Sub Ubi

iLiadFan pegged my wishlist for the iLiad. I need to be able to read ACM PDFs unmodified, battery life must improve drastically, and … well, that’s it. I’m not on the file management bandwagon yet.

But we were warned: the software wasn’t done. And the iLiad folks are working hard, no doubt. I have faith.

I would love to see Erlang bindings to the Player/Stage API. If they existed, we would include them in a heartbeat on the RoboDeb robotics virtual appliance.

I don’t think any Erlangistas hang out here, but you never know. If you’re savvy with Erlang, and are interested in collaborating on binding Erlang to the Player/Stage API, I’ll put it in an environment where you can double-click and play with robots.

I really like the idea of being able to easily get news and weblog content onto my iLiad. In a nutshell, this means RSS feeds. I’d appreciate some pushback (either by email or in the comments below) from any other iLiad users who might be interested in the same.

I intend to write a tool that consumes an OPML file, and generates a river of news for you to view on your iLiad. This way, if you read your news with Vienna, NetNewsWire, Bloglines, or something else (that I assume can generate OPML), you can export your typical reading list for use with the iLiad.

Given the Education feed from the New York Times, my spike solution looks like:

Now, the NYT post slugs aren’t all that great, because they don’t actually include the full article. However, if I export my Vienna subscriptions to an OPML file:

You can see that, in the more general case, I get the full article.

What I’m not clear on is how the user indicates:

1. Which OPML file they want rendered?
2. Where they want the resulting HTML placed?

Should those be file chooser interactions? Through a wizard (step-by-step process)? Drag-and-drop? Who knows…

I think I’ll just put something together later today that will suck, and let people play with it. Then, based on feedback, I’ll iterate. That, I think, seems like a reasonable approach. Or, an agile approach, which in this case seems reasonable.

Actually, I’m back in the UK. But I’m not sure that it was ever a catchy song lyric.

The new header graphic is sunset captured off the SouthWestern most point in Europe.

Mac OSX drops little fumets all over every drive it touches. These annoying little files are fine in some contexts, but they clutter up the iLiad something fierce.

Scrub-a-dub is a little PLT Scheme application that I built to take care of these .DS_Store, .Trashes, and ._ files. Point scrub-a-dub at a drive, tell it to “Scrub!”, and it will delete all of those irritating files. Of course, it might delete a bunch of other files, too… I’m not making any promises. It should work on Intel Macs under Rosetta; if you try it, and it works, please let me know. If it nukes everything on your machine, please note that I lied about all of my contact information on this site.

Additionally, I don’t know how to auto-detect the media type I’m dealing with—at the moment, I cannot tell the difference between a compact flash card and a hard drive. Therefore, it is conceivably possible to remove these special OSX files from an external hard drive, which might be a Bad Thing. However, like all software, it’s user beware. Who knows… there might be other unimagined evil that scrub-a-dub is capable of, but it works for me.

And it works for Oliver over at iLiadfan, so that makes two people whose computers haven’t been destroyed by scrub-a-dub.

(As a side note: if you want to prevent the creation of these files on networked volumes, check out this hint. It doesn’t help you with USB sticks and compact flash cards, however.)

The iRex iLiad is an eBook reader using electronic ink, or eInk, technology. It is completely unlike a PDA or laptop, if that’s all you’re familiar with.

Short version

The device is ready for adventurous users who cannot wait. I think the iLiad is amazing, but the missing functionality would make it a non-starter for the casual user. To be fair: iRex is releasing updates at a rate of 2-3 per month; by the end of September, I expect this to be a very compelling device.

Longer version

Phillips/iRex released the iLiad before the software was done. This is fine—they have a stable base, and are improving/extending it with a large pool of beta testers. iRex is active on their forums, and taking bug reports and reader feedback very seriously. As a result, they’re getting excellent real-world usage reports. Each software release (I’ve seen two since I’ve had the device) improves the performance of the device, either in terms of power management, responsiveness, or functionality.

I purchased the device with one primary use in mind: being able to read PDFs from the ACM digital library. Secondary use includes content I create myself (for example, my calendar and GTD list), and content I suck down from the web—fluff content to read for fun.

