As I’ve written in my previous entry, I’m an avid reader and most of my reading materials are eBooks. On my PDA, my favorite application for reading is a nifty application called iSilo. There are a lot of reading materials on the internet that are already in iSilo format but sometimes I feel there’s a need for me to create my own eBooks. That’s where another application, iSiloX comes in.

Using iSiloX, I can create my own eBook content. My “home-made” eBook contents are mostly news, manuals and other materials that are readily available on on the worldwide web. Here’s a short HOW-TO on putting the latest news on your PDA:

• Download and install iSiloX on your PC (or Mac). You can get iSiloX here.
• Run iSiloX and create a new file and add any online document you wish to put on your PDA.

• Adding document to iSilo is a three-step process. First you need to type in your preferred title for the eBook you wish to download. Then choose your eBooks destination, which is either direct to your PDA via Hotsync/Activesync or by saving it into a file on your computer allowing you to sync the book to your PDA at a later time. The you’ll have to add the URL of the web page you wish to convert into an eBook. For local news, I use [insert INQ7 link here] for news.
• One critical step that has to be taken into consideration is the “link depth” and if you will allow iSiloX to follow links that are not on the original URL. Too small “link depth” will not download all contents but too large “link depth” will increase the size of your eBook.
• Once everything is in order, highlight your document from within iSiloX’s main window and click on convert. This will prompt iSiloX to go to the internet and download your document.
• Once completed, you can either perform a Hotsync/Activesync (if you chose it as a destination), or you can add the converted document manually if you chose to save it as a separate file. Either way, you’ll have your own customized iSilo content on your PDA.

iSiloX can also be used to convert off-line .html files to the iSiloX format. Although I personally stopped doing this since iSilo can already read normal .TXT files natively, making conversion an unnecessary step.

Here are two of the favorite sites I often convert to iSilo for offline reading:

Mobile Gabriel - Daily Mass readings and reflections
Philippine Daily Inquirer - Local news (with breaking news)

Happy eReading!