Could somebody please help a complete dummy?

[5tevie]

Hi everybody.
I'll be the first to admit that I prefer dogs to computers and cats to mobile devices but one has to at least try to move with the times. My wife and I both retired on the 16th of March 1995 and were both soon bored half to death so she took up computing with a desktop PC running Windows XP Pro along with a Kindle and I took the Mac route ending up with my current Mac Mini running at 2.4 GHz with 8 GB of RAM and an iPad 2 to go along with it.
So you see, we are both computer users BUT, we are not in any way, shape or form, "experts" with our computers. We know how to turn them on and off and it's a doddle to connect to the internet using our own Home network. We can browse the web, use Google, Hotmail and eBay with the best of them and we can even play a mean game of Texas Hold 'Em in the early hours.
What we can't do is understand the usual gibber-jabber that people use when they try to explain some new concept.
So what's your problem, Stevie, and how can we make your life better?
Well, I have an iPad 2 and my wife has a Kindle and we both love to read using these devices. Until just recently, we have bumbled along adding one book at a time from folders spread out all over our desktop computers but what we would like to do is have a Prog/App that will allow us to convert mixed formats into either .ePub for me or the mobipocket version for the Boss. We realise that it will take a bit of work at the very beginning to get it all sorted out but once it's done, we hope to be able to "Drag & Drop" book titles from the Calibre App's main page to our individual devices without all the faffing about.
So, is anybody willing to take the challenge and have a go at explaining how to make it all happen in words of 3 syllables or less?
We would be eternally grateful.
Cheers,
Stevie.

[ellett]

I'll toss out a couple of basic questions:

Are you going to have your Calibre library on the PC, the Mac, or are you both going to run your own instances of Calibre with your own libraries and share books manually?

If you've bought books and they're DRMed, Calibre won't be able to convert them. Does that kill your dreams, or do you have mostly non-DRMed books?

[paw3pals]

On a Windows XP PC, just installing Calibre and dragging and dropping ebooks to it is easy. If your ebooks are non-DRM, you're ready to go. There are many people who can and will assist with specific questions or problems.

If you have DRM ebooks, you would need to google Apprentice Alf and follow the reademe texts in the Tools/Calibre plug-in folder, before you could convert any DRM ebooks. Unfortunately, any assistance with these specific plug-ins would have to be offline or somewhere other than this forum, as DeDRM is not to be discussed here.

Originally Posted by 5tevie

Hi everybody.
I'll be the first to admit that I prefer dogs to computers and cats to mobile devices but one has to at least try to move with the times. My wife and I both retired on the 16th of March 1995 and were both soon bored half to death so she took up computing with a desktop PC running Windows XP Pro along with a Kindle and I took the Mac route ending up with my current Mac Mini running at 2.4 GHz with 8 GB of RAM and an iPad 2 to go along with it.
So you see, we are both computer users BUT, we are not in any way, shape or form, "experts" with our computers. We know how to turn them on and off and it's a doddle to connect to the internet using our own Home network. We can browse the web, use Google, Hotmail and eBay with the best of them and we can even play a mean game of Texas Hold 'Em in the early hours.
What we can't do is understand the usual gibber-jabber that people use when they try to explain some new concept.
So what's your problem, Stevie, and how can we make your life better?
Well, I have an iPad 2 and my wife has a Kindle and we both love to read using these devices. Until just recently, we have bumbled along adding one book at a time from folders spread out all over our desktop computers but what we would like to do is have a Prog/App that will allow us to convert mixed formats into either .ePub for me or the mobipocket version for the Boss. We realise that it will take a bit of work at the very beginning to get it all sorted out but once it's done, we hope to be able to "Drag & Drop" book titles from the Calibre App's main page to our individual devices without all the faffing about.
So, is anybody willing to take the challenge and have a go at explaining how to make it all happen in words of 3 syllables or less?
We would be eternally grateful.
Cheers,
Stevie.

[5tevie]

Thanks for the replies, Guys.
I Googled DRM and, as far as I know, we don't have any e-books that fall into that category but, how would we know? Is there some kind of pop-up that appears when you try to read an e-book saying, 'This e-book is restricted to a particular brand of e-book reader."

Ellett ..... We had thought of running the Calibre App on my Mac (it is already installed there) and just plugging in a reader device as and when required. It would be brilliant if Calibre allowed 2 users to have separate libraries to make life easier but if not we may just install Calibre on her XP machine and keep the libraries apart. I must admit that since we found the World of e-books we have gone a bit mental and we have thousands of them. Probably in the region of 60,000 all told. More e-books than we will ever need but one thing is certain, finding something to do in a caravan on a wet day in North Wales will never be a problem, lol

Paw3pals .... Mmmm, going from what you said, it may be easier and simpler to put Calibre on the XP machine and let her have her own library set up on it to just drag titles to her Kindle.

