6 replies to this topic

[bootislands]

In my area, there is a company named duxiu specializes in production of almost all the paper books into an electronic version, at the same time some crack groups was devoted to crack this company's charging system. That is to say, through these crack groups, the electronic version of almost all the books have published in mainland China can be obtained within a few days. Of course, in order not to destroy the publishing industry, there is the threshold of joining these crack group. But overall, if you are a member of them, it is fairly easy to obtain the electronic version of any books you want.

But I found getting English e-books is relatively troublesome:
One is download trouble, because either Great Firewall of China, or the owner of file storage service website forbid sharing these e-books, or the link has expired for upload too early. In short, even if we find a book download links here or through google, we may still not be able to download successfully.
Second, many rare books just can not find the electronic version, because probably no one has produced an electronic version so far at all, which is so different from the situation in China. I do not know whether there is a company similar to duxiu in English world, if it exists, can anyone share relevant information?

Anyway, I fancy more than a dozen books in koobe, but only download of one successfully...Anybody know a good solution?

[Wayne]

So you have trouble with rapidshare from China?

[xpmedia]

I can confirm it's next to impossible to download from rapidshare in mainland China during a recent trip there. I can browse to rapidshare's web site, but couldn't download anything (can't recall the exact symptom, there was no error message, but the download could never start).

Regarding the duxiu system bootislands mentioned, it does have all the major Chinese publications in scanned format which can be read using a tool called ssreader. To be frank, the reading experience of ssreader can be summed up in one word: sucks. I'd rather shell out 50 - 100 RMB yuan to buy a real book if it's worth it than reading a scanned copy. Had all the latest books in China come with true-pdf versions, there would be no need for companies like duxiu that only serves students or institutional clients (Unlike safari, there is no way for an individual to purchase a subscription from it).

[bootislands]

xpmedia, on 23 April 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:

I can confirm it's next to impossible to download from rapidshare in mainland China during a recent trip there. I can browse to rapidshare's web site, but couldn't download anything (can't recall the exact symptom, there was no error message, but the download could never start).

Regarding the duxiu system bootislands mentioned, it does have all the major Chinese publications in scanned format which can be read using a tool called ssreader. To be frank, the reading experience of ssreader can be summed up in one word: sucks. I'd rather shell out 50 - 100 RMB yuan to buy a real book if it's worth it than reading a scanned copy. Had all the latest books in China come with true-pdf versions, there would be no need for companies like duxiu that only serves students or institutional clients (Unlike safari, there is no way for an individual to purchase a subscription from it).

Why the experience is poor? The e-book duxiu/chaoxing provides I think is more than complete and clear, the pixel is 300dpi. And through the software, you can easily convert it into pdf format. Here is a screenshot. We can compare button around to find how clear this book is:

[bootislands]

Wayne, on 15 April 2012 - 10:44 PM, said:

So you have trouble with rapidshare from China?

Yes...

[xpmedia]

bootislands, on 24 April 2012 - 12:21 AM, said:

Why the experience is poor? The e-book duxiu/chaoxing provides I think is more than complete and clear, the pixel is 300dpi. And through the software, you can easily convert it into pdf format.

You are right, the quality isn't as bad as I'd thought based on past experiences with other titles read using ssreader. It's quite close to djvu based scans, though not as good as true pdf, which i've grown used to.

[fyrefx³]

i heard chineese are good with programming and some books i read which the authors name is in chineese, i think those books are worth reading.


also i'm in asia, no trouble in downloading from rapidshare though which is weird