Sideloaded books on the Kobo Desktop?

[BeeTee-Ess]

I have a dozen or so books on my Mini that were sideloaded by Calibre.

Can I see or even administer them using Kobo Desktop?

So far, the EREADER tab on Kobo Desktop shows only a single book, and the LIBRARY tab shows only books supplied by Kobo. Syncing does not change this.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by BeeTee-Ess

I have a dozen or so books on my Mini that were sideloaded by Calibre.

Can I see or even administer them using Kobo Desktop?

So far, the EREADER tab on Kobo Desktop shows only a single book, and the LIBRARY tab shows only books supplied by Kobo. Syncing does not change this.

Quick answer is no. The only content that the Kobo desktop application will show is content downloaded from the Kobo store.

Regards,
David

[Quexos]

Which is why I won't use the Kobo desktop app. It's not a real app for me since it won't do one of the most basic functions such an app is supposed to do. I got lots of side loaded books and I remember trying to figure out how to have them show on the desktop app and trying again because I just couldn't believe such obvious and basic function was simply not implemented.
Who wants to have an app that only manages a part of their books and not all ?

So I use the Sony Reader app as a desktop app and that works for me. You may use that or Calibre or any other library management software out there.

Originally Posted by DNSB

Quick answer is no. The only content that the Kobo desktop application will show is content downloaded from the Kobo store.

Regards,
David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Which is why I won't use the Kobo desktop app. It's not a real app for me since it won't do one of the most basic functions such an app is supposed to do. I got lots of side loaded books and I remember trying to figure out how to have them show on the desktop app and trying again because I just couldn't believe such obvious and basic function was simply not implemented.
Who wants to have an app that only manages a part of their books and not all ?

So I use the Sony Reader app as a desktop app and that works for me. You may use that or Calibre or any other library management software out there.

Hmmm... since the books the Kobo Desktop App shows you are synced with Kobo's servers -- as it says: "Automatically syncs your library across all your devices and all Kobo eReaders", you really want your book collection stored in a place not under your control? Not to mention the privacy issues that some people might have. From Kobo's point of view, what it would do to the Kobo servers storage requirements could be another consideration as is the potential for Kobo to be in legal doggie doo if pirated books were being synced.

Regards,
David

[theonna]

Originally Posted by DNSB

From Kobo's point of view, what it would do to the Kobo servers storage requirements could be another consideration as is the potential for Kobo to be in legal doggie doo if pirated books were being synced.

Look at Apple Itunes, Google Music, Sony Reader-
they seems to be able to resolve the issues that Kobo doesn't want to deal with. Also many people have collections of electronic books by now, completely legally obtained, documents, that they themselves own for work and more, if Kobo wants to gain them as customers and receive their praise- they better rethink their strategy.

[BeeTee-Ess]

Thanks David...

Coming to Kobo from a Calibre/Amazon environment, I am inclined to agree with Quexos and theonna. Amazon happily syncs my books whatever their source. That said, I don't impose unduly on their generosity. New to Kobo, I expected a similar setup.

Never mind. My Kobo Mini is administered quite nicely by Calibre.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by theonna

Look at Apple Itunes, Google Music, Sony Reader-
they seems to be able to resolve the issues that Kobo doesn't want to deal with. Also many people have collections of electronic books by now, completely legally obtained, documents, that they themselves own for work and more, if Kobo wants to gain them as customers and receive their praise- they better rethink their strategy.

I'll have to disagree. While iBooks allows me to copy my own ebooks to one of my iDevices using iTunes, those books, annotations, reading position, etc. are not automatically synchronized to another iDevice using iTunes on the device. If I can synchronize it to the same computer using either wifi or USB, I can get the books copied over. No annotations, notes, reading position, etc. If I try this with my iPad which is a work device, I would lose a collection of apps and PDF reference materials that are work related and are placed on it when it is setup by the IT department. See the nasty warnings about being synchronized to another iTunes library when you plug an iDevice into the wrong computer.

If the computer those books are on crashes, I am out of luck unless I have my own backups.

As for the other major concern about privacy, Kobo is a Canadian company. So as you said, people have collections of documents. Legally obtained. All theirs. Now copy those documents or just the information about them to a third party server without informed consent. Enjoy the privacy lawsuit as you have just violated the PIPEDA provisions on collecting, using and disclosing personal information in the course of commercial activities.

Even if you did give explicit consent, Kobo would still be obligated to make any information collected available to the consumer for viewing and correction and guarantee that none of the information would be accessed by a third party.

