Life In 19x19
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The Life of Honinbo Shuei
http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6010		 Page 5 of 5
Author:  SoDesuNe [ Thu Feb 14, 2013 2:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Or... they are the only kind designed to only read books on ; ) I can read books on a Galaxy S II just fine. And I can do a quazilion other things with it.
Author:  Xyiana [ Thu Feb 14, 2013 7:48 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
lobotommy wrote:
SmartGo Books is very useful app/format/idea. Interactive formats are the future, don't you think? Sure I can read Kindle format books on any device, and it is a very good thing, but it is no different than reading a pdf file - same old static content which gives me a pain while studying any classic books. For example GoWorld magazine in pdf is hard to go through. I would love to see these magazines in some interactive format.

THIS. It isnt about iPad or Nexus or whatever. It is about application with killer functions and atm SmartGo books app is only choice (western world).

I have several paper books where after their release in SmartGo format i bought them again. And if i remember author note in the past correctly, SmartGo books format isnt strictly closed source.
Author:  pwaldron [ Thu Feb 14, 2013 9:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
John Fairbairn wrote:
I am writing this between proofreading sessions, which will not take very long in this case as I have decided to trim the book somewhat. Sales of Volume 4 were ridiculous - eight, last time I looked, so it's not worth putting much more effort in. I therefore stopped after 12 commentaries instead of 16. I have also decided that I will do no more go books with diagrams for the current generations of Kindle. I think this is the source of the problem.


Disappointing news, to be sure, although I must confess that I only have volume one of the series. For me the issue was not the Kindle's handling of game diagrams (although I agree with you that they are suboptimal). The bigger issue was that I already have enough game commentaries to last me a lifetime. I think that market has become saturated by any number of sources--Go World (digital and the old printed) and a variety of email services. It's just tough to digest another commentary.

For me it's the stories behind the game, the text-heavy books, that I really value. I find myself rereading the first Shuei book regularly, and I hope that there are more of those in the future.
Author:  LokBuddha [ Fri Feb 15, 2013 8:17 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
I think you MUST and SHOULD consider converting the works of SHUEI that you have right now to the smartgo format. You will get a better standout than the kindle. People can pirate your stuff in Kindle format EASILY. I don't think that is the case with IPAD. I support your works and effort all the way, and really appreciate your unique works. I have only read the Life a bit, but I bought all of them. Somehow I wish that they all would just be on the Smartgo format so I can easily view them instead of reading on the Kindle PC

Advantage of converting to IPAD
-the material is already there, so maybe there is only 80% copy and paste and the rest is just work. This can be an experiment to see how your works perform on the Smartgo book before embarking on the new work.
-Not easy to be pirate, Kindle is too easy.
-IMHO, Smartgo Book is the best GO reading ebook app out there. Easy to read and follow.
Author:  p2501 [ Fri Feb 15, 2013 8:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
LokBuddha wrote:
I think you MUST and SHOULD consider converting the works of SHUEI that you have right now to the smartgo format.
...

John Fairbairn wrote:
I have offered Shuei to SmartGo and Slate & Shell but met with resounding silence.
Author:  LokBuddha [ Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
p2501 wrote:
LokBuddha wrote:
I think you MUST and SHOULD consider converting the works of SHUEI that you have right now to the smartgo format.
...

John Fairbairn wrote:
I have offered Shuei to SmartGo and Slate & Shell but met with resounding silence.


Then all hope is lost!
Author:  lobotommy [ Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Maybe it goes to the spam folder. Why not to ask Anders again - twitter, facebook, email, even this forum...
Author:  smartgo [ Fri Feb 15, 2013 8:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
John Fairbairn wrote:
I have offered Shuei to SmartGo and Slate & Shell but met with resounding silence.

Mea culpa. I got an email while I was out of town, and then it got buried in all the other stuff going on. My apologies.

Thanks to everybody for the kind words about SmartGo Books. Will see what I can do to make more of John Fairbairn's books available that way.
Author:  Mage [ Mon Mar 18, 2013 10:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
I had a look at the volumes recently, while searching for some Go books to buy, and the books' content looked amazing and very thorough ! Thank you for this wonderful piece of work !

In spite of being a beginner and a realization that I may not gain as much from the games at DDK, I was tempted to buy all the volumes.

The issue was that in all the Kindle sample pages I received from Amazon the board display was very small, difficult to read, while the text was disproportionately big :sad: (For the text this was solved to an extent by tweaking the settings) I don't own an actual kindle but use the kindle reader on a mac, so not sure if this is mitigated somewhat by actually reading it on the device.

