John's Blog

For quite some time now Tati and I have both been using Dropbox to sync files between multiple computers. Recently Tati has been running low on space in her free Dropbox account and said she wanted to upgrade to the premium version that has more storage space. I have no problem with this and looked at Dropbox’s options. I remembered a friend telling me about Spideroak and I also went to their website to compare the two.

On paper Spideroak looks great. For $100 a year you get 100 GB instead of Dropbox’s 50 GB. Spideroak offers backup and sync modes. Dropbox only offers sync and with 40+ GB of data this can be a very long processes. Also, Spideroaks selective sync makes it a much better choice for installing on low storage space systems. Spideroaks backup also lets you backup multiple computers. Another really nice feature of Spideroak is how it handles privacy. It encrypts your files locally and send the encrypted data to their server to be stored. This way Sideroak never sees your data, they never have your password, and only you can decrypt it. Like Dropbox it also does versioning of your files so you can revert changes.

Just looking at the features Spideroak looks great. It does a lot more than Dropbox, you get more for what you pay and the privacy / security is beyond what the average person needs. However, Spideroak falls flat in execution.

Since Spideroak does so much more than Dropbox it is a little more involved with configuration. Dropbox is super simple. You tell Dropbox what folder you want to use as your Dropbox sync folder. Everything in that folder will be synced with the service and you will see files that were added on other computers appear in that folder. Spideroak has a desktop application you have to use for specifying what folders you want to backup and Sync.

The desktop application is where Spideroak starts to show its rough edges. Dropbox integrates right into Gnome and Windows Explorer giving you a very organic indication of what it’s doing. The tray icon tells you if it’s syncing. Each file in the file browser tells you its status. Spideroak does not have this integration. You have to rely on their desktop app to see what is happening. This isn’t terrible except the desktop app is a clunky, horribly complicated, confusing and ugly thing.

You have two options when backing up with the desktop application, basic and advanced. However, they are not well integrated into each other. Switching from one to the other will wipe out your settings. So if you have it set to backup your desktop, and pictures then switch to advances that is lost and you will have to reselect everything in the advanced mode. Even more frustrating is, as far as I could tell, advanced mode only let you select directories while basic only let you select media types. Combining the two would be helpful.

Another issue with the GUI is simply how complicated it is. There are tabs across the top for different and within each tab there are more tabs. Visually it’s very cluttered. Also, they are using their own custom “skin” for the application so it will never integrate with your desktop. Confusing and ugly. As Apple has shown the look of your application is just as important as how well it works.

I also took a peak at the web GUI and it is disappointing. Dropbox’s web interface is full featured. You can pull back previous versions of files, see how much storage space you’ve used, upload files, and share folders. Spideroak’s web GUI let me see a list of files and download them. I’m hoping I was accessing it wrong but it just wasn’t very useful.

Sync is what I really care about and backing up other files would have just been a very nice extra for me. Setting Spideroak to sync was not an easy process. First I went to the Sync tab and was told it can’t Sync. It wanted me to setup a backup first. So I selected a folder to backup. Going back to the Sync tab it would now let me create a Sync. Here is where it got confusing. Selecting a new sync gave me a set of input boxes labeled Folder 1 and Folder 2. Clicking the chooser next to them brought up a list of backups I had created. The instructions in the application said to select a folder on computer one and a folder on computer two. Not understanding how only letting me choose backup locations relates to folders on my computer I trued to the Spideroak help forums. After reading the first five or so threads on the forum I deleted my Spideroak account. Every thread had comments about sync not working. It wasn’t just people having issues setting it up either. One of the comments was by a developer basically saying, “We know it’s broken and we are working to fix it. Don’t worry it will work at some undetermined point in the future.” I see no reason to use, let alone buy, a service that advertise a feature that is unusable simply because they say it might work at some point down the road.

Overall Spideroak was not easy to use, and it did not work properly. The features it claims are exactly what I want but that isn’t enough. The features need to be polished and throughly tested before I can recommend Spideroak. I only used it for about an hour but that was enough time for me to decide to cancel my account and uninstall it. Even though I didn’t use it very long first impressions are important and an hour was more than enough time to waste on this piece of software.

Tags: backup, dropbox, review, spideroak, sync.

Background

My wife bought me an Astak EZ Reader Pocket Pro For Christmas this year. This device isn’t my first or even second ebook reader. It is now my third. The first a Sony PRS-505 having been commandeered by my wife. The second is a Cybook Gen 3 which due to the firmware update shortly before Christmas might stay my primary reading device.

Price

The Pocket Pro (PP) retails for 199 USD and US residents can purchase it at the the EZ Reader website. Mine came with a 2GB SD card, serviceable leather cover, usb cable, AC adapter, and the usual marketing / user materials. All this makes it the best deal I’ve found for ebook readers in the 5″ size.

Hardware

The PP is a 5″ device and uses an eInk screen like most ebook readers. I did not find the 5″ screen to be too small. It is a good balance between portability and readablility. It does cause a few more page turns than with the larger devices but it was not cumbersome in any way. Overall found the size to my liking.

It comes in a variety of colors and feels good in your hands. The paint gives it a rubberized texture. It’s light while still feeling solid and sturdy. Visually it isn’t the best looking device but the buttons along the bottom work well enough for navigation. It is very similar to how the Sony (non-touch) readers work. However, I do think Sony, having put the buttons next to where they correspond to the screen, makes it a bit more intuitive than matching the number to the button as is required by the PP.