See the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act for more information on the legalities. For a small fee, the Queen's Printer will supply you with your very own copy or

For more information:

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
112 Kent Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 1H3
www.priv.gc.ca

Regards,
David

[theonna]

Originally Posted by DNSB

See the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act for more information on the legalities. For a small fee, the Queen's Printer will supply you with your very own copy or

For more information:

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
112 Kent Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 1H3
www.priv.gc.ca

Regards,
David

I think there is a misunderstanding here.
I do not deny that cloud syncing would be nice, but if we totally forget about that functionality, what I meant was that on your own pc/mac you should be able to manage your own device library without restrictions, both of them being your devices and you are managing your own content, there should not be any legal issues with that. Itunes lets you do that, Sony Reader lets you do that, desktop Kobo app does not, which makes it useless for anyone who has anything not from Kobo on their devices, and we know it cant yet even deal with shelves.
So leaving uploading your book library to Kobo servers out, why cant I manage my library with Kobo app, if I invested into Kobo device?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by theonna

I think there is a misunderstanding here.
I do not deny that cloud syncing would be nice, but if we totally forget about that functionality, what I meant was that on your own pc/mac you should be able to manage your own device library without restrictions, both of them being your devices and you are managing your own content, there should not be any legal issues with that. Itunes lets you do that, Sony Reader lets you do that, desktop Kobo app does not, which makes it useless for anyone who has anything not from Kobo on their devices, and we know it cant yet even deal with shelves.
So leaving uploading your book library to Kobo servers out, why cant I manage my library with Kobo app, if I invested into Kobo device?

I don't even use the Kobo Desktop to manage books I purchase from Kobo. Which may make me part of a small minority.

From what I have seen, the Kobo Desktop App is tied to the Kobo bookstore and is intended to facilitate and manage purchases from that bookstore. To do this, information about your reading habits is stored externally, your books can be redownloaded if they are wiped from your ereader and, yes, it will force updates onto your ereader. There are many who would agree that it does not do an outstanding job of those tasks.

Could Kobo have added more functions to their Desktop App? Very likely. Would I have been happy with the end result? Very unlikely. I don't have much fondness for it as it now stands never mind the issues with turning it into a clone of Calibre.

Nothing is stopping you from using another application -- Hi, Calibre! -- to manage your books nor did Kobo follow the lead of Barnes & Noble by restricting the amount of your storage you could use for sideloaded books.


Regards,
David

[theonna]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Nothing is stopping you from using another application -- Hi, Calibre! -- to manage your books nor did Kobo follow the lead of Barnes & Noble by restricting the amount of your storage you could use for sideloaded books.
Regards,
David

Nook supports SD card, and has a file manager, you can put library of congress on the card and carry it around...And you wont need Calibre either.
I would agree that seeing how Kobo software is slow and buggy I probably would not trust them to even try to mirror Calibre.
But investing into making a very nice device from hardware stand point and ruining it all with poor software implementation does not seem like a working idea. I don't use Kobo app either, which does not speak in favor of Kobo programmers.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by theonna

Nook supports SD card, and has a file manager, you can put library of congress on the card and carry it around...And you wont need Calibre either.
I would agree that seeing how Kobo software is slow and buggy I probably would not trust them to even try to mirror Calibre.
But investing into making a very nice device from hardware stand point and ruining it all with poor software implementation does not seem like a working idea. I don't use Kobo app either, which does not speak in favor of Kobo programmers.

The last Nook I played with did not have an SD card installed and had 2 Gb of internal memory of which only 1GB was available for storage. I seem to remember something like 750MB was reserved for B&N content leaving 250MB for user content. By comparison, my Kobo Touch had more free storage and I could use any amount of it for user content.

The real fun was finding that while the Nook supported shelves, the only way to manage them was on the device 1 book at a time. Calibre could not write to the device due to B&N's paranoia.

Regards,
David

[theonna]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The real fun was finding that while the Nook supported shelves, the only way to manage them was on the device 1 book at a time. Calibre could not write to the device due to B&N's paranoia.

Regards,
David

Actually Nook supports file manager, so any software shelves, collections or anything of that sort is not necessary, because you can just put your library organized by folder on the device and not bother. Also you can read a good story on you Nook while waiting for Kobo to index your content. As far as B&N paranoia- I never felt the need to use Calibre with Nook, simply because it had the file manager. And opportunity to install almost any android application on a Nook makes it a Reader that you can read your Kindle, Kobo, Sony books on... So pile as much as you like on B&N, but Kobo got a lot to catch up to even come close to Nook abilities.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by theonna

Actually Nook supports file manager, so any software shelves, collections or anything of that sort is not necessary, because you can just put your library organized by folder on the device and not bother. Also you can read a good story on you Nook while waiting for Kobo to index your content. As far as B&N paranoia- I never felt the need to use Calibre with Nook, simply because it had the file manager. And opportunity to install almost any android application on a Nook makes it a Reader that you can read your Kindle, Kobo, Sony books on... So pile as much as you like on B&N, but Kobo got a lot to catch up to even come close to Nook abilities.

