News from Bookeen about firmware upgrade

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Moonraker

That really proves how we all have different tastes. I loved Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, it's one of my favourites. But I hated Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and found the writing style irritating and repetitive.

The one thing I wish for in the Cybook is to be able to read when the battery is re-charging.

& also delphidb96, I did state it was a very popular book. As far as I know, I'm the only person who didn't like it. Of course I also dislike Ray Bradbury's work even though I love SciFi and he is very popular. When I was in college, we had a SciFi book club. With only one exception, all English and Literature majors in the club loved his work and all engineers hated it.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But why would it? It's certainly never done so in my 6 months-odd of owning it. Even when I had the annoying bug of the machine rebooting or hanging when looking up words in the dictionary, it still remembered what page it had been on!

Might this be related to the issue that some people have with losing bookmarks, I wonder? A dodgy SD card? Corrupted file system?

I had this problem once or twice, but like ProfJulie, I don't have it when I either copy directly to the SD card with out syncing or remember to "safely disconnect" the Cybook.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

"Wow! You really ought to read this ebook! It's only 250 kilobytes in size!"

What have kilobytes got to do with it? Let's not muddle the water...

Originally Posted by delphidb96

"I'm going in for life-preserving surgery where I have a 39% chance of dying on the operating table. I think I'd be better off skipping this 1.49MB opus in favor of these five 300KB quickies."

Works for me. :

Derek

Good luck!

[tompe]

I just noticed that the progress bar does not show percentage of page number at all. It seems to show the percentage of the file length. Which explains why it was totally useless for a lot of short stories I downloaded and explains some other observations (strange indications when havin PG licene or CC licence in a short story).

So you cannot look at the progress bar and see how many pages you have read.

[Striking Claw]

I really like my Cybook.
None the less their are some areas of impovement.
As for too high expectations, I think if you deliver a device with a 2GB SD Card people will expect a feature that lets you handle such a card full of eBooks and having a feature "goto page..." where you have to enter a page number, without displaying a page number when reading a book ist not a very smart combination.

I'm also one of those users who experienced the bookmark bug. This problem is solved since I use a different SD Card.

Of course I'm looking forward to the new firmware, not because I can't live with the current version, but because I think it might transform a good gadget into a great one.

Currently I use my Cybook to read novels. It's not a big issue to page through my library after having finished reading a whole novel, even with several hundred eBooks on my SD-Card. But with some kind of efficient library management (folders/goto page), I would also add some reference documentations to my library, which I don't read from start to finish but to look up certain issues from time to time. Therefore such a feature would enhance the usefulness of the cybook for me.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Striking Claw

I would also add some reference documentations to my library, which I don't read from start to finish but to look up certain issues from time to time. Therefore such a feature would enhance the usefulness of the cybook for me.

I had to remove my reference books and documents since they just took place in the library. I also like to have all the books I have read on the Cybook but that is not possible now since it destroys the navigation.

[tribble]

This is a really strange thread. But here are my 2 cents

First, i want pagenumbers.
Second, i want the progressbar in percentage in the library view.
Third. i want to be able to hide books in the library, that i have read.
Fourth, i want to sort books by percentage read.
Fifth, i want links to external files to work, and HTML view should be improved.

Other than that, i am very happy with my CyBook.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by tribble

This is a really strange thread. But here are my 2 cents

First, i want pagenumbers.
Second, i want the progressbar in percentage in the library view.
Third. i want to be able to hide books in the library, that i have read.
Fourth, i want to sort books by percentage read.
Fifth, i want links to external files to work, and HTML view should be improved.

Other than that, i am very happy with my CyBook.

I think a progressbar with a (switchable) percentage-complete/pages-read label would make sense. That way, for those who simply cannot live without page numbers, they'd have them. IOW, leave it with a progressbar with three labeling options: no label, percentage, or pages-read.

I'd get behind the whole 'hiding the read books' idea except that it would probably be better to have the Delete button working so one could just delete them when the reader is finished.

