A View from the Heitz

Having spent a good deal of time setting up my iLiad, there are a few things every new user should know. 

1. Best thing to do is to start off by reading the Quick Start Guide and User Manual eBooks on the iLiad.
2. Then setup your My iRex account via your computer Web browser and configure your Wireless network access on the iLiad. 
3. If you have Windows Vista, don’t even bother installing the iLiad Companion Software.  You can access the device directly as a drive.  If you want to back it up you will have to copy it manually.
4. The only software you will want to install on your computer is the Mobipocket Desktop Software.  It will recognize your iLiad and sync books and feeds to the Mobipocket folder under books.  Unfortunately, everything sits under the “Books” button then Mobipocket Books folder–even news.
5. The News button is pretty useless right now, not sure when we can expect to get content over the WiFi for the US.  According to the iRex Web site, it looks like there are a few international newspapers that provide content delivered directly to the device via the WiFi connection.  However it could be that the 2nd Edition of the iLiad is just to new and some of the features will be added over the coming months.
6. Project Gutenberg is a good source for eBooks.  The best option is HTML format and importing through MobiPocket software.  If you pull a book in text format you won’t get chapter navigation and may have display issues caused by carriage returns that prevent proper paragraph text flow.
7. There is a good community on MobileRead.com that has figured out how to do a lot with the iLiad but it does require a bit of digging.
8. You need to get Developer Package after you have setup your My iRex account.   It’s not documented in any manual but will download and install on your iLiad by using this link https://myirex.irexnet.com/user.php/developer.   Posting from MobileRead Forums for reference is http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12322.
9. FeedBooks.com’s iLiad Download software, currently only available on community threads, may just be the savior of the iLiad by allowing direct access over the iLiad’s WiFi connection to newspapers and books.  You have to have developer access using the Developer Package above and currently FeedBooks.com is not providing any downloads on their site.  Get it from the MobileRead Forums at http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22491.  Expand the zip file and copy the iNewsReader folder directly to the documents folder on the iLiad.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 11:03 am and is filed under Technology.