Technical PDF on the iPad 2

After using my iPad for the past half year as my main reference tool, I discovered the biggest problem was that GoodReader is just not that fast for searching through files, and "flipping" is also quite slow with the page needing to refresh. (In fact, this was the original problem I had with attempting to use the Kindle as a reference tool.)

The slowness problem have been resolved with the iPad 2's faster A5 CPU. The iPad 2 is also lighter making it much easier to hold with a single hand, even for the 3G version. The iPad 2 is also much thinner and weighs much less than my Windows Server 2008 R2 Unleashed book. Besides the faster CPU and the cameras, there's really not that much difference for my uses, so I'll wait for the iPad 3.

Technical PDF on the iPad

I've wanted an iPad since it was released to read my technical manuals in the PDF format (mostly because the Kindle didn't work so well). Unfortunately, I could find hundreds of iPad PDF viewer reviews online, but none of the reviews I found talk about the actual usability or display quality, and none of the iPad's I saw in real life have any PDF's loaded. I've walked up to strangers in public asking to see if they have technical PDF's in their iPad's, but all I've ever seen are games.

Since I couldn't find out the quality of iPad PDF displays and I didn't want to buy one blindly, so I gave up the idea of buying an iPad earlier this month. But of course, fate works in mysterious ways.

You need to click on the image to see the full size. The PDF's I loaded are Wrox's SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting that I've been digging into lately, and a "borrowed" copy of Wiley's Mastering AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011 so I can see display quality of images inside PDF. It has already been deleted as I'm not an AutoCAD user.

iBooks is the ebook app and store frontend from Apple, but it also handles PDF files. The display quality is good. But like most Apple programs, there's no way to customize the program at all.

Stanza is probably the most well known ebook reading app and it's available for every device. It handles PDF really fast, and there are all kinds of customization settings that helps the "reading experience". However, maybe because the program is optimized for real ebook formats such as ePub, the PDF display quality is really really poor.

GoodReader is perhaps the best known PDF reader, having separate iPhone and iPad versions. There are tons of customizations, but none of them seem to be really useful. I also hate that it has page flipping animation if you swipe to turn the page, but no animation if you tap to turn. However, the PDF display quality is by far the best. As can be seen in the images below, the graphics in the PDF can be seen clearly without zooming, and the AutoCAD image is smooth without jaggies.

ReaddleDocs is probably the most famous PDF reader since I see glowing reviews for it all the time and it's promoted everywhere. In fact, it was the first I tried. But it turned out to be really bad. Both the controls and image quality can't compare with any of its competitors. There is also a separate iPhone version available.

Fast PDF is not fast.

iRead PDF is the free version of iAnnotate PDF without the annotation features. iAnnotate PDF was popular for a while for being the first iPad PDF app that allows annotation simply by writing and marking with your fingers, but most of the competitors have now added similar features, and it just doesn't stand out any more. Also, it seems to be geared toward annotation and not reading, so the "reading experience" is lacking. There's no capture of the AutoCAD book since I just didn't care about the program enough to keep going.

pdf-notes is a free app that allows annotation. But it's slow and doesn't handle PDF display that well at all. Once again, there's no capture from the AutoCAD book.

It's quite obvious that the display quality of embedded graphics is greatly enhanced by anti-aliasing the graphics. But I looked and none of the apps have a setting to toggle anti-aliasing. It's either there (iBooks and GoodReader) or it's not (the rest), which is why iBooks and GoodReader are the best choices for PDF with embedded graphics.

Finally, I have some photos taken with my iPad next to the SQL Book. The first photo is the book opened to the same page as the screenshots above, and the second photo is opened to a random page that shows some code. The iPad is running GoodReader.

Some moiré is visible on the iPad screen due to the low quality screen protector film. This is not a screen protector film review, but that particular film is so bad that after two days, I already have permanent markings on the film on frequently used areas such as the area where I tap to go to the next page! And I don't know where they get the "anti-reflection" from. Maybe it reflects so much light you get blinded so you don't see any more reflections.

