Extracting an epub from an iPhone app is easy. First you unzip the .ipa file. Then you cd to Payload/*/book. Finally, you zip up the files to an .epub file: zip -X ~/book.epub mimetype && zip -r9DX ~/book.epub META-INF OEBPS.

mimetype must be first in the archive for validity, which you can test with EpubCheck.

They are in multi-file HTML format inside the APK, so this is even cheaper and given I wanted them on the Android phone/tablet anyway, easier.

Even better the eBook app O'Reilly delivers has an "Export to ePub" button that will send it to an ePub on your sdcard.

Oh well, it only set me back 5 bucks.

We're sorry, an error has occurred in our application.

So now I've finally given up after the tenth attempt. I guess O'Reilly won't be selling me that copy of Building Scalable Websites after all.

1. For those books that support the HTML view, I've read them in the browser from the Safari Library web site. These have been excellent, including diagrams and code snippets. One or two books have had slight formatting problems (a line of example code not wrapping).

2. For books that don't support the HTML view, or books that I've downloaded as PDFs (part of the my subscription is a certain number of "download tokens" that can be redeemed to download chapters or whole books), I've read then in GoodReader. This has worked out fine.

3. Finally, they offer some books for download in EPub format. I've tried those in iBooks, and they've been good. I've also used the free program Calibre to convert some of the PDFs I downloaded to EPub and they have worked fine.

I am quite pleased with the combination of O'Reilly Safari Library and my iPad.

Oh, they've also announced that this summer there will be a Safari Library iPad application. That should be interesting.

There's a reason why people like e-ink-based ebook readers so much. They may not have games, but they are really good for reading ebooks. (Though I admit that the normal Kindle is not so great for books that have diagrams.)

http://i.imgur.com/h5NEi.jpg

I had also figured it would be fantastic to shrink the shelf space for tech books, and always have those books at hand. Big downside that doesn't hit you till you try to use it for this purpose: the e-ink can't page flip fast enough to be useful.

Readers on the iPad (iBooks, even Kindle app) don't have this issue.

I prefer e-readers (Sony Reader, Kindle DX, iPad) because I read at the speed of about one airport novel per hour, meaning I need five books for a cross country flight. It's easier to carry these electronically, and I keep a backlog of 50 - 70 books available to read.

For computer books, such as the jQuery Cookbook I purchased yesterday from O'Reilly in this sale, I will also read each one from cover to cover. With that reading I form a visual spatial memory of where in the book I can find any information I need.

My memory is not eidetic. I can't read the actual words, and I don't remember every page number. But I do know about how deep in the book, left or right page, and where on the page to look, so I can usually find a needed reference within a half dozen page turns.

With e-readers, this is fuzzier. The "where in the book" depends on the progress bar, and there's no left or right to halve the search, so takes at least 10 - 20 page turns instead. These page turns are SLOOOOOW.

On the iPad, page turns are many times faster. So, finding reference material in a thick reference book that I cognitively mapped on the iPad is commensurately faster.

I usually trip up on the "induct on n" part. Fortunately, I start enough books that I still finish a few each year.

    I usually trip up on the "induct on n" part.

I find it a lot easier on my eyes than my Macbook Air, for reading, not sure why. But there it is.

Could it be because you spent $500 on it for the purpose of reading books, and your mind won't let you think negative thoughts about the experience?

I had a pair of pants like this. They were the wrong size, uncomfortable, and ugly. But I wore them anyway because it was too late to return them, and I spent $75 on them that I could never get back. So I just learned to like them, even though they were fundamentally flawed.

Though I must say I like my kindle enough that it is readable for normal books.

But there is just something about paper :)

[Disclosure: The below is an old HN post I made.]

The Social Life of Paper (2002) (newyorker.com)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=434516

P.S. I also subscribe to Safari. It's nice not to lug a bunch of books around, but the reading experience I do find different between the two media.

Use coupon code FAVFA - prices won't be discounted until check-out.

It works for multiple books, although the headline looks like it's for a single book.

