kindle fire - one month, still in love

Really, the subject line could say it all, but this is more informative for when this happens to me again and I'm desperately trying to remember how to do this. The first part I posted about before; the second part is new regarding blank bookcovers.

For Kindle Fire owners downloading/adding fanfic either by download or by calibre.

Calibre

If your fic keeps ending up showing in Documents instead of Books:
1.) Select all fanfiction files.
2.) Click on Convert.
3.) On the Mobi Output, look for the last bit on Kindle that has [PDoc} and erase [PDoc].
4.) Say yes to reconverting your files.

If any of your bookcovers, both fanfiction and regular, start showing up blank for no reason in particular:

Posted at link, reproducing here:

- click the settings gear at the top
- select More..
- select Applications
- select Filter by > All Applications
- click Amazon Kindle
- click the buttons "Force Stop", "Clear Data", Clear Cache" (might not be needed)
- go back to Home
- make sure you are online and select Books

Calibre also has a neat plugin for creating your own bookcovers that lets you add metadata to it, so currently my covers all have the AO3 symbol, title, author, pairing, fandom, and where I downloaded them from.

Does anyone know off the top of their heads how to edit Calibre's metadata settings so when you add a book, it pulls all the metadata, not just title and author? I added custom metadata fields for fandom and pairing, but I still have enter it manually instead of it pulling from the file. Anyone?

Comments

[akacat]

The only big downside I see to the KF is the limited storage space. I know they have cloud access, but isn't that limited to stuff you buy from them? Have you run into restrictions loading your own music and video files, or have you not loaded any?

[seperis]

I uploaded my entire music library to Amazon cloud and it hasn't had any problems. Most of it was not from Amazon.

[akacat]

Good to know, thanks!

[silentcs]

I got my fire about a week ago and am still delighted. I don't have a smartphone, so the whole thing is all sorts of exciting.

Anyhow, last time I checked, the creator of Calibre said that there's no way to force it to recognize custom metadata fields. =( No idea if he's working on this, but I don't see it on the bug/enhancement request site.

The covers thing was weird, thanks for the tip! I was just opening up book files and hoping it would populate the cover. Sometimes it did.

I've found that I actually like the Docs/Books separation, since it makes it easy to keep fic in one place, and better organization tools is probably my major gripe with the whole kindle series. I'm planning to get around the lack of collections or grouping by using custom covers on Calibre, using different pictures for each fandom. And maybe pairing, we'll see.

tl;dr I'm in love! ♥

[abbylee]

That's because AO3 files don't actually include all the metadata. Or at least the epubs don't; here's an example:

<metadata xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:opf="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf"> <dc:title>Grocery Run</dc:title> <dc:creator>Anonymous</dc:creator> <dc:language>en</dc:language> <dc:publisher>Archive of Our Own</dc:publisher> <dc:identifier opf:scheme="URI" id="etextno">http://archiveofourown.org/works/300037</dc:identifier> <dc:date>2011-12-22</dc:date> </metadata>

[bathsweaver.livejournal.com]

YAY!

And I'm sorry to make you the resident Fire guru, but I was wondering if I could ask some more about your experiences downloading from AO3? Even after assiduously studying your experiences with Sheldon [here (http://seperis.livejournal.com/915380.html)] and [here (http://seperis.livejournal.com/914898.html)] (carefully bookmarked at original posting in anticipation of Jarvis the Fire's arrival), I can't seem to get AO3-downloaded mobis to appear visually in Jarvis's Docs folder.

They can be plainly seen through the ES file explorer app (as ES file manager seems to have been removed from the app store), and easily moved to the Books and Document folders using ES file explorer. However, they can't be viewed by going directly to Books or Documents from the front end.

Have you experienced this? It could absolutely be a consequence of no longer having ES file manager and using ES file explorer instead--but I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything I was missing.

Wishing all the best of the season to you and Jarvis--may your love affair continue apace! :)

[seperis]

Move from Downloads to Books folders and afterward hit Sync.

If the files are older at AO3 then it could be that a quick Calibre reconvert would do the trick. What you might try is loading all folders ot Calibre, convert to Mobi (again), and then try loading and then syncing.

Also, in the Books and DOcuments folders, nothing will show from subfolders at alll, so they should be subfolderless.

If all else fails, I'd say remove all books from your Kindle, do the clear data/clear cache thing, and then reload from scratch. It's actaully kind of eerie how many mild problems I had with Books cleared up when I cleared data and cache.

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

I don't have an e-reader but have you checked out kindledfans?

[(Anonymous)]

I have been following that comm for months, but lately all the posts seem to be Apple negative ads rather than any constructive posts for Kindle owners.

It's a bit weird: I can understand people who do not appreciate the Kindle Fire (people who want an iPad, for instance) even though I love mine, but I cannot understand posting negative comments or links to negative reviews without any factual support on a comm supposedly made up of Kindle users.

