Second Impression; A week along - Firmware Blues

[Jack Tingle]

I've had the jetBook a little over a week now, and read a significant number of books on it.

Likes:
1) The Screen - Definitely the right technology, I love it.
2) Battery Life - Several days between charges; good enough.
3) Controls - Well laid out with several hand positions to avoid tired fingers.
4) Page Numbers - The recent "How Long Is That eBook" debate doesn't apply here. jetBooks give page count and %Progress. I suppose I could complain about a lack of word count progress or no character count information, but that seems petty.

Dislikes:
1) Slow response at odd times - probably due to limited processor power, slow bus, or laggy firmware (more on that)
2) Lack of features in the renderer - I miss my Windows Mobile freedom of choice for viewing software. Don't like how Mobipocket handles X; switch to microbook (or Resco View, or Word Mobile, or ...). Specifically, I don't like the lack of internal hyperlinks, for example Mobipocket tables of contents. There are some other, more minor missing items.
3) Poor font support - 2 sans serif fonts, period? Really? That's primitive. Now, as it happens, I like Verdana, and it was designed for this kind of use, so it's not a hardship, but it is a ... a lack.

Overall, it's a good device. Ectaco needs to keep updating the firmware and adding features to the renderer. In particular, they should contract someone like Gower Point to port something like microbook to the device.<--(free advice, worth every penny)

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[PDowns]

Your talking way over my head, all I want to do is just download a book of modern fiction?
Where and How? In simple terms for a layperson. Please!
I have had my beautiful jetbook 2 days.
Would love to read something other than this forum....

[wodin]

Yup, Yup, Yup! My thoughts exactly!

Your item two under "likes" reminds me of that old Klingon proverb: CRO-MAAT!

Roughly translated: "The perfect is the enemy of the good enough!"

[Jack Tingle]

Originally Posted by PDowns

Your talking way over my head, all I want to do is just download a book of modern fiction?
Where and How? In simple terms for a layperson. Please!
I have had my beautiful jetbook 2 days.
Would love to read something other than this forum....

Easy-peasy. In baby steps, it's:

1) Download an unencrypted (no DRM) .mobi, .prc, .html, or .epub ebook file to your computer from whereever in the Internet you get such things*. Remember where you put it! Write the location down if you have to.
2) Connect the USB cable to your computer. At least the big black plug has to be engaged. The red plug just provides extra amperage for charging the jetBook (I think). Then connect the jetBook to the small black plug.
3) Turn the jetBook on if it isn't already. I tend not to hot-plug expensive hardware.
4) Wait a few minutes. The jetBook screen will eventually show a drawing that looks like a computer hooked to a jetBook.
5) On your computer, go to whatever kind of listing of storage devices it has. Windows will have a window "My Computer" or "Computer", for example. You'll see a new drive. That's the jetBook internal drive. (If you have a card in the SD card slot, you'll see two new drives.) Select it and open it. In Windows, you'd double click the icon for the drive.
6) Navigate to where you want to put the file on the jetBook drive.
6a) Open a window (or whatever) to the place you saved the ebook file.
7) Copy** the ebook file to one of the folders in the jetBook drive.
8) Safely unhook the two computers. See your particular computer's procedures.
9) Go to book location in jetBook.
10) Read.

Alternate method (summary): Do 1) above. Get an SD card. Plug it into your computer's SD card reader and drag the file to the SD card. Remove the SD card and plug it into the jetBook SD card reader. Wait a while. Do 9) above. Eventually you'll see your book. Do 10) above.

* I like Baen's Free Library and Webscriptions website, Fictionwise Multiformat, and Project Gutenberg. YMMV
**How to copy, etc.: Windows and Mac people would drag and drop. DOS and Linux folks would type something like "copy fubar.prc R:\foldername". Pick your religion. I learned to program on an Olivetti-Underwood Programmo 101. IMO, computers peaked with Vaxen accessed thorugh MS-DOS Tek emulators. Everything since has been baroque ornamentation.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[PDowns]

If I print that out and follow directions carefully I will be a happy reader!
Thank you so much!!
I truly am a coward I have to be led by the hand in most situations.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

I learned to program on an Olivetti-Underwood Programmo 101. IMO, computers peaked with Vaxen accessed thorugh MS-DOS Tek emulators. Everything since has been baroque ornamentation.
Jack Tingle

CRO-MAAT!