Cheers,
Stevie

[theducks]

Originally Posted by 5tevie

Thanks for the replies, Guys.
I Googled DRM and, as far as I know, we don't have any e-books that fall into that category but, how would we know? Is there some kind of pop-up that appears when you try to read an e-book saying, 'This e-book is restricted to a particular brand of e-book reader."

Ellett ..... We had thought of running the Calibre App on my Mac (it is already installed there) and just plugging in a reader device as and when required. It would be brilliant if Calibre allowed 2 users to have separate libraries to make life easier but if not we may just install Calibre on her XP machine and keep the libraries apart. I must admit that since we found the World of e-books we have gone a bit mental and we have thousands of them. Probably in the region of 60,000 all told. More e-books than we will ever need but one thing is certain, finding something to do in a caravan on a wet day in North Wales will never be a problem, lol

Paw3pals .... Mmmm, going from what you said, it may be easier and simpler to put Calibre on the XP machine and let her have her own library set up on it to just drag titles to her Kindle.

Cheers,
Stevie

Read the notes (pay attention to the note #1) on the MAC download page: http://calibre-ebook.com/download_osx. I don't know Mini-Mac, but #1 could be a show stopper for modern (the recent model/firmware releases) device support. Currently, XP (Calibre) has not reached those Limitations.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by 5tevie

T
I Googled DRM and, as far as I know, we don't have any e-books that fall into that category but, how would we know? Is there some kind of pop-up that appears when you try to read an e-book saying, 'This e-book is restricted to a particular brand of e-book reader."

calibre will do this if you try to do something to a DRM protected book. But, I don't think it tells you what DRM scheme is in use.

Ellett ..... We had thought of running the Calibre App on my Mac (it is already installed there) and just plugging in a reader device as and when required. It would be brilliant if Calibre allowed 2 users to have separate libraries to make life easier but if not we may just install Calibre on her XP machine and keep the libraries apart. I must admit that since we found the World of e-books we have gone a bit mental and we have thousands of them. Probably in the region of 60,000 all told. More e-books than we will ever need but one thing is certain, finding something to do in a caravan on a wet day in North Wales will never be a problem, lol

You can have multiple libraries on one machine. Press the library button in the toolbar and you will get a menu where you can create libraries or switch between them.

[5tevie]

TheDucks .... If I have understood you correctly, you are suggesting that maybe my Mac is a bit old and past it (like me) ..... No worries on that score. It is less than 15 months old and all the latest updates on Snow Leopard have been installed.
So, having thought about it a little and having read through all the help files that I can understand, we may be as well installing Calibre on her Windows XP Pro (SP3) machine and install all her e-books on there leaving me to try to figure out how to get my e-books sorted on my Mac. The good thing with that, if I have understood what I have read is that she will be able to open the Calibre App, connect her Kindle to the computer and then just drag a few books at a time across from PC to Kindle.
I was hoping to do the same sort of thing with mine but it looks like I may be stuck with using iTunes. (Insert unhappy smillie face)

Cheers all,
Stevie

[theducks]

Originally Posted by 5tevie

TheDucks .... If I have understood you correctly, you are suggesting that maybe my Mac is a bit old and past it (like me) ..... No worries on that score. It is less than 15 months old and all the latest updates on Snow Leopard have been installed.
So, having thought about it a little and having read through all the help files that I can understand, we may be as well installing Calibre on her Windows XP Pro (SP3) machine and install all her e-books on there leaving me to try to figure out how to get my e-books sorted on my Mac. The good thing with that, if I have understood what I have read is that she will be able to open the Calibre App, connect her Kindle to the computer and then just drag a few books at a time across from PC to Kindle.
I was hoping to do the same sort of thing with mine but it looks like I may be stuck with using iTunes. (Insert unhappy smillie face)

Cheers all,
Stevie

I know nothing about MAC's (The last one I got regular Access to was the Original , when it was NEW )
The MAC sounds like it will accept the latest Calibre

As to 'does it have' DRM, Install the Quality Check Plugin and run the DRM check (for EPUB only). We can't answer removal questions here on MR, that is Apprentice Alf's area (google).

Sneakernet (Via USB pen drive) sounds like the safest way to import books across platforms.

[hidari]

Sorry we cannot help you: you have to pay a 100,000 pound surcharge that will be divided among MR Moderators; Suchs as Harry T., obsessive posters; such as J.S. Wolf; and overeager helpers; such as the Ducks, failure to comply with the "surcharge" will result in an inquisition in front of The Mobile READ TERMINATION Tribunal (MRTT). You have been forwarned.

Or if you post more than 4 times you can disregard the above conditions.

[PeterT]

You could also attach a picture of Snowdon to pay your tax.

[jgaiser]

Oh, and be advised. We have a lot of humorists in our midst.