The Computer Next Door

Do We Really Need the iPad?

I have been trying to figure out if I need an iPad.  I mean, it looks nice (from afar).  I haven't seen the actual model yet but I'm sure I will once April rolls around.

What I haven't wrapped my head around yet is the price.  Do I really need another $500 gadget?  I mean, sure, it may be a fine alternative to the other expensive gadgets I also haven't bought yet that are competing for my wallet share, namely: the Kindle and the Nook.  Butl, as I have mentioned before, I am reasonably happy reading books on my multi-purpose iPhone.

So really, Apple - is this techno push, or what? Let's design a cool product and then bet the farm that developers and consumers will flock to it because it is cool?  I do wish I could be sold on this concept, but I prefer (for now) to protect my hard-earned dollars.

Your Money on Your Phone?

My mobile app is waiting for me...and waiting for me...and waiting

Banking can be sooooooo complicated. I used to design software and customer service systems for a bank, I should know.  I slaved away in the days before user-friendly became a household term, hoping to make interactive banking products and services easier for our customers. (Hey, sometimes we even succeeded).

But now banking has come to almost everybody's mobile phone. There are small banking applications available from many major banks for different types of mobile phones - Blackberry, Android, iPhone.  The question is: Is it safe?

It's not that this is keeping me up at night, but I have not yet rushed to activate the banking application I have installed on my iPhone.  I just kind of look at it every now and then.  Is it really necessary to transfer funds while on the move?  Do I need to pay bills while having lunch in the cafe?  What's so urgent that it can't wait an hour or two until I get back to my desk?  I know in my heart of hearts this is coming down the pike to our collective Digital Future, and yet even I - a former banking software designer - still haven't moved on it.

Scary stories have also already occurred, although in far away places, like...Holland.  Check out this story from Wired.com about a nasty worm targeting the money of ING bank customers over there.

Now, granted, you'd have to be an ING bank customer in Holland to worry about it, and you would ALSO had to have "hacked" into your iPhone for the security breach to have worked (something very few people I know have done), but still...I wonder if the public at large is racing to pay its bills and transfer funds over a cup of coffee...and our good old, unreliable cellular networks.

Banks are pretty sure we'd feel this way, so they're offering guarantees.  Here's the one from Bank of America.

Sounds good, doesn't it?  It makes me want to be experimental and actually, well, bank online. It's the 21st Century, after all.

Uh, oh! We're about to lose free access to Times Online!

Oh, NO! - just when I think I have a routine that works, something always crops up to spoil it.  This time, it's the New York Times - they're going to start charging for access to the online version of the paper.  The first shoe to drop was this article from CNET: Report: New York Times to charge online readers

For months (years, maybe?) I have had a routine as comfortable as an old shoe - I sit down at my desk in the morning, review iGoogle for top stories, and almost always click through to a New York Times story in today's  paper - the online paper, that is.

There's always something of interesting to read in the Times. The journalism is top-drawer, the arts, cultural, and technology reviews are insightful, and the photography and multimedia are engaging.

The only problem?  They're not making any money on people like me! I don't give them a nickel for all the articles I read online.  Now, in my defense, I did try to order a paper-based New York Times subscription recently (honest, I did), but because of where I live (upstate New York), it was delivered a day late, which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.  I suppose it would be alright if I had no other news sources, but a day late? And so I became a devotee of online access.

Having tried and failed in recent years to make a go of online subscriptions, the Times has a very tough road ahead.  The big question is: will online viewers convert to online purchasers?  Will they go the pay-per-article route?  If so, will this business move succeed?

I am routing for them, but honestly don't know if I want to take out my micro-wallet of digital dollars every time I want to read an article (and will such articles pop up in iGoogle anymore, or will they be behind a digital fortress?)

I - along with millions of online readers - wait for the second shoe to drop.

Who's Ready for All Online News, All the Time? (Not I)

One hears pretty dire things these days about the decline of the newspaper industry.  Time Magazine recently listed The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America. The list includes some major rags from major cities across the nation.  The financial facts are harsh.  The Boston Globe is losing $1 million/week.  The San Francisco Chronicle lost $70 million in 2008.  Obviously, they can't stay afloat forever.

I have to say, though, that it seems perfectly absurd to imagine the demise of ALL NEWSPAPERS.  Is this really possible? Will a day dawn that doesn't have a single newspaper in it?  It's sad and shocking, if so.  I just have a hard time believing it.  Part of me doesn't want to, and part of me thinks the public won't put up with getting ALL their news online.

