Eee PC in ‘Kindle’ Mode
February 8th, 2008 by antI came across a post on thekindle pointing to a forum post on eeeph where one of the users shows how he uses FBReader to make his Eee PC go into ‘Kindle’ mode. For those unaware, the Kindle is Amazon’s recently released e-book reader that’s almost impossible to find in stock these days.
While the Kindle and Eee PC are definitely two separate beasts, the Eee PC can actually emulate some of the Kindle’s main features. If you use FBReader, it lets you rotate the Eee PC’s screen to read e-books in portrait mode, and you can assign keys to use for turning the pages- giving you this ‘Kindle’ style mode. You won’t have the paper like screen or EVDO of the Kindle, but you will have a solid 7″ color screen and the ability to other things then simply read.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
someone should add that to the wiki because i know im going to b looking for it before long
February 9th, 2008 at 3:43 am
there is no need for a wiki
just download / install FBReader, open up a e-book and click on that “rotate view” button.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:41 am
I just download ebooks in pdf format, and use the already installed acrobat reader.
Go to view->rotate view counterclockwise (or clockwise, depending on left or right handedness) ,then view->full screen and you’re away. Almost any key changes the page, although you can set it to auto scroll. Esc gets you out of full screen mode.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:52 am
[...] tienes una Asus Eee, y quieres sentir en tus manos la tan famosa Kindle de Amazon, ya hay un modo de utilizar el FBReader en modo [...]
February 9th, 2008 at 5:52 am
Like tanyafish, to view PDF ebooks, I’ve simply used the pre-installed Adobe reader, rotated the view and then selected full screen.
It would be an improvement if there was an easy way to zoom into the actual content and making full use of the screen real estate instead of showing margins. Yes, you can zoom within Adobe reader, but it’s a manual process and often requires moving the viewing window in order to centre on the content,
February 9th, 2008 at 10:21 am
[...] tienes una Asus Eee, y quieres sentir en tus manos la tan famosa Kindle de Amazon, ya hay un modo de utilizar el FBReader en modo [...]
February 9th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
FBReader does not need to be separately installed. While I couldn’t find the button to press, I did see (via synaptic) that it was already on the system.
Open a terminal window and type: “FBReader” (mind the caps).
February 9th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
For those who don’t know this:
On Eee’s with XP installed, you can instantly rotate the display under any application using the CTRL+ALT and arrow keys.
Not sure if this applies to ALL XP laptops or this is special to the Eee.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
there is actually a longer thread about screen rotation with a fine tutorial and tips regarding shortcuts and mouse/touchpad ‘rotation’ in the Windows XP forum
February 10th, 2008 at 12:23 am
FBReader is installed on 4G Surf and above. It just doesn’t have the link in easy mode. KDE does have it under Applications -> Office. Just use the nice easy mode launcher ( forgot the name … just go to wiki ) to get it for the easy mode.
For options I use 20 pixel margins because it just looks better that way. Also I bind ‘z’ for full screen zoom and ‘r’ to rotate between landscape and back. Under portrait ( 90deg rotation) I bind left and right arrows to large scroll backward/forward.
What we need is a nice app to auto surf and download from gutenberg.org and other free online book sites.
- mark
February 10th, 2008 at 12:27 am
For rotation of then entire X11 interface in linux just run the krandrtray applet. Then you can just click on it in the system tray to select different resolutions or rotations.
- mark
February 10th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Man, I posted this in the forum a long time ago… Nearly two months ago
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=5715
I feel gipped
February 10th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
[...] Got a desire for the sold out Amazon Kindle? If you do your probably out of luck on actually getting one anytime soon. The next best thing might actually be an Eee PC in “Kindle” mode. By using FBReader in fullscreen and portrait mode, an Eeeph forum member turned his Eee into a Kindle imitator. Since FBReader is a free e-book reader for Unix and Windows computers this little Kindle tweak shouldn’t be too hard to get you a multi-function e-reader out of the popular Eee PC. [Eeeph via EeeUser] [...]
February 15th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Not sure why all the fuss about the Kindle, the Sony Reader is just as good, if not better. There’s really no need for download on demand for ebooks when you can just load up from your PC before you leave. Secondly, the keyboard is just hogging front surface area; i.e., where more screen should be.
I’m also with the rest of the posters, use a PDF reader and forgo yet another proprietary format.
