[Albertde]

Hi everybody,
I have been lurking here for some time, even downloading ebooks for my eReader. Finally, I decided to register.

I first got an eReader, a Kobo Reader with WiFi, the one with joystick-like controls, as a Christmas present from my wife in 2010. However, I use Linux on a Netbook and the Kobo officially doesn't support connecting to a Linux desktop even though the Kobo itself is built from Linux. I did discover that there was an unofficial Kobo Linux desktop. Along the way, I found calibre, which is used to load all kinds of public domain and copyrighted but DRM-free books on the Kobo. Unfortunately, my Kobo broke in Jan. 2012 while returning from vacation. I had placed it in a pocket of a Tilley jacket and must have cracked the machine.

To replace tit, (going back to print was no longer an option), I bought a Kobo Touch from Indigo. I had to re-activate an old windows desktop that I hadn't used in years to download the new Kobo desktop application and use that to start up the new Touch. It lasted a few weeks at most. It was returned because of defective hardware: very slow page turns and loading of books. I received another one that lasted until May. Initially, it worked all right but I had to exchange it again at Indigo. So I am on #3. This one worked fairly well until the firmware upgrade to 2.0. The upgrade was buggy - I could create Shelves but couldn't access them afterwards. Talking to my daughter, who works at an Apple store, I realized that I needed to upgrade my Windows XP box to Service Pack 3. Then I did a factory reset and re-did the upgrade, which worked this time.

So today, I have a Kobo Touch loaded with about 80 books from Kobo and another 420 or so from calibre. It still is slow to load and I am still plagued with buggy ePubs, some from Kobo (History of the Franks, a Penguin we-don't-discount book! and Wait - The Art and Science of Delay, the latter only can load a chapter from the Table of Contents, at the end of a chapter it goes back to the beginning of the book) and some my own fault (I convert websites into ePubs and the process is not foolproof).

Every once in a while I suspect that the Touch will die on me but so far it hasn't.

I read English, French, Dutch, German and Spanish books and use the dictionaries constantly and the translation dictionaries as well. I also used to make annotations but have refrained since every time I change machines I lose them. The ones on Kobo books don't seem to be stored in their cloud and I haven't found a away to do it in general.

Right now, I am waiting to see if and when calibre will be upgraded to support the admittedly buggy version 2 of the Kobo Touch. in the meantime, it would be nice if:

- Kobo implemented Shelves on the Desktop and allowed users to create and update them on the Desktop.

- Kobo gave users a tool to test ePubs before buying.

I've said way too much.

Thanks for reading.
Albertde