Quote:
Originally Posted by tsgreer
... It's actually a program that greatly expands the hardware by allowing it to do what the original designers should have (IMHo) done but didn't for whatever reason. Maybe they didn't see a need. Maybe they didn't have the talent. Maybe they didn't have the time. Whatever the reason, I'm really happy that the Inkpot guys stepped up.
But since weird things can go wrong if I install it incorrectly and my warranty wouldn't cover the damage caused by any wierd things, then I think by definition it is hack-ish--
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I agree that the designers definitely "should have" done more, but I feel you can say that for just about any of the devices around. Not sure of their reasons, but sometimes it's difficult to know exactly what users need, so maybe getting an OK device out there is fine, as long as they are committed to improving it - which they seem to be at the moment, but we'll see if that continues into the coming year.
You don't need to really worry about causing problems with the BeBook, because apparently you can't "brick" it. If anything goes wrong with the firmware load or the actual system you're running, just reflash the firmware and it's fixed.
I too was concerned, so ran OI 0.1 "Live" from my SD Card, but it was way too unstable. So I flashed the firmware and it was much nicer. Worth trying, and as I said, you can't really "brick" the BeBook so any problems are resolved with another firmware flash back to the original BeBook firmware (e.g. their Mobi2 version of Nov 2008).
Quote:
Originally Posted by tsgreer
But I don't want it to appear that I am disrespecting the BeBook guys. They are working fast and furious over there and seem to be doing their best to make it a great machine. I think it's a great effort all around and I'm happy that there are so many e-book reader devices out there...
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Well said... the BeBook guys have done well so far. I think they still have plenty to do - Mobi needs to improve a lot more to really make the BeBook a hot device for the average consumer, as they will just want to buy a Mobi book (yes, probably cursed with DRM) and then read it - hence the native Mobi reader
must be better. If they can improve that over the next few months, with all the other format support the BeBook is excellent.
BTW, not sure I agree completely with you on the earlier HTML and TXT comments - I cannot compare the Sony (as I don't have one), and the BeBook rendering needs a little more work, more display options, etc. But I have also found the display of these docs is very source dependent - some files display well and others not so good. I have found some simple cleaning up of TXT files often helps (e.g. removing forced CR/LR characters except between paras), and sometimes you can clean up the HTML files by running them through some standardisation filters, but that is a bit of a hassle. CHM also displays quite well on BeBook (IMHO).
Since RTF uses the FBReader implementation, this makes RTF and FB2 the best choices for a lot of user functions and great display/readability. I'm waiting for the BeBook guys to get Mobi up to that kind of standard!