Free Text Books

I stumbled upon a site offering free text books for high school subjects, including A Levels, O Levels and IGCSE. I'd been looking for ebooks designed for IGCSE courses that my granddaughter will be studying when she enters Grade 10 in July. I found text books for five of the courses that she is studying: English, Mathematics, Business Studies, ICT and Modern History. Unfortunately, these textbooks are not from Cambridge University Press as the school requires but are instead from Hodder Education. They seem just as good and are free, as opposed to paying A$40 to A$50 each for the school mandated books. Here is the URL: https://www.gceguide.xyz/e-books

In a country like Indonesia where the cost of these sorts of text books is very burdensome, it seems perverse to require parents to expend hundreds of dollars when perfectly acceptable, free alternatives are available. Admittedly, the books are not paper copies but it would still be cheaper to ask parents to buy a cheap tablet on which to read the ebooks. One advantage is that students would then not have to lug around heavy textbooks in their backpacks.

Nonetheless, it is useful to me because I found a number of A level Mathematics textbooks that I've now downloaded and added to my already extensive collection of e-textbooks. For example, this advanced level Statistics textbook should be helpful as I'm currently embarked on a revision of this topic.

My new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

I wasn't expecting to acquire a new handphone any time soon but suddenly I did and with a little encouragement from Desy I took the plunge and so far I've been pleasantly surprised. Initially I was only wanting a phone with WiFi but in addition to this, the phone has 3.5G HSPDA, touch screen, TV-out and GPS. The camera and video capabilities are impressive. Essentially, it offers iPhone performance at a much lower price.

As the name suggests it's music oriented and music sounds wonderful through my earphones which fortunately can be connected with the standard jack unlike my previous Nokia N73. I was surprised to find the MobiPocket Reader doesn't currently support the phone properly but after some searching I came across a product here that does the job so I'm off and reading now. This beginner's guide to the Nokia 5800 has also proved very helpful.

The new phone should prove its worth in Shanghai because I can now connect to the Internet at WiFi hotspots and via HSPDA once I find a provider in that city. I can also tether it perhaps to my laptop if there is some delay in having ADSL connected in my apartment. In short it dramatically improves my options for Internet connectivity while allowing me read ebooks, take good quality photos and videos, listen to music and even watch video clips downloaded from YouTube. I can even make and receive phone calls with it.!