Happy Day!

I've got my iLiad back! It was at UPS for the last 5 days because support forgot to put the address on the shipping label (it only had my name, city, state, and zip).

It's charging and updating the software now.

The screen looks better than I remember when I first got it. The whites are very white, and the shades of grey are much more defined. I really couldn't be happier with it at this point. :)

Reading Microsoft Lit files on the iLiad

I've completed a script that will allow you to read Microsoft .Lit (Reader) files on the iLiad. It uses my port of convertlit.

Basically what will happen, is you copy the .lit file to your iLiad. You will select it from the contentlister like you would a PDF or any other document. When you do that, it will launch my convertlit script. It will explode the lit file into an OEB, and automatically create the manifest.xml with the Author's name and title of the book. It will even use the cover art embedded in the lit as an icon in the contentlister.

After that, you will need to delete the lit file yourself (I won't do it, in case something went wrong), and open the OEB with FBReader.

I've tested this with a few example LIT files I've found online. I haven't, however, tested with a DRM5 file as noted in convertlit's help document. If anyone has one of these types of files and would like me to test, I'd be happy to do so.

iRex's Community Blog

Following in the footsteps of Dell and Google, iRex has created a corporate blog.

I think this is a great idea, as it allows people to get further insight into the company and learn about things they wouldn't otherwise. As long as it's updated on a regular basis, this could be a very good thing. Especially for keeping an open dialog between the company and it's customers.

They've also added me to their blogroll, so I wanted to thank them for that as well.

I ♥ iRex!

So I got this email today:

Dear Mr. Boeglin,

Thank you for your email.

I would like to inform you that we replaced your battery. The device has been repaired and was send to you on the 11.09.2007.

Your repaired device has been send to the following address:
---
Kind regards

Technical Support Centre
iRex Technologies

They didn't mention the screen repair, but since that was the main issue on the ticket, I'm sure it was reolved since they did not say otherwise. I had shipped my iLiad last Wednesday, after it was already in the mail, I emailed iRex support asking them to look into my battery issues. I've only been able to get ~6 hours on a charge, and never receive the low battery warning. I expect to receive my iLiad today or tomorrow. With a new battery and a screen that doesn't have burn-in or excessive ghosting, it'll be like a brand new device!

I just wanted to say thanks to iRex for their great support! This is the second time it's been sent to them (first was a brick that was my fault). Both times I've had great communication and fast shipping. I know some haven't had as good of luck as I have, but I have only praise for them.

Waiting for my iLiad

Things have been pretty quiet on the iLiad front for me lately. Right now, my iLiad is at iRex's repair facility because of Screen Burn and Excessive Ghosting. I wanted to get it taken care of before my warranty is up in December.

I do have some things in the pipeline that will be pretty cool. I'm helping port and test the Feedbooks Downloader. There were a few font issues, and it needs a status bar, but overall it's a very cool program and will add a lot of functionality to the iLiad.



I'm also working on porting the updated version of FBReader with support for the .epub standard. In addition, I'll be modifying the installer so that you can open up supported books directly from the contentlister.

AbiWord and Gnumeric will be updated as well with an installer and Contentlister support.

There should be a lot of excitement after the 2.11 release.