LWN: Comments on "Catching up with Calibre"

...when a LWN weekly ed for eBook?

nix — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:37:17 +0000

The conversion from the LWN weekly format appears to be nearly perfect to me. The only problem I've seen is that quotes are not properly italicized.

LWN on the Kindle

nix — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:31:30 +0000

You can do this with a tiny cron job that runs something like

ebook-convert "LWN.net Weekly Edition.recipe" \
~/tmp/conversion/lwn-$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").mobi \
--output-profile=kindle --username=$USERNAME \
--password=$PASSWORD --keep-ligatures --smarten-punctuation && \
calibre-smtp -a ~/tmp/conversion/lwn-$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").mobi \
-s "LWN subscription" -r your.mail.srvr -p 25 -e NONE \
your@email.address your-kindle-address@free.kindle.com ""

Caveats: obviously your LWN username and password need setting up: so does your mailserver (encryption is supported); your@email.address should be one of the email addresses permitted to send email to your Kindle on Amazon's management pages, and your-kindle-address@free.kindle.com should obviously enough be your Kindle address. (This is a wifi-only address: omitting the 'free' will use 3G if your Kindle has it, but will charge you for the privilege if it does so.)

Aside: now that the horrible security-hole-filled Calibre mount helper is gone and udisks is our only hope, I'm very impressed by how well it worked. I expected to have to jump through agonizing hoops to teach it that no I do not want the Kindle mounted on /media/Main or wherevertheheck it is that's hardwired into the source code. All such worries were superfluous: udisks figured out the udev-and-/etc/fstab dance that was mounting it on /mnt/kindle on my system, and mounted it there itself with no problems. Impressive.

LWN on the Kindle

panzerboy — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 08:13:08 +0000

I would love that too.

...when a LWN weekly ed for eBook?

rmano — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 06:02:49 +0000

I own a Kindle too, and I use it a lot with calibre to read LWN weekly edition on commute. But the conversion from "bigpage" to the MOBI format is less than optimal.
It would be great to have a properly structured MOBI (or EPUB) version of LWN weekly edition... ;-) (hint, hint)

Analogue comeback

foom — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 23:45:12 +0000

It's really too bad that more car radios don't have a dynamic range compression knob. I often listen to music in the car, and it's basically impossible to hear correctly mastered CDs...

Calibre conversion

cwitty — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:11:55 +0000

If you want ebook format conversion without the library management, Calibre can do that. You can use the command-line program ebook-convert (part of the Calibre install) for format conversion; you never even have to run the main library-management program.

Catching up with Calibre

zooko — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 07:27:26 +0000

> (The Kindle, incidentally, will eventually be replaced with a more open device; selecting that device is likely to be the topic of a future article).

Can't wait! This is the step that I am stuck on. :-)

Catching up with Calibre

nanday — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 23:55:52 +0000

To be fair, Kovid Goyal was completely open about phoning home when I asked him about it. I suspect that he never stopped to think that some of us might object to it.

Just possibly, he might mention this feature more openly or make it optional if people voiced their objections directly to him.

- Bruce Byfield

Catching up with Calibre

zooko — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:09:27 +0000

Beautiful picture. That looks a lot like my office (and most of the other rooms of my house), including the stack of OLPC XO1s.

Thanks for blazing the way in this -- I too am struggling to relinquish my affection for these heavy, bulky, expensive things. (And I too am looking for a safe and freedom-preserving technology to replace them.)

Analogue comeback

bronson — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:58:09 +0000

This is often true but it has very little to do with the physical medium. Modern CDs are notorious for being mastered with the dynamic range squished and loudness pushed past clipping. That makes it sound more impressive on an ipod with stock headphones or in a car with road noise but produces irritating artifacts on decent stereos.

LPs, because DJs won't stand for these shenanigans, are almost always mastered properly. CDs mastered in the 80s are also usually fine, which is why you sometimes see such insane prices on used Rolling Stones discs.

Calibre conversion

rfunk — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:43:59 +0000

Everyone always recommends Calibre as THE program to use for format conversion, but I find it frustrating for that because it really wants to be a library management program with format conversion as an extra feature. So someone just wanting the conversion must deal with the library management stuff whether we want to or not.

It kind of reminds me of iTunes in that respect.

While I see the advantages of the library-management aspect, we really need an ebook format-conversion program that doesn't have all that baggage.

Analogue comeback

fandom — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 08:36:00 +0000

It's happening here in Spain too, lately supermakets have added a vinyl section and a couple weeks ago it was reported that vinyl is now the fastest growing music format in the USA Some people tell me they sound better than CDs, but I am afraid my ears aren't good enough to notice.

Analogue comeback

eru — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 05:21:50 +0000

... despite the fact that there is still something special about those old analog platters. ...

Curiously, where I live (Helsinki), vinyl record players have made a comeback in the electronics departments of ordinary supermarkets, after an absence of decades. The main difference is these new ones have USB ports and can digitize whatever is played. New vinyl records are also again available in ordinary stores. A passing fad, or people getting tired of digitalization?

