Ereaders…not quite the death of paper

“I am the proud owner of an ereader. I have had a Sony PRS-600
(Touch) for less than 24 hours. But unless something changes
dramatically, I am unlikely to be an ereader user 24 hours from
now. To say I am disappointed would be an understatement. For what
I have paid for the unit, I almost feel taken. Before I delineate
the short comings, let me tell you how I got here.

“I am a reader. Ever since I was young, I have read. Books,
magazines, cereal boxes, what have you. My parents fostered a love
of reading in me and it took hold. I read books like Dune and the
Lord of the Rings when I was 10 and to this day I have stacks of
paperbacks, hardbacks and falling off backs scattered around. I
have books on a variety of topics from philosophy to Cisco IOS. But
I did not get an ereader for reading books. I got it for my other
problem – documentation. Like most of us, I have directories of PDF
files, Word documents, and raw text files full of documentation.
Some of it vendor created, some of it created by luminaries in the
field and some of it cobbled together by yours truly. I wanted an
ereader to help manage and provide convenient access to the
documentation without having to search though directories,
distribution CDs and thumb drives. I also had the wild notion that
I could consolidate my favorite editions of magazines, like the
Linux Journal and some of the O’Reilly books I find myself using
frequently, into one easy to carry device. Now I have a laptop, and
a netbook, but the easy on, easy off, gentle on the wrist idea of
an ereader just seemed to be the magic gizmo that would make things
easier for me.”

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