PRS505 Firmware update: epub, DE, and reflow -- oh my!

[Oh, Why Not?]

Sony 500 users can download the new eBook Library (2.2.00.18100/BR) Firmware. They can download ePub to their computer--it will NOT transfer to the 500--but can be read (an ePub book) on their computer. As far as I've tested.

[SurgE]

upgraded my 505. Lost the "collections" on my memory stick. Lrfs are still intact though.

[BobVA]

Originally Posted by seajewel

... it seems unrealistic to expect Sony to provide a facility to solder on more memory to any customer that asks, or give a $150 towards 505 purchase for 500 trade-ins. I feel like this new firmware is an affirmation that Sony is committed to the Reader.

Sorry if I gave the impression that I expect that Sony would give me or anyone else a $150 credit. Let me try again:

1. Unlike the rest of the consumer electronics markets cited (MP3 players, etc.) the eReader market is very new , far from established and has a lot of critics and naysayers. Sometimes companies decide to take a short-term hit to establish a market.

2. It may be in Sony's interest (i.e. not just in 500 owner's interest) to keep early adopters happy, if they perceive that word-of-mouth and "what's that?" encounters are a valuable form of advertising and help to establish this market. This is a business decision that only they can make, and it sounds like they haven't made it yet. I don't think they are being coy about "looking into it". If they were sure they wouldn't be upgrading it, I think they would have found some diplomatic way to say so. Otherwise they are just delaying the purchase of a shiny new (red!) 505 by 500 owners who want the new features. I know I fit into this category.

3. If they are "selling razors", then pushing full price upgrades by offering compelling features is a good idea. If they are "selling blades", then keeping the old razors working is a good idea. Frankly I'm not sure what end of the market they are looking at.

4. [Edit - bad analogy removed]

That said, I was just blue-skying about a fragile new market and how Sony might or might not handle the difficulties associated with it. No offense or negativity intended.

Regards,
Bob

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Enola

Apologies again, I'm sure I'll sound like an idiot but how do you extract from an .exe?

Depends on the EXE and what you run.

EXEs like that are normally something like self-extracting archives. You run them, they extract themselves, and jump to an installation routine that puts stuff where it should go. Some archive utilities are capable of treating such things as ordinary archives, opening them and allowing you to manually extract the contents.

Go to http://www.7zip.org and download the current version. 7zip is a free, open source archive utility that can open and extract 7z, zip, gzip, bzip2, tar, rar, cab, arj, z, cpio, rpm, deb, lzh, split, chm, iso, compound, wim and nsis archives, and create 7z, zip, gzip, bzip2 abd tar files.

You might be able to open and extract the contents of the EXE and install things manually.
______
Dennis

[cozworth]

I thought I was going to have a problem because my laptop uses vista 64 bit...but NO! I took the firmware update with no trouble. The only thing that has been a problem is that the new library software CANNOT be loaded to my laptop....

Someday I will figure out how to load the new library software too.

But I can't complain. The reflow works excellent. I can hardly believe it!

Maybe this weekend I will get my fujitsu coal burner laptop and see howm

[cozworth]

I thought I was going to have a problem because my laptop uses vista 64 bit...but NO! I took the firmware update with no trouble. The only thing that has been a problem is that the new library software CANNOT be loaded to my laptop....

Someday I will figure out how to load the new library software too.

But I can't complain. The reflow works excellent. I can hardly believe it!

Maybe this weekend I will get my fujitsu coal burner laptop that still has XP and see what it looks like...

[pjfan281]

I downloaded and installed both the updates for ADE and Sont Library. I then downloaded and installed the new firmware for the Reader. I went ahead and transfered over an old pdf.

When I open it the text is tiny. I clicked zoom. Text looks right size now. Is this how reflow works? Am I supposed to zoom? Or is it supposed to be automatic?

Second, I noticed when I do zoom, I lose a lot of the original formatting. For example I tried an old copy or Fight Club just as a test. In the original pdf one set of line read:

Faker.
Faker.
Faker.

Once I zoom (reflow?) displays it as:

Faker. Faker. Faker.

It's minor, but in other cases it breaks to new lines midsentence and deviates from the original formatting. I just wanted to make sure I was getting the most out of it and doing it right.

[Stingo]

Originally Posted by smaulz

Had the same problem, thought it had locked up. So far, I'm not overly impressed with the update. PDFs still look like garbage unless they're strictly text (with no hard line breaks). I know I was probably expecting too much, but I really thought this would work better than it has. I guess I'll get back to manually reformatting my ridiculous collection of PDFs.

Odd. I have loaded three very different PDFs, including a photoshop book and they all looked 10 times better than before. The different font sizes are still weirdly variant but it is very nice on the eyes.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by seajewel

Yeah, I'd be upset too. But the tone of some of the complaints has gone beyond grumbling over the fast pace of technology into some really personal sony is out to screw early adopters type of tone, which is what I don't understand.

Weeeellll. Sony has done some things that have rubbed folks the wrong way in the past, so there's always a bit of ... willingness to assume the worst, shall we say? Given a couple of things they've pulled (not the Reader team people, entirely other divisions of Sony), such wariness is even understandable.

