BeBook Mini

Ever since I saw Sony’s PRS-600, I was searching for my e-book reader to call my own. I wanted something cheaper and similar in size. I did like other Sony devices - PRS-505 and PRS-300, but they had one big flow - they weren’t available in Croatia.

Looking for alternatives, I came upon quite a few devices and my choice was divided between Jinke Hanlin v3 and v5. While v3 had little bit bigger screen (6 inches), I decided upon newer v5. It has smaller screen (5 inches) but it also features faster processor and newer display controller.

Jinke also offers re-branding of Hanlin eReader V5 so same device can also be found under name of BeBook mini, Astak 5" EZ Reader Pocket PRO and lbook V5.

Since there is BeBook mini available in Croatia (Sveznadar bookstore), I decided upon it. It will definitely make my life easier in case of warranty.

Device is fairly light (160 g) and it fits hand quite comfortably. There are three separate sets of next/previous buttons so there is no problem finding comfortable position - even if you are left-handed.

Screen has great resolution (600x800 at 200 dpi) and it is quite confortable to read. If you have light pointed right at it, there is some reflection, but it is quite manageable. As with all eInk devices, there is black flash upon page change but I got quite used to it after a while. Epson controller and fast processor (400 MHz ARM) are doing quite nice job at minimizing time between page turns.

I was quite surprised that my device came with last firmware update already installed. While procedure for installing firmware is not too hard, this is quite a nice gesture from manufacturer. Great thing to note here is that boot loaded is in separated area of flash and there is almost no possibility of bricking your device with bad update. If something goes wrong, just repeat update.

I will not list all supported formats here since list is quite extensive. I will only note that there is no support for newest docx (Microsoft Office 2007) file format. Older doc files are supported so conversion is not too hard. Some formats are supported by Adobe’s engine (ePub and PDF) and others are displayed by CoolReader so there are some inconsistencies in user interface. Nice touch is selection among quite a few fonts already integrated within system or uploading custom one.

Bookshelf interface supports folders as main sorting mechanism and I like this quite a lot. Only issue I found with it is displaying system folders - fonts, Digital Editions and Restore_PC folders are always shown and there is no way of hiding it. Since one entry is already used for Recent files, only four entries will be visible on first page. This means lot of “next page” movement - especially if you happen to have Work folder that happens to be on far end of alphabet.

I find this device quite comfortable to use. It may not be easy to use for non-technical person, but it is getting better and better with each firmware update. If it continues this rate of development, we will have a treat in a year. For those with little bit more free time and courage, there is also SDK available. Customization may commence.

[2010-09-13: Unfortunately my device got broken - all analysis point to screen glass damage. I am open for advice regarding which device to choose next.]

[2010-11-26: I opted for Kindle 2 as my next device. So far I like everything except it’s size - it could lose keyboard.]

Ice Is Not Liquid

I have read post on TSA blog that left me puzzled.

It lead me to conclusion that bringing ice through airport is allowed: “Ice is a solid. Therefore, ice is permitted through the checkpoint…”. Yes, this is from same organization that forbids you to take bottle of water through gate.

While I think that whole fluid restriction policy is stupid, this brings it to totally new level.

P.S. Additionally, they say that empty bottles can go through. Of course (from my own experience), you cannot bring 1 liter bottle with gulp of water through (since it is not empty). Probably reason is that this gulp makes whole bottle volatile…

Setting SPF Records With Google Apps

SPF records are great thing. In theory they should help fight spam and prevent forgery of your e-mail address. However, it may cause troubles if you do not configure it properly.

Did you ever saw this:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

    example@example.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 553 553 See http://spf.pobox.com/why.html?sender=jmedved%40jmedved.com&ip=209.85.218.215&receiver=he-dc2-l3.avalon.hr (#5.7.1) (state 14).

There are two reasons why this may go unnoticed.

First one is that not many domains implement these checks. If domain does not check your SPF records, it will not block your e-mails. Almost all your e-mails will pass without any trouble to most of your destinations. That “almost” part is problematic.

Further, even if domain blocks your e-mail, it may opt not to report error. This is worst of all since neither your recipient will receive message neither you will receive error. It is great when e-mail just doesn’t work.

If you use Google Apps, you need to modify your SPF records to include “aspmx.googlemail.com”. However, there are some unofficial reports that this does not work all the time. It seems that you need “_spf.google.com” in your SPF record also. Since DNS takes ages to propagate, I opted to include both of these at once. Better safe than sorry.

Additionally, every SPF record has “all” mechanism in order to decide what to do with e-mails that are not caught by any other mechanism. This is for most of hosts written as “-all” which causes fail for all hosts not in list. Google Apps requires this to be “~all”. This is so called soft-fail. Your final destination will not be affected by it - it will only happen during internal mail routing.

