It is of utmost importance to note that I have had no personal experience with other eReaders, so I am judging the PSP as an eReader solely based on its merits and shortcomings.

There are a few methods to read books on a PSP:

1. HTML files, which are totally acceptable - and mediocre - for book reading,

2. Image files, a very much less acceptable book form for the PSP and,

3. bookr, homebrew eReader for the PSP.

You cannot use bookr unless you have custom firmware on your PSP, which is a tremendous pity, for bookr is the ultimate medium for books to appear on your PSP. I highly recommend that you find some way to get custom firmware on your PSP if you intend it to be a eReader, as the alternatives are ugly and painful in comparison.

There is a site dedicated to books for the PSP in HTML format, and you might want to patronise it should you be stuck somewhere with only your PSP and a wi-fi connection. This site has a decent collection of books, formatted for the PSP.

If you have PDF files, you can either convert them to image files, and use the PSP's inbuilt picture viewer, or bookr, which is a much more elegant solution.

I shall base my review mainly on bookr, which is what I have been using to read.

Bookr supports numerous formats, TXT, PDF and HTML to name the most common ones. It does not, however, support your DRM-laden files, and you might have better luck somewhere else with those. Not that I would know where. I read with the PSP held vertical, in one hand, index finger on the trigger. Some might like it different, but I do not know of any sane reason to read with with a widescreen aspect.

Battery life is more than decent: three whole afternoons of my pointless conscript life spent on Atlas Shrugged and it's still has juice in it for another. Granted, I set the CPU speed of the PSP down in bookr's option menu, along with setting it on the dimmest screen brightness, which conserved considerable amounts of battery life - but still, it does last as an eReader. PDFs will be more sluggish at these low CPU speeds, so you will have to make a compromise between battery life and responsiveness. TXT files are snappy at the lowest CPU speeds.

The PSP feels ergonomic in the hand, and flipping pages is a natural action. The weight of my first-generation PSP fat tires my hand out after a few hours, leading me to switch hands, but owners of newer and lighter PSPs might have better luck with this.

Screen glare is a non-issue for me at the lowest screen brightness.

Transferring books is simple, plug the PSP in, and your OS should detect it as a removable drive. Transfer your books on, and presto, the deed is done.

The default font is clear and legible, and I have found no reason to change it, but if you are as so inclined to, you may.

PDF support is good. It works, is fast if you choose to make it so and you can resize the page, but you cannot resize the page and make it fit on the screen.

Storage will depend on your memory card's size. Personally I use a 4GB stick, and it is more than adequate for the job.

You will have to manually find books for your PSP, for there is no integrated shop for books. The Gutenberg Project has a few books, and you, given enough Internet-savvy, will find other libraries online for your books.

PSPs are also a whole lot cheaper than dedicated ebook readers like Amazon's Kindle or the Nook, plus it can play games and videos. I guess it's a plus in PSP's favour over dedicated ebook readers.

TL;DR: PSP is a good eReader, if you have custom firmware. It is not, if you do not.

Another day, another mental imbalance.

I wonder why we suffer from such episodes and realise the answer was the problem itself -- dreams.

There's this peculiar, symbiotic relationship dreams share with me. They force me into states of mind where all my dreams are shattered through the simple act of their consideration. These dreams, I discern, are all too impossible to reach and to even touch the surface of any of them would be the ultimate felony.

This particular dream had shoved me out from my warm, melancholic slumber; the dreaded routine which I had been led to follow. I descend into an introspective, reflective state. This frustrates me verily; being in such a state is pleasant but pain is ever-present. Ah, why must it bring so much pain!? The end result is an awful-looking soul, who does not know if he really is better off at the end of it all.

Depression, despair and sorrow is vocabulary I want to utilise. However it is understood that those are not of what I am experiencing -- or are they?

"Conflict" would probably be the best noun to choose here.

This is not the kind of conflict which drives wars, for war is action. It is instead a conflict which stymies, and leads to a fate much more cruel -- indecision.

Dreams -- to me they are not the oft-claimed "Herald of Hope". Dreams chip away at the very core of my soul, with a particularly sharp chisel at my heart. It erodes the patience I had long-sought to build, and corrodes my once-sweetened heartstrings.

