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from the there's-an-app-for-that dept.
An Open Source eReader That's Free of Corporate Restrictions Is Exactly What I Want Right Now:
I get it. The Kindle and its ability to shop for and instantly buy books anywhere using wifi or Whispernet are incredibly convenient, and it’s what’s made Amazon’s hardware the obvious choice for consuming ebooks. But supporting awful companies like Amazon is getting harder and harder if you were born with a conscience, and right about now, an open source ebook reader, free of corporate restrictions, sounds like the perfect Kindle alternative.
A fully open-hardware eReader, it includes the following design specs: ARM Cortex M4 processor, 400x300 monochromatic resolution, microSD card reader, lithium-polymer rechargeable battery, audiobook-capable headphone jack, and audio-command-capable microphone.
The Open Book Project was born from a contest held by Hackaday and that encouraged hardware hackers to find innovative and practical uses for the Arduino-based Adafruit Feather development board ecosystem. The winner of that contest was the Open Book Project which has been designed and engineered from the ground up to be everything devices like the Amazon Kindle or Rakuten Kobo are not.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday January 31 2020, @01:42AM (6 children)
Have you tried Calibre? I don't imagine they'd remove support for older devices.
Of course, you need to let it manage your non-DRM ebook collection for it to be able to transfer books to eReaders. But there seems to be a real dearth of alternative ebook managers, so really it's whether you can live with their folder heirarchy
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday January 31 2020, @02:11AM (3 children)
https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com]
Just get rid of the DRM and let Calibre manage them all.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday January 31 2020, @02:24AM (2 children)
True. It would be nice if doing so were legal though. Some people are a stickler for such things, and the DMCA is insidious.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday January 31 2020, @02:46AM (1 child)
Just don't distribute them. As long as it's for your personal use I see it as less unethical than them putting the DRM on in the first place.
Also, as long as you don't distribute them they will never bother you even if they somehow found out. It is a court case they really, really, do not want.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday January 31 2020, @03:48AM
Oh I agree completely - but I'm talking law, not ethics. The two have very little to do with each other.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 31 2020, @06:30PM (1 child)
I liked the simplicity of treating it like a flash drive to drop my Project Gutenberg books onto it, while at the same time using the B&N store to get newer copyrighted material.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday February 01 2020, @02:47AM
Yeah, I can see the appeal - I did similar with early mp3 players. A (non-bloated) "iTunes for eBooks" is handy though, particularly when looking for something (possibly non-specific), or otherwise managing your collection.
...at least assuming your meta-tags are all in order. Which I've sadly had absolutely terrible luck with. Still, it's not *that* bad spending a few minutes now and then downloading and proofreading tags and notes for the recent entries to your library, and it is nice to have at least a nice cover image, a synopsis, and and a few other details normally found on the cover that ebooks can so sorely lack.