Viewing PDFs

Fig 1: An ACM PDF (Thumbnail – click)

I purchased the device with one primary use in mind: being able to read PDFs from the ACM digital library. Secondary use includes content I create myself (for example, my calendar and GTD list), and content I suck down from the web—fluff content to read for fun.

Figure 1 is a picture of the Iliad rendering a PDF from the ACM digital library. The PDF renderer on the iLiad is based on the open-source XPDF, but currently, zooming and rotation are not implemented. I’d be happy to be able to rotate a PDF 90 degrees, and view a half-page of a PDF at a time. For the moment, ACM PDFs are viewable, if you’re willing to read 7pt text.

Viewing plain text

Figure 2 is what plain text looks like on the iLiad. Before I start nitpicking, I should say that plain text is a critical, and awesome, inclusion on the part of iRex. The inclusion of plain text means (for example) that many eBooks in Project Gutenberg, or plain text exports of email, can easily be read on the device.

By default, the text is too small. It is possible to make the text larger; unfortunately, there is no global default for preferred plain-text font size. Additionally, text files do not seem to “remember” the size they were last rendered at; this means I have to constantly resize every plain text document I view, which is tedious.

Viewing HTML

Using Firefox’s “Save As Webpage Complete”, I saved the main page of this weblog. This created a file and a folder full of images and other content. Copying this file and folder to the iLiad, I didn’t expect much… I was confident that a weblog rendered by Wordpress 2.0, with significant amounts of CSS styling, is going to choke the iLiad. I was wrong.

sububi.org	transterpreter.org	scripting.com
Fig 3: Three webpages on the iLiad

My tests so far seem to indicate that the iLiad has an excellent HTML renderer on board. The rendered version on the device looked exactly like the blog on Firefox. I tried this with several other sites, including the Transterpreter Wiki and Scripting News.

Viewing Pictures

I think the iLiad has support for JPGs, PNGs, and possibly some other image formats as well. I haven’t explored this; instead, I converted a JPG to PDF, and dropped that on the device. This is a picture of Carrie with her cousin’s son; while it isn’t the best way to share photos, it certainly isn’t the worst. Given that the iLiad renders HTML, you could easily copy a complete web-based photo gallery (as produced by JAlbum, iPhoto, or similar) onto the iLiad, and have an instant, portable gallery of pictures. In grayscale, yes… but the point is, it works.

Summary

I am pleased with the device. Power management is not yet to the point that I can simply “leave it on”. The iLiad should measure power by the page turn, and have a battery life that is measured in weeks, not hours. With the good peeps at iRex keep beating on it, I’m confident the iLiad will be there soon enough.

It is always the case that, if you wait six months, something faster/better/cheaper will come along. In this case, that is almost certainly true: eInk technology will improve, screen size will increase, and so on. However, the iLiad is an excellent device that is on the market now. It is small, light, and has a lot of excellent features, now or down the road:

• [Connectivity] Both WiFi and ethernet can be used for updating the device; ultimately, I imagine that you’ll be able to interactively browse web content using these channels.
• [Storage] The iLiad allows you to expand its storage capacity via Compact Flash, Secure Digital, and USB simultaneously. I’ve ordered a 2GB CF card, but I could still plug in another 1GB SD card and (if I wanted to) my iPod Shuffle.
• [Audio] It has audio built in, as well as what looks like a small beeper/speaker, and should (someday) be usable for listening to MP3s while reading.

Given the features, I assume that iRex is imagining that the iLiad won’t just be your digital document reader, but a complete PDA replacement. If it can beep at you, it can remind you of appointments. Given its connectivity, it could easily have an IMAP client added that will pull down all of your unread email. Again, that connectivity also means that it could run a simple calendaring application that synchronizes with a server. Once iRex completes their source release, it will be possible for third-parties to develop these tools, even if iRex does not.

We’ll see. For now, I’m looking forward to the fixes that let me read (and annotate) PDFs from the ACM digital library.

