Calibre + Android + Aldiko integration project

[chaley]

This is an FYI to the many people who have asked about better support for android ereaders.

I have been looking for some interesting code to play with, and decided to check into doing a calibre+aldiko integration, with sony-like support for metadata and collections. Kovid and I agreed that such a project would require the support of the ereader software maker. Because aldiko has come up several times in this forum, I decided to start there, and sent them an email asking what they thought.

The folks at aldiko have not replied to my question. As it appears that they are not interested, the project will not go forward.

[jackie_w]

What a shame! It's hard to believe that this wouldn't be high on their customers' wishlist. Perhaps they don't care about them.

[chaley]

I can think of several reasons why they wouldn't respond, ranging from 'the spamblocker ate my homework' to 'We don't want to do this because it doesn't match our business plan', with many in between. But yes, it is too bad. The success of calibre's iDevice integration shows that people really do want to use calibre with tablet devices.

[Carl314]

The Aldiko devs have been pretty good at responding to my requests, so perhaps re-send it?

(Mind you, they've been good at responding, but not implementing. They've been pledging highlights and annotations for more than a year, and just recently advised me that it won't be implemented until after their DRM support is completed).

Cheers, Carl.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Carl314

The Aldiko devs have been pretty good at responding to my requests, so perhaps re-send it?

Do you use one of the email addresses on the contact page?

[chaley]

I resent the message to support at aldico dot com. It took 3 different email addresses and servers to get by their over-enthusiastic anti-spam guard. We will see what happens next.

[Carl314]

Originally Posted by chaley

Do you use one of the email addresses on the contact page?

I sent it to support at aldiko.com.

[kovidgoyal]

@chaley: You're probably using your own mail server to send the mails. I've found that there are a few anti-spam solutions written by lazy/incompetent people that believe it is acceptable to whiltelist smtp servers. Try sending it from a gmail/hotmail/whatever account.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

@chaley: You're probably using your own mail server to send the mails. I've found that there are a few anti-spam solutions written by lazy/incompetent people that believe it is acceptable to whiltelist smtp servers. Try sending it from a gmail/hotmail/whatever account.

I succeeded with my gmail account. My personal account and my university account both failed.

My server is managed by linode, and is therefore in their IP address pool. It wouldn't surprise me if some other 'machine' in that pool was compromised, and a lot of spam solutions blacklist entire subnets. I have had no end of fights with yahoo, finally advising my clients (my extended family) to simply stop trying to send to people on yahoo.

What does surprise me (a bit) is that google apps (which aldiko is using) has a hard reject in place, with no visible mechanism to appeal the decision. I wouldn't mind a greylist approach (after all, I use one). Also, but this time not oddly, my server gets a lot of spam from gmail, but google doesn't blacklist itself.

[kovidgoyal]

Yeah I really dont understand why people dont use Bayesian spam filtering. That's all I do and it catches 99.9% of all spam addressed to my (very public) email addresses.

[chaley]

Aldiko got back to me. They are interested and said all the right things.

At this point, my problem is that I don't have equipment. I is difficult to spend money for something I don't need so I can donate my time to write free software for other people. My wife has even more trouble with it. Kovid told me he would help, something that I appreciate a great deal. Aldiko and I are still in discussion. We will see where this goes.

[pollito pito]

I can not code in python, but I’m willing to help. What exactly would you need?

[chaley]

Marital harmony requires that I not spend money to support this hobby. For this reason, my first need is for capital to buy an android phone+tablet. If anyone is interested in helping (e.g., donating), PM me for paypal details. (Writing this paragraph has been excruciatingly difficult. Never in my life have I made such a request, and I most certainly don't want to barge into Kovid's donation stream.)

After the project gets going (I hope the end of this month - November), then help in other ways will be appreciated. First and foremost is the 'what should it do' question. My going-in position is that it should do what the Sony driver does (book and collection management, with device_db plugboard support), but that could be wrong. In addition suggestions from users, Aldiko will probably have ideas and suggestions, such as over-the-air updates of some form.

Second will be testing. Third: if there is any user interface, than help with its design will be near the top.

[kovidgoyal]

I would suggest setting up a chip-in collection to collect the money. I'll get it started with the $400 I promised.

Hopefully, people with android devices that want better integration with Aldiko will chip in

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I would suggest setting up a chip-in collection to collect the money. I'll get it started with the $400 I promised.

Hopefully, people with android devices that want better integration with Aldiko will chip in

I didn't know about chipin. Thanks for the pointer.

To chip in, go to either my aldiko/calibre chipin page or my personal calibre projects page.