jetBook Firmware - Round Three

[jgray]

Originally Posted by Kralik

The apparent bug strips single line breaks from TXT. SO... it's great for Gutenberg, as they have a break after each line and two breaks between each paragraph. Not so great for normal text or the preloaded texts.

OK, I'll try to give an example of how the 0.33g firmware is currently displaying Gutenberg files. As I said, the Ectaco text files display normally. Here is what "The Art of War" looks like with a 24pt font and landscape mode.

The girls replied: Yes.

Sun Tzu went on: "When I say "Eyes front,"

you must

look straight ahead. When I say "Left turn,"

you must face

towards your left hand. When I say "Right

Notice how the extra returns that Gutenberg inserts into a paragraph defeats proper word wrapping on different sized screens.

[jgray]

Originally Posted by Kralik

Can you see the 'y' on yours?

On this firmware, I only see a slim black border, about the same size as the L/R margins. I don't recall seeing any text with the previous firmware, but I do remember two little white hash marks at about 1/3 and 2/3 of the screen width.

Originally Posted by Kralik

As for the full firmware reset -- yes, I did it, but I'm not the only one who has noticed the problem. So it's not just me.

Yeah, you're just imagining things again

[jgray]

Ok, no more testing for now. I'm going to get back to actually reading something on my jetBook. Novel idea, no?

[alxab]

Very fast reaction to criticism and bug reports. The company shows responsiveness to customers feedback. Good job, Ectaco!

[boating]

right now I mostly just want a serif font! My custom PDF's, while they look nice, are starting to hourglass every ~50 pages

[Kralik]

Originally Posted by boating

right now I mostly just want a serif font! My custom PDF's, while they look nice, are starting to hourglass every ~50 pages

Once every 50 pages, or hourglass consistently after that point?

[jgray]

Originally Posted by boating

right now I mostly just want a serif font!

Me too. And actual bold and italic. I have emailed Ectaco several times about the need for better font support. They aren't telling me what they are or are not working on, so I don't know if or when we will see more fonts.

Last night, when I installed the 0.33g firmware, one of the first things I did was look to see if any more fonts were installed. Nope. When I download a beta firmware to test, I don't know what has changed until I try it out. I have asked for a changelog with future firmwares.

All any of us can do is to let Ectaco know what we want to see in future firmware (within reason, of course). The more they hear from the customers, the more likely something will be done about it. Ectaco is no different than any other company in this regard. Customer feedback is important.

[tselling]

Will the new firmware allow the jetBook to sort by Author & Title for mobipocket and epub ebooks?

[wodin]

Originally Posted by tselling

Will the new firmware allow the jetBook to sort by Author & Title for mobipocket and epub ebooks?

Mine sorts by author and title by correctly arranging the file structure, coincidentally exactly like Calibre does it.

I use an SD card reader to load it because the jetBook doesn’t support USB 2.0, and 1.1 is really slow. I just save to the SD card from Calibre and it sets up the file folders correctly.

[alxab]

Originally Posted by boating

right now I mostly just want a serif font!

Originally Posted by jgray

Me too. And actual bold and italic.

Bold and italic -- yes. Serif font -- I don't care. I tend to read at the two smallest font sizes. I believe at the given resolution additional character details (like serifs) would only make the text busier and less readable. Maybe I am wrong... need to see it...

What I would really like to see is control over intervals between lines and paragraphs. Also, please get rid of this laughable 37.96% at the title bar. A clock or a full file name would be much more useful there. Speaking of the title bar, give us an option to hide or reveal it. At 5" screen real estate is too valuable to waste.

[Kralik]

Originally Posted by alxab

. Speaking of the title bar, give us an option to hide or reveal it. At 5" screen real estate is too valuable to waste.

You do actually have this option for PDF's. Not sure why not for other file types.

[tselling]

Originally Posted by wodin

Mine sorts by author and title by correctly arranging the file structure, coincidentally exactly like Calibre does it.

I use an SD card reader to load it because the jetBook doesn’t support USB 2.0, and 1.1 is really slow. I just save to the SD card from Calibre and it sets up the file folders correctly.

I mean being able to sort by Title OR Author like the .txt files do. Where you use the Menu and select item 4) by Title or 4) by Author.

Originally Posted by jgray

Me too. And actual bold and italic. I have emailed Ectaco several times about the need for better font support. They aren't telling me what they are or are not working on, so I don't know if or when we will see more fonts.

I have emailed Ectaco about the same thing, but have not had any response.

Originally Posted by jgray

Last night, when I installed the 0.33g firmware, one of the first things I did was look to see if any more fonts were installed. Nope. When I download a beta firmware to test, I don't know what has changed until I try it out. I have asked for a changelog with future firmwares.

Are you then one of their private beta testers? Just curious.

Originally Posted by jgray

All any of us can do is to let Ectaco know what we want to see in future firmware (within reason, of course). The more they hear from the customers, the more likely something will be done about it. Ectaco is no different than any other company in this regard. Customer feedback is important.

If customer feedback is important to Ectaco, as it should be, so is a company's acknowledgment of it.

[jgray]

Originally Posted by akira28

Are you then one of their private beta testers? Just curious.

I emailed Ectaco after buying a jetBook with some suggestions for improving the product. I also offered to help test new firmware. They took me up on my offer. I have no idea how many others are doing the same.

Originally Posted by akira28

If customer feedback is important to Ectaco, as it should be, so is a company's acknowledgment of it.

Almost all companies are very secretive about the details of unreleased products, firmware, software, etc. Ectaco isn't doing anything different, although I do think they should provide a change log with each new firmware.

Keep in mind that other than allowing me to test some beta firmware, I have no inside information about Ectaco's plans for the jetBook. As I am not under an NDA, it is no surprise that they are not divulging proprietary business plans to me.

What little information I do have comes primarily from hands on testing of the firmware. After testing, I email Ectaco my suggestions and also post here. I did get permission from Ectaco to post about my experiences on the forum. It's not much, but I contribute what I can.

There is one future enhancement that was mentioned to me in an email, but I don't have any details yet. When I know more, I'll post here, providing I have Ectaco's ok to do so. I don't want to spoil their plans by speculating on future possibilities. If you ask, I'll tell you it is a cybernetic brain implant for your jetBook

[vsalvaggio]

jgray: Thanks again for sharing this info. Much appreciated!