I could have let it go. But instead, I decided I needed to reply to Bob’s last note, since he was so polite.

Bob, not surprisingly, was very obliging. He happily sent me the information I needed to mail my digital camcorder to his grandson.

What is great is that he actually mistyped the FedEx number, and sent me a second message shortly thereafter. Note the effective use of ALL CAPS.

Now, with that information, you can actually call FedEx (I called 1.800.Go.FedEx, or 1.800.463.3339). In fact, if you call, and tell them you think you’re being scammed on eBay, and someone from Nigeria has a FedEx shipper number, they’re incredibly accommodating. So much so that they say “Oh! The Nigerian FedEx shipper scam!”. You do have to navigate the electronic, voice-activated menus, however. It took a while to find a person.

As it turns out, the credit card used to open that FedEx account (probably stolen) was registered somewhere in Washington State. So all around the board, Bob really wasn’t a very nice man. Of course, at this point I’m tempted to drop a note and say that the FedEx number didn’t work, and perhaps he has another…

I haven’t written up my initial reflections on the iRex iLiad, but I do have a little program that might be handy for OSX users who own an iLiad.

OSX creates .DS_Store files and ._ files all over the iLiad. This is ugly. It takes up space. They’re unnecessary. I’ve written iliad-scrub; double-click this application while your iLiad is connected to your Mac, and it will remove all of the pesky files.

I won’t lie: Blue Harvest is a better solution. It’s $10, and really—software takes time to write. I hacked iliad-scrub together in 20 minutes, including the weblog post. Blue Harvest probably took longer, and it is certainly a more elegant solution.

However, if you don’t mind a little program that might remove all the content from your iLiad, give iliad-scrub a try. I make no guarantees… it works on mine, it may destroy yours, and no warranties are expressed or implied in providing this software.

Share and enjoy!

Here’s my summary of the “gotchas” I seem to have stumbled over in being an infrequent eBay seller. If anyone has any comments, or anything to add, please leave a comment below. Someday, perhaps I’ll find a more permanent home for this document.

Many thanks go to the eBay community who quickly responded in such a positive and supportive manner to my original forum post. While I have not cited all of them here, their suggestions were the inspiration for much of this learning.

Many thanks.

This document was written on August 16, 2006. It may contain very dated information. Your milage, when you read it, may vary greatly, and in no way should this be taken as a substitute for the policy of eBay, PayPal, and any other business or service you use in auctioning your posessions online.

Notes for the infrequent eBay seller

Before selling

1. In your posting, note what conditions you will sell under. It is not clear whether these conditions are binding or not. However, stating that you will adhere to policy rigorously cannot hurt. For example, you could clearly state that you will not ship to buyers who have an uncomfirmed ship-to PayPal address.

2. If you want to protect yourself on the PayPal end, you should set your “Payment Receipt” options to block payments from users who do not have confirmed addresses. This may reinforce #1.

3. If you are not already familiar, read the linked resources below. As an infrequent or new seller, you are likely in the dark about how things work since the last time you used the service, and therefore must educate yourself.

4. If you’re really paranoid, use an escrow service. That means that a trusted third party—a business, who charges for the service—will act as an “middle man” to make sure that both parties honor the transaction. Well, that’s the short version, anyway. If you’re selling something on eBay that is so valuable as to require such a service, it is up to you to investigate it fully.

5. Be explicit in your auction description; do not leave anything unclear or underdescribed. As eBay user “horse-shoes-and-hand-grenades” pointed out, a scammer will likely attempt to make use of a SNAD clause, or “Significantly Not As Described.” This is their trump card—as eBay and PayPal are inclined to side with the buyer. Make sure your auction is explicit about what is being sold and the condition it is in. This means using clear language and digital photographs to describe the item in detail. Your buyer will appreciate it, and you’ll help cover your own behind in the case of a scam.

After the auction

1. Look at your buyer’s eBay rank. This alone should not make you nervous—everyone has to start somewhere! However, if it is zero, you should look a little deeper.

2. Check when the eBay account was opened. Scammers will not use a single account for very long. Therefore, the account may have been created minutes, or even days, before your auction. This alone, however, is not cause for alarm… a new account could just be a new account.

