e-Books

NOTE: The information and files on this page are provided purely for your convenience, and no warantee or guarantee is given or implied. In other words, I'm trying to help you out, but I'm not responsible if you get in trouble. Use at your own risk!

After many decades of reading books printed on pulped trees, I've become an e-book convert, reading books on (for now) an Astak EZ-Reader Pocket Pro. Someday I'm sure I'll get a larger e-book reader for use around home, but for now the 5" (diagonal) PEZ is just right, as it's easy to carry almost anywhere.

UTILITIES

The Pocket Pro has a "start-up" graphic that is displayed when the reader is first booted from its "cold off" state, and another graphic that is displayed when it's put into the "cold off" state (neither of which is terribly common, since the display is "always on" and takes almost ZERO power, so normally you just "lock the keyboard," but I digress.) The manufacturer (Jinke) has an application (LogoMaker) that lets you modify these graphics on their older V3 e-book reader, but it's not yet been updated to support the V5 (their model number which corresponds to the 5" EZ-Reader Pocket Pro). I've hacked together a similar tool that works with the Pocket Pro.

V5LOGOS.ZIP - a ZIP file containing the Windows command-line program and its source code, along with very fundamental directions.

FIRMWARE BUILDS

The Astak Pocket Pro is one version of the 5" Hanlin ebook reader manufactured by Jinke in China. Other distributors/versions include the BeBook Mini, the LBook and others. All of these units are the same basic hardware, so firmware builds for any of these units will work in any of the others. Here are some of the builds that I've collected (from newest to oldest; note that the date format is YYMMDD in the filenames). I'll maintain the old and new builds until my server space gets too crowded. :-)

All of these ZIP files contain a copy of one file called 'v5setup.bin'. This file contains the ROM image that updates all of the programming in your V5 unit. To update your V5 with a particular firmware build, follow these steps:

1) UnZIP the desired file to get the v5setup.bin file.

2) Place the v5setup.bin file in the ROOT DIRECTORY of your SD flash card (yes, you have to have an SD flash card, it can't be done over USB). Don't place any copies of v5setup.bin in any sub-folders on the card, just one copy in the root directory. The SD card should be 16 Gbytes or smaller.

3) Connect your V5 unit to AC power, either via the AC-to-USB adapter, or by plugging your USB cable into your V5 and your PC, but do not 'connect' the V5 to the PC so that it shows up as a drive on the PC!!! This is purely to provide power to make sure the V5 doesn't shut down part way through the firmware update.

4) Hold down the POWER button on your V5 until it starts the shut-down process.

5) After the unit has shut down (wait about 10 seconds after the display blanks, just to be sure), HOLD DOWN the top button on the left side of the front of the unit (the NEXT PAGE button), and then PRESS AND HOLD the POWER button until you hear two quick beeps, then release both buttons.

6) You will be prompted to press the OK button to proceed with the update. Press the OK/MENU button (the right side of the circular button pair at the bottom-right of your V5).

It will take a minute or so to update the firmware.

v5setup_100304astak.zip - Astak's Mar 4, 2010 firmware release. Improves CoolReader (.TXT, .RTF, .FB2), improves speed and stability of .LIT, improves sub-menu function for Adobe format.

v5setup_091104jinke.zip - Jinke's Nov 4, 2009 firmware release. Supports date and time settings in system settings. The date can not be set before the firmware release date. And if you shutdown the device the date will be restored to a default value that is 2009-11-05.

v5setup_091105astak.zip - Astak's Nov 5, 2009 firmware release. Fixes battery life problem, adds system setting for setting date & time. Date cannot be set before firmware release date, and shutdown resets it to the default firmware release date. Available font sizes are changed. Additional uses for the thumb-wheel.

v5setup_091030lbook.zip - (Ukrainian) LBook's Oct 30, 2009 firmware release.

v5setup_091016bebook.zip - BeBook Mini's Oct 16, 2009 firmware release.

v5setup_091015jinke.zip - Jinke's Oct 15, 2009 firmware release.

This version fixes the battery life problem, font size changes, adds hyperlink support, bookmarks, and search function. (To read hyperlink, press number key 0, then press 0 and/or 9 to select the link, then MENU/OK. If no hyperlink on current page, 0 and 9 are page turning keys.)

v5setup_090907astak.zip - Astak's Sep 9, 2009 firmware release (Sep 10 on their website). This version breaks battery life, something is left running while in KeyLock mode. Adds Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) for reading ePubs and PDFs with (and without) DRM.

v5setup_090803jinke.zip - Jinke's Aug 3, 2009 firmware release. Improves display of pictures, supports up to 16 GB SD cards, supports ADE DRM and PDF reflow, ADE recognition and activation, TTS in Chinese and English (but not in PDF & EPUB).