ebooks anyone?

[nikos]

i recently bought a kindle ebook reader. It sounded like a good idea at the time

anybody of you into ebooks? I was thinking about basic shell integration, e.g. text preview handlers (think text search in books), thumbnails etc in windows explorer/xplorer2. I am googling for the past 2 hours without any success. ANy tips?

[IneedHelp]

eBooks? Kill them with fire!!

[Gary M. Mugford]

i recently bought a kindle ebook reader. It sounded like a good idea at the time

anybody of you into ebooks? I was thinking about basic shell integration, e.g. text preview handlers (think text search in books), thumbnails etc in windows explorer/xplorer2. I am googling for the past 2 hours without any success. ANy tips?

Nikos,

 I normally stay welll within the x2 forums but I came looking for the right place to put a question non-x2 related to our Irish curmudgeon (Ya, I'm talking about you, K). Found this question. And you MUST go and get yourself calibre at http://calibre-ebook.com/download

 While it's been ages since any of the WEEKLY updates has actually been something I needed, I still update every week. The plug-ins are the most interesting area of on-going improvement and I use (and support through a tipjar) a handful of them. I don't WANT you to take time away from x2, BUT, if you were to spend the resulting 'free' time at calibre producing some awesome as yet unthought of plug-in, I wouldn't complain.

 With Calibre, converting your pdf's and html's into MOBI formats is ridiculously easy. Well, it is in English. No comment on non-English texts. You could load up ALL of your research docs and anything you have in non-DRM'd format into the Kindle and it's there for ready use.

 BIG ebook fan. BIG Kindle fan. EMail me if you want specific sugggestions in a variety of areas. And I DO have opinions.

 GM

[Kilmatead]

but I came looking for the right place to put a question non-x2 related to our Irish curmudgeon (Ya, I'm talking about you, K)

You know, the defining feature of Curmudgeons is always to be found in their Authenticity.  Would you have found Camus wandering around Amsterdam pining for a false judge-penitent?  I should think not!  Would anyone doubt that Jean-Baptiste Clamence would have anything but an authentic Gauloises dangling from his bloodied lips?  Would Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun have ever entertained the idea of Le Roman de la Rose Synthétique?  Mais non!

So what is this fascination with artificial ink on artificial paper presenting you with the illusion of true human knowledge at your fingertips?  What was I to do, 25 years ago in Paris, standing - distraught and angst-ridden (as only authentic young men can be!) - on the quays of the Seine screaming at the top of my lungs for the lost love of Achères-la-Forêt?  Was I to writhe there, ex-patria worn openly on my sleeve in the best tradition of Montmartre before the malaise set in, and just pretend that none of it was real?  I was brought up to hate this world that you Barons of Artificiality have constructed, like only Caliban could hate his beloved Prospero!  What next, we ask, the collected works of Gauguin distilled through Breugel as interpreted by de Kooning?  Who went to the second coming of Black Mountain College - was to you, or me?  I don't remember seeing you there, in your robes all glittered in faux-alabaster sheen - so how can you read of Tolstoy or Marx, or the man of The Brothers with any sense of emotional worth?  This artificial ink of yours, on this artificial paper of yours, in this artificial world of yours - it is not mine!  I declare it!  Curmudgeon of Curmudgeons that I am!  It is not Mine!

Do you hear me?  I will be the degradation of your batteries!  I will be the glare in your screen!  I will be the small light that goes beep in the night displaying an error-of-death that no one will ever read!  I will bring down the wrath of True History upon thee and thy Children's Crusade of Folly!  So, my dearest Mr. Mug, can you still discern the authentic from the shiny and new?  Can you distil a peaceful Grande Cuvée into a turbulent Courvoisier?  Do you know the alchemy that makes it real?  Or have you lost it all in a delirium of Convenience, Simplicity, and that "At My Fingertips" conceit that only the technologically jaded may ever experience fully?

These are the barbs I ask of you, Sir!  Of YOU, and your EBook formats which will formulate the world into bits and bobs and PD-F-this! tattoos your teenagers will think are so cool.  Blindness!  Thoughtless poverty!  When the whole meaning of your electronic world comes surging up with satyrical bile into my mouth will I then be able to express my true feelings towards this paltry love affair with so called "Information Technologies".

True, I may be a licentious man.  A lecherous, odorous, spiteful man.  A curmudgeonly man even.  The smallest dirtiest mousiest man who ever lived beneath the floorboards.  But I am an authentically licentious lecherous odorously spiteful curmudgeonly man.

