
OReilly offers 50% discount on ebooks in celebration of 'Day Against DRM' - denzil_correa
http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/day-against-drm.do?code=DRM2013
======
sinak
Offering books without DRM is awesome, but as consumers should also have the
right to remove DRM to use works in non-copyright infringing ways. For
example, commentary, academic use, parody, criticism, and making backup
copies.

At the moment, circumventing DRM for non-infringing reasons is illegal. Which
is why Section 1201 of the DMCA needs to be fixed. Join the movement:

<http://fixthedmca.org>

~~~
rdhyee
I signed the petition and told my friends about it. Fixing the DMCA is key.

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WestCoastJustin
Not sure how widely this is know but you can use Safari Books Online [1] for a
monthly fee (about the price of a typical book) and just read them on-line. I
generally read the book and use them as referenced in real life and this
translates perfectly to an on-line media. Also, there is no waiting for the
books to show up!!

p.s. my office also has a corporate account with books24x7 [2], but thier on-
line format is not as good as Safari's.

[1] <http://www.safaribooksonline.com/>

[2] <http://books24x7.com/>

~~~
lesterbuck
And public libraries. For example, if you live in the Houston area, the Harris
County Public Library has several licenses to Safari. (hcpl.net) I sure wish
O'Reilly had an affiliate program. I would collect the name of every public
library system that offered Safari, SEO the name of O'Reilly books, and direct
people to their local library's license of Safari with a helpful affiliate ad
to buy their own copy. Note: the public library version of Safari is not quite
the same as a personal (or corporate?) license, but it is very similar.

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route3
Slightly off-topic observation:

 _2 results for: django > Books_

 _46 results for: rails > Books_

Can anyone speak to the demand, or lack thereof, for Django books and
educational material? Do large(r) technical publishers not see a viable market
for Django books?

I read Two Scoops Of Django (on vacation, no less) and would love to see more
books on Django best practices.

~~~
mynegation
I wonder if this has to deal with some external factors, like availability of
a good free book (often times from the makers), or volatility of APIs.

Having said that, for a long time I have been evaluating popularity, risk of
adoption, and job market impact of technologies using the number of O'Reilly
books and videos published on the subject as a crude measure.

~~~
awj
> I wonder if this has to deal with some external factors, like availability
> of a good free book

The Django documentation is absolutely fantastic[1]. It and PostgreSQL are my
personal gold standards for documentation.

[1] At least from my experience playing with it. I have not tried to use
Django in anger, but it feels like the docs will hold up well.

~~~
smackay
My only criticism of the Django docs is that every sentence has equal weight.
That makes it difficult for someone starting out to distinguish between things
that are absolutely critical and those that just nice to know. However once
you are up and running they are great but they do need re-reading for the same
reason.

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danso
FYI, ebooks are always 50% off at O'Reilly...at least for the past few years
that I've been buying from them.

~~~
Spoom
Yep, for the last few months I've been able to find a working 50% off coupon
code for all eBooks.

<http://www.retailmenot.com/view/oreilly.com>

~~~
marsee
That's the discount for user group members offered through O'Reilly's user
group program.

------
rurounijones
Any recommendations for ruby related o'reilly books that may be hidden gems?
(Not aimed at beginners)

Also any recommended books related to web-development / scaling / new
languages like go in general which a dev may not buy as a matter of course
would be nice also.

I get most of my stuff from pragprog but am open to other options.

~~~
jamesbritt
_Any recommendations for ruby related o'reilly books that may be hidden gems?
(Not aimed at beginners)_

Greg Brown's _Ruby Best Practices_.

<http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596523015.do>

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DanielStraight
Any recommendations of must-have O'Reilly books? 5000+ items is a heck of a
lot to look through in one day.

~~~
incision
"Collective Intelligence" is a recent favorite and I notice that a bunch stuff
from No Starch Press (The TCP/IP Guide / Think Like a Programmer), which I've
become a fan of recently, is on sale.

~~~
toby
Thanks! That's my book, appreciate you mentioning it.

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mrkmcknz
with OReilly can't you just enter the ISBN and get the book for $4.99?

edit: This is through registering your(already purchased) print books and then
purchasing the corresponding e-book.

~~~
eterpstra
Yeah, you can get ebooks for $5 if you 'own' a hard copy. And you prove that
you own the hard copy by typing in the ISBN.

Also, they spam out 50% off coupons for ebooks every week.

~~~
hackerboos
But ISBNs are available on Amazon.

~~~
scarmig
I think the idea is that "well, if someone's gonna be a dick and get our books
against our expressed will, they'll probably just download them off the
internet."

~~~
AjithAntony
I actually have a Safari books online membership, and it gives me "tokens" to
download books. The ironic thing is that the safari downloaded books are of
poorer quality and in fewer formats than the Oreilly.com books.

Sometimes I cheat and pay $5 for the pristine and versatile oreilly book. My
rationalization is that I'm entitled to the highest quality reading experience
because I'm paying them $50/mo for the subscription.

------
mtgx
Relevant post from a few days ago from Tor Books on DRM:

[http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/04/tor-books-uk-drm-free-
one-y...](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/04/tor-books-uk-drm-free-one-year-
later)

------
dougk7
Any recommendations for great books on DevOps or iOS Programming?

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imdhmd
Duplicate of <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5649458>

Does this happen often here?

Sorry in advance for digressing, but had to ask.

~~~
denzil_correa
Oh well it does, it has happened to me a lot as well. That said, I think the
duplicate is due to the difference in URLs of our submission links. Of course,
timing on HN matters a lot as well.

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brent_noorda
Am I the only one bothered by the fact the software is free, but the e-books
are not?

They're both merely an arrangement of bits in files, duplicated at a near-zero
cost. But one of these (the free one) has usually gone through many man-years
of development while the other (the one that costs money) is the result of a
few man-weeks or months of effort.

Oh, wait, I just learned that the the non-free quickie version of bits is now
available at 50% off. Never mind.

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paul_f
Is it just me or are OReilly books only valuable in print form? I keep them
open on my desk and can easily flip around and find what I need. Can't do the
same with an eBook.

An OReilly eBook is not terribly useful IMO and not even worth half the print
edition.

~~~
nightski
Get another monitor? :)

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evolve2k
JavaScript - The Good Parts $12
<http://shop.oreilly.com/product/mobile/9780596517748.do>

------
darasen
If I wanted to learn a new topic, such as Python, in general what series are
considered better? ie Head First, Missing Manual, Novice to Ninja...

Any opinions ?

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floor
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5649758>

------
L0j1k
The title of this should read: "OReilly offers 50% discount on ebooks in
celebration of 'Hoping To Sell More eBooks'".

------
knodi
Most of the books are cheaper on Amazon even after the 50% discount...

~~~
hackerboos
You only get mobi on Amazon.

~~~
dpcx
For some people, that's enough. Not everyone needs 15 copies of the same book.

~~~
dlisboa
Not everyone has a Kindle. Giving more choices should be the default. Amazon
doesn't do it because they want you to buy their hardware.

Until there's a standard every e-book reader abides to publishers should try
to provide for everyone.

~~~
wwweston
I'm not sure Amazon cares about selling hardware -- they have reading apps for
Android, iOS, OS X, and the web, probably Windows too.

I think it's more a desire to lock you in to their platform and maybe to make
buying as low friction as possible.

