Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Offline Browsing is Enjoyable with iSilo and iSiloX v3.25
Posted by NewKreation in "SOFTWARE" @ 12:00 PM
While looking for the perfect offline browser, I stumbled across this beauty, iSilo by DC & Co. Have you been searching for better ways to view your mobile favorites? Have you wanted to create your own books with text formatting, embedded images and tables? With a plethora of options, conversion tool iSiloX and reader iSilo, deliver fast rich easy to read documents and Web pages. The conversion tool and reader packs a one two punch that makes it my favorite reader! iSilo has been my core offline browser/reader for over six months. Let me explain why…
Converter iSiloX and reader iSilo are power twins packing exhaustive options and superior reading on the Pocket PC, as well as other OS platforms. You can find thousands of ready-made documents downloadable immediately for reading with iSilo or you can create your own documents from HTML content using iSiloX. Some of the major features that will win you over to iSilo include: high text compression, hyperlinks, images, tables, and formatted text.
The Converter
First off is the conversion tool, namely iSiloX. The completely free iSiloX converts HTML, css, text, and Palm Doc to a compressed document for your handheld or desktop! What this means for me is that any Web site I'd like to read later on my Pocket PC, I can copy the URL and paste it into iSiloX, convert the document, synch up and I'm ready to go. It gets better....
The number and types of settings are too exhaustive to cover here. You'll just have to download it and try it yourself. To whet your appetite, you can: process or ignore all table formatting, allowing you to view a converted website without scrolling left and right; include/exclude images (JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP) from the complete Web pages, which are usually hidden on mobile Web sites and; resize images to perfectly fit the resolution of your Pocket PC, or any resolution for that matter. The result is a beautiful, compressed document that is easy to read on your Pocket PC!
Figure 1: This is the conversion tool's document list.
Figure 2: You can have multiple sources in one document.
Figure 3: Many options are available for your embedded images.
Figure 4: Table formatting options are available as well.
The Reader
The features of the reader are just as exhaustive as the converter. What first impressed me was the full screen mode. With the press of a button, I was in full screen! Then, when I saw the autoscroll feature and the button mapping, I was sold. Another benefit you will notice immediately is the speed. Documents with images load much faster than with other readers and viewers I've used. iSilo will also open text files for your enhanced reading pleasure. Other features include bookmarks, font selection, text size, scrolling options, search, copy and more!
Also, for those interested in viewing documents on their Windows machine, a PC version of the reader is available.
Figure 5: Full screen is one of my favorites.
Figure 6: The navigation menu.
Figure 7: Scrolling options show the depth of configuration settings.
Figure 8: Any installed font can be selected.
Gotchas
Functionally, I found nothing mysterious, flawed, or buggy about either piece of software. It can take a little time to play with some of the settings to tweak it exactly the way you want it. But, to me, that's part of the fun!
As with anyone, I do have a wish list. Something I would add to every application, this one included, is a separate file (preferably, in the My Documents folder) that I can save my option settings to. Document-specific settings, such as font size, bookmarks, last position and others, are automatically saved to an iSilo subfolder in My Documents. However, none of the hardware button-specific settings are stored. Then, I could quickly load all of my personal settings after upgrading my Pocket PC. Earlier, I mentioned that I use iSilo rather than Mobile Favorites. To make it almost as simple as Mobile Favorites, I use iSiloX in conjunction with a macro scheduled to run at the same time every day. It took some time to set the macro to "refresh" the document. But now that this is set up, I can enjoy effortless synchronization and offline browsing experience. In view of that, a scheduled update would be nice. Nevertheless, I suppose I'm one of the few using it for this purpose and would be outside the scope of a document converter.
Where To Buy
iSilo can be downloaded from Handango or purchased for $17.50 (affiliate link). iSiloX converter is available as freeware, downloadable directly from iSilo.
