Amazon Kindle (ebook thingy)

Amazon's web site does make it tedious as hell to get the ebook files once you purchase them. As xelab says, removing the DRM with Calibre is not difficult. Setting up the plugin to do so is a little convoluted, but you only have to do it once.

The only hard bit was finding where the azw3 file was dumped iirc.

that was my main problem when i tried a year or so ago, setting up the plugin. totally stumped me. probably a bad place to ask but could you point to an idiot's guide?

> Amazon's web site does make it tedious as hell to get the ebook files once you purchase them

i have a Kobo Mini but i also have Kindle for PC installed and downloading to that just puts the file in My Documents / My Kindle Content directory (Windows 7). sort by date and it's the top .azw (name is cryptic)

not everything is available for Kindle For PC though, i find. but it's mostly graphical things that aren't.

Exactly. I have to install the stupid Kindle app on my computer to download a file.

could be worse, you could be trying to do it on linux 8)

I think Linux users only read O'Reilly publications anyway? : )

And NI, this is the how-to I used:

https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/calibre-plugins-the-simplest-option-for-removing-most-ebook-drm/

It worked as of two or three months ago, so it's probably still OK.

ah great, thanks. any americans on here want a book that's only on kindle in the uk and fancy an illicit trade?

i got the 'ad subsidized' paperwhite for now b/c poor even tho it is TACKY AS HELL to beam ads to my pocket, but so far they have been for like thrillers and romance novels, big sellers. i think somehow today because i was browsing for cheap/free kindle editions of public domain classics, i flipped a switch, because now all i'm getting ads for is jobseeker self-help.

That sounds shit, can't you just get ad respite by turning off the Wi-Fi?

xp
This is the idiot guide I used to break drm with calibre, honest it is not complex, just a plug-in and it is done.
http://www.howtogeek.com/162994/how-to-strip-the-drm-from-your-kindle-ebooks-for-cross-device-enjoyment-and-archiving/

i suppose i could, but i've taken it places without wi-fi, it seems it just loads the last one. or maybe loads a queue to make sure you never go without.

seems like half the point is to see if they can get you to accidentally bump the buy button when you're unlocking the screen

I am also poor at the moment j and buy what I can afford to buy and try to support good writers, but when they try and sell downloads at almost hardback prices the publishing companies can go fuck themselves & I will go to the torrent sites instead.

i think somehow today because i was browsing for cheap/free kindle editions of public domain classics, i flipped a switch, because now all i'm getting ads for is jobseeker self-help

Exactly the same thing happened to me a couple of days ago! Stuck a bunch of project gutenberg books on it and now getting ads about how to fill in my resume.

oh i been stealin books for a minute, i would only pay for a kindle version of a real book out of convenience/exigency. i bought it because i wanted to read florio's montaigne translation more properly and the OOP three volumes of it come pretty pricey, so i figured i'd economize and use the thing to read some of the stolen books i've been stockpiling in pdf form. but the existing e-texts of the florio suck pretty bad so i just said fuck it and went for the slightly tarted up kindle version (good size formatting and a table of contents, but LOTS of OCR errors).

the whole experience is, i dunno.

apparently the app switched from using a downloaded dictionary to looking definitions up on wikipedia? not into it, especially when i don't have service.

maybe it picks? my on-device dictionary uses the downloaded ones but when they fail it tries wikipedia

Yep

oh huh, apparently i've only been looking up the really esoteric ones then.

yep you're right, thanks.

I just won an ebay auction I didn't expect to for a brand new Kobo Aura (not the HD one) for 40 odd quid including p+p. From the reports it looks like a thinner Glo with more memory and a faster processor.

I, Claudius and Claudius the God on sale today.

I sent my Kobo Aura back because it became unresponsive after an hour, still waiting for the refund. In the meantime I managed to get a 7th gen kindle touch for £40. Once you put it in aeroplane mode and disable the spam nonsense it really is a nice reader, the touch software is far more receptive and quicker than the kobo set-up. I get the feeling I will be very impressed with a Paperwhite when I finally get one. It is a tough game trying to get one cheap on e-bay though.

it still feels kind of quaintly lo-fi but i'm pretty pleased with mine, already adjusted to the weirdness of reading on a screen, except for maybe missing a bit of the big-picture feel of being able to scan through a book. sideloading and networking stuff have been simple; i'm sending shit to mine all the time just to wean myself from reading pointless junk on the web, and actually paying attention to it when i do read it.

The lo-fi thing seems to make it more pleasant, the same as, um, a certain message board. Constraining yourself to just what is on your Kindle helps too. Finally got used to not being able to scan a couple years back when the searching improved, as well as the menu-izing of the TOC, advancing or retreating by chapter, and being able to preview what you would advance to.

