Ebooks for you

Wow! its been a while since my last post, and a lot has happened. Heroes and the other TV shows started, a few bombs went off here and there, other things happened, and oh yeah, Sakvithi got away with a fortune. Reminds me of a certain other company named Seagull. But... well, you know our countrymen, right? Speaking of Seagull, check out the photo below.


Neat eh? I check the Google blogs everyday and couldn't find any information regarding the above claim (and I didnt expect to either!). I dont know wether this is a recent ad but if it is, their timing couldn't be any worse. We sinhalese forget things after some time, so they should've waited until the Sakvithi fiasco was over. I suggest they wait at least a couple of months before starting this thing. A few cricket matches later, and everything will be forgotten.

Okay so getting back to what this post is actually about. I use Ebooks as a reference when programming, because, well, its easier than flipping through the pages of a book looking for a certain command and how to use it. And even when reading for leisure, Ebooks are OK I guess.
Most of the sites I mention here are just blogs giving links to rapidshare files. Others are more legitimate, but in the end, you should be able to find a reasonable amount of books you want.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Some (or ALL?) of these sites were first featured on Filenetworks. I hope he doesn't mind...

KnowFree.net

Here's an excerpt from the site's About Us page

"KnowFree (KF) is a web portal with a slogan: "KNOWLEDGE IS FREE", so it is place for users to exchange freely e-books, video training and other materials for educational purposes, self-practice only."

One thing to note is that, some (If not most) of the RAR files are password protected. Usually, the password is knowfree.net, but make sure you read everything on the site to find the correct password.

Ebookeesh
A blog that gives links to ebooks spread around the net. This site has an impressive collection of IT related books, but fails when it comes to books in other categories.

Ebookshare
Another site with links, but the links here lead to .torrent files. After downloading the .torrent file, you have to use a Torrent program to download the actual Ebook. I have downloaded Ebooks through the torrents at this site about a dozen times without any problems (And the torrents had a considerable number of seeders too). Sports an impressive collection of IT related books.

Computer Ebook
As the name suggests, this site is also about IT related Ebooks (Does all this lead you to the conclusion I'm an IT man?). Great collection of programming Ebooks are available. Apart from that, there is a small collection of Ebooks related to Robotics too (Is anyone in Sri lanka into this field?).

Freebookspot


Unlike most of the sites mentioned above, this site has a considerable amount of ebooks in categories other than IT too (Like Sex for instance!). Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Astronomy, etc... and books in other categories are available.

Techbooksforfree
Another Tech related Ebook site. Yawn...

Freetechbooks


Okay, so Tech means not only computers, and as such, this site has a collection of links to other Tech subjects, like Electronics and Mathematics (Math is Tech?). Unlike many other sites out there, most of the books listed here are not pirated, but actually available under special licenses. I didnt bother to read it, but the books are fine, and thats all you and I need to know.

Classical Computer Science Texts
Okay, so I know we're moving away from single core and 32 bit to 2 or more cores and 64bit, but remember, If you dont know your past, you cant make sense of your future. I just made that up, but the point is, some of these texts were pioneering in their age (For example, the Fortran Compiler) and we wouldn't be here if not for them. And of course, it does make interesting reading too.

O'Reilly Open Books and O'Reilly Commons

O'Reilly has made a number of books open for various reasons (Like, they've made enough money out of it, and now, its content is outdated), and this collection is good enough for most of us I think.

Global Text Project


I'm getting tired of writing my own review so here's an excerpt from the above mentioned site.

"The project will create open content electronic textbooks that will be freely available from a website. Distribution will also be possible via paper, CD, or DVD. Our goal initially is to focus on content development and Web distribution, and we will work with relevant authorities to facilitate dissemination by other means when bandwidth is unavailable or inadequate. The goal is to make textbooks available to the many who cannot afford them."

I'm pretty sure I belong to the 'many who cannot afford them'.

IBM Redbooks


I have no idea about the term Redbook, or what most of these Redbooks are about ('IBM System Blue Gene Solution: Blue Gene/P System Administration' isnt Blue Gene a Supercomputer?). I thought one of you out there might actually be able to make sense of the contents of these books, so the site goes in the post.

Wikibooks

"Wikibooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. Wikibooks began on July 10, 2003; since then Wikibooks has grown to include over 32,341 pages in a multitude of textbooks created by volunteers like you! "

Undoubtedly one of the best sources of Ebooks, many of these are very professional and informative (Like the Haskell Wikibook). Wikibooks are available in many categories, for people at many levels of education (Wikijunior anyone?). Definitely recommed this site.

Project Gutenberg


The mother of all Ebook sites. Project Gutenberg was the first of its kind in 1971 when it began, and is still going strong today. Chances of finding titles like, 'The C Programming Language' are slim, but can you compare reading that to reading, say, The Art of War, or maybe, The Illiad? PG contains cultural works that are in the Public Domain, like the previously mentioned books. If you want to get a dose of culture after a hard days work, a visit to PG is recommended.