Reality is the destroyer of dreams, and dreams themselves devastate reality.

Perhaps I simply want to go supernova, and cruise among the elements of the cosmos. I then second that thought, as I come to the realisation that that itself, is a dream.

Labels: fail

Here's your disgusting ORD checker for you to idolise every single day.
Here's your filthy readme for this lousy script I wrote.
Here's your smelly download, you ingrate.

Readme for ORD Checker v2
Released 080210
Created by GYNG

Includes
*ORD.rb (source)
*ORD.exe (what you want to run)
*orddb.txt (database)
*readme.txt (this file)

Features
*Input validation
*Storage of ORDs in a TXT file
*Ability to insert ORD from the program
*Ability to input custom date for one-time use

Known Issues
*Year cannot go beyond 2038
*Months with fewer than 31 days are not checked properly for input validation
*Unable to delete elements from the database within the program itself
*Special characters *might* slip through input validation
*Compiled file has not been well-tested

Installation
*None. Run ORD.exe and you're good to go.
*.exe probably only runs on Windows. Get ruby if you need to run the source.

Notes
*Feel free to edit the source all you want, just don't sell this worthless piece of crap
*Requires orddb.txt to be in the same directory as ORD
Sample orddb.txt:

Format: DDMMYY, name without numbers. Beneath are a few examples. DO NOT DELETE THIS LINE
101210, GY
<111210> -"<>'''Poor<3sod'>][><<>

Labels: ordchecker, programming, ruby

A quick comparison of various monospace typefaces for text-heavy applications, anti-aliased.

Now, I am fully aware that similar comparisons have been done before, including this , featured on reddit not too long ago. However, the essence of this article is slightly different, as the focus is not on programming, but instead more on text-heavy uses, such as chat and word processing.

Now, why would I use a monospace font for words?

Monospaced fonts have an advantage over non-monospaced fonts in certain niches. Being a heavy IRC user, alignment is very important to me since it makes text a lot more readable (this is also why I use xchat, but that is another story for another time). In addition, the numerous ASCII art I see in chat channels also require alignment - things get ugly very quickly when a variable-width font is used.

I've tried various fonts this month in my quest for the best font, starting with the venerable classic Fixedsys, and its free variant, Fixedsys Excelsior.

I've used Fixedsys for years, when I was still using mIRC. It was the default font then - and maybe is still - and it is a clear, utilitarian font. My only complaint with it is that it looks crass anti-aliased, and that is one of the reasons why I decided to change it.
Fixedsys Excelsior is available here.


Note: I've decided to turn anti-aliasing off for certain fonts for clarity reasons. At such smaller font sizes anti-aliasing blurs them pretty badly.

The first font I tried was Andale Mono, which I believe most users will have present in their system. It's a decent font, I suppose, but it just didn't really look optimal anti-aliased.


I then chose Courier New, another beautiful font. It is a serif monospace font, an uncommon sight. I found that the serifs degraded readability at smaller font sizes, but if it works for you, it works.


Onwards to Monaco, a font default in Apple's systems. I didn't really enjoy the condensed look of it, but some programmers swear by it. Apparently it is one of the nicer-looking 9pt fonts out there.


Upon recommendation, I then checked out Inconsolata, a free font inspired by Consolas. It's a very nice font, and furthermore, free. Clean, clear and monospaced - that's how I like it.
Inconsolata is available here.


However, I did not stick with Inconsolata, since I found the font it was inspired by a slightly better match for my needs. Indeed, both fonts look similar, but Consolas comes across to me as a slightly cleaner, more professional font. Hardly surprising, since it was made by a paid professional unlike Inconsolata. The font thickness of Consolas, which emanates a sense of 'lightness', made switching to it a refreshing change from the heavy Fixedsys. It was designed for Microsoft's ClearType, and comes pre-packaged with more recent versions of Windows.


Consolas shouldn't be used without anti-aliasing, however, since it does look ugly without it.
I foresee myself using Consolas for a long time to come, and perhaps you might be inspired to seek out the perfect typeface for you.

This quick font reference I created not too long ago might also warrant your interest.

Labels: fonts, typefaces