Cybook not working with Clevnet

[GreatBear]

Andy,

You're using a Clevnet library? That's funny - I *work* in a Clevnet library. I'm following this thread so I can tell my patrons that there is a way to get an ebook reader to work with our books.

Now, if only my KINDLE would work with our ebooks... (sigh)

[Saturn0660]

Originally Posted by ProfJulie

I just performed the procedure and checked some books out the library. It works!

There was nothing in Bookeen's email that stated that it was confidential and so I'll post the email in its entirety and the file they sent me (I include the .dat file in a zip format - you'll need to unzip the file first):

Dear Customer,

The Cybook does have an internal clock and the library borrowing system is supported.
Here is a small manual procedure to fix your issue.
This should take a couple of minutes.

1) Save the attached text file “rtc.dat” on your computer. It contains the current date/time in the “YYYY-MM-DD-hh:mm” 24h format.
2) Plug your Cybook to your computer through USB and delete all time bomb ebooks from your library (files initially transferred from your public library).
3) Copy the “rtc.dat” file to the Cybook “/system” folder.
4) Unplug your Cybook.
5) When you are back on the “Library”, switch off your Cybook.
6) Switch on your Cybook.
7) Plug the USB cable again and copy your public library titles to the Cybook (or to the SD card) “/eBooks” folder.
8) By the way, you can check that the “rtc.dat” was automatically deleted (i.e. taken into account) from the “/system” folder.
9) Unplug, when you are back on the “Library”, you should be able to open the public library titles.

Please keep us informed (if it works or if you have an error message)…

This should be a one time procedure to set your system date which will stay coherent thanks to the internal clock battery.
Of course, in a future upgrade, you will be able to define the system date from the user interface.

Best regards,
Bookeen Support Team

i couldn't get it to work... but i'll play later..

[ProfJulie]

Originally Posted by Saturn0660

i couldn't get it to work... but i'll play later..

Can you verify the build number of your Cybook's ROM? I recently updated my Cybook to build 538. Since you just purchased your Cybook, I'd think it's running this latest build already, but maybe not. If it's not running build 538, you may need to contact Bookeen about getting a link to the update to get the Cybook to this build.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by GreatBear

Andy,

You're using a Clevnet library? That's funny - I *work* in a Clevnet library. I'm following this thread so I can tell my patrons that there is a way to get an ebook reader to work with our books.

Now, if only my KINDLE would work with our ebooks... (sigh)

If you will accept the Kindle PID I suspect it will work. There is a discussion in the forum on how to set up to accept the PID. The only thing funny is a * at the end I believe. Once the PID is setup then Kindle will support DRM mobipocket files.

Dale

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Saturn0660

i couldn't get it to work... but i'll play later..

It didn't work for me either, but as ProfJulie says, that's probably because I'm still running build 476.

[ggendel]

Originally Posted by ProfJulie

I don't know why you'd want to edit the file at all? It works fine just as it is.

Only because the rtc.dat information is starting to get old. If I did it now, it would be close to a day off.

I edited it with Ultra-Edit and it seemed to be fine. Almost all software that I know would be able to deal with trailing whitespace.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by ggendel

Only because the rtc.dat information is starting to get old. If I did it now, it would be close to a day off.

First I thought that you needed to update it nut I wonder if it really matters. Maybe it works so that the time when you transfer the book to the reader is the important one and then it does not matter if the clock is off a bit.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

First I thought that you needed to update it nut I wonder if it really matters. Maybe it works so that the time when you transfer the book to the reader is the important one and then it does not matter if the clock is off a bit.

The procedure that Bookeen describe appears to assume that the books are already on the Gen3 at the time that you update the clock. That would seem to suggest that the date range for which the book is valid is contained in the DRM data contained within the book itself, and that a non-working book can be made to work merely by resetting the clock. I would think, therefore, that it's important that the clock be set reasonably accurately (to at least the correct day).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The procedure that Bookeen describe appears to assume that the books are already on the Gen3 at the time that you update the clock.

No, it does not. See point 2 and 7 in the procedure.

[HarryT]

Thank you; I'd overlooked step 2! I believe, though, that the date range the book is valid for is encoded in the DRM information within the file. It would seem reasonable that this is compared to the Gen3's clock at the time that the book is opened. I honestly can't think of any reason it should matter if the clock is changed before or after the book is copied to the device - can you?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ProfJulie

I don't know why you'd want to edit the file at all? It works fine just as it is.

Because as of now the time/date are not correct and the problem would be that the longer this goes, the less time you would actually have to read the book. So you do want it as accurate as possible to get the full time alloted to reading that time limited book.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by tompe

First I thought that you needed to update it nut I wonder if it really matters. Maybe it works so that the time when you transfer the book to the reader is the important one and then it does not matter if the clock is off a bit.

Well, we use a licensing system for our software where we can set a timeout. Changing the clock will not defeat it because the first time you run the app it encodes and encrypts the time you did that in the license file. So, if you set the date back it will notice that the last time you ran it was after the current date time.

My assumption here is that The clock was never set, so perhaps it defaulted to Jan 1, 1900 when bookeen was shipped. So, anytime you open a book it would think you've had it for 108 years when compared to the expire date on the book file.

So, I would also say, that yes, you want to set this to the correct date of when you are doing this procedure. Seems like they didn't bother with the time, they figured you won't get "that" close where you are reading at midnight on the last day. Of course, this seems to be setting the clock to noon, so it depends on when you did it, if your clock would be ahead or behind.

BOb

[ProfJulie]

Originally Posted by ggendel

Only because the rtc.dat information is starting to get old. If I did it now, it would be close to a day off.

I edited it with Ultra-Edit and it seemed to be fine. Almost all software that I know would be able to deal with trailing whitespace.

Of course! I didn't think of that until late last night when I opened up the .dat file and saw that the date stayed the same even though it was now 3/18.

So I guess anyone that wants to read library books will need to get their own file from Bookeen or use a file of their own creation if they are able to create such a file. That seems pretty limited!

But did you notice the last paragraph in the email I posted here? Bookeen intends to make it possible for us to set the date of our Cybooks ourselves? Perhaps this option will be available in the update that is promised to be released this month.....

[Taylor514ce]

Originally Posted by Saturn0660

I hear what your saying 100% but i agree with Julie... My wife enjoys just getting books to read... Not buy. I'm the same way.. I've already sent an e-mail back to booksonboard.com about sending it back and i'll sending bookeen e-mail about it as well.. My wife is bad about getting books back on time so i thought is was a great idea.. I could put it on our asus eee but i'm trying to get something small and great on batts..


Andy

Rather than returning it, should you finally decide you don't want it, you should consider offering it for sale here, in the marketplace. With such tight availability on the device, I'm sure there are MobileRead members who would gratefully jump at the chance to purchase it from you directly.

[DDHarriman]

Hi

I have opened the file with notepad and it looks to be just a plain txt file with:
2008-03-17-12:00
on it.

I figure that for today, one must just change the text to:
2008-03-18-12:00
Save the file with the same name in another folder, and do the procedure explained above using that file.

Best regards,