Oddly, the reason that I got the Nook to play with was that the owner was unable to run the majority of the Android apps he wanted to run even after rooting his Nook. My personal experience was that he was correct. As an Android tablet, it was hopelessly underpowered and lacked the hardware to run most of the apps. The sheer joy of getting it to boot from an external uSD card did not make up for its basic uselessness. A $70 knockoff tablet worked better. As an ereader, it offered little that a Kobo Touch did not also offer and you could actually use the Kobo store from the wilds of Canada. As for reading Kobo books on it? Only if you downloaded the epub versions. Want to run the Kindle app? Root the sucker and jump through the hoops. Sony books? Are you referring to Sony's proprietary ebook format (BBeB) or their later epub format books? If epub, almost any device other than a Kindle reads them natively.

I did enough comparisons to know that the search function on a Touch can find a file faster than using the file manager on a Nook.

Nook: press Quick Navigation button, tap on Library icon, open the drop down menu, select My File and then select Memory Card. Now dig down through the directory tree to locate the book you want to read. SFF => Weber, David => Empire of Man => March Upcountry. Tap on book. Total 9 taps not counting the scrolling down the tree.

Touch: Select Search icon. Select Library. Enter search criteria -- results are displayed as I type. Generally, no more that 3-4 characters to have the book I wanted on the screen. In this search, MAR had March Upcountry as the third file in the list of files displayed. Tap on book. Total 6 taps and no scrolling required.

A file manager might be handy at times but a decent search function beats the crap out a file manager for locating a file. In this case, entering the search criteria took fewer taps than browsing the directory tree. If I had been going for one of the books in Eric Flint's Assiti Shards series, it would have been more imbalanced in favour of the search function since that directory tree has Flint, Eric => Assiti Shards with 163x, Rivers Of War, Grantville Gazette, Time Spike and Ring of Fire directories under the Assiti Shards directory.

Regards,
David

[taming]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As for the other major concern about privacy, Kobo is a Canadian company. So as you said, people have collections of documents. Legally obtained. All theirs. Now copy those documents or just the information about them to a third party server without informed consent. Enjoy the privacy lawsuit as you have just violated the PIPEDA provisions on collecting, using and disclosing personal information in the course of commercial activities.

Even if you did give explicit consent, Kobo would still be obligated to make any information collected available to the consumer for viewing and correction and guarantee that none of the information would be accessed by a third party.

See the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act for more information on the legalities. For a small fee, the Queen's Printer will supply you with your very own copy or

For more information:

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
112 Kent Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 1H3
www.priv.gc.ca

Regards,
David

I had thought that Kobo might be interested in finding a way to keep within PIPEDA whilst making it possible to sync sideloaded material, but with the revamping of PIPEDA currently underway, and the very good chance that the commercial protections will be different/stronger than they are now, I don't really expect to see that any time soon.

It was brought home to me how different Canadian and US privacy laws/expectations were when I was told that our local library didn't have a record of what books people borrow, other than those that have been checked out and have not yet been returned. So different than the US discussions about whether a warrant was needed to examine borrowing history a few years back.

[theonna]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Oddly, the reason that I got the Nook to play with was that the owner was unable to run the majority of the Android apps he wanted to run even after rooting his Nook. <skipped> As for reading Kobo books on it? Only if you downloaded the epub versions. Want to run the Kindle app? Root the sucker and jump through the hoops. Sony books? Are you referring to Sony's proprietary ebook format (BBeB) or their later epub format books? <skipped>A file manager might be handy at times but a decent search function beats the crap out a file manager for locating a file.

I agree with you, Nook is not made to be a tablet, nor is it good at tablet apps. But after you root it, you can install reading applications on it- Kindle- and read drm purchased Kindle books, Kobo app for android, and read your purchased Kobo books, Sony reader app and Sony purchased drm books, and a few other android applications that could let you read different formats and provide different or better management for notes, links, references and such. File management versus search function, I am all for good search, but if you like me, reading books in different languages, you wont be able to search for them at all, file manager is the quickest way to conveniently access your content, all while reader manufacturers lagging at adding more languages...