Conclusions
I would recommend this converter and reader to anyone who likes to make their own documents and for those who spend many hours reading on their Pocket PC. I would say my reading enjoyment increased at least ten-fold using iSilo. As a matter of fact, iSilo is one of the first applications I put on my Pocket PC if I'm upgrading to a new ROM or Pocket PC. For me, this is a must have app. 'Nuff said.
Converter iSiloX and reader iSilo are power twins packing exhaustive options and superior reading on the Pocket PC, as well as other OS platforms. You can find thousands of ready-made documents downloadable immediately for reading with iSilo or you can create your own documents from HTML content using iSiloX. Some of the major features that will win you over to iSilo include: high text compression, hyperlinks, images, tables, and formatted text.
The Converter
First off is the conversion tool, namely iSiloX. The completely free iSiloX converts HTML, css, text, and Palm Doc to a compressed document for your handheld or desktop! What this means for me is that any Web site I'd like to read later on my Pocket PC, I can copy the URL and paste it into iSiloX, convert the document, synch up and I'm ready to go. It gets better....
The number and types of settings are too exhaustive to cover here. You'll just have to download it and try it yourself. To whet your appetite, you can: process or ignore all table formatting, allowing you to view a converted website without scrolling left and right; include/exclude images (JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP) from the complete Web pages, which are usually hidden on mobile Web sites and; resize images to perfectly fit the resolution of your Pocket PC, or any resolution for that matter. The result is a beautiful, compressed document that is easy to read on your Pocket PC!
Figure 1: This is the conversion tool's document list.
Figure 2: You can have multiple sources in one document.
Figure 3: Many options are available for your embedded images.
Figure 4: Table formatting options are available as well.
The Reader
The features of the reader are just as exhaustive as the converter. What first impressed me was the full screen mode. With the press of a button, I was in full screen! Then, when I saw the autoscroll feature and the button mapping, I was sold. Another benefit you will notice immediately is the speed. Documents with images load much faster than with other readers and viewers I've used. iSilo will also open text files for your enhanced reading pleasure. Other features include bookmarks, font selection, text size, scrolling options, search, copy and more!
Also, for those interested in viewing documents on their Windows machine, a PC version of the reader is available.
Figure 5: Full screen is one of my favorites.
Figure 6: The navigation menu.
Figure 7: Scrolling options show the depth of configuration settings.
Figure 8: Any installed font can be selected.
Gotchas
Functionally, I found nothing mysterious, flawed, or buggy about either piece of software. It can take a little time to play with some of the settings to tweak it exactly the way you want it. But, to me, that's part of the fun!
As with anyone, I do have a wish list. Something I would add to every application, this one included, is a separate file (preferably, in the My Documents folder) that I can save my option settings to. Document-specific settings, such as font size, bookmarks, last position and others, are automatically saved to an iSilo subfolder in My Documents. However, none of the hardware button-specific settings are stored. Then, I could quickly load all of my personal settings after upgrading my Pocket PC. Earlier, I mentioned that I use iSilo rather than Mobile Favorites. To make it almost as simple as Mobile Favorites, I use iSiloX in conjunction with a macro scheduled to run at the same time every day. It took some time to set the macro to "refresh" the document. But now that this is set up, I can enjoy effortless synchronization and offline browsing experience. In view of that, a scheduled update would be nice. Nevertheless, I suppose I'm one of the few using it for this purpose and would be outside the scope of a document converter.
Where To Buy
iSilo can be downloaded from Handango or purchased for $17.50 (affiliate link). iSiloX converter is available as freeware, downloadable directly from iSilo.
Conclusions
I would recommend this converter and reader to anyone who likes to make their own documents and for those who spend many hours reading on their Pocket PC. I would say my reading enjoyment increased at least ten-fold using iSilo. As a matter of fact, iSilo is one of the first applications I put on my Pocket PC if I'm upgrading to a new ROM or Pocket PC. For me, this is a must have app. 'Nuff said.
