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Originally Posted by Greymage
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.
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I've seen Ebook Library 2.0 take up to 68K. That's not that bad really. I've never had Connect crash and I've had my 500 since sometime in April. I've just installed Ebook Library 2.0 so I cannot comment yet on it's stability overall.
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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.
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It is not a bad idea to make reader specific file in LRF. In fact, it's a very good idea and I will tell you why. If you use Book Designer to make your LRF files, you will have the html0 file which is the source file. You can use BD to create the LRF file. Then if someday in the future you get a device that uses say MobiPocket, you can save out a Mobipocket format PRC. If you use libprs500, you will have the lit, rtf, pdf, html as source still to use to convert to something else. The reading experience on the reader will be better with LRF as you'll have the ability to have a ToC and images.
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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.
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When you update your SD card are you keeping it in the reader and then using Connect to move content onto it or are you taking the SD card and putting it into a card reader to move the content? If you are using a card reader, try installing books on the SD card while it is in the reader and connected to the computer using Connect. I personally have not really use the SD card to store books. I've been finding the internal memory has been enough for me. But I can give it a try and see. I have enough LRF files I can toss on an SD card to test.
But to be honest, I don't think you are giving yourself a fair chance. You are blaming the software for things it doesn't do. It is designed to do what it does and it does it very well. It runs fast enough and I've never had it crash once. Sure it can take 68K (or maybe more) ram. But it will not go crashing.
I am transferring now a lot of books to the reader via the USB to the SD inserted into the 500. So I'll know soon how it responds. I had 42 book internally. I now have 313 book and 122 pictures. It took less then two minutes to read from the SD card once i pulled out the USB cable. So my advise to you is to put the SD card into the reader and use Connect or Ebook Library 2.0 to transfer the content to the SD card. It actually makes thengs much faster then it would if the reader had to do the work.