Memory cards and internal memory

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The only eInk reader on the market (that I'm aware of) which does have folder support is the iLiad.

I agree, stupidity is universal.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Valloric

They definitely tested the unit with the card full with gigs and gigs of e-books, and to think no one thought "this makes the card practically useless" is simply ridiculous.

You haven't got your Reader yet, have you?

Try putting "gigs and gigs of books" on a memory card, and see how long the Reader takes to index it (go for lunch while it's trying to do it; it might have finished by the time you get back). The Reader is pretty self-evidently not designed with this in mind!

The only real use for a large memory card is storing MP3 files; it just plain doesn't work with thousands of books on it.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You haven't got your Reader yet, have you?

Try putting "gigs and gigs of books" on a memory card, and see how long the Reader takes to index it (go for lunch while it's trying to do it; it might have finished by the time you get back). The Reader is pretty self-evidently not designed with this in mind!

The only real use for a large memory card is storing MP3 files; it just plain doesn't work with thousands of books on it.

I said it hadn't arrived yet in the very first post in this thread.

And yes, I know that indexing will take time. But if I put all those books in and plan to update the card with new books once a year, I find that grinding through that long and arduous process is acceptable... or am I getting this completely wrong, and the Reader indexes books every time it's turned on?

[JSWolf]

With the 505. ypu can use Collections on a memory card. But you need to load content on the memory card via the 505. And you cannot delete that content other then the same way you loaded it.

if you use collections, do not just hook the 505 to a computer and delete any content that are part of a collection.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

With the 505. you can use Collections on a memory card.

I've read on this forum that "Collections" let you organize things nicely, but it was said (in several places) that this can only be done for the internal memory. The model number wasn't specified (I guess this was before the 505 arrived on the market).

If what you say is true, then my problem is solved. Thank you for the advice.

[HarryT]

Valloric,

Really all I can suggest is that you try it when you get your 505. Many of us started out with the aim of having our library on our Reader (I formerly had a PRS-500 myself before I got the Gen3); I don't know of anyone who's stuck with it. Honestly, the whole process of selecting books is just too slow and awkward with thousands of books. Collections can make things easier, but the problem is that the Reader indexes the whole thing every time you connect to a PC, just in case you've changed anything.

By all means try it, though; perhaps you will find that it works OK for you. Will you let us know what you find, please, once your Reader arrives?

[JSWolf]

Collections work very nicely. Inside a collection, you can order the books how you want. And it makes finding something a lot easier.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by HarryT

By all means try it, though; perhaps you will find that it works OK for you. Will you let us know what you find, please, once your Reader arrives?

Oh by all means, I will.

And thanks for all the advice and input you all have been giving me.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Look at the typical home computer and you'll find that people tend (on a Windows machine) to put everything in the "My Documents" folder.

My Documents is the home directory for the logged on userid. Windows happily creates folders beneath that, like My Pictures, My Music, My Videos, and My Webs, so the idea that folders are anathema doesn't hold.

(Not that clueless users aren't a problem: I've encountered folks who rely on MS Office's practice of keeping track of the last few files worked on, and have no idea where their documents actually live...)
______
Dennis

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not sure that I agree with you. Implementing a simple folder browser isn't difficult. Simply display the contents of a folder and have two different icons to represent files and folder. If you "select" a book, open it; if you select a folder, move down a level and display its contents. A flat list is considerably more work, because you have to keep track of the actual location of everything you're displaying, allow for duplicate names in different folders, and so on.

Yes, but it still is more work than implementing reading of all files in the sub directories and displaying them in a flat list. Keeping track of names is trivial. The user interface part of the folder UI is much harder to get right.

[gwynevans]

Also, it's not as if just using the internal memory of going to greatly limit you in terms of how many books you can load - I think I've currently got upwards of 250 or so loaded on mine without using any cards.

Maybe I ought to spend more time reading? :-)

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It is almost without doubt the case that Sony have not implemented folder support because this is a device aimed at non computer-experts and many less-knowledgeable computer users get very confused by folders. Look at the typical home computer and you'll find that people tend (on a Windows machine) to put everything in the "My Documents" folder. Implementing folder support would probably have resulted in large numbers of support calls from people complaining that their books have "disappeared".

Companies like Sony spend lots of money doing market research; the way the Reader is the way it is (reading but not displaying folders) is very likely because that's what they found that people wanted.

The Reader is not alone in this; the CyBook Gen3, Kindle, Pocket PC devices - they all work in this way, showing the contents of folders in a "flat list". There has to be a good reason for that, given the massive amounts of money these companies spend on product testing and market research.

We (on MR) don't represent the typical user of these devices; they are aimed at the NON-expert.

I fully believe HarryT's explanation. My beef with Sony is that they haven't produced an expert-mode setting for those of us who can cope with folders or other ways of organizing large numbers of items.

If not folders, then how 'bout the obvious multi-level expansion of the 10-way chop they included for the 505? First you push button one for the "A-B" authors, then button five for "Alston-Azurite," then... Three button pushes should get you to any of 1000 books!! And it should work this way for viewing by title, by author, by collection (at least).

I don't insist that this be the default mode of operation. All I want is a way deal with large numbers of books for the expert (or crazy?) users who really want to do that.

Xenophon

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

All I want is a way deal with large numbers of books for the expert (or crazy?) users who really want to do that.

Xenophon

I reaaaaaaaaly hope we get some basic support for large numbers of ebooks in the next firmware update... if I'm not mistaken, that should be pretty soon, right?

*gasp* Imagine if we get file operations too...

[tgharold]

I think if I could wish for one thing in the update, it would be the ability to copy a book from the internal memory to one of the memory cards and vice-versa.

In the meantime, I'm going to stick with using a bunch of 1GB SD cards (probably 6) since they're only about $6 each now. Which I think is a better solution then having a single massive SD/MS-Duo card. I just wish the Memory Stick cards were a lot cheaper.

[Mike's Place]

After using my 505 for two months I'm in complete agreement with HarryT and tgharold, the processor and data bus in the Sony Reader is still too slow to support large numbers of books on a card. I have thought that my reader was frozen at times because it takes so long to reindex after copying large numbers of files.

I've purchased a bunch of small capacity cards (for a few bucks each) and I'm organizing them topically. For example: One card is for books on mathematical analysis. On that card I have collections such as 'functional', 'real', 'complex', 'banach', 'hilbert', etc. I can put 50 or so files on a card that way and it is not too upsetting to do an update.

I still have not found a card holder that I like - something soft sided that fits in my reader case.

Mike