Book Server for on demand downloading to Mobile Devices

[Giuseppe Chillem]

Hi,
I have an iPad and a 3G connection.
I am often outside of my home but I have a server which is always on.
Is there an application to access my calibre library from internet and download the books ?

[Naloomi]

From the Calibre FAQ

Using Stanza
You should be able to access your books on your iPhone by opening Stanza. Go to “Get Books” and then click the “Shared” tab. Under Shared you will see an entry “Books in calibre”. If you don’t, make sure your iPad/iPhone is connected using the WiFi network in your house, not 3G. If the calibre catalog is still not detected in Stanza, you can add it manually in Stanza. To do this, click the “Shared” tab, then click the “Edit” button and then click “Add book source” to add a new book source. In the Add Book Source screen enter whatever name you like and in the URL field, enter the following:

http://192.168.1.2:8080/
Replace 192.168.1.2 with the local IP address of the computer running calibre. If you have changed the port the calibre content server is running on, you will have to change 8080 as well to the new port. The local IP address is the IP address you computer is assigned on your home network. A quick Google search will tell you how to find out your local IP address. Now click “Save” and you are done.

If you get timeout errors while browsing the calibre catalog in Stanza, try increasing the connection timeout value in the stanza settings. Go to Info->Settings and increase the value of Download Timeout.

Using iBooks
Start the Safari browser and type in the IP address and port of the computer running the calibre server, like this:

http://192.168.1.2:8080/
Replace 192.168.1.2 with the local IP address of the computer running calibre. If you have changed the port the calibre content server is running on, you will have to change 8080 as well to the new port. The local IP address is the IP address you computer is assigned on your home network. A quick Google search will tell you how to find out your local IP address.

You will see a list of books in Safari, just click on the epub link for whichever book you want to read, Safari will then prompt you to open it with iBooks.

[Sabardeyn]

I know that this can be done, but as it's not something I'm interested in, I don't recall the exact details. I know that some folks are using Dropbox for this purpose.

Perhaps DoctorOoh! might know more? He's a Dropbox user (and mentioning his name gets both of you extra storage space).

One warning: Google's file-sharing service may not be usable for this purpose. When you add a book to calibre, it stores the ebook in a folder with the book title and a number (example: Alice in Wonderland (2801)). Google's file-sharing service uses that (#) format for it's own internal needs - and strips it out of calibre's folder names without warning - ruining you calibre library! I believe Google has been notified, but I am not aware if the problem has been resolved. So be careful. And keep an offline back-up of your library as a precaution.

Until someone more knowledge replies, search on the terms: file-sharing, server, cloud. There should be multiple topics available in the calibre forums on how to implement this project.


PS: My comments are for using a server and file-sharing service on/through the internet, so my answer may not answer your specific needs.

Is this of any help: COPS: Calibre OPDS and HTML PHP Server

[GRiker]

Marvin for iPad will download directly from your calibre content server.

G