Wirelessly syncing Calibre newspapers & a NookColor

[Quistopher]

I posted this before in the Calibre section but I should posted it here. I added a couple of changes and I still sync too many ebooks that I really don't read. This was one of those things that I wanted to figure out, it was kind of fun.

I am planning on using this when I travel on vacation, I leave my personal laptop at home and take my work laptop. It will turn on, down & sync and then go back into sleep mode. Probably a few times a day, it will be great for long road trips where I won't have WiFi but I could sync the NC & Sugarsync when I stop for lunch. Now I will just need to get the wife to drive more.

I think you might be able to sync everything in Calibre, that was the guy's goal when I read about Dropbox but that wasn't my goal with this.


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I have had my NookColor for a month, rooted for a week and I have been looking for a way to wirelessly sync Calibre newspapers/magazines ebooks to my NC. I finally figured it out a way, I am not sure if it is the best way, if you find a better solution, please reply to this post. Most of my research was on https://www.mobileread.com , trying various apps on the Android Market and Google. I have tried the Calibre web server, it works pretty good but I don’t want to stick it out on the internet or setup a VPN. My goal is for this to work if I am at home or on the road, I would just need the laptop & Nook Color on and connected to the internet. Finally, the path to items on my laptop or NookColor might be different than what your path is, you will need to make that adjustment.

At first, I was going to let Calibre download the ebooks and then I saw a post where it can be done via a command line, ebook-convert myrecipe.recipe myrecipe.epub. For me, this is preferred so I can have the updated newspapers a couple of times a day. Of course this was the last thing I figured out, if you let Calibre download the ebooks, I found a windows command line tool to copy ebook files from subfolders, xxcopy, http://www.xxcopy.com. I included my current version of my script at the bottom.

From the MobileRead forums, I kept seeing references to Dropbox and I looked at that first. The only problem was I had to manually download each of the ebooks so that didn’t make sense for me. I next tried SugarSync and I ran into an issue with installing it. It took a day to overcome that, finally I figured out how to run the ADB command via WiFi to install it. Once it was installed, I put a folder called CalibreNews in the Magic Briefcase\Mobile Folders. With that, I used the xxcopy command from above to copy the epub files. Since on my laptop all of the newspaper/magazines are stored under C:\Calibre_Data\calibre, I have the one command so I am avoiding many copy or xcopy commands for each file. I have it so it overwrites files but that is my choice, you will need to make an adjustment if you want the file name to have a time stamp or other unique feature in the name. Please note, your path might be slightly different. (This example pulls from where Calibre puts it, I changed it in my current script to a temp location.)

xxcopy C:\Calibre_Data\calibre\*.epub “C:\Users\Quistopher\Documents\Magic Briefcase\Mobile Folders\CalibreNews” /S /SX /Y

Setting it up with Windows Task scheduler was pretty straight forward. I start it at 5:31am and it takes a little more than an hour to run. I did find some free power management sw that turns on Windows out of sleep mode. It’s called SmartPower, it’s pretty straight forward, http://ignatu.co.uk/SmartPower.aspx.

On my NC, in the SugarSync app, I selected the CalibreNews folder, pressing and holding, it lets me Sync to my device (NookColor). After that the files have been copied on my laptop, in the SugarSync app, when I navigate to my folder I am given the option to sync it. I have way too many news items, almost 30 and it takes a 1 minute or 2 to sync but it’s acceptable.
Now that I have the new ebooks on my NC, I have a script to copy it to my Newspaper folder. For me that’s a preference, I could do more with the script and separate magazines but it’s easier for me to have them in the one place, I don’t get any newspapers from B&N. Also, I keep everything on my SDCARD, it’s a 16GB card and I have plenty of space. I found a few items in the Android market to make this work, GScript Lite, BusyBox Installer and Root Explorer. Gscript Lite is the scripting tool I am using and I will list my commands below. Please note, I prefer to not keep old versions of the news. Once BusyBox was installed, it allowed me to have the Copy (CP) & Delete (RM) commands. Finally Root Explorer costs a couple of bucks, any file manager should do so you can verify your path on your device but I read another article about disabling some phones services to improve battery life so it seemed to be worth it. (If there is nothing there, it will error out, I made a copy only script too, removing the RM line.)

