My New Toy - Sony PRS-505

I’ve tried to read electronic books (ebooks) in the past but have always preferred paper books (pbooks). As my good friend Vjeko said, “I like reading lying down - and I most certainly don't like the feel of laptop lid hitting my forehead when I fall asleep :-)”

Having said all of that, I have bought a new toy that has changed my reading world and has convinced me that, whilst the pbook will probably never die out completely, the age of the ebook seems to almost upon us. The new generation of readers are become cheaper and more accessible and more and more publishers are getting their books out in ebook formats.

There are a lot of reading devices available, and if you’re interested in learning about them, I can recommend the forum http://www.mobileread.com/. I spent a while looking at the various devices on this site before a forum member offered to sell me a Sony PRS-505 second hand. I have now had the device for nearly two weeks and have finished reading “Simple Genius” by David Baldacci. David’s book is great and I really enjoyed it – he certainly is a very talented author, however I enjoyed reading the book even more because I was reading on my new reader.

If you’ve read ebooks on a phone or PDA or laptop, you’ll know that it can be a frustrating experience. The back-light on these devices can make your eyes tired. Laptops have a tendency to get hot and take a while to boot – not to mention the rate they chew through batteries. The Sony PRS-505 on the other hand does not use a traditional LCD display but instead using a technology called e-ink that has a similar effect to reading a glossy magazine it only uses power to change a page which means you will be able to read for hours and hours on a single charge. The internal storage and memory cards mean you can carry hundreds of books with you.

Incidentally, you can buy a PDF format e-book version of Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 from the PACKT web site. I’m looking forward to future devices that promise larger displays (good for reading A4 PDF documents) such as the Plastic Logic Reader, but for now, I’m really pleased with my new toy.

NAV 2009 Book - more details on PACKT site

If you are interested in our book Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009, you can find a couple of things of interest on the PACKT web site.

First of all, there is the table of contents for the book.

Then there is an article based upon some of the examples in Chapter 7 called Extending the Application using Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009.

It's been a long year and as you can see from the table of contents, Vjeko and I have been very busy. 2009 promises to be a pretty exciting year as we start to see more and more people getting into the exciting world of Web services in NAV 2009.

For now, I would just like to wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009

What a great way to wake up! You can now pre-order our book. I woke up this morning to see that the link to pre-order the book with a discount was up on the PACKT site. Wow!

I have co-authored this book with my good friend Vjekoslav Babić, and I can see that he's been busy blogging about the book and letting everyone know. One of the reasons I have been so quiet in the blogoshpere and on my favourite forum over the last few months is because I've been working so hard to get this book finished.

We've really tried to make this book as informative as possible, while keeping the fun elements from our blogs. There have been some fantastic people involved in producing this book, with feedback from members of the product group and technical reviewing from seasoned NAV experts and bloggers (like Eric 'Waldo' Wauters). Thanks to everyone that has read this blog over the years and to those that have left the occasional comment.

The book is aimed at consultants and developers of NAV and gives an insight into the new features of NAV 2009, and also a series of tips and tricks and practical examples for configuring, modifying, and extending the application. I can honestly say that this is the best book on NAV 2009 I have ever written.

So what are you waiting for? Go and pre-order your copy now.