I had been obsessively bidding for Kindle Paperwhites on e-bay for months now and managed to finally bag one for £46 on saturday. It is the best e-reader I have ever bought and the light is beautiful. One of great things about the Kindle touch interface is the way it seems to be able to discern the difference between you wiping dust off the screen and turning the page. On Nook and Kobo devices it always turns forwards or backwards when you wipe a speck.
I can't believe I got this one so cheap, sooner or later I wasn't going get ripped off on ebay for once. I don't really see how an e-reader could be any better than a paperwhite, that voyager thing seems like overpriced overkill to me.

(The trick with the kobo is to swipe vertically downwards. Or just put it to sleep and do it)

It took me a while to learn to use the switch on the Kobo, but I wasn't aware of the downwards motion trick. But it makes sense as the upwards motion sometimes turns the brightness up, but not always.

i've read that the screen redraws on the voyager are better - seem pretty clunky on a paperwhite

screen redraws better. typesetting still shit.

x
I always assumed I completely lacked that level of tech discernment myself J, although I appear to be applying it myself to earlier models of e-readers I bought last year. But right now this little fucker I got off e-bay at bargain price seems like a Rolls Royce engine. This thing of wanting the next best thing is very pervasive though.

redraws are pretty in your face! and always a big computer UI sticking point, since no one can ever make a device/machine/OS/app that manages to stay spiff and flash once the passage of time makes the features creep and the computer struggle with what used to be speedy tasks

in that sense it's surprising that they wouldn't make the redraws slicker from the start, i doubt this thing can have much in the way of software development planned, so they could've made it permanently fancy and perpetually young

somehow i didn't even know the paperwhite existed. i've been using the original kindle for years, and thought the only other option was the retine-burning kindle fire so never bothered looking to upgrade. ordering the paperwhite right now though - slightly worried the lack of side buttons will bug me, but can't justify paying an extra £60 just for that. did the lack of buttons annoy anyone on here who was used to the orig kindle? and does this kindle come with a case? (the amazon blurb is vague about if it comes with it or not). but yeah, thanks xelab, you just made my reading time a whole lot better!

no case

never had any buttons, so don't miss em - takes only the lightest touch, it's like living in a spacecloud

i read in bed mostly so i'm trying to imagine the motion of moving my thumb an inch and wondering precisely how much it'll bother me. a whole lot less than £60 i'm guessing. currently trying to buy a used one from ebay/gumtree, but one says that it can't be registered with amazon for some reason. wonder if it's robbed? might give that a miss as i like being able to email files to my current one.

does anyone else get annoyed slightly a the paperwhite's top bar getting in the way of the page turning zone.

now my ad is for an NBC TELEVISION EVENT tonite abt the crucifixion

this is an ereader you chodes

it is for books

not THAT book

lol mine too, & it's a very corny ad too

THE BIBLE CONTINUES

also for real is there a way to change the lock screen?

There must be some way in which you can root these ad-infested devices. I wouldn't put up with it myself, they sound intolerable.

eh mostly i turn my screen off when i'm done with it, the ads only come up if you leave it running too long unattended - good incentive to stay focused in public!!

of course you can always pay but

Believe me I know where you are coming from. I have struck quite lucky on e-bay so far and when I have got defective shit I have managed to get a refund quite fast, but if things were slightly tighter - waiting for the refund could have been more uncomfortable from my current shit creek vantage.

One thing that that is sacrosanct to me is that I don't have any details/accounts on portable devices. So anything I read is from torrent sites or is purchased online & uploaded to the kindle app on the pc and then I use calibre to break the drm and make it "portable".

I know how I operate is morally suspect, but I would do it a million times rather than have some worthless piece of shit blasting me with adverts as punishment for being poor.

i wonder if there is a way to fool it into only showing me 'cool' ads, i have never seen a 'cool' one

or porn

you can get rid of the ads by paying Amazon like $15. apparently kindles are "ad supported" to keep the initial cost down, but i don't know how forthright they are about that at time of purchase cuz i got mine as a gift.

i should really just pay the damn money though because my kindle is wonky and will wake itself up to show ads in the middle of the night while I'm charging it. i'll look over and it'll be glowing away to no one, wasting power.

yeah mine does that - even when the screen has been turned off, occasionally it will just… glow more, like something is happening

It's watching you...

I have an old-school kindle and was thinking about upgrading, one thing I'm not clear on re: the paperwhite is page turning. On my current kindle there are two buttons on the left for page forward/page back, and two buttons on the right for page forward/page back, so I'm not restricted in my movements based on the hand I'm holding the book with. The paperwhite doesn't have any visible buttons so I can't tell if you can navigate left handed and right handed or not. Can anyone with a paperwhite explain?

http://media.wiley.com/Lux/75/366175.image0.jpg

Not great for right-handed page-back, but how often do you use page back, I guess.

i think you can swipe as well as tap, so that the swipe maybe lets you indicate a direction contrary to the region you're swiping in? but it may be you need to swipe more centrally to get that to work.