For one thing, I don't think that reading news online is anything like the same experience as reading a paper newspaper.

I consume (er, "read") both kinds of news - online and offline.  In the morning, over coffee, after a quick glance at my e-mail inbox, I browse the stories aggragated on my iGoogle Home Page - from all four corners of the globe.  At lunch, I like to leaf through the New York Times.  And there's really no comparison.  The online news is straight to the point, but hardly a pleasurable experience.  The paper version of the New York Times, on the other hand, is a delightful, physical browsing experience.  I open sections up, I stretch them this way and that, I look at ads for things I can't afford, and I find little bits of news I would NEVER HAVE FOUND ONLINE.  That's the key, in my opinion.

By specifying "top news stories" in my iGoogle Home Page, I have put a filter on the news that the physical paper removes.  There is always a surprise waiting for me in the physical paper - not so much online.

So, although I have long been an advocate of doing things digitally for the sake of efficiency and speed, this is just one area where I have my fingers crossed for the old, traditional way of getting information.  I suppose I want to have my digital cake and eat it, too. Hang in there, publishers.

Be a Student Forever Online

I like bargains, and there are some great ones out there in the area of online courses. These days, you can get entire degrees online, but I like the idea of taking a class online for free. But how good are free online courses?  Can you really learn something?

To answer that, I first went looking first for free online offerings from English language universities. Three interesting schools with three very different approaches to "open learning" are:

• Carnie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative
• MITCourseWare
• Stanford on iTunes U

Next, I decided to actually sample their offerings, and see what they consisted of.

Carnie Mellon's OLI has a very appealing format. Their non-credit, interactive courses are offered in a number of different subject areas at for limited periods of time.  I happened upon French Level I, and decided to sign up for it, as it is being offered January - June 2009.

The self-paced lessons include lots of multimedia, and a highly structured approach that is well thought out and well produced.  This appears to be part of a larger educational research project on how people learn through interactive methods.

CMU's well-produced online French course even allows me to record myself speaking in French.

The MIT courses I looked at are more like compilations of course material previously offered MIT students in traditional classroom settings.  The main takeaways here are the syllabi and the recommended readings. The class assignments didn't seem terribly compelling to me, because there is no feedback from the instructor, although I suppose if you're really motivated you might try them out and grade yourself.  I tried out a course on Romantic Poetry originally offered in the Spring of 2005.

The recommended reading list has links to Amazon where you can buy your books. 10% of the proceeds from any book purchases go to the support of the OpenCoursWare project, which makes sense.  If you want a good reading list on a subject matter of interest, check out MIOpenCourseWare.

The last place I tried for courses was Stanford on iTunes U.  You basically can get - free of charge - a large number of recorded lectures produced by Stanford as MP3 files. I downloaded a few in the Fine Arts category.  The problem I had with this arrangement is I don't really want all these files on my hard drive - I'd rather just listen to it. But that's just me.  Some of these lectures might be good fare for a long car drive or a frequent commute. But 10 minutes into most audio lectures, I tend to space out, so for me it wasn't as compelling as I had hoped.

So far, the only learning experience that has held my attention is the Carnie Mellon OLI coursework.  But I plan to keep looking...there is a larger list of schools experimenting in this space at: EducationPortal

The Digital Television Dilemma

Why would a blog dedicated to "conquering the digital divide," have a post about a digital dilemma? We love digital. Gone are the ghostly images of days gone by.  Digital TV offers beautiful pictures, crisp sounds and a host of options.  That's great for those of us who already have HDTVs and cable television.

That's not my mom's situation.  She's old school. No fancy frills for this woman.  But whether Fay likes it or not, Digital TV is arriving nationwide February 17th.

It's going to be the new broadcast standard.  So analog watch out, you're soon to be history. If you, like my mom, Fay, receive a TV signal on an analog television via rooftop antenna or "rabbit ears," you will be affected by the digital television transition.

You have three options:
1.    Buy digital-to-analog converters to use with their current TV(s)
2.    Buy a new digital TV (DTV)
3.    Buy cable or satellite service

If you opt for the digital to analog converters, you can apply for a Federal voucher of $40 to offset the cost of purchasing a converter box. Anyone who’s  interested or has other questions can visit the Federal Website for the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. There are also links to help find where to buy the converter boxes.

My mom hates change.  Not unusual for a woman in her 9th decade of life. But millions of Americans share Fay's boat.  Faced with the advent of DTV on February 17th her reaction was "I don't want to throw away my TV and I want to keep my cabinet."

