Dual firmware announcement

[Godzil]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If the keys were interrupt-driven, rather than polled, would you expect the significant problem of missed key-presses that the early Gen3 firmware had to have occurred? It sure looked as if they were being polled at too long an interval, and that they fixed it by reducing the poll interval at the expense of a shorter battery life!

But even if it's interrupt based, the key can bounce and/or the hardware have a problem. and I think that the battery life loss was not related with the key driver.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Godzil

But even if it's interrupt based, the key can bounce and/or the hardware have a problem. and I think that the battery life loss was not related with the key driver.

Ah, remember me the good-old system lessons

[Godzil]

That's one of my full time job working on such things

It could be boring when you stay nearly 1 month a stupid hardware bug

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Godzil

That's one of my full time job working on such things

It could be boring when you stay nearly 1 month a stupid hardware bug

Definitely boring. Hardware bugs should be outlawed or something.

I suddenly realized that currently I spend most working hours working on code (for an autonomous helicopter) that is "polled" (statically scheduled) and do not use interrupts.

[Godzil]

Ho i'd love to work on such a mobile robot

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Really ?
If bookeen had said "I don't know", we wouldn't be whining about "promised" stuff, or delayed update, because we wouldn't know a think about it.

Yes, that's one of the reasons why I say "I don't know" wouldn't make things worse. If we weren't expecting any updates, an update would be a pleasant surprise. If they were sure they will be able to deliver, I understand why they announced firmware updates - but then they should continue to announce the problems they're facing. If their customers knew why Bookeen isn't releasing the firmware, there would be less whining as well.

[roncri]

At this point I've given up on Bookeen. If they ever produce a firmware with the folder support they promised I'll upgrade my cybook but I'm already looking for a new reader. I'll never buy another Bookeen product again.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by roncri

At this point I've given up on Bookeen. If they ever produce a firmware with the folder support they promised I'll upgrade my cybook but I'm already looking for a new reader. I'll never buy another Bookeen product again.

Why would you go looking for an other reader ? Your cybook still works right ?
And it would be stupid to get a new reader just for folders now as the cybook will be updated for that.
Unless you have other reason for a change, don't waste you money

And once again "we will" , is to take "as things are now, that's what we want to do, and how we expect thing to go" , not a "we promise".
Don't take any word from any company as granted unless it's actually done. Who know what can go wrong.

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

I saw my broken screen on Friday evening, had them on phone on Money evening,to ask them why my mail had no response. Said response came up the next day. That's not what i would call slow.

Why did you call them? On the one hand you tell everyone here that they just have to patient and Bookeen will answer all our mails eventually, on the other hand you call them just for not receiving an answer on the next business day.

From personal experience I know that whenever I come to work I am greeted by a pile of mail arrived between when I left on Friday and Monday morning. So I would be rather lenient with them not answering on a Monday. Plus I would have given them *at least* a week before I started complaining about no answers...

You have them on a tight leash

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If the keys were interrupt-driven, rather than polled, would you expect the significant problem of missed key-presses that the early Gen3 firmware had to have occurred? It sure looked as if they were being polled at too long an interval, and that they fixed it by reducing the poll interval at the expense of a shorter battery life!

I go with Harry here, the symptoms make it look very unlikely that it could be interrupt-based

[EowynCarter]

Why did you call them? On the one hand you tell everyone here that they just have to patient and Bookeen will answer all our mails eventually, on the other hand you call them just for not receiving an answer on the next business day.

Because i wanted to make sure my mail did arrive, that i hadn't mistyped the address or something. Auto-response are nice to tell that.
And finally, because my reader was total broken. It's one thing to wait for a firmware, an other to wait for your reader to be back so you can go on reading the book you where reading.

Yes, I was disappointed when the firmware didn't come. But then what ? I can still read. There are more things more worth worrying about than an update. What i paid for is a reader that reads mobi, and don't have folders. Bookeen update it ? So much the better. But that's just an added bonus.

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Why would you go looking for an other reader ? Your cybook still works right ?
And it would be stupid to get a new reader just for folders now as the cybook will be updated for that.
Unless you have other reason for a change, don't waste you money

And once again "we will" , is to take "as things are now, that's what we want to do, and how we expect thing to go" , not a "we promise".
Don't take any word from any company as granted unless it's actually done. Who know what can go wrong.

I don't know what wording they used in French but what you describe is companies telling you "we plan to". That means, like you said, "currently it looks like it but it's not a promise and plans can change at any time"
"we will", on the other hand, is pretty certain...

But there's no real use splitting hairs over words. It's a fact that they plan to release a new FW (at least they do at the moment) but it's also a fact that they are never going to be able to give us a date which they will stay true to (for that they would need a project plan), so all we can do is wait.

As for communication, I would not give a date but post a small snippet of information about their progress on their blog. That would go a long way for customer satisfaction as they have a feeling for what's going on and don't have to constantly bug customer service with mails asking them about the FW. 15 minutes per week should be fully sufficient to write 3-5 lines of text about that week and even if there is no more than "Tests this week have shown that this nasty bug is still not resolved under certain special circumstances but it is not possibleo reproduce these situations with any consistency" that would give us a very good feeling of what to expect/not to expect in the near future...

[Snuffi]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Because i wanted to make sure my mail did arrive, that i hadn't mistyped the address or something. Auto-response are nice to tell that.

hehe, I told them in December 2007 to get an auto-response system as their customer service time is wasted by having to tell all the people complaining by mail/phone that "yes, we got the mail but it's not been processed yet". customer service time is too precious to waste on things a computer can do on it's own ;-)

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Snuffi

I don't know what wording they used in French but what you describe is companies telling you "we plan to". That means, like you said, "currently it looks like it but it's not a promise and plans can change at any time"
"we will", on the other hand, is pretty certain...

Pretty certain. Not 100% sure.

hehe, I told them in December 2007 to get an auto-response system as their customer service time is wasted by having to tell all the people complaining by mail/phone that "yes, we got the mail but it's not been processed yet". customer service time is too precious to waste on things a computer can do on it's own ;-)

Yeap

[Godzil]

Originally Posted by Snuffi

I go with Harry here, the symptoms make it look very unlikely that it could be interrupt-based

But why do you think theses bugs are related ? Maybe bookeen try something on that firmware update that totaly failed on the power managment but are totaly not related with buttons.

And explain me a thing, How can you poll a key when your device is sleeping and the only way to get wake the device is to generate an interrupt?

Since all eInk device stay for the majority of time in (deep) sleep mode, explain me how you will poll a key when the CPU is off