Microsoft offers free e-book downloads
Posted by malebolgia on 03 July 2003 - 01:28 · 30 comments & 2376 views
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(2 replies)
#1 Posted by Bricktop on 03 Jul 2003 - 02:14
- Arg, no free copy of 1984.
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#2 Posted by icefusion on 03 Jul 2003 - 03:03
- Do these free eBooks last forever once downloaded or do they expire after a certain date?
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#3 Posted by corrosive23 on 03 Jul 2003 - 03:04
- Im waiting for the anti-microsoft losers to come running screaming about how they claim this is a ploy by microsoft to kill e-books or take over e-books or some other inane baseless crap.
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#4 Posted by AndyD on 03 Jul 2003 - 04:27
- isnt it true though?
me goes to the website in search for greek myth books and some other classics
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(1 reply)
#5 Posted by timbo3 on 03 Jul 2003 - 04:56
- Adobe Reader 6 and Microsoft Reader 2.... Screw them both - just give me a stupid txt file! ASCII is the way to go - it's universal
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(5 replies)
#6 Posted by werejag on 03 Jul 2003 - 05:15
- they still make this microsoft ebook format and reader?
seems so!
guess they didnt get the memo!
no one cares about microsoft ebook format or its reader, except microsoft sheep.
again another thing microsoft will not let die like it should. -
#6.1 Posted by JaggedFlame on 03 Jul 2003 - 07:19
- Did you read comment #8?
Obviously, someone finds these useful. If you don't, sit down and stop complaining. -
#6.2 Posted by werejag on 03 Jul 2003 - 10:40
- someone can not count. my comment was #6. and you wanted me to read #8 before it was posted. go back to pre school jagged flame.
and i stand by my comment
"no one cares about microsoft ebook format or its reader, except microsoft sheep."
Last edited by 10354 on 03 Jul 2003 - 10:48 -
#6.3 Posted by nookadum on 03 Jul 2003 - 13:24
- Well unless YOU make a format that would work on our PDAs, we'll continue being 'Microsoft Sheep' as you so fitting have said.
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#6.4 Posted by JaggedFlame on 03 Jul 2003 - 18:25
QUOTE someone can not count. my comment was #6. and you wanted me to read #8 before it was posted. go back to pre school jagged flame.
No sh*t. When I say "Did you read comment #8," that means you go read it as you're reading my post and adjust accordingly. Your little "preschool" tirade is amusing; it shows you're willing to pick on little things so you can distract people from the fact that you're wrong.
So read it now. Obviously, at least one person thinks the e-book format is worth it.
QUOTE and i stand by my comment
Too bad. #8 just disproved you.
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(2 replies)
#7 Posted by AJCrowley Esq on 03 Jul 2003 - 05:36
- Where are the free ebooks? I downloaded and installed their software, activated it, but I can't find anywhere on their site offering free downloads of any ebooks, just links to it on sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, where they obviously want money for the books.
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#7.2 Posted by BigBlueBall on 03 Jul 2003 - 15:07
- The news.com article mentions that "As part of the five-month promotion, users can download three e-books a week from Microsoft's Web site via a Pocket PC, a Tablet PC, a laptop or a desktop. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, and Fear Itself by Walter Mosley are among the titles offered."
I can find those books, but not for free. Nor can I find any mention on the Microsoft Reader site of this promotion.
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#8 Posted by BxBoy on 03 Jul 2003 - 05:47
- Great for my PDA.
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(1 reply)
#9 Posted by notnoisy on 03 Jul 2003 - 07:05
- atleast the MS ebook format isnt slow and annoying like pdf is
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#9.1 Posted by werejag on 03 Jul 2003 - 10:46
- lit format is a very crude, not well designed html language simular to chm. (compiled html)
while adobe ebook format has much better format structure isnt based on sloppy html code. has the ability to be printed in its original book format, and has better security.
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#10 Posted by theh0g on 03 Jul 2003 - 07:24
- Kickass! They'll never beat Adobe's PDF, but its great to have eBooks on my ipaq
Edit: khmm, free my a**! Only few of those are actually "free".
Last edited by 11188 on 03 Jul 2003 - 07:33
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#11 Posted by lucasvanos on 03 Jul 2003 - 08:28
- Funny project.
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#12 Posted by Jackalo on 03 Jul 2003 - 11:49
- Now, if they were to share Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, I'd more than likely download their reader and the book. I've only been able to read the first two chapters of it on my TI-92Plus. =
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#13 Posted by darkmark327 on 03 Jul 2003 - 12:25
- They are all free; click the link on the right of each page (usually a logo, like the library of viriginia) that appears when you click the title in the list, where it says available from. This is really nifty, ms had a good idea (hell, now I'm using it...not that i care about pdf or lit), and everyone who isn't whiny like #6 should take advantage of it. Free books! Why the hell not.
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#14 Posted by RanCorX2 on 03 Jul 2003 - 12:27
- hmmm pretty crappy books.
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#15 Posted by JnCoKiLLa on 03 Jul 2003 - 14:40
- its also a Memory/CPU Hungry thing...
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#16 Posted by Mr. Black on 03 Jul 2003 - 16:11
- w00t!!!!
Free eBooks!
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#17 Posted by rocks1985 on 03 Jul 2003 - 16:28
- The Problem with E-Books is hardware. There is no existing mass market screen / display technology that lets a reader read through material on a lightweight, high dpi screen that can be used like paper.
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#18 Posted by Skyfrog on 03 Jul 2003 - 19:07
- Sounds good; I just wish I had one of those little Pocket PC thingys to read them on. Still too expensive for me though, so I'll have to settle for using my old laptop.
This site has hundreds of eBooks in both Microsoft Lit and Palm formats. They are all public domain, mostly stuff written before the 1920's.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html
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#19 Posted by kuroneko on 04 Jul 2003 - 03:41
- I didn't even know they had this software.
Although Microsoft has launched similar promotions in the past to boost users' familiarity with Reader and attempt to snag market share from Adobe's omnipresent Acrobat software, the new promotion is the largest in scope and duration that the company has offered, Microsoft eReading group product manager Cliff Guren said.
"Customers are satisfied with the reading experience once they engage with it, but we wanted to build awareness of e-books and Microsoft Reader. We want to expose more people to this," Guren said. Microsoft Reader debuted in August 2000 and has since received 6 million downloads. The company released Microsoft Reader 2.0 a year ago, along with an online catalog of e-book titles available for the software.
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