Books as kindle

giraffedata — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 02:05:23 +0000

They're really all the same definition. The "arouse or inspire" usage is just a metaphorical use of the basic definition (to start a fire). I'm sure whoever named the kindle was aware of that.

Books as kindle

louie — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:19:49 +0000

Officially, Kindle uses the alternate meaning of kindle: "Arouse or inspire (an emotion or feeling)" (I think it is on the boot screen?) But I'm sure they're not so dense as to have missed the primary definition...

Catching up with Calibre

nix — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:18:23 +0000

Damn you for pointing me at that! Now I'm digging through his ridiculously comprehensive information pages rather than doing any work. (Is there anyone else in the SF world who shows his working to this degree? Hal Clement, Poul Anderson, and, more recently, Peter Watts all do it to some degree, but nothing like *this*.)

The Clockwork Rocket

corbet — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:59:44 +0000

Clockwork Rocket is out, actually; I nearly bought the dead-trees version but held off; later I found it much cheaper in the electronic format.

Catching up with Calibre

lonihpc — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:48:43 +0000

Karl Schroeder and Greg Egan. That book isn't even out yet! I assume it was ePUBized from the excerpt available on the author's website. Excellent taste, Mr. Corbet, on both counts. I consider Diaspora the sf novel with the highest ideas-to-page-count ratio ever.

Catching up with Calibre

njs — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:36:46 +0000

> since you mentioned Science Fiction, take a look at webscription.net

Also http://weightlessbooks.com/, which is Small Beer Press and friends, and http://www.bookviewcafe.com/, which is a bunch of established authors going indie. All DRM-free.

Books as kindle

man_ls — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:53:39 +0000

Allow me to introduce Pepe Carvalho, the Spanish fictional detective who always lights the fire on his chimney using books. He used to say that he have already learned too much and it was time to unlearn.

Also, the name of Amazon's reader (Kindle) means to set on fire, so something must be afoot. Burn your old paper books while getting them in electronic form?

Catching up with Calibre

nix — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:50:38 +0000

No such luck with the reader, alas; even the spouse and the dog can't always be counted upon.

I'm still a real-book man (though may be forced away for technical works by space constraints and greppability). However, I can't manage this scene owing to the lack of the fire. I suppose one could get it by burning all my existing paper books, but, well, that would be sacrilege. Books are... well, books. If I burnt them I might as well be one of those cads that snaps spines or scribbles in books with yellow highlighter pen.

Catching up with Calibre

fb — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:06:56 +0000

> It definitely helps to make the transition away from real books a bit less painful.

Over here the transition from real to e-books has been nothing but joy ;-) other than the physical compactness and all the convenience that it entails, another key advantage of e-books is to be able to adjust font type and size so easily.

The main feature of Calibre for me was barely touched in the review: its e-book format conversion capabilities. I have plenty of text only PDFs, and often use Calibre to put them in MOBI format (to get text reflow and font type adjustment in my e-reader).

Catching up with Calibre

danielpf — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 07:49:04 +0000

There is now a warning in the Wikipedia article :)

LWN on the Kindle

cdamian — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 07:33:45 +0000

On a related note: I would love to have my LWN automatically delivered to my Kindle. Ideally in the right format and not as PDF.

I would even subscribe and pay for it if it were available on Amazon.com . Even better if it would be goodie for subscribers on lwn.net .

Catching up with Calibre

djc — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:48:50 +0000

Ah, our editor must be a fan of Karl Schroeder? I recently read my first ebook on my iPad 2 (a gift from work) and it was reason to read many more. There indeed seems to be a few nice things about this ebook thing, although I still eschew purchasing books in e-only package.

Catching up with Calibre

alonz — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:46:17 +0000

Actually, the best way to get the Calibre sources is documented clearly in the User's Manual:

bzr branch lp:calibre

Catching up with Calibre

malcolmt — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:08:48 +0000

The phone-home bit is concerning. I just had a look around the calibre website and couldn't see it mentioned anywhere that they routinely collect identifying information like this (and unique id and IP address definitely counts as that). I don't feel unreasonable in classifying that as as under-handed and fairly unacceptable in this day and age of privacy awareness.

I iz disappointment. :-(

Catching up with Calibre

dlang — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:01:40 +0000

in late 2006 I took two weeks of vacation around a week long conference. For that trip I had over 50 pounds of books packed (according to the airport scales), the books took up as much room in my luggage as my clothes. since then I've got the Kindle DX (large screen) and my luggage is slightly lighter (fewer books, more electronics) but my available selection on hand to read is _much_ better.

that said, paper books still have their place, and they are still accumulating around the house, just not quite as quickly

since you mentioned Science Fiction, take a look at webscription.net. this is the bookstore for Baen Books, and all the books are DRM free, in multiple formats, and priced fairly well ($6 for the e-book version, available usually two weeks prior to the hardcover hitting the bookstores). they even have a substantial pool of books for free (early books in a series in large part, but not exclusively)