Best practices for new Kobo users?

[Ripplinger]

Thanks for that warning about the empty directories, I might give that a try and see if I can live with the 2 Calibre files mixed in with the books. I really hate seeing the books mixed in with the root Kobo files and directories though, and I'd be willing to delete books through Calibre which would nudge me to double check that the empty directory is then gone.

[ewphoenix123]

Afaik you can configure the calibre plugin to delete empty folders automatically, or does that only work when you delete files through calibre?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Sharkus

I'm really curious about why you don't want your library synced to the device.


In regards to the OP.
I tend to keep perhaps 10 books on my "I'm Reading" list, which is what the devices / apps base their Library / All Content shelf from. When I finish a book I typically delete it via the website, which puts it on the Purchases list, from where I can restore it if I wish.
I don't have many non Kobo purchased books, and so they are side-loaded to the internal memory of the device. If I did have a large number I'd probably stick it on a SD card, just to keep things clean.

Speaking for myself, I don't want Kobo to do anything to my device without my express request. If I conect to the desktop application via my computer it syncs, upgrades and who knows what else.

I am not saying Kobo would abuse its abilities and gather data about books that Kobo has not sold to me fo data mining purposes, but I don't like it that they can do so.

And the update is installed whether I want it to be or not.

It seems a bit Big Brotherish to me and I resent it.

Then there is the case of several readers registered to one account. Do I want a 10 year old for example, having access to all my content, does my 15 year old think I might be spying on his reading habits, would Kobo put my preschoolers books on the other readers too?

And what advantage does this syncing provide for me. Will it sync across all my devices as I believe Amazon does? Even if it did, I still do not want it to without an explicit request.

Kobo (or anyone else) has no right to control the virtual bookshelves of the world.

Helen

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Not difficult at all. You just have to log out (found in the device settings) and log back in to a different account.

Thanks! Though my reader arrived a day early, so once I hooked it up with a newly created dummy account, I realized then that I could log out, log in, before I got back hear to read your response. I don't actually expect to ever log in to my purchasing account though. I sideload everything on all my readers.

[Sharkus]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Speaking for myself, I don't want Kobo to do anything to my device without my express request. If I conect to the desktop application via my computer it syncs, upgrades and who knows what else.

I am not saying Kobo would abuse its abilities and gather data about books that Kobo has not sold to me fo data mining purposes, but I don't like it that they can do so.

And the update is installed whether I want it to be or not.

It seems a bit Big Brotherish to me and I resent it.

Then there is the case of several readers registered to one account. Do I want a 10 year old for example, having access to all my content, does my 15 year old think I might be spying on his reading habits, would Kobo put my preschoolers books on the other readers too?

And what advantage does this syncing provide for me. Will it sync across all my devices as I believe Amazon does? Even if it did, I still do not want it to without an explicit request.

Kobo (or anyone else) has no right to control the virtual bookshelves of the world.

Helen

Thanks for the reply

My guess on the auto-sync side of things is that it is seen as being easier for the majority of users, though and option to turn that off would possibly be a good idea.

Very good point about multiple users, it does make sense to have some kind of multiple user system, even if it's at first perhaps a password protected shelf on the device. Plus the point about putting the books on other readers, yes, if all the books are in the I'm Reading list, they will appear on all devices / apps. Perhaps an option to say what apps / devices a book is synced to would be useful.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I am not saying Kobo would abuse its abilities and gather data about books that Kobo has not sold to me for data mining purposes, but I don't like it that they can do so.

And we get back to the complaint by some that their sideloaded books do not sync across multiple devices, that annotations and current reading position do not sync, etc.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

And the update is installed whether I want it to be or not.

But it's an improvement... even when it isn't.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Then there is the case of several readers registered to one account. Do I want a 10 year old for example, having access to all my content, does my 15 year old think I might be spying on his reading habits, would Kobo put my preschoolers books on the other readers too?

How is Kobo to tell which device is used by which person if you use the same account for each one? One solution was to generate separate accounts for for your children. With no credit card tied to the account, it also keeps you from worrying about their purchasing books without a parent around.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

And what advantage does this syncing provide for me. Will it sync across all my devices as I believe Amazon does? Even if it did, I still do not want it to without an explicit request.

You can always turn off WiFi on your Kobo and never use the desktop application, use Calibre or just copying files to manage your library, purchase all books from Kobo or other bookstores as epubs to be sideloaded and not have that worry about synchronization. It is an explicit request in a way since on your ereader you have to hit sync or use the desktop application to synchronize your books and information.

