RE: OT: Reading Cisco Press book via Kindle

I purchased around 8 Cisco Press books on my Kindle 2, and I thought it worked really well as an alternative to lugging around massive books. It's true that the diagrams and tables don't really look as good as they do in a printed book, but the trade off of having the form factor and ease of use of the kindle I thought was well worth it. I also noticed that the quality of the diagrams and tables varied from book to book. Some books, when you zoom into the diagram, the resolution and clarity was perfect and text was easy to read whereas in others, it was pixilated and the text in the diagrams was sometimes difficult to read. If I had to do it over, I would stick with purchasing the books with the Kindle even though they are pretty much the same street price as the printed books. Something else that really rocks with the Kindle 2 is the ability to search through all the books with the stroke of a button. I used this a lot to freshen up on certain technologies the last 2-!
 3 weeks I was studying. Also, they just dropped the price again so they're a lot cheaper now compared to when I bought mine. Hope this helps.

Ron Johns
CCIE#25612

-----Original Message-----
From: nobody_at_groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody_at_groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of Durkin, Michael (H USA)
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:56 PM
To: ron wilkerson; Kelvin Yeo
Cc: ccielab_at_groupstudy.com
Subject: RE: OT: Reading Cisco Press book via Kindle

I have a Kindle, and I do have Cisco Press books on it. It is OK, and I
do take it with me with me when I travel for the reasons you indicate.

I would however say that it is very hard to read a technology book on
the kindle as the screen size is small and network diagrams do not scale
well, or are too small to read. There is a new Kindle out that has a
MUCH bigger screen (with a corresponding increase in price tag) that
should be better, but I don't own that version and I can't say for sure
how well it works. It also has a portrait/landscape feature which would
make it even better for reading some diagrams I suspect.

The way the Kindle displays the diagrams is as an image and there isn't
a scrolling screen, so you can't have the image half-way on the screen.
It's either on the screen or not. A laptop/PC does a much better job of
displaying diagrams as you can scroll part way down the page and expand
the image if you need to. You can expand the image with a kindle, but
only until it fills the screen and no more.

I LOVE the Kindle, but am on the fence about using it for technical
reading. I may try the newer model to see if it's any better. The Kindle
has a-lot going for it as an e-reader, but I would caution you to think
about the things I said for technical reading. You would be better
served to buy a netbook and either download the CD's of the books you
own or subscribe to an online technology book resource (like Safari) for
your needs.

If you want to know all the things I love about the kindle, em me
offline and I will share that with you.

-----Original Message-----
From: nobody_at_groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody_at_groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
ron wilkerson
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 9:47 AM
To: Kelvin Yeo
Cc: ccielab_at_groupstudy.com
Subject: Re: OT: Reading Cisco Press book via Kindle

i'd spend that money on training material!!

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Kelvin Yeo
<kelvinyeo24_at_yahoo.com.sg>wrote:

> Hi Group,
>
>
>
> My apology for this OT.
>
>
>
> I was contemplating to purchase a kindle for my prep for the CCIE
written.
> So that I can study on the move without lugging a Cisco press or my
> notebook. What do you guys think?
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
>
Received on Wed Oct 21 2009 - 14:59:24 ART