Sorry, but this is really turning me off this comm which used to be dedicated to exchanging tips and tricks between fanfic readers who use a Kindle. Now it's like reading a political blog and I would not recommend it to anyone, whether they own a Kindle or not.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you, this is most helpful!

[domarzione]

Okay, so totally abusing you as Wizard of OzKindle Fire, but since you've figured out this trick... how are you on video? (My ISP uploads at 300 baud modem speeds, so dumping everything in the cloud is less appealing than side-loading with the cable I had to buy.)

[seperis]

My streaming has been--kind of uncannily good on wireless, to be honest. Even youtube generally loads faster and plays cleaner than my LAN-connected laptop. Even the hi-def. The only things I side-load are when I want to watch something at work, since the wireless access there is either non-existent or the level of dialup (our building literally blocks 4G and plays havoc with all the routers inside as well).

When I did a mass download of my books from the cloud, it was disturbingly fast, and I bought a lot of books. Music, same thing. BTW, have you tried ote music uploader yet? It got all of mine, literally, even the stuff not bought from Amazon. I swear, if Amazon had a decent player for my laptop, I'd never bother with iTunes again.

[domarzione]

I've had no trouble side-loading music, even .mp4 tracks. They show up no problem, all of their meta and covers intact, when dropped into the relevant folder. But when I tried an .avi file (of a tv show), deposited into the video folder, it didn't appear anywhere.

I simply can't upload a 350MB file from home -- it would slow my internet to about 16bps (both ways) and would time out. I can't even upload a fanvid without a timeout. (Thank you, Verizon.) So the only video I can do right now is Netflix (which is totally not nothing) and what's left on my free month of Prime. Netflix is lovely on it, btw.

[seperis]

Give me ten minutes to run some tests with avi files on my Kindle. Be right back.

[seperis]

Okay, I've tested then googled and avi, being non-open source, isn't one of the standards that Kindle comes with and none of teh apps I can find currently do it either. However, they will play mp4s, if you feel like converting.

To note: it is very, very easy to convert with Handbrake. If you don't have time, send me a list of what you want and I can do it and then upload it for you. MP4 also can reduce the size somewhat for a Kindle, so it'll be a smaller file.

They won't appear--right now--in the regular folders. Get the free app ES File Explorer and when you open it, you can play your video directly from it very easily. You can also directly access your computer without sideloading and stream from it as well with MP4s. I tested with several MP4 files and they played beautifully. ES File Manager is pretty intuitive, but the optiosn can sometimes be a little confusing if you're not familiar with it. Since I had it on my phone, I remembered enough to get it working.

It actually may be something of an advantage to convert the avis for the Kindle--it can make them much smaller and so they take up less space.

ES File manager is in teh appstore and free for download. There's also--in addition--an app caled AVia which will act as a file manager for your video. Again, mp4 not avi, but I downloadd it just now ot test it and it's kinda neat. I'll give a better report later.

Give me an hour or so and I'll convert one of my 350 avi files to Kindle-friendly and give you an idea of what happens. Handbrake is extremely stupidly easy to use. I'll download it now and check it out.

[seperis]

I'm running a conversion from avi to mp4 on Downton Abbey, since I need to anyway so I can watch it this week during break. I'll post the results here on size and usability.

[domarzione]

I'm downloading handbrake; I think I was supposed to be using this all along to rip DVDs instead of my old-school DVDShrink method.

[seperis]

I love handbrake. Its presets pretty much work for me.

[domarzione]

I'm doing a test file with the output set to Apple:universal (and the mp4 extension chosen). Is this what I was supposed to be trying?

[seperis]

My first two finished:

Using Regular: High Profile: for a file 1 hour and 6 minutes and 563,842 KB, I have 374,444 KB MP4. Video quality on Kindle seems no different from playing it on my laptop.

I"m trying the iPod Touch preset now to see what happens.

[domarzione]

Okay, ES FileManager is the key. Thank you for that. I haven't tried Avia yet.

[seperis]

The ipod Touch preset doesn't make much of a difference so far and drops the size as well. Trying Universal now.

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

My fic files don't end up anywhere. The mobi files won't open, and the pdf will open from the notifications window, but once that vanishes, the pdf is inaccessible too, and search won't find it. I'm trying to load a bunch of fic before a trip, and this is maddening. Any thoughts? I've been using the download button off AO3 -- do I need calibre to do this?

Thanks!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

You have to move them into the Book folder. They are downloaded into the Downloads folder. When you move them, they'll show up either in the book or document folder.

You can move them by either plugging your kindle into your computer and exploring the Kindle's folders or by getting a file manager program for your Kindle.

To get it to display in the Book view of your Kindle no matter what (sfter you have moved the file from the Download folder to the Book folder), instructions here (http://seperis.livejournal.com/915380.html).