Saturday, March 21, 2009

eStuff

My wife is loving her new Kindle 2 eBook reader...it is easy to use and carry around (vs. keeping up with multiple books) and the battery lasts a long time. I was thrilled when they released the iPhone / iPod Touch Kindle ebook reader application. Although you can not purchase ebooks via the iPhone application, you can download any Kindle ebook to your iPhone / iPod Touch once purchased via the web site. I love it. I'm currently reading Brennan Manning's "The Ragamuffin Gospel"...it is easy to read on my iPod Touch and so convenient. I'm definitely a convert.

Not to be out done, Barne's & Nobel acquired Fictionwise (online eBook distributer) that may offer the Amazon Kindle some competition (iPhone and iPod Touch users might be familiar with Stanza, a great eBook reader application that interfaces very well with Fictionwise). I was thrilled that Stanza was able to import my old Palm eBooks...pretty cool.

Since we're talking about eStuff, you might have guessed by now that I'm an iPod Touch owner and love it. Two Bible applications worth checking out include Mantis Bible Study Application (free KJV as well as paid for Bible translations and study modules) and the popular "YouVersion" online web bible application simply called "Holy Bible" (online translations available for free). Mantis stores the entire text of whatever you purchase on the device (so you can use it w/o out a wifi or cellular connection) where YouVersion's Holy Bible application can only be used when you have a connection to the internet (although it does allow you to download a cache of what you're reading so you can read offline; you just can't read beyond what you specify for off-line reading). Good stuff...good tools.