Welcome to Brendon Davis

More on my BeBook

Autor brendon | 27.12.2009 | Category eBook

I like the device; I am still getting use to it and have been showing it to all my friends that enjoy reading. I have been seeing some mixed reactions, some find the concept very interesting while others are adamant that they will keep reading books because they like the feel. (I’m sure people said the same about vinyl records…)

I finally received my accessories from BeBook on Thursday; strangely they shipped several days after the BeBook reader. I was pleased to find a number of PDF books and reading resources on the SD card because the device only shipped with the User Guide. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be anything worth reading.

I ran a firmware update on the device which was a very easy process. This should be very easy for basic users to do and left all the books stored on the built-in flash intact.

On that, I’m yet to find any digital books that I am interested in reading available in Australia. The Harry Potter series, Tomorrow series & Ender’s Game series are not available for download in any eBook format. Lord of the Rings is only available in secure ePub format which the BeBook new firmware doesn’t support. This is where the Kindle triumphs, but is also its downfall. If you ever decide to use a non-Amazon device, all the books your purchased are useless. It is DRM in MP3′s battle all over again.

As for reading, in reality it takes two hands to turn the page of a regular book. I have found a few comfortable reading positions but you need to use two hands to turn the page, so I will stop complaining.

BeBook First Impressions

Autor brendon | 18.12.2009 | Category Rant, eBook

Well, I have had the BeBook for about 24 hours now. I plan to post more about it and the current state of digital book distribution in Australia. Interestingly my boss purchased an Amazon Kindle which is due to arrive this week. I plan to compare the difference between open source, offline BeBook and the proprietary format with online capacity Kindle.

Anywho, I have read about an hours worth of content so far:

• It’s light, I mean you just don’t realise how light. The protective case is heaver than the book. wow.
• Its square, I’m still trying to find a comfortable reading position. I have found Landscape is nicer but I can’t rotate txt files.
• The screen just looks like the fake phones in shops. You don’t think it moves till you press the next page button.
• LAG!!! There is serious lag wit this thing. You basically need to press the button two lines before you finish the page. It takes about that long to render the page before it even does the 1 sec screen change.
• It displays my current PDF based study material nicely. I will see how this goes moving forward.
• It will even charge off an Apple power to USB adapter. (Unlike the kindle)
• Lots of page turn buttons but it is strange to hold.

From my reading the developers for the BeBook welcome feedback and regularly release firmware updates. I plan to add my suggestions and see how it goes.

Little Green Cars

Autor brendon | 15.12.2009 | Category Rant

If you live in the Glorious state of Queensland and happen one of ”those” people that buy carbon neutral flights from Virgin Blue or carbon neutral electricity… You might be interested to know that QLD transport has affiliations with a site which gives you a rough calculation of Vehicle carbon emissions & lets you buy
carbon credits.

The site works on a “very” average calculation for emissions but as it is affiliated with QLD transport I think it is a safe purchase to reduce your impact on the environment that little bit.

Alternatively, you could just plant a tree. :-)

New version of ISA – FFTMG

Autor brendon | 14.12.2009 | Category Comms, Server, TechStuff

Well it has been a long time coming but Microsoft have finally released a new version of their awesome Internet Acceleration and Security (ISA) server. The last major upgrade was 2004 and since then the product has become a little long in the tooth. There are several new ways the internet is being used and ISA 2004/2006 in my opinion just couldn’t keep up.

Jump over to http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/threat-management-gateway/en/us/default.aspx and check out the details on Forfront Threat Management Gateway (FFTMG). Building on the new Windows Server 2008 network stack there are several new features that administrators (myself included) have been crying for:

• Support for dual/ failover internet links. (using a separate fibre service for remote access and publishing plus a DSL2 service for web access.)
• Publishing (Static NAT) rules apply to both inbound and outbound traffic. (ISA would always NAT outbound connections on default IP address.)
• Category based Access lists (requires additional licenses) to filter traffic for “Social Networking” or “Known Virus URL’s”.
• Support in a Hyper-V or ESXi or XenServer virtualised environments.
• ONLY RUNS on Windows Server 2008 x64 eddition!!!

The old ISA server team blog has been updated to reference TMG now also; there are half a dozen articles available here that may help with deployment considerations.