Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
Sure, I've thought about it. Problem is bandwidth costs and writing the server app (I prefer hacking on calibre itself). Also eventually, I will add the ability to schedule automatic downloads to the calibre GUI, which would make a server app somewhat redundant.
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Okay.
I can understand you liking to hack on calibre itself. For more than 20 years I've been an independent Windows application programmer (but for the past 10 years I've been a web applications manager).
Would your mind be changed if I offered server capacity?
Converting books with a desktop application makes sense because the files are typically downloaded to a local computer, anyway. Converting dynamic periodicals for which there is fresh content every day does not make sense as a desktop application since your computer may not be available every day to automatically process it.
A server app may be redundant, but it's a better choice than a client program because if you leave my PC off for several days while you travel, it will be impossible for me to generate periodical .LRF files after the fact. If you want to log in from an airport or hotel room and grab periodical files to-go, it's nearly impossible with a web application that may take too long to run.
The number of popular periodicals is somewhat finite. Just like
www.TinyURL, if users have the same requests for periodicals, a properly designed web app would not store redundant copies of the same publication, but point to the same single copy of the LRF.
Currently I operate three servers and I disagree about the bandwidth. It seems most .LRF BBeB files are 800k or less. That's about the size of 10 average web images. It's not an unmanageable traffic volume even with a couple hundred users.
Also, in my experience, it's much faster and easier to update one web application than update 300 desktop client applications.
You've done a great job with Calibre, but I may have some of my programming staff look into writing a web application because I don't necessarily want to install or run Calibre every night.
For now, I've created a batch file that simply calls each periodical and writes it to my computer's SD card. I can run this by batch using a cron every night, but I don't want to leave on my computer every night and waste power. Some nights I can't leave my computer on because I travel.
Step 1: Insert your SD card to your computer.
Step 2: Change the bottom batch command to copy the files to your SD card (mine is F: drive, yours may be some other letter)
Step 3: Copy the lines below to a batch file (mags.bat) and run it to create a collection of periodicals to read on your reader.
WEB2LRF atlantic
WEB2LRF ap
WEB2LRF barrons --username=blah --password=mypass
WEB2LRF bbc
WEB2LRF chr_mon
WEB2LRF cnn
WEB2LRF economist
WEB2LRF faznet
WEB2LRF jpost
WEB2LRF jutarnji
WEB2LRF nasa
WEB2LRF newsweek
WEB2LRF newyorker
WEB2LRF newyorkreview
WEB2LRF nytimes --username=blah --password=mypass
WEB2LRF upi
WEB2LRF usatoday
WEB2LRF portfolio
WEB2LRF reuters
WEB2LRF spiegelde
WEB2LRF wsj --username=blah --password=mypass
WEB2LRF wash_post
FEEDS2LRF bw_news.py --author='news'
copy *.lrf f:*.* /Y