Do you hear that?  I scream that as loudly now in earnest as I did 25 years ago surrounded by the wonderfully villainous scum of Paris.  I sing to you brothers, I share your spittle-wine, your sad and lonesome leftout world of dispossession and unrequited conviction.  Ours is the choir of the Real, a polyphony of evensong which will ring with complexity in the Terse and engender glory in the painful of the Long.

Why oh why do they bait me so?  Way back when sang the choir - but now we are deaf and dumb and surrounded by the illusions at our fingertips.  Speak not, O Ebook fanboys, speak not and retain our respect that little bit longer.  Or, too little too late, unplug your eyes and see the world wither to the dust of your forgetfulness.  Which is the saddest song?  Mine of authentic loss, or yours, of electronic gain?

[Gary M. Mugford]

but I came looking for the right place to put a question non-x2 related to our Irish curmudgeon (Ya, I'm talking about you, K)

You know, the defining feature of Curmudgeons ... Which is the saddest song?  Mine of authentic loss, or yours, of electronic gain?

Oh, tis very sad indeed to scoff at the pleasures of an ever-so-light device capable of handling enough books to ensure you never finish another book since it was the only thing handy. I've been reading books on devices since the days of the Palm Pilot, the only reason I could see for actually carrying around a PDA. But then I discovered the joys of a Jeff Deaver novel while queued at the bank and stopped caring how long the tellers gabbed with old friends who had arrived before me. But, with a library numbering in the tens of thousands of actual dead-tree books, i wasn't a complete convert until the Christmas I got an omnibus collection of Star Trek novels called The Captain's Table. The book, for it was really a book and not a cleverly designed weights set, was a chore to heft and to keep open. I read the first of the books contained there in. Then bought the electronic version for something less than three bucks on sale and ditched the muscle-straining exercise of trying to read the rest of the blunderbuss omnibus. That was last century. And I've enjoyed the benefits of e-ink and the ilk ever since.

 So, I'm happy. Which leaves you, sadly, as the sad man of this incredibly off-topic tale. Not for times past in urban France. But for battling against one of the better parts of the electronic frontier. Come, join Nikos and me amongst the Amazon slaves.

 GM

[Tuxman]

Ah, e-books. For people who always cut their fingers on these sharp pages.

[RightPaddock]

i recently bought a kindle ebook reader. It sounded like a good idea at the time

anybody of you into ebooks? I was thinking about basic shell integration, e.g. text preview handlers (think text search in books), thumbnails etc in windows explorer/xplorer2. I am googling for the past 2 hours without any success. ANy tips?

Nikos,

...  you MUST go and get yourself calibre at http://calibre-ebook.com/download

With Calibre, converting your pdf's and html's into MOBI formats is ridiculously easy. Well, it is in English. No comment on non-English texts. You could load up ALL of your research docs and anything you have in non-DRM'd format into the Kindle and it's there for ready use.

GM

I've recently started using Calibre to manage my e-documents - so far over 3000 documents added to its d/b.

Calibre tackles the 'problem domain' from the perspective of a librarian or archivist.  So from a computer system viewpoint its a bit quirky.  However that's more than offset by the fact that when I think "I wonder if I can do this" then not only can I do it, but it's usually in the way I'd expect to do it.  And if its not there then there's a usually a Preference Setting or a plug-in to put it there.  As a final resort I could write my own plug-in or even change the core product - it's free open source, although I'd have to learn to wrestle with python.

In the 3 months I've been using it - zero defects and zero crashes.

I'd like to see them turn it into something that manages all digital media.

It runs on most *ix's (including OS/X) and Windows - there's a portable version for the latter, and as I've said its free - donations are acceptable.  

RP

[nikos]

so is this calibre double-storing books in the library? E.g. if I have a book on my kindle and want to add it in the calibre library, do I have it in two places as a result?

[Gary M. Mugford]

Nikos,

 Calibre is, at it's heart, a database. It arranges for a book to be stored in a series of folders (your pick of location). Let's say you use a folder called C:\books. There will then be a sub-folder system based on author names (unfortunately, their first and then last names). Then inside each author folder, you'll have a separate folder for each book title. Within THAT folder, will be the MOBI file, and OPT file and, optionally, a cover JPG.

 IF you have a folder called DownloadedBooks. You can DRAG books from that folder and drop them on Calibre (indeed, this IS the way to get the books into Calibre. So CAN is the wrong word). This process does two things. It sets up an entry in the Calibre database AND then creates an entry in the folder system I described in the first paragraph. At this point, you have TWO copies of the book. You can now delete the book file from DownloadedBooks. THAT is optional. But I do it.