For the record, Fay lives in a condo in Queens, NY, one of several low-rise buildings. The complex uses a master antenna to provide broadcast service to the buildings. In addition, residents tune to channel 6 to view  the lobby security camera. Mom has a 25" SONY from 2002.  Her 30" Ethan Allan cabinet is about 50 years old and is in impeccable condition.

Faced with the mom mandate, my brother, Mark and I, set out to set her up. First we offered cable.  "No, I don't need it, and "$39.95 a month is allot of money."

Time Warner Cable of Queens is the sole choice for cable service in my mom's neighborhood $39.95 is the lowest price on promotion, she saw.  Actually the one I saw was $49.95 per month with free installation and free DVR for 12 months.

Curious to see what was really available brother Mark after much persistence came up with a rate less than half the price.  His secret?  He's both smart and knowledgeable.  While mom has mandates, so does the FCC and the City Council. Some local franchising authority that regulates how monitors providers much your cable company charges for local stations and for any educational or government stations.

While the name may vary by provider, all cable companies have some variation of either "reception" cable or "basic" cable.  How a company labels its packages or tiers and what they charge after that is  strictly marketing. They've got to offer the bare bones by regulation. However, you may feel like an archeologist when trying to dig up those  basic rates.

At the risk of digression, I'm going to report actual events that occurred during the course of this post.  First, I typed in "Reception Cable on Time Warner Cable of Queens. There I picked a phone number from several choices.  In this case, 1-866-849-1945.

I gave an address and zip code in Bayside, Queens to the gentleman who answered. His response when I asked for the lowest priced service was $29.95. I repeated I wanted basic or reception cable. He couldn't help me and gave me another number, 1-888-892-2253.

That turned out to be Time Warner Cable of Los Angeles, which through automation gave me my next number, which was out of service.  When I persevered and next received a person, his name was John.  John's been in the cable business 4 months.  He told me he never heard of reception cable and I must mean, "limited basic."  I responded that I didn't care what it was called, how much did it cost?  He promised he'd find someone to help me if I held on 5 minutes.

I now got Barbara, who wasn't a third party marketer and assured me she was an employee of Time Warner Cable in Flushing Queens.  I was apprised that the range of cable services began at $21.95.  I was insistent that there was a lower price.  She finally offered that there's "reception" cable (Hello John!) without a box for $13.85 (before taxes), "but that'll be inadvisable as of February 17th." I responded that I didn't understand why mom would fail to get basic broadcast channels if she had both the cable and a TV with a digital tuner.  Barbara didn't argue.

I don't know about you, but my mom would have switched exclusively to listening to radio, if she'd gone through the aforementioned run around.  Fortunately, my brother had done his own legwork last month.  I return you the original quest.

FIRST

We tried reception cable. Only one problem.  When the cable installer installed the cable there was no reception. He claimed that Fay's TV was "too old."  I don't know we weren't there.  I wish I knew if he'd tried the cable/antenna toggle on her cable ready set.

SECOND

Mark bought her a Toshiba. 32" LCD. However, when the cable didn't work, mom told the installer she didn't want the service. So the service was cut before Mark had a chance to test the TV. He didn't want to risk a return fee on an opened box, before we isolated the issue at Fay's.

THIRD

Mark brought the government authorized analog/digital converter and hooked that up to the Sony.  No luck. It might have worked with he Toshiba. The condo board sent out a letter about the digital transition.  My mom threw her hands up and sent it directly to Mark. Mark and think that the master antenna isn't set up for UHF. We're speculating.

We've now decided that mom's got to have a new TV and the reception cable to be really safe. She doesn't watch much, but she enjoys what she views regularly. She needs a reliable set-up. AND we want to make sure she sees the lobby security camera.

In my next post I'll report on our progress. By then, she'll have a new TV and reception cable.  It wasn't her original mandate.  But she's decided it's OK if she becomes up to date.

Don't forget that Valentine's Day is February 14th, while the Digital transition's official February 17th.  Skip the chocolate and buy someone you love a new television. Fewer calories, and good for the economy too.  And if you haven't seen it already, check out this hilarious video on YouTube which is Oh So Close to the story I have just related:

Switching To Digital TV

Leave Technology Behind (But Save Your Health)

On the Road to Better Health?

A study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine indicates that the Amish are in better health than the majority of Americans because of their high levels of physical activity (they get 3-5 hours a day of being on the go).  (see also: CNN summary)

Now, you can go out and get a lot more exercise (run or walk 8-10 miles every day), or you can go Amish all the way.  After all, if you give up technology, you'll have to get more exercise by default, yes?

