Touch Wikipedia on Nook Touch

Frank44 · 06-23-2011, 02:24 AM

Is there any way to download Wikipedia, put it on an SD card, and read it on the Nook Touch?

The Nook Touch seems ideal for this. It has a much longer battery life than the tablet computers, the screen is much better than WikiReader, and the Kindle does not have enough memory (and can't read SD cards).

Perhaps the XML dump of Wikipedia could be used:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dump_torrents

Can the Wikipedia XML dump be converted into EPUB and then just read and searched like a book (with having to root the Nook)?

Mellobob · 06-23-2011, 01:41 PM

Ummm .... download wikipedia? I'm quite sure that it will not fit on a 32gig card! Or did you mean just some wikipedia articles?

tomsem · 06-23-2011, 05:41 PM

There are some browser extensions that will convert a page directly to ePub format. On Chrome, I use 'dotEPUB' (or should I say, I've installed it and intend to use it for that purpose). Don't know if it works well, but eventually somebody will write one that does.

GreenMonkey · 06-23-2011, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mellobob

Ummm .... download wikipedia? I'm quite sure that it will not fit on a 32gig card! Or did you mean just some wikipedia articles?

It sounded ridiculous to me too, but really, most of Wikipedia is just text. I thought, maybe if you stripped out the images....

So a quick google search and I found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...dia#size_in_GB

Wikipedia minus images is apparently around 8GB? Craziness!

Frank44 · 06-24-2011, 01:52 AM

The link in my original message is to the regular dump of the whole of Wikipedia without images - currently 5.85GB. For $20 you can buy a 16GB Micro SD card that will take the whole of the English Wikipedia and Wictionary and Wikiquotes and 33,000 Gutenberg.org eBooks as xml.bz2 files, with about 6GB left to load more new books than you'll read in your whole life.

I repeat my original question. Is there any way to convert these xml.bz2 files into ePub format so the Nook Touch can read them?

The WikiReader ($69 from BJ's) reads xml.bz2 files, but it has a small LCD touch-screen that's not nearly as easy to read as the Nook Touch.

jocampo · 06-24-2011, 08:18 AM

The HTML you can get from the XML file can be converted to ePub via Calibre, I think.

HarryT · 06-24-2011, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank44

The Nook Touch seems ideal for this. It has a much longer battery life than the tablet computers, the screen is much better than WikiReader, and the Kindle does not have enough memory (and can't read SD cards).

The Kindle can just access the "real" Wikipedia. It's built-in, in fact - if you highlight a word in a book, you can look it up in Wikipedia as well as in the dictionary.

Mellobob · 06-24-2011, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

It sounded ridiculous to me too, but really, most of Wikipedia is just text. I thought, maybe if you stripped out the images....

So a quick google search and I found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...dia#size_in_GB

Wikipedia minus images is apparently around 8GB? Craziness!

Okay, I stand corrected

But, it sure does point out a few things to old (well, getting there) guys like me:

- All the pages of "stuff" we look at on the internet is so bloated with images and formatting we forget how tiny the actual text part is.

- Modern storage (like 16G cards) is so cheap and BIG. I forget that it's designed for photos and video.

- Text is small in terms of storage.

Guess my mind is still locked in the 1970s when a 100K (note: K, not meg or gig) floppy disks were considered hi-tech

Frank44 · 06-24-2011, 01:08 PM

tomsem, thanks for suggesting dotEPUB. Unfortunately, it will convert only a single web page with a limit of 3MB.

jocampo, the xml.bz2 files are compressed XML. When I extracted the 5.85 GB xml.bz2 using 7zip, the file was 30 GB! Since WikiReader can read the compressed files (and divides them up to avoid the FAT32 4GB limit), it suddenly looks a lot more attractive (despite the inferior screen). As I said, WikiReader will fit whole of the English Wikipedia and Wictionary and Wikiquotes and 33,000 Gutenberg.org eBooks on a 16GB Micro SD card.

HarryT, the Kindle can only read the "real" Wikipedia when it has access to the internet. I'm often in places that have no internet access, so I'm looking for a way to read Wikipedia offline.

It looks as though I'll have to use WikiReader for now, and hope that someone develops an offline Wikipedia application for the Nook Touch (there is an Offline Wikipedia application for Android phones).

Footnote: Mellobob, I'm from your era. My first computer was a CP/M machine with 16KB of memory and a tape drive. In 1982, I bought a 128KB floppy drive for it that cost $900. The word-processing programme (WordStar) and the entire text of the first book I wrote both fitted comfortably on a single 128KB floppy - and WordStar had much better text formatting (it adjusted the space between letters) than MS Word has today (it only adjusts the space between words). Those were the days!

anamardoll · 06-24-2011, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

It sounded ridiculous to me too, but really, most of Wikipedia is just text. I thought, maybe if you stripped out the images....

So a quick google search and I found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...dia#size_in_GB

Wikipedia minus images is apparently around 8GB? Craziness!

Wow, that IS amazing. And actually really kind of cool.

Can we fit the sum of human experience on a single micro SD card?

jocampo · 06-24-2011, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Wow, that IS amazing. And actually really kind of cool.

