Raymond Chen

Malcolm Gladwell’s book is as good as always.

I’ve been reading the book, What the Dog Saw, these days. It’s good, though the beginning chapter did confuse me with those hair style stuff.

The dog training part is informative. Since I have a dog, Gerald, who is quite willful. I know what those dog owners feel. I also know discipline is the missing part. Gerald is paying attention to us all the time, that’s so true. Not like Alpha, our cat, who only pays attention to us when he feels like it.

The second section is more illuminating. He talks about the difference between puzzle and mystery. I never gave any thought about their difference. But I did have experience of being inundated by too much information. I like the story of Enron.

I’ll definitely finish this book. Mayby consider buying a book mentioned by the author, Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story.

“Buy once, read everywhere”, I love this statement of Amazon Kindle.

I’ve used Sony Reader for a year. I chose it over Kindle because of its touch screen. Double-tap to look up words is a good feature.

Then I saw Kindler for PC, Kindle for MAC. I didn’t get Amazon’s idea until I installed Kindle for Android lately. Yes, that’s “buy once, read everywhere”. The most annoying thing of DRM is the binding to device. Digital is supposed to be read on multiple devices. What’s the point of binding to one?

Amazon knew this. It sees itself a platform, rather than a reader manufacturer. Sony is still a manufacturer. If it wants to get its slice in the ebook market share, do something. Ditch the stupid DRM.

After fooling around with the DRM-protected material of Adobe Digital Edition for some days, I guess I’ve figured out the mechanism. Here is my guess, without deep googling:

There is an Adobe ID first. It represents a user. When a user buys a ebook, e.g. on BooksOnBoard.com, a small *.acsm file is downloaded. The book is not within that .acsm file. It contains the information to verify the purchase and where to download the book. When that .acsm file is opened by the appropriate software, like Adobe Digital Edition or Sony Reader Library(which in turn calls Adobe Digital Edition), the download process is kicked started.

Before the downloaded process, the software will have to authorize some hardware first. Those hadware include computer and digital reader. I guess the Adobe ID is bound with the hardware IDs. Then when it starts to download, it send those information to the download website.  When the server receive these information, it verify with the purchase and download history data, if it’s ok, it encrypt the original content, of the book, with the Adobe ID as well as the authorized hardware information and created an DRM-protected file. This file is sent back to the user. Then the user can read this book on his authorized devices only.

There are times the book is allowed to be read on multiple, like six, devices. And it’s usually the case. Can’t imagine it can only be read on digital reader but not on the PC which is used to transfer the book. So the download server must record the authorized device ID so that it won’t be unlimitedly used.

Guess that’s it. Don’t know how close it is to the truth.

I’ve finished two fictions on my Sony Reader PRS-600. Here comes my review.

A shout conclusion would be: it’s amazing!

I talked to many friends about e-reading. Most of them suggesting traditional paperback books were still their preference. But among these people, none of them ever owned a digital reader.

It’s new experience. And it’s different. You can expect all the old reading experience is preserved.  For text-intensive book, like fictions, digital reader is already on a mature level. It needs improvement, but basically, I think it’s strength is already overtaking the weakness.

For a foreign language learner like me, the “tapping to call out dictionary look-up” feature is vital. You just can get the same convenient experience in paperback book reading.

For PRS-600, there are some improvement to be expected in next generation:

1. The response-speed must be enhanced a little bit.

2. Screen glare is a problem.

3. Built-in backlight is needed.

4. The library software should be more user-friendly in organizing the notes.

5. Why not internaionlize it before putting on shelf?

6. Touch screen can be somehow disabled to let my finger touch anywhere without turning pages accidentally

7. More shortcut key around the screen, so I don’t have to press keys twice to access a function