 At that point, with the entry INDEXED in Calibre and the actual file now within the Calibre file system, you can COPY the book to the Kindle via Calibre's system. OR, you can copy the book to the Kindle manually. It is merely simpler to let Calibre do it. It will handle setting up the book within Kindle's file system and will get it right all the time. It IS possible to screw this up when doing it manually. I speak from experience.  

 When you have the Kindle plugged in, when you open Calibre, it will show an EXTRA column denoting that the book is on the Kindle or not. This is a sortable, filterable column that lets you bunch all the books on the kindle together at the top.

 In my case, I have a lot of books. A number that I will never, ever be able to read in my lifetime. But I've been acquiring for the various members of the extended family and we all like different genres. Calibre keeps the whole family library together in one spot. I not only allow Calibre to do the organizing, I use it to add the extra data I like to keep, including ratings, date reviewed in my blog, covers (where there wasn't one supplied originally), verbose descriptions, etc. By doing that, I can also affect the title that shows up on the Kindle.

 For example, MY exports to Kindle (others in the family use different setups for exporting) uses the kindle to show how interested in the book I am  on a 1-9 scale, 1 being most interested. It then shows the genre via short two-letter codes. Then, if the book is in a series, it shows as either a short acronym or the actual series name, plus the volume number. Finally it shows the actual book title. This allows me to use Kindle's Title Sort to put the books into my preferred reading order, by genre and by series. Which comes in very handy when you carry around 400+ books at all times.

 An example of the format above for Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo's Phantom, the ninth Harry Hole book would be: [1MY] HH09 - Phantom while a non-series, non-fiction book like Malcolm Gladwell's Blink would show up as [3NF] Blink. (Actually, Blink is a VERY worthwhile book to read and I've read it. But originally, I had a 'when I get to it' rating on the book. NOW, all of Gladwell's stuff gets a 1-rating. NOTE: Despite the title getting tortuously mangled while ON the Kindle, the original title stays safe and secure in the Calibre file system, untouched.

 When I finish the book. I delete it off the Kindle through the Kindle's system (go to the book list, find the entry by going to MOST RECENT sort and then RIGHT ARROW on the mini-keypad and choose to delete it). THEN, when I put my Kindle in for weekly re-charging and bring up Calibre, I can sort by the LOC column (One of many extra columns I have created in Calibre). Then, I can scan the database for ones marked as OK (On Kindle), that are no longer marked as same by the Kindle's column. Those, I change the Loc to R (for Read), rate the book in the star system and, if reviewed, enter in the blog date.  As I enter in new books through the week, and they come in, in drips and drabs it seems, I use the TK code (To Kindle) in Loc to give me a quick way to find which books I want to send to the Kindle the next time it's plugged in.

 NOW, all of this is called SIDELOADING. I had a LOT of books before the Kindle ever came along. I've been reading on Palm Pilots and Sony Clie's for a LOT of years. In fact, I used the PDA's more as book readers then as PDA's. So, I'm used to sideloading as a concept. I also have a lot of PDF's and DOC's of articles I have written or have acquired over the years. All in a variety of genres. So, this is the system I developed.

 Calibre's ability to convert from other book formats is the feature a LOT of people actually use it for the most. I only mention this in passing because some people NEVER use the feature. To others, it IS the reason for having Calibre. But from what you've written, I think you fall into the latter camp. So I concentrate on the database end of the program.

 YOU, probably have only books that you have bought through the Kindle store at this point. Soooooooo, how does Calibre work with THOSE books? Well, when the Kindle is plugged in, it's just another external drive. Find the books you have bought using your file manager and drag and drop onto an open Calibre window. THAT will get the information AND A COPY of the book into Calibre's database and file system respectively. This becomes your backup of the in-Kindle-Subsystem entry. IF, as famously happened with the George Orwell's 1984 debacle, Amazon decides to remove the book from your Kindle, you have a private copy you can put back. You don't have to send the COPY you have to the device because it is still there. BUT, you will have the data in the database and from there you can do whatever you choose. Including marking it as read, rating it and having an entry to prevent you from mistakenly buying a second copy.

 How you choose to handle whether it stays on your Kindle (They archive it, so you CAN delete your books on Kindle and then get them back subsequently, if you desire. But I LIKE local backup copies for the usual paranoid reasons) is completely up to you.

