Free to Good Home: 18,571 books
Sure you say, nothing is free. In this case you are wrong, and there is no catch. I am serious about these books being available free to you, today. They will even be shipped to you for free. No I haven’t lost my marbles, I am serious. Won’t cost you a dime, not one thin dime. Well, let me take that back, you will have to pay for a little electricity to run your computer to download all 18,571 books. Some of you know I am talking about ebooks. NO, these are not the ebooks that Joe down the street writes about marketing schemes, and tries to sell them to you for $3.95 + tax and shipping. Most of the books in this huge library are books you would like to read. Some of them are classics, but all are old enough to be "in public domain" books.
So where do you get these books…..?
Before you can read the books, you will need to have a reader, so today’s help blog is about where and how to get a free reader for your free books. I’ll tell you next Tuesday where to find the 18,571 books, but today I want to tell you about an ebook reader that you can use to access ebooks. This is the natural order of things; you need a reader first to read the ebooks with.
And just what is a reader? It is software that presents books to you like books, not a Microsoft Word file, or a simple text file. What a bore it would be to have to read books presented in plain text form
Several formats exist for ebooks, but the only one I recommend is Microsoft Reader. This free software from Microsoft out performs the other ebook readers in my personal tests, and does so in a clear and pleasing way.
Those die hard Adobe fans may argue and ask, "what about Acrobat Reader?" This is the what about; For you to set up Adobe’s Acrobat to do what Microsoft Reader can do, it would cost you several hundred dollars. I know you are wondering, what are you talking about?
Microsoft Reader has a free plug-in available to make your own ebooks in the Reader format. Anything can be made into ebooks if you can open it in Microsoft Word. Also available for free are dictionaries in English and many other languages. While reading any Microsoft Reader Ebook, if you have the dictionary installed, you can choose a single word and the definition will be available in a small popup window. You also have the option of searching for any word in the entire book. Yes the whole text of a MSReader book is searchable. But wait there is more. For the same price, free, you can download Microsoft voice recognition plug-in and have the book read to you in a charming (LOL) computer voice. I hate those ‘puter voices, but I imagine if I was laying in a hospital bed, in a full body cast, I’d probably use it to read to me.
This free software is not even listed in Microsoft’s homepage download section. For some reason they haven’t seemed to push sales of this product….see what I mean, they give it away free, but make it hard to find. Makes perfect Microsoft sense.
Here is the link to the download page. In a few minutes you can have a snazzy ebook reader, the best there is, in my opinion.
Make sure to download the free dictionary. I set my reader up with the English dictionary and the Spanish dictionary, so I can view either when needed.
There are handy bookmarkers and much, much more. This is beginning to sound like an infomercial.
If you are into reading and books, you may want to have a handheld with MSReader. With the large hard drives on the market, you could get a big chunk of the 18,571 books on your hard drive.
One option you don’t need to worry about is the activation of the MSReader. Microsoft will beg and plead with you to activate, but you really don’t need to, unless you plan on buying books through friends of Microsoft. Why buy when in only one week you can start downloading 18,571 free books. Oh that number is only those available at one of three sites coming next week. I have had and used MSReader for almost 5 years ago, and have not activated the product. I have never had a problem with it, and have upgraded when new versions were available. I doubt that they will upgrade anymore, simply because it has become apparent that people would rather play games on the computer than read. Oh the humanity!
You can go exploring for free books yourself (I believe after downloading the reader there will be a page trying to sell you ebooks in the .lit format, and in a small area of that page will be a link to several free books to get you started) but I need something to write about next week, so I will save the best sources for free ebooks until then.
Have fun readers of the world.
And just what is a reader? It is software that presents books to you like books, not a Microsoft Word file, or a simple text file. What a bore it would be to have to read books presented in plain text form
Several formats exist for ebooks, but the only one I recommend is Microsoft Reader. This free software from Microsoft out performs the other ebook readers in my personal tests, and does so in a clear and pleasing way.
Those die hard Adobe fans may argue and ask, "what about Acrobat Reader?" This is the what about; For you to set up Adobe’s Acrobat to do what Microsoft Reader can do, it would cost you several hundred dollars. I know you are wondering, what are you talking about?
Microsoft Reader has a free plug-in available to make your own ebooks in the Reader format. Anything can be made into ebooks if you can open it in Microsoft Word. Also available for free are dictionaries in English and many other languages. While reading any Microsoft Reader Ebook, if you have the dictionary installed, you can choose a single word and the definition will be available in a small popup window. You also have the option of searching for any word in the entire book. Yes the whole text of a MSReader book is searchable. But wait there is more. For the same price, free, you can download Microsoft voice recognition plug-in and have the book read to you in a charming (LOL) computer voice. I hate those ‘puter voices, but I imagine if I was laying in a hospital bed, in a full body cast, I’d probably use it to read to me.
This free software is not even listed in Microsoft’s homepage download section. For some reason they haven’t seemed to push sales of this product….see what I mean, they give it away free, but make it hard to find. Makes perfect Microsoft sense.
Here is the link to the download page. In a few minutes you can have a snazzy ebook reader, the best there is, in my opinion.
Make sure to download the free dictionary. I set my reader up with the English dictionary and the Spanish dictionary, so I can view either when needed.
There are handy bookmarkers and much, much more. This is beginning to sound like an infomercial.
If you are into reading and books, you may want to have a handheld with MSReader. With the large hard drives on the market, you could get a big chunk of the 18,571 books on your hard drive.
One option you don’t need to worry about is the activation of the MSReader. Microsoft will beg and plead with you to activate, but you really don’t need to, unless you plan on buying books through friends of Microsoft. Why buy when in only one week you can start downloading 18,571 free books. Oh that number is only those available at one of three sites coming next week. I have had and used MSReader for almost 5 years ago, and have not activated the product. I have never had a problem with it, and have upgraded when new versions were available. I doubt that they will upgrade anymore, simply because it has become apparent that people would rather play games on the computer than read. Oh the humanity!
You can go exploring for free books yourself (I believe after downloading the reader there will be a page trying to sell you ebooks in the .lit format, and in a small area of that page will be a link to several free books to get you started) but I need something to write about next week, so I will save the best sources for free ebooks until then.
Have fun readers of the world.
posted by web_loafer at 7:43 AM
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