I am of the crowd who simply does not use credit.
I have been using the paypal virtual cards for years for internet transactions and just used it an hour ago to buy new book for my kindle.
I have no problems paying a reasonable price for the service.
What alternatives are there for those of us who does not use credit cards under any circumstance?

My point is that the iPad will had DRM that makes the kindle seem open.

Actually I rarely read anything on the times list. The amazon kindle store has authors that I can never find in a book store without ordering the book and waiting weeks.

The reason I went with an e-reader was for feedbooks, Gutenberg and the other PD repositories.

Because I went with a kindle, I also pay for.. my local paper and my hometown paper, a couple of magazines, and then what ever author I am reading at the moment, if not in PD. Right now it is Turtledove.

I am referring to non PD book. Lets say, Dan Browns Latest, or something by Harry Turtle Dove. When looking for that, amazon has the best prices.

I use feedbooks all of the time.

Even better, lets say, I want to actually pay for my local paper and a couple of magazines I like to read.

It was not the monitor. I have a 30" Apple Studio monitor.

I have avoided e-books for years unless they are technical in nature, I am a big fan of safari books.

My fun reading is much more enjoyable on the kindle or dead tree form.

I agree.

I was a skeptic of e-readers in general until a coworker got one and was reading the local newspaper. I went and bought one that day.

Where do you find epub files that are cheaper than the same book for the kindle? I considered the other readers based on the fact a kindle is locked. I found that Amazon would have the same book at half of the price as other online ebook sites.

E-ink is the critical difference.

I was reminded of this a few days ago when I left my kindle at work.

So I installed the kindle app on a windows vm at home, and synced it to the current book that I was reading.

30 minutes later, I had one hell of a headache. No thanks.

What? People on here will not consider a Kindle because it has drm in it but they will consider the iPad.

At least with my kindle, all i need to do to add third party books is hook the device to my computer and start copying, or surf to numerous sites on the net with the device.

Yes it has DRM, to protect their content. So fraking what. The ability to get new media ( in particular periodicals) from anywhere without a pc, sets the kindle apart from the others.

Did you know that the ipod also has even more intrusive DRM, but yet it is considered to be the best device out there.

Unlike an ipod, all you need to do to add third party content to a kindle is hook it up to a computer and it becomes a usb storage device, or surf the kindle to the numerous sites out there like feedbooks to get content.

The kindle was designed for book junkies, and for people who like to read newspapers/periodicals. Does it have limitations, yes, but it does do its key functions well, deliver text content anywhere there is a cell signal with a very long battery life.

There are several key markets for books.

Premium customers - new books in hardback
technical customers - technical books.
children books
paperback customers
bargain hunters
periodicals -

The kindle is aimed at the premium, paperback, periodical, and bargain hunters.

Amazon has realized that only their premium customers will even pay for the 9.99 price for new books. If I pay that kind of price for a book, I want the dead tree trophied on my book shelf with the thousands of other dead trees in my house, so I can re read them later in life.

Personally I use my kindle for disposable media, like news papers ( the oklahoman and St. Louis Post dispatch) and magazines ( reason, mit tech review and reader digest.) All those combined equals a little over $20 a month, that before the kindle, I never would subscribe to.

When I am in the mood I usualy do the following to get free and cheap books, usually classics.

1. Every day or so amazon will offer a free book on the kindle, to lure you into a series ( it works, i usually end up buying the free book and the others in paper form)

2. type "-domain" in the kindle search bar. It will return all of the current free and cheap books. Usually around 20,000 or so.

3. Go to http://www.feedbooks.com/kindleguide with the browser on the kindle. That will download a "book" that will allow you access to most of the guttenberg and other free book repositories on the intertubes.

Due to the ease of free content, amazon has been posting low cost collections of authors for usually a $1.00 that has excellent indexing and tables of contents.

I think the ipad will have its market but until they can make a device that I only have to charge once a week is useable any time during that period to allow me to read ( usually 2-3 hours a day) in addition to all of it computer usage, I will stick with my netbook and kindle in my backpack.


dhh

There will be several modes that you will have use. As with anything else a fulltimer faces, no single solution will work all of the time.

