Re: Nook for the end of the world?
I did something similar on my last deployment. I bought an el cheapo reader (I think it was an ectaco) that had an SD card slot. I copied all my pubs onto the card and used the reader to access them. The card gave me the flexibility to access the pubs on a laptop. It was infinitely expandable because if I needed disk space for more pubs, I would just have to get another SD card. I chose the ectaco so just in case it got wrecked, I wouldn't be out too much cash. I figured I could probably salvage the SD card.
The major problem is the .pdf format, at least on the ectaco. Unlike true ebook formats, you cannot easily make the type large or small. For one, there is no wrap-around the the default view is an entire page in the portrait orientation. You can
zoom in, but you run into horizontal/vertical scroll issues. One work-around is to view in the landscape orientation zoomed to the page width, but you won't be able to see the entire page. Another problem is illustrations and photos, which don't necessarily display well given the resolution limitations.
I definitely think there is merit in the idea, though. Most people I knew brought only the very essential paper pubs and put everything else on their computers with a DVD back-up. If you are out and about, though, ebook readers consume so much less power than laptops.
Someone smart needs to come up with an application to convert pdfs to a universal ebook format. Hopefully, as readers proliferate, the .gov and .mil will start publishing in one of these formats.
Oh, and I agree - a rugged-ized ebook reader would be pretty cool.