3. If you have someone with no eBay rank, and the account is very new, you can search to see what other auctions they have bid on. Click on the “Advanced Search”, and then “Items by Buyer”, on the left as of this writing. Enter your buyer’s eBay ID. Include completed items, and those where they were not the highest bidder. An honest, first-time buyer will likely have only bought from you. A fradulent account holder will possibly have made a number purchases, simultaneously. Why? Because they play the numbers—hopefully, at least one of their sellers will make the mistake of shipping goods.

4. Speaking of shipping goods: NEVER SHIP TO ANYONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE AN UNCOMFIRMED PAYPAL ADDRESS. Read the protection policies; currently, 3.b.ii of the PayPal Seller Protection Policies (August 16, 2006) are quite explicit about how to determine if a ship-to address qualifies you for protection.

5. Communications: if you are dealing with a scammer, they might even try and get you a second time. As always, never follow suspicious links in emails, never enter your eBay username and password anywhere that you aren’t 100% sure is the real deal, and keep your virus scanner and SPAM filters running!

To reiterate, as “twangy1″ said in the seller’s forum: “Do NOT click on links in any email you receive from them no matter how official it looks. The links usually send you to a fake site they created in order to get your passwords.”

6. If it all looks good, and you ship, make sure you take several steps to further protect yourself. First, ship confirmed delivery requiring a signature; you might even want to pay for a return receipt—this is an active notification, from the USPS, that your item was received. Second, require insurance for the value of the transaction. This way, if anything happens to the goods, you might be able to claim the value of the auction that way (good luck). In all cases, you should keep receipts and documentation regarding all transactions associated with the auction.

7. If you have a digital camera, make good use of it. Photograph everything you ship outside of the packaging, as it goes into the box, and the box itself. Electrons are cheap—snap away!

8. If you think you’ve got a scammer, but you’re just a little bit savvy, you should be fine. They probably won’t pay in a secure way (remember the confirmed PayPal address?), so you can just refuse/refund payment to them until they make themselves legit in the eyes of eBay and PayPal. If they don’t pay “safely”, then you’ll just have to file an unpaid notice with eBay and move on.

If it all goes badly

This guide doesn’t go that far. You’ll have to read the eBay and PayPal arbitration policy if you think you’ve been screwed as a seller. This was just the collected wisdom of an infrequent seller who, after his first sale in several years, realized that eBay isn’t quite as straight-forward as it used to be.

Resources

• http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_spp-outside
• http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/isgw-fraud-receiving-payments.html
• http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/payment-escrow.html

If you get caught in an eBay scam, you’ll probably receive several messages. I thought I’d include those scammer messages here, in case anyone else goes looking.

The door-opener

The first thing the scammer will do is send you a personal email, to assure you that all is good. It will be sent outside of the eBay system, so no trail is generated. In my case, the scammer’s eBay account had been suspended before they even sent this message.

The “Payment” email

The hook will be followed by the false payment. Note that I did not receive any money in my PayPal account, nor did any appear in the actual PayPal account I specified for payment. Therefore, it is unclear how PayPal could generate this message. I’ll talk about the warning signs in this message below; some are obvious, some are not.

If you use HTML email (with pictures, and pretty text, and crap like that), you’re a Bad Person. You should switch to “plain text” right now. It is safer, and you are less likely to get tricked—because you take away one of the scammer/spammer’s most powerful tools, which is the ability to make their message look like something it is not.

I’ve included the whole message here; it’s a bit much, really. First, and most importantly, note the reply-to address: paypa.lverified@accountant.com. PayPal does not send mail from an address called “accountant.com”. Furthermore, the email was bounced through servers owned by a company called outblaze.com. Perhaps they are evil, perhaps they are not. Either way, they’re helping this particular scammer do his dirty work.

There is no ship-to address in the message. Instead, we have this odd note:

Will the scammer actually send me a FedEx shipper label? I’m so curious.

But I don’t think I intend to find out. Or, perhaps I should? And then send them some bricks…