A solution for wirelessly syncing Calibre & NookColor

[Quistopher]

I have had my NookColor for a month, rooted for a week and I have been looking for a way to wirelessly sync Calibre newpapers/magazines ebooks to my NC. I finally figured it out a way, I am not sure if it is the best way, if you find a better solution, please reply to this post. Most of my research was on https://www.mobileread.com , trying various apps on the Android Market and Google. I have tried the Calibre web server, it works pretty good but I don’t want to stick it out on the internet or setup a VPN. My goal is for this to work if I am at home or on the road, I would just need the laptop & Nook Color on and connected to the internet. Finally, the path to items on my laptop or NookColor might be different than what your path is, you will need to make that adjustment.

At first, I was going to let Calibre download the ebooks and then I saw a post where it can be done via a command line, ebook-convert myrecipe.recipe myrecipe.epub. For me, this is preferred so I can have the updated newspapers a couple of times a day. Of course this was the last thing I figured out, if you let Calibre download the ebooks, I found a windows command line tool to copy ebook files from subfolders, xxcopy, http://www.xxcopy.com. I will probably setup some of the scripts to run with Windows Scheduled Tasks but I am not there yet.

From the MobileRead forums, I kept seeing references to Dropbox and I looked at that first. The only problem was I had to manually download each of the ebooks so that didn’t make sense for me. I next tried SugarSync and I ran into an issue with installing it. It took a day to overcome that, finally I figured out how to run the ADB command via WiFi to install it. Once it was installed, I put a folder called CalibreNews in the Magic Briefcase\Mobile Folders. With that, I used the xxcopy command from above to copy the epub files. Since on my laptop all of the newspaper/magazines are stored under C:\Calibre_Data\calibre, I have the one command so I am avoiding many copy or xcopy commands for each file. I have it so it overwrites files but that is my choice, you will need to make an adjustment if you want the file name to have a time stamp or other unique feature in the name. Please note, your path might be slightly different.

xxcopy C:\Calibre_Data\calibre\*.epub “C:\Users\Quistopher\Documents\Magic Briefcase\Mobile Folders\CalibreNews” /S /SX /Y

On my NC, in the SugarSync app, I selected the CalibreNews folder, pressing and holding, it lets me Sync to my device (NookColor). After that the files have been copied on my laptop, in the SugarSync app, when I navigate to my folder I am given the option to sync it. I have way too many news items, almost 30 and it takes a 1 minute or 2 to sync but it’s acceptable.
Now that I have the new ebooks on my NC, I have a script to copy it to my Newspaper folder. For me that’s a preference, I could do more with the script and separate magazines but it’s easier for me to have them in the one place, I don’t get any newspapers from B&N. Also, I keep everything on my SDCARD, it’s a 16GB card and I have plenty of space. I found a few items in the Android market to make this work, GScript Lite, BusyBox Installer and Root Explorer. Gscript Lite is the scripting tool I am using and I will list my commands below. Please note, I prefer to not keep old versions of the news. Once BusyBox was installed, it allowed me to have the Copy (CP) & Delete (RM) commands. Finally Root Explorer costs a couple of bucks, any file manager should do so you can verify your path on your device but I read another article about disabling some phones services to improve battery life so it seemed to be worth it.

rm /sdcard/”My Files”/Newspapers/*.epub
cp /sdcard/”My SugarSync Folders”/CalibreNews/*.epub /sdcard/”My Files/Newspapers
reboot

I have it reboot at the end so the Newspapers list is refreshed. I am not sure how to make the script echo the commands on the screen. I see a blue screen when the script runs and when it’s done, there is a countdown at the bottom on the Close button, wait for the countdown, it takes less then a minute. Afterwards the NookColor reboots and you have your updated Calibre generated newspaper & magazine ebooks.

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Software & Apps I used. Everything is freeware except Root Explorer.
xxcopy - http://www.xxcopy.com – The Windows command line tool that would allow me to copy files from subfolders.

SugarSync - http://www.sugarsync.com – For whatever reason I could not download it from the Android Market, I used this link for the Android apk, http://www.sugarsync.com/downloads/android.html

Root Explorer – Android Market

BusyBox Installer – Android Market

GScript Lite – Android Market – I was looking for a free scripting tool and this seemed pretty good once I got it.

Apps to install Sugar Sync. For whatever reason, my laptop does not see my NookColor via the USB cable so I cannot do any ADB commands.

Show IP Widget – Android Market – Easily shows the NC’s IP.

ADB over WIFI Widget – Android Market – Once started, I can define the port to connect via ADB from my laptop.

My laptop is running Windows 7, it’s older but it’s good enough to do what I want with Calibre.

I hope you find this helpful, this is all still very new to me but I am happy with the process I have so far. Please follow my process at your own risk.