Can we fit the sum of human experience on a single micro SD card?

No offense, but I don't think the sum of human experience is on Wikipedia. Besides I've found lot of mistakes there

hrosvit · 06-24-2011, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jocampo

No offense, but I don't think the sum of human experience is on Wikipedia. Besides I've found lot of mistakes there

Mistakes on Wikipedia?!? Say it ain't so!

anamardoll · 06-24-2011, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jocampo

No offense, but I don't think the sum of human experience is on Wikipedia. Besides I've found lot of mistakes there

None taken, I meant it facetiously.

Still, it is pretty darn cool. I wonder if the process could be batch scripted. You'd want to update your Wikipedia copy pretty regularly, I'd think.

jocampo · 06-24-2011, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hrosvit

Mistakes on Wikipedia?!? Say it ain't so!

Ok, let's say, just a few ...

...

Frank44 · 06-24-2011, 09:47 PM

On 14 December 2005, the scientific journal Nature (Nature 438 (7070):900–901) reported that, within 42 randomly selected general science articles, there were 162 mistakes in Wikipedia versus 123 in Encyclopedia Britannica. More information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

06-23-2011, 02:24 AM	#1
Frank44 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: Nook Simple Touch	Wikipedia on Nook Touch Is there any way to download Wikipedia, put it on an SD card, and read it on the Nook Touch? The Nook Touch seems ideal for this. It has a much longer battery life than the tablet computers, the screen is much better than WikiReader, and the Kindle does not have enough memory (and can't read SD cards). Perhaps the XML dump of Wikipedia could be used: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dump_torrents Can the Wikipedia XML dump be converted into EPUB and then just read and searched like a book (with having to root the Nook)?

06-24-2011, 09:47 PM	#15
Frank44 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: Nook Simple Touch	On 14 December 2005, the scientific journal Nature (Nature 438 (7070):900–901) reported that, within 42 randomly selected general science articles, there were 162 mistakes in Wikipedia versus 123 in Encyclopedia Britannica. More information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia Last edited by Frank44; 06-24-2011 at 09:53 PM.

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06-23-2011, 01:41 PM	#2
Mellobob Connoisseur Posts: 77 Karma: 13118 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Wynndel BC Canada Device: Kobo Libra H2O	Ummm .... download wikipedia? I'm quite sure that it will not fit on a 32gig card! Or did you mean just some wikipedia articles?

06-23-2011, 05:41 PM	#3
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,464 Karma: 25996225 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	There are some browser extensions that will convert a page directly to ePub format. On Chrome, I use 'dotEPUB' (or should I say, I've installed it and intend to use it for that purpose). Don't know if it works well, but eventually somebody will write one that does.

06-24-2011, 01:52 AM	#5
Frank44 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: Nook Simple Touch	The link in my original message is to the regular dump of the whole of Wikipedia without images - currently 5.85GB. For $20 you can buy a 16GB Micro SD card that will take the whole of the English Wikipedia and Wictionary and Wikiquotes and 33,000 Gutenberg.org eBooks as xml.bz2 files, with about 6GB left to load more new books than you'll read in your whole life. I repeat my original question. Is there any way to convert these xml.bz2 files into ePub format so the Nook Touch can read them? The WikiReader ($69 from BJ's) reads xml.bz2 files, but it has a small LCD touch-screen that's not nearly as easy to read as the Nook Touch.

06-24-2011, 08:18 AM	#6
jocampo Layback feline Posts: 3,034 Karma: 6980745 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: USA Device: Oasis 2nd gen, Sony DPTS1, iPad Pro 10.5"	The HTML you can get from the XML file can be converted to ePub via Calibre, I think.

06-24-2011, 01:08 PM	#9
Frank44 Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: Nook Simple Touch	tomsem, thanks for suggesting dotEPUB. Unfortunately, it will convert only a single web page with a limit of 3MB. jocampo, the xml.bz2 files are compressed XML. When I extracted the 5.85 GB xml.bz2 using 7zip, the file was 30 GB! Since WikiReader can read the compressed files (and divides them up to avoid the FAT32 4GB limit), it suddenly looks a lot more attractive (despite the inferior screen). As I said, WikiReader will fit whole of the English Wikipedia and Wictionary and Wikiquotes and 33,000 Gutenberg.org eBooks on a 16GB Micro SD card. HarryT, the Kindle can only read the "real" Wikipedia when it has access to the internet. I'm often in places that have no internet access, so I'm looking for a way to read Wikipedia offline. It looks as though I'll have to use WikiReader for now, and hope that someone develops an offline Wikipedia application for the Nook Touch (there is an Offline Wikipedia application for Android phones). Footnote: Mellobob, I'm from your era. My first computer was a CP/M machine with 16KB of memory and a tape drive. In 1982, I bought a 128KB floppy drive for it that cost $900. The word-processing programme (WordStar) and the entire text of the first book I wrote both fitted comfortably on a single 128KB floppy - and WordStar had much better text formatting (it adjusted the space between letters) than MS Word has today (it only adjusts the space between words). Those were the days!

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