Regards,
David

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by DNSB

And we get back to the complaint by some that their sideloaded books do not sync across multiple devices, that annotations and current reading position do not sync, etc.

I was just replying to a post from Sharkus asking why one wouldn't want to sync.

But it's an improvement... even when it isn't.

Haha! I still want my back button back.

How is Kobo to tell which device is used by which person if you use the same account for each one? One solution was to generate separate accounts for for your children. With no credit card tied to the account, it also keeps you from worrying about their purchasing books without a parent around.

Seems a bit cumbersome to me, I would prefer to sync when I want to if I do indeed ever want to.

I know I could purchase books as gifts to them, or download the books and sideload them, but again why the necessity of multple accounts/passwords etc.

You can always turn off WiFi on your Kobo and never use the desktop application, use Calibre or just copying files to manage your library, purchase all books from Kobo or other bookstores as epubs to be sideloaded and not have that worry about synchronization. It is an explicit request in a way since on your ereader you have to hit sync or use the desktop application to synchronize your books and information

Regards,
David

I've never turned on WiFi and the Desktop application seems to do it whether you want it to or not. Why one wonders. Is it to Kobo's advantage to make you use the WiFi version. I don't think so.

I do use calibre and have been for about three years It is IMO pretty awesome.

I personally don't care if Kobo knows what I am reading or how long I am reading etc. I don't think they are going to show up in Ninja robes at my doorstep or anything similiar.

I do care that they are arbitrary in the matter of doing what they want without my express permission, and AFAIK connecting to the desktop application does not give them my express permission, even though you say it does. Probably I missed the disclaimer?

I also think that the implied assumption that the majority of readers are incapable of redownloading their books or requesting an update is a tad patronizing.

Helen

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I personally don't care if Kobo knows what I am reading or how long I am reading etc. I don't think they are going to show up in Ninja robes at my doorstep or anything similiar.

The ninja outfits are only in Japan, here they show up in black helicopters wearing black suits.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I do care that they are arbitrary in the matter of doing what they want without my express permission, and AFAIK connecting to the desktop application does not give them my express permission, even though you say it does. Probably I missed the disclaimer?

I'm tempted to say but that's what the desktop application is designed to do when you connect your ereader. I don't think that I ever stated that running the desktop application gave them permission to modify the contents of your ereader but I remember the concept of implied permission from my first aid courses -- if the victim does not say no, it implies they want to be helped. If you run a program designed to synchronize your ereader...

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I also think that the implied assumption that the majority of readers are incapable of redownloading their books or requesting an update is a tad patronizing.

I suspect it is less a matter of being patronizing and more trying to keep up with the Joneses. When I purchased a book from Apple using my iPad, it also showed up on my iPhone where trying to read the diagrams was next to impossible. When one of my co-workers purchased a book using her Kindle Fire, it also showed up on her husband's Paperwhite since they used her account for both of them to make sharing books simpler.

For the most part, I don't blame this on malice or evil intentions but rather on trying to give the customer what they think the customer would want.

Regards,
David

[bookwurm70]

So, I'm getting ready for my Aura to arrive next week and thinking through some things.

I have Calibre, with over 1k books loaded there already (10 years of ebook purchasing from a variety of different stores and a variety of formats). So I plan to use that to sync to my Aura.

While I have no objection to syncing with Kobo, since they are curently my main purchasing store (unless a book is cheaper or free at B&N). The problem is, most of my Kobo books are already in Calibre. If I side load them with the rest, will I end up with two copies of books in my Aura?

I read a lot of series, and want to take advantage of the series metadata from Calibre in the Aura, but will the Kobo downloaded ones display the series info?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by bookwurm70

While I have no objection to syncing with Kobo, since they are curently my main purchasing store (unless a book is cheaper or free at B&N). The problem is, most of my Kobo books are already in Calibre. If I side load them with the rest, will I end up with two copies of books in my Aura?

It will show both copies. You can remove the Kobo version from your ereader but that may be annoying when you have a lot of books.

Originally Posted by bookwurm70

I read a lot of series, and want to take advantage of the series metadata from Calibre in the Aura, but will the Kobo downloaded ones display the series info?

Sorry but that I can't help with. My habit has been to use the series as part of the book title.

Regards,
David

[bookwurm70]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Sorry but that I can't help with. My habit has been to use the series as part of the book title.

Mine has too, in fact it is part of the reason I learned to deDRM books. But I was thinking with the Series metadata in Aura I might get rid of that practice.