GoodReader is by far the best of the PDF readers I tried. However, I really don't like not having page animation when tapping to turn the page. The program is highly customizable, but the things that can be customized just aren't useful. But the display quality and speed more than make up for the shortcomings.

As for Stanza, I've been using it for a long time on my iPod touch to read ebooks and I've customized it exactly the way I like it. I would continue to use Stanza to read PDF files that aren't technical books. Unfortunately, since GoodReader can't be customized as much as Stanza, I've had to "un-customize" some of my preferred Stanza settings so the two programs can behave in the same way so I don't keep confusing myself.

iBooks is also recommended if you prefer to use Apple's ebookstore and don't want to customize anything.

Happy reading!

Happy? SysAdminDay?

Once again, it's the annual SysAdminDay. I think I'll take the rest of the day off.

Last year, I bought myself a Skeletool CX. This year, I've been way too busy to find something for myself. The new, lower-priced Amazon Kindle (3G+Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi only) was just announced yesterday and since there's no sign of the iPad being released here, maybe I'll just reward myself with a Kindle.

Amazon Kindle for iPad

The Amazon Kindle app is now updated to be a universal app that works for both the iPhone and the iPad. I don't want a Kindle any more.

Getting rid of Windows

After almost a whole year of using OS X, I still need to keep running VMware Fusion because of one single program: NetOp Remote Control. For everything else that I need to use, I have either installed the Mac OS X version of the program, or found programs with equivalent (sometimes better) functions. NetOp actually makes a Mac version, but only the "Host" side of the program and not the "Guest" side. I need to use the Guest side to remote access my server and to spy on my users.

I was reading somewhere about Valve's announcement of OS X support for their games when I saw someone mention CrossOver Mac. CrossOver is a commercial version of Wine which allows Windows programs to run natively inside Linux or OS X. I've used Wine ages ago when I used Linux, but it was really primitive back then. It should've been obvious that Wine had been ported to OS X, but I never thought to check.

After searching a bit, I downloaded and installed WineBottler, which is Wine packaged ready to run on OS X, then started the NetOp installation. But the NetOp installer keeps bombing out with an installation error. I thought maybe the newer version of NetOp was the problem, but trying all the different versions only made it bomb out with different errors! So I thought I would try using CrossOver for Mac, so I downloaded a trial version, and the NetOp installer bombs out with the exact same errors, just proving that CrossOver indeed is a commercial version of Wine.

Fortunately, NetOp itself has a built-in option to create an installation free or "USB application" of itself. It's found in Tools -> Copy Guest to removable media. So I used that to create a copy of the program, and moved the whole thing into Wine's Program Files folder. And it worked right away. For some reason though, I get some garbage graphics when connecting to one of my servers eventhough all my servers have the exact same hardware configuration and NetOp versions.

Quite unfortunately, after getting everything to work, Activity Monitor tells me that Wine and the required X11 subsystem actually uses more RAM than VMware Fusion. But it's nice that I don't need to boot up Windows XP just to use a single program. But come to think of it, I always have VMware Fusion running. In fact, while testing this, I restarted VMware Fusion, and it tells me that a new version is available. But the new version was out since about three weeks ago, and I hadn't exited out of VMware Fusion at all in all that time. (As of this writing, my MacBook has an uptime of 41 days. The last reboot was when I had trouble ejecting a CD and I had to force eject during boot.)

But even with the extra memory usage, I have NetOp running "natively" inside OS X, and it does work a bit smoother than having to swap back and forth between OS X and the virtual Windows XP.

Here are the screenshots for using NetOp to control one of my remote servers. First, running under VMware Fusion.

And running under Wine. This is from that one particular server that's having graphics issues. The last bit of every line of text is cut off.

While I was typing this. Kindle for Mac was released. One less reason to use Windows!

Update (2010-03-23): Not long after posting this, my MacBook crashed and I lost my 41 day uptime. How ironic.

