv, Newt's Cape, Sloup, Crypto,...
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~sweyer/newton/index.htm
http://www.kagi.com/weyer

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