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WEB WATCH: SURFING EBOOKS

The ebook craze

An eBook is an electronic version of a traditional print book that can be read by using an eBook reader or as a PDF file.

An eBook is an electronic version of a traditional print book that can be read by using an eBook reader or as a PDF file. The eBook reader is a software application, for example Microsoft's free Reader application is one such. One can also purchase an eBook on a CD, but the most popular method of getting an eBook is to purchase a downloadable file of the eBook (or other reading material) from a Web site which can be read by using a PC or reading device.

Most eBooks can be read as PDF files, these are popular because they have various options similar to those of a paper book— readers can bookmark pages, make notes, highlight passages, and save selected text. An eBook reader does more by providing a built-in dictionary, and also lets the user alter font sizes and styles. Typically, an eBook reader is small hand-held device and can store from four thousand to over half a million pages of text and graphics. The back-lit screen which makes reading in the dark possible is another feature of the eBook reader.

Quite a number of eBooks can be downloaded for free or at reduced cost, except the bestsellers ofcourse which are comparable in price to their traditional print versions. A free e-book means that it involves no direct costs to acquire, access, read, copy, or use.

There are numerous resources available online which can help locate free e-books. Prominent among them is Project Gutenberg, the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet whose collections are produced by hundreds of volunteers. The goal of Project Gutenberg is to encourage the creation and distribution of free eBooks. There are 18,000 free books in the Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog, and some two million ebooks are downloaded each month. You can receive updates on EBooks posted at Projet Gutenberg through an RSS feed available at http://www.gutenberg.org/feeds/today.rss.

There are some great eBooks which you can download for free from Planet PDF athttp://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage="1" — Books like Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Aesop's Fables, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Emma by Jane Austen. At http://ftp.cgu.edu.tw/Mirror/E-Book/ you can download free 53 current technical ebooks covering the following topics: Linux, C Sharp, .Net, C++, Java, JSP, XML, Oracle, TCP-IP, Unix, and Windows Server 2003.

These are in chm and pdf document formats. www.asiaing.com offers free download of Harvard Business Essentials: Guide to Hiring and Keeping the Best People, Einstein A to Z by Karen C. Fox and Aries Keck, The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F DruckeInvesting, The Warren Buffett Way of investing (second edition), Dreamcatcher by Stephen King, Principles of Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw, and We Media — How audiences are shaping the future of news and information. On the flipside, though quite a number of these ebooks are free to download some of them are only excerpts from the books.

And, many of the ebooks are related to arts and humanities subject areas, range from the ancient classics to the early twentieth century. Also, owing to copyright problems digital reproductions of recent books are not made available for free download.

Many with special expertise, methods, processes or advice have self published their own work on the Internet in the form of ebooks. If you have an expertise in just about any field you can now write, edit, self publish and sell your work. You can get cracking by browsing through the tips and suggestions available at http://ebook-india.updateforyou.com/index.html and http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/.

FreeStory.org is another online resource and preliminary publication medium for writers. Its growing user base of editors and reviewers provide a free feedback on your writing.

The website also provides a wide range of tips, tutorials, guidelines, and tools to help you locate your strengths and pinpoint the weaknesses in your writing.

N S Soundar Rajan