Kindle officially in Thailand

Both the Kindle and the Kindle DX are now officially available to Thailand. What a great way to start 2010!

Kindle for PC

Interestingly enough, when I looked at the Amazon Kindle page, I noticed some of the description text changed from when I last posted. Just to see if Thailand is now supported, I tried clicking again, and sure enough, the availability description different now.

Before: "Unfortunately, we are currently unable to ship Kindles or offer Kindle contents in Thailand."


After: "Unfortunately, we are currently unable to ship Kindles to Thailand. Customers in Thailand can read over 310,000 Kindle books on your PC with our free application for your Windows PC - no Kindle required. Click here to learn more."


While I was typing this post, I noticed that there's a new version of Kindle for the iPhone, and Amazon even announced that it's now available in more than 60 countries. Sure enough, it's now available in the Thai iTunes store. Previously, I had to use my US iTunes account to download it.

Unfortunately, still no option to select which side of the screen to tap to turn the page. I like to hold my iPod with my left hand and tap the left side of the screen with my thumb to turn the page. Stanza has it, why not Kindle for iPhone?

Just to double check if the Kindle device is now available to Thailand, I went back to the Amazon Kindle page. Still no Kindle, but it now lists 320,000 books available.

Amazon Kindle in Thailand

I was so incredibly disappointed in Amazon not shipping the Kindle to Thailand when the Kindle 2 International was announced.


Recently though, I found about a local importer of Kindles appropriately named KindleThai.com. At first, I thought that the price they charge is slightly too high, but they do have a 30-day warranty, so I felt the price was worth it, considering that if I bought a unit through friends in the States or another country, warranty claims could be a huge issue if I ran into a DOA unit. Plus, they pre-register the Kindles they sell to a U.S. account and pre-configure the Kindles to buy books correctly, which is a great help for non-technical people.

Surprisingly, the Amazon Whispernet works in Thailand, even if they don't sell Kindles directly to Thailand.


While playing with the available wireless providers setting, I discovered that the Kindle's time zone setting appears to be retrieved from the provider. At first, the Kindle always displayed the time in universal time (GMT), but after switching providers, suddenly the Kindle was displaying the correct local time.

Even more surprisingly, I could "purchase" free Kindle books from my computer, and then load them directly on the Kindle by using the Archived Items folder, for free, eventhough it says that a $1.99 surcharge will be placed for international delivery. Maybe the surcharge only happens when a direct purchase is made from the Kindle.

The Kindle I got already came preloaded with the new 2.3 firmware with native PDF support. However, since PDF is normally formatted with the printed page in mind, so there's always a lot of margins. Hopefully, Amazon will fix this in a future update by implementing zoom or some kind of fit to display option.

I happen to have Pragmatic Bookshelf's iPhone SDK Development ebook. Here are some comparison shots between the PDF version and the Mobipocket (mobi) versions, in both portrait and landscape modes:

This is Kindle 2 displaying native PDF, compared to Adobe Reader 9 running on my MacBook. The text is way too small to be read, unless you're an ant.


Again, in landscape orientation. This is legible, but it can't scroll the page up and down, only "flip" up and down, so it's very uncomfortable for technical manuals that you need to go back and forth on, but it's okay for reading novels.


And here's the ebook-specific Mobipocket format. Stupidly enough, the Forward is marked as Chapter 1 in the mobi file, so the chapter numbers are off by 1.


The Mobipocket version is perfectly readable even in the smallest font size.


Sorry for the poor photos. The huge difference in brightness between the MacBook's screen and the Kindle's E Ink screen made it really difficult to get a consistent exposure, and I was too lazy to get my tripod out. The E Ink screen looks really dim in these photos, but this is not a review of the Kindle's screen quality.

Unfortunately, this Kindle is going to be given away as a gift so I only got a few days to play with it. Now taking donations to get my own unit.

Update: Kindle is now officially available in Thailand.