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Just got my eee yesterday so I am still learning. The FBReader is cool and it formats zipped Gutenberg text files nicely - it reads straight from a zip file. It is installed and I found it by opening a chm file in the ebooks directory. I have rotated the text, set up key bindings to turn pages and I have an ereader for txt and plucker files.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Azayzel : Not sure why all the fuss about the Kindle, the Sony Reader is just as good, if not better. There’s really no need for download on demand for ebooks when you can just load up from your PC before you leave. Secondly, the keyboard is just hogging front surface area; i.e., where more screen should be.
I’m also with the rest of the posters, use a PDF reader and forgo yet another proprietary format.
Reply: I disagree. I can check my e-mail from ANYWHERE that has Cellphone access. Period. I can check blogs, order a copy of my favorite magazine or newspaper, or a book. If I make notes or annotations in my Kindle books, those are saved on my Amazon account… So in a worst case scenario, if I lose my kindle, I don’t lose my ’stuff’. I can download it to any computer with internet access or from my new Kindle.
I was an E-Reader Hater before I got my Kindle. It was a gift, and I decided I would TRY to like it… now? I won’t go ANYWHERE without it. And it doesn’t read PDF? Who cares? With Mobi Pocket Creator I can convert most PDF’s to a format I can download to my Kindle and voila.
Kindle is the future.
I love mine!
February 25th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I couldn’t disagree more re the Sony 505 vs. the Kindle. I have had my Kindle since Dec. 4th, and have bought many books from the Kindle Store automatically downloded in roughly one minute each. This is a fantastic capability. Anyway, I love my Kindle as does everyone I have ever heard of who REALLY has their own Kindle, and are not just theoretical.
Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I note from a previous post that you have a 8 GB SDHC memory card. Is there any problem with the Kindle accepting this card as I had thought they were limited to 4 GB on their memory cards? I would love to get the 8 GB simply to dazzle my friends with the tremendous potential of the Kindle. Assuming a person only downloaded novels with an average of 200 books per 183 MB this would produce a capacity level of 8,743 books for the Kindle. Mind boggling. I recently broke my right shoulder and the Kindle could not have come at a better time. I also use it to transfer numerous .doc & .pdf files from my computer. I am 77 and have spent much time with tne iPhone since they upgraded their software to 1.3. I have to say however that Kindle is my absolute favorite gadget and Amazon’s potential with this product is unlimited particularly since they bought Audio Books. I hope this email is appropriate since I have much respect for your previous posts and had wanted to write you.
Regards,
Joel Healy
February 26th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Even the Kindle support group didn’t know it, but the Kindle is built with a high capacity memory card compatability, and took my 8 GB SDHC card just fine — I actually bought this card from Amazon.com — cost = under $100.00. But be sure and get the Ultra II high speed version — one user bought a cheapie and it just didn’t work. And the manufacturer SanDisk announced in Los Vegas that there would be a 16 GB version out by mid year, and a 32 GB version by year end — which would reach the maximum size that this technology supports.
Incidentally, I currently have 39 pages in my directory, with roughly 450 books included. But this has taken just 0.3 GB of my memory card, after moving literallhy everthing from the Kindle Memory to the SD memory card. This makes theoretically a capacity of 11,450 books shown on 950 directory pages, which is just plain too big for one 81 year old human being like me to read during the rest of my hopefully 100 year life (my aunt died at 101 reciently).
I originally bought the memory card since Kindle said that audio books take much more memory than do text formatted books. But now that I have it, I see the need for it just to hold regular books. Many of my books were free out-of-copyright books including all the older classical authors, whose works I really love.
Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Mr. Wilkes–you are amazing! Thank you so much for your comments. I will order the 8 GB SDHC memory card and will make sure that it is the Ultra II high speed version. I am particularly pleased that you were able to buy it from Amazon as I had thought they only offered a 4 GB version. I can’t wait to start “expanding” my library and more importantly dazzling my friends with this amazing product.
It will be interesting to see if Kindle will be able to accomodate the proposed 16 GB version. This would create a capacity of 17486 books based on Kindle’s formula of 200 books for their current model. This would truly bring “show and tell” to the top of the shelf!
Thank you again for your extremely valuable input.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:38 am
HI,
Thanks for your help - Ifound FB Reader via the Terminal. Is there anyway of putting the icon onto the internet tab?
ArsenalForever
April 29th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Anyone ever use this email account program before? Just curious, I’m looking for software that will mass create email accounts.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am
FBReader doesn’t seem to be installed on my new EEE 900 — I wonder why Asus dropped it — they certainly have the space!