How final record should look like, it depends on your particular configuration. However, I will give you what I added in TXT record:

v=spf1 a mx include:aspmx.googlemail.com include:_spf.google.com ~all

Your requirements may very, but not by much.

P.S. If you do not have access to your DNS records or you just want to check whether your change has propagated through DNS system, it is helpful to use SPF Query Tool. It is online and hassle free.

My Documents on SD Card

Although I have 256 MB of ROM on my mobile device sometime that is not quite enough. I have habit of recording audio notes quite a lot. This is problematic since you cannot save those files directly on Secure Digital card. All recording goes in My Documents and it has to be transferred manually. It is quite easy to bring yourself into situation where your 8 GB SD card is empty and your ROM is full.

Unlike desktop, there is no procedure in which you can change location of “My Documents” folder. So I did next best thing - renaming of “Storage Card”. Because of Microsoft’s localization efforts, this folder has name that can be changed.

With registry editor go to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMemory”. In that key there is value named “Folder” (if it is not there, create it). Change value of it to “My Documents”.

Second (and final) step is to use file manager to rename “My Documents” into something else (e.g. “My Old Documents”). After you do this, reboot. Once booting is completed, you should have whole content of your SD card inside of “My Documents” folder.

If you forget to rename original “My Documents”, Windows Mobile will, after reboot, detect conflict and card will end up being “My Documents 2”.

Downside to this is that you restrict your ability to use your mobile without card in. As soon as there is no card, Windows mobile will recreate “My Documents” and thus you will need to repeat whole procedure.

This will also happen if you use “Disk Drive” transfer mode (Settings -> Connetions -> USB to PC). If this setting is enabled, every time you insert your device into USB, SD card is disconnected.

Additionally, when you use ActiveSync (or Windows Mobile Device Center), “My Documents” will not be synchronized any more. I seems that synchronization procedure handles SD card differently that other folders.

However, having few GB available makes up for all of this.

Understanding AES

How to understand Advanced Encryption Standard (also known as Rijndael)?

Moserware knows.

Google Sync - Now With Push

Google Sync had support for synchronizing both contacts and calendar events over ActiveSync for quite a while now. Finally support is extended to e-mail account.

Instead of IMAP account that gets “pulled” for updates every X minutes, real “push” e-mail is supported. This both speeds up process of getting actual e-mails and decreases cost since TCP/IP traffic is almost non-existent when there is no new e-mail waiting.

Whole thing integrates perfectly into Windows Mobile as direct replacement for Exchange Server and only thing still missing is support for tasks. I am sure that this is coming sometime in the future.

Creating Location-Aware Applications for Windows Mobile 6.5 Devices

I gave presentation at Mobility Day 2009. Since I was traveling from Berlin this morning (started at 5:00) I was quite tired, but presentation went mostly fine.

As promised, here is code download:

• samples

There are few prerequisites:

1. Your emulator needs to have Internet connection.
2. You need to have GPS support in Windows Mobile emulator. FakeGPS will do.
3. Do not forget to put your Bing Maps user ID and password in Program.cs. If you do not have developer account, you will need to request it.

P.S. As a bonus, download also contains desktop application that speaks with Bing Maps. It is much faster to test various setting this way.

P.P.S. NMEA stands for National Marine Electronics Association and not, as I said, “Nautical something”. :)

Enjoying Physics

Richard Feynman is well known bongo drum player who happened also to be a great theoretical physicist. His areas of work included quantum mechanics and electrodynamics.

Thing that separates him from great deal of big names in Physics is his passion for explaining complex things in simple manner.

Microsoft Research collected some his lectures (The Messenger Series given at Cornell University) in Tuva project. These lectures are definitely something everybody should take a look at.

Lectures are:

• Law of Gravitation
• The Relation of Mathematics and Physics
• The Great Conservation Principle
• Symmetry in Physical Law
• The Distinction of Past and Future
• Probability and Uncertainty - The Quantum Mechanical View of Nature
• Seeking New Laws

Firebathero Humiliated

Firebathero is player most known for his rituals after a win. Those rituals usually include dancing, throwing rice, going for a swim or just having fun.

He is both loved by fans and hated by his opponents for this. Usually, this act of his goes unpunished, but sometimes he gets taste of his own medicine.

Bellow is firebathero’s game against Much, a teammate of sAviOr. While this game seems like normal protoss vs terran, it is what happens as game is nearing to end that makes it special. Revenge is sweet.

Here are all parts (1, 2, 3 and 4).

P.S. Yes, I know that this video is quite old, but I am living in past. :)

Is Valencia Race Worth Watching?

Michael Schumacher will not rejoin Formula 1 circus because of neck injury sustained earlier this year.

I am Ferrari fan but I never gotten to like Raikonnen much and with Massa not driving, there is no point in even watching a race.

I think that I will go out on ice-cream…