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

So, do the listed firmware improvements (such as [nonDRM'd] PDF reflow) work if you DON'T install Digital Editions to your computer?

The reflow is part of the firmware, so it shouldn't be affected one way or the other without DE. You can always do the firmware upgrade, without installing DE, and see if you can reflow a PDF.

Has anyone done such a thing yet who can comment on it?

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I guess I don't understand how epub is any different from any other site- or hardware-specific DRM scheme. If I am required to "authorize" with Adobe (which gives them permission to log your activities online and maintain all kinds of fun information about you on their databases), why is epub being hailed as "the end of e-babel"?

That's quite a can of worms, FizzyWater. The simpler point first: most folks have found with the Reader (which also limits you to 6 devices) that 6 devices is generally sufficient for most purposes, so long as you are limited to 6 devices at a time rather than 6 devices period.

As to why some think epub may be the end of e-Babel ... that's the somewhat complicated point, so bear with me a bit.

The only real way for e-Babel to fall is for a single format to become a "standard" for e-books. For this purpose it doesn't really matter which format, so long as everyone agrees upon and uses it (and it's usable). So the question then becomes, "why do we think epub is likely to become that standard?" (de facto, if not officially)

There are some things about it that make it technically a good choice. It's open in the sense that the details of the standard are publicly known. It's not "owned" by anyone, but is administered by the IDPF (much as HTML is administered by the W3). The actual way information is handled within it lends itself to reflowing, so it will work easily on multiple screen sizes.

Those are all good and important things, but in my estimation the biggest factor in its favor is Adobe.

PDF came very, very close to being a de facto e-book standard, despite the fact that it's really poorly suited for the role.** And that was with Adobe mostly ignoring the matter. The phenomenon was driven primarily by Adobe's name recognition and easy availability of the various Acrobat softwares.

With epub we have a format that has all that Adobe related horsepower, that's actually suited to the purpose of e-books, and Adobe is not only paying attention, but actively pushing. All of which makes it pretty attractive to the average user, and it's not "owned" by anyone, so that makes it attractive to the content providers. The fact that it can support DRM is a bonus the content providers, and the fact that it would be a single type of DRM is less of a burden to the average user.

That's pretty much what all the hubbub is about, in a nutshell.



** The reasons why are complicated, and you can see find exhaustive discussions on the site with a bit of searching. The big hitter is that PDF is a format preservation format. Its specifically designed purpose is to allow you to print a file on your printer and have exactly the same output I do printing the same file on my printer. Up until this reflow thing on the 505, you couldn't easily take the content text and display it on a screen that wasn't the same size (and they're usually smaller) as the "page" the file was "printed" onto, usually A4/Letter Size ... unless you have a magnifier, or microscopic vision.

[anotherchance]

Update ran smoothly here, including DE support. Grabbed a few Feedbooks and everything looks great. Whoever put those Doctor Who books up there, thanks a heap. I wish Lungbarrow could be done next.

My only gripe with the update was that they STILL don't have authors names on the BooksByDate menu. I still growl at that from time to time, but I'll live.

All in all, a great success. My few PDFs are at least legible now, and not gray!! Thanks Sony.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by BobVA

3. If they are "selling razors", then pushing full price upgrades by offering compelling features is a good idea. If they are "selling blades", then keeping the old razors working is a good idea. Frankly I'm not sure what end of the market they are looking at.

They've said a few times that they're selling books to support the Reader, not the other way round, which would translate to they're selling razors.

Of course it's the marketing folks who've done the saying, so salt to taste. For myself, I'm inclined to believe that's really what they're doing. Their actions have agreed with the words pretty well.

[BobVA]

Originally Posted by NatCh

...The simpler point first: most folks have found with the Reader (which also limits you to 6 devices) that 6 devices is generally sufficient for most purposes, so long as you are limited to 6 devices at a time rather than 6 devices period.

This is one area that Sony greatly exceeded my expectations. Although DRM-free would be better, this was surprisingly liberal compared to the scheme on the Libre.

Regards,
Bob

[JSWolf]

Not to worry, you can read DRM free ePub and PDF.

[Leaping Gnome]

For all of you Vista x64 users!

As someone else already mentioned in this thread there is a way to get the eBook software installed successfully.

1. Download the eBook software.
2. Copy it to an easy location, like C:.
3. Go to a command window (Start -> Run -> Type "cmd")
4. Navigate to where you saved it, if you saved it on C:, just type "cd\" to go to the root of the C: drive.
5. Type the name of the file and a /a switch. Since the default name has spaces you'll need to use quotes. The command should look like this - "Ebook Library Installer" /a
6. Go through the prompts and it will ask you where to save the files, this installs the program wherever you want, I just created a folder called SonyConnect on my D: drive.
7. It's all installed! Now it will not auto-create the icons for you, so if you want that, go to the next step.
8. The executable is in the folder \SonyConnect\program files\Sony\Reader\Data\bin (substitute SonyConnect for whatever you called your folder). Right-click and choose Send To -> Desktop (create shortcut). This will place an icon for it on your desktop.

All done!

[Enola]

Leaping Gnome... you = MY HERO!!!!!