I clicked through to the settings screen and was presented with this new (well, new to me) set of options.

I think it’s terrific. I’ve been a big proponent of eReaderIQ for a while now, because it’s an effortless way for the average consumer to find Kindle deals. (For a similar service for iOS, try AppShopper.) Unfortunately, eReaderIQ’s daily email has been losing its utility lately as more and more ebooks flood the Amazon store—the amount of chaff makes it harder than ever to find the occasional grain of wheat.

This morning, I opened my eReaderIQ email and smiled. It’s a lot cleaner and better organized, and a lot easier to see whether there’s anything worth grabbing.

(Photo: peterjroberts)

Whether such cases are due to idiocy or deliberate copyfraud, they hurt the consumer. It’s prohibitively expensive for the average private citizen to have to engage the Library of Congress as well as hire a copyright attorney (which, no kidding, is what the Copyright Office recommends) just to confirm that he has the right to do what he wants with something published in 1925. Even then, if the work was first published outside the U.S. then it may be nearly impossible to determine its true copyright status.

Which leads me to the problem of locked PDF versions of century-old works. I’m now in the possession of half a dozen PDFs of old short stories that various websites offer for free, and yet those files have been password protected to prevent me from printing, copying, or otherwise gaining direct access to the text. In the most extreme cases, the person who created the PDF file has, for reasons known only to him and the functionally retarded demon who guides him, added his own copyright claim to it. Seriously, people should just be hit with sticks sometimes.

Remove that PDF’s sham DRM with MuPDF!

(That may be the worst subheading ever written.)

Fortunately, Robert Brewer at Excited Curiosity explains that you can use a free open source PDF toolkit called MuPDF to unlock password protected PDF files. There are MuPDF viewers for Windows and Linux at MuPDF.com, but For OS X you have to use the command line (i.e., the Terminal app found under Applications>Utilities). Everything that follows is for OS X users.

First download the OS X binary from mupdf.com, unarchive it, and put the resulting folder wherever you like. Then in Terminal, use the “cd” command to navigate to that folder, and then run the “pdfclean” command on a locked file and in seconds, you’ll have a new unlocked version. Here’s an example of how to run the command if you have the MuPDF folder in your home directory and the locked PDF file on your Desktop:

./pdfclean ../Desktop/lockedfile.pdf ../Desktop/newnameforfile.pdf

If you’re not used to Terminal, here’s a quick introduction that will teach you the basics. Pretty much all you need to know to use MuPDF is how to type the full paths of the MuPDF folder and of the locked PDF file, and the command “cd” to change directories. (The command “ls” to list the contents of your current directory is also helpful.) You can also check out this comment on Brewer’s blog for more help.

Using OS X? Here’s a contextual menu shortcut for MuPDF

I was excited about finding this free solution to the bogus DRM problem, but I wanted an easier way to use it in the future without having to launch Terminal each time. I created a simple workflow service in Automator that I can access via the contextual menu when I click on a file. Now when I download a PDF and find that it’s locked, I simply right-click the document and select “UnlockPDF” from my Services menu, and a clean version appears next to the original.

Here’s the code I used to create the service. Note that I wrote this using Automator 2.2.1; when I shared a similar tip last year for KindleGen, I discovered that some readers couldn’t replicate my instructions because they were using older versions.

on basename(thePath)
	if thePath ends with "/" then
		set nameIndex to -2
	else
		set nameIndex to -1
	end if
	set ASTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
	set thePath to text item nameIndex of thePath
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ASTID
	return thePath
end basename

on getdir(theFileName)
	set theReversedFileName to (reverse of (characters of theFileName)) as string
	set theOffset to offset of "/" in theReversedFileName
	set thePrefix to (reverse of (characters (theOffset + 1) thru -1 of theReversedFileName)) as string
	set theSuffix to (reverse of (characters 1 thru (theOffset - 1) of theReversedFileName)) as string
	return thePrefix
end getdir

on run {input, parameters}
	set myFile to quoted form of POSIX path of input
	set newFile to basename(POSIX path of input)
	set newPath to getdir(POSIX path of input)
	set finalPath to (newPath & "/u-" & newFile)
	try
		do shell script "../../Applications/mupdf-0.7-darwin-i386/pdfclean" & " " & myFile & " " & finalPath
	end try
	return input
end run

Quick instructions:

1. Launch Automator and create a new Service workflow.
2. At the top of the composition area, change “Service receives selected [dropdown]” to either “files or folders”, “folders”, or “PDF files”. Change the other dropdown to “Finder”.
3. In the Library pane on the left, click the Utilities directory, then find the “Run Applescript” action and drag it into the composition area.
4. Select all the default code in the “Run Applescript” box and delete it.
5. Paste the above code in. Be sure to edit the path to the MuPDF folder so that it’s correct for your situation.
6. Click the hammer icon to compile the code.
7. Save the service under whatever name you like. I chose “UnlockPDF” to make it easy to find months from now when I’ve forgotten all about how I did this.

