Hi Kim and list, Sometimes, we love to research because someone gives us a useful tipoff... Whether it could be a question, an interesting reading or something that we really want to publish... In the following case, I would like to thank Kim for bringing up a good question, and I am happy to report that I have the answer to our long sought question. But first, herer are few answers: * I am sorry to report that BrailleNote does not support Exchange Server (unless the OS is upgraded). * For Index problem: there is a file under Manuals folder on KeySoft system Disk called ks.ndx. Delete it, then perform a Warm Reset. If it does not work, let us know (at least with version information, please). I don't know if the technical author is still around (last time we heard, Kate Dasler, the technical author, requested leave of absence for several months.). Now, onto the topic at hand: I did some Google search, hoping to get an easy-to-understand article about Kim's questions on data misalignment. I found few articles dealing with it, but I found that it was not that simple enough for beginners to understand. Here's the explanation based on what I found: A data misalignment is a condition where a CPU would not handle data correctly according to its read/write byte length. Although the data that the programmer is using is fine (at first glance), when the CPU encounters it (fetches from memory), it needs to do extra calculation because it is not presented in a way that the CPU can work effectively with it. Usually, it means that the CPU is reading parts of the first data, then handles parts of next incoming data. CPU's want data to be aligned in multiples of its byte length to work with it more efficiently, as illustrated below. For example, suppose that a programmer is trying to create a PDF converter application, and he is trying to test the program under 32-bit CPU. While the programmer would use file i/o (input/output) to read PDF document to memory and convert the data to text file, the CPU needs to see that whatever the data it gets from memory has four byte words each (8 bits equals one byte). If it is not, then it will create "data misalignment." Suppose that a part of the source PDF needs 20 bytes of memory to store formatting information, and it is currently using memory locations 0 through 19 (computers start counting at zero). Since the CPU would see that it is a multiple of four bytes, it would be considered aligned. Now, suppose that the programmer, for sake of testing, inserted a three byte string (like "for" or similar word) on top of the formatting e.g. putting boldface on the word. Then he put a 12 byte text right after the bolded word. This is where the "fighting" begins between a programmer and a silicone chip. The next time the chip reads the information, plus the added text, it would create "data misalignment" error. At the programmer's camp, he would say, "but it was fine for me to put that string right after the bolded text." Then the silicone chip would respond, "no, you sent me data that was misaligned. I got the first twenty bytes fine, but after that, there was a jumble of whatever that came after it. I seem to know that it was something like a bolded word and a one character instead of a collection of string which came after it." In memory terms, this is how it would look like: 0 through 19: Formatting information, like above. 20 through 22: the bolded word "for." 23 through 34: The twelve character string. Starting with the next data and instruction, it would use memory location 35 instead of 36 (4 times 9). To avoid this problem, one article that I found suggests "padding" the data so that when the CPU reads the next instruction or data, it would be properly aligned. For our example above, the programmer and the silicone chip would have reached a compromise if there was a nonsense data at memory location 23. So the picture becomes: Memory locations 0 through 19: Formatting information. Locations 20 through 22: The bolded word. Location 23: Some nonsense that the CPU can handle (bypassing it at the programmer's end). Locations 24 through 35: The twelve byte string. After that, the CPU can work with whatever comes after using location 36. Few notes: * All BrailleNote family uses 32-bit CPU's due to Windows CE being a 32-bit operating system. * For 16-bit CPU's the word length would be two bytes; on 64-bit processors, it is eight bytes.
Few websites and sources: * Wikipedia. "Data Structure Allignment" article. * MSDN. "About Data Allignment." msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms253949(VS.80).aspx * IBM. "Data alignment: Straighten up and fly right." www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-dalign/ Hope this helps. I would like to apologize if it was hard for you to understand. Cheers, Joseph P.S. Ray, Alex, any others: do you have simpler explanations? -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kim Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 9:37 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Braillenote] My 2 cents worth I've been reading all of the posts regarding HW's need to catch up with "the real world". I was very happy with my old VN. I am an avid reader who belongs to Bookshare. When they changed things on their site that was the kick in the pants I needed to get a new machine. There are many features on the mpower that I enjoy. I enjoy the portability and ability to check e mail, and, for the most part, I enjoy the media center. All of the weird error messages drive me crazy. Most recently I get a "data misalignment" message. What the heck is that? I am extremely fortunate that the organization I work for bought this for me. One of the features that was very important to them (and me) was the ability to sinc with my OutLook calendar, etc. Now I'm reading that this does not work. As usual, I thought it was just me since I am not particularly technically minded. As I haven't been able to get Keysinc to work. My schedule has been such that I haven't had a chunk of time to get tech support. I will when I have time. Although I enjoy the media center it's disappointing that I can't create play lists from various folders. It is also disappointing that I have not been able to find a site that I can stream. The other thing is that my organization was told that this mpower would work with our company's exchange server, This has turned out not to be true. I don't believe we were lied to, I think it was incompetence. I agree that the spell checker is awkward and limited. My spelling is pathetic so this is a feature very important to me. One more thing that drives me crazy (my husband says "drive? you're looking for a parking spot, Ah true love. grin) is the on line manual. Whoever created the index feature should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sure that no less than a dozen times I've looked up something in the index only to find that there is no info there. What I mean to say is that I find the topic but when I go to read about it there is nothing. I don't think this machine has lived up to what their brochure states on their web site. I have not made a big deal about it because when it comes to technology I always figure I'm doing something wrong. As I read what everyone else is saying I'm realizing that perhaps it's not just me. I can't tell you how many times during a session I have to reset this machine for any # of reasons. It's annoying but I'm grateful that most times the reset does the trick. I guess the bottom line for me is that on 1 hand I enjoy this machine. And at the same time I'm disappointed. I have a very busy life so usually I just move on and focus on things that are really important to me and the issues I have with this machine fall to the background. The manager of our I T dept is no longer with us, otherwise I'm sure he would be hopping mad about the misinformation he was given about what this machine is supposed to do. So there you go. Perhaps 2 cents is too much. grin I know this message is full of mixed messages but that's how I feel. Very mixed about this product. Perhaps a lap top would have been a better choice. Kim ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [email protected] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [email protected] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
