Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I think you're being a little harsh on the software. Its basic job is to transfer files to and from the Reader and it does that well enough. For me at least, it's rock solid. Software like that really doesn't need too many "bells and whistles".
The main feature of it which those of us who create books use is its ability to display LRF files on the PC and that's absolutely GREAT - it's a perfect emulation of a real Reader in terms of what's displayed on each page. Means that you never have a load a book onto the real Reader to check what it's going to look like. For that alone I can forgive any minor flaws the software might have.
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I disagree, I think the Connect software is poorly written. Aside from corrupting the database if it crashes while importing books, it takes an excessive amount of memory per book, leading to thrashing (and slow response) on systems with less memory if you have a large amount of books.
I haven't used the display capability of the software much - I've decided it's a bad idea to do reader-specific files, since that means if I switch brands I'll have to reconvert all my books. I am now converting everything to rtf, since that's supported by many readers and reader software, and I've found that in general (except for pictures) what I see in Word is pretty much what I see on the reader.
It's possible the eBook Library update to the software improved things a little, but it looks like the same code and takes just as long to read all the books on my SD card, so I suspect not. I'll keep my fingers crossed next time I'm doing batch conversions.
I agree with the original comment about A+ hardware/firmware and F- for the software. The device itself is great, the only complaint I have about it is very slow startup if you have an SD card with a lot of books on it. I think right now it takes 20 minutes for the circling arrows to disappear for me now every time I do something to make it reload the card, like attach it to the usb port to load a back or insert/reinsert the SD card, and this is with just 1600 RTF books on the card, and this is just a 2gb card with only 1.5gb used - I'd hate to see what it looks like with a higher-capacity memory stick.
I don't think this is a major issue though, since if you're loading books a lot you don't need a lot of books stored, and if you store a lot of books you don't need to load often - and once it's done the initial load response time is pretty good.