Because I’m a pretty bad scripter, I’m sure this isn’t the most elegant way to do this. If you can improve on it—particularly if you can fix it so that it can batch process an entire folder of PDF files—please let me know and I’ll update the script.

(Frozen book illustration credits: Ice Block, Risager; Old Book, HoskingIndustries)

The website Mac OS X Automation reported it first, so far as I know. From that site:

Mac OS X Lion includes an Automator action, named Text to EPUB File, that is designed to make it very easy to convert selected text or text documents into EPUB books, ideal for transferring to iPads and iPhones. Additionally, the created EPUB books can include images, MPEG audio, or MPEG video files.

NOTE: If the source documents for the action are in Rich Text Format (RTF), any formatting they possess will be preserved, and display correctly in the EPUB document. Also, the action includes full Unicode support, so Asian and Arabic characters are preserved as well.

By default, there’s no way to access this Automator action from any apps because there aren’t any default Services written to take advantage of it. But the website above provides four Service scripts that you can use to give your copy of Lion super EPUB creation powers over groups of files, text selections, or content copied to the Clipboard.

The site also offers some tutorials on how to install the Services and how to use them, if you’re curious but not sure how to get started.

“Text to EPUB File” [Max OS X Automation] ]]> http://booksprung.com/apples-os-x-lion-can-create-epub-files/feed 0 http://booksprung.com/readbeam-makes-it-easy-to-read-newspapers-and-blogs-on-your-ereader http://booksprung.com/readbeam-makes-it-easy-to-read-newspapers-and-blogs-on-your-ereader#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:48:54 +0000 Chris Walters http://booksprung.com/?p=6832 If you don’t want to use Calibre, or can’t be bothered to figure out how to use it to subscribe to news feeds and send them to your ereader, you might want to give ReadBeam a try. The service offers around two dozen popular blogs and online newspapers. You’ll have to sign up with a working email address, and then the site will send your selected news feeds daily.

If you use a Kindle, you can either authorize ReadBeam to send content directly to your device’s email address, or you can leave it blank and you’ll receive the Kindle-friendly .mobi files directly, which you can then copy over. They don’t always work (the International Herald Tribune was unreadable for me, for example), but hey, it’s not like it has to cost you anything to try it out.

The service is free for now, but on the ReadBeam blog there’s a post from last April that suggests the developer has considered offering some sort of freemium service to let you subscribe to feeds outside the default set. Or you can do it yourself on Calibre, of course.

Right now it’s in public beta, which means you can sign up and start adding books, but be prepared for rough spots. For instance, the first book I searched for—”Foreign Bodies” by Cynthia Ozick—wasn’t in their database, even though it’s the most recent book of hers and was published in 2010. The mobile apps the service promises on the home screen don’t seem to actually exist, at least not on iTunes or Amazon’s Android app store. I also had some trouble with the rating system, where my star rating didn’t appear to be captured properly on a couple of titles, and I couldn’t find a way to delete books from my shelves once I’d added them.

If you already have an established presence on Goodreads, Shelfari or LibraryThing, I’m not sure you’ll be that intrigued by what BookLikes has to offer right now. Amazon’s Shelfari is the strongest direct competitor—not only is Shelfari beta testing a similar recommendation system, but it’s clear that some of BookLikes’ main user interface elements were “borrowed” from Shelfari. On the other hand, the one thing BookLikes definitely offers that Shelfari can’t is independence from Amazon, at least at this early startup stage.

The dilemma of a site like this is that as long as there isn’t a large community of like-minded readers to help suggest books, there’s not much point in joining—but if nobody joins then there will never be that community. I’ll check back periodically to see whether it comes into its own as more users sign up. (I won’t be checking back periodically after all—see my update above for why.)

BookLikes

Now there’s Delivereads, a free service that goes one step further by picking out the articles for you, then emailing them directly to your free.kindle.com email address.

Delivereads is a lot like (yes, more links are coming up) the websites longreads.com and longform.org, which both curate worthwhile articles and essays for you. But you still browse for articles at those sites and then choose which ones to email, whereas Delivereads automates everything after the initial sign up.

Whether you like what Delivereads sends will depend on whether you like founder Dave Pell’s taste in articles. He’s listed some of his recent picks on the Delivereads sign up page.