I think I could see myself happily paying 10-20$ more per voulume for a "paper" book or alternatively something in a more readable format. I have SmartGo Books on my iphone and it's been amazing for Tsumego books, but without an iPad I would probably not read these there :-| I'm hoping Slate & Shell picks this up as well :roll:
Author:  smartgo [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 10:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Mage wrote:
I think I could see myself happily paying 10-20$ more per voulume for a "paper" book or alternatively something in a more readable format. I have SmartGo Books on my iphone and it's been amazing for Tsumego books, but without an iPad I would probably not read these there :-|

Shuei is coming to SmartGo Books, conversion in progress. Most likely Life, Games, and Commentaries will be combined into a single book, making it both more readable and affordable. iPad recommended, but iPhone will work too.
Author:  oren [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 10:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Mage wrote:
The issue was that in all the Kindle sample pages I received from Amazon the board display was very small, difficult to read, while the text was disproportionately big :sad: (For the text this was solved to an extent by tweaking the settings) I don't own an actual kindle but use the kindle reader on a mac, so not sure if this is mitigated somewhat by actually reading it on the device.


I looked at it on both my PC and Nexus 7 and the boards were great on both.

It is a great product.
Author:  SoDesuNe [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Mage wrote:
The issue was that in all the Kindle sample pages I received from Amazon the board display was very small, difficult to read, while the text was disproportionately big :sad: (For the text this was solved to an extent by tweaking the settings) I don't own an actual kindle but use the kindle reader on a mac, so not sure if this is mitigated somewhat by actually reading it on the device.


I almost exclusively use my Galaxy SII to replay Shuei's games and even there the diagrammes are big enough to read them with ease =)
Author:  Mage [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
smartgo wrote:
Shuei is coming to SmartGo Books, conversion in progress. Most likely Life, Games, and Commentaries will be combined into a single book, making it both more readable and affordable. iPad recommended, but iPhone will work too.


This is great news ! I will in most certainty buy it and maybe make it an excuse to get an iPad soon :blackeye:

@Oren, SoDesuNe : That's interesting. I'm guessing it may then have something to do with screen ratios or something on my retina MBP. This is a screenshot of what I see :

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Not sure if the picture does justice, but compared to the page, the diagram is very small and the move numbering not very (readily) visible to me. Am I just growing old and in need of glasses ? :D
Author:  SoDesuNe [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 12:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Yeah, there is something wrong. On my screen the diagramme is as wide as the text.
Author:  oren [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Could you have the text on super huge font and maybe that is distorting the image in comparison?
Author:  Mage [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
oren wrote:
Could you have the text on super huge font and maybe that is distorting the image in comparison?


That was my first suspicion as well, so I tried that. When I reduce the font size what happens is that the text shrinks..shrinks..into a smaller portion of the page (rest of the page is now just blank) while the diagram remains at the same size and unreadable :sad:

This is something much closer to what I actually see on-screen :

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KindleDisplay_photo.jpg
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Author:  lobotommy [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Mage wrote:
smartgo wrote:
Shuei is coming to SmartGo Books, conversion in progress. Most likely Life, Games, and Commentaries will be combined into a single book, making it both more readable and affordable. iPad recommended, but iPhone will work too.


This is great news ! I will in most certainty buy it and maybe make it an excuse to get an iPad soon :blackeye:


Great news indeed! I bought "Life..." through Amazon lately and was not sure if I could resist buying next volumes in kindle format. But those prices! THOSE AMAZON HIGH TAX PRICES! this "thing" was like a bucket of cold water every time I thought about hiting a "buy button". So I'm waiting eagerly for SmartGo edition of Games&Commentaries, even though I will miss a dictionary and highligter features from kindle app. Oh well, it seems everything can't be perfect ;)

@ smartgo: maybe there is a chance for an update with access to iOS system dictionary right from SmartGo Books? It will help a lot for non native speakers (like myself).
Author:  aconley [ Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
I more or less have the opposite problem on my RMBP -- the
diagram is a lot bigger, taking up most of the room so that
I have to page back and forth between the comments and the
diagram. But this can be changed by setting the font controls.
I just don't want the bother of keeping different settings
for different books.

Now, if Amazon would only include higher resolution fonts
so books would stop looking like crap on a RMBP...
Author:  Uberdude [ Sat Nov 11, 2017 11:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
I just bought a non-Kindle eReader (Kobo Aura One). Is it possible to read JF's Shuei books on this? It can open epub so I think the answer is probably: easily: no, legally: no, morally: yes (by installing a PC kindle program, buying the book there and then removing the DRM with a process like https://www.epubor.com/transfer-kindle- ... -kobo.html (illegal but moral IMO if it's just so I can read it on my device rather than share with the world)).
Author:  oren [ Sat Nov 11, 2017 2:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Life of Honinbo Shuei
Uberdude wrote:
I just bought a non-Kindle eReader (Kobo Aura One). Is it possible to read JF's Shuei books on this? It can open epub so I think the answer is probably: easily: no, legally: no, morally: yes (by installing a PC kindle program, buying the book there and then removing the DRM with a process like https://www.epubor.com/transfer-kindle- ... -kobo.html (illegal but moral IMO if it's just so I can read it on my device rather than share with the world)).


Yeah, I've ripped all the DRM off my kindle books and save them. It's definitely possible. I use calibre and dedrm. You should then be able to install on the Kobo. Ironically I have to do this since I have a Kindle but it's tied to a Japanese account, so to get US books on there, I rip and install.
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