It might even be caused by one of those static electricity glitches or
momentary battery contact interruption, but I've had an unexpected reset to
occur at least once. Certainly there are a few reasons why this might
conceivably happen.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Ring" <ring.richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 8:30 AM
Subject: [bookport] Re: TO LOCK OR NOT TO LOCK, THAT IS THE QUESTION
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
