Those of you in Kindle-land or Cybook-land may be unaware of Calibre, a free ebook management software created by  Kovid Goyal for the Sony PRS-500 and PRS-505 platform. Calibre is a rename of the  libprs500 utility, and over time it has gained functionality (including the ability to fetch newsfeeds).

Here are two videos detailing Calibre in action.  The first details ebook management and the second details the process for adding and fetching news feed. The program is written in python, so it works across different platforms. image Click the screenshot below for the newsfeed configuration dialog.

In addition to a extensive user manual, Calibre also has a support forum on Mobileread. I confess that I have not played with a recent version of Calibre, but I downloaded an older version of it quite a while ago.

As I see it, Mobipocket hasn’t provided a decent RSS-to-ebook generator, and Kindle charges a fee for downloading full RSS feeds. This free tool –if the feed part works as advertised may offer lots of value for people reading ebooks on the Sony ebook platform. The method for fetching feeds looks straightforward albeit a little geeky.

Goyal has been talking about epub support on Calibre in 1-4 months (more thoughts are here).  Calibre  already has commands to support lots of different conversions).  Calibre’s  Faq says that besides Sony Reader support, it can be used by “any ebook reader that exports itself as an USB disk”.

3 COMMENTS

  1. For full feeds on the Kindle, I would recommend using Feedbooks rather than a desktop utility, since it’s possible to directly update your feeds from the Kindle itself this way: http://www.feedbooks.com/help/kindle#rss

    Calibre does a very good job at supporting the PRS-500/505 but I’ve always been a bit worried about the legal aspects: extracting content from websites that doesn’t provide a full text feed might be a problem.

  2. Been using Calibre for quite a while now. It’s the only way that I’ve found to manage my Sony Reader on a Mac. It’s a nice program and very much a work in progress. Keep an eye on it when you open it to see if there is an update. Goyal updates the program frequently.

    I use it to manage my Reader without using Windows and to convert HTML and Mobi books to use on the Reader. That’s how I got all the Tor books into my Reader, as none are available in lrf format. Calibre does a nice, but not perfect, job of conversion. It you are just reading for pleasure it is more than good enough.

    One minor point. If you are using a 500, as opposed to the 505, you need to download the drivers from Goyal’s site. This is not necessary for the 505.

    I sent Goyal a contribution a while back and will be sending him another. I urge anyone who is interested in the program to help him by contibuting. Goyal is a physics post-grad so I’m sure he can use the $$.

  3. > This free tool –if the feed part works as advertised …

    I’m reading daily the NYTimes, and downloading without problems Newsweek, NY Review of Books and many others …
    I can guarantee you that fetching perfectly readable news is as “geeky” as pressing a button.

    alessandro

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