eBook Reader - My Cybook is here! (Continued)

You didn’t really think I would be able to wait until the weekend to download a book, did you? Of course not! I had to buy at least one book.

The entire process (including looking for books) took less than five minutes. It was the absolute easiest time I have ever had putting an eBook on a new device! Bottom line, I feel like I’m in a Staples ad: That was easy!

When I finished yesterday I had been pushing buttons in an effort to figure things out. Now it was time to actually download a book.

• On your Mark: One of the things I discovered, sort of by accident, was the Mobipocket PID for the device. In case you are wondering here is what you do to find it: open any Mobipocket demo book; push the 2nd button on the left; scroll down the table to the Advanced tab; then scroll down to the About tab. Voilà (had to get at least one French word in here)!

• Get Ready: Connected the USB cord to my laptop, plugged the other end into the device and switched the Cybook on. Before long I was notified that I had new hardware – Cybook Gen 3. Just to check, I pulled up the file manager and it there it was – drive G on my machine. So far so good!

• Go: Clicked on my handy eBooks About Everything icon, browsed the new releases put two Books -- Never Enough by Joe McGinniss and Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner-- in my shopping cart and checked out. They showed very quickly on my bookshelf and I was ready to download them into the My eBooks file. Next, I fired up the Mobipocket reader and it found and registered the Cybook device in seconds. After that, it was a simple matter of importing the files into the reader and finally, storing them on the device.

As I started to read, using the big button on the right side of the device to change pages took a little “getting used to.” My habit is to turn the page on the left side or by using a button in the middle of the device. But getting used to this new method didn’t take as long as I would have thought.

I experimented with font size, type family, page layout and lookup mode. I also figured out that once in a book, the center of the big button would take me to the eBook menu so I didn’t have to fumble around with those little buttons on the side.

Over the weekend I will experiment with RSS and eNews feeds and give the device the acid test.

The acid test? Will my Mom be able to use it?

All in all – this has been a good experience and I am a happy customer. Sure there are a few changes and/or improvements I would like to see, but they are relatively minor and do not impact my overall satisfaction. Good job, Bookeen!