Re: [NTLK] Sync and ereader for newbie newton user

Well in short nope and nope. The long answers are, Syncing is not
reliable and never really has been. There are a few utilities around
but none of them work well with OS X. There Is Newtsync and some
people have got that work but many times it corrupted their data or just
stop working. And corruption would happen with NCU at times. If you
sync ALWAYS ALWAYS make sure you have a backup first. Now that said
there is a new software package being developed by Simon bell for OS X.
 From all accounts it does install packages and do backups but not sync
yet. So perhaps later but not right now. It is also beta software so
the usual cautions apply, though I haven't heard of anyone having
problems with it.

As for ereader, it is not possible. Ereader (like many ebook formats)
is encrypted and protected which requires their special software. I
always suggest that people buy books without encryption (any DRM is a
bad idea and causes problems sooner or later). This ensures you will
always be able to read your books even if your hardware/software changes
or the company goes out of business. There have been too many cases
where people buy a new book and have to upgrade their software or
hardware to read it and then they can't read their old books. Or vice
versa. And I very much doubt that even if everything works perfectly
now you will be able to read those books in 10 years time as no
publisher can guarantee that they will be in business in a few years
supporting and upgrading their software so it continues to work
properly. Two ebook publishers that I recamend that don't use
encryption is Fictionwise (they call their unencrypted books
Multiformat) and Baen. Baen usually gives you the electronic version if
you buy their paper version. Both companies offer several formats that
can be converted to a Newtonbook so you can read it on your Newton.
With Fictionwise I grab the PalmDoc format convert it to text then make
a Newtonbook out of it. Doesn't take but a minute, unless you add a
table of contents then it may take 10 minutes or so with Bookmaker. By
the way, Baen has quite a few of its books available for free in their
libary. So you can download one of those and convert it to your Newton
to read. I suggest either RTF or PalmDoc format. The RTF format will
be easier as you can just load that into Bookmaker or Press directly.
They also have "WebScription" where you subscribe getting new ebooks
every month (or portions of them in serial format).

-Dan

On 3/12/2007 9:38 AM, Stephen Warner wrote:
> Hi All
> Thanks for the great info in all your emails!
> I have a new Newton 2000 with an ethernet card which I have working
> with the drivers installed. I would like to sync the best way with my
> Mac iBook running OS X 10.4 and Classic...The usual NIC does not work
> with classic even with the downloaded version that actually
> installs :-) Any suggestions? Also, I use the ereader for many books
> on Palm platform before...any way to get these recognized in Newton
> form?
> Thanks everyone for your help
> Steve

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