customized individual portable reference library

[Ken S]

Last Saturday, I spent the day at a Lego Robotics competition with my grandchildren's team. These days are about 80% waiting. While the kids were enjoying themselves with their teammates, I found a quiet place to sit. I had my ipad, but no Internet access. Not having Internet access was not a problem.

Ipads have a built in program called "books". I'm sure other tablets have similar programs. It's a default place to download books and other things. I use mine as my portable reference library. I have the Tormek handbook in my books program. (a free download from the Tormek website when you register your Tormek)
I have Dutchman's grinding angles booklet, both his original tables and his new math pdf, in books. Dutchman's tables are the foundation of my kenjig; I refer to them often.
More recently, I have added Vadim Kriachuk's (Knife Grinders) excellent deburring book.
My books library would not be complete without some of the outstanding topics from this forum. In addition to some of the groundbreaking newer topics, we have some noteworthy classics which include the wisdom and experience of Jeff Farris and Ionut. Jeff also posted on other forums. I have included some of these topics as well.

Mostly in the past, I printed out some of these articles and topics. (A thorough search of my house would probably uncover half a dozen paper printouts of Dutchman's tables)

I regret that I did not start using books for this years ago. Some very good information is no longer available or difficult to locate. When Jeff owned Sharptoolsusa, he wrote an excellent blog. When the business was sold, the blog was lost in the shuffle. Forums and websites come and go. I now try to save interesting items in books when I first encounter them.

The cloud? Useful with Internet access. Most of by books articles use very few pixels.

For anyone with a serious desire to understand sharpening, a tablet can be a valuable portable reference library.

Ken

[Dakotapix]

I use the Books app to store digital manuals on my IPad/iPhone for the many household appliances that we own and, yes, the "Water Cooled Sharpening of Edge Tools" is among the several titles available to me. I believe most manufactures make these online manuals available now. Of particular importance to me are the manuals for my Panasonic cordless phone system which seems to have dozens of adjustments that I can never recall easily, and the robotic vacuum we like to use. That last one drives my mini schnauzer nuts. I also have manuals for all my Apple devices available, my Toro snow blower, microwave oven and several others.

I do most of my reading in the Kindle app, however, preferring to keep the manuals and other tech stuff in Books.

[RickKrung]

Good post, Ken.  I have so much on the Books apps on my phone/iPad.  Recipes, manuals of all sorts, reference lists (some that I've downloaded, some that I've created myself, such as a chart of shims and knife offsets for centering blades, etc.) and notes from my alcohol recovery counseling that I want as touchstones.

I don't actually go to these often, but when I need to, they are there and most useful. 

rick

[Ken S]

Dakotapix,
Your comment about your phone manual gave me a good laugh. I worked installation/maintenance for Ma Bell for thirty five years and have the same problems with all the gizmos on my phones that I never use!
I see your point about wanting to keep technical reference and reading separate. In my case, I only own the ipad, so it must do double duty.

Rick,
I believe it is important to have access to reference material. I really need to learn more about books. It would be nice to have things organized in folders and optimized for searches.

More tricks for this old dog to learn........

I was grateful to have a non Internet program for last Saturday.

Ken

[Michael L]

Hello. After aerospace did big layoffs. I started telecom. Did it for 20yrs. Started out on landline and then progressed to wireless. I've been an apple device user since 2007. Yes, I worked a lot with bellsouth. After reading both your comments, I will start using books more. For some reason it never really dawned on me. I will be right there with you Ken and Rick. I'm pretty versed in the Cloud aspects of it too. I try to start everything out on my iMac. Then pretty much everything transfers to all my devices. My iphone, iPad, iWatch too. You would be surprised how good the gen 4 of iWatch can handle. Yes it has books on it too!    Apple is amazing.  I wanted to ask Ken if you can send me a couple of the books you are talking about? I will do my best at using the forum here and if yall have any questions on your devices, let me know. If you need me to walk you through stuff, you can always call me. I live in Nashville Tn. Not sure how that works if you want to call someone.  Thanks again gentleman. I will be studying the forum and look forward to talking/messaging yall.

[John_B]

Another suggestion for phone and tablet users. While online visit your local library. Most now offer a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books that can be checked out on your card. A real advantage is that when they are due they no longer can be accessed saving you a trip to return them.

Also there are several online libraries that have free public domain books that you can download. You won't see NY Times bestsellers but there are great titles available.

I have Wootz's book on my iPad and will reference sections while having a coffee. I also have a number of photography books and articles I will read when looking for a technical solution to a problem or simply inspiration.

[RickKrung]

...snip...
If you need me to walk you through stuff, you can always call me. I live in Nashville Tn. Not sure how that works if you want to call someone.  Thanks again gentleman. I will be studying the forum and look forward to talking/messaging yall.

I think the way to initiate a direct conversation is to use the Private/Personal Message feature.  I've done this with a couple of members, but it has been resulted in private email exchanges.  Haven't done it by phone contact with members of this forum, but I have with one other. 

Rick

[Ken S]

Michael,

Old landline guy (Ameritech) to old landline guy: I would caution you to keep your online library simple at the start. In old telephone man terms, this means really mastering your Sidekick before going high tech with fancy meters. (For non telephone people, this translates to mastering a basic volt/ohm meter before trying to use the whiz bang fancy meters.)

I really believe having too much information can create as many problems as not having enough information. I would start your online library with the Tormek handbook (available from tormek.com after you register your Tormek.) There will be overlap, however, the next things I would add would be the individual instruction sheets from the Tormek products (listed as documents)

Keep your library basic. Learn the basics of the craft. Really learn the basics of the craft. If you see other books, articles, or forum threads you want for reference, go ahead and add them. In your mind, put them in an "ignore at present" file. You will eventually grow into them; don't short circuit your growth.

Ken