My family has run a winery in Amish country for 30 years.  The small community of Smicksburg, PA is home to several hundred Amish families, who live a simple, no frills existence, primarily devoted to farming and other rural occupations (logging, wood working, cheese making, etc.). This has given me a glimpse into the reality of living Amish.

Here's a sampling of what you would need to give up to Go Amish:

• Cars
• Electricity
• Refrigerators
• Dishwashers
• Washers/Dryers
• Television
• Radio
• MP3 players
• Digital watches
• Digital anything
• Computers
• Internet
• Oh, yeah, and Blogs

That's just for starters.  I'm not kidding about electricity - they don't even use it to light their homes.  They use oil lamps.  Have you every tried to read by an oil lamp?  When we first moved to Columbia County 10 years ago, we had frequent power outages.  We kept a few oil lamps around, just to keep things moving when the power went out.  Believe me when I say oil lamp lighting is for the birds.

As are horse and buggies, but that's what you're left with when you live an Amish life style.

But the bottom line is, it's good for your health to work your butt off (and it's probably good for the environment, as well). Less gas used, less emissions, you get the picture.

What'll it be folks?  Sign up is in Smicksburg, PA this weekend....German required.

The Magazine's Future is in Our Hands

I've been hearing the death knell of traditional magazine publishing for some time now.  Subscriptions and revenues are down.  Anxiety amongst management, reporters, and staff is high.  Many younger readers are getting their news and commentary almost exclusively online.  Is traditional magazine publishing going the way of the buggy whip?

Recently I traded in some airline miles for some magazines.  I hadn't been flying anywhere, and the airline (US Air) was quite insistent that I do something with the miles (I'm sure they benefited somehow, but oh, well).  And so, I obediently ticked off one magazine after another that I would have been unlikely to have ordered otherwise: titles like Dog Fancy, Budget Travel, and Martha Stewart Living.  10 in all. I sent in my little postcard and waited.

One by one, they started to arrive.  A mini-deluge of glossy reading to multi-task with while watching TV. Then, within the hour, destined for the recycling bin.

I have other magazines I care more for (The New Yorker, some art magazines), but for the most part, I find a magazine a quick "rifle" at best.  Something to take to the hairdresser.  Only occasionally to take to the bedside table. I am as much a magazine reader as the next person, but I'd have to say, they seem to have lost their sheen recently.

My question is, is magazine readership down because there are better (digital) versions or alternatives, because of the growth of other forms of news and entertainment, because of concern about the environment, or because magazines don't seem to give much bang for the buck?  (Some seem to be mostly ads).

I went online in search of answers.  I was wondering what I would do if I gave up traditional magazines permanently. Here's what I found:

1) The online version of a magazine is not necessarily better. I enjoy leafing through The New Yorker, for example, because I know I will discover a few cartoons to laugh at, find a review of interest, and possibly read a thought-provoking article. Everything is always in a certain order, so it's easy to page through.

The New Yorker's Website has no such appeal. Its long, scrolling Home Page seems to be mimicking that of the New York times, but the lack of color or imagination is at odds with the very nature of The New Yorker with its long tradition of artistic cover art. They seem to be trying to get on the bandwagon, but aren't sure how to go about it.

New Yorker online - just not the same

What's worse, I couldn't get my bearings on the site.  Some of their groupings of content seemed logical, but it simply isn't how I like to read the magazine - which is sequentially.  I like going from cover to cover.  It is reassuring in a way that newyorker.com is not.

2) Digital Editions are not the answer. These days, you can get "Digital Editions" of just about any magazine. For proof, check out Zinio.com, a virtual magazine store where you can buy access to digital versions of many magazines.  This would certainly solve the recycling issue, but is a digital edition interesting enough to consumers?

I have yet to see a fellow passenger reading a digital edition on his/her laptop on the train. Not to say it won't happen one day, but this just isn't a trend.

Zinio sets up a library where you can keep your magazines (not unlike the virtual library shelves Google allows on Google Books - see my previous blog entries on digital and virtual libraries).  Zinio.com is currently offering free complimentary issues so you can try the service out.  The digital editions load in Zinio's Online Reader.  It took a while for my March edition of Women's Health to obtain a clear focus (it was a bit blurry initially), but then it looked just like - well, the print edition. They are in fact identical - ads and all.