Now there’s a new mobile version that’s designed to be easy to use on the Kindle:

http://m.ereaderiq.com/

You can browse all price drops, or just the ones in your country or region, and you can fine-tune the filter so that you see only deep discounts if you like.

To be honest, I was hoping it would be a little better designed. Grey text isn’t the best approach for an e-ink screen, so some of the content looks washed out. (It’s worse on the home screen than on the screen shown here.) But that’s mostly a design complaint. The main usability of the site is still good, and I think it’s worth bookmarking on your Kindle.

Wait, what’s Cloud Drive?

Like Dropbox, Cloud Drive is a free storage locker in the cloud that you can access from any web browser. Dropbox’s killer feature is its set-it-and-forget-it syncing capability. Cloud Drive distinguishes itself by offering 2.5 times more storage space at the free account level — and if you buy an MP3 album from Amazon you’ll be upgraded to the 20 GB level.

Cloud Drive, like Dropbox, will accept all sorts of file types, but its real focus is music. Amazon wants Cloud Drive to become your online music locker, like an MP3Tunes.com that you’ll actually use. You store everything there, and then stream your music back on multiple devices, as long as they don’t include an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

In many ways, this is just Amazon’s existing S3 storage service, but with a simplified web interface, a built-in music player, and fewer ways to otherwise manipulate your content. But you have to pay for S3, whereas Cloud Drive is free, and therefore awesome.

Using Cloud Drive with ebooks

My first impulse was to see if I could create a cloud-based ebook library on Cloud Drive, so that I could store all of my mobi-formatted ebooks there and access them directly from my Kindle.

If you already use Calibre to create and maintain an ebook library, you probably know that there are existing ways to host your ebook library. You can use Dropbox, or if you already pay for hosting somewhere you can just host an online library yourself. The benefit of the DIY approach is that you can also access your Calibre library through Stanza on the iOS platform.

But the Calibre library doesn’t play well on the Kindle, at least not the way I’ve currently implemented it using my own S3 account (see image at right).

Like Dropbox, Cloud Drive will let you actually download your mobi files directly into your Kindle, so at a basic level the service works. But it’s not the easiest interface to use on a Kindle 3. Here’s how the service looks on the Kindle 3 web browser (click image to enlarge):

This is almost identical to how Dropbox currently works, with the exception that you can actually see the file names on Dropbox, which might be important to you. (Click image to enlarge.)

I’m hopeful that at some point Amazon will roll out the ability to access Cloud Drive files directly via a URL, the way Dropbox offers public links. Until then, think of this as a free alternative to hosting your ebooks on your own server. Cloud Drive at its debut isn’t as flexible as Dropbox, but it’s bigger, and worth considering as a viable online storage solution.

Amazon Cloud Drive

MUSIC SPECIFIC CLOUD DRIVE SERVICES:
Cloud Player for Web
Cloud Player for Android

Update! After elmonica commented below that Box.net should also be considered, I checked it out. It’s actually easier to use on the Kindle 3 than Dropbox, at least if you just want to store and access your own ebooks.

That’s because Box.net’s mobile interface — m.box.net — actually works on the Kindle, whereas Dropbox’s mobile interface — dropbox.com/m — doesn’t.

So: If you’re just looking to store mobi files in the cloud and grab them from your Kindle 3, and you have the same problem with Calibre2OPDS that I am having (i.e. Kindle 3 doesn’t recognize the links properly), then:

(Photo: monkeyatlarge)

That’s where Kindle App News comes in. The blog was started earlier this year by someone named JP, who writes, “I’m doing this because I love my Kindle and I want to see that simple functionality used for more than just reading.” The blog’s focus is exclusively Kindle apps, so you’ll always find the newest releases and anything that’s on sale each month. JP has grouped the apps under logical categories like board games, education and free games, so it’s pretty easy to find something you want.

Speaking of which, if you’ve been wanting to download some Kindle apps but were put off by the prices, Amazon is having a huge 99 cent sale through March 27th. It’s a great time to try out some games or apps for a dollar each. There’s a new Notepad app in particular that I imagine lots of Kindle owners have been waiting impatiently for.

Kindle App News

SENDtoREADER is actually very similar to the “Send to Kindle” Chrome extension that was released a couple of months ago, and that now also works on Safari, Firefox and IE. I haven’t compared the services so I can’t recommend one over the other. The biggest difference I can see is that SENDtoREADER requires registration, and in return it keeps a backup copy of everything you send so that you can download the content again in the future. Send to Kindle doesn’t mention any sort of backup but doesn’t require an account.

If these services don’t strike your fancy, there are plenty of other ways to get web content on your Kindle. My favorite combo is still Instapaper and Ephemera, but that’s because I’m a USB connection sort of guy.