Perdido Street Station-Free at Sony

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

There's a post in the Calibre forum from Kovid where he doesn't recommend using both.

Well, without seeing the specific post, I can't be too sure, but it is the 'safest' approach, in that there's no chance of any problems if you don't use one of them, whereas if you use them both to update the Reader during the same session, they can clash.

The underlying issue is that the Reader uses a single file to keep track of 'meta' information, such as collections, and this is written to by both Calibre & the Sony software when either updates something on the Reader. The file will be saved when the Reader is (safely) unmounted, so using one or the other is safe if there's a disconnection between them, but if you're not the type to remember this, then the simple answer is to stick to one or the other for the transfer and just export/import via the PC's hard disk.

[tench]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Wouldn't it automatically be 'authorized' to my Sony account if I had to log into that account in order to download it?

I just ran into this problem---you have to separately authorize your Reader, and even if the library software recognizes your Reader that doesn't mean you've authorized it. I don't have the library software on my current computer, but if I remember correctly you need to click on something like "my account," and then you should see a tab or some such for managing your computers and devices. Then you can ask it to authorize your Reader.

[tench]

I finally got to the eBook Library software. To authorize the Reader, open the library, go to the ebook store, click on "my account" at the top, and then "my authorized devices." You'd be surprised how likely it is that you never authorized the Reader---I'd had mine for months and I found that it had never been authorized.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tench

I finally got to the eBook Library software. To authorize the Reader, open the library, go to the ebook store, click on "my account" at the top, and then "my authorized devices." You'd be surprised how likely it is that you never authorized the Reader---I'd had mine for months and I found that it had never been authorized.

So is it possible to authorize a device other than a Sony Reader ? Say an Astak Pocket Pro?

[tench]

Originally Posted by kennyc

So is it possible to authorize a device other than a Sony Reader ? Say an Astak Pocket Pro?

I'm not sure about that, maybe someone with more experience can chime in. Or you could try it and tell us!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tench

I'm not sure about that, maybe someone with more experience can chime in. Or you could try it and tell us!

I didn't see any way to do it.

[ficbot]

Thank you, it turned out my device was not authorized to my account. I foolishly assumed that because I was logged in, and the reader was showing up in the library, it must mean they recognized it

Anyway, have not tried loading it back onto the reader yet but I suspect that fixed the problem.

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by kennyc

So is it possible to authorize a device other than a Sony Reader ? Say an Astak Pocket Pro?

Only PCs...

[kennyc]

That's what I was thinking.....Too bad...

[duskdawns]

Originally Posted by kennyc

So is it possible to authorize a device other than a Sony Reader ? Say an Astak Pocket Pro?

You could try e-mailing Sony and ask them if they will allow their ebooks to be read on non-Sony devices after the ebookstore has been converted to epub. Maybe with lots of requests, Sony will open up its store.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by duskdawns

You could try e-mailing Sony and ask them if they will allow their ebooks to be read on non-Sony devices after the ebookstore has been converted to epub. Maybe with lots of requests, Sony will open up its store.

Good point.

[tench]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Thank you, it turned out my device was not authorized to my account. I foolishly assumed that because I was logged in, and the reader was showing up in the library, it must mean they recognized it

Glad to help. I just made the same mistake a couple of days ago, and could not understand why I was getting an error when I tried to read Perdido Street Station. I was so relieved when I realized the problem.