One area where I felt the PP’s hardware design was problem is with the thumb wheel along the right hand side. I had issues using it to turn pages. It would often turn more than one page. It is also a hard plastic nub and after using it for awhile my finger started to hurt. I soon stopped using it and only turned the page using the buttons.

Firmware

One thing that I really like about the PP is how easy it is to change the firmware. There are a number of companies selling branded versions of the device. It is really a Hanlin V5 made by Jinke. The various companies that sell the device all have their own versions of the firmware that deviate to different degrees from what is produced by Jinke. The LBook has one of the more customized firmwares. I have tried it and found that it is a bit on the usable side because the majority of it is not in English. While there are a number of firmware options I’m going to focus the remainder of this review on the firmware available from Astak as of this writing.

Bookshelf

It works. That’s the nicest thing I can say about it. The only thing it does is list all folders in the storage location. You select the folder and it opens it. When you get to a book you want to read you select it and it opens. On the surface this doesn’t sound so bad but compared to other devices (the Cybook and PRS-505) it is terrible.

When listing folders it lists all folders. Even system folders that should and do not contain books. Also, it does not read any metadata such as author or title. You only have the folder and filename to go by. There are no tags, collections, genre views or custom sorting. Selecting books is a slow, cumbersome and painful process.

Another issue I have with the bookshelf is it tries to force the use of an SD card. It displays the SD card and the main memory separately. It also defaults to the SD card when ever the device is turned on. I’ve gotten used to the combined view other readers offer and I don’t care if the book is on the SD card or the main memory. I just want to be able to get to my book quickly.

Fonts are another thing I have an issue with. I like the fact that users can include their own fonts. You can also set a font as your default font so you don’t have to change it every time you open a book (this doesn’t actually work, see the EPUB Rendering section). However, the only way you can add your own fonts is with an SD card. They can only be read from an SD card. There is no way to add your own fonts by putting them in the main memory. I have no idea why this is the case but it is an annoyance.

The bookself falls flat but it’s not the main place a person will be. Reading books is the main purpose of the device. My ebook library is mainly in two formats. .txt and .epub. Lets talk about how well it works with reading these formats.

TXT Rendering

One major thing it gets right, in my opinion, is justified text. It does a pretty accurate representation of the text. Another thing it does well is you can change the font size easily. Page turns happed very quickly. Much quicker than my other readers which was a pleasant surprise.

However, it does do some fancy auto detection of components and renders them differently. Words are often hyphenated and span two lines. This is without regard to where or what comes on the second line. Many times the last two letters and the period will appear alone on the second line because it is the end of the paragraph. This causes the text to become disjointed and ugly.

EPUB Rendering

Just like with TXT rendering it is very accurate and just like TXT rendering this is also a problem. It’s so accurate that you cannot change the font. Only the font size can be changed. I tried reading two EPUB files with it and found both to be unreadable.

Harry Potter’s Bookshelf by John Granger was the first EPUB I tried. Upon initially opening it, the text was too small to read. Increasing the text size to a reasonable level made it possible to read the text. However. the margins increased as well. The book has small margins included but to have the text at a reasonable level the margins ended up taking up a quarter of the page, each top, bottom, left, and right. This made the screen essentially a small little window with text. The text being justified only allowed for a few words per line with large spaces between them.

Page turning with Harry Potter’s Bookshelf was completely contrary to how wonderful it is for TXT files. With this book, turning the page was very slow and it didn’t always work. 3 out of 5 button presses wouldn’t register. The light lit up and nothing happened. To make the page turn I had to start holding down the button until the page changed and if it didn’t change after a few seconds I would let go and hold the button down again.

The second book I tried was Word War Z by Max brooks. It doesn’t even open. This is not an issue with DRM because it had been removed.

So far the two books I have as EPUB that I want to read cannot be read on the PP. Those same books open and render beautifully on both the Cybook and the PRS-505.

Overall

The PP is disappointing. The hardware is nice; I really like the 5″ size. However, the poor bookshelf, the poor rendering, and the inability to even open some books makes it pretty much unusable. I’m going to keep looking into new firmware releases but until I can actually use it to read books it’s not much more than a poor substitute for a paper weight.

Tags: ebook, epub, ezreader pocket pro, gadgets, pocket pro, reveiw, txt.

Robert B, who is Astak’s Director of Bus. Devl., posted a blog entry about user replaceable batteries. I mostly agree with him that they are a benefit to consumer electronics. I mostly agree because I don’t see them as a positive in every case. I posted the following on his blog as a comment but I wanted to post it here as well. This is in response to the statement that reviewers don’t get the idea of user replaceable batteries.

It’s not that most reviewers do not get the idea of a user replaceable battery, it’s that it really isn’t a selling point to most people. There are three reasons I can think of as to why a user replaceable batter does not matter.

1) Sealed in causes the device to be cheaper to produce and thus cheaper for the consumer. This leads into point two.

2) The device is not seen as a long term investment. This is very reminiscent of how Apple positions the iPod by inciting consumers to upgrade to the latest release. In one or two years the device will be replaced with a newer model. As someone who is looking to buy my third ebook reader for the third year in a row I haven’t had to worry about the battery wearing out and needing to be replaced.

3) Worries of availability. While it is very easy to buy a spare battery now what about in 5 years from now. Chances are the product will not longer be produced as the company has moved on to better and cheaper technology. 5 years from now obtaining a replacement battery can easily be impossible or cost prohibitive.

Tags: batteries, ebook, electronics, gadgets.