FYI: Looks like ordering multiple books created issues getting delivery of yesterday's purchases. I also lost the discount after checkout. Today's order pricing isn't what was reflected at checkout.

Today the two titles I bought in two orders are listed as "registered" under the registered books area.

Order status on both orders reflects "BOOKED", but shipped is 0, download link is not active, and the books are not listed in the downloads section.

One purchase shows the discount, the other reflects full price without discount.

An email to O'Reilly auto-responded with this:

> Thank you for contacting O'Reilly Media Customer Service. We are experiencing a very heavy volume of orders due to our recent promotion. This is affecting the delivery and access of your electronic media. Please be patient and keep checking your account.

TL;DR: Buyers should double-check orders to see what was actually charged.

_____________________

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. I checked your account and you now have access. You can download your ebook here:

https://members.oreilly.com/account/emedia

There were issues with our servers on Friday due to high loads, and we've been working to make sure everyone received the content they purchased.

We have refunded you the amount that you would have saved if the discount code was applied to one of your orders. Please allow 5-7 business days for the credit to appear on your statement.

Thank you again for your orders and for your understanding. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Best Regards, O'Reilly Media Customer Service

_____________________

Thanks, O'Reilly.

* 9.99 standard pricing will result in incredibly high sales volumes (the servers would not nearly have been overloaded if everyone wasn't clamoring to get their purchases in before the deadline)

* Publishers and authors need to decide whether they want larger margins w/low volumes - I am of the understanding that selling 5k copies is considered a best seller in the tech market - instead of lower margins with higher volumes. I'm hoping that the results of yesterday's sale might make them consider the first point above.

It would be interesting to see if O'Reilly released some statistics on book sales in the wake of yesterday's server bloodbath.

Myself, I bought a pile of books that I otherwise would not have bought. I have an O'Reilly Safari subscription that is already saving me tons of money, and the low price just pushed me over the edge to buy some local copies of books that I might have otherwise just had in my bookshelf for a month.

  - Javascript: The Good Parts (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748/)
  - High Performance Javascript (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596802806/)

  - Information Architecture for the WWW (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527341/)
  - Javascript: The definitive guide (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101992/)
  - Beautiful Code (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510046/)

I'm waiting for the 6th edition:

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596805531

Obligatory O'Reilly and Amazon links

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596801984 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596801971

If it helps, I need to point out that my book is chock-full of Star Trek, BSG and Monty Python references and the surprising backstory of how Windows Azure's orginal code name came to be. :)

I was trying to buy:

* Making Things Talk (great into to networking with low-level HW)

* The Best of Instructables (excellent selection of mostly simple projects, includes IKEA hacking)

I guess 70% savings is always enough to get everyone to take down their server.

However either due to overload or something, while I was able to place my order, the books are not showing up in my available list yet. Figure I'll give them until tomorrow then throw an email at them asking what's wrong.

(Like a lot of O'Reilly books these days, it's available in a free (legal) form on the internet too http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Contri... )

For anyone who wants to use this coupon, I'm not sure why you wouldn't just get yourself a month on safari... or a free trial for that matter.... Any ideas?

I can't think of anything O'Reilly offers that I want to read right now aside from maybe Agile Web Development with Rails.

Oddly, "Free to Choose" (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Free_to_Choos... ) is not one of the books that you can buy.

Before ebook prices started coming down, I had stopped buying tech books because they're very expensive and become obsolete in a few months.

Amazon is charging $12-$13 for some novels that sell in hardback for $15, and $6.99 for some novels that are $7.99 in paperback. That's not such a great deal.

We expect to have the issue resolved soon. Please continue to check back or contact our Customer Service: [email protected]

R in a Nutshell, 1Ed

Real World Haskell, 1Ed

iPhone Game Development, 1Ed

Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running, 1Ed

JavaScript: The Good Parts, 1Ed

Programming Collective Intelligence, 1Ed

Head First Statistics, 1Ed

Head First Data Analysis, 1Ed

Confessions of a Public Speaker, 1Ed

iPhone 3D Programming, 1Ed

Is this the one you wanted? You can get this for $6 and use some advice from upthread to convert it to ePub.