[bookport] Re: TO LOCK OR NOT TO LOCK, THAT IS THE QUESTION

  • From: "Richard Ring" <ring.richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 08:30:50 -0600

I find this interesting.  I have carried the Bookport in my shirt pocket
for over two years now, often it is locked, often it is not.  Not once
have I ever seen those two keys pressed simultaneously so as to cause an
unwanted reset.


-----Original Message-----
From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Brian Buhrow
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 3:27 AM
To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: buhrow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookport] TO LOCK OR NOT TO LOCK, THAT IS THE QUESTION


        Hello folks.  I confess to being a bit nervous about starting a
debate
on this list, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about this issue,
and I
realize that I could go either way, so I'm interested in what others
think
before I float a change request on this list.
        As many of you know, pressing the 2 + B keys simultaneously
resets
your bookport to its factory default settings.  Did you know, however,
that
this key combination still works even when the unit is locked?  When I
first discovered this fact, I thought, "well, that makes sense, if the
unit
is mis-behaving, it's useful to be able to reset it regardless of
whether
it's locked or not."  However, on a couple of occasions since, I've
locked
the unit while playing, dropped it in my pocket for easy listening and
carrying, only to have something bump the keys of the unit in such a way
as
to trigger the magic reset option.  This is, to say the least while
listening, a rather disconcerting event.  Upon further reflection, I
realized that the two keys which need to be pressed to cause a reset are
in
a vertical line when juxtapose to each other.  And, so, it began to
occur
to me that this iis a fairly likely scenario.  If a straight edge bumps
you
which happens to press the center line of keys while you're listening,
even
for a brief second, all bets are off.  You're resetting the unit, and
you'll have to pick up reading at the point where you began your most
recent reading session, rather than at the point the unit reset.

        I don't know about anyone else, but I find this behavior
somewhat
annoying.  So, I began to think, and I came up with three possible
solutions to the problem, which is where the debate begins.  Below are
my
three ideas.  What are other's thoughts on this issue?


1.  Leave things as they are, living with the not unlikely event that
you'll stop your reading session on occasion by resetting the unit
inadvertently.

2.  Change the behavior of the firmware such that reset requests are
only
honored when the unit is unlocked.  The idea here is that if the unit is
really and truly crashed, keyboard input probably doesn't work anyway,
and
so a power cycling, i.e. battery pull, is in order afterall.

3.  Change the sequence of keys used to reset the unit.  I'd suggest a
4-key sequence, like: 4 + 6 + A  + C.  This idea stems from the
observation
that I've found that if the unit is dropped on its back, even a short
distance, the weight of the keys impacting the unit as they stop causes
them to be activated.  Further, I've noticed that the keys which seem to
be
activated most are those in the center of the keyboard.  I attribute
this
to the notion that the keyboard flexes most in the middle, and that this
causes more motion between the keys and the board behind them on impact.
By utilizing multiple keys at the edge of the keyboard to accomplish a
reset, the likelihood that a reset could be triggered by dropping the
unit
is much lower.

        Am I just particularly picky, or have others noticed this
problem,
and, if so, do they have thoughts about it?

-thanks
-Brian

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