MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - need a quick lesson how how to download and read e-books.

jeffcobb · 10-10-2010, 05:11 PM

Clear;
As a fellow geek with a broadband connection, one of the biggest things that ebooks bring to the table for us (the missus and I, a fellow nerd) is the ability to archive or make backups of your books, purchased or otherwise. Anyone who has moved always dreads the moving of books b/c those boxes weigh the most and take up space. Another dimension to this is the idea/problem of loaning a "friend" a book you love only to (for whatever reason) lose that friend and by extension, that book. Now you can fit your entire book collection on a USB keychain and make backups as you want/need so for the first time in recorded history (no pun intended) you never have to worry about losing a book again due to the usual collection of reasons! Above being able to read anywhere, above being able to keep a larger collection in a smaller space (just moved from a tiny two bedroom apartment in San Francisco where space was at a premium), knowing you will never lose another book is the greatest thing to us.

So the way we have done it is to basically download all of Gutenberg, as many of the creative commons books and other books that we like, burn them to several DVDs and store them in a fire-safe. Then we make multiple backups to less permanent media such as keychain drives, removable media, etc and finally (in our networked home) built a digital library on a NAS that can feed any computing device attached to our network, currently sporting about 25 thousand books. The next part of this that I would suggest as an avid reader/active geek is to download Calibre and all of the attachments/extensions for it that you can find. Get good at using this tool as it will save your digital life or at least your sanity since Murphy's law dictates that when you find a book you love, it will be in a format other than the one you like/can use. Calibre fixes all of that. Next I would grab the pair of scripts to remove DRM from Adobe books, particularly if you run something other than Windows like we do. There is no pain/slap in the face worse that paying for a book and then not being able to put it onto your ereader due to DRM. I am not exactly saying strip all DRM (that is the subject of another thread) but doing it so you can use the product you paid for in the environment you prefer is key.

I will close for now with the added reminder that if you archive the books like we have, it doesn't matter if Amazon, Gutenberg et al burns down tomorrow; the books are safe and in your legal and physical collection.

Note: if you are determined to do all reading on a PC-like device other than a dedicated ereader (a la Kindle, Nook, etc) I would suggest getting a cheap netbook which is perfect for reading books since they are already just about the same form-factor as a good book.

Oh yes (finally for real this time) in addition to having software to handle the usual suspects of ebook formats (epub, prc, etc) get something that displays .cbr and .cbx books too for graphic novels, something the stock ereader/software tends to soil itself when attempting to display.

10-10-2010, 05:11 PM	#9
jeffcobb Groupie Posts: 152 Karma: 700 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Las Vegas Device: Nook, CoolER	Clear; As a fellow geek with a broadband connection, one of the biggest things that ebooks bring to the table for us (the missus and I, a fellow nerd) is the ability to archive or make backups of your books, purchased or otherwise. Anyone who has moved always dreads the moving of books b/c those boxes weigh the most and take up space. Another dimension to this is the idea/problem of loaning a "friend" a book you love only to (for whatever reason) lose that friend and by extension, that book. Now you can fit your entire book collection on a USB keychain and make backups as you want/need so for the first time in recorded history (no pun intended) you never have to worry about losing a book again due to the usual collection of reasons! Above being able to read anywhere, above being able to keep a larger collection in a smaller space (just moved from a tiny two bedroom apartment in San Francisco where space was at a premium), knowing you will never lose another book is the greatest thing to us. So the way we have done it is to basically download all of Gutenberg, as many of the creative commons books and other books that we like, burn them to several DVDs and store them in a fire-safe. Then we make multiple backups to less permanent media such as keychain drives, removable media, etc and finally (in our networked home) built a digital library on a NAS that can feed any computing device attached to our network, currently sporting about 25 thousand books. The next part of this that I would suggest as an avid reader/active geek is to download Calibre and all of the attachments/extensions for it that you can find. Get good at using this tool as it will save your digital life or at least your sanity since Murphy's law dictates that when you find a book you love, it will be in a format other than the one you like/can use. Calibre fixes all of that. Next I would grab the pair of scripts to remove DRM from Adobe books, particularly if you run something other than Windows like we do. There is no pain/slap in the face worse that paying for a book and then not being able to put it onto your ereader due to DRM. I am not exactly saying strip all DRM (that is the subject of another thread) but doing it so you can use the product you paid for in the environment you prefer is key. I will close for now with the added reminder that if you archive the books like we have, it doesn't matter if Amazon, Gutenberg et al burns down tomorrow; the books are safe and in your legal and physical collection. Note: if you are determined to do all reading on a PC-like device other than a dedicated ereader (a la Kindle, Nook, etc) I would suggest getting a cheap netbook which is perfect for reading books since they are already just about the same form-factor as a good book. Oh yes (finally for real this time) in addition to having software to handle the usual suspects of ebook formats (epub, prc, etc) get something that displays .cbr and .cbx books too for graphic novels, something the stock ereader/software tends to soil itself when attempting to display.