
All O'Reilly Ebooks 50% off today - dsr_
http://www.oreilly.com
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wiremine
I've found myself falling into this pattern, and wondering if others share it:

a. I see a 50% off book at O'Reilly that I'm interested in. b. I check the
price at Amazon.com. The regular price is usually a few dollars more than the
discount price at oreilly.com. c. I purchase the book at Amazon because it is
just easier, even if it slightly more money.

I actually feel a bit bad about this: I'd rather give the money to Tim and Co
directly. And, yes, I know it isn't that hard to do this from the O'Reilly
site...

~~~
vidarh
I much prefer buying directly at O'Reilly, given that they can sync the books
straight to my Dropbox in both Kindle format and a variety of others, and I
particularly like supporting them for their lack of DRM..

~~~
flurdy
Exactly. I don't buy ebooks from Amazon as they only offer Kindle books,
whilst I want the epub version.

DRM free and available in dropbox so can be read on my laptop, ipad and
android phone at any time is key.

Also feels good to pay the publisher directly and not fund Amazons tax
dodging.

I do though have way too many ebooks from O'Reilly and Prag Prog :)

~~~
Infinitesimus
Doesn't Calibre let you convert from Kindle books to epub?

~~~
thoth
Yes, but the fonts, layouts, tables, diagrams, etc don't translate that
well... sometimes OK, sometimes really bad.

I'd rather get a epub directly and save conversions for books that aren't in
epub format at all, like fiction/non-fiction kindle format. Text-only or
mostly text conversions (e.g. mobi to epub) work much better.

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davexunit
This is in celebration of the day against DRM.
[http://www.defectivebydesign.org/](http://www.defectivebydesign.org/)

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fractalsea
Out of curiosity, what do people think of reading a programming book in ebook
form? I love using my Kindle for novels, but I tend to read programming books
in quite a non-linear fashion, and like the fact that I can quickly flick
through the book to find information about a specific topic. Having said that,
I have not tried reading a programming book in digital form, so it may turn
out to be better than I imagine.

Thoughts?

~~~
davb
It varies widely.

The O'Reilly eBook versions are very consistent. I really rely on the reviews
on Amazon for the Kindle versions (there are often complaints of layout issues
in code examples and diagrams).

O'Reilly is by far my favourite publisher/store for eBooks. If they can't lay
out a certain technical book in a usable form in epub or mobi, then it
probably can't be done. In those cases, I just use the PDF on my computer or
on a large tablet (Nexus 10). It's all DRM free, multi-format so I can use
whichever format is best for the content.

For diagram/image-heavy books I usually default to PDF.

In terms of non-linear reading, it's got to be printed books or PDFs with a
proper TOC and bookmarks on my computer.

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Zigurd
Some people are confused whether the O'Reilly sale deal is in fact less
expensive than Amazon. Important fact #1: This sale is for DRM-free e-books,
which are only available from oreilly.com. Amazon sells only the Kindle
edition, which is copy-protected.

To take an example I'm familiar with, _Programming Android_ in e-book form in
a choice of DRM-free formats is $18.99 at oreilly.com, on sale. Purchasing
(sort of, Amazon can revoke your purchase) at Amazon.com costs $19.79.

But, and there's always a big "but," you can rent _Programming Android_ in
Kindle form for $8.96, which is a great deal for a programming book you may
not need to keep around after you read it. You can even rent it twice if you
are slow getting through it and it would be cheaper than buying the Kindle
edition from Amazon.

Some people find reading code in e-books difficult. All the code in
_Programming Android_ is available for download, which you can read in Eclipse
or Android Studio, with cross referencing and doc pop-ups and syntax coloring.
E-books do have an advantage in that O'Reilly's "animal" series is all
monochrome printing in hard copy, but the e-books have syntax coloring and
color diagrams.

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rbonvall
O'Reilly ebooks are always 50% off!

They send these promotions regularly, but you can always pay half the
published price.

~~~
DanielStraight
This does indeed seem to be the case. And since that means the original topic
here is not really news, I'll use this space to point out that this is why, in
general, I hate sales and companies that have a lot of them. Constant sales
basically tell the customer that the sale price is the real price and you're a
sucker if you pay full price... but you have to constantly check and watch and
do a bunch of extra work to be sure you get the real (sale) price.

Please, just have a price and charge it. I know, I know, it's better for your
metrics to practice price discrimination, and constant sales are a way to do
that... but it pisses off customers who just want a simple, fair price. If you
really need price discrimination, add "enterprise" features and let people who
want throw money at you pay for things no one really needs. Just don't make me
stop in the process of buying something because I know the price isn't
actually the price and I have to wait until the price is corrected to the real
price with a sale (and likely never actually remember to come back when the
sale is on).