 Calibre isn't NECESSARY to Kindle users who only put Amazon-bought books on their readers and do all file management on the reader. But for sideloading books and articles, converting from other formats TO MOBI, and for general peace of mind (a virtually unknown state to a paranoid book hoarder), Calibre is indispensable.

 GM

[nikos]

you must really like this calibre
to be frank although I like reading I didn't use my kindle almost at all. Perhaps I will make up the lost reading during the summer on the beach!

[Gary M. Mugford]

Nikos,

 Hmmm, parent to a recent new-born, an active career answering emails from the likes of me, while developing my most oft-used software. And you AREN'T using your Kindle for hours a day?

 Hmmmmm, GM

[theo_neandonly]

calibre is a nice piece of slow bloatware written by lazy "programmers". Probably all in MSHTML, or Java, or one of those other non-compiling, runtime-dependent "languages". It has ONE use, and that is to convert e-books from one format to another. At which, strangely enough, it excels.

For just READING e-books, Sumatra. Don't you have anything better to do with your CPU cycles and your RAM? And your time?

As for organizing them... isn't that what DIRECTORIES are for??

-- Curmudgeon II

[Gary M. Mugford]

Hmmm, trolling for reactions. Calibre is written in python and anybody who habitually produces fairly extensive updates EVERY FRIDAY for most of five years (yes, I'm aware he's missed SEVEN Fridays in that span to do things like get married, move from one continent to another, be there for the birth of his child, the 'lazy' so-and-so) can hardly in any reasonable way be called lazy. And the rest of your comment ... well I will let it speak for you and itself.

GM

PS: Milord, your's for the skewering. Please proceed.

[pj]

Hmmm, trolling for reactions. Calibre is written in python and anybody who habitually produces fairly extensive updates EVERY FRIDAY for most of five years (yes, I'm aware he's missed SEVEN Fridays in that span to do things like get married, move from one continent to another, be there for the birth of his child, the 'lazy' so-and-so) can hardly in any reasonable way be called lazy. And the rest of your comment ... well I will let it speak for you and itself.

GM

PS: Milord, your's for the skewering. Please proceed.

Gary,

Although very belated, thank you for the comprehensive description of library management using calibre. I'm guilty of being of the "convert only" type of user and haven't taken advantage of it's true organizational capabilities for my 30K+ ebooks. Probably be an excellent project over the holiday to drop the whole mess onto a 2T drive and get the library and my Nook finally organized.

As for the recent spate of neo trolls -- Sigh, you try to bring them up right but just look ...

-----------------------
PJ (coughing and sniffling) in (sunny ) FL

[Kilmatead]

...my 30K+ ebooks.

In 1950 the average American could have bought 15 houses for roughly what it cost to send me to University 30 years ago. And I threw it all away to be a manual-labourer and all-around smart-arse of a misanthropic hermit. (A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.) And a bloody well-read smart-arse of a hermit, at that. But I have not read, and nor can I conceive of reading, 30,000 books. So, I ask, if placed end to end, exactly how close to the moon would that stack of books get you? I ask because the economic news people are forever portraying someone's national debt or quarterly-fiscal earnings by using that sort of imaging simile and since no one really knows how thick a piece of pseudo-economic paper is (not much thicker than an e-book I might imagine), it just struck me as something I'd like to see applied to something I might actually identify with. What does one do with 30,000 books? Was it you who covered your theft by burning down the library of Alexandria? I mean, where do they all come from? I would imagine that I have read at least a couple of thousand books, but I can count on one hand the number of books that were actually of any importance to my life, and the 5th one would have been the lowliest verse of Plutarch. And, indeed, I can count on 2 fingers the books that were so important that their mere existence changed my life (for the worse, some might opine), regardless of whether I ever even read them or not. Just the idea of those books existing was enough (like Allegri's Miserere mei, Deus) to abjure humanity and inspire eremetical misanthropy in a little boy who could smile toothily with the best of them behind a swath of blond hair before he was even old enough to read (Pope Urban eat your heart out). If it only took 2 books to send me over the edge of madness and turn my back on what everyone else takes for granted, does that mean that you could be 15,000 times more likely to... to... well... to do whatever it is that people like me do to end up writing it on the posterior of their headstones?

(Don't mind me, I'm just having a 'WTF?' moment. )

...you try to bring them up right but just look ...

Epitaphs! The only thing you really can take with you! (The mind boggles working out the odds as to whether or not you really were 15,000 times more likely to write your own epitaph as to write mine with that sentence.)

And no, like H.G. Wells, I'm not going to tell you what the 2 books were. That would be too droll even for me.