Today I read something that made my heart fill with joy.. The possibility of a full sized ebook reader:

First on the list is the QUE, from Plastic Logic, a company with e-reader technology that we've been covering since at least 2007. Like many of the others that will debut at CES, the QUE's display is E-Ink-based. But, unlike other E-Ink readers, the QUE's display is printed on a flexible, plastic backplane that will make the device lighter and more robust. QUE also sports a 8.5x11 inch screen, so that it can display printed business documents at their full size without scaling.

Aside from its form factor and enormous screen size, the other advantage the QUE has over its non-Sony competitors is a touch-based interface. Users will flick a finger across the display to change places, or tap to select items. Unlike the Nook, the action takes place on a single screen.

There's no word yet on pricing or availability, but Plastic Logic has had a factory working away on producing their displays since September of 2008. The QUE will be sold at Barnes and Noble (where it will compete with the bookseller's own hardware), and the latter is actually a content partner for the device, as well.

From the information released so far, it's clear that Plastic Logic's ultimate target isn't the Kindle, but the laser printer. The QUE aims to replace the stacks of print-outs in your briefcase, and not the paperback in your carry-on. In this respect, the Kindle DX, another device that's sold as a laser printer replacement, will compete with the QUE for business customers.

As a DX user, it's already clear to me that the QUE will be the superior option, barring any showstopping technical glitches or reliability issues. The DX's screen just doesn't work well for 8.5x11 documents—because it can't render them at their native resolution, the DX forces you to either scale or scroll. The former is hard on the eyes, while the latter is very awkward thanks to E-Ink's slow refresh rate.

http://arstechnica.c...ders-at-ces-2010.ars

Many of the original handful of DonationCoder visitors discovered us through ShellCity and they've always been huge friends to small freeware developers.  Drop by all this week to check out their list of top new programs from 2009.

As we do this time every year, tonight we're beginning our presentation of the Shell City Top 20 programs of the year..... We'll be listing them in reverse order, five each night, until New Year's Eve, when we'll name the final Top Five for the New Year. So this is how it begins.....

http://shellcity.net/

After discovering Txt Reader, I was wondering what other read-only text editors there are.

Maybe it's a casual user thing but I prefer something of a dedicated desktop reader as an alternative to E-book readers but I haven't found any perfect fit.

Adobe Lite comes closest to being my ideal reader because of it's use of the page up/page down settings, clearer rendition, page transitions via fullscreen and remember last opened page of pdf file but I might as well make this topic.

So far the commons one I know are: (didn't bothering specifying format handled since that is just as annoying although I'd rather have an all-in-one format reader)
 
 Opera
   *control background color and fonts
   *+ and - zoom
   *light enough to handle lots of tabs so you're not fearful of leaving it open when it is restoring from a previous session unlike Chrome or Firefox

 Txt Reader
  *bookmark
  *control bg color and fonts
  *left/right button
  *right click options (added this because I realize how other programs like FBReader don't support this)

 MS Word 2007 +
  *arrows
  *two pane

 Adobe Lite
  *page up/page down
  *transitions
  *restore from last page when opened

 Stanza Desktop - bad experience when I last tried it but it was still very early on. Don't really prefer the handheld e-book reader look and feel when on a desktop.
 *minimalist lay-out
 
 ubookLite - confusing to a beginner lay-out
  *supports lots of e-book formats
  *right click options

 FBreader
  *book catalog search + download

 Tom's etext reader
  *book catalog for Gutenberg (received an error when I tried it)
  *two page book theme by default
  *bookmark
  *"separate ui" text editor
  *recent files

Wow, had not heard of some of these cool add-ons for Firefox. But these are ones released this year.

http://download.cnet...mp;tag=2547-1_3-0-20

The NANY Challenge is an annual Challenge at DonationCoder where coders of all levels are challenged to pledge a New Application for the New Year and release it on January 1, 2010.

The NANY 2010 Challenge is fast approaching the climax of the Event -- this is definitely the exciting bit of the Event when we see the NANY Entries unveiled! So far we've had:

• 27 Pledges from our brave coders
• 13 Teasers to whet our appetites
• 8 Entries for us to try from the NANY Board

This is the last call to all programmers within earshot to drop by the forum and pledge to participate in the event.  Remember, there are no winners, but everyone gets a prize -- a very handsome and unique DonationCoder mug commemorating the event.

Even if you're not a coder, you may find something fun to check out from the early NANY releases and teasers.  Stop by and request some features or make some suggestions to the participating coders -- they need your feedback!

NANY 2010 Prizes
The NANY 2010 Store has opened with a great selection of items available for the Entrants in this year's event. Full details in NANY 2010 - Prizes


Twigatelle Update
Here's the next update on Twiggles progress with his NANY 2010 entry: Twigatelle. Thanks to Head in the Clouds for allowing us this view into the whole NANY process!


Teasers / Entry Focus
Crush MCP
The Master Control Program is a small tool running in the background that monitors all tasks and programs. After making a snapshot of all running processes, new ones will be tracked in a deletion list. This will allow you to see and get protected if a virus or other unknown programs are automatically starting in the background without your permission to raise your security while working.

---

LittleRunner 1.0
A little application that records a runners schedule.


Features

• Records routes and descriptions
• Records runs and times, along with comments
• Shows individual run speeds and overall average
• Allows both DD/MM/YY and MM/DD/YY date formatting
• Allows specification of distance units in either miles or kilometres
• CSV export
• (Very) basic printing

---

Twigatelle 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1
Twigatelle is a simple game developed in Java inspired by any number of those pachinko-type games where little thingies bounce around hitting other thingies in a slightly hypnotic way. The name is a contraction of ""Twiggles"" and ""bagatelle""


Features

• Bouncy balls.
• Things that bouncy balls hit.

---

Reimbursement Tracker 0.3.0
Keep track of the money others owe you! This is a tool created to help a user manage his/her reimbursable expenses and designed to create an attractive, easy to read, and easy for the boss to understand list.  It has the ability to print, or to print a professional-looking receipt to a thermal printer (receipt printer).


Features

• Keep track of date, location, description, and price of each expense.
• Negative prices (e.g. returns or rebates) supported.
• Print to thermal printer!  (Note:  only the Custom Neo's is officially supported right now -- as it's the only printer I own to test on!  However, I am working on a plugin-like system to allow other printers with different commands to be easily added.  Most printers share similar serial commands, so this should not be a big problem.)

---

Mini NANY Submissions
Mini NANYs are submissions that don't fit under the same stringent rules that a normal NANY does and can include scripts and other submissions that don't really fit into NANY proper. Now just about anyone can enter a NANY!!

• Gobbledegook: Mix up your sentences and keep readability.
• Gamers Alarm Clock: GAC is a simple alarm clock, albeit with a slight twist.
• Miranda Alias pack for FARR: Let's you control Miranda with FARR.

Nice breezy two-page history and discussion of digital video compression:

Today's video-rich Internet wouldn't be possible without highly efficient compression. Ars rewinds the history of digital video compression to help understand how we arrived at the land of YouTube and Hulu.

http://arstechnica.c...ideo-compression.ars