Having frequent free shipping sales creates the same effect. If I know you
offer free shipping sales more than say... once a year, I literally will not
buy from you if free shipping is not currently offered. And I will quite
likely forget what I was going to buy once free shipping is turned back on.

~~~
01Michael10
I agree with everything you said except... "If I know you offer free shipping
sales more than say... once a year, I literally will not buy from you if free
shipping is not currently offered."

You will not buy an item unless it has "free shipping"? You must miss out on a
lot of good deals. You do know "free shipping" is NOT free as it will be
included in the price of the item so it's the total price that matters not if
it has 'free shipping'. Having "free shipping" is not always a good (or the
best) deal... I do wish all online stores would price stuff with "shipping
included" as to make it easier to compare prices.

~~~
DanielStraight
No... I wasn't entirely clear there. I didn't mean I only buy when shipping is
free. I meant that there are certain places I shop online that regularly run
free shipping promotions. Every two or three months, they have a promo code
for free shipping with no change in prices otherwise. I only buy from these
places when one of the free shipping promos is on.

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willhsiung
60% for orders over $100, which they only do a few times a year. Beneficial if
ordering higher priced books from other publishers like Morgan Kaufmann or
Newnes, which I took advantage this morning.

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icpmacdo
Hacker News, what are the best books that you have read that are focused on
mobile app development?

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mkaziz
I'm reading Big Nerd Ranch's Android guide, and it's been pretty solid so far.

~~~
kachhalimbu
I recently bought and been reading through "programming 3D applications with
html5 and WebGL" by Tony Parisi. Extremely well written and thorough.

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_JamesA_
Why buy an ebook when they offer Safari Books Online?

I've been able to discard hundreds of pounds of dead trees and reclaimed the
associated storage space.

I was easily spending over $50 a month buying books before I became a
subscriber.

~~~
krschultz
As someone that reads a couple books a month I find that really interesting.
It is pretty unclear from the website how much it costs, any idea what a
personal subscription is?

~~~
rumblestrut
Pricing:
[https://ssl.safaribooksonline.com/subscribe](https://ssl.safaribooksonline.com/subscribe)

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Infinitesimus
I have a question, can someone help me better understand the fight against
DRM? (please, not trolling or insults, I want to genuinely understand).

Is the fight against all DRM or is it against painfully annoying DRM
implementations that provide no benefit to the user or is it a pricing issue?

Isn't the (at least initial) idea behind DRM to protect content creators from
piracy?

~~~
cpher
My best description is that the "cost" of inconveniencing a customer (e.g.
limiting device playback, etc.) will never really meet the goal of protecting
content. This is because those who want it for free will always find a way to
get it (at some "cost"). Those who don't have time/don't give a shit, will pay
for the content because the opportunity cost of pirating something is greater
than just paying for it.

That said, i find it really annoying as a parent to have to jump through hoops
to make backups of my kids DVDs, or convert them to digital for the iPad. So,
I'm not stealing anything as I already bought the DVD. I just want my kids to
be able to watch it on the iPad.

I don't know of any DRM that "provides a benefit" to the user.

~~~
Infinitesimus
That makes a lot of sense, thanks. So the problem with DRM is primarily that
is typically only makes things harder for legitimate users while not proving
significantly effective against those determined to pirate the content

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Hasknewbie
Nicely broken redirection on oreilly.com: \- While searching for interesting
ebooks, I open each new title in a separate tab, \- I then open a new tab to
log in, then "Reload All" other tabs... \- ...and BAM, half the tabs are now
displaying the same book.

Quite embarrassing for a programming books publisher.

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iamthepieman
Does anyone have recommendations on data analysis and big data books from the
O'reilly collection?

[http://shop.oreilly.com/category/browse-
subjects/data.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/category/browse-subjects/data.do)

~~~
rkda
You might want to check their Data Science Starter Kit collection

[http://shop.oreilly.com/category/get/data-science-
kit.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/category/get/data-science-kit.do)

Thinking With Data's a great introduction too.

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920029182.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920029182.do)

~~~
annapurna
Highly recommend "Doing Data Science" (it's on list provided in the link
above). The guest-lecture style chapters keep the material interesting (the
author based this book on a class she taught at Columbia University) and as
someone who was reading this part-time (alone), I enjoyed working on the
exercises that are listed in the later chapters.

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captain_mars
Packt Publishing is running a similar promo today: every ebook and video is
only $10.

[https://www.packtpub.com/](https://www.packtpub.com/)

~~~
sumedh
Thank you. I bought couple of books 80% off.

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noxxten
Considering how many of their publications revolve around web development,
that website sure is ugly.

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lukasm
That moment you bought a book two days ago (sad frog).

I really like that O'Reilly publish publish them as pdfs.

~~~
epsylon
You should perhaps contact their customer service. I had a good experience
with them.

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knodi
Amazon is still cheaper in most cases.

~~~
mhurron
I don't have a kindle and O'Reilly offers more formats.

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_asciiker_
for a moment there I actually though this topic was about Bill O'Reilly's
books.

I am glad I was wrong!

