BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Reading an e-book

THE Eye used to think that e-books or electronic books were digital version of books saved in PDF (Portable Document Format) formats and available for download on certain sites online. Until recently, the Eye had assumed that e-books were meant to be read on the computer screen.

It wasn’t till the Eye read an article on e-books in the newsletter of a local bookstore, that the Eye discovered there is so much more to e-books than just digitised formats read on the computer screen.

Eye suppose Eye was not wrong to think so as e-books were initially designed to be read on the computer. The Eye was just not keeping up with the latest technological trends that revolved around e-books. Apparently, these days the e-book has gone from mobile to micro-mobile. You can now lug around quite a number of books with you in the little compressed space of your phone’s memory card. And they come in ‘mobipocket’ formats for Kindle (by Amazon), for Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, Iliad, Hanlin, BeBook, FLEPia, Papyrus, Boox, txtr and Logic. Other than the Blackberry, iPhone and Palm which the Eye knows are smartphones, the Eye has yet to identify and find out what the rest of the items are!

Anyway, out of curiosity, the Eye Googled ‘free e-books’, hoping to be able to sample what reading an e-book on a mobile phone would be like. From the endless list of returned search results, www.free-ebooks.net caught the Eye’s attention. So the Eye signed up and gave it a shot. The Eye downloaded a copy of ‘Ben’s Story, A Child’s Healing of Fear’ (a relatively easy read with illustrations) and uploaded it to a borrowed smartphone (can’t afford to own one).

Eye must say that having books uploaded into a mobile device is pretty nifty. You will never run out of reading materials and you can have more than one book in your all-in-one mobile device. They are especially great to have when you’ve got flight transits and long airport waits.

The downside to reading an e-book as compared to a traditional printed book is that after a while, you start squinting at the screen as you scroll through the pages. The prints (even if you can adjust the size of the font) are rather small and staring at a little mobile screen doesn’t do justice to your eyes.

It is also rather difficult to read e-books on mobile device screens in bright places or outdoors. In other words, if you were born and brought up in an ‘e-less’ generation, you’ll find reading an e-book somewhat tiresome.

And somehow, an e-book doesn’t have that ‘feel’. For the traditional bookworm, the smell of a book, the feel of the cover, the quality of the print and the joy of seeing crisp and clean pages make the reading experience even more personal and wondrous. It just isn’t the same with the e-book. You just don’t get that same satisfaction when you’re settled down with a good (real) book and a cup of coffee.

The Eye concluded that other than at airports and during boring meetings (as long as the mobile device’s batteries do not run out), e-books in mobile devices will never really catch on with the traditional bookworm. Perhaps for the younger generation who can SMS with their eyes closed and run through their mobile applications as they sleep, the e-book would be what a real ‘ol printed book is to the traditional bookworm. For now, this traditional bookworm prefers to relish in the smell of the pages of a real book.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Sakit bukan alasan PUASA

Penghidap bijak kawal pemakanan, pengambilan ubat teratur mampu teruskan ibadat

MENGAWAL kadar gula dalam darah, terutama pada Ramadan sememangnya cabaran paling besar untuk mereka yang disahkan menghidap diabetes atau kencing manis. Malah, ada kalanya jika kandungan gula terlalu tinggi atau terlalu rendah, pesakit dinasihatkan tidak meneruskan puasa.

Namun, kata Pakar Runding Endrokologi, Hospital Putrajaya, Dr Zanariah Hussein, jika pesakit bijak mengawal kadar gula dalam darah, berpuasa bukanlah halangan besar. Malah dengan nasihat doktor dan ubah suai dos yang perlu diambil, pesakit sebenarnya masih mampu menjalani ibadat puasa.

Lebih 1.2 juta warga Malaysia ialah pesakit diabetes dengan anggaran kes baru sekitar 650,000 setiap tahun, manakala Pertubuhan Kesihatan Sedunia (WHO) pula menganggarkan menjelang 2030, ada seramai 180 juta pesakit diabetes di seluruh dunia.