Donating to Calibre. Not sure if this is the right place...

[bmacaskill]

... but I just "donated" $50 to Calibre's ongoing development.

I have had an ereader for eight weeks, just long enough to go from a Kobo to a Kindle 3. The entire experience has been positive, but on whole, only because of Calibre. I'm pretty sure I would have thrown away my Kobo had the only way of adding books been the Kobo Desktop. The combo of Kobo and Calibre rocked, so much so that I wanted to upgrade the experience. As a result, I now own a Kindle 3.

Tonight, sitting at home, smug with the knowledge that (a) I was now an ereader myself, and (b) I now had two great ereading pieces of hardware, it suddenly struck me that each device was only useful because of Calibre.

I'd spent almost $400 on ereaders, and not a cent on the software that made each so useful. As my Mum says, "Makes you think, doesn't it?"

[kovidgoyal]

Thanks for the donation

Thanks to the support of people like you I've been able to work on calibre full time for almost a year now. Amazing, but true.

[desertgrandma]

Karma to you for that!

(giving Kovid karma wouldn't hurt either!)

[nohmi2]

As usual DG is right.

Cheers.

[Mr. Dalliard]

Good man. I shall be donating soon too.
I have been using Calibre for only a few days, with my newly acquired Kindle, but it is already clear that it is an indispensable tool.

[PatNY]

I was adding a book to Calibre yesterday and was wishing it had a second comments field. I had gotten into the habit of adding notes to myself about the book source and conversion steps inside the comments field, but it wasn't an ideal thing to do as it cluttered up the field. So I wanted to separate personal notes from the little book synopsis that usually goes there. I figured I'd come here and post an enhancement request to get a second comments field added to Calibre.

Well before I did, I started poking around Calibre and noticed the custom metadata tab which I had never looked at before. Through further research into custom metadata, I discovered much to my great delight that Calibre already let you add additional long notes fields! I knew you could add custom columns but figured they were limited to short text, yes/no, and check mark options. So now I've added two additional comments fields -- one to note the book source and any notable conversion steps taken, and another to add miscellaneous additional info about the title or author interviews.

Well, my point is, it made me realize just how powerful Calibre is and how much more it can do to make ebook reading and collecting enjoyable. It is one of the most versatile, feature-packed media management applications I've ever used and also currently one of my most valuable apps. And it's all free!

So I sent a small donation to Kovid today to show my appreciation. It wasn't nearly as generous as the one the OP made, as money is currently tight, but something is better than nothing. I'm sure if more people just donated a small amount here and there, it would add up and help ensure the continued development of Calibre. It's also a good way to say thanks.

So, thanks, Kovid, and long live Calibre!

[speakingtohe]

I agree about donations, any bit helps.
I fear Paypal due to a bad experience many years ago. Still I did manage to donate and will again soon.

Besides being a wonderful program, calibre has provided me with something interesting to do in my spare time.

Another benefit is showing calibre to your friends and acquaintances. People who look at you like you have a whole in the head when they see the ereader are generally quite impressed when you show them the cover browser in calibre. Wow man! Awesome! is a recent comment from a 17 year old.

Helen