I could seriously get behind working external links. If one has an 'each-chapter-is-it's-own-html-page' ebook, one *has* to convert to mobi because the html version can't work under build 538.

Derek

[cmbs]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I wrote and asked Bookeen support what the status of the upgrade was, and got a reply about 2 minutes later (!) as follows:

Two minutes huh?

I begin to suspect you are on the Bookeen payroll, or maybe you're a stockholder. It would certainly explain a few things.

[tribble]

Originally Posted by cmbs

Two minutes huh?

I begin to suspect you are on the Bookeen payroll, or maybe you're a stockholder. It would certainly explain a few things.

I dont think so, he just got lucky I am a retailer and i sometimes wait for more than a day for an answer

Originally Posted by delphidnb96

I'd get behind the whole 'hiding the read books' idea except that it would probably be better to have the Delete button working so one could just delete them when the reader is finished.

I do not want to delete the books. I just want to hide them. And on a future version you could save readinginformation depending on the user. So i and my wife can read the same book and not get in each others way other than hardwarewise

[cmbs]

I want the cybook to ALWAYS remember my place in a book when I leave the book or turn off the reader.
I want the dictionary to ALWAYS find a word if it's in there.
I want my pc to ALWAYS recognize the cybook when it's hooked up, not only when it's completely charged.
I want the cybook to ALWAYS read a file it can read sometimes.

As far as page numbers - it's already calculating the number of pages; it's not that big of a jump to show you what page you're on and the number of pages, or at least to give you the option of displaying the page number. It will help find your place when it isn't saved. I like the progress bar and the page number. In a real book you can tell about how far you are into the book, the progress bar replaces that in the electronic book.

[cmbs]

Originally Posted by tribble

I dont think so, he just got lucky I am a retailer and i sometimes wait for more than a day for an answer

Right. Well if he's a plant, spreading the gospel of the greatness of bookeen all over mobile read land, he's not going to admit it now is he? Defending him doesn't change the facts, whatever they may be, regardless of how many of you choose to do it. (Nor does suspecting him.)

[tompe]

Originally Posted by cmbs

As far as page numbers - it's already calculating the number of pages;

I am not sure it is. I jumped to page 50 in _1632_ and then paged forward 17 paged and got to a page with "Chapter 4" on it. Then I tried to jump to page 67 but had to page back 5 pages to get to the page with "Chapter 4" on it. So the pagenumber jump is not working at all.

It seems that nobody have used the jump to page seriously since nobody has noticed that it is not working.

[lmarie]

I always bookmark and return to the library before shutdown, and have never had any bookmark problems.

I don't have many books on the reader. I'm not using an SD card. Everything is working fine, especially since Harry told me how to back out of the dictionary reliably (use the side button!.)

Here's something though about the page number issue that nobody has mentioned: sometimes reading a pbook I'll know that I have a total of say 350 pgs. (I may even have flipped back to check, especially if I'm aware that other stuff is added on at the end.) When I'm on page 340 (I read mysteries mostly) I know the denouement is going to occur over the next 10 PAGE turns. I've found it to be harder to judge how close, exactly, I am with the slider, especially if there are other things tacked on at the end like reviews or those publisher comments or author biography, etc. The last book I read hit the end before the slider ended, and it seemed abrupt. In a pbook I would have been mentally winding down.

That said, I know this isn't a major issue. For me, for anywhere except for the very last few pages, the slider works fine.

Lelah

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

I am not sure it is. I jumped to page 50 in _1632_ and then paged forward 17 paged and got to a page with "Chapter 4" on it. Then I tried to jump to page 67 but had to page back 5 pages to get to the page with "Chapter 4" on it. So the pagenumber jump is not working at all.

It seems that nobody have used the jump to page seriously since nobody has noticed that it is not working.

Mobi devices don't do pagination - it's simply an "estimate" based on file position. That's why on devices which DO show the page number, (eg the iLiad) you can reach the final displayed page number and still page forward a few times before you reach the end of the book. This has been reported several times on the iLiad forum. It's yet another reason that page numbering isn't terribly useful; they aren't "real" page numbers.