[PeterT]

At one time the series info was used as a part of the title sort option which many of us (but not all) found to be ideal. Now that it's back to a true title sort I find that using an abbreviation of the series name and the index in addition to the title seems to be the best option (along with making a shelf per series).

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The ninja outfits are only in Japan, here they show up in black helicopters wearing black suits.

Hmmmm... You obviously haven't been reading The Destroyer series.

I'm tempted to say but that's what the desktop application is designed to do when you connect your ereader. I don't think that I ever stated that running the desktop application gave them permission to modify the contents of your ereader but I remember the concept of implied permission from my first aid courses -- if the victim does not say no, it implies they want to be helped. If you run a program designed to synchronize your ereader...

Again I missed the disclaimer statement. I did not and stilll have not read that that was what the desktop appliction was specifically designed for. When I got my Kobo Mini I had to sign up on either the desktop application or wirelessly. I choose the desktop, but those without wireless had no other option at this point, and there are areas without wireless kiosks etc. that one can use.

I suspect it is less a matter of being patronizing and more trying to keep up with the Joneses. When I purchased a book from Apple using my iPad, it also showed up on my iPhone where trying to read the diagrams was next to impossible. When one of my co-workers purchased a book using her Kindle Fire, it also showed up on her husband's Paperwhite since they used her account for both of them to make sharing books simpler.

For the most part, I don't blame this on malice or evil intentions but rather on trying to give the customer what they think the customer would want.

I do not and have not accused tham of malice etc. I think that the their main purpose is to sell more books through reading reccomendations and who can blame them. Even if these practices are slightly iffy legally in some countries others do it so why not Kobo.

It may also explain why their 'extras' such as reading stats, recommendations appear more polished than their basic ereader software. And you know what they say about 'Good intentions'

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by bookwurm70

While I have no objection to syncing with Kobo, since they are curently my main purchasing store (unless a book is cheaper or free at B&N). The problem is, most of my Kobo books are already in Calibre. If I side load them with the rest, will I end up with two copies of books in my Aura?

I read a lot of series, and want to take advantage of the series metadata from Calibre in the Aura, but will the Kobo downloaded ones display the series info?

If you download a Kobo book by sync and sideload the same book via Calibre then you will have two copies of the book on your device.

If you don't want the Kobo downloaded one you can either delete it, or archive it and set the option not to display archived books. Either way you will then only see the sideloaded book, but in the second case you still have access to the archived book from the device (if you deleteed the book you would need to go to the Kobo website to get access to it again).

If you don't want the sideloaded one you can delete that from the device. In that case Calibre will match the un-sideloaded(?) book in its records with the Kobo downloaded version on the device. Even though these are different versions of the same book, Calibre will see them as the same book (provided the title and author matches) and so you can edit the series information on the book in Caibre and Calibre will set that information on the book on the device.

I have a mixture of Kobo downloaded kepubs and sideloaded epubs on my Glo, usually I read the kepub but sometimes if I don't like the formatting I delete it and sideload a tweaked epub version in its place. I keep epub versions of all the books in Calibre, and when my Glo is connected Calibre shows all the books as present on the device and I can't on the face of it tell which have actually been sideloaded and which are just being matched with Kobo downloaded kepubs. I tag the Kobo books in Calibre in case I need to know that in the future.

So in short you can mix Kobo downloaded kepubs and sideloaded epubs on the device and still use Calibre to manage the series information, even if you have some books in a series as Kobo downloaded kepubs and others as sideloaded epubs.

Edit: When first setting up, the best way might be to first sync with Kobo to download all your Kobo books, then connect to Calibre and check that they all match the books in Calibre's records (occasionally there can be a spelling difference in title or author). Then it will be easy to just sideload the ones that do not have a Kobo downloaded version already on the device.

[bookwurm70]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

If you don't want the sideloaded one you can delete that from the device. In that case Calibre will match the un-sideloaded(?) book in its records with the Kobo downloaded version on the device. Even though these are different versions of the same book, Calibre will see them as the same book (provided the title and author matches) and so you can edit the series information on the book in Caibre and Calibre will set that information on the book on the device.

Edit: When first setting up, the best way might be to first sync with Kobo to download all your Kobo books, then connect to Calibre and check that they all match the books in Calibre's records (occasionally there can be a spelling difference in title or author). Then it will be easy to just sideload the ones that do not have a Kobo downloaded version already on the device.

Thanks, that is very helpful! That is probably what I will do.