Cookaholics Bulletin Board

My biggest beef about ebooks is I can't buy them at yardsales.

And, really, one of the biggest drawbacks...sharing. There is no "borrowing" of an ebook. Well, at least not if you aren't a hacker.

One of the issues I have with ebooks is the proprietary formats - what happens if (when) B&N finally goes belly up - how long with the Nook platform for ebooks be supported? A printed book will always be accessible.

I think I am going to wait for an e-book that projects an interactive 3-D laser holographic image of a virtual sous-chef.

Actually, B&N uses ePub for the Nook, which is an independant format supported by several libraries.

The same is NOT true of the Kindle.

If I'm not mistaken, I think there are also programs that will convert from one format to another.

Why does that not surprise me.

Todd, I haven't heard of any software like that (of course that doesn't mean it's not out there). I know how hard Amazon, et al. are fighting piracy - seems like they wouldn't want anyone to be able to convert to another (probably easily copied) format.

I've tried cooking from the Kindle and it's not convenient. I also sampled McGee on the Kindle and it wasn't much better.

The interface on the Kindle does not make it suitable for reference works much. I've cooked from it quite a few times satisfactorily, but it isn't any different then a piece of paper. I read all of McGee on it, but I read that back to front, not as a reference work, and the kindle is great for that style. For 'interactive' cooking (cross referencing, how do i prepare star fruit, that kind of thing) the color touch screen tablets are much better. I don't mind abusing my iPad to no end, so I use it in the kitchen.

Yeah, speaking of unsuitable for reference documents, I was also frustrated with reading a tourist guide to Paris - it was too hard to flip back and forth between a map of the Louvre and descriptions of the different areas, for example.

Not to mention the usage of location based services is almost invaluable; I used my iPad very very heavily in Paris to find restaurants, cafe's, metro stations, etc. not to mention metro apps to layout routes, etc. But my wife still brought a paper book, and it was still useful for browsing; they don't have that down yet. Plus, it ended up having us meet another lovely canadian couple in a wonderful seafood restaurant who were using the same guide ...