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Old 11-14-2008, 07:20 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by tsgreer View Post
... 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--
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).

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Originally Posted by tsgreer View Post
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...
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!
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Old 11-14-2008, 09:58 AM   #17
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Originally Posted by orwell2k View Post
Since RTF uses the FBReader implementation, this makes RTF and FB2 the best choices for a lot of user functions and great display/readability
Wrong!
In all official Hanlin V3, BeBook, lBook firmwares TXT, FB2 and RTF is handled by CRengine that's also basis for CoolReader 3.x. You can check it Yourself in Setings->About, look for the Viewer version V3.0.(here comes the date of CRengine).
FBReader (that's also the main Viewer for OpenInkpot) was ported to V3 by lunohod (he got an lBook V3 for it). As stated by lunohod the port of FBReader for official firmwares won't be updated.
Experimental versions of CREngine have basic EPUB and HTML.

Last edited by MikusR; 11-14-2008 at 10:00 AM.
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Old 11-14-2008, 10:52 AM   #18
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Originally Posted by wallcraft View Post
I agree that stripping DRM for personal use on ebooks that you bought harms no one. However, adding DRM circumvention to firmware made available to everyone would certainly place the authors and distributors in legal jeopardy in the US and perhaps other places.
I did not meant that the program should strip the drm. I meant that the implementation should work exectly as in the Cybook. You register your identifier and buy a book that is only useful on your reader. I do not see why this should be problematic.

Or is this not possible since you cannot generated the identifier?
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Old 11-14-2008, 11:07 AM   #19
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Originally Posted by orwell2k View Post
I...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)....
Yeah, the SD Card version is pretty unstable. When it works, it's great, but last night it froze up a couple of times. You make a good point about flashing the firmware, I may try that.

It's just that I'm not that much of a computer guy so I was scared. But hey, I've had it for two days now, so what the heck. I'm gonna try it today over lunch.

So to go back to the original BeBook Firmware, do I get that from somewhere (I couldn't find it on their site) or will the firmware updates that they release do the trick?
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Old 11-14-2008, 11:07 AM   #20
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I wonder if Mobipocket has any patents on their algorithms. If not, then an alternative implementation _might_ be legal.
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Old 11-14-2008, 11:25 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe View Post
I did not meant that the program should strip the drm. I meant that the implementation should work exectly as in the Cybook. You register your identifier and buy a book that is only useful on your reader. I do not see why this should be problematic.

Or is this not possible since you cannot generated the identifier?

The PID is generated from the device ID. Thus, you will be able to read exactly the same DRM'ed books as you can with the original firmware.
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Old 11-14-2008, 11:33 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by orwell2k View Post
Hear, hear!!

The only thing I would add is that FB2 is the format, period! I have used it for years on my PC and PDA (Acer n10) and continue the tradition now that I have a BeBook.

In fact, the excellent FB2 support (FBReader) is one reason I got the BeBook rather than something like the Sony. The OI project also has a great implementation of FBReader, so I tend to convert all my library of books to FB2.

If it wasn't for the cancer that is DRM I'm sure an excellent open format like FB2 would become the de facto standard for the industry.

It would have a much better chance if FBreader would support tables. The format is another XML definition about like all the others. ePUB has a standards committee behind it and is likely to be better moving forward. FB2 doesn't have too many eBooks available in English yet.

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Old 11-15-2008, 06:20 PM   #23
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So to go back to the original BeBook Firmware, do I get that from somewhere (I couldn't find it on their site) or will the firmware updates that they release do the trick?
That's correct - just download the latest "update" (in this case it should be the newupload.rar update file just released ot replace the mobi2 update, which had some problems) - http://www.mybebook.com/update/newupdate.rar.

These "updates" are in fact new versions of a complete firmware load, so you just load the latest and you're good to go. If you don't like OI after a while then just go back to the BeBook firmware. At the moment OI is more limited for formats, but maybe nicer for interface/options. I'm hoping we get a version 0.2 to try soon!

BTW, apologies for my mistake on saying the FBReader was used for RTF - I guess the FBReader and CoolReader interfaces look the same because of their development.
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Old 11-26-2008, 10:11 AM   #24
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Wrong!
In all official Hanlin V3, BeBook, lBook firmwares TXT, FB2 and RTF is handled by CRengine that's also basis for CoolReader 3.x. You can check it Yourself in Setings->About, look for the Viewer version V3.0.(here comes the date of CRengine).
FBReader (that's also the main Viewer for OpenInkpot) was ported to V3 by lunohod (he got an lBook V3 for it). As stated by lunohod the port of FBReader for official firmwares won't be updated.
Experimental versions of CREngine have basic EPUB and HTML.
Hi there,

I just wanted to clarify this point. My BeBook has an entry for the Viewer version (V3.0.081113 - obviously V3.0 dated 13 Nov 2008) and an entry for FB2 parser (V1.20.080602). If the Viewer is the CRengine and it handles TXT, RTF and FB2, why do they include the FB parser as well? Wouldn't that handle FB2? Or does it parse FB2 for viewing by the Viewer? Thanks.
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Old 11-26-2008, 08:35 PM   #25
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The mobi support is getting better, but the choice of fonts still seems to be too limited. Would be nice if it picked up on the fonts dir in the root of the SD card that the fb2 reader supports (unless there's another way to get it to use custom fonts?)

Also, when using arial or times, the smallest font size is still too big along with the space between lines.

Still it's good to see improvements. I've plenty of books converted to fb2 to keep me going for a while, so I'm hopeful by the time I'm done with those that we'll have great mobi support and similar improvements to .lit/.epub would be fantastic.

I'll echo those statements made by others in this thread though, the fb2 format/reader is still _the_ format of choice for the Hanlin/Bebook. The sooner publishers get away from DRM, we'll stand a better chance of seeing an open standard adopted and supported by many readers and no need to convert books to our readers format

Last edited by JoeD; 11-26-2008 at 08:37 PM.
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Old 11-27-2008, 05:24 PM   #26
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The mobi support is getting better, but the choice of fonts still seems to be too limited. Would be nice if it picked up on the fonts dir in the root of the SD card that the fb2 reader supports (unless there's another way to get it to use custom fonts?)

Also, when using arial or times, the smallest font size is still too big along with the space between lines.
Actually, what would be very nice would be a unified config management for all the various reader apps on the V3: have them all search first the SD card and then the internal flash memory for a config directory. This directory should contain a) a simple text file containing settings for font face (maybe even separate entries for the user's choice of serif and sans-serif fonts, or at least entries for bookshelf font and book font?), font size, interline spacing, interparagraph spacing, justify (left, right, both) and perhaps a few other things, and b) a fonts subdirectory where you can dump the TrueType fonts to use. If you want to replace the boot and shutdown screens, the image files should also go into this directory.

In other words, have all user-specific configuration available uniformly for all apps from one well-defined place. Having one config file for each reader app instead of a single one for all of them might also be acceptable, as long as they are all in the same place.

It should further be possible to change all these settings from the settings menu in the bookshelf and in the various apps.

After fixing the annoying crash (red light) and hang/reboot (green light) bugs, this is my biggest wishlist item for improving the V3, now that the Mobipocket reader seems to have reached a usable state.
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