HOW-TO: Surf the Internet with the EBW1150 or REB1200

[nrapallo]

I'm playing with the idea of embedding weblinks in a .imp ebook, and then loading it onto the ebook reader with Linreb after putting the .imp ebook into the 'shelf' directory.

I wanted to see how I could enable the reader to access the internet, not from the content html pages, but from an opened .imp ebook.

I failed (for now...) since the 'register.ebooksystem.net' was not being forwarded to the internet, but to Linreb. Linreb cannot yet fetch webpages.

I tried to forward just this request to privoxy, but got into an endless loop. Requires a bit more study.

BTW, the HTTP request sent by the ebook reader was logged as:

http://register.ebooksystem.net/form/redirect.asp?target=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki%2Emobileread%2Ecom%2Fwiki%2FMain_Page&pubid=None%3Aebook%3Aguid-237ceaa3f5cb49b281ca33724a38bc5b

The sample .imp ebook I used is attached below. Your mileage may vary...

EDIT: Oops, I carelessly uploaded a .imp that was only for the REB1200. These attachments correct that! Please note that the .imp below is for the EBW1150 and _1200.imp for REB1200.

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

the HTTP request sent by the ebook reader was logged as:

http://register.ebooksystem.net/form/redirect.asp?target=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki%2Emobileread%2Ecom%2Fwiki%2FMain_Page&pubid=None%3Aebook%3Aguid-237ceaa3f5cb49b281ca33724a38bc5b

Reading the privoxy documentation and config files, I have noticed a "rule" or action that could possibly handle that HTTP register.ebooksystem.net request and "fast-direct" just the tail URL (http%3A%2F%2Fwiki%2Emobileread%2Ecom%2Fwiki%2FMai n_Page).

This is the description in the "default.action" file that is giving me hope to get this to work:

# +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}
# +fast-redirects{simple-check}
#    Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites.
#    Instead, they will link to some script on their own server,
#    giving the destination as a parameter, which will then redirect
#    you to the final target. 
#
#    URLs resulting from this scheme typically look like:
#    http://some.place/some_script?http://some.where-else
#
#    Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded
#    in the URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing
#    more traceable, since the server from which you follow such a link
#    can see where you go to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and
#    time is wasted, while your browser asks the server for one redirect
#    after the other. Plus, it feeds the advertisers.
#
#    The +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} option enables interception of 
#    these requests by Privoxy, who will cut off all but the last valid URL 
#    in the request and send a local redirect back to your browser without
#    contacting the intermediate sites. NOTE: Syntax change as of v.3.0.4.

I don't have my hardware reader with me to test it right now, but will do so soon and report my findings here.

It seems privoxy is a very sophisticated program with abilities that need to be looked at more closely...

[ashkulz]

Originally Posted by nrapallo

I don't have my hardware reader with me to test it right now, but will do so soon and report my findings here.

It seems privoxy is a very sophisticated program with abilities that need to be looked at more closely...

Nick, I'm writing my own HTTP proxy in python (called impserve, naturally!) which should both serve local content, remote content over the web and the bookshelf. I'm grateful to linreb for leading the way, but it's not code which you can hack upon easily. I should be done today or tomorrow so I don't think we'll need to use Privoxy or any other software, I hope

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by ashkulz

Nick, I'm writing my own HTTP proxy in python (called impserve, naturally!) which should both serve local content, remote content over the web and the bookshelf. I'm grateful to linreb for leading the way, but it's not code which you can hack upon easily. I should be done today or tomorrow so I don't think we'll need to use Privoxy or any other software, I hope

'nuff said! Great, I'm done reading this stuff!

I'll wait for your 'impserve' solution!

Talk about tackling the "low-hanging fruit" first, you have made great strides in .imp programming tools evolution.

Way to go, Ashish!

[Ret]

It seems the reader sends all web page requests from links within an ebook to ETI servers for redirection. In order to bypass them you need to extract the required URL.
I've managed to make it work with privoxy by adding this code into default.action file.

{+fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}}
bookshelf.ebooksystem.net/form/redirect.asp?

This may also help ashkulz for his coding.
By the way, ashkulz, if you want to let your impserve download IMP books from mobileread.com you'll have to change their HTTP response header. Whenever you download an IMP file from them, they handle the file with this header "Content-type: unknown/unknown" and it should be "application/x-softbook".
Plus, take a look at the way mobileread writes their links: their href field omits domain name. The readers http client can't understand that.

[nrapallo]

Thanks Ret, again, for the solution to our problems/hurdles!

Will try this out soon...

[Ret]

I forgot to add that the code I included didn't work with all URLs in your test imp file.
For some reason only google news .CA worked flawlessly, some others didn't work, and sometimes the reader crashed showing some kind of memory dump

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by Ret

I forgot to add that the code I included didn't work with all URLs in your test imp file.
For some reason only google news .CA worked flawlessly, some others didn't work, and sometimes the reader crashed showing some kind of memory dump

Time to update those links to more PDA-friendly sites.

Now where to collect and store all those interesting sites... wiki? thread?

Do you have any suggestions?

[ashkulz]

I've posted the software I was talking about, impserve-0.1. Let me know if you have any bug reports or suggestions... it's 5am here, so I'll look at them tomorrow

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by ashkulz

I've posted the software I was talking about, impserve-0.1. Let me know if you have any bug reports or suggestions... it's 5am here, so I'll look at them tomorrow

Wow, an all-nighter, just for our beloved .imp community? What a trooper!

Much appreciated, Ashish.

You have always been an inspiration. You started me programming .imp format tools and look what has been accomplished here since those PDFRead v1.7 days, a year ago...

[nrapallo]

Hey, we made it to the "Week's Hot Topics" listing on the Mobileread Home page!

Let's keep this thread alive with user suggestions/improvements, list of cool websites visited, websites that don't work and should be avoided, amusing stories explaining this "ability" to co-workers, etc...

EDIT: To easily surf the internet WITHOUT using the (limited) Linreb or Privoxy, please use Impserve and be sure to download all of the Impserve plugins to allow the downloading of content directly from the internet to your ebook reader!!!