Journey to the Past

3 weeks after I got my first e-book reader, the PRS-505 , Sony released a new e-book reader, the PRS-700 . At first glance, this looks really promising. The loading time is way better than the old model. For my collection of 175 books on SD card, it takes 6 seconds to load. In PRS-505, it takes 12 seconds. Page turns take half the time compared to 505. It has a touch screen capability. Which means you have more ways to turn a page. Also, thanks to this ability, you can do search and highlight passages on the book you are reading. It comes with stylus, but using fingers will be as effective. Another thing I love is the buttons. The new PRS-700 has "back" button, "next" and "previous" page button, "home", "search", "zoom", and "option". The "home" button is really useful. Using PRS-505, when I want to switch between books, it takes anywhere between 5-10 clicks. Now, thanks to this "home" button, it ...

I love random quotations and out-of-context sayings. It just opens up endless possibilities as to the context and the circumstances of the sayings. Today, a quoted poem from an American poet and educator Hughes Mearnes caught my eye: As I was walking up the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish, I wish he'd stay away. This is exactly the kind of poem that triggers imaginations. I was intrigued by the non-existent of the person that the writer wrote about. But after I think about it more, this is quite a creepy poem, probably belongs in the opening scene of a horror movie somewhere. PS: The above poem is called Antigonish , or better known as The Little Man Who Wasn't There

I love reading. Specifically, I love reading fictions and mangas. Unfortunately, most mangas I like are not available in Canada. Fortunately, most of them are scanned and translated into English by their Japanese-reading fans. So there are lots of them online, if you know where to look for them. Having lots of manga jpgs means that I can collect the ones I like. But since they are not real books, it's kinda hard to re-read the mangas I have. I don't have a desktop, and the LCD monitor hurts my eyes once I stare at it for a long time. Knowing my addiction for books (and mangas), we did some research and decided to buy Sony Reader PRS-505 . Yup, I got the red one. The reader acts like a glossy-paper book. So even under sunshine, you can read it without difficulties (supposedly... I cannot test this with Vancouver's weather). Some people ask me why I don't buy Amazon Kindle . If you live in USA, you can search books on Amazon.com for free from anywhere (no wireless charge)...