Zinio's Online Reader - too much work for a lot of ads

And that of course is the problem.  I didn't feel it was terribly much fun to page through the Web-based Online Reader of Women's Health.  It's certainly more work than the print version.  I had to keep squinting to make out the type, which varied in size.  On a regular Website, the type for articles tends to be all one size -and in print, the resolution is better so you can actually read it (Web resolution is far worse than print).

The digital edition of a magazine is the worse of both worlds: all the hard work of using computer software, with all the ads of the magazine. And none of the tactile experience.  Geez, I even missed the smelly perfume inserts, that's how nostalgic I was for traditional magazines after this experience.

3) There are many free substitutes for the kind of content magazines offer. This is probably what magazines are fearing.  Think about it.  There are so many ways to get your current news and information, no matter what the topic, including:

• The classic Web-only eZines (such as Salon)
• Website offered by TV stations (such as CNN.com), which have plenty of "magazine-style" reporting
• Blogs of every stripe and specialty (more specialist than magazines, often)
• Blog aggregators (such as Bloglines)
• Customized Home pages that aggregate news from global sources (such as iGoogle)

The list goes on.  Everybody has their favorite way of getting information, commentary, and entertainment, whether  specialized or general  Does anybody turn to printed magazines for the first word on anything anymore?

But after my foray online, I re-examined my pile of glossy printed matter.  What's the answer?  I will probably keep reading the magazines a little while longer.  At least until the Green Police come after me for contributing more than my share to the local landfill.

How Green Is Your DVR?

Herein, and on the record,  I want to admit I have a conflict.  No, nothing that'll cost me huge sums with a mental health professional.  But an issue nonetheless.

How do I reconcile my love of technology with an ever broadening awareness of energy abuse?  Technology lovers more and more are finding themselves in this same dilemma. All those terrific gadgets we love use lots and lots of energy.

Personally, it's a puzzlement.  How do I become more environmentally sensitive and still use the toys I love?  Take my computer as the major culprit.  I rarely shut the thing off.  Want to know why?

No, I'm not merely lazy.  There's a school of thought (quite common among television professionals) that turning your device on and off creates a great deal of wear and tear on the device. It's a habit hard to break after more than 20 years.  But, I have to confess I'm beginning to revisit the wisdom of my ways.

Take for example our friendly digital video recorder (DVR).  Would you believe that set-top high-definition DVR of yours can use the same amount of electricity as your typical refrigerator?  Well it does.

That's because DVRs use hard disks.  And hard disk drives like the kind we run in our personal computers are constantly spinning.  And all that spinning makes your DVR one power- hungry machine. The 'standby' mode of a typical DVR doesn't really reduce its power consumption when compared to the normal mode you regularly use.

Recently a cable industry publication reported that  set-top boxes in the U.S. use $2 billion worth of electricity annually, which produces 15 million tons of carbon dioxide.  The source of these estimates is the nonprofit advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Unfortunately,  HDTVs, are special offenders in themselves. You'd never know it by their thin profiles, but HDTVs are gorging themselves. They're  power guzzlers — using as much as four times the energy of  standard-definition sets. 

But before you go back to a CRT (cathode ray tube TV--the old fashioned sets of the 20th century) know that there's hope.  A new set-top software has been developed to cut the DVR's guzzling ways.  In the wee hours of the night the boxes spin down going into a standby mode that uses less than 1 watt.

Across the Pond, in the U.K.  a satellite provider began deploying the spin-down feature to 2 million HD set-tops. The feature monitors whether people are using their box between 11:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. If the box hasn't been used for a period of two hours, an “auto standby” warning pops up on screen for 3 minutes; if nobody touches the remote, the box's hard disk stops spinning.

The key to the program: Subscribers don't necessarily even know their DVRs are putting themselves to sleep at night. The software switches the system back on if there's a scheduled recording.

Some DVR makers, including Scientific Atlanta, have also developed auto-shutoff features.  Self-interest is also served here.  Disk drives last longer if they're not churning continuously. The U.S. government's voluntary Energy Star program, which sets energy-efficiency guidelines for household appliances, is now working up new standards for digital set-top boxes and DVRs.

It's a bit early for New Year's resolutions, but with the oncoming holidays it's worth considering less passive pursuits and a bit more exercise.  A good way to save energy, while energizing oneself in the process.

Out of Copyright (and Onto Your Hard Drive): Creating a Personal Digital Libary from Public Domain Materials

 If you like collecting the classics, you're in luck: now you can do it for free (or very inexpensively).