rm /sdcard/”My Files”/Newspapers/*.epub
cp /sdcard/”My SugarSync Folders”/CalibreNews/*.epub /sdcard/”My Files/Newspapers
reboot

I have it reboot at the end so the Newspapers list is refreshed. I am not sure how to make the script echo the commands on the screen. I see a blue screen when the script runs and when it’s done, there is a countdown at the bottom on the Close button, wait for the countdown, it takes less then a minute. Afterwards the NookColor reboots and you have your updated Calibre generated newspaper & magazine ebooks.

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Software & Apps I used. Everything is freeware except Root Explorer.
xxcopy - http://www.xxcopy.com – The Windows command line tool that would allow me to copy files from subfolders.

SmartPower - http://ignatu.co.uk/SmartPower.aspx - I define when the computer turns on and off. For Windows 7, I had to go into power management and set it so the software could turn on Window. I haven’t tried it in another version of Windows.

SugarSync - http://www.sugarsync.com – For whatever reason I could not download it from the Android Market, I used this link for the Android apk, http://www.sugarsync.com/downloads/android.html - The SugarSync Windows client has to be on for this to work.

Root Explorer – Android Market

BusyBox Installer – Android Market

GScript Lite – Android Market – I was looking for a free scripting tool and this seemed pretty good once I got it.

Apps to install Sugar Sync. For whatever reason, my laptop does not see my NookColor via the USB cable so I cannot do any ADB commands.

Show IP Widget – Android Market – Easily shows the NC’s IP.

ADB over WIFI Widget – Android Market – Once started, I can define the port to connect via ADB from my laptop.

My laptop is running Windows 7, it’s older but it’s good enough to do what I want with Calibre.

I hope you find this helpful, this is all still very new to me but I am happy with the process I have so far. Please follow my process at your own risk.

del "C:\Users\Quistopher\Documents\Magic Briefcase\Mobile Folders\CalibreNews\*.epub" /F /S /Q
del C:\Calibre_Temp\*.epub /F /S /Q

ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\indy_star.recipe" Indy_Star.epub
ebook-convert C:\Calibre_Temp\Recipe\MuncieStarPress.recipe Muncie_Star_Press.epub
ebook-convert C:\Calibre_Temp\Recipe\MyrtleBeachTheSunPress.reci pe MB_Sun_Press.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\baltimore_sun.rec ipe" Baltimore_Sun.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\boston.com.recipe " Boston_Globe.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\chicago_tribune.r ecipe" Chicago_Tribune.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\cincinnati_enquir er.recipe" Cincinnati_Enquier.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\cnetnews.recipe" Cnet_News.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\columbusdispatch. recipe" Columbus_Dispatch.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\deadspin.recipe" DeadSpin.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\endgadget.recipe" Engadget.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\espn.recipe" ESPN.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\journalgazette.re cipe" Ft.Wayne_Journal.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\latimes.recipe" LA_Times.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\lifehacker.recipe " Lifehacker.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\miami_herald.reci pe" Miami_Hearld.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\neowin.recipe" NeoWin.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\newsweek.recipe" NewsWeek.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\people_us_mashup. recipe" People_US.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\politico.recipe" Politico.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\san_fran_chronicl e.recipe" SF_Chronicle.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\nypost.recipe" NY_Post.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\time_magazine.rec ipe" TIME.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\usatoday.recipe" USAToday.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\wired.recipe" Wired.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\wsj_free.recipe" WSJ.epub
ebook-convert "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\recipes\nytimes.recipe" NY_Times.epub



xxcopy C:\Calibre_Temp\*.epub "C:\Users\Quistopher\Documents\Magic Briefcase\Mobile Folders\CalibreNews" /S /SX /Y

exit

[=X=]

Thanks for this post gscript was the missing link i was looking for.
My only desire is to sync the move mdp files and could not figute how to push files up to a directory, gscript is the answer