[PDowns]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

Easy-peasy. In baby steps, it's:

1) Download an unencrypted (no DRM) .mobi, .prc, .html, or .epub ebook file to your computer from whereever in the Internet you get such things*. Remember where you put it! Write the location down if you have to.
2) Connect the USB cable to your computer. At least the big black plug has to be engaged. The red plug just provides extra amperage for charging the jetBook (I think). Then connect the jetBook to the small black plug.
3) Turn the jetBook on if it isn't already. I tend not to hot-plug expensive hardware.
4) Wait a few minutes. The jetBook screen will eventually show a drawing that looks like a computer hooked to a jetBook.
5) On your computer, go to whatever kind of listing of storage devices it has. Windows will have a window "My Computer" or "Computer", for example. You'll see a new drive. That's the jetBook internal drive. (If you have a card in the SD card slot, you'll see two new drives.) Select it and open it. In Windows, you'd double click the icon for the drive.
6) Navigate to where you want to put the file on the jetBook drive.
6a) Open a window (or whatever) to the place you saved the ebook file.
7) Copy** the ebook file to one of the folders in the jetBook drive.
8) Safely unhook the two computers. See your particular computer's procedures.
9) Go to book location in jetBook.
10) Read.

Alternate method (summary): Do 1) above. Get an SD card. Plug it into your computer's SD card reader and drag the file to the SD card. Remove the SD card and plug it into the jetBook SD card reader. Wait a while. Do 9) above. Eventually you'll see your book. Do 10) above.

* I like Baen's Free Library and Webscriptions website, Fictionwise Multiformat, and Project Gutenberg. YMMV
**How to copy, etc.: Windows and Mac people would drag and drop. DOS and Linux folks would type something like "copy fubar.prc R:\foldername". Pick your religion. I learned to program on an Olivetti-Underwood Programmo 101. IMO, computers peaked with Vaxen accessed thorugh MS-DOS Tek emulators. Everything since has been baroque ornamentation.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

Well I think I did everything write except it looks encrypted? Well nothing that I can read anyways. It was a prc, file from mobipocket and I downloaded it to my PC then copied it to the G drive. The 2 books show up in the jetbook file and you can read the book names but not the pages are just code I think. So what did I do wrong?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by PDowns

Well I think I did everything write except it looks encrypted? Well nothing that I can read anyways. It was a prc, file from mobipocket and I downloaded it to my PC then copied it to the G drive. The 2 books show up in the jetbook file and you can read the book names but not the pages are just code I think. So what did I do wrong?

Search for the threads on mobidedrm.py.

BOb

[Kralik]

Bold statement, pilotbob.

[Jack Tingle]

Originally Posted by PDowns

Well I think I did everything write except it looks encrypted? Well nothing that I can read anyways. It was a prc, file from mobipocket and I downloaded it to my PC then copied it to the G drive. The 2 books show up in the jetbook file and you can read the book names but not the pages are just code I think. So what did I do wrong?

Yes, those are encrypted. I'm afraid you have 3 choices. Read them on your PC using Mobipocket's reader, read them on your smartphone or PDA using their reader, or stripping the DRM and transferring them to your jetBook*.

The problem is that Mobipocket, the website, only sells encrypted (DRM = Digital Rights Managment) versions of ebooks.

Sorry,
Jack Tingle

*Which is illegal in the US, maybe, probably.

[PDowns]

So how do I strip them?
If it said prc file why was it a DRM file?
Do all the website say one thing and mean another?

[Kralik]

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, and is a system that can be put 'on top' of many files to lock them down to one device or another. Unfortunately, thus is the state of the eBook industry. People are trying to find ways to work around it, for example, to remove the DRM from a PRC file.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by PDowns

So how do I strip them?
If it said prc file why was it a DRM file?
Do all the website say one thing and mean another?

Well, here's the conundrum: We're not allowed to give explicit directions on how to use the software that allows this behavior, due to copyright laws and restrictions.

However, do some searches on Google and you'll be pointed in the right direction. Think "strip," "DRM," "Kindle," and "mobi."


Don

[wodin]

Originally Posted by PDowns

So how do I strip them?
If it said prc file why was it a DRM file?
Do all the website say one thing and mean another?

See PilotBob's post in this thread, #8 I believe. Better hurry though before a Mod spots it!

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by wodin

See PilotBob's post in this thread, #8 I believe. Better hurry though before a Mod spots it!

You do realize I am a moderator, right? I neither gave explicit instruction on how to remove DRM nor did I directly link to such a tool. Certainly the discussion of DRM removal and the tools is ok on the forum.

BOb
-Moderator-