A classic book on drawing, available as a free PDF file

A number of organizations are busy as beavers these days, building online digital libraries of books (and sometimes other works) in the public domain. You can take advantage of this wealth of free online material, and use them to build your own private library.  Although the digital books are accessible in different formats, I'll refer to them all books available online or in digital format as "eBooks". (see also my earlier post: EBooks and the Virtual Library)

WHERE TO FIND PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS

So where do you find eBooks in the public domain?  Some places to begin browsing or searching for titles are:

Google Book Search  (10,000+ public domain titles)

Google has been working with some large libraries (including the University of Michigan Library) to scan their collections, allowing the public to search not just for titles but to search inside virtually any book. If you do a search on Google Book Search (currently in Beta test), you will see the results labeled based on how much you can peek inside: either it is a "Full view," a "Limited preview," "No preview" is available or you can get a "Snippet view" of the book. To find public domain books you can download or view online, uust filter out your results to see only the "Full view," books. You results will look like this:

Full view means this book can be downloaded or read online

The Google online reader is fairly easy to use, and is rich in its links to related resources (such as where to buy the book or borrow it locally if you prefer a print version). Google also allows you to save your eBooks  to a personal, online library, eliminating the need to download large files.

The Google online reader

Internet Archive (270,000+ public domain titles)

The Internet Archive has a grand vision to archive virtually all media, from old web sites to moving images and software.  The public domain books in the Internet Archive's Open Library can be accessed either by reading them online in a "Flip Book" format, by downloading the eBooks as PDF files, or by opening them in the Internet Archive's proprietary book browser.

I like the Flip Book experience for the way it simulates the online reading experience in a fun, simple way.  If you're looking for more functionality, try the proprietary (DjVU) browser.

Project Gutenberg (20,000+ public domain titles)

Options for eBooks here include read books online as "pure text" (very fast, but no graphics), downloading text files, downloading  "Plucker" files for reading on a Palm organizer, and

Gutenberg Partners, Affiliates and other Resources combined have list of 100,000 titles

World Public Library (500,000+ titles)

Every now and then this group opens access to their titles, but at other times (like now) you need to join.  But not to worry - it's still pretty cheap ($8.95 annually) to get access to their large selection in 125 different collections. In addition to classic literature, classic children's books, and science fiction, the World Public Library subscription also includes access to audio Books in MP3 format, technical reference books, and government publications. So...plenty of stuff to look at or listen to for less than $10 a year.

BUILDING YOUR OWN  DIGITAL LIBRARY

You now know where to get hundreds of thousands of public domain eBooks. So where are you going to store these books, and how do you build a personal library of your favorite titles?  Should you download the eBooks, or read them online?

Some things to consider are:

• Type and size of each eBook
• How frequently you will use the title
• Your reading preferences

Type and size of the file is probably the biggest consideration. Some older titles in the public domain have been scanned in from old volumes, and are basically a series of pictures of the actual pages. For example, a PDF of the original  classic "Bambi," which, while very pretty to look at, also takes up nearly 15 MB of hard disk space. Eeek.  More than about 10 of those titles, and you'll have to start thinking about an external hard drive.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, anything stored strictly in text format (.txt files)- with no pictures  will occupy only a tiny amount of space.  For example, the "Plain Vanilla Electronic Text" version of Sir Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake" which I downloaded from Project Gutenberg takes up a mere 472 K of hard drive space.

Suffice it to say you can feel free to download classic titles in "Plain Vanilla Electronic Text" format  pretty much willy-nilly.  Not only will hundreds or even thousands of these fit on your hard drive easily, they can also be downloaded onto a hand-held device with little concern.

How frequently will you use the eBook? If you will want to refer to the book frequently, or if it's a favorite author or book of poems, you may want to keep it on your computer.  A one-time read could be something you want to read online and not keep on your drive.

Finally, what is your reading preference?  After you try the digital online readers on the various "library" sites, you will know if you like their different proprietary online readers -  or not.  If you don't want to have to be on the Internet when you read your eBook, you can use your favorite digital reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader or Adobe Digital Editions, and just read it on your computer (or hand held, if you prefer small screens).  These each have their own trade-offs in functionality and ease-of-use.

You need to experiment to find what you like.  For my part, I have been taking the Smorgasbord  approach:  storing what interests me (and fits) on my hard drive, bookmarking "found library" of materials on Google Book Search, and bookmarking the other archives mentioned above, for reference.  Now, I just really have to read all this stuff...