Read PDFs on your iPhone in Safari
I’m in the middle of a programmer’s paradigm shift that, frankly, most of the Windows development world took 7 years ago. I’m switching from Classic ASP to ASP.NET.
This of course has me searching for books on learning ASP.NET, a programming language is like a foreign film to me. I can figure out what’s going on, and know who the main character is, and more or less what they’re trying to accomplish. But I can’t tell if he’s whispering sweet nothings to his lover, or asking his sister to bring over some 10W-30 for a quick oil change. In a nutshell, I get it, but not really.
Luckily, I found an eBook on Amazon for sale which describes in just under 40 pages what the big deal is about ASP.NET, how it’s different, and why I should care.
However, herein lies the dilemma: I don’t like slowly working my way through a PDF on my laptop in bed, and I sure am not bringing it into the bathroom with me. So, I turn to my favorite eBook reader as the best solution at hand … my iPhone.
I’ve read books on my iPhone before, but a PDF… this is new territory. So I googled my way to a few solutions to see how the people who write about things get on reading other things when they’re PDFs, on an iPhone.
Jailbreak/SSH/install PDFViewer app
Too much work. I’m looking for an easy solution and the inherent problem with jailbreaking your phone is that every time you upgrade the firmware, you have to reinstall ALL of your apps. Lame. And I don’t want to have to use SSH to zip files to my phone. I want to just have the damn thing be available, and not lose EVERYTHING just because a firmware update came out. Which leads us to our next solution…
E-mail myself the PDF in an attachment
This seems like it would be easy-cheesy-1-2-threesy, but now my PDF’s only available in portrait mode. Great if you want to swipe left-to-right, up-and-down, and work your index finger harder then that day in 6th grade when you thought nobody was looking and you just wanted to breather a little easier. NEXT.
Google Documents
I can’t believe I didn’t come up with this one right out of the gate. Upload your file to Google documents, and view it in glorious landscape mode in Safari. Done and done. It’s free, and you can even e-mail Google Docs the PDF/DOC/RTF/XLS/whatever if someone sends it to you. Oh, exuberance. Oh, exquisite WIN.
I’m off to read my ASP to ASP.NET pdf now, instead of just writing about how I’m going to read it. Hopefully, this will keep my nerdy appetite sated until my Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 with C# book arrives on Friday.