On 11/30/2012 05:46 AM, Johann Spies wrote:
On 29 November 2012 15:36, Kelly Clowers <kelly.clowers@gmail.com> wrote:
On
Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 6:41 AM, Beco <rcb@beco.cc> wrote:
> Dear fellows,
I have a Kobo and I like it pretty well. One issue I do have is that
browsing through a large collection of books is a real pain. You can
sort by title or author, but that is it, no support for a folder
structure or similar. The Kobo software work well on wine, I think
they are supposed to put out a Linux native version at some point (it
uses QT4). For Kobo you only need to install their software, not
Adobe, though Adobe works ok in Wine as well.
Have you tried using Calibre? I did not need any Kindle software on my
Debian computer to manage my Kindle. Calibre does it all for me.
Kobo at least is pretty terrible for PDFs. Slow, badly sized text, no
reflow...Fundamentally PDF is not a good format for ebooks. I don:t
know if the experience is better on a Kindle or similar.
Same on Kindle except when you format pdf for A6 pages.
I had some success converting pdf's to mobi format - escpecially when
it was created with latex with hyperref. I think Calibre first try to
convert it to html and then to epub or mobi or whatever format you
prefer.
Can't help with the remote stuff. Maybe Kindle's wispernet would be
useful?
I have a Kindle Touch. I do not use whispernet, but my local home
wifi-network and it works very nicely. I can even send documents by
email to the Kindle or even from my Macbook' s Desktop using Amazon's
"Send to Kindle" software. And then you can choose to which Kindle you
want to send it. I and my wife have both Kindles registered on the same
account at Amazon. Then I also have a software Kindle on my mobile
phone and on my macbook. I can use Send-to-Kindle to send a file to
all of them.
I find it surprising that people are recommending tablets and
phones... IMHO phone are next to useless for any serious amount of
book reading, they are just too small, and the tablets have the
battery life issue. That is what is great about an ereader, you charge
it like once a week tops.
I charge my Kindle once about once in a month or month and a half.
Regards
Johann
--
Because experiencing your loyal love is better than life itself,
my lips will praise you. (Psalm 63:3)
The whole DRM issue is a bad joke. I heard that France outlawed them.
If you load a copy of Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) and Calibre (both
freeware) on to your system and properly set up the software, the DRM
is automatically stripped off the document on download and Calibre
reformats to any reader you want to use. The instructions are easy to
find on the internet. I am not a believer in pirating but there is a
limit as to how much screwing over the consumer in this country can
tolerate before everyone doesn't care any more. I'm still tinkering
around with the whole DRM issue and still have a lot to learn. I do
know that DRM's are a pain in the posterior for the customer and do
absolutely nothing for copy right protection.
My latest fiasco was today when I tried to download a book from my
local library. One book I couldn't get because the copy was already
loaned out (Yes it was an eBook.)
This is unbelievable. I downloaded the other book into my computer
directly. That doesn't work. I had to load through ADE. This sent it
directly to Calibre which I suspect stripped off all protection. I am
supposed to have the book for a week at which point it is supposed to
go poof. I'll be interested to see if this happens. I think that you
can probably keep a copy of all of your books in Calibre, copy them to
disk and tell the suppliers to go to hell.
Oner last thing. In defense of Amazon and Barnes and Noble, most of
this garbage is coming from the publishers. With the present business
model, the publisher sells the book to the distributor who is required
to sell be book at the price the publisher dictates. The seller gets
30% of the sale. The US and several European governments are suing
several publishing groups (read monopolies) over this practice. I guess
the publishers need the money to pay bloated salaries to their top
executives and line the pockets of their stock holders. Too bad we
don't have capitalism in this country. I died with the Civil War.
Gary R.
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