Stick with 12volt hardware. This should be obvious. You will not need to run your genny to have internet access.

Pending where you are going to be this is what I have found to be the most flexible.

Buy a cradlepoint or something similar that can take multiple brands of 3g cards/dongles, with a secondary ethernet wan port. Make sure the 3g cards/dongles have external antenna connectors.

Buy an outdoor directional wifi CPE that has power over ethernet. Try to make sure it is 12v.

Buy a wilson outdoor antenna, extension cable ( if needed) and connector dongle for each 3g card. I prefer makeing a custom mount that attached to the ladder, than penetrating the roof, but that is your choice.

Buy a wilson amplifier, this is critical.

Buy a motorola cable modem, and a at&t wired dsl modem.

Locate a spot in the cabin that can wall mount the router, amp, and router the cables. I installed a separate lighted power switch for each of the 12v supplies, to make sure that the system had power and that I could cut it off and make it wife proof.

Install the wifi CPE on a pole and make a mount that will mount to the ladder or other strong point. I would not bother will any fancy ethernet jacks on the outside, just have the cable go through the basement into the cabin.

The problem with 3g is their 5gig limit. I would have a sprint and AT&T card. This should give you 3g over most of the US.

The reason for the WIFI, is that almost all decent parks have some form of either pay wifi or free wifi. Turn it on, turn off the 3g and you win.

All major truck stops have wifi, traditionally I always spent the night at flying J. I think their yearly price is not that bad.

If you plan on spending more the two weeks at a single spot. Look for parks that advertise cable television. So far all but one of them, I found that I could get my cable modem working. None of the parks will be aware of this. All you do is plug the modem up and if it gets sync, try to surf. Usually there will be a redirect to the cable companies customer disservice line. If not call the customer service line. Usually you give them the mac and you will be online in minutes. Make sure that there is no contract since they are not supplying a modem. Cancel service when you leave.

You can do this also with DSL on site supplied phone lines, but it takes days to weeks for the line to get turned up. I usually use dsl as a last hope.

While on the road use 3g, for the parks, plan ahead and call the parks office. They usually will know if they have wifi and sometimes will know if their cable supports cable modems. Always have 2-3 parks ready, and pay the daily rate until you have verified which park is the best for a fulltimer.

Good luck.
dhh

All of this comes down to money.

In St. Louis, broadband is availble and works well in the newer western burbs.

I live in South City.

Until last summer, I could get broadband from the cable company and SBC(ATT) and the varous clecs.
Then the storm hit last summer and destroyed much of the infrstructure in my area.
At that time I had a business connection from Charter 1M up / 5m down /29 static for $350 a month.
The storm ripped all of the telco/electric/cable wires from the house. Three weeks later, the cable was still down.
I was told by Charter that they do not intend to rebuild this area thus they discontinued the circuit.

DSL was not an option, I have tried several times and it does not work.
The lines in my area predate WW2. I am 5580 feet out on path 1 and 9500 feet out on path 2.
Officially ATT will not install dsl in my area even though the CO is dsl capable.

So I ordered a T1 from Speakeasy.
Here is the fun... ATT at first refused to install it.
After it was finally installed, it was turned up without a class a inspection and failed miserably.
ATT refused to support it because they used hxdsl for the circuit and they are only required to provide best effort support on it.
They tnf the circuit. TNF = technically not feasable.
This means that the telco is off the hook from supporting the install.

ATT installed a second T1 and also TNF it.

So speakeasy installed a Third T1.
This one worked but the rj45 on the smartjack was bad.
ATT refused to fix it because they could not find any errors when they looped from the co.
I put a hard loop on my inside wiring and there was no errors from pattern testing.
An att tech came out and did find that the jack was bad but refused to fixit because ATT had already determined that this t1 was in TNF status.

I am now in the process of getting a third t1 ( traditional 4wire point to point t1) from XO installed.
Right now, ATT is placing the ticket in jeopordy status becasue there are too many pairs of copper going to a residence.

My only other option is a local wireless company who seems to not want customers.

If I lived in a rural area, I expect problems installing a T1.
In fact I have a friend who lives in Hopedale Illinois (BFE) and he has had a T1 running for about six months with no problems after the initial install.